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He filled the doorway, tall and lean and powerful, with only a small peach towel covering his narrow hips. Droplets of water sparkled in his hair. A curly, dark masculine fluff dusted solid-looking pecs.
Blood roared in her ears as a long-dormant need awakened. Seminude, he looked better than she’d imagined. Where undecorated by hair, his amber skin looked satiny, touchable. She’d love to give him a massage, have a legitimate excuse to explore that body without fear. He wasn’t so big as to be intimidating, she realized. Not a giant. Just a man, though a very good-looking one.
She remembered to breathe. “Excuse me.” She had to get out of there fast, before she hyperventilated.
“Uh, Serenity, where are my clothes?”
“In the washer. They were filthy.”
He grinned, eyes twinkling at some unknown joke.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothin’. Hey, what am I supposed to do, run around nekkid?”
Not a bad idea. She swallowed. “Aren’t you sleepy?” Given the amount of tea he’d drunk, he ought to collapse.
Blinking, he stretched his arms over his head. His triceps bulged. The towel slid.
Sweating, she averted her eyes. A regular at the local clothing-optional swimming hole, she wasn’t body-shy. But this unknown stranger aroused a feminine passion she hadn’t felt for a long time, and one she didn’t want to feel now.
She peeked. His stretch made him look like a lean, powerful cougar, golden and sleek. He rolled back his shoulders, then cracked his knuckles. “I do believe you’re right, ma’am. After that delicious supper and nice, relaxing shower, bed would feel fine.” He winked at her.
On fire, she fled for the door. She didn’t want to think about, much less see, his entire body as he dropped the towel and slid between the sheets. “I’ll…I’ll get you another cold compress.” But she was the one who needed to chill out, though a little bitty compress wouldn’t cool the sudden fire he’d ignited.
She probably needed the entire North Pole.
Chapter Two
He ran through the darkness, fleeing a nameless, shapeless foe. Clinging sand conspired with the sharp desert wind in his face to slow him down.
He rolled over the side of an arroyo, hoping to find cover to wait out the threat. Easier to run on the firm-packed bottomland, but dangerous. The fitful moonlight concealed as much as it revealed, distorting the path. Any shadow could be a leg-breaking, ankle-wrenching pothole. With his pursuers gaining, a fall would be disastrous.
Rising, he sprinted down one twisting, turning cleft, then risked a look over his shoulder. His eyes confirmed what his ears already knew: they were closer.
Subterfuge, then. He dodged behind a boulder and crawled, wishing that the slight concealment would shadow his movements as he turned ninety degrees into a branch of the arroyo.
Bad move into a dead end. Dead end. He’d always hated that turn of phrase.
He checked for a cave at the back of the cleft, hope warring with his knowledge of the desert.
Nothing. Unless he could climb out fast, he was a goner.
His nose twitched, scenting an aroma different than the ordinary smells of sage and sand that perfumed the desert at midnight.
It was warm, with good associations, yet burning. Not wood smoke.
Coffee?
He opened his eyes. Early dawn light, pearly and pink, snuck through beige curtains at the window. Skin sweaty and muscles tense, he shifted his legs in a too short, too narrow bed, untangling himself from the twisted sheets.
Where was he? Who was he? Had his dream been a memory? Who had been chasing him? Why?
He remembered where he was. Safe. Relief flowed through his body like a cooling tide. He was safe in the guest room of the mysterious Lori Perkins, aka Serenity Clare, fortune-teller and organic cook.
His heartbeat tripped, then slowed. He stretched his body as much as he could in the tiny bed, taking inventory. His head hurt, but only at the site of the injury. The headache had gone, he realized with a sigh of relief.
Rising, he didn’t see his clothing. He chuckled. He didn’t mind going au naturel if nakedness got the reaction he wanted from pretty Serenity. He bet she had a trim little body underneath her loose, hippie-style clothes.
Guilt gnawed at the edges of his conscience. Serenity had generously welcomed him into her home and showed him nothing but kindness. She didn’t deserve a needy male getting fresh with her.
Besides, she might have a lover. Though he hadn’t seen a ring on her left hand, a woman as cute and nice as sweet little Serenity probably attracted men the way water drew horses after a long day’s ride.
He sniffed again. Coffee. How natural was coffee? Knowing Serenity, the coffee had probably been organically grown, roasted over an open fire, then ground by holy-spirited Tibetan monks. She’d brew it with Evian or some other kind of fancy, pure water, in a hand-blown, glass coffeepot that was free from hazardous chemicals.
He laughed out loud. He was doggone cynical, wasn’t he? Wrapping the now-dry towel around his midsection, he went in search of Serenity Clare and her magic coffee.
After striding into the living room, he stopped, arrested by the spectacle that met his surprised eyes.
The curtain on a wide picture window was open, giving a view of dawn over the desert. In front of the glass, an enormous, curved chunk of amethyst stood on a wooden holder. Ambient light caught and refracted through the lavender crystals studding the rock.
Before this display, Serenity sat, cross-legged, on a mat. Clothed in a gauzy robe that clung to her lithe body, her arrow-straight back was silhouetted by the first pale rays of dawn.
His pulse thundered in his ears. He sucked in a breath.
She emitted a hum. “Ommmmmm…” Her chant grew in volume as the sun rose.
A sunbeam, pure and sharp as a blade, knifed over the horizon and struck the amethyst. Split by the crystal into a thousand disparate rays, rainbows bounced around the room.
Serenity leaped to her feet, hands flung above her head, stretching her slender body as though she wanted to touch the sky. She arched back, her body bowing, then forward, slapping both palms on the ground.
He was confronted by her upturned bottom, outlined by her enveloping robe. Lust whipped through him, elemental and violent as lightning.
Shame immediately followed. How could he even think of repaying Serenity’s kindness with a pass during her morning meditation?
He crashed down the hall to the bathroom, scrabbling for control. Turning the shower on full-blast, he jumped in, punishing himself in the stinging, icy spray.
He hated not knowing who he was, but did he really want to find out? What kind of jerk was he? He hoped he didn’t react like a caveman every time he laid eyes on a woman. Sure, Serenity was pretty and nice, but he’d better learn to control himself around her. Or he’d have to leave, and he had no idea where to go or how to seek his past.
When he emerged from the bathroom, he heard her singing. Not “om,” but something lively and charming about a hard-knock life. Tentatively touching the healing bump on his head, he found that the song struck a chord with him.
He walked through the living room, now blessedly vacant of the resident dawn worshiper. At the kitchen door, he spied Serenity, dressed and seated at the table, earthenware mug nearby.
She looked up, her smile sunny as the newborn day. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“Uh, I guess,” he answered, remembering his nightmare.
“What’s wrong?” She rose, approaching to press a palm to his forehead.
“I’m okay. I had some odd dreams, that’s all.”
Her smile faded. A concerned little pleat appeared between her eyebrows.
Before she could say anything, he asked, “Are 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.
