The Ranger and The Rescue. Sue Swift
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my clothes dry?”
“I’ll check.” She left the kitchen through a door he hadn’t yet investigated. The yellow skirt of her loose, summery dress swished around her calves.
When he followed, he found a room full of ancient appliances. One was a washer, so his question was answered.
Serenity walked through a door that opened onto a small patio. The broken concrete adjoined an expanse of scrubby grass lined with desperate-looking succulents. A vine, leaves limp from neglect, hesitantly twined halfway up the back fence. The ground beneath it looked parched and cracked.
Next to the door stood two chairs, similar to those in the kitchen. One had a broken rung. A clothesline, hung with his apparel, dominated the tiny yard.
Holding on to his towel, he rubbed his heavy denim jeans between two fingers. Still damp and unwearable. His blue chambray shirt could also use more time in the sun. Only a minuscule scrap of leopard-print silk had dried.
He didn’t remember taking off underwear. He must have pulled down the thongs when removing the jeans. Fingering the silk, he stared at Serenity. She wore a small, ironic smile, the mate of the cynical grin he’d already seen on his own face when he’d looked in the mirror.
“These are mine?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“None other.” Her smile broadened. “Leopard-print thongs just aren’t my style.”
He couldn’t resist. “So what is your style?”
She went pink, a good color with her yellow dress and lightly suntanned skin.
He discovered that he loved to flirt, at least with Serenity Clare. He dangled the thong in her face by one thin strap. “Not natural enough?” he asked with a wink.
She chuckled. “Not unless spun by organic silk-worms on a communally owned farm.”
He guffawed. Serenity, the New Age priestess, had kept her sense of humor.
“Coffee?” She stepped back into the house.
After she’d gone, he draped the towel over the line and donned the skimpy underwear, feeling like an idiot. Once again he wondered what kind of a man he could be. He didn’t much like the thong. Was he a Chippendale dancer or something?
Seated at the farmhouse table, Serenity watched as the stranger entered the kitchen, clothed only in the scantiest scrap of silk she’d ever seen. She envied the fabric clinging to his body. How would his warm, satiny skin feel, caressed by her hand?
Tearing her mind away from that forbidden thought, she poured herself more coffee. “Paper?” She offered him the sports section of the Lost Creek weekly. Hank had always read the sports first.
What am I doing? Serenity angrily asked herself. I don’t have to please him. I don’t have to please any man. I have to please myself!
She dropped the paper onto the table and stood to fill his coffee mug.
He sat, sipped, and nodded. “Ma’am, I don’t know about organic java, but this sure is good.”
Serenity found herself beaming at his cheerful approval. She wanted to please him, but in a different way than she’d groveled to Hank. This stranger made her feel good and worthy, like the rest of her friends in Lost Creek, who also praised her cooking and enjoyed her company. She relaxed as much as she could in the presence of six feet of potent, sexy male, a man who might be threat…or seductive promise.
“When are we going into town?” He picked up the sports section and began reading it. A puzzled look stole over his face.
“When your clothes are dry.”
“When do you s’pose?”
She shrugged. “Maybe this afternoon.” Ignoring his frown, she asked, “Granola?”
“Uh, I guess. You know, I don’t recognize any of the names here.” He waved the paper. “Who are the Dallas Cowboys, and why would anyone care about their player trades?”
Serenity grinned. Here was the perfect man: a stud with no memories and no love of football. If it weren’t for his mysterious origins, she’d keep him forever. “While we’re waiting, why don’t we try a traditional path to knowledge. How about a tarot reading?”
After breakfast, Serenity sat on the floor of the living room and spread out the cards with assurance. Though a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, she knew she had a gift with the tarots. Time and again, customers returned to tell her that her readings had come true with uncanny accuracy.
Her life had delivered so many knocks that she didn’t believe in much. Not in the love of a husband or in the support of parents, and absolutely not in the kindness of fortune. Odd, but the tarots had never let her down.
Too bad she couldn’t use them to foretell her own fate, but the cards didn’t work that way. Otherwise, there’d be tarot readers winning the lottery and betting on the horses in every town. A pity.
Clearing her throat, Serenity flipped cards over onto the polished surface of her wooden coffee table. “The Hermit.” She raised her gaze to meet the stranger’s brown eyes.
He sat on the couch opposite her. His gaze still held a befuddled mistiness. Good.
“You seek higher knowledge,” she said.
His eyebrows pulled together. “Huh?”
“You are opposed by forces symbolized by the Seven of Cups. This is typical. We often become sidetracked by the things of the outer world—gold, riches, and so forth.” She looked up. The stranger had donned his blue chambray shirt. Half open, it exposed a set of sinewy pecs furred enticingly by a mat of dark, masculine hair.
She wanted to run her fingers through that sexy, virile pelt. Would it feel silky or rough against her hand? Shoving away the fantasy, Serenity shifted her attention to his face.
The stranger quirked his narrow, well-shaped lips. “Does that mean I have a lot of money?”
“Not necessarily. It means you want a lot of money, power, whatever.” She turned another card. “This symbolizes you. Hmm. Justice. That’s interesting.”
“Why?”
Serenity couldn’t tell him what she thought, but she guessed now that he was one of her ex-husband’s employees who’d gotten cold feet. She’d bet he’d tried to cross Hank. When Hank had found out about the stranger’s treachery, he’d been whacked on the head and left in the desert for dead.
After drawing in a breath, she let it out slowly. Stay calm. “Well, Mr. Justice, this card has an obvious meaning. You are a fair person, trustworthy and just.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” His eyes took on a hopeful, puppy-dog look.
She couldn’t help smiling, even though his arrival at her home meant complete disaster for her. “Of course.” She flipped over another card, then another. “These next cards predict the future.” Her gut clenching, she gulped.
“What’s wrong?”
“The Knight of Swords portends danger and violence. But it’s followed by The Lovers.” She stared at him.
His craggy, handsome face revealed nothing.
“Well, Mr. Justice, you’re in for a bad time.” Serenity swallowed hard. As she divined the meaning of the cards, her armpits grew damp and sweaty with tension. “But it looks as though everything is going to turn out all right for you.” Though not for her.
Sure as the sun rose in the east, Hank was going to come and get her. The reading favored the stranger, but the mere presence of The Lovers said nothing about her fate. The card could refer to his joyful reunion with his wife. Serenity loathed the notion.
Surprised by her jealousy, she stood, then shuffled the tarots together, even shakier than before.
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