She lowered her voice, as she always did when approaching a vicious animal with its paw caught in a trap. “What's wrong with your leg?"
“Nothing an amputation couldn't cure."
“Let me look at it."
“In this light?"
Lightning flickered a blue wash across them, reflecting in the centers of his eyes, like the moon would do on the round window high above them. She shivered at the strange familiarity.
He tried to pull himself up but only managed to hit his head against the back wall. His cry of pain was so sharp it forced Laurel to ignore his warning look. Dropping the two-by-four with a clunk on the cement floor, she rushed to his twisted leg and unfolded it for him.
“Ouch, damn you,” he growled, “I said get away."
Wary of the still-hidden knife, she retreated to sit on a stairstep. She clung to her two-by-four again, watching.
He lay with his eyes closed for what seemed like forever. She held back a dozen questions. Who was he? Where had he come from? How had he gotten so seriously hurt? Gooseflesh prickled across her skin. Maybe she didn't want to know anything.
Between clenched teeth he finally said, “We can't get out, can we?"
“I tried the cellar door already."
“No knob."
“How'd you know?"
His sigh unnerved her more. “Because I happen to identify with old rusted things falling off right now, okay? My leg's next. Watch out when it rolls your way."
She flinched at his grisliness, backing her seat up to the next wood step away from him, trying to think of a way out. The boxes were empty cardboard, too old and weakened by the dampness to let her stack them and climb back through the hole. The door above her wouldn't budge. There had to be a way.
He grumbled, “At least you don't talk much."
The scratchy assuredness of his voice caught her off-guard again. It pricked her memory, bothering her. Had this man perhaps asked her for the time sometime on the street? Had he been following her? Stalking? She clung to the two-by-four. “I'm known for my quiet bedside manner."
“A doctor?"
“Actually, I patch animals. I was out here looking for a wounded and trapped animal."
“I ache, I can growl and I'm stuck in a basement. Do I qualify for your HMO?"
She almost smiled. “If you were a raccoon, I might know how to treat you. I can get you to the hospital though."
“No thanks,” he grunted.
Laurel grunted right back. “It's a free service for people like you."
“People like me?"
“People in need. Down on their luck."
“Yeah, that's me,” he sighed.
The sophisticated timbre of his lowered voice niggled its familiarity at her again.
Thunder rumbled, punishing the old house above their heads. Its wood creaked. A loose shutter rattled.
“Damn storm,” he said. “But then I love being drenched and having that barometric pressure shoot pins up my leg."
The sarcasm again.
“I call storms heavenly bread-making. The sky's gathering up all that humidity like my mother gathers up the edges of bread dough, pounding and pounding at it until it gives up. We get a lot of ‘em this time of year. You got a headache?"
“Thanks for reminding me. Almost forgot it with all your attempts at poetry making me hungry."
“Are you always this rude?"
“So shoot me. Everybody else has had a shot."
For a long time then, darkness stretched on with the loaded minutes, with her watching him while a storm built above them outside. When lavender and blue hues flashed down the hole in the ceiling, she tried to get a better look at him. Fairly large man. Long legs. Filthy dirty. Smudged, bewhiskered face.
She almost jumped when he whispered, “You going to heal me by staring at me?"
He closed his eyes again, bedeviling her with his nonchalance. She clutched the board harder.
She waited for him to rouse himself again, but he'd either fallen asleep or passed out from his pain. The latter worried her.
At a hint of a snore, she shuffled over one footstep at a time, keeping the board in one hand just in case he came to and lunged at her with the knife, wherever it was. Wiping a hand against her pant's leg, she lowered her palm, waiting for a lightning flash. When it came, she found his forehead. He was burning up!
Concerned, she ran her fingers over his nearest hand to check his body temperature. The back of his hand was broad, the knuckles roughened with scratches, as were the long and sinewy fingers. They were icy cold. She thought about picking up the hand and blowing her warm breath on the fingers, but then fear gripped her. He could wake up and grab her too easily.
Then, when his breathing grew shallower, her ingrained need to help the injured—no matter how dangerous they might be—drove away the fear. She put down the two-by-four weapon, lifted his hands one by one, sandwiching them between her own to blow gently on them. He slept on, obviously exhausted, a slight snore punctuating the night between the thunder now and then.
Outside, rain spattered the house. A chilly breeze dropped down from the gaping hole. June nights in northern Wisconsin could still dip to near-freezing temperatures. A quick shiver rippled through her. She'd seen enough sick animals die of hypothermia to know this man was in danger of the same thing. If he were a bird, she'd cradle him in her hands to warm him.
She refused to be defeated. The boxes almost spoke to her, and she groped at them in the darkness, ripping them apart into flat sheets before piling them in a double layer over his feet and legs and chest. She sneezed at their mustiness, and when he didn't wake up, she eased a couple of box flaps under his head to cushion him.
She fumbled for his jacket's zipper, to make sure he was zipped against the cold. When her hands slid underneath the fabric, its fine texture and that of the shirt underneath made her pause. This man couldn't be a hobo, could he? They didn't usually dress this well.
She leaned close to him, taking another hard look at his face between flashes of the storm. With muddied whiskers, hair plastered on his forehead and more creek mud everywhere else, he looked ghoulish. Touching his hands again, their coldness gave her the creeps. She could not let this man die, whoever he might be.
With quick resolve and knowledge of outdoor survival tactics, she stripped off her jacket, laid it over his chest and snuggled into the crook of his shoulder to share her heat. She drew the sheets of cardboard up over them again, then reached out to secure the two-by-four into one hand.
His oily train smell begged her to sneeze. She held her nose until the urge passed. His bristly chin scratched her forehead.
His heartbeat almost rousted her out. It pulsated strong in her ear, replete with life pouring into her in an unsettling way she hadn't expected. She had forgotten what it was like to fall asleep next to a man's heartbeat. It soothed.
And scared her. No way could she let herself fall asleep next to a drifter with a knife.
But his hurt—the pain in that familiar voice—spoke to her across the quiet. She hated listening to the wail of pain, especially when it reminded her of the nightmares men had caused her in the past.
She wasn't about to sleep. Fixing up his leg as best she could would speed him on his way in the morning. The more she thought about that, the more the idea took hold.
As she eased out from under their shared jacket and cardboard, reality set in: She was about to “pat down” this man for his weapon.
Then she recalled the deep timbre in the voice, the hint of cockiness in the words he chose. She squinted again at his long form splayed before her, his heartbeat still booming in her brain's memory. Her own heart swelled to match the beat, searching for the memory of the feel of nighttime with a man, when a woman eased alongside him in bed, and peace stole over with the breeze rustling the curtains of her cabin window.
And that's how she'd been betrayed before. By falling for the neediness in a man. She sucked in her breath, held it, let her lungs burn her back to reality before she took a more even draught of air.
The reality was, she reminded herself, that this was a giant of a man, a rude, strange man.
Who has a knife
.
And you better well find it before morning
.
* * * *
WHEN COLE jerked awake, fear blasted a cold wind through him. Disoriented, he thought at first his boss had tossed him in a dungeon. Where was he?
Then he heard shallow breathing, felt lips fluttering ever so softly against his neck. He tensed. Ah, yes, now he remembered the woman with the lumber aimed at his head. So what the hell was she doing sleeping in the crook of his shoulder?
Turning his head, he narrowed his eyelids at the woman. Dawn brought with it a meager shaft of light through the hole in the floor above them. When his gaze caught the soft tilt to the eyebrows and the lush lips, perspiration beaded his forehead.
Was it really her? Couldn't be.
When the vague scent of wildflowers in her hair tossed his memory back to a meadow of long ago, he thought he might be having a heart attack.
This was no stranger at all. He had to get the hell out of here. And fast.
Escape remained elusive. He lay for a long time looking over at the impossibly high hole in the basement ceiling, knowing the door was jammed and his leg hurt like hell. When Laurel finally stirred, Cole closed his eyes and turned his face away, pretending to sleep. He could not allow her to recognize him.
She left his side, and when the steps creaked, he watched her climb the cellar stairs and try the door again. He turned his head away just before she crept back down.
He waited for her to come look at him, to recognize him and explode. Instead, he heard her ... jumping? Flickering an eyelid half open, he spied her leaping at the opening in the floor above.
Was it really Laurel? Now he wasn't sure. Fifteen years changed people, especially if they started out gangly as teenagers. This woman wasn't gangly. She was, well, curvier and he wished she'd quit jumping up and down that way. It was enough to cause him a meltdown.
The hair confused him, too. This woman's dark, flowing velvet curtain of red hair—get a grip, man—defied the short-cropped carrot-top he remembered. His Laurel had sported hair so short she could have snuck onto a boys’ softball team, and she was the kind to do it.
And where was the cussing? His Laurel would have been jawing up a storm of expletives at not being able to reach that broken floorboard hanging over the beam up there. Maybe it wasn't Laurel. He hoped. He kept his eyes averted, half-hidden.
He cleared his throat, and she glanced over, his heart skidding to a momentary halt. With hair spilling over a shoulder, hands resting on slim, bluejean-clad hips, and squared shoulders barely holding up an oversized blue sweatshirt, this version of Laurel looked seductive. Scary. The freckles were gone, but there was no mistaking those emerald eyes. They had meant business when they snagged his attention fifteen years ago and they meant business now.
She asked, “Could I use your belt, please?"
Her soft-spoken voice caught him off-guard. Maybe this wasn't Laurel. His Laurel had always commanded and teased, bubbling with energy. This woman was sedate, controlled, some animal doctor or lion tamer thing she'd said. His head hurt. Did growing up change people this much? It did. All he had to do was look at himself. With the way she glanced at him, all businesslike, he could tell she didn't recognize him either.
Still, a bundle of nerves inside his gut said to keep his voice raspy and low, disguised. “Why do you need my belt?"
“If I can hook that flooring screw up there with the buckle, I might be able to pull myself up. I'll call the sheriff for help to come help me get you outta here."
Panic stunned him to silence surer than her two-by-four ever would. Sheriff? Not John Petski, he hoped. There was still that matter of the banged up mailboxes from fifteen years ago festering in Cole's brain. He'd been asked to leave town so fast he hadn't settled the damages. He didn't doubt there might be an old warrant for his arrest still floating around on the sheriff's desk.
She stood there with her hand out, waiting, not amused by his reticence. Heat washed down his half-hidden face.
He struggled to sit up but the world took on an unexpected spin. It spun Laurel right to him.
“Lay back,” she said, gently pushing him down to the floor. He quickly turned his head away from her. She fussed some more. “I didn't mean for you to get up so fast. You knocked your head good last night and you're bound to have a doozy of a headache."
That wildflower essence hit him again, shuffling the heat from his face down the rest of him. His head rested on a stack of old cardboard she must have fashioned into a pillow sometime during the night. Her hands seemed everywhere at once, fluttering like butterflies. She laid her jacket in place again, patting and tucking it over his shoulders and arms and smoothing it down his chest and belly. A slight tightening gripped his groin.
“You warm enough?” she asked.
“Sure,” he grunted, thinking an icy splash of that creek water he'd fallen into would feel good about now.
He didn't remember Laurel being the fussing kind and it kept niggling at him how much she'd changed. She'd been a tomboy, damnit. Fun and giggly. Never serious. This woman had a two-by-four weapon within reach somewhere and a focused demeanor to match.
She sent a furtive glance right at his belt buckle. “May I?"
More heat waves crashed over him until they settled in one delicate spot. Suddenly the tightening there told him he didn't want her long fingers filching for a belt.
“You sure your idea will work?” he grumbled.
“You think I'm too heavy for the belt?"
Now that was the sassiness he remembered. “It's an old belt. And it's seen a lot of country."
“An expensive one, too. Nice feel to the leather."
“How did you—"
“Now give it up. I'll buy you a new one.” Before he could protest more, she'd unbuckled him and he was forced to finish the job or suffer embarrassment.
She set about tossing the belt buckle at the broken boards above them. She was tireless, which impressed Cole, but she needed more height. Cole rolled out of his makeshift nest and lumbered up. The world tipped, but he fought to steady himself.