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The Ranger and The Rescue
Sue Swift
WHO WAS HE……this sexy but injured amnesiac cowboy who'd sought out her cabin, then staked a claim on her soul? From Stetson to boots, he looked like an upstanding lawman. But was he an enemy from her imprisoning past? Or a sweet, loving rescuer unlocking the chains around her heart?WHO WAS SHE.…this mysterious, flame-haired "Serenity Clare" who'd trustingly taken him in, stirred his senses and made him feel oddly whole? And could he offer her a future without knowing his past? He had to risk it–had to propose–and pray their vows led not to regrets but to remembering…and to sweet, loving rescue.
The stranger was better looking than anyone had a right to be.
Serenity sighed. Though he was inches away, his warmth enveloped her. His distinctive male scent filled her senses. She thrummed with delightful, forbidden longings. The memory of his recent kiss haunted her, branding her soul forever.
A fantasy of making love with him sneaked into her brain. She nearly groaned aloud, passion overtaking her.
Could she?
Would he?
What would be the harm?
Once his memory returned, he’d be leaving, wouldn’t he?
And didn’t they deserve some happiness until they learned who he was…and why he was here?
Dear Reader,
Brr…February’s below-freezing temperatures call for a mug of hot chocolate, a fuzzy afghan and a heartwarming book from Silhouette Romance. Our books will heat you to the tips of your toes with the sizzling sexual tension that courses between our stubborn heroes and the determined heroines who ultimately melt their hardened hearts.
In Judy Christenberry’s Least Likely To Wed, her sinfully sexy cowboy hero has his plans for lifelong bachelorhood foiled by the searing kisses of a spirited single mom. While in Sue Swift’s The Ranger & the Rescue, an amnesiac cowboy stakes a claim on the heart of a flame-haired heroine—but will the fires of passion still burn when he regains his memory?
Tensions reach the boiling point in Raye Morgan’s She’s Having My Baby!—the final installment of the miniseries HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY—when our heroine discovers just who fathered her baby-to-be…. And tempers flare in Rebecca Russell’s Right Where He Belongs, in which our handsome hero must choose between his cold plan for revenge and a woman’s warm and tender love.
Then simmer down with the incredibly romantic heroes in Teresa Southwick’s What If We Fall In Love? and Colleen Faulkner’s A Shocking Request. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fall in love all over again with these deeply touching stories about widowers who get a second chance at love.
So this February, come in from the cold and warm your heart and spirit with one of these temperature-raising books from Silhouette Romance. Don’t forget the marshmallows!
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
The Ranger & the Rescue
Sue Swift
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The various details of the Texas Rangers
and their operations were the sole creation of the author.
This book is dedicated to my critique partners, Cheryl Vincent Clark
and Janet Shirah, who continued to believe when I didn’t.
I’d like to thank my critique partners and others who helped me with this book:
Judy Dedek, Jackie Hamilton, Celia Zweig and Colin Swift.
My editors, Darlene Winter, Diane Grecco, Kim Nadelson
and Mary-Theresa Hussey, have been enormously helpful.
As always, I depend upon the love and support of my husband.
Books by Sue Swift
Silhouette Romance
His Baby, Her Heart #1539
The Ranger & the Rescue #1574
SUE SWIFT
A criminal defense attorney for twenty years, Sue Swift always sensed a creative wellspring bubbling inside her, but didn’t find her niche until attending a writing class with master teacher Bud Gardner. Within a short time, Sue realized her creative outlet was romance fiction. Since she began writing her first novel in November 1996, she’s sold three books and two short stories.
The 2001 president of the Sacramento Chapter of the Romance Writers of America, Sue credits the RWA, its many wonderful programs and the help of its experienced writers for her new career as a romance novelist. She also lectures to women’s and writers’ groups on various topics relating to the craft of writing.
Her hobbies are hiking, bodysurfing and kenpo karate, in which she’s earned a second-degree black belt. Sue and her real-live hero of a husband maintain homes in northern California and Maui, Hawaii. You may write Sue via e-mail at sue@sue-swift.com (mailto:sue@sue-swift.com) or at P.O. Box 241, Citrus Heights, CA 95611-0241. And please visit Sue’s Web site at www.sue-swift.com (http://www.sue-swift.com). An interview with Sue is featured at the author area of the Harlequin/Silhouette Web site at www.eHarlequin.com (http://www.eHarlequin.com).
Contents
Chapter One (#u893f9dde-4e48-58ba-87f6-d12e353c8701)
Chapter Two (#u14c5de16-3508-5b42-9fef-a1e686bd086d)
Chapter Three (#u61e62738-4392-5d27-a05e-c0c11ffd5abb)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
The most beautiful man Serenity Clare had 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.
