by Lori Wilde
They left the barn and started across the yard. Keegan’s foot hit an icy patch and he slipped, barely maintaining his balance.
“Easy.” Wren steadied him, and they continued their progress over the frozen ground.
White smoke plumed gently from her chimney, and the scent of wood smoke lingered in the air. The grass cracked beneath their feet like sharp gasps. Icicles hung from tree branches and off the house eaves. The Christmas lights she’d strung on the fence a week after Thanksgiving looked bare and lonely against the gray background.
“Not much farther now,” she promised, guiding him up the icy porch and into the house. They slipped and slid, but finally made it inside.
Wren shut the door behind them, and a heavy silence descended. She glanced up to see him staring at her.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice thick and husky. He grasped the back of a kitchen chair for support.
“You’re welcome.”
“I feel so stupid.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed about. Everyone gets sick. Once you’ve had some sleep, you’ll feel better,” she reassured him. It was hard to believe that last night she’d been terrified of this man who now appeared so sad and forlorn. “Can you make it just a little farther?”
He nodded.
She led him down the corridor to the bedroom that had once belonged to her parents. While he sat down in a chair and pulled off his boots, Wren turned back the covers and fluffed the pillow.
“There.” She turned around to find Keegan slumped against the wall, his boots on the floor in front of him. That small effort left him looking wrung out, wasted.
“Oh my gosh.” She leapt to his side. “Are you all right?”
“No strength,” he muttered. “Feel like a damned fool.”
“Shhh. It’s okay.” Stand up.”
Groaning, he obeyed.
As if she did this every day, Wren’s fingers deftly unbuckled his belt. She tried not to think of the sexual connotations, just kept reminding herself Keegan was ill and needed her help. It was no different than if she was a nurse.
Except she wasn’t a nurse, and her hand hesitated at his zipper. A lump rose in her throat, and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. Could she undress him?
He swayed and groaned, and she thought he was about to topple over again. That spurred her into action. She tugged the zipper down, and with both hands grasped the waistband and pulled his jeans to his knees.
Her breath caught in her windpipe at the sight of his bare body. She’d only had occasion to see one naked man, and Keegan put Blaine to shame with his washboard belly and the thatch of dark hair that trailed past the waistband of his jeans.
“Can you step out of your pants?” she squeaked.
He nodded and together they managed to shuck his jeans over his feet. Keegan was in front of her in his boxer shorts, and she tried her best not to stare at his finely chiseled physique.
“Hands up,” Wren said.
“Huh?”
“Raise your hands over your head so I can get your shirt off.”
Keegan raised his hands for her.
An odd tenderness she’d never quite felt before came upon Wren. Standing on tiptoe in order to reach high enough, she caught hold of his shirttail and lifted the garment over his head.
The burn scar that started at his neck widened across his broad back, disfiguring his handsome body.
She inhaled audibly but instead of repulsing her, the injury stirred her empathy. Her hand was drawn to it like a magnet. Tenderly, she reached out and grazed her fingertips over the wound.
“Don’t,” he said sharply.
Wren snatched back her hand and cradled it against her chest. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I had no right to touch you.”
The man said nothing.
She peeked up at his face. His eyes were closed, his lips pressed firmly together. “Come,” she said, “lie down.”
He moved toward the bed, her heart lurching with each stumbling step. Why did she ache so to see him in such misery? Why did her hip twinge at the sight of his ravaged back? Why did she long to reach out to him?
Keegan settled onto the mattress then allowed his lean frame to be enveloped by the plump bedding. Wren pulled the comforter over him, and he groggily mumbled, “Thanks.”
Wren crept into the hallway, tugging the door closed after her. Hands behind her back, she leaned against the wall, fighting the myriad of sensations swirling within.
This man was a total stranger. She did not know him, and yet, she felt a kinship with him she could not fully explain, even to herself. She and Keegan had been through hell and back, and they’d survived.
Maybe they were broken. Maybe they would never fully heal. But she understood him in a way she would not have believed possible two days ago.
And she couldn’t help thinking, no matter how irrationally, that maybe a Christmas miracle of healing was unfurling here.
RETURNING TO THE BARN to finish her chores, Wren discovered she could not stop thinking about Keegan. As she scooped muck from the stalls, then added fresh straw, she kept seeing his troubled face dance before her eyes.
She was attracted to him, there was no denying it. Whenever she was around him, her pulse raced, her heart thumped fast, and her stomach squeezed into a tight, hard knot. She didn’t know if it was his dangerous-as-lightning mien or the scarred, desolate quality that hung about him, but she was hooked.
And that fact was downright terrifying.
If he was on the run from the law, she was courting trouble by harboring him here. If on the other hand, he was mentally tortured, crippled emotionally by whatever had disfigured his body, she needed to give him just as wide a berth.
She couldn’t heal him. So often women made the mistake of thinking they could change a man. Wren had discovered the hard way that such transformation had to come from within the person. No external force, no concerned individual, no undying love could straighten a twisted soul.
But maybe Mr. Winslow had compelling reasons for hitchhiking the countryside, she argued with herself. Reasons that, if known, would explain his behavior.
Don’t, her conscience warned but she couldn’t seem to dispel her thoughts. She wanted Keegan to be more than an aimless drifter or a shell-shocked mental case or a cagey outlaw.
But why? It wasn’t as if she needed a man. She got along perfectly well on her own. Sure, she was lonesome on occasion, but who wasn’t? Goodness, why was she even fantasizing about the likes of this stranger?
It told a sorry tale about her self-esteem. Just because she was shy and crippled and not beautiful didn’t mean she was desperate enough to settle for the first ragtag refugee who popped up on her doorstep.
Wren stopped to rest, leaning on the handle of her shovel for support. She was slightly out of breath from exertion, and her hip ached. She might not need a man in the romantic sense, but she certainly needed someone to help run the dairy.
What if she offered Keegan a job?
No. Wren tossed her head. It was a very stupid idea.
Bossie swished her tail and swatted Wren’s arm.
Wren reached out a hand and affectionately patted the cow’s hindquarters. “Hey there, old heifer, still mad at me from last night?”
Lowering her head, Bossie let out a loud moo.
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry, but the circumstances were beyond my control,” she apologized.
Bossie blinked her wide, brown eyes and snorted.
Wren grinned. At times, Bossie seemed almost human.
Actually, Keegan had done a fine job of milking the cows last night. Speculatively, Wren nibbled her bottom lip. She’d be foolish to offer Keegan a job as her farmhand. She knew nothing of the man, save his name, and even that might be fictional.
It wasn’t as if he’d be the first man to lie to her.
Except this was different. She pitied Keegan and wanted to help him. This wasn’t at all like that time with Blaine.
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br /> She tried to squelch the memory, but it rose up anyway. Even though ten years had passed, her shame was as vivid and painful as if it had happened yesterday.
Blaine had driven into her driveway one hot summer afternoon in his bright-red convertible. She had been weeding her garden and at the first sight of him, she had been tempted to plunge into the corn rows and hide until he left. He was so handsome that he unnerved her. But he’d already seen her and was climbing out of his car.
“Howdy!” he called out, stalking across the yard with a purposeful stride. “How are you doing? I’m Blaine Thomas.”
He talked so fast and with such animated gestures, Wren had been taken aback. She’d stood in the garden, her mouth hanging open in awe, her hoe clutched in her hand. Her straw hat was cocked back on her head, and she feared she had dirt streaked across one cheek.
But that didn’t seem to deter him any. He kept right on talking. There was no denying Blaine was an eye-catching specimen, with his thick, blond hair and tall, athletic build.
“C...c...can I help you?” she’d stammered, as flustered as a novice teacher on her first day in the classroom.
The roving assessment he’d given her had sent a hot flush running up her neck so fast and furious, Wren had wondered if she might be experiencing heatstroke. No man had ever looked at her as if he wanted to lick her like an ice-cream cone.
“Yes, ma’am, you certainly can.” He’d walked right over to her and offered his palm. She’d been so stunned, so socially inept, it never occurred to her to shake his hand.
Blaine hadn’t missed a beat, he’d merely swept his hand up to rest it on her shoulder. That foreign touch had made her cringe, but she’d been so overwhelmed she’d said nothing. His handsomeness had made her uneasy from the start—as if a man that good-looking could be interested in a woman like her! Wren should have listened to that little voice, but alas, she had ignored her inner urgings.
“They told me you were a good, reliable person, but I had no idea you’d be so pretty,” he’d flattered.
“They?”
“Reverend Duvall and those kind ladies from the East Side Baptist Church.”
She’d relaxed at the mention of Reverend Duvall’s name. If her pastor had directed this man out here, surely, she could let down her guard. “Reverend Duvall sent you?”
“Yes, ma’am, when I told him I was looking for a Holstein calf, he told me you had one for sale.”
“Actually, I’ve got several.”
That had been in the days when she’d had a herd of fifty cattle and two employees. Back before Blaine had cleaned her out. Wren gritted her teeth against the memory. She’d been such a silly fool.
And having been burned by a stranger once, she would be an even bigger fool to give Keegan a chance at taking what remained of her once-thriving dairy.
Bossie mooed again, snapping Wren back to the present. Time to put away her tools and head back to the house to check on her patient, but first she’d collect Keegan’s things from the loft.
She hosed off the shovel and hung it from a peg on the wall. Stripping off her work gloves, she stuffed them into her pocket then climbed up the stairs.
The loft remained bitingly cold. Good thing she’d gotten Keegan out of there. He might not have survived the weather with his fever. She swept her gaze around the room. Keegan’s white Stetson lay beneath the cot, his denim jacket in a heap on the floor.
Wren squatted beside the bed and picked up the felt hat. Fingering it lightly, she placed it on her own head. It was too big, and the brim dipped low over her forehead. She felt like that girl in the shirt commercial raiding her absent husband’s closet for the smell and feel of him. Unsettled by that inappropriate thought, she doffed the hat and tucked it underneath her arm.
His duffel sat in the wicker chair that had one leg shorter than the other three. Wren rose to her feet, plucked the bag from the chair and shouldered it. She bent to scoop up the jacket. When she draped the garment over her arm, Keegan’s scent wafted around her.
It was a masculine aroma. Warm and comforting.
What if...? she wondered again.
Wren shook her head. She had to stop thinking like this. The fluttery feeling in her stomach, the tightness in her chest worried her. These sensations had gotten her into trouble before, and although Wren knew it wasn’t right to compare Keegan with Blaine, she couldn’t allow hormones and a misguided sense of duty to lead her down the wrong path.
Keegan was a stranger and a forbidding one at that. Just because she was attracted to his smell, just because his sad expression stirred something inside her did not mean she had to act on those feelings.
Turning on her heels, she started for the stairs. As she swung around, something fell from the duffel bag’s side pocket and drifted to the floor. From her peripheral vision, Wren caught sight of it.
Stepping backward, she took a second look.
It was a photograph.
Letting the jacket, hat, and duffel slide to the ground, she leaned over and reached out to pick up the picture.
The edges were curled. Fingerprints and water stains marred the glossy finish.
Wren sucked in her breath and studied the people in the photograph. A family. Man, woman, and child.
The man had to be Keegan. Same build, same features, same coal-dark hair.
But he looked so different. His face was an open book. His eyes housed no secrets, his mouth turned upward in a radiant smile. Instead of appearing gaunt and drawn, he was muscular and broad. He wore shorts, a polo shirt, and a gold band on his ring finger.
His hair was cut short, the way a military man or police officer might wear it. Could he have once been a soldier or a cop? That gave her pause. He seemed the type. Strong, controlled, guarded, and silent. She rubbed a finger over his face. Most telling of all, the scar on his neck was absent in this picture.
He had one arm draped casually across the woman’s shoulder. She was looking at him as if the sun shone from his eyes. She was smiling, openmouthed as if the camera had caught her in mid-laugh as she responded to something he’d said. She was pretty, but not gorgeous. Her eyes were too wide, her mouth too generous. She had beautiful, shimmering, shoulder-length, blond hair caught up in a bright-blue bow. She wore a simple flower-print housedress, exactly the sort of garment Wren preferred, and white sandals adorned her feet.
In her arms, the woman clutched a baby. Probably about a year old. The child was dressed in a pink pinafore. Wren assumed it was a girl. She looked like her mother, blond and fair.
They were outside somewhere, a lush green field with lots of trees in the background.
How old was the photograph? Wren wondered, flipping it over but finding no date on the back.
Obviously, this was Keegan’s wife and daughter. But what had happened to them? Were they dead or alive? She shuddered, and her heart wrenched. Oh, the poor man. What losses he must have suffered. Perhaps even worse than her own. Tears welled in Wren’s eyes, and she knew what she had to do.
No matter her doubts and her fears, this felt right. Keegan needed a place to stay, and she’d wished for someone to help her farm the dairy. It was as if heaven had dropped him into her lap. Tucking the photograph back in the duffel and collecting his things once more, Wren made up her mind. She would ask him to stay.
Chapter Five
Keegan opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Where was he?
His head throbbed. Badly. He was so thirsty, his lips stuck together. And he was cold. Impossibly cold. He shivered.
Glancing down, he saw he was wrapped in at least three blankets and a fluffy lace comforter. Why was he so cold?
He swept his gaze around the room. Antiques. Lots of them. A highboy sat to one side, with a cobalt vase perched atop it. Homey landscape oil paintings adorned the walls, and the windows were covered with white lace curtains that matched the comforter.
How had he gotten here?
Keegan lifted his head off the pillow, but
dizziness gripped him. Groaning, he eased himself back down and rested an arm across his eyes.
Think, Winslow. Think.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It hurt and set off a paroxysm of coughing. Keegan pulled the covers over his head, curled into a ball, and rode out the spell, his whole body racked with the force.
Finally exhausted, he rolled onto his back again.
The door creaked.
“Keegan?” the feminine voice whispered.
Maggie? His heart lurched hopefully, but something nagged at him that it couldn’t be so. He peeled back the covers and peeked out.
A slender woman stood silhouetted in the light from the hallway. She wore a festive Christmas apron and smelled of apple pie.
Just like Maggie.
He blinked. His vision was blurry, and he didn’t trust what he was seeing. Could it be true? Was Maggie alive after all? Stunned, his feverish mind tried to process the information, but he couldn’t think.
“I’ve got juice and aspirin,” she said, moving into the room, bringing her delicious scent with her and the sound of ice tinkling in a glass. The woman’s voice was soft and melodious. Like his Maggie’s. Except she spoke with a Southern accent and Maggie was from Nebraska. “How are you feeling?”
He tried to answer and was startled to hear his word come out harsh and gravelly. “Thirsty,” he rasped.
She moved to the side of the bed and slipped her hand underneath his head. Like a mother tending a child, she lifted him up. “Open your mouth.”
Obediently, he opened his mouth, and she dropped two pills on his tongue, then placed the rim of the cool glass against his lips.
“Swallow.”
He washed down the pills and practically inhaled the apple juice. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She started to move away, but he reached out and grasped her hand. She tensed at his touch. Was she afraid of him? Keegan hoped not. He had to let her know how grateful he was for her kindness.