The Quiet Seduction

by Dixie Browning

  “I don’t think it’s broken, but you must have twisted it. There’s part of a pine tree lying over there—lots of junk everywhere. You probably tripped. I think your left ankle might be sprained, too, but I don’t think it’s broken. Is that your shoe caught under that branch over there? Pete, how about digging it out?”

  “Left knee, left ankle.” His attempt at a smile was more of a grimace. “The good news is, I’ve still got one good limb, otherwise you’d have to shoot me.”

  “Hush,” she said sternly. “Lie still a minute and let me think.”

  He didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Aside from the injuries she’d mentioned, he’d already discovered a lump above his left temple that was roughly the size of a West Texas cantaloupe.

  And then he lost it again. Flat out fainted. Later he had to wonder how they’d managed to get him up and moving. Angels, he figured, had their methods. He didn’t remember flying. Sure as hell didn’t remember any harp music. Remembered hearing a siren in the distance that wailed on and on and on until he felt like taking it out with a high-powered rifle. Somewhere a dog was barking. At least the kid had stopped whimpering. Now he couldn’t seem to shut up, chattering on and on about the noise, and how scared he was, and wow, look at all those broken trees.

  By the time he was able to focus on anything besides his own pain, they had reached a shabby, two-story farmhouse neatly surrounded by two-thirds of a picket fence.

  Working together to support his not-inconsiderable weight, the kid and the woman, who was a lot stronger than she looked, had managed to ease him onto the front porch. Somewhere during the painful journey he’d figured out that she was no angel. He remembered gazing up from his undignified position in the foul-smelling wheelbarrow they’d used to trundle him down a long, bumpy lane, to focus on her face. It was probably not the most beautiful face he’d ever seen, but he’d clung to the image, because he’d desperately needed to cling to something.

  “Give me a minute,” he gasped. Seated on the porch floor, both hands gripping his swollen knee, he focused on riding over the pain. Breathe in, breathe out, slowly and deeply. Count off, count off, count off….

  A glimpse of something vaguely familiar slipped in and out of his mind—a mind that admittedly wasn’t working too well at the moment. Uniforms…semi-automatic weapons…?

  His head felt as if it had been shot out of a mortar.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” the woman said.

  Squinting through narrowed eyes, he sized her up when she came and knelt in front of him. She was soaking wet, dirty, but had all the right curves in all the right places. Oh, yeah—he’d have to be dead to miss that much. Green eyes, brown hair—nice, but nothing fancy. The kind of woman a man might have given a second look, but probably no more. And yet…

  “Do I know you?” he asked cautiously. He felt the need to reach out and hold on to something—someone—familiar. At the same time he felt an unsettling need for caution.

  Why?

  Who knew?

  “I don’t think so. I’m Ellen Wagner. The boy you saved is my son, Pete. I’ll never be able to repay you, Mr….?”

  There was something at once earthy and ethereal about her. Thin face, hollow cheeks, haunting eyes—or maybe he meant haunted. Without being actually pretty, she was beautiful. She was obviously waiting for him to introduce himself. He ran a quick mental check before the walls slammed down.

  It’ll come, he thought with growing desperation. This kind of thing happened in books and movies, not in real life. At least, not to him.

  Whoever the hell he was.

  By the time he woke up again, it was pitch-dark. There was a night-light on, one of those small, fake-candle things. He waited for his eyes to adjust. Nothing looked familiar. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but nothing about the room rang any bells. Evidently he wasn’t at home. He couldn’t quite remember what home looked like, but he’d lay odds this wasn’t it.

  Cautiously sitting up, he began to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Pain slammed through him as it all came back.

  Correction. The immediate past came back. For all he knew he could’ve been born in a ditch with a pale-faced angel for a midwife and a skinny wet kid for an assistant.

  Hell of a thing. He was used to—

  What? He didn’t know what he was used to; he only knew this wasn’t it.

  “How long have I been out of it?” he asked as the woman came silently into the bedroom. Any minute now, he assured himself, things would begin to click into place.

  She was barefoot. White robe, no halo, no wings. Avid for information, he latched onto the smallest detail. She glanced at her watch. A man’s watch, he noted, on a delicate wrist.

  “It’s just past eleven now—p.m. They say the tornado struck at seven minutes to one this afternoon. I woke you up several times just to be sure you were all right, the way you’re supposed to with a head injury. Don’t you remember?”

  “Lady, I don’t remember shi—anything.” Evidently he did remember how to talk to a lady.

  “We’ll have to call you something. What comes to mind?”

  “Bathroom. And no, I don’t want to be called John, but if you’ll point me in the right direction, I’d be much obliged.”

  Seeing the smile that trembled on her lips, he’d have given anything to have met her under better circumstances.

  She indicated a door across the hall and mentally he measured the distance. If he could grab a chair he could probably use it to lurch across the room.

  “You really need to keep your left leg elevated as much as possible,” she told him.

  “I can handle it.” He could handle the pain better than he could handle asking her to help with his more intimate needs.

  “There was a crutch—I think I put it in the attic. If you’ll wait right here a minute, I’ll run see.”

  “Take your time,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  Evidently she recognized his most pressing problem at the moment. She was gone and back before he could decide whether to risk falling on his face or an even worse indignity.

  “Here, I don’t know if it’s the right height. It was in the attic when we moved in. Thank goodness I never got around to clearing things out.”

  She eased into position under his arm to help him up, and even in his battered condition, he recognized the smell of a woman fresh from her bath. At any other time he had a feeling he’d have responded to it.

  She handed him the crutch and helped him position it before he embarrassed himself. It was short, but at least it allowed him some mobility. He thanked her and hobbled off to tend to nature’s call. And incidentally, to look in the mirror to see who the hell he was.

  The face that stared back at him moments later would have looked right at home on any Wanted poster. A jaw that redefined the word stubborn. A largish nose that canted slightly to the southwest. High forehead, distorted at the moment by the large, discolored lump above his left temple. Nothing rang any bells, including the stubble, the mud-stiffened brown hair and the suspicious dark eyes. After staring for long moments at the mirror image, he felt like crying. Howling like a lovesick coyote.

  If he’d ever before come face-to-face with the man in the mirror, he didn’t remember it.

  He managed to wash up, even doused his head in the basin a few times to remove some of the mud. The rest he left behind on one of her pretty pink towels.

  She was still there when he made it back to the room. Ms. Wagner. Mrs. Wagner. She had a son.

  Think, man! Get it together!

  How the devil could he get it together when his head felt like a filing cabinet that had been bludgeoned with a sledgehammer? The image of a silver-gray metal filing cabinet flickered in and out so fast he didn’t have time to latch on to any details.

  “Are you hungry? We had supper hours ago, but I could heat you some soup. What about chicken noodle?”

  “Coffee. Strong, black and sweet. I don’t
usually take sugar, but I need the…” His voice trailed off as it occurred to him that things were starting to come back. Any minute now he’d remember who he was, and where he was supposed to be. According to the boy, he’d been in a hell of a hurry, but then, with a tornado bearing down on them, that was understandable.

  Was anyone looking for him? A family? A wife? Chances were that whatever transportation had brought him this far was no longer available. Picturing the scene when he’d first looked around that ditch, he didn’t recall seeing anything resembling wheels. Not even the kid’s bike.

  “What shall I call you?” She was waiting quietly. Patience was a quality he’d always admired, especially in a woman. Without knowing how he knew, he knew.

  “Uh, might as well call me Storm.”

  She had a way of tilting her head that spoke louder than words. You’re kidding, right?

  “Look, I seem to have temporarily mislaid a few things. Like my long-term memory. Can we just make it easy until I get it back?”

  “I’ll bring you the coffee, but you’d probably better eat something, too. The minute the lines are up I’ll call my doctor.”

  “My cell phone—” He broke off, confused, frustrated—feeling helpless and somehow knowing it was not something he was accustomed to feeling.

  “If you had one, it wasn’t on you when I found you.”

  It was then he noticed for the first time that his shirt was striped cotton, and so were his drawstring pants. They were also too wide and too short.

  “I never wear pajamas,” he said, oddly offended.

  “You do now. No matter how sick you are, you’re not getting into my bed in those muddy rags you were wearing. I threw away your tie—it was hopeless. I washed your shirt and underwear. As for your pants, well, I sponged them, but I doubt if even a dry cleaner will be able to do much with them. I’m sorry. Pete went back and found your other shoe. I did the best I could, but I’m afraid they’ll never be the same. Cordovan leather doesn’t take kindly to being scrubbed inside and out, even with saddle soap.”

  He took a moment to absorb the implications. There were several. There might be something in one of his pockets that would give him a clue as to his identity—even a monogram would help. Half joking, he said, “I don’t suppose you found a name, address and serial number among my effects, did you?”

  “Serial number?”

  Serial number? “I mean phone number. Hell, I don’t know, I’m just reaching here. Help me out, will you?”

  “Sorry. You were wearing a nice wristwatch, but I’m afraid it didn’t survive. The crystal was broken and it was full of muddy water. You might be right about your name, though. There was a handkerchief in your hip pocket that had what looked like an H with an S in the middle—sort of a design, you know? Storm…hits? Storm Help? Harry Storm?”

  “Nice try. Don’t worry, it’ll come. And tell your husband thanks for the use of his pajamas.”

  “I’m a widow,” she said quietly. “I kept Jake’s things after he died because…well, just because, I guess.” Leaning her hips against the dresser, arms crossed over her breasts, she shrugged. “I’d better go heat some soup—I hope canned is okay. I’ll bring the coffee as soon as it’s made.”

  “I see the power’s on.”

  “Ours wasn’t off more than a few hours, but just up the road—you can see some of it from here—things are pretty torn up. A few miles south of here, two farms and a trailer park were completely wiped out. I’m not sure about the rest, I haven’t had time to watch much news.”

  “Casualties?”

  “None reported so far.”

  “Do you have a radio I can borrow?”

  “I can bring one in, but right now you probably need sleep more than you need news. If you can make it as far as the living room in the morning, you can eat breakfast while you watch the storm coverage on TV. Maybe something will ring a bell.”

  She left then, and he sat for a moment longer and considered what he knew and what he didn’t.

  What he knew was easy. He was alive. He’d been rescued by a widow with a kid named Pete, although he was usually called Hon. Her husband, Jake, had been shorter and broader. As for the widow herself, she had a surprisingly womanly body under the baggy clothes she’d been wearing when she’d found him in that ditch and the bathrobe she’d worn later.

  Oh, yeah, he knew all that, all right. It was what he didn’t know that was giving him fits. Like who the devil he was.

  Like where he’d been going in such a hell of a hurry. Like what he had been doing that had left this nagging sense of urgency inside him. Almost a sense of wariness.

  Like what happened to his vehicle.

  And which one of them—the woman or her son—had got him out of his clothes and into these striped pajamas.

  Two

  At a quarter to midnight, after checking the doors and switching off the outside lights, Ellen glanced toward the stairs, feeling as if she’d just run a three-day marathon. Pete was finally asleep; the stranger had been fed and was now sleeping—safely and normally, she sincerely hoped. When he’d opened his eyes earlier, she’d looked closely and could detect no sign of irregular pupils, but with such dark eyes it was hard to tell.

  Nice eyes, really. It wasn’t like her to notice a man’s eyes—or a man’s anything else. But as she’d been the one to get him out of his clothes and into a pair of pajamas…

  Well, there were some things no woman who wasn’t blind and totally devoid of hormones could help but notice.

  She yawned. She would try to cram eight hours of sleep into what was left of the night, but she knew in advance that it wouldn’t be enough. All too soon the alarm clock would go off and she’d have to get up again, get Pete off to school. After that, unless Booker and Clyde showed up, she would turn out the horses, come back inside and make the beds and put the breakfast dishes in to soak, then go back to the barn and muck out the stalls, clean troughs and do all the other things she paid that worthless pair to do. Even when they went through the motions, she had to follow right behind them to see that things were done properly. It was almost easier to do them herself in the first place, but there were still some jobs that needed a man’s strength.

  Absently she picked up a plastic robot and a model airplane and put them on the stairs to go up. Crossing to the fireplace, she wound the mantel clock, touched the framed picture beside it and yawned again.

  Lord, she was tired. There weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needed doing, nor enough energy to last, even if she could have found the hours.

  She was halfway up the stairs when someone knocked on the front door. “Oh, shoot, what now?” she muttered, glancing at her watch. No matter how tired she was, she could hardly ignore a summons in the middle of the night, not after what had happened only a few hours ago. She’d got off lucky. Others hadn’t been so fortunate. If someone needed her help…

  She switched on the security light again and peered out the window. A dark car had pulled up to the front gate, one of those low-slung models with a spoiler on the rear end and decorations all over the body. Long, curling flames, in this case.

  Almost everyone she knew drove a truck, but most families also had a car. That detailing, though, was unfamiliar.

  “May I help you?” She opened the door only a few inches, keeping her right foot wedged against the bottom so that she could slam it shut if need be. If worse came to worst, Jake’s old .420 gauge shotgun was propped in the corner behind the coatrack. Of course the shells were upstairs in her dresser under her socks and sweaters, but a housebreaker wouldn’t know that.

  House-breakers also didn’t go around knocking on front doors.

  “Yes’m, that is, we’re looking for a friend of ours. He ain’t been seen since them twisters went through here, and we thought he might’ve run into some trouble.”

  If she’d had antennae, they would definitely have been twitching. Not that she had anything in particular against tattoo
s—it was purely a matter of personal preference—but this man was covered with them. “A friend, you say?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am, he’s a real good friend. We been on his tail since—” His silent companion elbowed him, and he stepped back and cleared his throat. “That is, we sure would like to find him, ma’am. You seen any strangers passing through here since the twister cut through?”

  Later, Ellen would wonder what on earth had possessed her to lie. It wasn’t her nature at all, but something about this pair set off alarms. She put it down to a cross between a woman’s intuition and a mother’s protective instincts. “Only the men from the power company. They were checking all along here. One of them came by earlier today to be sure my power was back on.”

  “Power company, huh? You sure you haven’t seen nobody else?”

  “Perhaps if you described your friend?”

  “’Bout six feet tall, maybe a few inches taller, wouldn’t you say?” He looked at his companion, who nodded vigorously. “Dark hair, dark eyes—I guess if I was a lady, I might call him good-looking.” His mouth stretched into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. They remained flat and expressionless.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  The two men looked at each other. It was the tattooed man who spoke. “Harrison. J. S. Harrison. Ma’am.”

  Ellen tucked the name away to consider later. “And your names?”

  A furtive look passed between the two men. “I’m Bill Smith and this here is, uh, Bill Jones.”

  Right, Ellen thought. And I’m the president’s mother-in-law. She wouldn’t trust either one of these men to take out her garbage. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you, but if I see anyone fitting that description, I’ll be sure to tell him you’re looking for him.”

  The devil she would. The moment she closed the door and shot the bolt, she moved to the window to make sure they left. For several minutes they stood outside their car, heads close together as if they were talking. What if she’d been wrong and they really were friends of her stranger?