A fit of coughing, wet and racking, from behind her stopped her before she’d gone two steps. Reluctantly, she glanced over her shoulder.
A sane woman would get to the house, lock the doors and batten the windows until help arrived. But then, Mariah had already admitted she wasn’t quite sane. Besides, help could be a long time coming, thanks to this storm.
If she retreated to the house now, he could regain consciousness and come after her again before help arrived. Better to get him inside, where she could keep an eye on him.
She winced as another shiver rippled through him.
And he would be warm.
Not that she cared about his comfort, but he had loaned her his coat. Bringing him into the warmth of her home until she could turn him over to the authorities would be fair payment, more than fair, for the warmth he had provided her. Then she would owe him nothing.
Chapter 2
“All right, on your feet!” Mariah said after she’d rolled the stranger to his side and slid the gun from his waistband to hers.
His eyes flicked open. Focus seemed to come slowly as he scanned his surroundings: the ditch, the ranch, her. For the second time that night, she felt the weighty regret in his half-lidded gaze. He didn’t say the words this time, but she heard the somber tones as clearly as if he had. I’m sorry.
Why? Because he hadn’t left as he’d promised?
She must be mistaken. Only an honorable man would feel guilty for breaking a promise he wasn’t physically able to keep. And no man who kidnapped a woman and her horse at gunpoint could be called honorable.
Still, she couldn’t leave him lying in the mud. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed his shirt and lifted. He weighed a ton. “You’ve got to get up. I can’t get you inside by myself.” Lifting his left arm, she slid her shoulders underneath.
His breath caught. “Other arm,” he asked simply.
She shifted to his right side as he struggled to his knees. It took a good bit of time and all the breath she had to get him to the front porch. They rested there, panting with exertion, then pushed through the door. Inside, her quivering knees buckled and the man’s back slid down the wall until his seat hit the floor.
“Come on. You’re not passing out in my foyer. And if you think I’m going to carry you, you’re sorely mistaken.”
He leaned heavily on her as they made their way to the downstairs guest room, a narrow space, sparsely furnished with a single pine bed, a nightstand and a wing chair, then collapsed onto the ivory chenille bedspread.
“Why...are you helping me?”
Because of the weather? Because he’d given her his coat? Because she preferred the company of a kidnapper over being alone with her nightmares? At the moment, she couln’t say which.
“Don’t make too much of it. You won’t be here long. Just until I can call you an ambulance.”
His head lolled toward her. “No. No ambulance.”
Mariah blew out a bitter laugh. “You don’t have much say in the matter, mister.”
The man lifted his head. He coughed again but managed to gasp, “Please. No ambulance. Too dangerous.”
She jerked her gaze to his. “What do you mean, dangerous?”
“Looking for me,” he gasped. “Have to get out of here.”
“Who’s looking for you?” Suddenly a new chill spread across her skin like a rash. “The deputies?” She knew that she was right. “That’s why Seth and Rodney were here—looking for you? You’re a fugitive?”
“Looking for me...all right. But not...a fugitive.”
“Then why?” she asked.
“To finish their...dirty business, I guess. They must’ve...made good time coming down the mountain on their motorcycles. Lot faster than that...horse of yours.”
“Dirty business? Surely you don’t mean that Seth and Rodney were involved in some sort of wrongdoing on the mountain.”
He grimaced. “Wrongdoing. That’s a nice... word for...kicking the tar out of me.”
Her eyes flew wide. “That’s what happened to you? You were beaten? Seth and Rodney...?” She clamped her teeth down on her lip. Surely he couldn’t be right. She’d known those boys—men, now—most of her life. She couldn’t believe them capable of beating a man nearly unconscious. But then, she wouldn’t have believed they would talk about her the way they had, either.
“But how would they have known to look here?”
“Don’t know. Lucky guess, maybe. Or maybe their visit had nothing to do with me. They seemed...more interested in you.” His head rolled toward her. Even half-closed, his dark eyes penetrated her defenses, set off the same sense of discord she’d felt when she’d first seen him—a low hum in her solar plexus.
The light from the lone lamp in the room cut his features into sharp planes and angles, ominous, like the jagged mountain peaks that framed the Double M, yet somehow compelling.
Heat rose to her cheeks. “Yes, well, I can’t say I found their interest terribly flattering.”
“I can’t say I blame you,” he answered softly.
Then he tried to sit, his face screwed up in pain as he levered his shoulders off the mattress. “I have to get out of here. Shouldn’t have involved you in this.”
She shoved a pillow behind his back and pushed him down. “You’re not going anywhere. You can’t even sit up.”
“Have to.” But he made no move to sit again. “Dangerous.” His face had lost so much color that she could see the tiny veins crisscrossing his eyelids.
Blast him! He had no right to do this to her. To make her responsible for him. To make her care. He was a kidnapper. If anything here was dangerous, it was he.
He didn’t look so dangerous now, though. In fact, lying there cold and shaking, he looked as harmless as one of her newborn colts, thrust wet and shivery from the warmth of its mother’s womb into the chill world.
“I’ll call the sheriff. He won’t let anyone hurt you.”
His whole body jerked. “No. Don’t trust him.”
She wouldn’t have listened to him, if his words hadn’t mirrored her own thoughts. The new sheriff, Shane Hightower, had yet to earn her trust.
“But you’re injured,” she said, doubt creeping into her voice. “You need help. I have to call someone.”
“No,” he said. “Too dangerous.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“Not me.” His voice weakened on every word, but his eyes locked on hers, filled with intensity. “Dangerous...for you.”
“Me?”
“Can’t...” The pauses were getting longer. “Protect... you anymore.”
Her eyes flew wide. “Protect me? Is that what you call what you did? Kidnapping me? Throwing me in a ditch? Protecting me?”
“Knew...I wouldn’t...hurt you. Not so sure...about them.”
A hot rush of disbelief chased away the last of her chills. He was senous. Or maybe delirious.
She couldn’t hear what he said next. “What?” She leaned close.
“Won’t...” His words drifted warm across her cheek on a gossamer thread of breath. “Hurt...you.”
Then his eyes closed, not to reopen.
Rising tears made her passages burn, but she held back the flood. In all that had happened, he never had really hurt her, had he? On the contrary, she had been the one to beat him—an injured man—nearly senseless.
Reaching out, she took his hand in hers, rubbing his palm and wrist to rouse him. “Hey, stay with me here.”
His eyes remained closed, but she knew he heard her when he squeezed her fingers.
The doctor’s office in town would be closed this late. And the nearest emergency room was in St. George. Given the weather, even if they dispatched an ambulance right away, it would be almost an hour before it arrived.
Then there was the stranger’s warning, “Too dangerous... for you.” An ambulance call would bring the sheriff or his deputies, as well. Could the stranger be right about them? She couldn’t take the chance. At leas
t, not until he’d had a chance to explain himself.
In the meantime, she needed to get him warm and dry. But that meant getting him out of those clothes, which were cold and wet. She was in unfamiliar territory here, but like it or not, this man was her responsibility, at least for now. Chewing her lip, she went to work.
His socks and boots came off first. He had long, sturdy feet, with toes slightly wrinkled from the dampness. That small sign of humanity gave her the courage to move on.
When she pushed his arms over his head to pull his T-shirt off, he hissed and jerked his elbows down. His head arched back, the strong cords of his neck straining as his throat convulsed.
Of its own accord, her hand snaked out and rested on his forehead, as if by touching him, she could take the pain into her own body. When he settled, her fingers trailed down his square jaw. His beard stubble grazed her knuckles and she sucked in her breath at the unfamiliar feel, softer than she’d expected, more silken than wiry.
“Come on,” she said quietly, “we’ve got to get this shirt off you.”
“Hmm.”
Did that mean he understood? Even if he did, she doubted he would be much help at this point. Suddenly inspired, she hurried to the kitchen and brought back a pair of sharp shears.
While she worked the blades up his chest, he hardly seemed aware of her. His lips moved, but no sounds came out. Once she’d snipped through the collar and sleeves, she laid the scissors out of his reach and peeled back the sides of the ruined shirt.
The sight underneath made her gasp.
Never had she seen such battered flesh. The skin looked puffy, mottled in places, risen in welts in others. Bruises that would be vivid by morning had just begun to color. Lord, what had they done to him? No wonder he was unconscious.
With a new sense of urgency, she eyed his jeans. The wet denim molded to the outline of lean hips, thickly muscled thighs, and a rounded mound of maleness at their juncture. The way the heavy fabric clung to him, she wasn’t sure she could cut the pants off without hurting him.
Pushing desperation out of her voice, she tapped his cheeks lightly with her palms. “Wake up. Just for a few seconds.”
His eyes opened to half-mast. The last measure of color drained from his face. He looked up at her, as vulnerable as a harp seal before the clubbing. “No ambulance. Please.”
He was really out of it. “No. No ambulance. Not now.”
She quickly unbuckled his belt and popped the button at the waist of his jeans. Her hands trembling, she hesitated. “I’m going to take these off, okay?”
“Not a...first date...kinda guy.” He lifted one corner of his mouth, then let it fall as if the effort had done him in.
A joke? He had made a joke? She could happily have strangled him. “Save your breath and lift your hips.”
Even with him cooperating, liberating a two-hundred-pound man from wet jeans was no picnic. When they finally slid over his feet, the sudden lack of resistance sent her stumbling across the room. Once she’d righted herself, the sight of his nearly naked body nearly buckled her knees again. Her eyes slowly traversed the foreign contours. Hard. Powerful.
All male.
Her study covered the length of him, absorbing every detail. The way his wide chest tapered to a tight waist. The layers of ridged abdominal muscles between his hipbones. Then lower.
He still wore the boxer briefs he’d had on beneath his jeans, but to tell the truth, they didn’t provide him much modesty. The damp knit clung sensuously to his masculinity.
He was definitely all male.
Refusing to acknowledge the heat suffusing her cheeks, she quickly wrapped him in a blanket and stepped back from the bed. Her imagination, however, had no trouble filling in the details her sight could no longer provide.
Chiding her own foolishness, she bent to retrieve the jeans that had sailed to the floor when she’d pulled them off and stumbled. As she picked them up, folding them over her arm, a small leather wallet slipped out of the back pocket.
Startled, she realized that she’d never thought to ask who the stranger in her guest room was. Though her natural instinct was to respect privacy, she opened the wallet. Inside she found five one-hundred-dollar bills, two credit cards—both Platinum—and a California driver’s license.
“Oh, my God.” She looked over to the man on the bed, the wallet forgotten. “You’re Eric Randall.”
Deep into the hours too late to be considered night and too early to be called morning, Mariah shoved Eric Randall’s pistol into a kitchen drawer and silenced the kettle’s insistent whistle, pouring herself a cup of tea. The herbal blend, harvested from her own garden, helped her think. Tonight she needed the warmth, too. She was cold to the bone.
Stretching the sleeves of her bulky sweater over her hands, she sat down at the butcher-block table. Maggie trotted in and curled up at Mariah’s feet, warming her toes. She spread yesterday morning’s newspaper, salvaged from the trash bin, out in front of her, carefully pressing away the wrinkles.
The lead article detailed the death of professional motocross racer Mike Randall. Riding alone in the canyons south of town, Randall had evidently misjudged a jump and crashed. His bike had plunged over fifty feet into a river below, then snagged on a cluster of rocks, but his body had apparently been swept away by the strong spring current fed by mountain runoff. Officials stated the body could have been carried miles by the time of the report. It could be days before it was recovered. A tragic accident, the paper called his death.
But what had happened to Eric Randall was no accident. Someone—the deputies?—had beaten him brutally. But why?
She’d heard a motorcycle on the mountain the day Mike died—or she thought she had, just before the blackness took her. She thought it had been Mike, until she’d read about his accident the next day.
Could it have been the same men who’d chased Eric down the mountain? She had to remember.
Closing her eyes, she let her mind dnft, looking for answers. Deeper. Darker. To the edge of the abyss. A black vortex swirled around her, growing stronger as she plunged into her own subconscious. Colors and shapes blurred. Sounds. Motorcycles? Voices? She delved down to them. The maelstrom buffeted her, churned in her stomach. Almost there. She could just about see it. Nearly touch it. She reached out her hand and found...
Emptiness.
The world dropped from beneath her and she tumbled downward—out of control, like that falling sensation in a dream.
Her eyes snapped open. Her body jolted. The answers weren’t there. Her memories were gone, their loss no less devastating than if flesh and bone had been shorn away.
In a fit of frustration, she crumpled the newspaper, taking perverse pleasure in crushing it into the smallest possible wad before stuffing it back in the garbage.
She couldn’t remember what had happened that day. Didn’t know why Mike hadn’t met her on the mountain as he’d planned. Who had been riding the motorcycle she’d heard?
Nothing.
But one man might be able to help her find out.
Wrapping both hands around her mug to warm her fingers, she padded down the hall and studied the man resting fitfully in her guest bed. Whatever trouble Eric had run into on the mountain must be related to Mike’s death. Surely coincidence hadn’t brought disaster on both Randall brothers in such a short space of time. Maybe Eric knew what had happened to Mike. And if he knew what had happened to Mike, he knew what had happened to her.
She took another reassuring sip of tea. She had a lot of questions for Eric Randall. Now all she had to do was keep him alive long enough for him to answer them.
Ten minutes later, she set a pot of warm water on the table beside his bed. Her fingers reacquainted themselves with the contours of his body as she bathed him—the smooth places and the rough, the hairless and the lightly furred—slowly, carefully. All the while her mind struggled for distance, detachment.
Struggled, and lost.
His body fascinated h
er. Her touches began to linger, her cleansing strokes to caress. In her wildest dreams she’d never touched a man that way. Especially not a man like him. Beaten and battered as it was, his body radiated power and strength. Sensuality. Virility.
Get a grip. The man is unconscious.
She quickly finished her removal of the mud and blood, wrapped him in a clean, thick blanket, dimmed the lamp and pulled up a chair to wait.
Outside, the storm diminished. Inside, a new squall waited to begin. As her eyelids grew heavy, the nightmares crept closer: motorcycles, blood and the mountain.
Always the mountain.
The first thing Mariah noticed when she woke was the silence. The wind had died; the storm had passed. A crystal sky hovered over the mountain peaks. Morning had sneaked up on her while she fretted away the night.
Yawning, she checked her patient. He lay still as death in the center of the bed. Drooping lids only half revealed dull and sightless eyes.
She lurched forward in her chair, her heart pounding with fear. God, she should have insisted on an ambulance. What if she’d killed him with her negligence? “Are you awake?”
His mouth moved, but no sounds came out.
Leaning forward, she laid her palm on his cheek. He was warm. Too warm. He seemed to labor to lift his chest for each shallow breath he drew.
He couldn’t die. She wouldn’t let him. Not while he was in her care.
She had to get him help. But who to trust?
Suddenly decisive, she picked up the telephone and punched in a number she knew by heart. Gigi. Gigi would know what to do.
Twenty-five minutes later, a pickup almost as dilapidated as her own cut through the puddles in Mariah’s driveway. Mariah waited on the porch while her friend pulled a set of yellow coveralls over her bright pink leggings and tunic sweater. Gigi’s blond curls bobbed around her shoulder with their usual enthusiasm as she bounded up the walk.
“You said you had someone in trouble. Who is it?” Dr. Gigi McCowan, the best veterinarian in southwest Utah, even if she did have a New York accent, and Mariah’s best friend, asked. “Molly?”
Virgin without a Memory Page 3