THIS PERFECT STRANGER Read online

  And she'd still be spitting into it.

  * * *

  Cain MacCallister made no pretense of ignoring the fragile-looking beauty named Maggie as she unfolded those long legs of hers from the booth and walked by him without a second glance. More to the point, he couldn't take his eyes off her. Perhaps, he reasoned, it was her resemblance to Annie that had caught him like a sucker punch to the gut. Slender and pale, with that blond, pinned-up hair and swanlike neck of hers, she could've been a dancer. Maybe it was the elegant way she held herself as that cow-chaser hassled her.

  Maybe it was the way she smiled—the little flicker of that wide mouth of hers that had nearly stalled his heart. All of which had forced him to reassess the "fragile" description he'd pinned on her. Oh, she was delicate all right. Delicate the way centuries-old bone china was delicate, with a tempered core that belied the translucence.

  Damn, he thought, sipping his cooling coffee. What the hell was wrong with him? He had no business thinking about a woman like her. She was probably married with three kids, a picket fence and a dog. He was in the market for something considerably less permanent.

  But that didn't stop him from watching her pull away in her beat-up old pickup truck, or from wondering who'd put the sadness he'd glimpsed in her eyes.

  Swivelling a look at the trio of men seated a few tables away, Cain tightened his fist. He'd known plenty of men like them. In lockup, a man got familiar with the lowest common denominator quickly. In the real world, men like Laird got off on using intimidation. Especially on women.

  Cam smiled grimly. He'd give that bastard five minutes behind bars before men much better versed in arm-twisting put him in a place he'd wish he'd never seen. But men like Laird—men with money—rarely found themselves in the black hole. Even if they'd earned a spot there.

  Cain reached into his pocket for the last of his change and tossed it on the table. The waitress who'd filled his cup smiled as she cruised by him again. "Finished? Sure I can't get you something else?"

  The smell of cinnamon buns had been making him almost sick with hunger for the past ten minutes and if he didn't get out of here soon, he might just have to ask her for a job as a dishwasher to earn one.

  "Thanks," he said, managing a smile of his own as he shrugged into his denim jacket. "This is it. Unless you can tell me who might be hiring around here."

  "You're looking for work?" she asked with a surprised lift of her brows.

  He nodded curtly. "I've got some experience with ranch work. Horses, mostly."

  Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, looking him up and down for a moment. "Funny, I didn't take you for a ranch hand."

  He slid his gloves back on.

  "Horses, huh?" She glanced at Laird. "The Bar ZX is always hiring at this time of year."

  Laughter erupted from the men's table as they shared a joke. Cain glanced out the window. "Anywhere else?"

  The woman smiled slowly, then gestured to Cain with a tip of her chin to follow her. "As a matter of fact," she said softly, walking him to the door, "I just might know of something."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  The sleeting rain started after lunch, but by one-fifteen it had turned into hail—a sharp, biting deluge that rattled against the tin roof of Maggie's barn. It had scattered the horses in the paddock in a blind panic. Marble-sized balls of ice pummeled the mares, reducing them to quivering masses huddling against the barn.

  One by one, she managed to catch them and lead them into the barn, out of the weather. But Geronimo, a green-broke three-year old gelding, was too frightened to be caught. She'd already missed him three times with her rope as he skidded around the paddock, eyes white with terror.

  The gelding was the most unpredictable of her new horses. With the temperament of a scared bulldog, he'd resisted her every attempt at training. But Maggie knew he'd been mishandled as a young horse and she believed he had real potential as a cutter.

  The heels of her boots slipped in the mud as Maggie threw the lariat. She missed, going down painfully on one knee. Geronimo crashed into the split-rail fencing and shrieked. Struggling to her feet, Maggie hauled back the spooled out rope, cursing the weather and imagining the bruises she'd have on her before she was done.

  Thunder rumbled, shaking the ground and blurring the roar of the hail against the barn. Frigid rain dripped off the brim of her hat and slid down her neck. The stinging hail beat against her slicker-covered back. Instinct warned that she should leave the damned horse where he was. But she knew she didn't have the heart to do that either. Geronimo had been through enough in his short life to fill a book. She wasn't about to compound his misery by abandoning him when things got tough. In his state, he could break his neck trying to break out of the paddock.

  "Shh—Geronimo—" she called, approaching him again as he pranced madly back and forth on the north end of the enclosure. She knew he hated the rope, but she couldn't get close enough to him to grab his halter. "Whoa, boy. Settle down, now. Here we go. That's it. Let's just get you outta this weather."

  Geronimo rolled his eyes in terror as she tossed the loop one more time, this time, miraculously, dropping it over the gelding's head. Maggie hauled back on the rope feeling the resistance before she'd even gotten it tight.

  The big gelding shuddered for a moment, legs splayed, before he exploded with a high-pitched squeal. Nine-hundred pounds of fury, bone and muscle bore down on her like a shrieking banshee.

  There was no time to react. Nowhere to go. She heard a scream and knew it had come from her.

  Too late, she lunged sideways, diving toward the fence rails, but Geronimo slammed into her with the force of an oncoming locomotive. The impact sent her careening against the railing and slammed the breath from her lungs. Lights exploded in her skull, and the rain and the sky and even the mud beneath her cheek winked in and out like a flickering lightbulb.

  She felt, more than heard, the thunderous pounding of Geronimo's hooves against the ground nearby. She gasped and coughed. Her lungs burned. The world, as she opened her eyes, was spinning. The only thing that was holding still was the post she was curled around.

  Get up!

  The voice was hers. Wasn't it? She willed herself to try. Her fingernails sank into the mud in her pathetic effort to drag herself toward the nearby rail, but found no purchase around the cold chunks of ice that littered the ground. She could hear the frantic barking of her dog, Jigger, coming from inside the house and she suddenly wished she hadn't left him there, safe from the storm.

  Dimly, it occurred to her that this was a sloppy way to die. Slogged in mud, trampled in her own paddock by a dumb animal who depended on her for its very survival.

  Embarrassing, really—

  Before she could finish the thought, someone was tugging on her wrists. Pulling her effortlessly away from the sound of oncoming hooves. She felt the heavy, pounding closeness of them as they barely missed her legs. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled with a fierce howl.

  And then she was sprawled outside the paddock with someone leaning urgently over her, shielding her from the hail. Touching her face.

  "Can you hear me?"

  It was a man's voice. That realization only dimly registered. The sky above her was still doing a slow rotation. "I—" she croaked, licking the rain off her lips. "Ben—?"

  The shadow above her shook his head. "Don't move. You might've broken something."

  Not Ben, she thought. Of course, not Ben. Someone else. She tried to sit up. "Who—?"

  "Lie still," he commanded, pressing her back down. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

  He didn't have to. Everything ached. Maggie squinted up at him past the rain as he ran his hands down the sides of her ribs. Big was the first word that came to mind.

  And just like that, her head cleared.

  Oh, no.

  Pushing his hands off her, she tried to sit up again. "Don't—"

  He swore under his breath, but let her si
t.

  She couldn't think. Not coherently anyway. And not while he was touching her. "I'm all right," she told him. "I just … just had the wind knocked out of me, that's all."

  Her shaking hands were muddy, but she fingered her aching cheek, taking in the beat up old motorcycle parked twenty feet away.

  "You—you were … at Moody's."

  "That's right."

  "What—" she shook her head "—what're … you doing here?"

  "Saving your pretty little behind apparently." The hail was still pelting them, but he scanned her empty yard with a look close to anger. "Where the hell is everybody?"

  Everybody? Maggie tried to get to her feet and failed, bracing a hand against the post. A soft curse spilled from her lips.

  In one effortless movement, he scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all and headed toward the house.

  She gasped. "No, wait! I'm perfectly capable of—"

  "The hell you are." Unmoved, he trudged through the mud toward her front door. His arms were strong and thick and she felt unreasonably small in them.

  She swung a look back at the paddock and the gelding still racing around in a froth of panic. "But Geronimo—"

  A humorless laugh escaped him. "You mean that loco horse that just tried to trample you to death?"

  Her head ached. "He's afraid of ropes. He wasn't trying to hurt me."

  "And if you had the sense God gave a flea, you'll call the knacker's truck for him tomorrow."

  The knacker! She would've argued if she had the wherewithal, but she couldn't seem to muster it.

  They reached the door then, and he yanked open the screen and gave the handle a twist, shoving it open the rest of the way with his foot. A low growl froze him in his tracks. It was Jigger, who'd planted himself just inside the doorway, poised to do battle with this stranger. But at the sight of Maggie in the man's arms, the dog whined happily and jumped up to lick her hand.

  "It's okay, Jigger," Maggie told him. "He's a friend." She looked up at Cain, whose expression was considerably more guarded. "Don't worry. He only bites when I tell him to."

  "That's reassuring," he said, carrying her into the warm room and setting her down gently on the corner of the pine-planked kitchen table.

  Maggie braced a hand behind her, surprisingly unsteady. She had every intention of getting immediately to her feet, but her knees had the tensile strength of water.

  Wordlessly, he tugged off his gloves, reached for her mud-covered right boot and began pulling it off.

  "I can do that," she argued, even though she wasn't precisely sure that was true. Her head felt like a fractured egg and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

  "Moody was right about you," he said, as the boot released her foot with a watery pop.

  She frowned. "Moody?"

  "She said you were stubborn as mud."

  "She actually said that?"

  "Which I see now is true."

  She stared down at the top of his head as he worked on her other boot, at his dark hair, slicked with rain and hanging in dripping hanks against his forehead. His shoulders were thick and wide with a man's strength. "What else did she say?"

  He cupped his palm against her calf and tugged at the heel of her boot. "That you need help." That boot came off with a pop and his hands followed her muddy sock up her calf and pulled it down.

  Help. Yes, she needed help right now, she thought, inhaling sharply at the touch of his hands on her skin. Lord, what was she doing letting this stranger undress her?

  As if he'd heard her thought, his gaze lifted to hers, his cool palm still cradling her leg. The penetrating blue heat of his eyes seared her and she tried to remember ever feeling more off balance than she did right now.

  "I … don't even know your name," she said, reclaiming her leg and scooting backward on the table.

  "Cain," he said. "Cain MacCallister."

  Biblical references of the dark kind flitted through her mind. Cain. As in the second original sin. She watched him pull a hand towel off a towel rack and run it under the kitchen faucet until the water got hot. Jigger was watching him, too, with a proprietary sweep of his tail across the floor.

  "Listen, Mr. MacCallister—" she began.

  "It's just Cain."

  "Okay. Cain. Thank you for helping me. I mean, I owe you, but if you don't mind, I can certainly—"

  He was back at her side then, lifting the hot, damp towel to her cheek. "Hold still."

  She blocked him with her hand. "Please—"

  "You're bleeding."

  "I am?" She raised a hand to her cheek and brought it back stained with red. Oh, God…

  The heat stung and she winced, but he was gentle. Very gentle as he soothed the towel across her cheek, cleaning away the mess she'd made of it.

  "How bad is it?" she asked. He was close enough that she could feel the heat of his nearness.

  "It's not too deep. I don't think you need stitches. But you're gonna have a nice shiner."

  She sank lower as he moved back to the sink to rinse the towel.

  "You're lucky," he said. "It could've been worse. A lot worse."

  He was right, of course. She'd come close many times. But never as close as she'd come today. "So … do you mind telling me what you were you doing riding all the way out here on a motorcycle in the middle of a hailstorm?"

  "It wasn't hailing when I started out. But we can talk about that later."

  She grabbed his wrist as he lifted the towel to her face again. "I think we should talk about it now. I mean, it's not every day I let a strange man carry me into my own house and—" she stared at the towel "—pull my boots off."

  A small grin softened the hard line of his mouth. Maggie felt her resolve slipping as he lifted the towel again and smoothed it across her jawline.

  "I suppose it's not every day you nearly get yourself trampled either," he said. "Or are you in the habit of putting yourself in harm's way?"

  "Not in the habit, no. What about you?"

  "Oh, it's definitely one I'm trying to break."

  The low baritone of his voice vibrated through her. Outside, the hail still battered the window. "So … Moody sent you out here, you said?"

  "That's right. I'm looking for work."

  An unreasonable disappointment sluiced through her. "I wish I could've saved you the trouble. I'm not hiring."

  He lowered the towel. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're out here all by yourself."

  Uncomfortable with his closeness, she slid off the table and stood, taking a moment to get her balance. "Mr. MacCallister—"

  "Cain."

  "Cain. I don't know what Moody told you, but—"

  "That your husband left you alone with this place awhile back and that you've bitten off more than you can chew. She said you need help. It just so happens that I know a little something about horses and I'm in the market for a job."

  Maggie pressed her hands together. "You don't understand. I can't hire you. I can't afford to hire anyone."

  Folding up the towel, he walked back to the sink and stared out the window. "I don't need much. Three squares and a roof."

  She blinked at him. "Room and board?"

  Slowly, he turned back to her, but she didn't miss the way he'd balled his fist against his stomach as if trying to grind away an ache there.

  "I noticed your fences in the south pasture need fixing." He glanced up at her ceiling where water droplets swelled and dripped in a steady staccato into a dented metal bucket on her kitchen floor. "One more good storm like this one and you can probably kiss your roof goodbye. Not to mention your stock. You need help. I need a place to be for a while. It sounds like a fair trade."

  The tattoo of hail stopped abruptly on the window and silence invaded the room. Was it her imagination, or had he gone suddenly pale? She dismissed the thought as a trick of lighting. Besides, nobody who looked like he did worked for room and board. His grasp of the English language told her he was educated too, which put hi
m miles beyond most of the itinerant hands that drifted through here. And then another thought occurred to her. "Are you in some kind of … trouble, Mr. MacCallister?"

  Sweat beaded on his upper lip and he braced a hand on the counter behind him. A low curse escaped him.

  "Mr. MacCallister?"

  Without answering, he bolted out the kitchen door. Maggie stared after him for a heartbeat before following him. Jigger shadowed close on her heels.

  She found him leaning over the boxwood bushes around the corner of her house, retching. Maggie watched helplessly, uncertain whether to stay or leave him alone. In the end she found she couldn't simply walk away from him.

  When he'd finished, he straightened slowly, his color not far off from the winter-pale green leaves beside him.

  He wiped the back of one hand across his mouth. "Sorry about that."

  "You're ill?"

  He shook his head. "Moody's coffee on an empty stomach. Not a good idea."

  She remembered the way he'd looked at those plates of food at the café. The way he'd hugged that cup of coffee as if it were gold. "How long since you've eaten? I mean something solid."

  His posture stiffened and he blinked as if he were considering lying. "I'm looking for a job," he said, "not a handout."

  "That's not exactly an answer, is it? How long?"

  "A couple of days ago, I guess."

  "A couple of—?" Maggie blinked at him incredulously.

  He stared first at his feet then off toward his bike. "I'm sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Cortland. I'll be on my way."

  "Troubled me? You saved my life, Mr. MacCallister. I … I owe you something for that."

  "You don't owe me a thing."

  "I can't offer you a job, but the least I can do is feed you a decent meal. In fact, I insist."

  His gaze traveled slowly down the length of her, then moved to his own mud-coated boots.

  "Please," she repeated softly. "Come inside."

  Reluctantly, he followed her back in the kitchen. Maggie pulled a glass down from the cupboard, filled it with milk and held it out to him.