The Ranger and The Rescue. Sue Swift
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ever seen stood at her door. Tall, lean, and utterly virile, his appearance was as unexpected as the proverbial snowball in you-know-where.
A slender ribbon of desire unfurled deep in Serenity’s body, tingly and warm.
She blinked, surprised. She’d thought Hank had destroyed her passion for any man. What was different about this guy?
He removed his Stetson, revealing short, sable hair. The pressure of his hat in the searing heat of the New Mexico summer afternoon had stuck his hair to his skull.
Rubbing his scalp, he asked, “Lori Perkins?”
Serenity took the question like a punch to the gut. Pleasure fled, blown away like dust in the desert wind. She shrank back, craving the solidity of the doorpost behind her.
She hadn’t used that name in close to a year and didn’t want to hear it now. She gazed at him while breathing deeply to recapture a calm state of mind. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. Excuse me.”
She tried to close the door, but he stuck his booted toe in the way. “You’re Lori Perkins. I’ve seen a picture of you.”
Resignation filled her chest, a frightful, leaden weight. “Who are you?” she managed to whisper.
He hesitated. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Bambi-brown eyes looked too gentle for his craggy face. He shifted from side to side; his heels crunched on the gravelly stoop.
“I don’t rightly know, ma’am.” His twang reminded her of home.
A tremor ran through her body. Texas was the past, something she wanted to forget. This was getting worse and worse. “You don’t know what?”
“My name. I was hoping you could help me.” He swayed slightly. “I…I woke up in the desert, and I remembered your name and address.”
The icy fingers of fear clawed at her wits. Serenity sucked in a deep breath, commanding her body to quit trembling and her mind to begin functioning. She had to discover who this man was and how he had found her. “Do you have an ID?”
“Huh?” He stared, glassy-eyed.
“Turn around.”
He did. Hmm, she thought. The left back quarter of his jeans showed a lean, shapely buttock. A faded square marked the place in the back pocket where ninety-five out of one hundred men kept their wallets. Vanished, it would provide no answers, reveal no secrets.
“Why do you know my name, but not your own?”
Turning to face her, he opened his hands in a helpless gesture.
“Bend down. Maybe you took a whack to the head.”
“I do have a headache.”
He obliged, leaning over from the waist.
Serenity gingerly ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair, catching his male, musky scent while she parted the locks. He jerked as she contacted sticky wetness.
“Oh, my.” At his temple, a lump the size of a half-dollar oozed blood. It looked bad.
She released him, then regarded him thoughtfully as he swayed, obviously ill, on her doorstep. If she sent him away, he could die. In his current weakened condition, without remembering the reason he’d been sent to find her, she was sure she could keep him under control.
“Hmm. You know me, but I don’t know you…and you don’t know you. Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Serenity opened the door wider, inviting him inside.
“How’s that? Do you know me?”
Her mind raced. What could she tell him? “Um, no, but I’m a psychic. Don’t worry about a thing—the cards see all, know all, and have all the answers. And if the cards don’t tell us what we want to know, we can always try the crystal ball or the Ouija board. Don’t worry—something will work.”
He gulped. That Adam’s apple again. He was positively edible, this amnesiac cowboy who’d turned up on her doorstep like a tumbleweed.
Serenity reminded herself that he couldn’t be the only person who knew the location of Lori Perkins. Feeling exposed while standing outside, she retreated into her home.
Her stomach clenched and twisted. How had this stranger found her? She bet he’d been sent to check her out and to report back to—back to—
Her mind flinched away from the thought of Hank.
Until she figured out what to do, she’d keep this stranger close. In his befuddled condition, she was sure she’d remain safe…at least for a while.
He remembered to duck as he entered Lori Perkins’s house, but that was about all he remembered. That, and the woman. But the black-and-white photo he recalled bore only a slight resemblance to this flame-haired sprite. Maybe the snapshot was old; in any event, he remembered it only through a haze of pain and confusion.
“Give me your hat.” She hung the battered Stetson, dirty with grime and a splotch or two of blood, on a wooden coatrack near the door.
“Come.” Lori led the way through a whitewashed living room sparsely furnished with a futon-style couch and a couple of cushions in turquoise and coral. A braided rag rug in the same tones covered part of the wooden floor. A row of shiny, multicolored crystals sat on a narrow mantel above the curved adobe fireplace.
“Sit.” In the kitchen, she indicated one of four ladder-back chairs drawn up to a farmhouse table. After wringing out a worn-looking towel in steamy water, she applied it to his head. She seemed nice, wincing in empathy as she dabbed at the bump on his scalp, first with hot soapy water, then with ice.
While she brewed tea, he had a chance to look at his hostess and her home. Lori’s graceful movements reflected her simple speech. The white cotton dress she wore, brightly embroidered, harmonized with the Mexican-influenced decor. She lived modestly, but had a feminine knack for making this plain place a home. The small stuccoed, whitewashed house was typical of that part of New Mexico—and from where did that strange bit of information come? he silently asked himself.
The lack of appliances struck him. No television or radio, no dishwasher. He could hear wind chimes faintly tinkling in the quiet. He had a vision of pretty Lori Perkins washing her clothes on rocks in a stream. Was there even a phone?
She stood at the kitchen counter, dripping honey into a glass of iced tea. Her back was turned.
Pressing the ice pack to his temple with one hand, he poked at a pile of papers on the table with the other. Was he ordinarily a snoop? Maybe his rudeness was the result of the bump on his head. He hoped so, but in the meantime the bills he examined showed that his Ms. Perkins used a different name. A very different name. Serenity Clare. What kind of a wacky name was Serenity Clare?
He caught himself frowning, then consciously smoothed out his expression. Who was he to judge anyone else? He could be a Stetson-wearing version of Ted Bundy for all he knew.
Aha. A cellular phone bill in the name of Serenity Clare. Civilization did extend into the New Mexican desert wilderness.
A hand with short, buffed nails plucked the papers from his grasp. “Well, we know something about you,” she said. “You’re nosy.”
He actually became hot with embarrassment. Then, when she smiled, his temperature rose even more. She had a gorgeous smile, one that could coax the sun out from behind a cloud.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She didn’t answer for a moment, then spread out her hands. “You know my name. Lori Perkins.” Placing the glass nearby, she sat across from him at the farmhouse table. Her fingers fiddled with the yellow gingham cloth. Between them, in the center of the table, stood a blue earthenware pitcher filled with a tangle of wild grasses. Their subtle fragrance perfumed the air.
“Who’s Serenity Clare?” He put down the ice pack.
“I’m