Treasure So Rare (Women of Strength Time Travel Trilogy) (35 page)

She nodded, taking the hand he
held out, letting him help her to her feet. She pushed the hair back from her
forehead. "I’m okay. At least nothing hurts."

Taking stock, he noted she wasn’t
very big, maybe five feet six inches, well under his six-one height. She looked
to be in her mid-twenties and had a slim, athletic build. He knew most of the
people in Emerson, so she wasn’t a local. Deep brown eyes framed by dark lashes
watched him warily, and he muttered a curse when he suddenly noticed a slight
purplish bruising over her eye.

"You’ve hurt yourself."
Concern made him gently touch the slight swelling about the size of a quarter.
She gently moved his hand and explored the bruise with her own fingers.

"It’s nothing." She
dismissed the injury with a lift of one shoulder as she stared at Hannah.
"I don’t think your little girl got hurt, a bit shaken maybe. I’d
definitely have her checked out."

"I intend to," he said.
"It’s inadequate as hell but I’m sorry you’re hurt but darn happy you were
on the spot." How had this happened? Garrett hated the unaccustomed moment
of helplessness. She was a stranger on his property and she’d been hurt because
of Hannah. For a brief moment he thought of the ramifications of a lawsuit.

"I didn’t see Hannah until
the last minute," Emmet muttered, still sitting on the grass. He lifted
his head. "I’m sorry Miss, for the scare you had."

"It appears no one’s hurt
seriously. Thank God," the woman said. Looking into Hannah’s red,
tear-streaked face, she asked gently, "Are you okay, honey?"

"I had my cat and now he’s
gone," the child muttered. "You scared him away."

Garrett sighed with impatience.
"Hannah, I can’t believe you were down here by the road." He kept a
tight rein on the worry riding him. "This woman very likely saved your
life. Don’t you think you should say something to her?"

Hannah jutted her lower lip and
hunched a shoulder. "I was going to get out of the way by myself,"
she muttered sullenly, but not before Garrett had seen the flash of fear.
"I wasn’t going to die!" Hannah pulled her hand from his and ran
several feet up the driveway.

"Hannah!"

She stopped in her tracks but did
not come back toward him. "Albert is gone." Her voice rose in pitch.
"I’ll never see him again!" She pointed her finger at the woman.
"It’s her fault!" Hannah turned and ran toward the house, ponytails
flying out behind her. Garrett resisted ordering her back, knowing it would
make the growing rift between them worse. But dammit, he couldn’t let her ride
roughshod over him, either.

"Wait for me in your
room!" he barked. Hannah hunched her shoulders and continued toward the
house at a fast walk. Garrett closed his eyes and muttered, "Sometimes I
wonder what the hell I know about raising a child."

Shaking his head, he looked over
at the woman. "Sorry," he said ruefully. It wasn’t this woman’s fault
she’d witnessed his apparent lack of control over a sixty-pound, eight-year old,
but he hated like hell that she’d seen it anyway. "I’m Garrett
McIntyre." He held his hand out again.

"Christie Jenkins." She
took his hand in a firm shake, then released it and brushed at her jeans.

"My housekeeper is a retired
emergency room nurse. I'd feel better if she took a look at that bruise before
you leave."

Frowning, the woman -- Christie --
suddenly looked around. "My bag!" She twisted around. "Where’s
my duffel bag?"

Garrett spotted it in the ditch,
partly under the front wheel of the truck. His guts churned thinking of his
daughter or this young woman in that ditch instead of the bag. "It’s right
here."

Her apparent distress surprised
him a bit. Warily, he said, "It looks okay. You’re not going to cry, are
you?" Hannah’s mother had been a woman who lived solely on emotion. Life
had been a constant in emotional highs and lows.

Christie sighed. "Of course
not. I was surprised to see it under the wheel. Hopefully, nothing is
crushed."

She pulled at the heavy canvas.
Garrett gently urged her aside. "Let me get it."

Garrett signaled to Emmet to get
on the opposite side of the front bumper. "If we rock this you can
probably pull the bag free."

It only took a few rocks of the
truck back and forth before the bag came free. Christie lifted the bag and loosened
the drawstring to look inside. She didn't say anything but he saw her shoulders
relax.

"That bag must be mighty
important."

"It is, but no harm’s been
done." She lifted her head, giving him a half smile. "Thank
you."

"Yeah." He turned his
attention to his hired hand and the hay wagon. "Emmet, see if you can find
Sam. Have him bring the tractor with the winch and pull this thing out. I’ll
call my mechanic."

"Sure, boss." Emmet
scuffed his boots in the dirt, his face working. Finally, he said, "The brakes
were a little spongy. I should have told you." Emmet swallowed. "Do
you want me outta here?"

Garrett looked at the young man’s
closed expression and realized Emmet expected to be fired. "I realize
you’ve only been here a month, but I need any problems brought to my attention
right away."

The woman stepped closer.

"This wasn’t anyone’s
fault," she said quickly.

Pushing his hat back, Garrett
studied her worried expression. Mildly, he said, "I don't plan to fire
Emmet."

He looked at Emmet. "Take
care of the truck. The hay will have to be unloaded if they need to work on it.
I’ll talk to the mechanic and let you know."

Emmet tipped his hat, appearing
relieved. "Okay, boss." He looked at the woman. "I’m glad you
weren’t hurt, Ma’am." He left, walking up the drive toward the house and
barns.

Garrett turned back to Christie,
took in her dark, dusty jeans and what looked like once-white sneakers. Her
blue T-shirt had pulled out of her jeans, exposing a small section of pale
skin. She couldn’t weigh more than one-thirty, soaking wet. He rubbed his
forehead with the back of his wrist. "It's been a heck of a day so
far." He looked away from her, toward the house and shook his head.
"My daughter . . .."

"I'd be worried too,"
she said. "No one needs that kind of trouble, a child getting hurt."

Garrett allowed himself a rueful
smile. "If Hannah’s involved, there's always something going on."

Just then his yellow Labrador dog
came streaking down the driveway, tail wagging furiously as she moved in
eagerly against their legs. In her enthusiasm, she knocked against the woman.
Quickly, Garrett said, "Bo Peep, that’s enough!" The dog backed up
and sat down, then watched him with her head cocked to one side.

Christie knelt down and began to
make a fuss of the dog. "Your dog’s name is Bo Peep?" she asked, a
hint of humor curving her full lips as she looked up at him.

"My daughter’s idea. So
Christie, tell me, what are you doing out here in the middle of pretty much
nowhere?"

Her smile disappeared and she came
to her feet once more. "I, uh, was on the road when  I saw your daughter
in trouble. Actually, I’m looking for Judith Kelly. The last address I have for
her is this place."

The hair on the back of Garrett’s
neck stood up and a band tightened around his chest. "Why?"

"Do you know her?"

Know her? Garrett stared at
Christie, searching for God knew what. He saw only honest inquiry on her face.
"Why do you ask?" he said instead, knowing there was an edge to his
voice.

"She’s my sister. I need to
find her."

"Christ." Garrett took a
deep breath, then another. He cleared his head. "Judith had no
family."

Now Christie’s eyes widened.
"She left home a long time ago, but she had family."

"Can you prove that?"

"I-I can’t. At least, not at
this moment. I had a letter from her."

"Let me see the letter."

"I don’t have it on me."

Beginning to feel annoyed, Garrett
half turned away. "I need my housekeeper to look at your head and then
I'll call you a taxi." Christie hurried behind him as he walked up the
drive to the house.

"Listen, just tell her
Christie’s here," she said urgently. "It's been a long time but I
know she’ll see me."

"You can’t see her."

She grabbed his arm. "I’ve
come a long way."

Garrett stopped, fighting the dull
numbness inside his chest. He faced her squarely. "My wife - Judith, died
almost two years ago."

Read Echoes from the Past by Grace
Brannigan on Kindle and Smashwords

Heartstealer Excerpt

Jacie’s stomach churned as she
stared at the ground two thousand feet below. What insanity made her put
herself through this punishment -- just to prove she wasn’t washed up as a
stunt woman?

"Just do it," she
muttered. "You've done it thousands of times before. Get your foot out the
door and jump."

Automatically, she ran her fingers
over her knee support and then the pull ring on her parachute harness. Lastly,
she braced the toes of her boots against the door lip.

She had to jump. Skydiving was her
life. It had always defined who she was; a member of her family’s business,
Aerial Antics. Her brother Con would pull her off this job if he thought she
wasn’t ready. She couldn’t go home with her tail between her legs. Her family
would try to put her back in cotton wool. Again.

How long did she have to pay for
one dumb mistake -- two -- if she counted the one she’d made thinking Brad
loved her.

With a low growl of impatience,
she stepped out and an updraft pulled her up and away from the plane. As she
plunged downward, a flashback to her parachuting accident thirteen months ago
at Angel Falls came dangerously close. She could see again that mountainous
ledge of rock, nothing but water and uninhabited jungle below her, the glorious
release as she began her freefall, and then her parachute failure. . ..

Her chute opened. Years of
training took over and the tightness eased inside her chest. Of course she
could do this, she’d been jumping far too long to stop now.

As the ground drew closer she
pulled the shroud lines of her chute, spilling air to control her landing.

Clustered dots took on the shapes
of people. A lone figure with a cowboy hat stood apart from the rest. An imp of
mischief surfaced in Jacie. She’d alter her landing slightly and land near the
guy with the cowboy hat.

As her feet touched solid earth a
gust of wind lifted and pulled her forward, past the camera crews, past the
gathered crowd. She caught a glimpse of surprised faces and then she came to a
dead stop as her body lightly impacted with another. She had a fleeting
impression of a hat flying through the air and they both fell to the ground in
a tangle of arms, legs and billowing parachute.

Arms closed around her and held
tight. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead into a hard chest.
Spicy cologne tantalized her nostrils.

When the rest of her senses kicked
in she was amazed to find she lay straddled atop a very male body. Hard chest
and long, long legs. The cowboy.

"I guess I came a tad too
close to my mark," she managed, barely suppressing her laughter. His arms
were like hard bands around her back. She stayed unmoving against a soft shirt,
her nose pressed into a dusting of nose-tickling hair. Scents mingled. Horse
and leather, that subtle touch of man.

The flapping of her parachute
forced her to stop thinking about the body beneath her. She opened her eyes.
Her blue and purple chute swept upward, then gently settled to cover them in a
cocoon.

"Can I help you, ma'am?"
drawled a deep, amused voice in her ear. The hard body beneath her had a
sexy-as-all-get out voice to go with it.

Her body did a head to toe shiver.
"I think you’ve already helped me land." She levered her body upward.
"It seems a shame to move," she added, but peeled herself from that
broad chest partially covered by blue cotton. The impact must have torn his
buttons loose, because the shirt gaped open. She stared at his flat stomach and
then down to his hair dusted navel. They weren't buttons on his shirt, they
were snaps.

Jacie studied the wide shoulders,
square chin and slightly curved mouth. Lazily she moved on to lean, tanned
features. His expression showed tolerance, amusement, interest . . . then a
guarded look dropped as hard blue eyes stared at her. Well, it had been
interesting until he got that guarded look on his face.

His arms were now straight out on
the ground. A soft sound escaped her lips, but no words. Oh dear. She tried again.
"S-sorry . . . " she managed faintly, trying not to laugh again.
"What an embarrassing first impression this is turning out to be!" He
didn’t look amused now, but kind of stiff and probably too much of a gentleman
to tell her to get off him. "I hope I didn’t hurt you when I caught
you," she said apologetically. "Actually, I guess you caught
me." Literally. She suddenly realized her knee was in a rather delicate
area.

"It's not every day I can lay
claim to stopping a runaway female," the man professed, blue eyes framed
by the blackest of lashes.

"Not exactly a runaway,"
she admitted, tilting her head and grinning widely. "Though it looks like
I've made a slight miscalculation in my landing."

He swept his arm up to catch the
folds of the parachute and began to pull it off them.

Jacie let her glance linger on his
mouth and a barely noticeable dimple. A jolt of sexual awareness hit her. She
immediately stifled it, gulping back a groan. The man shifted his legs and
sensation rocked her. He was all hard muscles and long limbs. After Brad, she’d
vowed no men. . .no way. But for a moment as her glance lingered on a rock hard
jaw and wide shoulders, that vow felt about as substantial as fairy dust. The
hell with Brad.