The Ranger and The Rescue

Lucky for her, she’d decided to major in psychology when she’d attended college. She didn’t know much about amnesia, but recalled that no certain cure existed. The likelihood of the stranger recovering his memory soon was slight.

She pulled a flimsy scrap of leopard-print cloth out of the jeans, then tossed the pants into the washer with detergent and set the water to the hottest setting. After vainly checking for a label in the shirt, she added it to the washer with the socks.

Coming to the underwear, she stopped. Leopard-print thongs seemed out of character for her cowboy. Were they silk? She poked at the fabric. Searching for the label, she thought they were the kind of sexy underclothing that a man might receive as a gift from a lover.

Her teeth ground together. She took a deep breath, seeking calmness, before putting the underwear into the wash with his other clothes. She told herself that she cared if he had a girlfriend only because a lover would miss him and, perhaps, search for him. Otherwise, Serenity decided, she wasn’t concerned at all. Letting a man into her life wasn’t an option for her.

She dropped the lid over the churning, bubbly wash and went to the kitchen to clean up the remains of their supper. Nice of him to flatter her cooking. Hank never had. She washed the plates and stacked them in the drainer to drip dry.

She sniffed at the dregs of his iced tea before rinsing his glass. The tea should promote sleepiness, if her Healing Herbs book was to be believed. She doubted its efficacy. She doubted everything.

He’d drunk close to three glasses. If the stuff worked, he should be so woozy that he’d fall asleep in the shower.

Walking down the hall, she listened as the sound of the water stopped. The glass door creaked, then slammed. She guessed that he’d stepped out and was drying off.

She imagined a taut, muscular body gleaming with wetness as he rubbed one of her towels across his chest. Her feminine, peach-colored linens would be a spine-tingling contrast with his developed pecs and furry, masculine chest.

Leaning against the doorpost of the guest room, she mopped her damp brow with the sleeve of her dress before squelching those wild thoughts. She hadn’t dared to dream about any man since shortly after she’d married.

She couldn’t be attracted to him. That was just plain stupid, and she hadn’t survived by being stupid. Chances were that Hank had sent him. She’d been lucky that this stranger had lost his memory.

The usual treatment for amnesia was to place the sufferer back into his normal environment. There, surrounded by the familiar, each reminder of who he was would trigger a flood of memories. But that remedy wasn’t an option for the stranger. In her home, she could keep him comfortable but ignorant.

Who had said keep your friends close but your enemies closer? That was her plan, though deep down, big men still frightened her.

She’d have to get over it.

Serenity opened the door to the guest bedroom. She generally used the room for craft projects—stringing crystal necklaces and the like. Since she was a naturally tidy person, no evidence of her work littered the desk. Her unexpected visitor would dwarf the narrow, single bed, but she couldn’t change either the size of the bed or the stature of the stranger.

Besides, she wouldn’t want to change him. She liked his stature just fine.

Serenity parted the beige drapes, then slid open the screened window to let the warm, sage-scented desert breeze into the room. She adjusted the black-and-white Mexican serape covering the bed, then fluffed the pillow. A rustle warned her of his presence. She turned.

He filled the doorway, tall and lean and powerful, with only a small peach towel covering his narrow hips. Droplets of water sparkled in his hair. A curly, dark masculine fluff dusted solid-looking pecs.

Blood roared in her ears as a long-dormant need awakened. Seminude, he looked better than she’d imagined. Where undecorated by hair, his amber skin looked satiny, touchable. She’d love to give him a massage, have a legitimate excuse to explore that body without fear. He wasn’t so big as to be intimidating, she realized. Not a giant. Just a man, though a very good-looking one.

She remembered to breathe. “Excuse me.” She had to get out of there fast, before she hyperventilated.

“Uh, Serenity, where are my clothes?”

“In the washer. They were filthy.”

He grinned, eyes twinkling at some unknown joke.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Nothin’. Hey, what am I supposed to do, run around nekkid?”

Not a bad idea. She swallowed. “Aren’t you sleepy?” Given the amount of tea he’d drunk, he ought to collapse.

Blinking, he stretched his arms over his head. His triceps bulged. The towel slid.

Sweating, she averted her eyes. A regular at the local clothing-optional swimming hole, she wasn’t body-shy. But this unknown stranger aroused a feminine passion she hadn’t felt for a long time, and one she didn’t want to feel now.

She peeked. His stretch made him look like a lean, powerful cougar, golden and sleek. He rolled back his shoulders, then cracked his knuckles. “I do believe you’re right, ma’am. After that delicious supper and nice, relaxing shower, bed would feel fine.” He winked at her.

On fire, she fled for the door. She didn’t want to think about, much less see, his entire body as he dropped the towel and slid between the sheets. “I’ll…I’ll get you another cold compress.” But she was the one who needed to chill out, though a little bitty compress wouldn’t cool the sudden fire he’d ignited.

She probably needed the entire North Pole.

Chapter Two

He ran through the darkness, fleeing a nameless, shapeless foe. Clinging sand conspired with the sharp desert wind in his face to slow him down.

He rolled over the side of an arroyo, hoping to find cover to wait out the threat. Easier to run on the firm-packed bottomland, but dangerous. The fitful moonlight concealed as much as it revealed, distorting the path. Any shadow could be a leg-breaking, ankle-wrenching pothole. With his pursuers gaining, a fall would be disastrous.

Rising, he sprinted down one twisting, turning cleft, then risked a look over his shoulder. His eyes confirmed what his ears already knew: they were closer.

Subterfuge, then. He dodged behind a boulder and crawled, wishing that the slight concealment would shadow his movements as he turned ninety degrees into a branch of the arroyo.

Bad move into a dead end. Dead end. He’d always hated that turn of phrase.

He checked for a cave at the back of the cleft, hope warring with his knowledge of the desert.

Nothing. Unless he could climb out fast, he was a goner.

His nose twitched, scenting an aroma different than the ordinary smells of sage and sand that perfumed the desert at midnight.

It was warm, with good associations, yet burning. Not wood smoke.

Coffee?

He opened his eyes. Early dawn light, pearly and pink, snuck through beige curtains at the window. Skin sweaty and muscles tense, he shifted his legs in a too short, too narrow bed, untangling himself from the twisted sheets.

Where was he? Who was he? Had his dream been a memory? Who had been chasing him? Why?

He remembered where he was. Safe. Relief flowed through his body like a cooling tide. He was safe in the guest room of the mysterious Lori Perkins, aka Serenity Clare, fortune-teller and organic cook.

His heartbeat tripped, then slowed. He stretched his body as much as he could in the tiny bed, taking inventory. His head hurt, but only at the site of the injury. The headache had gone, he realized with a sigh of relief.

Rising, he didn’t see his clothing. He chuckled. He didn’t mind going au naturel if nakedness got the reaction he wanted from pretty Serenity. He bet she had a trim little body underneath her loose, hippie-style clothes.

Guilt gnawed at the edges of his conscience. Serenity had generously welcomed him into her home and showed him nothing but kindness. She didn’t deserve a needy male getting fresh with her.

Besides, she might have a lover. Though he hadn’t seen a ring on her left hand, a woman as cute and nice as sweet little Serenity probably attracted men the way water drew horses after a long day’s ride.

He sniffed again. Coffee. How natural was coffee? Knowing Serenity, the coffee had probably been organically grown, roasted over an open fire, then ground by holy-spirited Tibetan monks. She’d brew it with Evian or some other kind of fancy, pure water, in a hand-blown, glass coffeepot that was free from hazardous chemicals.

He laughed out loud. He was doggone cynical, wasn’t he? Wrapping the now-dry towel around his midsection, he went in search of Serenity Clare and her magic coffee.

After striding into the living room, he stopped, arrested by the spectacle that met his surprised eyes.

The curtain on a wide picture window was open, giving a view of dawn over the desert. In front of the glass, an enormous, curved chunk of amethyst stood on a wooden holder. Ambient light caught and refracted through the lavender crystals studding the rock.

Before this display, Serenity sat, cross-legged, on a mat. Clothed in a gauzy robe that clung to her lithe body, her arrow-straight back was silhouetted by the first pale rays of dawn.

His pulse thundered in his ears. He sucked in a breath.

She emitted a hum. “Ommmmmm…” Her chant grew in volume as the sun rose.

A sunbeam, pure and sharp as a blade, knifed over the horizon and struck the amethyst. Split by the crystal into a thousand disparate rays, rainbows bounced around the room.

Serenity leaped to her feet, hands flung above her head, stretching her slender body as though she wanted to touch the sky. She arched back, her body bowing, then forward, slapping both palms on the ground.

He was confronted by her upturned bottom, outlined by her enveloping robe. Lust whipped through him, elemental and violent as lightning.

Shame immediately followed. How could he even think of repaying Serenity’s kindness with a pass during her morning meditation?

He crashed down the hall to the bathroom, scrabbling for control. Turning the shower on full-blast, he jumped in, punishing himself in the stinging, icy spray.

He hated not knowing who he was, but did he really want to find out? What kind of jerk was he? He hoped he didn’t react like a caveman every time he laid eyes on a woman. Sure, Serenity was pretty and nice, but he’d better learn to control himself around her. Or he’d have to leave, and he had no idea where to go or how to seek his past.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he heard her singing. Not “om,” but something lively and charming about a hard-knock life. Tentatively touching the healing bump on his head, he found that the song struck a chord with him.

He walked through the living room, now blessedly vacant of the resident dawn worshiper. At the kitchen door, he spied Serenity, dressed and seated at the table, earthenware mug nearby.

She looked up, her smile sunny as the newborn day. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Uh, I guess,” he answered, remembering his nightmare.

“What’s wrong?” She rose, approaching to press a palm to his forehead.

“I’m okay. I had some odd dreams, that’s all.”

Her smile faded. A concerned little pleat appeared between her eyebrows.

Before she could say anything, he asked, “Are my clothes dry?”

“I’ll check.” She left the kitchen through a door he hadn’t yet investigated. The yellow skirt of her loose, summery dress swished around her calves.

When he followed, he found a room full of ancient appliances. One was a washer, so his question was answered.

Serenity walked through a door that opened onto a small patio. The broken concrete adjoined an expanse of scrubby grass lined with desperate-looking succulents. A vine, leaves limp from neglect, hesitantly twined halfway up the back fence. The ground beneath it looked parched and cracked.

Next to the door stood two chairs, similar to those in the kitchen. One had a broken rung. A clothesline, hung with his apparel, dominated the tiny yard.

Holding on to his towel, he rubbed his heavy denim jeans between two fingers. Still damp and unwearable. His blue chambray shirt could also use more time in the sun. Only a minuscule scrap of leopard-print silk had dried.

He didn’t remember taking off underwear. He must have pulled down the thongs when removing the jeans. Fingering the silk, he stared at Serenity. She wore a small, ironic smile, the mate of the cynical grin he’d already seen on his own face when he’d looked in the mirror.

“These are mine?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“None other.” Her smile broadened. “Leopard-print thongs just aren’t my style.”

He couldn’t resist. “So what is your style?”

She went pink, a good color with her yellow dress and lightly suntanned skin.

He discovered that he loved to flirt, at least with Serenity Clare. He dangled the thong in her face by one thin strap. “Not natural enough?” he asked with a wink.

She chuckled. “Not unless spun by organic silk-worms on a communally owned farm.”

He guffawed. Serenity, the New Age priestess, had kept her sense of humor.

“Coffee?” She stepped back into the house.

After she’d gone, he draped the towel over the line and donned the skimpy underwear, feeling like an idiot. Once again he wondered what kind of a man he could be. He didn’t much like the thong. Was he a Chippendale dancer or something?

Seated at the farmhouse table, Serenity watched as the stranger entered the kitchen, clothed only in the scantiest scrap of silk she’d ever seen. She envied the fabric clinging to his body. How would his warm, satiny skin feel, caressed by her hand?

Tearing her mind away from that forbidden thought, she poured herself more coffee. “Paper?” She offered him the sports section of the Lost Creek weekly. Hank had always read the sports first.

What am I doing? Serenity angrily asked herself. I don’t have to please him. I don’t have to please any man. I have to please myself!

She dropped the paper onto the table and stood to fill his coffee mug.

He sat, sipped, and nodded. “Ma’am, I don’t know about organic java, but this sure is good.”

Serenity found herself beaming at his cheerful approval. She wanted to please him, but in a different way than she’d groveled to Hank. This stranger made her feel good and worthy, like the rest of her friends in Lost Creek, who also praised her cooking and enjoyed her company. She relaxed as much as she could in the presence of six feet of potent, sexy male, a man who might be threat…or seductive promise.

“When are we going into town?” He picked up the sports section and began reading it. A puzzled look stole over his face.

“When your clothes are dry.”

“When do you s’pose?”

She shrugged. “Maybe this afternoon.” Ignoring his frown, she asked, “Granola?”

“Uh, I guess. You know, I don’t recognize any of the names here.” He waved the paper. “Who are the Dallas Cowboys, and why would anyone care about their player trades?”

Serenity grinned. Here was the perfect man: a stud with no memories and no love of football. If it weren’t for his mysterious origins, she’d keep him forever. “While we’re waiting, why don’t we try a traditional path to knowledge. How about a tarot reading?”

After breakfast, Serenity sat on the floor of the living room and spread out the cards with assurance. Though a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, she knew she had a gift with the tarots. Time and again, customers returned to tell her that her readings had come true with uncanny accuracy.

Her life had delivered so many knocks that she didn’t believe in much. Not in the love of a husband or in the support of parents, and absolutely not in the kindness of fortune. Odd, but the tarots had never let her down.

Too bad she couldn’t use them to foretell her own fate, but the cards didn’t work that way. Otherwise, there’d be tarot readers winning the lottery and betting on the horses in every town. A pity.

Clearing her throat, Serenity flipped cards over onto the polished surface of her wooden coffee table. “The Hermit.” She raised her gaze to meet the stranger’s brown eyes.

He sat on the couch opposite her. His gaze still held a befuddled mistiness. Good.

“You seek higher knowledge,” she said.

His eyebrows pulled together. “Huh?”

“You are opposed by forces symbolized by the Seven of Cups. This is typical. We often become sidetracked by the things of the outer world—gold, riches, and so forth.” She looked up. The stranger had donned his blue chambray shirt. Half open, it exposed a set of sinewy pecs furred enticingly by a mat of dark, masculine hair.

She wanted to run her fingers through that sexy, virile pelt. Would it feel silky or rough against her hand? Shoving away the fantasy, Serenity shifted her attention to his face.

The stranger quirked his narrow, well-shaped lips. “Does that mean I have a lot of money?”

“Not necessarily. It means you want a lot of money, power, whatever.” She turned another card. “This symbolizes you. Hmm. Justice. That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

Serenity couldn’t tell him what she thought, but she guessed now that he was one of her ex-husband’s employees who’d gotten cold feet. She’d bet he’d tried to cross Hank. When Hank had found out about the stranger’s treachery, he’d been whacked on the head and left in the desert for dead.

After drawing in a breath, she let it out slowly. Stay calm. “Well, Mr. Justice, this card has an obvious meaning. You are a fair person, trustworthy and just.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” His eyes took on a hopeful, puppy-dog look.

She couldn’t help smiling, even though his arrival at her home meant complete disaster for her. “Of course.” She flipped over another card, then another. “These next cards predict the future.” Her gut clenching, she gulped.

“What’s wrong?”

“The Knight of Swords portends danger and violence. But it’s followed by The Lovers.” She stared at him.

His craggy, handsome face revealed nothing.

“Well, Mr. Justice, you’re in for a bad time.” Serenity swallowed hard. As she divined the meaning of the cards, her armpits grew damp and sweaty with tension. “But it looks as though everything is going to turn out all right for you.” Though not for her.

Sure as the sun rose in the east, Hank was going to come and get her. The reading favored the stranger, but the mere presence of The Lovers said nothing about her fate. The card could refer to his joyful reunion with his wife. Serenity loathed the notion.

Surprised by her jealousy, she stood, then shuffled the tarots together, even shakier than before.

The stranger grabbed her hand. “Wait. There has to be more than that.”

Serenity jerked away. The cards flew out of her chilled, stiff fingers. “There isn’t. I predict that you will recover your memories, but it will be a difficult process.”

“What are you so scared of?”

“I’m n-not scared.” She knelt to gather the cards, cursing them, the stranger, and Hank. Why couldn’t the world let her alone? Hadn’t she suffered enough?

“You’re terrified. Your hands are trembling and ice-cold. When I touched you, you pulled away as though I’d slapped you. What’s going on, Serenity?”

“Nothing’s going on. I just don’t like being touched, that’s all.” Standing, she put the cards on the table.

“You let me into your home. You saved my life. You obviously trust me. I’m…I’m Mr. Justice, right? Why can’t I touch you?”

Serenity fought back sobs. This was something that Hank, that beast, had done to her. Her throat threatened to close with unshed tears. “I can touch you. You can’t touch me. That’s just the way it is.” She ran to her room, overwhelmed.

Flinging herself onto her bed, Serenity rolled into a tiny ball, wanting to shut out the world. She’d cry herself to sleep even though it was only nine in the morning.

She wanted him, but she could never have him. What good would it do? She’d freeze up, just like the other times.

He stared after her. What the hell had just happened? Generally, Serenity Clare resembled the name she’d picked for herself. She reflected a clear, calm joy in living that he found very compelling, even attractive.

Now, a crack appeared in her tranquil facade. Walking down the hall, he contemplated the door she’d slammed then locked behind her, as though she were hurt or afraid.

Fear he could understand. Without a memory, he was scared himself. He couldn’t intrude, not even to comfort her. Nor could he probe further about her strange behavior.

What did her extreme reaction to the card reading mean? She obviously believed in the message of the tarots. Dumb to think that pieces of paper could predict anything, but Serenity wasn’t a dumb woman.

She’d been truly distressed by the Knight of Swords and The Lovers, and hadn’t wanted him to touch her.

Skittish. Was she on the run?

Returning to the living room, he picked up the cards and studied the Knight of Swords. A fearsome figure clad in full armor, his lips were skinned back from his teeth in a feral grin. This warrior relished the battle. Sword upraised as if to strike, he rode a racing warhorse through a barren landscape topped by a wind-whipped, stormy sky.

He shuddered. If the tarots told the truth, he was a killer.

Was Serenity his prey? Had unknown masters sent him to murder her?

Unacceptable.

He dropped the card, then found The Lovers. Adam and Eve, naked, stood in a grassy garden planted with a flaming bush and a fruit tree entwined with a snake. Surmounted by a glorious angel, the card’s symbolism was clear.

He didn’t wear a wedding band and couldn’t see a dent or a tan line to reveal that one had ever circled his left ring finger. But that meant nothing. Many married men didn’t wear a ring. All the better to cheat. He grimaced. He hoped he wouldn’t discover that he was the kind of man who’d two-time his wife.

His wife. Did she exist? Who was she? If he’d had such a powerful love in his life, why couldn’t he remember her, or any children they had?

What kind of monster was he?

He picked up Justice, the last of the cards. “Mr. Justice,” she’d called him. He hoped the silly moniker wouldn’t stick. But if he were a hired killer, the name had an intriguing irony.

Later that day, Serenity exited the shower and rubbed her wet hair with a towel. Examining her blond roots in the mirror, she decided to tint them the next time she shampooed. Combing her short “do,” she smiled at the scant five seconds it took to complete the task.

After wrapping the towel around her body, she opened the window to let out the steam. She’d better get a move on. The Labor Day festival, which the Lost Creek New Age community had planned to jump-start the fall tourist season, was only a few days away. She needed to string more crystal necklaces and meditate to put herself in the right frame of mind.

Her new and returning customers would demand scores of tarot fortunes. Sometimes they’d bring their friends or tape record their sessions until she became hoarse and exhausted by the strain. But she couldn’t say no. Her fortune-telling income was crucial to her survival since she’d fled from Hank.

She leaned her elbows on the frame of the window, which faced east. Hank. The merest thought of her abusive ex-husband made her innards cramp. She breathed deeply of the crisp, clean wind, seeking inner peace.

Perhaps she’d jumped to conclusions. If the stranger came from Hank, Hank knew her address. But he would have come for her himself. Her darling ex-husband wouldn’t have deprived himself of the pleasure of beating her to a pulp.

Again.

On the other hand, maybe Hank was nearby, watching, torturing her with uncertainty and suspense. Her flesh shivered and chilled at the thought.