Читать книгу Sleeping With Beauty - Laura Wright - Страница 11

Thumbnail sketches of flowered hillsides and rocky coastlines and one dangerously handsome man with dark, probing eyes drifted in and out of her muddled brain, warring with the sting over her left eyebrow and the dull pounding in her skull.

From far off she heard a moan. A feminine sound, but low and gravel-like. She wanted to run toward the woman, embrace her, whisper soothing words. But where was she?

“You need to wake up.”

The male voice slashed through the fog of her mind. The sting turned sharp as she strained to do as she was commanded. She tried to move, tried to shake her head. But her limbs felt heavy, water-filled. All she wanted to do was sleep, just sleep.

“I know you hear me,” came the masculine growl once again. “Open your eyes or there’s going to be trouble.”

She felt fingers, strong and cool at the base of her throat. She inhaled sharply at the touch, taking in the scents of pine and leather and sweat and…male…

With great effort, she forced her eyes open. Inches from her was a man—a ruthlessly handsome man with mussed black hair, piercing eyes, obstinate jaw and previously broken nose that she’d seen…

When?

Muscles tense with fear, she stared into those brown eyes of his, dark as chocolate, melted, hot chocolate, and uttered a hoarse “Who are you?”

The man’s hard gaze moved boldly over her face, hovered near her mouth, then lifted to her eyes and narrowed. “You first.”

Confused, she felt her forehead crease, but she didn’t argue with him. For, a more alarming predicament was rising up, biting her on the ear. When she opened her mouth, fully expecting her name to slip out easily, thoughtlessly…nothing emerged.

Terror twisted in her belly, shooting off balls of anxiety that had no direction, no catcher. She began to shake. Her throat went dry as a summer wind. She shut her eyes, willed herself to concentrate, to relax. This was ridiculous. The truth was there, on the tip of her tongue, who she was and where she’d come from.

Moments passed.

Nothing came.

She lifted her eyelids. “I don’t know who I am.”

A curse, ripe and hot, fell from his lips.

There had to be a logical explanation for this whole situation, she reasoned, must be. She just had to think, take a moment and concentrate.

Forcing a calm tone she hardly felt, she asked, “Are we lovers? Married?”

He snorted. “No.”

“Friends, then? Acquaintances—”

“No.”

Nervously, she looked around the room. She was in a small bedroom, sparsely furnished with just the bed, an old dresser and rocking chair. Above, the ceiling sported scores of rustic wood logs, while the large windows in front of her peered out over imposing mountains.

A log cabin.

And none of it rang one tiny bell of recognition.

“This is your house?”

He offered only a curt nod.

She shifted nervously under the covers. “This is your bed?”

“Yes.” An almost imperceptible glimmer of danger passed through his eyes. “I only have the one. Thought you’d be more comfortable here than on the couch.”

“I…appreciate that.”

With another quick nod, he stood. “You should probably get some rest.”

Without thought, she reached out, grabbed his wrist. “Wait. Please.”

He glanced down, frowned. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry.” Blushing, she released her grip on him. “I just want to know what happened—”

“Later. Rest now.” He turned, started for the door.

“Can you at least tell me your name?” she asked.

He stopped but didn’t turn around. “Dan.”

“Dan what?”

“That’s all you need to know.”

And with that, he left the room. Left a woman with no memory and a million questions staring after him.

As twilight arrested and called in the day, Dan hauled in the wood he’d chopped that morning and dropped it beside the fireplace.

Physical labor of any kind was his saving grace. If his mind dropped back to the past or shot into the future, he’d just grab the ax and have at it. Sometimes mucking out Rancon’s stall emptied his mind as well.

But not tonight.

The mystery woman with her violet eyes, I-need-you voice and fancy accent was sleeping in his bed, between his sheets—had been for the past four hours—and the thought was slowly but surely making him nuts.

He was now entirely over the fact that she could be a criminal or a spy or some such bull. Now his suspicious nature had turned into something far more dangerous: desire. With just a glance, that woman had his blood pumping and his curiosity piqued—two things he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Two things he’d never wanted to feel again.

Bottom line, if he wanted to stay marginally sane, she had to go. And soon. He wasn’t looking for romance. Anything close to that had rendered itself defunct four years ago.

Besides, foreign debutantes weren’t his thing. Especially foreign debutantes with zero memory. No doubt she had family, friends and some top-drawer kinda guy from England or Scotland—or wherever she was from—waiting for a word of her whereabouts.

After lighting a fire in the fireplace, Dan grabbed a beer from the fridge, cracked it open, took a healthy swallow, then plunked his body down on the couch. Tomorrow, if the woman was up for it, he’d take her into town, drop her off at the doctor’s and head back, back to silence and solitude and the always interesting notion of peace.

Dan paused, beer halfway to his mouth. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

He heard a small gasp behind him, glanced over his shoulder. Hands behind her back, the petite beauty stood a few feet away in her rumpled hiking gear with the moonlight beaming through the window, illuminating her face. She looked a little dazed. But beautiful. Too beautiful.

He turned back around. “You need to rest.”

“I know.” She walked around the couch, sat down beside him, crossed her legs at the ankles. “I woke up and felt a little scared, so I thought…”

“You thought you’d come hang out with me?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Mind? Why should he mind? Just because his body revved to life whenever he looked at her? “No, I don’t mind. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s any safer out here.”

He watched her lips part, shock brighten those killer eyes, and pink color those high cheekbones. He tilted his beer toward her, trying for a lighter mood. “Thirsty?”

Her smile was short and tentative. “No, thanks.”

“No, probably not good for you.” Neither the beer nor the company.

“Not tonight anyway. Maybe another time.”

Her words snaked through him. Innocent enough, but they were sulfur to a match that had been stripped for a long time.

His hand tightened on the neck of the beer bottle as he watched her brush a strand of long curly hair away from her face, hair that reflected several shades of red and blond and brown in the blaze of firelight.

Aside from the bruise on her forehead, she really did have the look of an angel about her.

The kind of look a devil like him steered clear of.

He took a pull on his beer, dropped back against the couch and asked, “Are you feeling any better?”

“A little tired. My body aches. But otherwise, not too bad.”

“How about your head? That fall you took was pretty serious.”

She inhaled sharply. “I fell? Where? In the mountains? Why?”

“Take it easy, lady. Look, all I know is that you and my horse scared the bejesus out of each other this morning, that you both ended up injured and that as soon as it’s possible, we’ll get you back to who and where you belong.” He took another swallow of beer. “Now, are you going to tell me how that head of yours is doing?”

“All right,” she said, a soft smile twitching her lips. “The pain’s gone and the head’s still attached.”

“And the memory?”

That smile wavered. “I still don’t remember anything.”

“You will.”

“Well, if you say so, then I’ll believe it.”

It was as though someone had wrapped a tire iron around the stone he used for a heart and squeezed. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know, I just…I feel like I can trust you.”

He shot her a cynical twist of a smile. “You shouldn’t trust anyone.”

Confusion lit her eyes. And right then Dan knew exactly where she’d come from: Innocent Avenue, round the corner from Sheltered Street, in the never-polluted city of Naive. Those kind of people made him crazy. You had to see the world for what it was if you wanted to survive. Didn’t she know that?

Of course she didn’t.

“You hungry?” he asked, hoping to redirect both their attentions.

She nodded eagerly. “But I’d like to wash up first if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all. How about a shower?”

Her eyes went wide. “A shower?”

Dan wanted to laugh. Really he did, that is, if he could remember how. “That was just a gentlemanly offer, not a come-on.”

“A come-on?”

“A line. A play to get you naked, wet and soapy.”

Her pretty face glowed with pink embarrassment. “Oh.”

This was getting out of control. This prim-and-proper thing she had going was really getting under his skin, making his body ache like hell. On an irritated grumble, Dan seized her hand, helped her to her feet and led her into the bedroom and over to his closet. After grabbing a few extra-large items that wouldn’t tempt him, he handed them to her. “Here.”

“What are these?”

“Clean clothes.”

“I know that,” she said. “I was just wondering if these were your clothes?”

“Yeah. Gotta problem with that?”

For a moment she just stared at him, then shook her head and said, “Not in the least.”

“Good.” He led her to the bathroom door, beckoned for her to walk past him. And as soon as she did, he followed.

It took her about three seconds to notice him. And when she did, when she turned to look at him, that stubborn chin of hers was tilted up. “Where do you think you’re going, Dan?”

He pointed past her. “In there.”

She blinked. “With me?”

“That’s right.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Listen, lady, as I said before, this isn’t a come-on.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then what is it exactly?”

He growled irritably and stalked past her, jerked open the navy-blue shower curtain and turned on the hot water. “You have a head injury. I need to be here in case something happens.”

“Something like what?”

“Like you could get dizzy, faint, keel over—”

She shook her head. “I’m feeling much better now. Nothing like that is going to happen.”

He shoved a white towel at her. “That’s what I’m here to make sure of.”

She didn’t move, just stared at him. “Perhaps I’ll take the shower another time.”

Leaning against the wall, he expelled a breath and said, “Oh, for chrissakes, I’m doing you a favor here. Do you really think this is how I want to spend my night? Standing guard outside a shower curtain?”

She shrugged, gripped the towel and clothing closer to her body. Honestly, she had good reason to be suspicious. She didn’t know who he was. Didn’t know who she was.

But despite the fact that she made fire erupt inside him, he wasn’t a total jerk. He wasn’t about to take advantage of a naked woman with a head injury and no memory.

Unless she asked him to, of course.

“Look, Princess, the curtain is a dark color. I won’t be seeing a thing, okay?”

She went stiff as a mannequin at his words, except for the faint twitch under her right eye. Teeth clenched, she fairly sputtered, “Why did you call me that?”

He was completely taken aback by this unexpected reaction: “What? Why did I call you what? Princess? I don’t know. You just seem—”

She boldly met his eyes, all Rambo and don’t-mess-with-me. Damn appealing. “Don’t ever call me that.”

“Why?”

“I…I don’t remember. But I don’t like it.” Even over the sound of bathwater rapping against porcelain, the gravity in her voice was evident.

“Fine. But I gotta call you something.”

The bristles retracted somewhat as she seemed to think this over. “How about Beatrice?”

He frowned. “Beatrice? Where did that come from?”

She shrugged. “It’s a nice enough name. And far better than the P word.”

Dan refused to delve into the princess thing. Tomorrow, hopefully, he wouldn’t be calling her anything at all. But for tonight, there needed to be something. And Beatrice didn’t suit her. Actually, he wasn’t sure what suited her. Mystery woman. Innocent one minute, full of fire the next.

“How about Angel?”

A slow, soft smile broke on her face. “You think I’m an angel?”

Her smile gripped him low in the gut. Match struck rough surface and he lost himself, lost his mind and his control for a moment. “I think you got the face of an angel. I’m not sure about the rest of you…”

His traitorous gaze traveled the length of her as his foolish mouth uttered, “Yet.”

What the hell was he thinking playing this game with her? Dan admonished himself seconds later. A game that would be over before it even had a chance to begin.

That was an easy one. He wasn’t thinking.

He watched her lips part, hoped she was going to scold him with that sweet brogue of hers, tell him to get out and go straight to hell.

But she didn’t. She licked her lower lip, slow and seductive and totally unguarded.

He snatched open the shower curtain. Hot steam poured into the tiny bathroom. “Let’s go. Clothes off, Angel. Time to get wet.”