by Unknown
Despite the circumstances, a spurt of wonder leaped inside her. This was her first encounter with a person from the other side of the portal.
She listened to his voice. It was strong and confident, and his accent was different from the people she knew in her own world.
“Hang on. I’ve got a fire extinguisher.”
He backed away. As she listened to the sound of his footsteps receding, fear rose in her throat.
Then she heard a hissing sound, and the flames that had been lapping closer died away.
Moments later, he was back, clambering to her side and hunkering down.
“You put out the fire?” she whispered.
“I can’t be sure it’s dead. I’ll have to check it later.”
He kept the beam of his light out of her eyes as he studied her face, apparently as interested in her as she was in him. Up close, in the light from the flashlight, she saw that his hair and eyes were both dark and his features were hard-etched.
And he had a . . . knapsack over his shoulder. Squatting beside her, he took something from the carry bag. It was a small rectangle that unfolded into a surprisingly large blanket, which he spread over her.
The blessed warmth made her want to weep, but she held on to her emotions by force of will while he turned and played his light over the place where her leg disappeared under the branch.
“This is a nice mess,” he muttered. “You’re lucky your leg isn’t broken. Or is it?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not in pain.” Switching the subject, she asked. “How . . . how did you find me?”
“I was putting some things in my storage building. I saw the tree fall, and I thought I heard a scream. It took me a while to locate the tree.”
Her own situation had made her sensitive to half-truths. “What happened to the wolf?”
He tipped his head to the side, staring at her with a steady gaze. “What wolf?”
“He was here.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t see him.”
She nodded, wondering if she had made up the encounter with the beast. No. He had been too real. His animal smell. His wet fur. The intelligence in his yellow eyes.
The man brought her back to the present. Did he smell like the wolf? Or did the animal scent simply linger in the wet air?
“We have to get you out of here.”
“How?”
“I’ll lift the branch. You pull your leg out.”
She sighed. “I tried. It’s too heavy.”
“Of course it is,” he said, and she wondered if she’d made a mistake by revealing her attempt at escape. Without her telekinetic powers, lifting the thing would have been clearly impossible.
He played his flashlight beam over the bough, inspecting it. “If I can’t get the branch off you, I’ll go back for a chain saw. But that will mean you’ll be out here for a lot longer.”
Bending over the limb, he wrapped his hands around the circumference, giving an experimental tug before looking back at her. “Get ready to pull your foot out if I can lift this damn thing.”
“Okay,” she said.
“My name is Talon Marshall.”
An exchange of names. Another test.
“Kenna,” she said, then remembered an important fact from her training. People here had more than one name. The last name told what family you belonged to. Vandar’s men had picked a last name for her that was very common, in case anyone started trying to figure out where she had come from. “Kenna Thomas,” she supplied.
“Sorry to be meeting you like this.”
With a murmur of agreement, she braced for more questions. Instead, he silently grasped the branch again. As he strained to pull upward, she sent her telekinetic energy to the tree limb, giving him a jolt of assistance.
Feeling the pressure ease off her ankle, she kept up her energy burst while she yanked her foot out, then tumbled backwards at her sudden release.
He made a startled exclamation, his voice uncertain as he said, “It suddenly got lighter, then heavier again.”
She only shook her head, unable to tell him that it had been her lifting and that the extra weight had piled on the branch when she’d run out of energy.
She was free! Finally.
He was talking again, and she struggled to focus on his words.
“Can you stand?”
“I think so.” Quickly, she pulled off the blanket he’d draped over her and pushed herself up. But she had been in one cramped position for too long, and when she stood on wobbly legs, one knee gave way and she started to fall back into the tangle of branches where she’d been lying.
Talon Marshall darted forward, catching her before she could go down. As the two of them swayed on the uneven surface, she came to rest in his arms with her head on his shoulder and her wobbly legs wedged against his solid ones.
She felt herself trembling, from the cold and from her reaction to him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m lucky you found me.”
“You’re lucky the trunk, or a major branch, didn’t smack you in the back or hit you on the head.”
His arms were strong. And his body was warm and comforting. She’d been virtually alone in a crowd of people for months. It was hard to remember a time when anyone had held her, comforted her. Unable to stop herself, she let her head nestle against his shoulder as she raised her arms to grip him.
He cradled her in his embrace, and she wanted to burrow further into his warmth.
“How did you get here?” he asked as his hands stroked over her back and shoulders.
The question brought a knot of tension back to her middle. This was the real start of her assignment. The story she would have to tell. She wanted to confess everything to him and get herself out of the terrible situation she’d been thrust into. But confession was not an option. Not when she was under Vandar’s compulsion.
“I guess I got lost,” she managed to say.
He could have let her go, but instead, he kept his arms around her. “You were very brave. With the tree and the fire.”
“What else could I do?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. Then his voice turned sober again. “You’re wet and cold. We’d better get you inside.”
“Inside where?”
“My lodge.”
The assurance in his voice brought back the enormity of her situation. This man had found her trapped under a tree limb. He’d freed her. Now she was going to repay him with lies.
To her horror, she began to cry.
In response, his arms tightened around her. “It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”
She shook her head against his shoulder. She wasn’t crying about what had happened with the tree. Instead, her thoughts were racing forward into the future and the situation that had already spun out of her control.
CHAPTER SIX
MILES AWAY, A man named Ramsay Gallagher brushed back a lock of dark hair from his forehead as he stared out the reinforced glass window of his mountain chalet. He was searching for something he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to see. Not yet.
From a distance his house looked like the vacation home of a millionaire who enjoyed indulging his whims.
In reality, it was a well-fortified stronghold, perched at the top of a Colorado mountain that he’d had the foresight to purchase years ago. It was an excellent location for a man who valued his privacy.
Only one winding gravel track led up from the highway. There were no guardrails, and a driver required nerves of steel to make it to the top of his mountain, where access to the house was blocked by a stout metal gate and sheer cliffs.
You had to want to come here. And you had to know how to get past the barriers he’d erected—unless, of course, you could fly.
He smiled as he thought of a helicopter circling his property, the pilot trying to figure out where to land. He’d be out of luck. And if men came down a rope ladder, Ramsay could nail them before they reached the patio outside
his bedroom.
He grimaced. Don’t go looking for problems. You’re not expecting an attack. Not today.
Yet a change in the fabric of the universe had put him on alert, and he had learned to trust his instincts.
Some major element had shifted in a way that he didn’t understand yet, but he would. And if trouble came his way, he was prepared to deal with it.
His fingers played over the leather of his easy chair, appreciating the soft, smooth texture. He liked his comfort, and he valued fine things, but now he was distracted by the sensations drifting toward him from far away.
Too restless to sit, he climbed out of the chair, strode to the window, and studied the mountain scenery. He could have lived anywhere in the world, but he had chosen this place because it suited him so well. Not just the grandeur of the craggy peaks, the pine forests, and the animals that inhabited them. He liked the isolation.
He had other houses, as well. One along the California coast where he could watch the waves crashing on the rocks twenty yards below. Another outside Washington, D.C., in Potomac, Maryland, where he was close to the center of world power. One on Lake Como in Italy. He was rich enough to own property around the world. And he traveled to his other abodes when he wanted a change of scenery.
But he always felt safest here. And for now, he would stay in this mountain retreat and watch for what might come.
TALON could feel the woman in his arms struggling to contain her tears. He didn’t have much experience comforting women, but he gave it his best shot as he patted her back reassuringly and spoke softly.
“Everything’s okay. Come on. Let’s go inside where you can get warm and dry.”
“Okay,” she whispered as though the word was from a foreign language.
“How’s your leg? Can you walk?” As he spoke, he stooped to pick up his gear.
“I think so.”
Slinging his arm around her waist, he played his light along the ground in front of them, guiding her through the branches of the massive tree sprawled at the edge of the forest.
She was limping, he noticed. But her leg wasn’t broken. That was the important thing. Not the feel of her soft breast pressing against his side. To distract himself, he went back over his finding her and the rescue. There was something strange about the way the branch had lifted off her. He’d been pulling up, and it had rotated slightly as it rose. Had he done that, or had some other force been operating?
The speculation brought him up short. What other force would that be? The branch must have conveniently shifted when he’d pulled on it.
He wanted to go back and have a look at it. But that was out of the question now. He had to get her dry and warm, or she could go into hypothermia, even in late summer.
They made their slow way out of the branches, and he breathed out a sigh as they reached open ground.
“This way.” Turning to the left, he led her to the lodge.
As they walked, he could feel her trembling. A natural response to her narrow escape. And to getting drenched.
After she got out of her wet clothes, he’d put her in one of the bedrooms. He imagined her lying under the covers, and an erotic picture leaped into his mind. Of her reaching out naked arms to him and pulling him down to the bed with her.
Sternly, he ordered himself not to go down that road. She was simply a woman who had had the misfortune to get clobbered by a tree in the storm. On his property.
They reached the porch, and he helped her slowly up the two steps, then into the front hall. He’d given her a quick once-over outside, but it had been dark. Now, standing under the overhead light, he took in more details, starting with the light brown hair that hung in wet strands around her ears.
Her skin was paper white, making her look like she’d been living in a cave for months.
She was about average height. Too thin, he thought. Because she was dieting like so many women, or because she hadn’t had enough food recently? Her large blue eyes were set wide apart, above high cheekbones, a small nose, and temptingly full lips.
Dropping his gaze, he noted the way her wet shirt clung to her breasts. Quickly, he lowered his eyes, taking in the soaked jeans and the leather sandals that looked like they’d been made on a hippie commune. Strange footwear for a tramp through the woods.
“Did you lose your pack or your purse?” he asked.
“My knapsack,” she answered, her voice shaky.
“We can look for your stuff in the morning.”
“Thanks,” she murmured.
“Come on.” He led her down the hall to one of the guest suites and sat her on the closed toilet seat in the bathroom while he thought about what she could wear.
KENNA sat where he’d left her, trying to make her fogged brain function. She was sitting on a toilet seat. In a bathroom. She had seen pictures of bathrooms in this world. She hadn’t really understood how foreign they were.
Her mind skittered back to something Talon Marshall had said—about her purse?
What was that, exactly?
She’d learned so many facts about this world, but she didn’t remember being told about a purse.
Lifting her head, she looked toward the door. He’d gone off to get her some clothing. While he was away, she could run out of the house.
And go where?
She shook her head. She was still wet and cold. There was nowhere to go, and she might as well make the best of this situation. This was what she was supposed to do!
Again, she forced herself to focus on her surroundings. The bathroom was strange and the house was just as confounding. She’d only gotten a quick look as Talon Marshall had ushered her down a hall, but she sensed that the structure was huge, like the residence of a noble back home. Yet the man was dressed too casually to be a noble.
She stopped herself, struggling to rearrange her thinking. There were no nobles in this world, so he couldn’t be one. But it looked like he was rich, if he lived in a place this large.
Did he share this dwelling with anyone? A wife? Children? She had no clue. But it seemed impossible that he would be the only occupant.
Just from their brief meeting, she liked him. More than liked him. He’d gone out of his way to help a stranger. He could have gotten hurt climbing around the fallen tree, but he hadn’t hesitated. And when he’d held her in his arms, she’d felt a spurt of attraction to him. Or had that just been gratitude that he’d rescued her?
She didn’t want to feel either of those things.
Hating the prospect of spinning him her story, she turned her mind to the clammy fabric of her shirt pressing against her skin. It was warm inside the house, but the shirt was making her cold, and she should take it off. Then she’d feel better. She was fumbling with the buttons and had gotten a few of them opened when she heard footsteps in the hall.
“All right to come in?” he called.
“Yes.”
He stepped into the little room, filling the small space. Outside, she hadn’t taken in his size. Now she saw he was tall and well muscled, with a decisive jaw covered by dark stubble.
“Who lives here with you?” she blurted.
“No one.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, not on a regular basis. I lead wilderness expeditions. Sometimes clients spend the night at the beginning or end of a trip.”
She nodded, wondering what he meant by a “wilderness expedition.”
Briskly, he changed the subject. “You need a hot shower. Then you can put these on.” As he spoke, he set down a pile of soft clothing on a square table beside the sink.
A hot shower? She’d been thinking of a bath, and her dulled brain scrambled to process what he was suggesting.
As he spoke, he pulled aside a curtain and reached to turn a lever. Water came spraying out of . . . The word eluded her.
As he fiddled with the dial, she continued to open her shirt, still struggling with the wet buttonholes. Finally, she got it off and dropped it on the floor, then stood and w
restled with the snap at the top of the pants. The zipper came down more easily, and she was just stepping out of the pants when he turned—and made a choked sound.
She’d been automatically getting out of her wet clothes. Now she blinked as she realized she was standing in front of him clad in nothing more than the unfamiliar underwear she’d put on a few hours ago. The revealing underwear.
“Oh!”