She had washed and dried his shirt and pants. His trousers were folded over the back of a kitchen chair; his shirt was draped over the trousers. She ran her hand over the shirt. Long-sleeved, and made of rough flannel. With a neat, round hole in the back where the bullet had gone in.
Just who was that man in her guest room? And why was she so attracted to him?
She checked on the potatoes, opened a can of white corn, put the steak under the broiler. Opening the fridge, she reached for a carton of milk, then shook her head and grabbed a can of the beer she kept on hand for Rob instead. She couldn’t imagine the man in the guest room drinking milk.
She turned the steak, mashed the potatoes, turned the fire off under the corn. She put his dinner on a plate, put the plate on a tray, added some silverware and the beer, and carried the tray down the hall to the bedroom.
Her patient was sitting up in bed, the sheet draped over his lap. She felt a flutter of appreciation in the pit of her stomach as her gaze moved over him. Long black hair fell past his broad shoulders. His stomach was flat, ridged with muscle. And his arms…she had always had a weakness for men with well-muscled arms, and Trey’s were right up there with the best she had ever seen.
She felt a wave of heat wash into her cheeks when he looked up at her, one dark brow raised inquisitively.
“Here’s your dinner.” Embarrassed at having been caught staring at him, she deposited the tray, none too gently, on his lap.
“What the hell!” he exclaimed.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “Can I get you anything else?”
He glanced at the tray. “How about something to drink? Beer, if you’ve got it.”
She tapped a finger on the top of the can. “What do you think that is?”
Frowning, Trey picked up the gray container, which was similar to a tin can but lighter somehow, with a fragile feel to it. When he gripped it, his fingers sank into the metal. It was cold, almost icy to the touch. The words “Natural Light” were printed in blue and red letters and below that, in very small print, the words, “Beer…brewed for a naturally smooth taste.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a can of beer before?”
“Can’t say as I have.” Trey studied the woman, Amanda, for a moment. He had never seen a woman who looked quite like her, either. Her lips were too pink to be natural. The long-sleeved shirt she wore looked like something a man would wear, but there was nothing masculine about the way it hugged her body, outlining the curves of her breasts. And those trousers… He swallowed hard. Had she been wearing a short red dress and black stockings, he would have said she was a tart, but she didn’t act like one, or talk like one. If she had been for sale, he would have paid for her time in a heartbeat. Just thinking about it aroused him, making him grateful for the tray across his lap.
He met her gaze, felt the unmistakable sizzle of attraction that passed between them.
Her gaze slid away from his. “You’d better eat it while it’s hot,” she suggested. “I’ll be back later for the tray.”
Damn, but she looked good walking away. He spent a pleasurable moment watching her leave the room, then looked down at the can in his hand. How the devil did she expect him to open it?
He ran his finger over the top of the can, grunted softly when his fingernail caught in a small metal ring. He gave a tug, and, to his surprise, there was a small hiss and an opening appeared leaking a small dribble of foam. He could smell the hops. He lifted the can to his lips, took a drink, and almost spit it out. There was a weak beer taste, but the stuff was watery, thin. He sure as hell wouldn't dignify it by calling it beer!
Setting the can aside, he cut into the steak and took a bite. Damn. The beer in this place was undoubtedly the worst he had ever tasted, but the woman knew how to cook a steak.
It had been a long while since he’d had a decent meal and he savored this one. He’d never had beef this good in his life.
With a sigh, he put the knife and fork down and set the tray on the bedside table. Leaning back, he closed his eyes.
He woke to the sound of rain on the roof. He figured the woman had looked in on him while he slept, since the curtains were closed. That strange bright white light from the hallway spilled into the room. She had removed the dirty dishes from the tray on the bedside table and left a bowl with an apple and an orange, a glass of cold water, and a small knife with a blade that might cut through butter but not much else.
Feeling a whisper of warm air, he frowned. He didn’t recall there being a fireplace in the room. And there wasn’t. Turning over, he searched for the source of warm air. It seemed to be coming from some sort of vent in the wall up near the ceiling.
He heard angry voices coming from the other room. A man and a woman, arguing. The sound of a woman’s scream, a gunshot. He bolted from the bed. Damn, where was his gun when he needed it? He glanced at the knife disdainfully. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing that resembled a weapon in the room. Grabbing it from the tray, he moved as quickly as he could into the parlor. He glanced around the room, looking for the shooter, but there was no one in the room save for the woman. She was seated on the sofa, looking at him over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” the woman exclaimed. She stood up, frowning when she saw the knife in his hand.
“Where is he?”
“Where’s…” She glanced at the knife again. “Where’s who?” she asked tremulously.
“The man who…” He broke off, started again. “I heard gunshots…”
She stared at him and then, to his utter surprise, she burst out laughing.
A sudden noise filled the room. Trey looked toward the sound, blinked, and blinked again, unable to believe his eyes as he stared at the large box. There was music coming out of it, and voices. But that wasn’t nearly as shocking as the colorful moving images.
He lowered his arm, the knife in his hand forgotten, as he moved toward the box. With some trepidation, he bent down to stare at the window. It looked like glass. Reaching out, he touched it with his fingers, jerked backward when the glass crackled with a sound like lightning.
Straightening, he turned and looked at the woman. “What kind of chicanery is this?”
“Chicanery?”
“This!” He gestured at the box with the knife, chagrined to see his hand was shaking.
The woman shook her head. “What? The TV?”
“TV?”
“They’re coming to take you away, aren’t they?” she muttered, remembering the words to an old song.
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“Know what?”
“That they’re after me?”
The woman folded her arms across her chest. “One of us is talking crazy,” she said, “and it’s not me.” She smiled at him. “Why don’t you just put that knife down,” she said, her voice softly coaxing, as though she were speaking to a not-too-bright child, “and go back to bed?”
He glanced at the moving pictures in the box again. A burly black man was talking to another man, but the words made no sense. A hundred questions pounded in his head, demanding answers, but he was in no condition to pursue them now. Feeling like a damn fool, he dropped his hand to his side.
The woman hurried toward him, her brow furrowed. “Come on,” she said. “You look like you’re about to faint.”
He felt that way, too, though he wouldn’t have admitted it. He leaned heavily on her as she helped him back to the bedroom. She was, he thought, the cleanest, prettiest smelling woman he had ever met.
“You’re bleeding again,” she said.
He grunted as he fell face down on the mattress, lay there, only half aware, as she took the knife and tossed it on the tray. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she removed the bandage from his back. Her hands were soft, gentle, as she swabbed the wound with some sort of strong-smelling ointment, and replaced the bandage.
He heard her mutter “men” as she gathered up the soiled dressing and carried it out
of the room.
In the brief time before sleep claimed him, he wondered just what it was he had seen inside that strange-looking box.
Amanda tossed the soiled gauze and adhesive tape in the trash, then poured herself a cup of coffee. Carrying the mug into the living room, she sat down on the sofa. She had a sneaking suspicion that her patient was a brick short of a load. Anyone who didn’t recognize a can of beer and didn’t know what a TV was had to be crazy. But, oh my, the man was gorgeous. And gallant, she thought, remembering how he had burst into the room, ready to defend her with nothing more than a paring knife.
Setting the cup aside, she went to look out the window. The rain had let up for the moment. Grabbing her jacket and a flashlight from the closet, she went out the back door, picking her way through the mud to the barn.
The horse whinnied when she opened the door. If she decided to keep the barn, she was going to have to get some electricity in here. She dropped a flake of hay in the feeder, made sure there was water in the barrel, then spent a few minutes petting the stallion while he ate. There was something soothing about being around horses. A flash of lightning illuminated the darkness, followed by a drum roll of thunder.
Amanda gave the stallion a last pat on the shoulder. “See ya later, boy.”
On her way out of the barn, she paused by the saddle and removed the saddlebags tied behind the cantle, thinking there might be something inside her guest might need, or want.
It was raining again when she dashed across the yard toward the back door.
Inside, she took off her jacket, shook the rain out of her hair, dropped the saddlebags on the kitchen table. Head cocked to one side, she stared at the twin pouches a moment while she had a silent argument with her conscience. She had no right to pry into his belongings. Still, there might be something inside to tell her who he was, or where he belonged.
Feeling a little guilty, she opened the bag nearest to her, reached inside and pulled out a dark red wool shirt, a pair of jeans, three heavy boxes of ammunition, a frying pan, a blue and white speckled coffee pot and a coffee cup, a spoon and fork, a sack of what looked like beef jerky, a box of wooden matches wrapped in what she thought might be oilskin, a short length of rope, and a pair of leather gloves. No ID of any kind.
She put everything back inside, opened the other pouch, and reached inside, only to stare, mouth open, at the sack in her hand. It was a money bag. The words, Property of First National Bank, Wickenberg, AZ, were stamped on the front in black block letters.
Dropping the sack on the table, she untied the string that held it shut, then looked inside, her eyes widening. It was stuffed with greenbacks. She pulled out a couple, and frowned. There was something odd about the bills. They seemed larger than they should have been. Counterfeit?
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone, then spread the bills out on the table. She stared at them a moment, then picked one up. It was a ten-dollar bill. “This note is legal tender for ten dollars” was written across the top. “Will pay the bearer ten dollars” was printed across the middle; the words “Treasury Note” were written across the bottom. There was a picture of a man in the lower left-hand corner, and what looked like some sort of historical scene in the lower right. The back was a rather bright green with “Ten” written on the left side and “10” written on the right. There was some small print in a circle in the middle that she couldn’t quite make out.
The next bill was, without doubt, a twenty. There was also a two-dollar bill, and a five, each unique in their own way. They were certainly more colorful and more interesting than the money in use today. There were some gold coins in the bottom of the bag. She picked one up, surprised at how heavy it was.
Where had her patient gotten hold of such old money? And what was he doing with a money bag obviously taken from a bank? Was he a collector? Good Lord, what if he was a bank robber? She shook the thought aside. Banks probably didn’t keep money this old. Had he robbed a museum, then?
She glanced over her shoulder again before scooping up the bills. She put them all back in the sack, dropped the gold coin in on top, and closed the bag.
It occurred to her that she should call the police, that she should have called them when that man first showed up in her yard with a bullet in his back.
“Better late than never,” she decided. But when she picked up the phone, the line was dead.
She frowned at the receiver a minute, and then grinned. Wasn’t the phone always dead when the movie heroine went to call for help? With a shake of her head, she dropped the receiver back into the cradle. No doubt the recent rains had damaged the line. It had happened before.
Going down the hall, she peeked into the guest room. Her patient was lying on his stomach, snoring softly.
Returning to the living room, she grabbed the book she had been reading for the past week and carried it upstairs. She paused outside the bathroom. She usually read while soaking in a hot bubble bath before going to bed. But not tonight. With the phone out and the mysterious stranger downstairs—and that unexplained stash of old money to trouble her, she knew sitting naked in the tub would leave her feeling far too vulnerable.
Going on down the hall to her bedroom, she tossed her book on the bed, then locked the door. She reached for her nightgown, and then decided to sleep in her clothes—just in case. Mindful of some of the stories Rob had told her, she took the ladder-back chair from her desk and placed it under the doorknob, and then, still not feeling safe, she pulled Trey’s gunbelt out of the closet and put it on the floor beside the bed.
She stared at his gun a moment, and then, overcome by curiosity, she reached for it. The big six-shooter came out of the holster easily enough, but it was much heavier than she had expected. She glanced at the front of the cylinder. She didn’t know much about guns, but those heavy, leaden noses showing in the chambers didn’t look like her idea of blank cartridges.
She lifted the gun with both hands and aimed it at the door. Would she even know how to shoot it, if it came to that? Would she, if she could? A line from an old John Ford Western floated through her mind, something to the effect that even an empty six-gun commanded respect.
She shoved the heavy old gun under her pillow, then sat there, her back propped against the headboard, trying to read.
But the plot of the story was not nearly as intriguing as the white stallion, his good-looking rider, or the ancient loot.
Chapter Seven
It rained on and off for the next two days. Trey spent most of his time catching up on lost sleep, giving his body a chance to heal. The wound in his back wasn’t serious, but it was sore as a boil. He wasn’t usually one to laze around in bed, but he needed the rest, and he had to admit he enjoyed having the woman look after him.
Now it was morning again. Dark gray clouds hovered low in the sky. A fierce wind blew across the face of the land. Trey stood at the window, looking out. He had always loved desert storms, the violence, the beauty, the unbridled strength. His Apache grandfather had told him there was power in the wind and the rain and had admonished him to call upon that power in times of trouble.
Trey grunted softly. He was sure as hell in trouble now. And where the devil was his gun?
He glanced over his shoulder as the door opened. The woman stood there, a plate in one hand, a cup in the other, a newspaper tucked under her arm. He was struck again by her quiet beauty.
“I thought you might like something to eat,” she said, moving into the room. “I brought the paper, too.” She shrugged. “In case you want something to read.”
“Thanks.” He sat down on the bed, his legs stretched out, the pillows between his back and the headboard.
She handed him the plate, put the paper and the cup on the bedside table. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Better. How’s my horse?”
“Your horse is just fine, don’t worry. We’ve become good friends.”
“Is that right? He doesn’t usua
lly take to strangers.”
“Well, he seems to like me.” She laid her hand across his forehead. “Your fever seems to have gone down some.” She backed away from the bed. “I hope you enjoy your breakfast.”
“Smells good.” It looked good, too, he thought. Eggs and bacon and fried potatoes. And a cup of black coffee.
With a nod, she left the room.
He ate quickly. Life on the run didn’t give a man much chance to enjoy a good meal.With a sigh of contentment, he put the plate aside and unfolded the newspaper, which had a lot more pages than any he had ever seen before.
He frowned as he read the headlines. “White House Promises Support in the Mid-east”, “Dow down 70, Nasdaq gains 27”, “California Nears Plan for Energy Crisis”, “Mid-East Peace Talks Called Promising”, “Bush Reaffirms Missile Defense”, “India Quake Recovery Under Way”.
He shook his head. He read the words, but they made no sense. Peace talks in the Mid-East? Hell, the war had been over for years. And what the hell was Dow? And Nasdaq?
He turned the pages, words and phrases he had never heard of swimming before his eyes: ReelTime Reviews, Cyber-squatter, Toshiba, Internet Banking is Here Now, Shop the Web.
He glanced at the top of the front page again. It was then that he noticed the date, though not so much the day as the year. January 26, 2001. He read it again. Wiped his eyes. And read it again. January 26, 2001. 2001! What the hell?
He looked up as the woman entered the room. “What is this?” he asked, rattling the paper.
“A newspaper?”
“It doesn’t make any sense. And what about the date? January twenty-fifth, 2001? Is this some kind of joke?”
Chase the Lightning Page 5