This Perfect Stranger. Barbara Ankrum
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the axe as though he was prepared to tolerate her interruption politely. “Whacked apart my share of tree limbs, though.”
“I’ll bet. Grow up on a farm?”
He tossed a look in her direction. “Ranch.”
Ah. “That must account for the laconic cowboy conversationalist you’ve become.”
He grinned, staring off at the sun as it settled between the peaks of the Bitterroots. “You wanna talk? Or you want me to chop up this limb?”
She hugged herself against the chill beginning to settle in the air. Maggie glanced at the sinking sun, too, remembering how many sunsets she’d watched alone lately. “It’ll be dark soon.”
His gaze slid to her. If another man had ever made her feel utterly naked with one look before, she couldn’t remember it. “You know,” she began, “I really…appreciate what you’ve done here, but you don’t have to finish.”
“I said I would.”
“I mean, it’s a big limb and when you volunteered you didn’t even know my chain saw was broken and now I really owe you so much more than a chicken dinner for all that you’ve done for—”
“Do you want me to go?”
She blinked up at him. “No, it’s just—”
“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave.” He leaned the axe handle against the wood pile and stepped back.
She did want him to go. Wanted him to stop making her brood about things she couldn’t have anymore. But she found herself shaking her head. “I—I don’t—”
“—know me.” He ran a hand across his stubbled chin as if realizing his appearance might have something to do with the look on her face right now. “I’m afraid I don’t have any references in my back pocket. It’s been a while since I held down a job.”
“I…told you I couldn’t afford to—”
“—hire me. I know.” He smiled ironically. “But you already paid me for this. See, it’s been a while since I’ve had more than truck-stop food either. Food, in any case. I figure that’s worth this whole damned tree limb. And I mean to finish it.”
“But it’s…getting dark.”
He glanced around, as if noticing for the first time that daylight had nearly disappeared. He slid his fingers along the smooth wood of the axe handle with a self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry. I’m a little slow on the uptake these days, too. I’ll just get my things together and be outta your hair.” He leaned the axe handle against the woodpile and reached for the jacket he’d left draped there.
It took Maggie a moment to react. “Cain. That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Cortland,” he said, as if he were used to being dismissed.
“But where will you go?”
“That’s not your worry,” he said, shoving his arms into his jacket. “I’ll manage.”
“Do you have somewhere to stay?”
He started toward his bike parked across the yard. “I’ll manage,” he repeated.
“Wait. Cain.” Maggie crossed the distance between them stopping a few feet from him.
He stopped, but didn’t look at her.
“There’s a cot in the tack room. It’s not much, but it’s clean and dry and—”
He pivoted toward her, surprise clearly etched on his face. “You…want me to stay the night?”
Maggie bit the inside of her lip. “I’m…yes. If you want to. For the night. In the barn.”
His shoulders relaxed a fraction and he looked at the barn. “Whatever you’re afraid of, you should know I’d never hurt you. You don’t know me, but you should know that.”
A shiver ran through her. A dark inkling that this stranger had the potential to break her heart.
Ridiculous, she thought. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, he’ll be gone. After everything she’d been through in the last year, her heart was every bit as bullet proof as Cain’s appeared to be.
She brightened and forced herself to smile. “Then it’s settled. I have a stew on the stove. Come in when you’re hungry.”
She could feel his eyes on her back as she turned and headed back to the house. Jigger trotted along beside her.
“Yes, ma’am,” he called to her back.
She turned, walking backward and tossed him another smile. “It’s Maggie. Just Maggie.”
The last of the sun had sunk behind the mountains limning Maggie’s valley by the time Cain finished with the fallen limb. He stacked the last split of wood on the pile beside him, then wiped the sweat off his face with the bandana he kept in his back pocket. The muscles in his arms and his back burned like hot embers and he could feel the blisters rising on his palms, but he walked toward the water spigot near the paddock feeling a sense of satisfaction. The physical labor made him feel alive—useful—something that had become almost foreign to him over the past four years.
He’d missed being able to walk outside when he wanted and feel the sun against his skin. He’d missed seeing the sunset and the sunrise. Four months since his release and he hadn’t missed a single one. He didn’t want to remember the man that place had made him. But neither could he leave him behind. He was the sum of his life and it had made him hard.
He gave the faucet handle a twist. The water spilled out in an icy cold rush, but he splashed it against his face and across the back of his neck, energized by the shock.
He glanced out over the pastures to the west, where the land rose to meet the mountains and Maggie’s herd of mares and foals grazed in the dusky light. The small herd of black Angus she used for training were finishing off the hay she’d laid out for them.
Once he’d dreamed of having a place like this of his own. With a string of horses and cattle and land as far as the eye could see. Not the Concho. That had never belonged to him. That had been Judd’s domain. And always would be. But somewhere, Cain’s dreams had fallen away to make room for plain old survival. For now, it was enough that he’d sleep tonight with a full belly and a roof over his head.
He glanced at the light spilling from the kitchen window and saw Maggie’s silhouette moving around near the stove. It was simple gratitude he should feel toward her for offering him the chance to get back on his feet. But some other, less well-defined feeling complicated the simplicity of that. It wasn’t as easy as sex. Sex was simple. Lust, even simpler. He couldn’t honestly deny feeling either one. But what man could? She was a natural beauty with vulnerability and loneliness written all over her. And he’d been too damned long without a woman to overlook what she had to offer.
He wasn’t, by choice, a curious man. He had no interest in getting to know anyone better than what he could learn from a handshake. But he was curious about her. Who was she? And what the hell was she doing out here all by herself in a country that devoured the strongest of men? What was that jackass of a husband of hers thinking, leaving a woman like her alone?
And, Cain wondered darkly, if he hadn’t ridden out here today in that storm, would she be in her kitchen now, puttering over the hot stove? Or would that damned horse have precluded any speculation on his part at all?
Which, he reminded himself, he shouldn’t be doing anyway. Tomorrow, he’d be moving on and Maggie Cortland and whatever problems she was facing would be miles behind him.
She was setting the table with dishes when he knocked quietly on the door. Jigger announced him and Maggie called for him to come on in. The door was open.
The aroma hit him first: savory beef and vegetables simmering on top of the stove. The warmth of the