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Josie blinked rain from her eyes. Her stomach dipped. “You’re crazy,” she told him and started to stand.
His hand shot out and he captured her wrist. Before she could stop him, he tugged her toward him, and sent them both toppling back to the muddy ground. Then his mouth—that wet, sexy mouth of his was covering her own—kissing her with a skill and a gentleness that made Josie’s head spin. She forgot about the rain. She forgot about the cold. She forgot about the fact that she was on the side of a deserted road sprawled atop a stranger—an injured stranger—with the eyes of a dark angel who kissed like a fairy-tale prince.
Suddenly, as though by magic, the wind’s angry hiss lost some of its bite. Even the rain slowed. And that’s when she heard it. A baby crying—crying at the top of its lungs. The sound slashed through Josie’s kiss-dulled senses like a scalpel. She jerked her mouth free and scrambled back from him quicker than a snap. She gave her head a shake to clear it. Lord, now she was imagining she heard babies.
“I was right. I don’t need a hospital after all. All I needed was a kiss. I’m feeling a lot better,” he told her, pushing himself up to his elbows as though he were stretched out on a couch and not on the side of a road in mud.
Feeling foolish for her reaction to him, she shoved herself to her feet. “Obviously, you’re not hurt as badly as I thought.”
Turning her back on him, she started for her truck. Then she heard it again—a baby crying. She stopped, looked back. “This is going to sound crazy, but—”
He was right where she’d left him—only now he was lying flat on his back, his eyes closed. She hurried over to him, discovered him out cold. And once again she heard the baby crying—only this time it was louder. Pushing to her feet, Josie stepped past the unconscious stranger and headed for his wrecked car. Her boots slid in the mud as she sought purchase on the incline where the car rested at an angle. He’d shut off the engine, but the lights were still on, and the driver’s door was slightly ajar.
Flinging her braid back from her face, Josie yanked open the rear door of the fancy sedan. “Oh, my God,” she whispered at the sight of the two red-faced, squealing infants strapped into car seats. One of the babies held out its little arms and hands toward her as though pleading to be picked up.
A fist closed around Josie’s heart. Her brain shut down, and her heart took over. “Shh. It’s okay, precious,” she murmured. Ducking inside the car, she released the latch on the car seat nearest to her and took the first little one into her arms. She held the baby against her breast, smoothed her fingers over the tufts of blond hair and stroked the tiny back. Almost at once the baby’s sobs lessened and a tiny thumb went into its mouth.
The other baby continued to wail brokenheartedly. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m not going to leave you, sweetie.” She leaned over the seat to stroke the other baby’s cheek, and planted a kiss on its little fingers. Then, pulling the jacket hood up over the head of the baby she held, Josie shifted the bundle to her left shoulder and used her free hand to grab its car seat. “I’ll be right back,” she promised the other sobbing infant. As much as she hated to leave the remaining baby alone for even a second, she didn’t dare try to take them both at once and risk falling. Shielding the baby with her body as best she could, Josie headed for her truck.
Three trips later, she had both babies strapped in the rear seat of her Explorer, relatively content with the pacifiers she’d found. The matching diaper bags and a tote with enough diapers, baby food and formula to last several weeks had been stowed safely on the back floor. All she had to do now was get their still-unconscious daddy into her truck.
Any thoughts she’d had about leaving him and going home to call for help went out the window after she discovered the babies. Opening the vial of smelling salts she’d retrieved from her truck’s first-aid kit, she waved it under his nose.
He grunted, slapped the bottle away and grabbed her wrist in a paralyzing grip. His strength surprised her, given the fact that he’d been unconscious. But it was the deadly glitter in his eyes that made her heart race. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s me. Josie Walters. Remember?”
“Josie?” he repeated, his expression wary.
“Yes. You had an accident. Remember? I stopped to help. I need to get you out of the rain. My truck’s just up there on the road. Can you stand up?”
He didn’t say anything, but allowed her to help him to his feet. “That’s it. Just lean on me,” she told him. What seemed an eternity later, she had him in the front seat of her truck. She’d no sooner gotten him strapped in before he passed out again.
The stretch of road that normally took her fifteen minutes to drive took a full thirty as she was forced to maneuver past fallen trees, signs and a road slick with mud and rain. When she finally pulled up to her farmhouse, Josie nearly wept at the welcoming sight of the lights burning inside.
She cut off the truck’s engine and flexed her fingers, positive that she’d left dents in the steering wheel during the harrowing drive. “We’re home,” she told the sleepy-eyed duo in the backseat. Unfastening her seat belt, she braced herself for the cool air and opened the door.
Blake felt the cool air swirl around him and tried to fight his way up from the darkness. Tossing and turning, he struggled toward the sound of a woman’s soft voice. But try as he might, other voices intruded, pulled him back into the dark...back into a long, dark hall of marbled floors and foreign scents....
Hurry.
The word was a chant in his blood as Blake removed his arm from around the guard’s throat. The man’s body slid to the floor unconscious. Hurry. Have to hurry, Blake thought. Stepping over the guard, he made his way down the long, shadowed corridor, his feet moving silently along the polished surface. Nothing could go wrong, he told himself. Too many people were depending on him. He had studied the layout of the palace, memorized every detail, down to the posdtion of each monarch’s portrait that had lined these walls since the sixteenth century. Even in the deep shadows, he knew ten feet to his left the Asterland coat of arms hung beside the door that led to the royal nursery. He moved silently, quickly, as he had been trained to do, and took out the two guards stationed outside the door. Removing the specialized set of picks from his wallet, he inserted them into the lock. Moments later the tumblers clicked, and Blake stepped inside the room.
A check of the nanny’s quarters revealed the old dragon was out cold, a snore whistling through her wrinkled lips. A smile curved his mouth as he thought of his friend wooing the lady. He’d have to remember to send Pierre an extra hundred francs as a bonus for combat pay. Romancing the woman in order to slip the drug into her wine could not have been an easy task for his friend, who preferred sleek beauties with large breasts.
Exiting the nanny’s suite, he stepped inside the room of her two charges. A sliver of moonlight fought through the balcony doors, illuminating the two cribs. Nerves were bunched like fists in his gut at the task before him, but the adrenaline rush that he experienced with any mission had him heading for the balcony doors. He flicked open the locks, and without waiting to see who entered, he started toward the cribs. He hesitated at the tiny sleeping bundles. A live grenade he could handle. But a baby? What if he dropped it? What if...
“Hurry, mon ami.”
The other man’s voice spurred him to action. The baby didn’t so much as flutter an eyelash as he wrapped it up and eased it into the pouch strapped to his chest. When he went to retrieve the other one, big blue eyes stared up at him. “Hey, sugar britches. Uncle Blake’s going to take you on a trip to see your Aunt Anna. How would you like that?” The little one didn’t protest, merely reached out tiny fingers to touch his black-sooted face. Blake’s throat went dry. He caught the little hand, not wanting to dirty those perfect white fingers with a warrior’s paint.
“Blake,” the other man spit out his name in warning.
“There’s something going on downstairs. Guards are rushing inside the palace.”
Steps sounded outside in the corridor. Deciding quickly, he unstrapped the pouches from his chest and began fastening them to the other man’s body. “Take them to the boat.”
“Are you crazy? I know nothing of babies. ”
“Neither do I,” Blake informed his companion as he urged him to the balcony doors.
“What if they cry?” the other man asked, his dark eyes wide with fear and his accent more pronounced
“Try singing to them. You always say the ladies love your voice.”
The other man grumbled something in his native tongue, which Blake made no attempt to translate in his head. Grateful that neither baby protested this middle-of the-night intrusion, he pressed a kiss to each tiny head. “Be good for Michel. I’ll see you in a little while.”
“But, Blake—”
“Go,” Blake ordered.
“Hurry, mon ami.”
Hurry. Hurry.
The words came at him again from out of a fog—this one of blinding rain and skidding tires. His head hurt, felt like it was ready to explode any minute. He swiped at his head, and groaned at another stab of pain. He could feel something warm and sticky on his fingertips. Blood, Blake realized. Doesn’t matter. Have to keep moving.
He couldn’t see. The road was too dark, the rain too strong. And he was tired. So tired. But he couldn’t stop, didn’t dare stop or they’d find him, kill him, steal the babies. He couldn’t let that happen. Only his head hurt something fierce, and he couldn’t seem to remember which way to turn.
Remember, we’re depending on you, Blake. Be careful, and for God’s sake man, hurry.
Blake heard the man’s voice, and he struggled to sit up. “Have to hurry. Can’t let them down. Gave my word,” he muttered.
“Shh. It’s okay.” Gentle hands pressed him back down to the bed. “You can’t go anywhere right now. You need to rest.”
Blake tried to open his eyes, to see the face that went with the new voice that came to him out of the fog. But try as he might, his eyes refused to obey. He tried to sit up again, but was pressed back against the mattress.
“It’s storming outside, and the phone lines are down,” she told him. “Even if the roads are still passable, you’re in no condition to drive. So, you might as well quit fighting me and try to rest.” Fingers as soft and warm as the voice stroked his brow, eased the ache in his head.
“If you’re worried about your babies, you don’t need to be. They’re safe and sound asleep in the next room.”
Babies? He didn’t have any babies.
He wanted to tell her that, tried to make sense of what she was saying to him, but it hurt too much when he tried to think. Instead, he allowed himself to be soothed by the gentle touch of her fingers, the sweet sound of her voice.
“Yes. That’s it. Try to rest,” she murmured. “I’m afraid that I’ll have to wake you up again in an hour. That’s what the book says to do for head injuries. Wake up the injured party every hour so that you don’t go into a coma.”
Talk of head injuries, comas and babies jumbled in his brain. So he focused on her touch, the soothing sound of her voice. Her familiar voice. Frowning, he tried to remember. Was she friend or enemy? Could she be trusted? When she started to press something cold against his head, he grabbed her hand.
“It’s all right,” she murmured, but made no attempt to wrestle free. “You pulled the bandage loose. I’m just putting more ointment on that cut before I bandage it up again.”
The need to see her, to see the face that went with the voice was so strong he battled to open his eyes. When he finally managed to do so, he caught a glimpse of familiar green eyes. “Angel,” he whispered, his eyes closing again. But even as the darkness began to tug him under, he could still see those clear green eyes—the eyes of his angel.
Two
You’re a good girl, Jocelyn. Not everyone can be counted on to remain calm and clearheaded in a crisis.
The crisp tone of Sister Charles Marie’s voice came back to Josie as though it were only yesterday and not twenty years ago that she’d snuffed out a grease fire in the kitchen of the orphanage and saved another girl from being badly burned.
Today had been another crisis, Josie realized, as she tamed her thick, black hair into a braid. She’d remained calm and clearheaded while she’d settled the twins into the spare bedroom. She’d even managed to remain calm and clearheaded when she’d maneuvered the little darlings’ daddy to the only other room with a bed—her own. And somehow, she’d managed to stay fairly calm and clearheaded when the man had started thrashing about on the bed and pulled his bandage free. But there had been nothing calm or clearheaded about the way she’d felt when he’d opened his eyes and called her “angel” again before passing out. No one had ever called her by a pet name before—certainly no one from the orphanage or the foster homes she’d lived in. To them she’d always been Jocelyn, and even Ben had never strayed from the “Josie” she’d insisted on being called. She’d come to accept the fact that she wasn’t the sort of person that people called “sweetie” or “honey” or “sugar.” Deep down she’d sometimes wondered if it was because she simply wasn’t special enough to warrant such an endearment.
But he had called her “angel.” Not once, but twice. It was ridiculous that his doing so should make her pulse quicken or make her feel like her heart was smiling. After all, the man had been injured, and in his delirious state he probably thought she was someone else. Yet he had looked at her the way a man looks at a woman—with appreciation, with interest—and for those few seconds awareness had hummed between them and lingered like the scent of her roses. By the time she’d repaired his bandage, she’d been too flustered to even attempt to rid him of his wet clothes.
Now, having had the benefit of a hot shower and a change of clothes herself, guilt sneaked in on her. She really shouldn’t have left him in those wet things, she conceded, then groaned. “I didn’t even take off his boots!” Irritated with herself, she dismissed that sexual zing of his kiss and blamed her reaction on the steady diet of romantic dreams she’d fed herself for years. She dug out a pair of Ben’s old jeans and shirt from the box marked for charity, determined to march right in there and get him out of those wet clothes before the fellow caught pneumonia. Suddenly her throat went dry at the prospect of undressing him.
Get over it, Josie. It’s not like you haven’t seen a naked man before.
And it wasn’t, Josie reminded herself. She had been married for pity’s sake. Feeling some of her calm and clearheaded self return, she armed herself with aspirin, a pitcher of water, a glass, and the clothes. She picked up her tray and headed to the bedroom to check on her patient.
A teensy measure of her newly reclaimed calm slipped when she opened the bedroom door. He lay motionless on the four-poster bed, looking too big and too male amidst the pale rose and ivory bedding. Lamplight framed his handsome face, making his hair gleam like wet gold. The white bandage on his forehead stood out in stark relief against bronzed skin. Once again the image of a golden prince came to mind.
Dismissing the fanciful thoughts, Josie made her way over to the bed. She placed the tray on the bedside table, but continued to hang on to the clothes she’d brought him. “It’s time to wake up,” she said. “Remember, I told you I’d have to wake you every hour? Well, it’s time again. I’ve got some aspirin, and I’ve brought some dry clothes for you to change into.”
Nothing. Not so much as a grunt or a flicker of an eyelid out of him.
Clearing her throat, Josie tried again, this time more forcefully. “You have to wake up now. I’ve brought you some aspirin to help your head and a change of clothes.”
Still, nothing. He didn’t move. Didn’t utter a sound.
Frowning, Josie reached over and gave his shoulder a nudge. He stirred, and she snatched her hand back. “You need to take some aspirin and get out of those wet things,” she said again, this time in her firmest schoolteacher’s voice.
He muttered something that she suspected was no.
Annoyed now rather than nervous, his response made her more determined. It also triggered what Ben had called her do-gooder streak, and what she liked to think of as her human streak—that “something” inside her that had made her rescue a stray, or stop in the middle of a storm to help a stranger. Since she’d saved the man’s life, he was her responsibility, she reasoned. Well, at least for the time being. And that meant making sure he didn’t catch pneumonia. The man was going to get into dry clothes—one way or another. Besides, she thought, humor making her lips turn up at the corners. He was only a man. She hadn’t managed to work as a teacher for nearly six years without learning how to exert some authority. It was the schoolteacher m her that made her put aside the clothes and sit on the bed. Slipping an arm behind his neck, she lifted him to a sitting position and with the aspirin in her palm, she tapped her finger against his lips. “Open up,” she ordered.
“What the—”
She shoved the aspirin between his lips, then quickly followed with water. Strong, powerful fingers locked around her wrist at the same time that he clamped his mouth closed and sent water dribbling down the front of his already-wet shirt. The muscles in his neck had gone stiff, and his body felt like corded steel beneath her fingers. Stunned, Josie’s gaze shot up to meet his. The dark eyes trained on her were just as hard as the rest of him... and wary.
“Oh, for pity’s sake, it’s only aspirin and water. Not poison.” When he still failed to respond or release his vicelike grip on her wrist she said, “Please. You need to swallow the aspirin. I know you must be in a lot of pain with that gash on your head. The aspirin will make you feel better.”
After a moment something inside him eased. His mouth lost some of the hard edge. Tipping her wrist, he drank deeply from the glass she held, but his eyes remained open, never once leaving hers. The intensity of his gaze reminded her of the wild kiss he’d given her out in the storm, and Josie felt that shivery heat spilling through her. By the time he finished the water and released her hand, she was feeling anything but calm and clearheaded. In fact, all of those female nerves were jumping inside her again.
With less-than-steady hands, she returned the glass to the tray, determined not to let him know how he had rattled her. “I’ll leave you to get out of those wet things. Just yell for me if you need anything,” she told him and started to leave. Then she noticed that his eyes were closed again. Frowning, she said, “Did you hear me? I’m leaving so you can change clothes.”
When he still failed to respond, she jabbed a finger at his shoulder. Again, no response. “Great,” she muttered. The man was obviously out cold again—either from exhaustion or from his injury or from both. Worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth, she debated what she should do. She didn’t have any options, she admitted. She was going to have to get him out of his wet things and into something dry.
Josie studied her patient and frowned again. Changing the babies’ clothes had been one thing. Changing their daddy’s clothes was quite another. After wiping her hands on her jeans, Josie moved toward the foot of the bed. She’d start with his boots, she decided, and as she reached for the first one, she fervently wished she’d taken the dirty things off him before they’d had an opportunity to become acquainted with her comforter. Maybe I’ll be lucky and he’ll wake up before I’ve even got the first boot off and finish the job himself.
She wasn’t lucky. He didn’t wake up. The man didn’t stir even after she’d made several attempts to get the blasted boots off. Finally the first one came free. Even wet, the deep brown leather was butter soft, expertly stitched and obviously expensive. From the size of the thing, she suspected he’d had them custom-made. “All right. One down. One to go,” she muttered. After dropping the boot beside the bed, she reached for its mate. She gave it one hard tug, then another, and on the third tug Josie went tumbling back and onto the floor with his soggy boot in her hands and a wicked-looking gun in her lap. Stunned, Josie dropped the boot and picked up the shiny black weapon.
Oh, my heavens! What kind of man carries a gun in his boot? An escaped convict? A bank robber? A government spy?
Stop it, she told herself, and slammed the brakes on her runaway thoughts. She stared at the gun in her hands, turning the thing over, studying it. It felt hard, cold, lifeless and sent a shudder through her. Oh for pity’s sake, she chided herself for her reaction. This was Texas. Half the men in the state owned a gun. Just because she didn’t particularly like the things meant zip, she reasoned. Besides, hadn’t she read somewhere that owning a gun was some sort of guy thing? That’s probably all this was, too—a guy thing. Walking over to the armoire, she tucked the gun inside a drawer and out of sight, then turned around and went toward the bed.
Besides, discovering that the man carried a gun was the least of her problems at the moment Getting him out of those wet clothes was. With nerves bouncing in her stomach like Ping-Pong balls, she reached for the button of his shirt.
By the time Josie had unfastened the last of his buttons and had wrestled the shirt off him, she wasn’t so sure that leaving him in his wet things would have been such a bad idea after all. Although he was about the same size as her former husband had been, there the similarities ended.
While Ben had been fair-skinned, this man appeared to have been kissed by the sun. And talk about shoulders! He had linebacker shoulders, and a well-toned chest to go with them. A silver medal lay against his chest, suspended by a chain from his neck. She started to reach for the disc to examine it, then decided she’d better not. Instead she directed her attention to the other major difference between this man’s body and that of her former husband‘s—chest hair. Ben’s chest had been as smooth as a baby’s bottom. But her patient had a swirl of deep gold hair that arrowed down the center of his chest all the way to the taut muscles that stretched across his abdomen and then vanished beneath the waist of his jeans. Heat curled in Josie’s belly as she looked at him, struck by the masculine beauty of his body. Surprised and embarrassed by her reaction, Josie reminded herself that she had a job to do. And that job didn’t include ogling the man’s body and thinking inappropriate thoughts.
Inappropriate or not, by the time Josie lowered his zipper and tugged off his jeans, her fingers were shaking. And if she were being honest with herself, her accelerated breathing had little to do with exertion and everything to do with the man who lay stretched out on her bed naked—save for a pair of black briefs. Fascinated, her eyes tracked that vee of dark gold hair that disappeared beneath the low-rise briefs. And the curl of heat inside her twisted, slid lower.
Get a grip, Josie, she told herself. Or else she was going to end up embarrassing the man and making a complete fool of herself. It was the thought of making a fool of herself that snapped her back to her senses. Pride, Josie conceded, had seen her through a mountain of disappointments more times than she cared to remember. While the Almighty might have skimped on her when it came to looks and family, He had given her an abundance of pride. And it was pride that made her yank the comforter up over the man and leave the room.
He came awake as he always did—instantly and fully alert. In the blink of an eye he noted the position of the exits. Assured he was alone, and sensing no immediate danger, he gave in to the need to clutch his aching head. He didn’t know what had happened, but he felt as though he’d gone ten rounds with a Mack truck. Based on the wad of gauze and tape across his forehead, he could only assume that he’d lost.
Willing himself not to focus on the pain in his head, he took quick stock of his surroundings and tried to determine where he was. He noted the ceiling painted a soft shade of cream, the delicate floral border that wrapped the room’s four walls. He gazed past the empty overstuffed chair in faded chintz positioned several feet from the bed. A small dressing table covered in lace sat against the far wall, a vase of pale pink roses, glass bottles and a ceramic box sat atop it. Continuing his assessment, he skimmed past the old-fashioned armoire in one corner and paused at the quaint bench seat beneath a window decked out in mint-and-ivory-colored drapes.
Nothing about the room or its contents triggered any warning bells. Nor did the place strike any chords of familiarity. But that fact didn’t alarm him. Although he had no idea where he was or exactly how he’d gotten here, he was sure of one thing-the room and the bed he occupied belonged to a female. Pleased by the thought, he closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and smiled. Now that he did recognize—the scent of roses and rain. And of a woman.
But who was she?
He searched his memory for a picture to match with the scent. At first none came to him. Then an image began to play at the fringes of his memory—an image of a raven-haired angel with clear, green eyes leaning over him, speaking to him in a honeyed voice. The smile curving his lips widened. Opening his eyes, he stared at the empty space in the bed beside him and probed for a name to go with the face of the woman whose bed he’d shared.
“Good morning.”
He turned his gaze toward the doorway at the sound of the voice and stared at its owner. “Morning,” he replied, giving her a quick once-over and then a slower one. The tray she held blocked his view of her upper torso, but he noted with appreciation the way the jeans hugged her long legs, the slight sway of her hips as she walked toward the bed. His body responded to her immediately, tightening as he thought of her stripping off those jeans and shirt and joining him back in bed. He started to invite her to do just that, only he couldn’t come up with her name.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” he replied, only to wince when a pain shot through his head as he pushed up to his elbows. “Correction. Not so fine. My head feels as if it went a couple of rounds with a tank and lost.”
“I’m not surprised.”
He shifted to a sitting position and was surprised to discover that he still had on his briefs. Must have really tied one on, he reasoned, which also surprised him since he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in such sad shape. Not only couldn’t he remember her name, but he usually slept in the raw. Heaven knows what in the devil he’d done to his head. He was just about to ask her what had happened when the scent of coffee derailed his thought processes. He sniffed. “Please, tell me that’s coffee I smell.”
“It’s coffee,” she assured him with a friendly smile and placed the tray on the table beside the bed. “After last night, I thought you could use a cup.”
After last night? Frowning he tried to remember what had happened last night. But for the life of him, his memory of their evening between the sheets and exactly what had led to his monster-size headache remained blank.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry or not, but I brought some biscuits to go with the coffee just in case.”
“Actually, I’m starved,” he told her and realized he was. “Biscuits sound great.”
“Really? That’s wonderful,” she said and proceeded to transfer biscuits to a plate.
Ah, she was eager to please, he decided and continued to study her, contemplating her hands as she fiddled with butter and napkins. Her nails were short, unpolished, but there was a gracefulness in her movements. Gentle hands, soft hands, with long soothing fingers, he thought, and another image winked at the edges of his memory. An image of those fingers stroking his face tenderly while she spoke to him in that lyrical voice. He lifted his gaze, noting the long column of pale skin at her throat, the fullness of her unpainted mouth. He tried to recall her taste, but it eluded him, just as her name did. Disturbed that he couldn’t remember kissing her, he drew in another deep breath, and this time caught her scent—roses and rain. Desire stirred inside him as he continued to watch her, tried to remember what it had been like to make love to her. And once again he drew a blank. As though sensing his scrutiny, she looked up, and her gaze tangled with his. Suddenly the air snapped with the sexual vibrations bouncing between them.
Just as quickly she looked away. “According to what I read in the book I checked last night, having an appetite after an experience like this is considered a good sign.”
