The Heart of a Stranger

The four-year-olds stood for a moment, just staring at the stranger, then they reached out and patted his hair, giving him the kind of comfort they liked to receive.

Lourdes’s eyes went misty. Her girls had never known a father. There were no important men in their lives, no one to offer masculine guidance.

Of course the louse who’d sired them wouldn’t have fit the bill. Gunther Jones had been a criminal and a convict, a drug addict and a thief.

And what kind of man are you? she wanted to ask the sleeping stranger.

Maybe he was married. Maybe he had a wife and children, a family who loved him, who wondered and worried why he hadn’t come home.

She glanced at his left hand, at the absence of a ring. Then again, maybe he was single. Or divorced. Or—

What? A criminal? A thief?

I should call the sheriff, she thought.

But she’d promised Cáco that she wouldn’t.

“Come on,” she said to the twins, drawing them away from the bed. “It’s time to eat.”

She prodded her daughters out the door, then stopped to look back at the man.

The handsome intruder was already weaving his way into her life.

Two

Something went bump in the night. Battling sleep, Lourdes glanced at the clock—2:46 a.m.

Another bump sent her reaching for her robe. The house might be old, with creaking floors and rattling windows, but she recognized human footsteps when she heard them.

Belting her robe, she crept to her door and peered out.

The shadowy figure coming down the hall stood tall and broad-shouldered.

Was he sleepwalking?

She blew out a breath and prepared to guide him back to bed. She’d read somewhere not to awaken a sleepwalker, not to alarm the person into consciousness.

Would it be all right to talk?

Probably not.

Silent, she headed toward him, stopped and took his arm. He wasn’t a shadowy figure anymore. He was solid and real, his muscles strong and hard beneath her fingers.

“Can’t find the bathroom.”

She started at the sound of his voice. “You’re awake?”

“Gotta pee.”

Oh, my. “Okay. But you’re going the wrong way.” Still holding his arm, she turned him around. He didn’t seem particularly steady on his feet, and she was too concerned to let go.

“It’s here. This door.” She put his hand on the wood, guiding him as if he were blind. Could he do this by himself? Lord, she hoped so. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Know how to use the bathroom,” he muttered. “Not a kid.”

No, he was a grown man, struggling to find the doorknob. “Maybe a bedpan would be better for now.” Not that they had one lying around, waiting for this opportunity to present itself. “Or a bucket,” she added, deciding Cáco had probably placed a basin of some sort near his bed. The older woman wouldn’t have left something like that to chance.

“No bedpan. No bucket.” He pushed the door open and fumbled for the light switch.

She turned it on for him, blasting them with a hundred-watt bulb.

He squinted, and she noticed the glazed look in his eyes. He had no idea where he was or who he was talking to. All he knew, apparently, was that his bladder was full.

He zigzagged into the bathroom, then closed the door with a resounding click.

Lourdes stood by nervously, not wanting to listen, but knowing she had to. In case he tripped and stumbled. Bashed his head against the sink.

She heard the telltale sound and breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, it wasn’t a very consistent sound, making her wonder if his aim was off. After a long pause, the toilet flushed. Then running water. Even in his confused state, he’d managed to wash his hands. Habit, she supposed.

He opened the door and stared at her.

She reached for his arm. “I’ll take you back to your room. But next time, I think you should use a bedpan.” Or one of those plastic bottles designed for his gender, she thought. The pharmacy probably stocked them.

“No bedpan,” he told her.

“Stubborn man,” she said.

“Stubborn woman,” he parroted.

Lourdes couldn’t help but smile. Never in a million years could she have imagined engaging in a conversation like this one, with a stranger no less.

His room was dark, so she turned on a night-light. He made a beeline for his bed, climbed in and pulled the sheet to his waist. He’d kicked away the rest of the covers, she noticed.

Was he still feverish?

She decided not to jam a thermometer under his tongue. Instead she pressed a hand to his forehead.

“You’re a little cooler, but still warm.” She reached for the pitcher on the nightstand and filled his glass, which already contained a straw. “Do you want some water?”

He shook his head. “Who are you?”

“Lourdes.”

“Like the place in France?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a dream?”

“No. I’m real.”

She picked up the water he’d refused, encouraging him to drink. He sipped from the straw and winced. Not from the taste, she suspected, but from the nasty cut on his lip.

“Will you lie down with me?”

Her heart jumped, pounding triple time. “I can’t. I have my own room.”

“Will you kiss me?”

Heaven help her. “Your lip is split.” Had he already forgotten the pain?

He made a face. “This is a crummy dream.”

She set his water down, realizing the glass was sweating in her hand.

“I have a headache,” he said suddenly. Tilting his head, he measured her with swollen, glassy eyes. “Sorry. That should have been your line.”

Lourdes nearly laughed. In spite of his concussion, he had a sense of humor.

“You should go back to sleep,” she told him.

“I’m already asleep. Can’t dream when you’re awake.”

Oh, but you could, she thought.

Of course, she never did. She was too busy to daydream, to create fantasies in her mind. Her life consisted of hard, strong doses of reality.

A horse farm she could barely keep afloat.

“Good night,” she said, rising to shut off the light.

“Lourdes?”

She turned, surprised to hear her name in his rough timbre. “Yes?”

“Are you sure you can’t lie down with me?”

She smiled. She shouldn’t have, but she did. He was quite the charmer.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, wondering how much of this he would remember in the morning. “I’ll bring you breakfast.” She glanced at the clock. “When it’s light out.”

Just to see if he recalled that the lady named Lourdes wasn’t a dream.

The aroma of fresh-perked coffee, frying eggs and bacon sizzling and snapping on the grill wafted through the air.

Lourdes followed the glorious scent and found Cáco in the kitchen, where she bustled around the stove in an oversize dress and a tidy bun.

“Good morning.” Cáco stopped bustling long enough to pour a cup of coffee and hand it to Lourdes.

“’Morning. Thank you.” Lourdes added a nondairy powdered creamer. She never used milk. She liked her coffee piping hot, and diluting it with another liquid defeated the purpose.

She’d dressed for a long day on the farm, donning jeans and boots and clipping her dark blond hair back with a huge barrette. Already she’d called a friend who’d offered to loan her a ranch hand until she could find someone permanent.

Lourdes was picky about who worked for her. With only women and children in her household, she wasn’t willing to take chances.

Yet she’d allowed an injured stranger into one of her beds.

Find the logic in that, she told herself, recalling every detail from last night, including her offer to bring him breakfast.

The logic? Hadn’t Cáco already convinced her they were meant to help him?

“Is your patient ready for solid food?” Lourdes asked.

The old woman lifted the lid on a small pot. “Oatmeal.”

Hot cereal made sense, she supposed. Easier on the stomach than bacon and fried eggs, but heavy enough to stick to his ribs.

“I dressed his wounds this morning,” Cáco said. “Argued with him to take his medicine, too.”

“Argued?”

“He doesn’t like the taste. Stubborn man.”

“Yes.” Lourdes’s entire body went warm.

Stubborn man. Stubborn woman. Will you lie down with me? Will you kiss me?

She finished her coffee and spooned oatmeal into a bowl. “Is it all right to bring him some juice?”

Cáco looked up. “You’re feeding him?”

Not literally, she hoped. “You’re busy. I don’t mind helping out.”

“Give him fruit instead.”

“Canned peaches?” Her daughters liked them in the morning. Maybe he would, too.

“That’s fine. Don’t dawdle. Your own breakfast is almost ready.”

With an indignant sniff, Lourdes prepared his tray. “I never dawdle.”

Cáco sniffed, too. “You haven’t been in the company of a handsome man in a long time.”

She wouldn’t let the old woman rile her. Not now. Not while her heart had picked up speed at the prospect of seeing him. “He’s handsome? I hadn’t noticed. It’s a little hard to tell through all those bruises.”

“You’re a bad liar.” Her surrogate grandmother almost smiled, then added a napkin to the tray. “And I suppose your breakfast will keep.”

Okay, so she’d been found out. But hey, she had the right to look, didn’t she?

Yes, but not too closely, she decided as she ventured down the hall with his breakfast. He could be married. Not all married men wore wedding bands. She’d do well to remember that. To keep reminding herself that she knew absolutely nothing about him.

Lourdes found him sitting up in bed, staring into space.

“Hi.” She moved closer. “I brought you some food.”

He shifted his gaze, looked at her. “Where am I?”

“You’re in Texas, on the outskirts of Mission Creek.” Not knowing what else to do, she placed the tray in front of him and sat on the edge of his bed. “At a horse farm. We’re taking care of you until you feel better.”

“I’m not a horse.”

She almost smiled. “No, of course not.” Adjusting the tray, she centered it over his lap. She wanted to comfort him. To ease his confusion. “Do you remember me? My name is Lourdes.”

He measured her, the way he’d done last night. “The girl from France. From my dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream, and I’m not from France. But my father was.” She caught sight of the silver cross. Her father’s necklace, the one he’d given her mother a month before he’d died. “Do you like oatmeal? Cáco added milk and sugar to it.”

“Cáco?”

“My surrogate grandmother. She helped raise me.” When Lourdes was a child, Cáco had been hired as a cook and housekeeper, but somewhere along the way, she’d become family.

“The gray-haired lady?”

“Yes. It’s okay to think of her as an old woman. She’s Comanche, and they recognize five age groups.” Or at least Cáco did. “Old men and women are one of the age groups.”

“She made me drink that awful tea. I don’t like tea.”

Now Lourdes did smile. “Coral root is a plant that grows around the roots of trees in dry, wooded areas. It’s rather scarce. Some people call it fever root because it’s an effective fever remedy.”

He reached for his spoon and tasted the oatmeal. Then alternated to the peaches and back again. She poured him a glass of fresh water. He put his cut-and-swollen mouth around the straw and sipped.

Will you kiss me?

Your lip is split.

“Cáco is helping me raise my daughters,” she said, filling the awkward silence.

“You have children?”

“Yes. Twins. They’re four. Very smart and very pretty.”

“You’re pretty,” he told her. “I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed about a girl from France before.”

“I’m not from France,” she reminded him again, flattered that he thought she was pretty and uncomfortable that he still considered her a dream.

It seemed romantic somehow. Like a transposed fairy tale, where the princess awakens the handsome stranger with a warm, sensual kiss.

“Why am I so confused?” He pushed the oatmeal away. “I don’t like being bumble-brained.”

“Cáco says it will pass. It’s part of the concussion. Your head injury,” she clarified.

He went after the peaches again, ignoring the oatmeal he’d discarded. He ate carefully, inserting the spoon in the side of his mouth that wasn’t swollen. “Your name is Lourdes, and you’re not from France.”

“That’s right. What’s your name?” she asked, wondering why she hadn’t inquired before now.

He gave her a panicked stare.

Dear God, she thought. Dear, sweet God. He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. “It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t.” He dropped his spoon, and it bounced against the tray, making a metallic hum. “I don’t know who the hell I am. Not my name. Where I live. Where I’m from.”

“It’ll come back to you.”

“When?”

A few days? A few weeks? She had no idea. “I’ll ask Cáco. She understands more about head injuries than I do.”

“Where’s my driver’s license?”

“We think it was stolen. With your wallet.”

“I don’t have a name. What kind of person doesn’t have a name?”

She reached for his hand to stop the quaking. She would be afraid if she’d lost her identity, too. “I’ll give you one.”

His chest rose and fell. He was a handsome stranger, she thought. A disoriented John Doe.

John?

No, that was too obvious. “Juan,” she said.

“Juan,” he repeated, accepting her choice. “Juan what? I need a last name. People have last names.”

A handsome stranger.

“Guapo,” Lourdes decided.

He merely blinked.

“Is that all right?” she asked.

Was it? he wondered. He knew what Guapo meant. Handsome in Spanish.

Had she chosen that name purposely? Did she like the way he looked?

How could she? He’d caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. He’d seen the swelling and the bruising, the gash across his mouth.

What was ugly in Spanish?

Feo.

Maybe she should have called him Juan Feo instead.

“Is the name I gave you all right?” she asked again.

A little embarrassed, he nodded. If the pretty woman in his dream thought he was handsome, what could he do?

He cocked his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. This wasn’t a dream. She kept telling him that. This was real.

But how was that possible? She seemed like an angel, with the honey-colored streaks in her hair and the gilded light in her chocolate-brown eyes.

Angels only existed in dreams.

A French angel who spoke Spanish. Surely, he was confused.

He didn’t stop to think of why he spoke Spanish, too. He just knew that he did. Or that he understood enough of the language to get by.

“I’m not very hungry anymore,” he said. His head hurt from all the confusion, and his eyelids had grown heavy.

She took the tray away and placed it on top of a simple oak dresser. “You look sleepy.”

“I am.” He wanted to ask her to lie down with him, but decided that wouldn’t be a very gentlemanly thing to do. Then he remembered that he’d already asked her, and she’d refused. Of course, she’d refused. They were strangers. And she had children with another man.

“Where’s your husband, Lourdes?”

She turned and fussed with the collar on her shirt. She was dressed like a cowgirl, with varying shades of denim hugging her curvaceous body. “I don’t have a husband. He died before I could divorce him.”

He thought that was an odd thing for her to say, but he was glad she wasn’t married. He didn’t want her cuddling up to someone else at night.

He had a right to covet his dream.

“I should let you sleep. Besides, I still have to eat. And get my daughters up. And go to work.”

“When will I see you again?” he asked, worried that she’d disappear, that he’d truly created her in his mind.

“Soon,” she said, reaching for the tray.

He closed his eyes for what seemed like a second, but when he opened them, the room was empty.

Juan Guapo’s angel was already gone.

Three days went by, but Lourdes hadn’t seen much of Juan. She’d deliberately kept her distance. He was Cáco’s patient, after all. And Lourdes was busy with the ranch. A busy bee, trying to keep her mind off a man who might be married.

She gazed at the horses in pasture. Her herd was small, but striking, a glorious sea of color, patches of chestnut, bay and black splashed against white. The paint horse was an eye-catching champion, praised in cultures all over the world.

Their image appeared in cave drawings in south-central Europe and on tombs in ancient Egypt.

Lourdes revered them with all her heart.

The way she revered the silver cross Juan wore.

Damn it. She ran her hands through her breeze-ravaged hair. Why did her thoughts always turn to him?

Because she was a foolish woman behaving like a schoolgirl.

She checked her watch and realized she was stalling, dragging her feet to go home for lunch.

Cursing her growling stomach, she gave up the fight. Her temporary ranch hand had headed into town to meet his wife at the diner.

And Juan—

Would disappear from her life soon enough, she acknowledged as she drove to her destination with the windows down and the radio turned up.

Two songs later, Lourdes entered the house and headed for the kitchen. After opening the refrigerator, she removed the covered containers Cáco had left for her. Beneath the lids, she found a ham and cheese sandwich, a pasta salad and an assortment of diced fruit.

Where was Cáco? Lourdes glanced at the microwave clock. Ironing clothes in the laundry room, most likely. Finishing her chores so she could watch the two o’clock soap opera that entertained her for an hour each day.

Lourdes made up a plate and went to the dining room, then stopped when she saw Juan sitting at the table with Amy, Nina and Paige.

The twins occupied the chairs on either side of Juan, and Amy had taken up residence across from them.

The teenager drew on a sophisticated sketchpad while the other three made haphazard art with crayons and coloring books.

He was coloring with her daughters.

Dressed in the jeans Cáco must have laundered for him, with no shirt and no shoes, he looked like a tenderhearted renegade. He’d shaved, showered and combed his damp hair away from his face. Lourdes knew Cáco had purchased a few simple toiletries for him at the market, adding an extra toothbrush, disposables razors and deodorant to the grocery list. He’d probably washed his hair with the no-more-tears baby shampoo already in the bathroom. But she supposed that was safer on his bruise-ringed eyes.

Nina wiggled in her chair, turned and saw Lourdes. “Hi, Mama.”

“Hi, baby.”

“We’re coloring.”

“So I see.”

Paige wiggled a little, too. Then grinned at Lourdes.

Her girls looked happy. Thrilled to have a big, brawny man beside them.

Amy spared a friendly glance, and Juan worked his lips into a lopsided smile. The cut had begun to heal, the swelling barely noticeable.

Will you kiss me?

Because Lourdes stood in the middle of the room with a plate of food, she moved forward and took a chair.

“Look, Mama.” Nina pushed a coloring book toward her. “Juan made the lady’s hair green.”

He defended himself with his crooked smile. “You told me to,” he said to the child. “And you, you little rascal.” He turned to the other twin. “You told me to color her hands purple and her feet pink.”

Paige didn’t deny his claim. Instead she looked up at him with big doe eyes.

Her quiet daughter had already developed a crush on him, Lourdes realized. Paige, the observer, was smitten.

That made two of them. Only Paige’s crush didn’t seem nearly as consuming as the one Lourdes battled. But how could it? Paige was only four years old, with an attention span that flitted like a butterfly.

“That’s quite a picture,” Lourdes told the three amigos who’d created it. “A true masterpiece. A collaboration worth framing.”

“We think so.” Juan took the coloring book back. And for a moment their eyes met and held.

“I’m surprised to see you up and about,” she said to him.

“Staying in bed all the time was making me stir-crazy. Besides, I’m feeling better. I’m not seeing double anymore.” He shifted to look at each twin. “Then again…”

The girls giggled, and Lourdes admired his easy manner with her kids.

Maybe he had a few little ones of his own.

And a loyal wife who missed him terribly.

Defending herself, she took a bite of her sandwich. So she was attracted to him? So what? Even if he were single, she wouldn’t get involved with him. Lourdes didn’t do affairs.

She wouldn’t be doing Juan.

Amy, who’d been silent up until now, closed her sketchbook and rose. “I’m going to get some pudding and watch TV.”

“Can we get pudding and watch TV?” Nina chirped. She always spoke for her sister, making plans for both of them. Today they wore matching T-shirts and identical ponytails. They insisted on being groomed with the same clothes, the same shoes, the same accessories. If Nina sported a red hair ribbon, Paige did, too. If Paige picked a lavender dress from the mall, Nina decided lavender was her new favorite color, as well.

Lourdes granted them permission to follow Amy, and the trio scattered, leaving her and Juan alone.

Silence drifted between them.

Awkward silence.

Lourdes tasted the pasta salad, then wished she hadn’t. Suddenly she felt self-conscious chewing in front of him.

He began gathering crayons and dumping them into the plastic container in which the twins kept them.

She glanced at the cross around his neck. As usual, it dangled near his heart, shining like a memory.

Should she say something? Tell him it had once belonged to her?

No, she couldn’t. Not now. Not this soon. She wasn’t ready to spill her emotions. Or to explain that Cáco thought his arrival at the ranch was fate.

“Have you had lunch?” she asked instead.

“Cáco made soup and sandwiches. I ate with her and the girls.” He studied a broken crayon, a waxy, worn-down shade of blue. “I’m sorry if I said some strange things.”

She tried for a casual air. “Strange things?”

“When my brain was bumbled.”

“You didn’t.” But he did, she thought. He’d said plenty of strange things. Sexy, she-was-his-dream things. “I mean, it’s okay. You were confused.” But he seemed focused today, completely aware of his surroundings. He still appeared tired, though, as if he needed a nap.

“Are you ready to talk to the police?” she asked.

He shuffled the broken pieces of the blue crayon. “To question them about missing persons in the area? No, I’m not. I’d prefer to regain my memory first. Cáco is convinced my amnesia is only temporary.”

“Juan, someone is probably worried about you, wondering where you are. Surely you have family somewhere.” Dare she say it? “A wife. Children.”

“I’m not married,” he responded quickly.

Too quickly? she wondered.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I can feel things about myself. And I know I’m not married. There’s no one special in my life. Nor do I have children.”

He made a troubled face, and she suspected some of the things he “felt” about himself made him uncomfortable.

“Cáco says I need some time to adjust.”

She picked at her sandwich. Was he avoiding his real identity on purpose? Hiding from mysterious shadows? From dimly lit corners? Or was he simply trying to make peace with his empty mind?

Now wasn’t the time to ask.

She would let him adjust, and then she would question him.

Because Lourdes Quinterez had the right to know what kind of man Juan Guapo truly was.

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