This Perfect Stranger. Barbara Ankrum
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hell you are.” Unmoved, he trudged through the mud toward her front door. His arms were strong and thick and she felt unreasonably small in them.
She swung a look back at the paddock and the gelding still racing around in a froth of panic. “But Geronimo—”
A humorless laugh escaped him. “You mean that loco horse that just tried to trample you to death?”
Her head ached. “He’s afraid of ropes. He wasn’t trying to hurt me.”
“And if you had the sense God gave a flea, you’ll call the knacker’s truck for him tomorrow.”
The knacker! She would’ve argued if she had the where-withal, but she couldn’t seem to muster it.
They reached the door then, and he yanked open the screen and gave the handle a twist, shoving it open the rest of the way with his foot. A low growl froze him in his tracks. It was Jigger, who’d planted himself just inside the doorway, poised to do battle with this stranger. But at the sight of Maggie in the man’s arms, the dog whined happily and jumped up to lick her hand.
“It’s okay, Jigger,” Maggie told him. “He’s a friend.” She looked up at Cain, whose expression was considerably more guarded. “Don’t worry. He only bites when I tell him to.”
“That’s reassuring,” he said, carrying her into the warm room and setting her down gently on the corner of the pine-planked kitchen table.
Maggie braced a hand behind her, surprisingly unsteady. She had every intention of getting immediately to her feet, but her knees had the tensile strength of water.
Wordlessly, he tugged off his gloves, reached for her mud-covered right boot and began pulling it off.
“I can do that,” she argued, even though she wasn’t precisely sure that was true. Her head felt like a fractured egg and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Moody was right about you,” he said, as the boot released her foot with a watery pop.
She frowned. “Moody?”
“She said you were stubborn as mud.”
“She actually said that?”
“Which I see now is true.”
She stared down at the top of his head as he worked on her other boot, at his dark hair, slicked with rain and hanging in dripping hanks against his forehead. His shoulders were thick and wide with a man’s strength. “What else did she say?”
He cupped his palm against her calf and tugged at the heel of her boot. “That you need help.” That boot came off with a pop and his hands followed her muddy sock up her calf and pulled it down.
Help. Yes, she needed help right now, she thought, inhaling sharply at the touch of his hands on her skin. Lord, what was she doing letting this stranger undress her?
As if he’d heard her thought, his gaze lifted to hers, his cool palm still cradling her leg. The penetrating blue heat of his eyes seared her and she tried to remember ever feeling more off balance than she did right now.
“I…don’t even know your name,” she said, reclaiming her leg and scooting backward on the table.
“Cain,” he said. “Cain MacCallister.”
Biblical references of the dark kind flitted through her mind. Cain. As in the second original sin. She watched him pull a hand towel off a towel rack and run it under the kitchen faucet until the water got hot. Jigger was watching him, too, with a proprietary sweep of his tail across the floor.
“Listen, Mr. MacCallister—” she began.
“It’s just Cain.”
“Okay. Cain. Thank you for helping me. I mean, I owe you, but if you don’t mind, I can certainly—”
He was back at her side then, lifting the hot, damp towel to her cheek. “Hold still.”
She blocked him with her hand. “Please—”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I am?” She raised a hand to her cheek and brought it back stained with red. Oh, God…
The heat stung and she winced, but he was gentle. Very gentle as he soothed the towel across her cheek, cleaning away the mess she’d made of it.
“How bad is it?” she asked. He was close enough that she could feel the heat of his nearness.
“It’s not too deep. I don’t think you need stitches. But you’re gonna have a nice shiner.”
She sank lower as he moved back to the sink to rinse the towel.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “It could’ve been worse. A lot worse.”
He was right, of course. She’d come close many times. But never as close as she’d come today. “So…do you mind telling me what you were you doing riding all the way out here on a motorcycle in the middle of a hailstorm?”
“It wasn’t hailing when I started out. But we can talk about that later.”
She grabbed his wrist as he lifted the towel to her face again. “I think we should talk about it now. I mean, it’s not every day I let a strange man carry me into my own house and—” she stared at the towel “—pull my boots off.”
A small grin softened the hard line of his mouth. Maggie felt her resolve slipping as he lifted the towel again and smoothed it across her jawline.
“I suppose it’s not every day you nearly get yourself trampled either,” he said. “Or are you in the habit of putting yourself in harm’s way?”
“Not in the habit, no. What about you?”
“Oh, it’s definitely one I’m trying to break.”
The low baritone of his voice vibrated through her. Outside, the hail still battered the window. “So…Moody sent you out here, you said?”
“That’s right. I’m looking for work.”
An unreasonable disappointment sluiced through her. “I wish I could’ve saved you the trouble. I’m not hiring.”
He lowered the towel. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re out here all by yourself.”
Uncomfortable with his closeness, she slid off the table and stood, taking a moment to get her balance. “Mr. MacCallister—”
“Cain.”
“Cain. I don’t know what Moody told you, but—”
“That your husband left you alone with this place awhile back and that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. She said you need help. It just so happens that I know a little something about horses and I’m in the market for a job.”
Maggie pressed her hands together. “You don’t understand. I can’t hire you. I can’t afford to hire anyone.”
Folding up the towel, he walked back to the sink and stared out the window. “I don’t need much. Three squares and a roof.”
She blinked at him. “Room and board?”
Slowly, he turned back to her, but she didn’t miss the way he’d balled his fist against his stomach as if trying to grind away an ache there.
“I noticed your fences in the south pasture need fixing.” He glanced up at her ceiling where water droplets swelled and dripped in a steady staccato into a dented metal bucket on her kitchen floor. “One more good storm like this one and you can probably kiss your roof goodbye. Not to mention your stock. You need help. I need a place to be for a while. It sounds like a fair trade.”
The tattoo of hail stopped abruptly on the window and silence invaded the room. Was it her imagination, or had he gone suddenly pale? She dismissed the