Читать книгу Conception Cover-Up - Karen Lawton Barrett - Страница 13

A flash of lightning illuminated Shannon Garrett’s shadowy kitchen, followed quickly by the boom of thunder. Turning from the stove where she stirred the soup that was to be her dinner, she glanced through the window over the sink. Rain battered the diamond-shaped panes, blotting out her view. The wind outside howled like a wounded animal.

A strange prickly feeling came over her. This was going to be one hell of a storm, she thought. Thank heavens for propane tanks and oil lamps. It might be days before her electricity came back on.

She swung back to the stove and turned off the burner. The delicious smell of her homemade chicken soup wafted through the cabin, but she’d lost interest in eating. Suddenly, being alone, miles from civilization, didn’t seem like such a good idea. The storm and the dark were eerie. Shadows lurked in the corners of her small log cabin, making it feel claustrophobic, no longer the refuge it had been the past three years.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Shannon.”

The sound of her voice made her feel a little better. She was being silly. More for something to do than out of hunger, she took an oversize mug from the cupboard next to the sink and began to ladle soup into it.

A loud thump outside startled her. She paused to listen. A tree branch falling? When no other sound penetrated the howl of the storm, she went back to her soup.

Another loud bump made her heart rise to her throat. She stood absolutely still, head cocked, listening to the too-human sound of the wind groaning in the trees. Lightning illuminated the room like a strobe while thunder drowned out all other sounds. The silence that followed was broken by another skin-tingling groan. The door rattled as if something heavy had fallen against it.

Shannon put down the ladle, then opened a drawer and took out two large flashlights. Listening intently, she walked slowly to the front door. She wished it had a peephole. But then, without a porch light, she wouldn’t be able to see who it was anyway.

A flashlight in each hand, Shannon forced herself to be logical. It wasn’t likely that anyone was out there. The cabin was miles from her closest neighbor, even more miles from the main road. The few people who knew where she lived didn’t casually drop in on her. The noises that had spooked her were probably just those of a raccoon seeking shelter from the storm.

Still, she had to be smart here. This part of the Santa Cruz Mountains was remote enough to hide all kinds of criminal activity. It would be naive to ignore the facts. She turned on one of the flashlights.

Another crash against the door made her jump.

“Who is it?” Her voice sounded pathetically shaky.

“Open the door…need to…”

It was a man’s voice, and Shannon moved closer to the door. “Who’s out there? What do you want?”

Silence.

She held her breath. It was stupid to assume the man who’d answered her call had just gone away. The voice had been barely audible, but the plea had been clear. She’d have to be made of stone to ignore it.

Holding one flashlight over her head like a club, Shannon eased the door open slowly. She shone the other light on what looked like a large pile of wet rags on her front porch. The clump of fabric moved, the weak beam of the flashlight revealing a dark-haired man who lay on his side. His face was pale, his brows drawn together. His jaw was tight, as if he was gritting his teeth.

Keeping the light on him, Shannon moved onto the porch. “Are you all right? What happened to you?”

From the looks of him the man was far from all right. It was perhaps a silly question under the circumstances, but then, Shannon had never been in this situation before.

Using his left hand, he pushed himself to a sitting position. “Landslide,” he said, his voice as deep and dark as the night. He looked up at her with eyes the color of blue ice. Under several days’ growth of beard, his face was hard and drawn with pain. “Won’t hurt you…promise.”

Making what she suspected was a very foolish decision, Shannon set both flashlights on a table just inside the door, then reached down to help him up. He flinched when she touched his upper right arm.

Wondering if the flinch was involuntary or just a means of stalling, Shannon looked around cautiously. Was someone else out there? When lightning lit up the area around the cabin, all she saw were trees and her Jeep. No other vehicles.

“Are you alone?” Would he tell her if he wasn’t? Shannon thought dryly.

“Yeah.”

“How did you get here?”

He rose to one knee, bracing his hand on the wall for support. “Walked.”

“That must have been some walk.”

A gust of wind blew rain onto the porch, dampening her sweater and jeans. She really had no choice—she couldn’t leave the man out in the rain. Crouching on his left, she used both hands to help him stand. “Let’s get you inside before we both drown. We can discuss the hows and whys later.”

Her visitor leaned heavily on her as she guided him into the cabin. He was big, his body hard and muscular. His clothes were soaked through, and he was shivering. She led him to the couch. “Here, sit down in front of the fire.”

He slumped onto the couch. His eyes met hers for a second, then rolled back in his head as he passed out.

Shannon stared at her unconscious guest. Big and dark, he had a compelling face. Not exactly handsome, yet the kind of face that drew a woman’s attention, making her wonder if he was a saint or a sinner.

A cut at his hairline oozed blood, but a huge lump on his forehead drew her attention. Not wanting to hurt him, she touched it gingerly. No wonder he’d passed out. He probably had a concussion. Standing back, she saw that the rest of his body wasn’t in much better shape than his head.

His face and hands had several bruises and scratches. His black denim jeans were muddy and torn at the knees, as if he’d fallen. His jacket had a tear on the right arm. In short, he looked as if he’d gone through quite an ordeal.

Working as quickly and quietly as possible in the dim light, Shannon gathered the items she figured she’d need. With the help of one of the flashlights, she found the first-aid kit in the cupboard under the bathroom sink. She brought the kit, towels and a washcloth back to the living room and set them on the coffee table. In the kitchen she filled the teapot with bottled water, placed it on the burner and turned on the flame. It heated quickly. Deciding she’d need more light, she took the kitchen lantern and set it next to the one on the coffee table.

She returned to the kitchen and poured the warmed water in a mixing bowl. When she picked up the bowl, the water sloshed over the side. With shaking hands, she set it down and took a deep breath.

Relax, Shannon, she ordered herself. He’s just a human being who needs your help. Nothing more, nothing less. He can’t hurt you in his condition.

The pep talk didn’t work. Not when she knew better. Some people had no qualms about hurting others. Even people who claimed to love you hurt you. It would be unwise to assume this man meant no harm just because he’d been injured. His incapacity was only temporary.

Hugging herself in an effort to steady her nerves, Shannon walked over to the couch and looked down at him. She tried to read who he was by his appearance, for it was all she had to go on right now. His dark hair, still glossy from the rain, fell over his broad forehead, reminding her of a little boy who refused to comb his hair. But one glance at his hard face told her he was no boy. He was a man, a stranger.

Who knew where he’d come from? Could he be one of the drug dealers who were rumored to live in the hills?

She had to laugh at herself. The man could just as easily be one of the many computer programmers who commuted over the hill to Silicon Valley every day. Or he could be one of the retro hippies who thought Santa Cruz was the land of peace and love. Yet she’d automatically assumed he was a criminal on the run. She’d been buried in the hills so long her imagination was having a field day.

Of course, that still didn’t explain what this man had been doing wandering around in a storm so far from civilization.

He moved, emitting a low moan as some ache made itself known. Shannon responded to his pain. What did it matter who he was? He was hurt. He needed care. Until the power and phones were restored, she was his only chance of survival. So until then, she would just have to do what had to be done.

Her resolve set, she went back to the kitchen to retrieve the bowl of warm water. His wounds would need to be cleaned. She checked to make sure she had everything, then knelt in front of the couch.

She saw him shiver and knew his clothes would have to come off. Because of the way he’d reacted when she’d touched his arm, she decided to start from the bottom and work up. If he had a concussion, she knew she’d have to wake him soon, but she preferred he stay unconscious for the better part of her ministrations.

With hands held steady by determination, Shannon untied his shoes. She tugged off his muddy boots and set them aside. The dirty wet socks stuck stubbornly to his icy skin, but eventually gave in. She dunked a washcloth in the warm water and washed the dirt off his feet. His toes were long, the nails neatly trimmed. The sight of them eased some of her fears. She couldn’t imagine a drug dealer or murderer taking such care with his personal hygiene.

She gazed at the man dripping rainwater and mud on her sofa and wondered what act of recklessness had sent him out in a storm. An anger that felt way too familiar rose inside her. Sometimes she wondered if there was a man in the world who had the common sense to use the brains God gave him. They all thought they were invincible.

“And it’s left to us women to pick up the pieces.”

No response came from the unconscious stranger.

She leaned over to undo his belt. The jeans had to come off. Shannon pulled and tugged at them, but the muddy material clung to the man’s muscular thighs. She fought with the stubborn denim, struggling inch by inch to push it down his legs. “Come on, big guy, help me out here.”

Finally victorious, she tossed the jeans aside, then turned back. The sight of his white briefs made nearly transparent from the damp, had her drawing a sharp breath.

She’d been with one man in her life. She’d only seen one man naked in her life. She averted her gaze, feeling as if she’d invaded the man’s privacy.

He shivered violently, and Shannon realized her shyness was not only immature, but possibly dangerous to the man’s health. What did privacy matter to a person who was injured and cold?

Feeling a little unnerved anyway, she stripped off the briefs. She kept her gaze on his face as she draped a bath towel over his hips.

Glad to have the task completed, Shannon took a few minutes to wash the dirt and blood off his long muscular legs. She treated and bandaged the cuts on his knees, wishing there was something she could do to ease the painful-looking bruises, too. The more she saw of him, the more she realized what an ordeal he must have been through.

She moved up to sit beside him. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she had to see how his arm was under the jacket. She started on his left side, moving the sleeve down his arm slowly. In spite of her care, he moaned. He pushed weakly at her, trying to fight her off.

“Don’t! Leave me alone!” His eyes remained closed. He seemed to be in the middle of a nightmare. “Have to find Brandon. Have to find Brandon.”

“I don’t know who Brandon is, big guy, but you’re not going anywhere.”

His eyes opened suddenly, pale blue and feverish in his dark face. “Who are you?”

She smiled, relieved he was awake. “Shannon. How about you?”

He eyed her suspiciously. “What am I doing here?” He sat up gingerly. “Where are my pants?” He tried to stand, causing the towel to drop to the floor, leaving him bare from the waist down. He swayed and dropped back onto the couch, clutching his head with his good arm. “God, my head hurts like hell.”

Cheeks flushed, Shannon replaced the towel, then took an instant-ice pack out of the first-aid kit and handed it to him. “Here, hold this on that bump. It looks like you took quite a knock. It’s possible you have a concussion.”

The man did as he was told, evidently realizing he wasn’t in any shape to argue. “There was a landslide. The last thing I remember was a rock or something hitting me in the head.” He took the ice off his head and looked at her. “How’d I get here?”

Shannon reached over and guided the hand with the pack back to his head. “Keep that there.” His big hand was warm, but not feverish. Feeling a little tingle from the contact, she drew her fingers from his. “I have no idea how you got here. I found you collapsed on my porch not long after the electricity went out.”

He nodded, winced, then laid his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes.

Shannon could see he was hurting, but she didn’t want him falling asleep again. She knew the first twenty-four hours in a concussion were crucial. She had to keep him talking. What’s more, she had to find out who he was. “What’s your name?”

“My name?” His voice slurred. “What’s my name?”

He sounded as if he was about to doze off. “You said something about a landslide?” she asked.

She heard the trace of suspicion in her own voice. Caleb opened his eyes, and she realized he’d heard it, too. “The ground started to shake,” he told her. “I looked up and it seemed like the whole mountain was coming down on me. I tried to run for cover. The next thing I knew, I was hit and everything went black.”

“Do you know how long you were out?”

He looked at his watch, and she saw that the crystal was cracked. The time had stopped at three o’clock.

“What time is it now?” he asked.

“About seven.” Four hours, she thought, a long time to be wandering around in a storm. “Do you know how far you walked?”

Caleb tried to come up with an answer to her question, but cold seemed to seep through to his bones, making him shiver. He dropped the ice pack and wrapped his arms around his chest, but the dampness of his shirt and jacket only made his trembling worse.

Shannon placed the ice pack on the coffee table. “We’ll figure it out later. We’ve got to get the rest of your wet clothes off.”

Caleb looked at her. She was a beautiful woman. Tall, with feminine curves, tawny-gold hair and skin like satin. Her eyes were shadowed, full of secrets, the color indistinguishable in the flickering light. He’d certainly never expected to find an angel in the midst of hell, but it appeared that was exactly what he’d done. If circumstances had been different, he would have enjoyed hanging around for a while.

But his partner was out there in the storm. A vicious drug dealer was after them both. He couldn’t forgive himself if he led trouble here, to the home of an innocent woman.

If she was innocent…He gathered the towel around his hips and rose slowly. How did he know he could trust her? What if the Driscoes and Larkin showed up? Would she just turn him over? His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Just because she’d taken in a stray didn’t mean she wouldn’t cave in to pressure, endangering both him and his partner. He had to get out of here. “Do you have a phone I can use?”

Shannon stood beside him. “Phone lines are down, along with the power.”

Caleb’s head started to swim. “You don’t understand. I have to make a call.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not possible right now.”

He tried to listen to what she was saying, but he couldn’t make sense of the words. He swayed, then felt strong arms go around him.

“Hang on, big guy.”

Her voice was gentle, kind, with a touch of humor. He did what she said and hung on. And found a gentleness he’d never known. He wanted to sink into the softness, to savor it.

Her arms tightened. “Don’t pass out yet,” she commanded sternly. “We have to get you to the bed.”

Caleb’s woozy mind thought bed sounded like a great idea. He imagined cool sheets and a tawny-haired woman lying beside him as he explored her luscious curves. He felt a stirring in his loins, then realized he’d dropped his covering. “The towel.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said matter-of-factly, guiding him along. “You’ll be under the blankets in no time.”

They entered a dimly lit room.

“Come on, just a few more feet.”

A few more feet. It felt like a mile.

“Okay, sit.”

She pushed him back gently until he felt a mattress give beneath him. The quilts had been drawn back, and the sheets felt cool against his skin. He started to shiver again. He grabbed at the blankets and tried to lie down.

Shannon held him up. “Oh, no, you don’t. We need to get your jacket off and your shirt, too.”

She tugged at his jacket. At her urging, he moved his arm out of the sleeve. She slid off the right sleeve, sending fire through his arm. He gasped involuntarily.

“Sorry. I’ll take care of that as soon as we take off the shirt.”

Caleb tried to tell her he understood, but when he looked at her bending over him, her lovely face intent, her hair spilling around her shoulders like golden silk, he couldn’t form the words.

He reached out to touch a skein of her hair. It felt like the finest silk. “God, you’re beautiful.” His voice sounded as though it came from the other end of a tunnel.

She frowned a little. “We really have to take care of that arm. So help me take off this shirt of yours, okay?”

He suddenly felt very tired. “Okay, then can I go to sleep?”

“For a little while,” she said in a serious voice.

With her help, he took off his long-sleeved knit shirt. Then he lay on his left side, his head against the cool pillows. He felt her draw a blanket over him.

“I’m going to get the first-aid kit.”

Caleb closed his eyes against the pounding in his head. “I’ll wait here, all right?”

“All right, big guy.”

He liked the way she said “big guy” and wondered if hearing her say his name would sound as sweet. “Caleb,” he said as a black hole started to swallow him. “My name is Caleb.”

“All right, Caleb.”

A half smile revealed a dimple in his right cheek. Shannon watched him sleep for a few minutes. Maybe he wasn’t as hard as he looked.

Or felt.

But the last thought was quickly quashed. She turned and left the room. A sensible woman didn’t think such thoughts about an injured stranger who landed on her doorstep. Even if the stranger was lying naked in her bed.

Especially because he was lying naked in her bed.

If being with Tony had taught her nothing else, it had taught her that she was better off being sensible. The roller coaster of their life together had left her at the bottom, hurt and disoriented. She had no intention of getting on that ride again. Its effects were devastating.

Retrieving the first-aid kit from the living room, Shannon returned to find Caleb dozing against the pillows. The quilt had fallen down around his waist, revealing his bare chest. Shannon’s breath caught. Broad, tanned, with a black mat of hair, his chest revealed that he was indeed a big strong man. A spurt of longing went through her, in spite of her earlier resolve to be sensible. He looked solid, down-to-earth, the kind of man who would walk through hell to protect a woman, the kind to hold that woman forever.

She turned away abruptly. She had no right to be looking at the man as anything other than someone hurt and in need. Just because she hadn’t had much human contact since she’d lost Tony didn’t mean she should turn this man into a romantic fantasy, even if he was tall, dark, dangerously attractive and mysterious as the night.

Shannon walked back to the foot of the bed. He’s a stranger, she reminded herself deliberately. Once the storm was over, he would go back to his own life, leaving her to her solitude. That was the way she wanted it, and that was how it would be.

Caleb opened his eyes and smiled wryly. “I can’t seem to stay awake.”

Hardening her heart against his vulnerability, Shannon moved around the bed to his right side and set the first-aid kit down on the quilt. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal,” she said stiffly. “It’s only natural your body should want to rest and recover.” God, she thought, I sound like some frightened schoolmarm. The man could barely stay awake. What did she think he was going to do to her?

Caleb’s eyelids drifted shut again.

Shannon frowned, worried a little about his sleepiness. She’d done enough research on the subject of concussion to know she mustn’t let him sleep long.

His eyes opened suddenly. “What ordeal?”

Shannon raised a brow. His question had bordered on suspicious, which seemed a strange reaction. “You mentioned a landslide. Don’t you remember it?”

He gazed at her for a moment as if trying to read her mind. “It all happened so fast.”

His answer unsettled her a little. It sounded like the truth, yet she sensed something more was going on. She thought about questioning him, then decided against it. The man had been banged around so much he probably didn’t have any idea what he was saying. Besides, it didn’t really matter to her, anyway.

She turned her attention to his arm. “I’m going to clean this and put some antibiotic ointment on it. I’ll try not to hurt you.”

Caleb nodded. “Do what you have to. I really appreciate everything you’ve done. A woman alone, you could have left me out on the doorstep.”

“Well, it did cross my mind,” she admitted, venturing a smile.

She looked at the deep red groove on his upper arm. Suddenly she didn’t feel like smiling.

What had she done? What kind of man had she taken into her home? Only one thing could have made a wound like that.

A bullet.

She stepped back from the bed. “Who are you?”

His light-blue eyes showed bewilderment. “What’s wrong?”

Shannon glared at him. “You didn’t receive that cut in any landslide. That wound came from a gun. Someone shot at you and grazed your arm. Now, I want to know who you are and what you’re doing in these hills.”