Then the ground rose up to claim her.
A violent blast of curses echoed through the mountain air. Gut tight, Dan Mason jumped off his now-lame horse and scrambled over to the woman. He touched her hand, but she didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Where the hell had she come from anyway? he wondered, gaze flickering up and around. These paths were always clear. Especially at 6:00 a.m., when a man was looking to run from the demons of the night before, month before—years before.
As gently as a man used to dealing with hard-core criminals could manage, he rolled the woman to her back, brushed aside strands of long tawny curls and touched the base of her throat. A strong, steady pulse beat against his fingers. He leaned close, felt her easy breath against his jaw.
He shook his head, released a weighty sigh.
With the eyes of a deputy U.S. marshal, he assessed her condition. She didn’t appear to have any broken bones. She did, however, have a ruthless bruise on her forehead, a bruise that, thankfully, swelled outward.
As his gaze moved over her heart-shaped face, those marshal eyes turned into the eyes of a man. He couldn’t help it. He was base, a needful bastard. And she looked like an angel. Cupid-bow lips, satin skin, long neck. Then there was that firm chin that hinted at a real stubborn streak.
His gaze flickered downward. Thin gray sweatshirt, worn jeans and man-killer curves.
He inhaled sharply, called himself a depraved idiot and forced his game face back on. All in all, she was a typical hiker with typical hiking gear. Except for the boots. No mistaking. Those were top of the line. The woman had money.
The river roared from its bed ten feet down, snatching his attention like a fire alarm, spitting up spray. A muscle jumped in Dan’s jaw. She could’ve gone over the edge.
He leaned toward her, whispered sharply, “Lady, wake up.”
He got nothing. Nothing but one helluva sweet scent.
“Lady, can you hear me?”
A soft moan slipped from those pale-pink lips. She moved slightly, her face twisting, no doubt in pain. Pain was good, he thought. But getting her to wake up was better.
In a tone more suited to press criminals than soothe victims, he urged her on, “You’ve got to wake up now. Open your eyes and look at me.”
At that, tawny lashes fluttered, then opened. Eyes the color of violets stared up at him, made his chest constrict.
“Can you hear me?”
Blinking drunkenly, she nodded.
“You out here alone?”
Confusion swept her angel face as she uttered hoarsely, “I don’t know.”
“Do you feel dizzy? Sick to your stomach?”
“A little.”
He frowned. He knew something about head wounds. And this sounded like a concussion. “Your head hurt?”
“Aches.” Her responses came out as uneasy whispers. But it was the look in her eyes, the confusion, the fear that had his teeth clenching in undisguised anger.
He could see another woman, his partner, his fiancée, face pale, lips parted, staring up at a six-foot-five heavily muscled fugitive who was supposed to be on the other side of her gun.
Had Janice looked like this woman? Frightened, desperate?
Dan’s jaw threatened to crack. That horrific night had happened over four years ago, for chrissakes. How many times was he going to go through it, relive it? He hadn’t been there for her, case closed—couldn’t’ve been there for her. He’d been tied to that hospital bed, a bullet lodged in his thigh.
And hell, the bastard was behind bars where he belonged now anyway. Granted, a little more bruised and beaten than when he’d last faced a cell. Something Dan had seen to, something that had gotten his ass suspended and sent up to a mountain cabin to think about what he’d done, and if all went according to plan, feel remorse for it.
He grunted. His superiors were going to be waiting a long time for that to happen.
On a pained sigh, the woman in front of him let her lids close. All questions, all memories dropped to the back of his mind for more pressing and present matters.
This woman needed a doctor. But how was he going to contact one? Her pack had fallen over the crag, had to be a mile downstream by now. He didn’t have a cell phone.
Truth was, he hadn’t wanted any contact with the outside world. And now this woman was forcing his hand.
Options were few. Town was a full day’s ride away.
With a sharp sigh, he gathered her small frame into his arms, snatched Rancon’s reins and headed back to his cabin.
Two
Thumbnail sketches of flowered hillsides and rocky coastlines and one dangerously handsome man with dark, probing eyes drifted in and out of her muddled brain, warring with the sting over her left eyebrow and the dull pounding in her skull.
From far off she heard a moan. A feminine sound, but low and gravel-like. She wanted to run toward the woman, embrace her, whisper soothing words. But where was she?
“You need to wake up.”
The male voice slashed through the fog of her mind. The sting turned sharp as she strained to do as she was commanded. She tried to move, tried to shake her head. But her limbs felt heavy, water-filled. All she wanted to do was sleep, just sleep.
“I know you hear me,” came the masculine growl once again. “Open your eyes or there’s going to be trouble.”
She felt fingers, strong and cool at the base of her throat. She inhaled sharply at the touch, taking in the scents of pine and leather and sweat and…male…
With great effort, she forced her eyes open. Inches from her was a man—a ruthlessly handsome man with mussed black hair, piercing eyes, obstinate jaw and previously broken nose that she’d seen…
When?
Muscles tense with fear, she stared into those brown eyes of his, dark as chocolate, melted, hot chocolate, and uttered a hoarse “Who are you?”
The man’s hard gaze moved boldly over her face, hovered near her mouth, then lifted to her eyes and narrowed. “You first.”
Confused, she felt her forehead crease, but she didn’t argue with him. For, a more alarming predicament was rising up, biting her on the ear. When she opened her mouth, fully expecting her name to slip out easily, thoughtlessly…nothing emerged.
Terror twisted in her belly, shooting off balls of anxiety that had no direction, no catcher. She began to shake. Her throat went dry as a summer wind. She shut her eyes, willed herself to concentrate, to relax. This was ridiculous. The truth was there, on the tip of her tongue, who she was and where she’d come from.
Moments passed.
Nothing came.
She lifted her eyelids. “I don’t know who I am.”
A curse, ripe and hot, fell from his lips.
There had to be a logical explanation for this whole situation, she reasoned, must be. She just had to think, take a moment and concentrate.
Forcing a calm tone she hardly felt, she asked, “Are we lovers? Married?”
He snorted. “No.”
“Friends, then? Acquaintances—”
“No.”
Nervously, she looked around the room. She was in a small bedroom, sparsely furnished with just the bed, an old dresser and rocking chair. Above, the ceiling sported scores of rustic wood logs, while the large windows in front of her peered out over imposing mountains.