THIS PERFECT STRANGER

by Barbara Ankrum

  "Mrs. Cortland, I—" he began.

  "Drink this. It'll settle your stomach." She looked down at her mud-covered clothes. "Look. I'm … a mess. I need a shower and a change of clothes. And then I'll come back down and fix you some lunch." She pulled a chair out from the table for him. "Will you let me do that for you?"

  Some of the steel went out of his spine as he took the glass she offered. He was proud. She could see that. But he was hungry, too. Too hungry, she decided, to refuse her.

  "I'll be outside." Sliding his gloves back on, he left her standing with Jigger pressed protectively against her, and the screen door screeching shut in his wake.

  * * *

  It took her a ten minutes under a steaming shower to get the mud out of her hair and another ten to gingerly pull on her clothes, past the ache in her shoulder and left hip. And her cheek… Well, her cheek was another matter altogether.

  She supposed the bruises she saw when she looked in the mirror were minor compared to the battering her confidence had taken today. She'd always believed she could do anything she put her mind to. Today, however, she'd failed. Failed not only to save her ranch from the fate to which her husband had consigned it, but failed at the simplest of tasks required in running it.

  She leaned over the vanity, inspecting her battered cheek with a frown. She'd been lucky today. If it hadn't been for that stranger downstairs, she might well be lying dead in the paddock right now instead of contemplating how a scar would add character to her face.

  She closed her eyes against the dull ache throbbing at the back of her skull. Lord, what had she been thinking chasing Geronimo that way? She should have read him better. Anticipated what he'd been about to do. Sure, she was overtired, overworked, but who wasn't? running a day-to-day operation like this one. Maybe Ernie and the bank and all of those men were who were waiting for her to fold were right. Maybe she couldn't do it. Maybe Big Sky Country did belong to the men of the world.

  Maybe a husband was a requirement up here in this wild country. And in the best of worlds, she'd have one. But Ben had taken that option right out of her hands six months ago. So what choice did she have? Husbands didn't grow on trees. And except for the one man she'd never, ever consider, no one had offered. And even a ranch hand wouldn't help her now, she realized, thinking of Cain's offer. It was too late for that. She needed the loan. And they'd turned her down.

  She'd failed. Utterly. It was only a matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's. And after that, Laird Donnelly would finally get what he'd always wanted. At least, she amended, half of what he wanted.

  Maggie moved to her bedroom window and looked down at the yard. She couldn't explain the relief she felt when she saw Cain's bike still parked there. Nor could she comprehend the almost palpable rush she got at the prospect of seeing him again.

  Who was he and what strange twist of fate had brought him onto her ranch exactly when she'd needed him? More troubling, perhaps, was why that very coincidence didn't alarm her? After all, she reasoned as she made her way downstairs, she didn't know anything about him. What if he worked for Laird? What if Laird had sent him here to make trouble for her from the inside?

  Unlikely, she decided, pulling a jacket from the clothes tree by the front door. He'd come into the diner off the highway. And there hadn't been even an exchange of glances with Laird or his men that she could recall. No, he'd said Moody sent him and Moody would never knowingly send a dangerous man to her ranch.

  But then, she reasoned, real monsters rarely have fangs. Shrugging into her jacket, she headed outside to find him. She'd promised him food and she would feed him. And that, she told herself, would be the end of that.

  * * *

  "Whoa, son," Cain soothed, rubbing a dry blanket over Geronimo's soaked haunches as the gelding blew out a nervous breath and backed against the rear wall of the stall. Cain tightened his grip around Geronimo's lead rope and brought the animal's head down closer to him. "Nowhere to go now, is there? It's just you an' me here, pal. Nothin' to be afraid of."

  Geronimo nuzzled Cain's clothing for a scent and exhaled sharply.

  Cain's mouth twitched with a smile. "Yeah, I know. Life's a bitch, isn't it? But you could do a lot worse than to end up in Maggie Cortland's barn. A helluva lot worse. You keep that in mind the next time she steps into a paddock with you, you hear?"

  A sound from the doorway had Cain whirling around with an instinct honed over the last few years. It was an old habit and hard to break, and his shoulders relaxed fractionally when he saw it was only Maggie walking toward him with a curious expression on her face. Her hair was still damp from her shower and as she walked, she pulled her fingers through it unselfconsciously.

  The sight of her did things to him. Made him remember how long it had been since he'd been with a woman. Any woman. Locking down the thought, he turned his attention to the wool blanket in his hand.

  "I can't tell you," she said breezily, "what a relief it is to know I'm not the only one who talks to horses."

  "See?" he said, tossing the blanket over the stall half door. "I told you I could be useful."

  As Jigger prowled the hallway of the barn near her, Maggie nodded at the gelding. "How did you do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "Settle him down like that? He's never let anyone but me touch him."

  Cain ran his palm down over Geronimo's velvety nose and the horse quivered with pleasure. "We came to an understanding."

  "Ah," she said, "you mean, he understands he's not to trample you if you understand his heartfelt desire not to be sold to the nearest glue factory."

  "Something like that." He grinned at her as he ran his hands down the animal's flank and across the thick, well defined muscles of his chest. "He's got decent lines. More than decent, actually. But he's got a shaky history."

  She braced her elbows over the half door and studied the horse. "You're right. I've had him for less than a month. God knows what happened to him before I found him in that auction. But I'm not giving up on him just yet."

  "Horses like this are unpredictable at best, dangerous at worst, like today. He could kill you in a heartbeat if he took it into his thick head."

  Maggie reached up to scratch Geronimo under his chin. "He's scared, not mean. I know the difference."

  "Dead's dead. Nobody will care later what his intentions were." Cain turned his back on her and finished rubbing the horse's flanks with the blanket.

  "You're right, "she said evenly. "I'll be more careful."

  He nodded without reply.

  "So … you seem to know your way around horses."

  "Yup."

  Maggie braced her arms across the half door of the stall, resting her chin there. "Huh. A monosylabic résumé. That's a unique approach."

  He relinquished a small smile. "I thought you weren't looking for a résumé."

  "I'm not … exactly. Just curious, I guess. You don't look like the sort of man who'd be drifting, that's all."

  He gave Geronimo a final pat, then gave her damp hair and battered cheek a fresh perusal. "And sad-eyed beauties dressed in city clothes who sit alone in cafés don't usually run ranches. So there you go."

  Color crawled up her neck as Cain drew near enough to smell the scent of soap on her. And for the briefest of moments, he had the crazy impulse to bury his face in her hair and simply breathe in the scent of her.

  "You're not the first person who thinks I don't belong here."

  Cain narrowed his eyes. "I never said that."

  "Well, that puts you miles ahead of the competition."

  "Competition?"

  "Never mind."

  She turned and he knew he'd said something wrong. Dammit.

  "No, wait. Mrs. Cortland. I may be a little outta practice, but I think I just stepped on your toes. I'm … sorry."

  Maggie turned around, her expression thawing as she hugged herself with her arms. She exhaled slowly. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to— It's been a bad day. You have nothing to
do with that."

  "Look—" He stared down at a callus on his hand. "Maybe I should just go."

  "No, don't. I mean…" She pressed her hands together and he had the oddest feeling that what he'd heard in her voice was desperation. "What I mean is, I still have to feed you. You did say you'd stay for lunch? Right?"

  Her eyes had gone dark. Not desperation. Fear. Not of him, but of something. Like a child scared of being alone in the dark, afraid the boogyman would come out of her closet.

  He shouldn't care, he told himself.

  No, make that, he didn't care.

  He couldn't afford to get involved with this woman's troubles. He had enough of his own. But something about her—maybe it was her stubborn pride—made him want to tell her that everything would be all right. Hold her against him until the worry melted from her eyes.

  Hell.

  As if he could. As if he had it in him to try. She was a means to an end. That's all. She'd offered him food and he'd take it and go. Simple. Clean.

  No fuss, no muss. That was his motto. And he'd damned well better stick with it if he was ever going to—

  "Why don't you come in and wash up," she said, before he could finish his thought. Turning abruptly, she headed toward the house. "I hope you don't mind chicken. I thought I'd fry it."

  Chicken? His mouth watered instantly at the very sound of the word and his empty belly growled.

  No fuss, no muss, he thought, falling in behind her with all the self-restraint of a back-door dog.

  Yeah, right.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Four hours and a dozen chores later, Maggie stood in her doorway holding the glass of lemonade she'd poured for Cain, watching him wield an axe over the ancient limb of the oak that had fallen across her yard in the last storm. She hadn't asked him to do it. He'd insisted. Something about paying her back for the chicken and biscuits she'd fixed him.

  She allowed herself a smile, remembering how he'd devoured the meal she'd made him. She suspected that it had been more than a couple of days since his last full meal. It made her wonder about him. A drifter, but not like any drifter she'd ever known. What had brought him to this? Where had he been and what had happened to him?

  It was none of her business, of course, and she settled for the fact that she had, in a small way, repaid the debt she owed him for saving her life. How odd, she thought, that it could give her such pleasure, such a simple, old-fashioned thing as watching a man sate his hunger with her cooking. It made her feel useful. Necessary.

  But now, as the rhythmic sound of the axe echoed across the shadow-drawn yard, she realized that "necessary" didn't adequately describe what she was feeling as she watched him. She felt her pulse skitter and told herself she shouldn't stare. But with his back to her, she indulged herself.

  Where Ben had been compact, Cain's build was lean and powerful. The muscles in his back and arms bunched and flexed as he hefted the axe over his head and brought it down hard against the ancient wood. There was a controlled violence to the way he dismantled that limb. Piece by piece. Stroke by stroke. The only break in his rhythm had come when he'd paused to add the chopped wood into a neat and growing pile that stood now to his left.

  He was thinner than he'd been once. She could see that in the way his jeans fit—loose and low on his hips—and in the definition of his ribs. But whatever muscle mass he'd lost to hunger was more than compensated for by the sleek, animal-like grace with which he moved.

  It wasn't so much an economy of motion, she decided, studying him, as it was a deliberateness. She wondered absently where a man like him learned that kind of self-containment. And what in his past that had taught him to always watch his back.

  Almost as if he'd heard her thought, he stopped chopping, catching sight of her watching him. Jigger, who'd been lying in the shade watching Cain, too, lifted his big, dark head and thumped his tail happily against the damp soil in greeting.

  "You've got quite a rapt audience," she told Cain.

  "He's just keepin' an eye on me." Cain wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his wrist and reached for his black T-shirt. "That for me?" he asked, indicating the lemonade.

  She pushed away from the door and started toward him. "I thought you might be thirsty."

  He tugged his T-shirt on, then took the glass from her and guzzled down the contents in four serious gulps. Maggie stared, unable to take her eyes off him, or off the stray rivulet of moisture trickling down his chin.

  He gave a sigh of satisfaction and dragged a forearm slowly across his mouth, all the while watching her. "Thanks."

  She swallowed hard. Lord, what was wrong with her? Taking the empty glass, she fixed her gaze on the stack of wood. "You must have been a Boy Scout once."

  "Nope. My old man never believed in team player mentality," he said, stroking the old oak handle of the axe as though he was prepared to tolerate her interruption politely. "Whacked apart my share of tree limbs, though."

  "I'll bet. Grow up on a farm?"

  He tossed a look in her direction. "Ranch."

  Ah. "That must account for the laconic cowboy conversationalist you've become."

  He grinned, staring off at the sun as it settled between the peaks of the Bitterroots. "You wanna talk? Or you want me to chop up this limb?"

  She hugged herself against the chill beginning to settle in the air. Maggie glanced at the sinking sun, too, remembering how many sunsets she'd watched alone lately. "It'll be dark soon."

  His gaze slid to her. If another man had ever made her feel utterly naked with one look before, she couldn't remember it. "You know," she began, "I really … appreciate what you've done here, but you don't have to finish."

  "I said I would."

  "I mean, it's a big limb and when you volunteered you didn't even know my chain saw was broken and now I really owe you so much more than a chicken dinner for all that you've done for—"

  "Do you want me to go?"

  She blinked up at him. "No, it's just—"

  "If you want me to leave, I'll leave." He leaned the axe handle against the wood pile and stepped back.

  She did want him to go. Wanted him to stop making her brood about things she couldn't have anymore. But she found herself shaking her head. "I—I don't—"

  "—know me." He ran a hand across his stubbled chin as if realizing his appearance might have something to do with the look on her face right now. "I'm afraid I don't have any references in my back pocket. It's been a while since I held down a job."

  "I … told you I couldn't afford to—"

  "—hire me. I know." He smiled ironically. "But you already paid me for this. See, it's been a while since I've had more than truck-stop food either. Food, in any case. I figure that's worth this whole damned tree limb. And I mean to finish it."

  "But it's … getting dark."

  He glanced around, as if noticing for the first time that daylight had nearly disappeared. He slid his fingers along the smooth wood of the axe handle with a self-deprecating laugh. "Sorry. I'm a little slow on the uptake these days, too. I'll just get my things together and be outta your hair." He leaned the axe handle against the woodpile and reached for the jacket he'd left draped there.

  It took Maggie a moment to react. "Cain. That's not what I meant."

  "It's okay, Mrs. Cortland," he said, as if he were used to being dismissed.

  "But where will you go?"

  "That's not your worry," he said, shoving his arms into his jacket. "I'll manage."

  "Do you have somewhere to stay?"

  He started toward his bike parked across the yard. "I'll manage," he repeated.

  "Wait. Cain." Maggie crossed the distance between them stopping a few feet from him.

  He stopped, but didn't look at her.

  "There's a cot in the tack room. It's not much, but it's clean and dry and—"

  He pivoted toward her, surprise clearly etched on his face. "You … want me to stay the night?
"

  Maggie bit the inside of her lip. "I'm … yes. If you want to. For the night. In the barn."

  His shoulders relaxed a fraction and he looked at the barn. "Whatever you're afraid of, you should know I'd never hurt you. You don't know me, but you should know that."

  A shiver ran through her. A dark inkling that this stranger had the potential to break her heart.

  Ridiculous, she thought. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, he'll be gone. After everything she'd been through in the last year, her heart was every bit as bullet proof as Cain's appeared to be.

  She brightened and forced herself to smile. "Then it's settled. I have a stew on the stove. Come in when you're hungry."

  She could feel his eyes on her back as she turned and headed back to the house. Jigger trotted along beside her.

  "Yes, ma'am," he called to her back.

  She turned, walking backward and tossed him another smile. "It's Maggie. Just Maggie."

  * * *

  The last of the sun had sunk behind the mountains limning Maggie's valley by the time Cain finished with the fallen limb. He stacked the last split of wood on the pile beside him, then wiped the sweat off his face with the bandana he kept in his back pocket. The muscles in his arms and his back burned like hot embers and he could feel the blisters rising on his palms, but he walked toward the water spigot near the paddock feeling a sense of satisfaction. The physical labor made him feel alive—useful—something that had become almost foreign to him over the past four years.

  He'd missed being able to walk outside when he wanted and feel the sun against his skin. He'd missed seeing the sunset and the sunrise. Four months since his release and he hadn't missed a single one. He didn't want to remember the man that place had made him. But neither could he leave him behind. He was the sum of his life and it had made him hard.

  He gave the faucet handle a twist. The water spilled out in an icy cold rush, but he splashed it against his face and across the back of his neck, energized by the shock.

  He glanced out over the pastures to the west, where the land rose to meet the mountains and Maggie's herd of mares and foals grazed in the dusky light. The small herd of black Angus she used for training were finishing off the hay she'd laid out for them.