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“Ah. I knew it had to be something like that.” She came back to his side and pulled up a footstool to sit down. “I tried calling for an ambulance, but the lines are down. The storm’s getting worse, so it’s probably going to be a while longer before I can get you a doctor.”
“I don’t need—” Her words suddenly registered. “The lines?” he asked.
“The storm knocked out the phone service. I’m sure they’ll fix it as soon as the snow lets up.” She glanced toward the telephone, then back at his face. “I’m sorry. It happens up here from time to time.”
If his lip wasn’t stinging and his teeth weren’t starting to chatter again, he could have smiled. As it was, all he could do was let out a relieved breath. The phone was dead. She wouldn’t be calling anyone. All right. He could stay here a few more hours, maybe even another day. That would buy him some time for his body to recover.
“I guess you were trying to call someone when I came in,” she continued. She held the mug up to his lips for another drink. “I know you must have people who are worried about you, John. I’m sorry I don’t have a cell phone or anything.”
Better and better, he thought. He took a second swallow of the hot liquid. It tasted like hay, but it was helping to warm him up. “You called me John.”
“I hope you don’t mind. When I was hanging up your coat, I found your day planner in the pocket,” she said. “Your name was inside the front cover.”
His coat? Remy felt a stab of confusion before he remembered. Of course. She meant the coat he’d stolen from the truck stop. It had been two sizes too small, and he had barely been able to squeeze his hands into the gloves that had been in the side pockets, but he hadn’t been in the position to be choosy. The coat had kept him alive, and the gloves had probably kept him from losing his fingers to frostbite. When this was all over, he’d have to mail everything back to this John Becker, wherever he was.
When this was all over? Remy curled onto his side as a renewed wave of weakness surged through him. No, it was far from being over. He had too much to do before he was finished and a long, long way yet to go.
Dana put the cup of camomile tea on the side table and smoothed the blankets over John’s shoulder. His knees were drawn up as if to hold in the heat of his body. His eyes had closed ten minutes ago. Thankfully, this time it seemed more like sleep than unconsciousness. His breathing was deep and even, and his shivering wasn’t as violent. She hoped that meant he was recovering.
Considering his condition when she found him, he must have a formidable reserve of strength. Just look at the way he had tried to walk when he had barely been capable of standing. The poor man. Judging by the power that was evident in those muscles that ridged his arms and shoulders, he likely wasn’t accustomed to being helpless. She had felt the quivering tension in his body when he had collapsed, and she had seen the frustration in his gaze. It must be horrible to be incapacitated like that and at the mercy of a stranger.
A gust of wind shook the cabin, and Dana glanced at the window. Until the storm eased, they were trapped here. Alone. Together.
John wasn’t the only one at the mercy of a stranger.
She felt a tickle of uneasiness as she watched the snow. Now that it seemed safe to assume John wasn’t about to succumb to hypothermia, she should be pleased. The evidence of his strength should come as a relief, not as a cause for misgivings.
She returned her gaze to her guest, noting how he filled the couch. She’d known he was a large man when she’d wrestled him out of his clothes, but she hadn’t felt the full impact of his height until she had seen him upright…and practically naked. Although he’d been staggering on his feet, he’d nevertheless been an awesome sight, all taut skin and firm muscle. He had to be two, maybe three inches over six feet. That made him a full head taller than her. Still, his height shouldn’t make her nervous, either. He was the same size as her cousin Derek, and Derek Johansen was as gentle as a lamb.
Tucking her hair behind her ears impatiently, Dana got to her feet and went over to untangle John’s wet clothes from the broken drying rack. All right, under other circumstances she would be right to worry about being trapped alone with a very large, strange man, but it was too late to change her mind about taking him in now, not that she’d ever really had a choice. She’d always been a sucker for strays, no matter what size or species they happened to be.
Besides, as long as he remained in his present condition, there was no reason for her to be nervous. It was absurd to think, even for a moment, that John could be some kind of, well, ax murderer.
According to the well-worn agenda book he kept in his overcoat, John Becker was the head salesman for an industrial fasteners company. His home address was in Toronto—he had undoubtedly been trying to make it home before the storm closed the roads. That would explain what he had been doing on the highway. He probably had a wife and children waiting anxiously for his arrival.
Yes, of course. He must have a family. His not wearing a wedding band didn’t mean anything. Neither did his mustachioed-desperado appearance. Why else would someone be anxious enough to risk traveling in this weather, if not for the sake of one’s family?
In that respect, John was luckier than she was. Dana had no one to go home to. She had no child who would press her nose to the windowpane and peer through the snow in hopes of seeing a familiar car pull into the driveway. Apart from Morty, Dana was responsible for no one.
But there had been a time when she had dreamed of having more….
Yes, well, life moved on. She might not have a child, but she had her work. And because of her work, she touched the lives of thousands of children.
She added another few logs to the fire and finished tidying the main room, then gathered her papers from the drawing table and carried them into her bedroom. She was about to close her door when a flash of movement from the couch caught her eye. Despite her efforts to reason away her misgivings, she couldn’t help the nervous little jump of her pulse as she gripped the door frame and looked over her shoulder.
John hadn’t moved from where she’d left him. The blanket that stretched over his shoulders rippled as he shivered. He curled up more tightly. A lock of dark hair flopped over his forehead, softening the harsh planes of his face. It made him look vulnerable, almost…boyish.
There was another blur of motion near his feet. Morty, looking very smug, picked his way across the blanket and nestled into the crook of John’s knees.
Dana turned back to her room. If John Becker had Morty’s seal of approval, her qualms about his character had to be misplaced.
It was hard to tell when the night ended and day began. Beyond the white drift that piled against the window, the snow swirled as if from an endless gray tunnel. Between gusts, Remy glimpsed the shadows of other cabins and the hulking outline of the resort’s main lodge, but he didn’t see any lights. There was no sign of anyone else. The place was deserted.
Well, almost deserted.
He should have realized there would be a caretaker. Too bad about the woman. If not for Dana Whittington, this place would have been perfect. Half Moon Bay Resort was isolated enough to provide concealment, yet close enough to the small town of Hainesborough to allow him access to what he needed. That’s why he’d decided to head up here when he’d gotten out. He could have holed up comfortably in one of the outlying cabins. It had been fifteen years since he’d been at the resort, but he remembered every detail of the layout.
After all, he’d helped to build it.
He’d been eighteen and full of hope and ambition when he’d arrived here the last time. He’d seen the construction job as his ticket to the future, the first step toward his dream of making something of himself. He was fresh from the juvenile detention center, and he’d wanted to prove that the people of Hainesborough were wrong, that he was nothing like his old man, that he wasn’t the boy they thought he was.
Ironic, wasn’t it? He had come full circle. He was once more at Half Moon Bay, once more hoping to prove everyone wrong.
Only now the stakes were a hell of a lot higher.
Drawing in a steadying breath, Remy looked away from the window and turned his attention back to buttoning his shirt. His fingers still felt like slabs of wood, aching and unmanageable. He tried to make a fist. Pain screamed through his joints, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been the night before. Ignoring the discomfort, reining in his impatience for his weakness, he curled his fingers into his palms until he had worked out the stiffness. Not 100 percent, but it would do. Clumsily he pushed most of his buttons through the holes, fastened the stud on his jeans, then braced his hands on his knees and stood.
So far this morning he hadn’t fallen down, but he still wasn’t steady on his feet. If he could hole up here until tomorrow, he would stand a better chance of finding some other base to operate from. In the meantime he had to make sure Dana kept on believing he was just some hapless traveler who had arrived here by chance.
He staggered to the wall where the overcoat he had stolen hung from a peg. The day planner Dana had mentioned finding was in the left pocket. Remy forced his aching fingers into motion once more and flipped through the pages, scanning for any clues to the identity he was temporarily assuming. There wasn’t much personal information. Too bad Becker hadn’t kept his wallet in his overcoat—
Remy drew in his breath. He still wasn’t thinking straight. If there had been a wallet, there would have been identification. Photo identification. If Dana had seen it, his game would have been up before he’d regained consciousness.
He shoved the notebook back into the pocket where he’d found it, then looked at the closed bedroom door. He paused to listen for any hint of movement from within, but there was none. With one hand on the wall for support, he moved around the cabin, taking stock of anything else that might present a risk.
There was no television that he could see, but there was a CD player with a radio in the living room and a battery-powered radio in the kitchen. He didn’t want to waste time searching for tools, so he took a butcher knife from the cutlery drawer, pried open the back of the kitchen radio and disabled it.
A check of the phone revealed there was still no dial tone. He couldn’t gamble on the lines remaining down for much longer. He improved his odds by severing the input wire from the receiver, a sloppy but effective way to ensure it would remain out of order. He hesitated over the CD player, not wanting to do more damage to Dana’s property than he needed to. In the end he merely cut the connection to the antenna—he knew without that, the set wouldn’t be able to pick up a signal this far north.
A door creaked open behind him. “Oh! I didn’t expect to see you awake already.”
Remy straightened up from the CD player and turned around, using his motion to conceal the knife behind his back.
Dana stood in the doorway of her bedroom, her arms filled with a stack of loose papers and what appeared to be a large sketchbook. A bulky sweater came to the top of her thighs, obscuring much of her figure, but the black leggings she wore revealed long, slender legs. And despite himself, Remy felt his pulse move into a slow, steady throb.
He must have been in worse shape last night than he had thought. When he had looked at Dana then, he had only seen a threat. Now he was aware of much, much more.
Her hair wasn’t merely blond. It was warm gold, somewhere between the color of wheat in August and aspen leaves in October. It tumbled around her face to brush her shoulders in sensuous waves. Her eyes weren’t merely blue. They were pure cerulean and stunning enough to steal his breath.
And somehow, she looked familiar. He had the feeling he had seen her face before…
No, that wasn’t possible. If he’d met her, he would have remembered. Any man would.
What had happened to Dana Whittington? Why would a beautiful woman with such a gentle touch choose to live by herself up here in the middle of nowhere?
Not that it should matter to him, he reminded himself. How she looked, who she was, made no difference. One more day, that’s all he wanted. By then he should be able to move on. “Good morning,” he said finally.
“How are you feeling, John?” she asked.
“Better, thanks.”
“I can see that,” she said, placing the papers and sketchbook on the drafting table. “I’m so glad.”
She wasn’t lying, he realized. She really was pleased that he was recovering.
No, she was pleased that John Becker with the fancy coat and the fat appointment book was recovering. Remy tightened his grip on the butcher knife. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you last night,” he said, taking a step backward. He had to find someplace to ditch this knife before she saw it—things would be far easier if he could avoid a confrontation.
“No thanks are necessary, John. Up here, everyone looks out for their neighbors.”
God, he hoped not. That’s all he needed, some nosy neighbor showing up to check on her. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Dana. I’ll be gone as soon as—” His words ended on a sharp curse. Instead of the hardwood floor, his foot came down on something soft. There was a sudden, high-pitched screech.
Damn! He’d forgotten about that cat. It had been following him around since he’d gotten up.
“Morty!” Dana cried, racing forward in a futile attempt to reach her pet.
Remy shifted quickly to avoid bringing his full weight down on the cat. Morty streaked away unharmed in a blur of orange while Remy staggered sideways, off balance and unable to catch himself without revealing the knife.
“Oh, no!” Dana exclaimed. She was by his side in an instant, sliding her arm around his waist and propping her shoulder under his arm. It was a position that was becoming much too familiar…and more comfortable than he would have liked.
She still smelled like lilies, he thought, feeling her hair brush his cheek. And she had a surprising amount of strength in her slender frame. He deliberately swayed against her as she helped him over to the couch. Allowing her to believe he was worse off than he actually was might help to lower her guard, and that could prove to be an advantage. He collapsed onto the cushions more heavily than necessary.
Her cheeks pinkened with her efforts as she disentangled herself from him and straightened up. A memory from the night before flashed into his mind. She had flushed like that when they had tumbled onto the couch together and she had ended up sprawled over his bare chest.
Was she blushing because of him? How long had it been since he’d known any woman who was innocent enough to blush? “Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m not usually this clumsy.”
“You need to take it easy. You probably shouldn’t be up yet.”
“No, I’m okay.”
“I wish I could talk to a doctor. I’ll try phoning—”
“The line’s still out. I checked.”
She hesitated, then went over to lift the receiver herself.
So she didn’t quite trust him yet, Remy thought. Part of him was pleased that she wasn’t completely naive, despite those innocent blushes. Living up here on her own like this, she was right to be cautious about strangers. After all, the stranger could turn out to be…someone like him.
Hell, what was he thinking? He should be concerned about Chantal’s welfare—and his own—not this woman’s. “I figured the snow would have stopped by now.”
She glanced at the window, grimacing as she saw the height of the snowdrift. “I’ve never seen it this bad before. I’m not sure I’d be able to get my car through that snow, or even get it out of the garage.”
“If you point me in the direction of the highway, I could try to hitch a ride,” he said.
She shook her head quickly. “No, John. It’s two miles away and you’re in no shape to be on your feet.”
“But—”
“I know you must be anxious to get home, but it would be crazy to go anywhere on foot in this weather, even if you were fully recovered.”
He moved his lips into what he hoped would appear to be a grateful smile. “Thanks, Dana.”
The flush on her cheeks deepened as she looked at his mouth. “I’ll check the weather forecast,” she said. “Maybe we can get some idea how much longer the storm will last.”
Remy tried to ignore the whisper of guilt he felt as he watched her futile attempts to get a signal on each of the radios in turn. Instead, he took advantage of the moment her back was turned and slid the knife out of sight under the couch.
Chapter 3
It was the weather, Dana told herself, feeling yet another shiver tiptoe down her spine. The eerie grayness of the swirling snow outside the window and the moaning of the wind around the eaves as the afternoon wore on were like elements out of some horror film. Come to think of it, wasn’t there a Stephen King movie about a man at a closed resort in the winter flipping out and using an ax? That character’s name was John, too, wasn’t it? But that man had been the caretaker, not an unexpected guest, right? Maybe this weather was going to make her flip out.
The kettle whistled beside her. Dana jumped, then shook her hair back from her face and forced herself to laugh. She was letting her imagination get the better of her, that’s all. So what if both the telephone and the radio were out? Being cut off from civilization had never bothered her before. That’s why she had come here, wasn’t it?
Of course, she hadn’t planned on having company. Especially someone who looked like John Becker.
On the other hand he didn’t really look like a John Becker. He looked more like a Tex or a Rocko or maybe even a dark-haired, brown-eyed Sundance Kid….
“Idiot,” she muttered to herself. She measured out the tea and poured the boiling water into the pot. So far today John had been a quiet and unobtrusive guest. He hadn’t made one move that could be interpreted as remotely threatening. She should stop obsessing over his appearance. He hadn’t been able to shave, so he couldn’t help it that the black beard stubble only made him look harder, almost…dangerous. He was frustrated over being stuck here by the storm, so it was only natural that there would be a troubled—at times desperate—gleam in his gaze.
And there was nothing suspicious about the way he was spending so much time dozing on the couch. He had been through a terrible ordeal—it was a miracle he hadn’t lost any fingers or toes to frostbite. He needed rest to allow his body to recover. It was unkind of her to suspect that he was faking the extent of his weakness to avoid conversation. Just because he looked powerful didn’t mean that he was. Not at the moment, anyway.
She was simply too accustomed to being alone. Maybe that’s why she was feeling this constant awareness of his presence.
Or maybe the awareness was due to the fact that she had seen him without his clothes.
Dana pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and stifled a groan. There was no denying he was a good-looking man. All that luscious dark hair, that bad-boy mustache, those chiseled features and that magnificent, powerful body….
Talk about a distraction. She hadn’t gotten more than twenty minutes work done all day.
How could she be leery of him one minute and fascinated by him the next? This wasn’t like her. It must be due to the isolation or the low barometric pressure in the weather system or maybe the phase of the moon. Right. She simply had to get ahold of herself. This would all be over in a few hours, or another day at the most.
Then everything would get back to normal. She would send the latest stray she had acquired on his way and she would be alone again, just the way she wanted.
He was awake when she returned to the main room. Firelight danced over the harsh planes of his face as he stared at the flames on the hearth. As usual, Morty was ensconced on his lap, purring like a train as John’s long fingers moved lightly over the cat’s fur.
“He seems to have adopted you,” she said, carrying her mug of tea to her drafting table. “Do you have a cat?”
John turned his head to look at her. “No.”
She noticed that the troubled gleam was back in his eyes. Well, why shouldn’t he be troubled? Anyone in his situation would be. “You must like animals, though. Morty doesn’t normally take to strangers.”
John stroked behind Morty’s ears. The cat closed his eyes and drew his head back into his neck in bliss. “Yeah, I like animals,” John murmured.
“Then you probably have some kind of pet at home, right?”
His fingers stilled. A closed look came over his face. “The place I’ve been staying doesn’t allow pets.”
“That’s a shame. I’m lucky my landlord doesn’t mind Morty. He’s such terrific company.”
“With all the wildlife in the area, I wouldn’t have thought the resort owner would kick up a fuss over one cat.”
