Читать книгу: «Identity: Unknown», страница 3

“You can’t kick me out. I’m a shareholder.”

“You’re an idiot, ” Becca said sharply. “Get the hell off this ranch.”

He moved toward her, threateningly. “You little bitch! When Justin Whitlow finds out about this—”

“Fifteen minutes, Brown.” He towered over her, but Becca didn’t back down. She stood her ground, chin raised, as if daring the man to raise a hand to her.

The man pushed past her, exaggerating his limp as he headed toward the guest cabins.

Becca turned, looking first at Hazel. “Did you reach the Aldens?”

The plump older woman nodded. “They’re on their way.”

“Call the sheriff, too—in case they want to register a complaint.”

“Already done.”

Becca’s gaze swept across the crowd and landed on Mish. He realized suddenly that he’d come all the way out of the barn, toward her, ready to jump in if Brown had tried to strike her.

“How’s Stormchaser?” she asked, heading directly toward him. “The poor baby’s going to have to go into therapy after this.”

“He doesn’t seem to want me to touch him,” Mish admitted, following her back into the barn.

She gave him an odd look over her shoulder. “ She doesn’t know you. She’s bound to be a little spooked.”

She. The horse was female. He hadn’t even thought to look. He’d simply assumed that since the animal was so big and powerful…Thou shalt not assume. He’d broken one of the biggest rules, and he’d given himself away.

Rules. Rules of what? God Almighty, it was back there, just out of his line of sight. All of the answers, dancing at the edge of his mental peripheral vision. He wanted to close his eyes, to somehow grab hold of the truth, of his identity. But Becca Keyes was talking to him.

“Why don’t you get her cooled down,” Becca said, obviously repeating herself as she gazed at him with her seemingly average brown eyes.

She was challenging him. Her words were a test—she wanted to know if he could do it.

But he couldn’t.

Mish met her gaze levelly, honestly. “I’m afraid that’s a little out of my league. But if you tell me exactly what needs to be done, I can—”

She’d already turned away from him. “Perfect,” she was muttering. “Incredibly, amazingly, stupendously perfect. ” She spun back to face him. “You’re telling me you don’t know how to cool down a horse, aren’t you?”

“I’m a quick study,” he said quietly. “And you’re short of hands—”

“Short of brains, too, obviously.” There was a flare of that hot-burning anger in her eyes, but the heat was weakened by her frustration and disappointment. “Dammit. Dammit! ”

The disappointment was hard to take. He would have far preferred her anger. “I didn’t intend to deceive you.” He couldn’t explain. How could he?

She just laughed as she took the saddle blanket from Stormchaser’s back. “Right. Go and make sure Brown’s packing his bags. He’s in cabin number 12. Walk him back to the office, finish up the stalls, then stay out of my sight for the rest of evening. I can’t handle this right now—we’ll talk in the morning.”

Mish may not have known a thing about horses, but he knew when a situation called for silence.

He turned and left the barn. He’d awakened again this morning with no past, no name, no sense of self. Yet somehow he now felt even emptier inside.

CHAPTER 3

It was after two o’clock in the morning, and someone was pounding on her apartment door.

Becca sat up, groping for her flashlight in the darkness and coming up empty. The pounding continued—a frantic tattoo accompanied by a high-pitched voice calling her name. She flung herself out of bed and nearly stumbled as she made her way to the light switch on the wall.

Grabbing her robe from the hook next to her closet, she moved toward the noise and opened the door.

Fourteen-year-old Ashley Alden stood on the other side of the screen, her face streaked with tears. “Chip’s gone,” she said.

Becca pulled the girl inside and shut the screen before the entire mosquito population of New Mexico came into the kitchen with her. “Gone where?”

“I don’t know! I was in charge, and I fell asleep, and when Mom and Dad came home, Chip was gone! He took the blanket off his bed—I think he’s playing cowboy and sleeping outside somewhere.” Ashley was trying her best to hold back her tears, but a fresh flood brimmed in her eyes. “And now they’re fighting, and a storm’s coming and some one’s got to go find Chip before he’s struck by lightning!”

The girl was right. A storm was coming. Becca could hear the ominous rumble of thunder in the distance. Although dangerous, lightning was the least of their worries. If Chip had set up his bedroll in one of the arroyos, or on the gentle valley of the dry riverbed…It didn’t have to be raining here for the arroyos and river suddenly to flood. It only had to be raining upstream.

She looked at the kitchen clock. Two-fifteen. No doubt the Aldens had stayed at the local roadhouse, drinking until the two o’clock last call. And if that was the case, they weren’t going to be a whole hell of a lot of help in finding their son.

Thunder crackled again, closer this time.

Still, she was going to need all the bodies she could get.

“Go get your mom and dad,” she commanded Ashley, already on the cordless phone to Hazel. “And wake up as many of the other guests as you can. We’ll meet in front of the ranch office.”

Ashley disappeared out the door.

Hazel sounded dazed as she answered her phone, but she rallied quickly.

Becca pulled a pair of jeans on over her nightshirt as she rattled out a stream of orders to her assistant. “Wake up Dwayne and Belinda—tell them to saddle up the horses. The search’ll be easier on horseback.” She yanked on her boots and jammed her hat on her head. “I’ll wake the hands in the bunkhouse.”

* * *

The bus ride was interminable, but as the driver pulled up to the checkpoint at the first of the fences, Mish didn’t want it to end. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the gate shutting behind them, locking him in. He kept his eyes closed. There was no point looking at the security. No point studying the watch towers and the fences. He was here. And he’d stay here until Jake got him out.

The bus jolted to a stop, but Mish didn’t move until one of the guards approached and unlocked him. He had been wearing both arm and leg shackles.

Mish stood up, and the guard roughly pulled his arms behind him, cuffing his hands behind his back. He still wore a tether, a short length of chain that connected his two ankles. It was hard navigating the steps down from the bus, and he jumped the last two, landing lightly in the dusty prison yard.

Prison. He was in prison. He felt sick to his stomach as he looked up at the harsh gray buildings towering above him.

“Move it,” one of the guards barked. “Inside. Let’s go.”

Mish started to sweat. Out here was bad enough, but at least out here he still had the sky, open and free above him. Inside would be only walls, only bars, only these chains that marked him as a very, very dangerous man.

The guard shoved him and he stumbled, but he forced himself not to react, to find serenity from deep inside, that same serenity that had saved him so many times before. He was here. He didn’t have to like it. He just had to endure it. Jake was counting on him. Jake needed him to…to…

The answers were there—who Jake was, and what he needed Mish to do there in prison—but they were just beyond his grasp.

Everything shifted then, the way dreams often do. And then Mish was in an alley, thunder rolling as the first huge drops of rain began to fall. In an instant, he was soaked.

He pushed his wet hair back, out of his face, wishing he had a ponytail holder. Dim light gleamed on the barrel of his side arm and he ducked into the shadows, waiting for the footsteps to come closer. Closer…

“Casey! Come on, Casey, wake up!” Rough hands shook him, and Mish opened his eyes, instantly awake, Rebecca Keyes leaned over him, her hair tousled from sleep.

He was shocked. What was she doing in his bed? Not that he didn’t want her there, because he did. Badly. But he couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. And he couldn’t imagine acting on his attraction for this woman. It would be flat-out wrong to become intimately involved with any one until he’d reintroduced himself to himself.

He couldn’t imagine Becca allowing herself to be seduced, either. She’d been so frostily angry with him. How had that happened? He couldn’t remember how he’d convinced her to warm up and sleep with him. And maybe worst of all, he couldn’t even remember the sex. And that was shockingly alarming.

Was this more amnesia? It didn’t make sense. He could remember going to bed—alone—and turning off the light. He could remember the way Becca had looked straight through him during dinner. He could remember waking up in the shelter, his head pounding. He could remember Jarell, the motel, the bus ride to…

Prison.

He’d dreamt about prison. Being cuffed and chained. Remembered someone named Jake…

She shook him again. “Snap to, dammit! I need you to help.”

Reality crashed in. Mish was lying in a cot barely large enough to sleep one, let alone two. And Becca wasn’t dressed for a night of one-on-one—unless her idea of one-on-one was a cattle-roping contest. She was wearing jeans and boots and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat on her head.

He sat up, the blanket sliding off of his bare chest, and Becca took a step back, as if afraid he wasn’t wearing anything at all beneath those covers.

He was. Boxers. He also remembered keeping them on last night.

“Chip Alden’s gone AWOL,” she told him bluntly, “and we’ve got a storm moving in. I need all the manpower I can get—searching for the kid before the riverbed floods.”

Mish nodded, clearly reading her silent message. She needed all the help she could get—even from a low-down, good-for-nothing, lying snake such as himself.

He swung his legs out of bed and pulled on his jeans and the T-shirt he’d worn yesterday, slipping into his boots as she turned and sprinted away. He followed her, quickly catching up. Thunder continued to rumble as the crowd of guests and employees gathering outside the ranch office glanced worriedly up at the dark sky.

Becca quickly split them into groups, sending them off in different directions, some on horseback, some on foot.

“Check the barn and public buildings,” she ordered Mish before easily swinging herself up onto a horse and riding out.

He could hear the echoing voices of the search parties as they headed into the darkness, calling loudly, hoping to awaken the sleeping boy.

His was a throwaway job. He knew Becca didn’t think they’d find Chip in the barn or the dining hall or even the arcade room. But someone had to look there, and he was that someone.

He went into the barn.

Stormchaser was the only horse left in the stables, and she cocked her ears curiously at him, as if amazed by all of the predawn activity.

It had been Stormchaser’s stall that Mish had been cleaning when Chip had come into the barn just that afternoon, to try to con him into saddling up a pair of horses.

Mish froze, suddenly hearing an echo of Chip’s prepubescent voice. There’s this place, about a half a mile east of here where there’s these big, creepy-looking rocks, kind of like some giant’s fingers sticking out of the ground….

There was a relief map of the ranch on the barn wall, and Mish quickly measured the scale with his fingers, trying to find those rock formations Chip had mentioned. He knew how to read maps, and he easily found something six-tenths of a mile east-northeast that might’ve been those rocks. It was right next to a low-lying area—the dry riverbed.

Thunder cracked, closer this time, and the first plump drops of rain began to fall, hissing on the dry barn roof.

If Chip had set up camp in that riverbed…

Mish ran out toward the corral, but everyone was gone. He could hear their voices in the distance. Most of them had headed south.

He went back into the barn, where a huge flashlight hung by the door. But even using that, it would be impossible for him to achieve any real speed running more than a half a mile over the rough terrain.

He turned and looked Stormchaser directly in the eye.

She whinnied nervously as another bolt of lightning flashed, the boom of thunder close behind.

“Yeah, I don’t like this weather, either,” Mish said to the horse, opening the stall door, “but I know where this kid is, and I’ve got to get out there, so what do you say we make this a team effort?”

Stormchaser didn’t disagree. Of course, she didn’t exactly agree, either.

“I’ve never done this before in my life.” Mish took a bridle down from the wall, speaking in a low, soft, soothing voice, the way he’d heard Becca talk to the horse.

“But I spent most of yesterday watching the procedure, so let’s just give it a try, okay?”

As Mish drew closer, the mare clenched her teeth.

“I think this bit thing is supposed to go behind your teeth, not in front of them,” Mish told her, still in that low voice. “And I think I saw the other guys touch you back here a bit, and just kind of wait until you’re maybe not paying quite so much attention and then… slip it in. There we go. Good horse. Atta girl. Way to go.”

Stormchaser snorted, chomping disgruntledly on the bit.

“I can’t imagine that feels very pleasant,” Mish continued, slipping a saddle blanket onto her strong chestnut-colored back. “I can’t imagine any of this is a whole lot of fun for you, especially after the way that idiot treated you this afternoon.”

He took a saddle off the wall, gently placing it in the center of the blanket, and secured the belt around the horse’s belly. As he’d seen the other ranch hands do, he waited until Stormchaser relaxed, and then tightened it several notches.

The stirrups seemed to be about the right length for his legs, so he looped the reins over the horse’s head and led her out into the night, tucking the flashlight under one arm.

The rain was falling heavier now, and Stormchaser tried to back away, into the barn.

“No, you don’t,” he murmured to the horse, pointing her in the direction he wanted to go. “What kind of tough-as-nails Western cow horse are you, anyway?” He put his left foot into the stirrup and held onto the pommel. “I’m probably doing this all wrong and backwards, so I appreciate your patience,” he said as he tried to imitate the move Becca had made, and swing himself into the saddle. He landed with a thud, nearly going over the other side. “Whoa!”

Stormchaser snorted, pricking up her ears as Mish took gentle hold of the reins. He had to remember that these things were attached to the horse’s tender mouth.

Now, what was the opposite of whoa? “Giddyap!” he said.

Lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and Stormchaser bolted.

* * *

Becca couldn’t believe her eyes. Lightning flashed again, and again she saw Stormchaser, running like a bat out of hell with Casey Parker lying low and flat along the mare’s neck, riding like a seasoned rodeo cowboy. She felt a flash of annoyance—the guy had led her to believe he didn’t know the least little thing about horses—including riding.

She moved to cut them off just as Casey reined Stormchaser in.

“I know where Chip is,” he called out, seemingly unaware of the rain that was now falling steadily, streaming down his face.

He nudged Stormchaser’s sides, and the horse took off again. Becca followed, pressing Silver hard to keep up.

She had her flashlight on, and in its bright beam, she could see that Casey wasn’t riding like a professional cowboy—he was holding on for dear life.

“I talked to him this afternoon,” the man shouted to her, “and he wanted to go out to this place where there were some rock formations.”

Finger Rocks. God, that was right on the edge of the dry riverbed. Only, with all this rain, it wasn’t going to stay dry for long—if it wasn’t already flooded from the rain up in the mountains.

Becca gave Silver his head, letting him fly across the ground, praying they weren’t too late. Please, God, let them find this little boy still alive….

She heard it before she saw it.

The river was running.

Lightning flared, and Finger Rocks appeared out of the darkness, looming crazily over them. The water in the riverbed was dark and frothy, and filled with bobbing logs and debris being washed downstream.

There was no sign of Chip.

Becca slid down off Silver, using her flashlight to illuminate the banks of the river.

Casey was still atop Stormchaser, and he pointed out into the rushing water. “There!”

She saw it, too.

She saw what might have been the top of a small head near a branch that had been snagged on an outcropping of rocks.

“Chip!” she shouted over the roar of the river and the bursts of thunder. “Chip!”

The head moved and became a small, pale face that reflected the light from her torch.

It was Chip. He was clinging for dear life to the end of a weathered old branch.

As Casey slid down off Stormchaser, Becca saw him take in the situation with a glance. The branch Chip was holding on to was wedged between two rocks at the river’s edge, right before the water took a hard loop to the left and swept even faster down the hill. The white water down there told of rapids—rocks that could crush the life out of a ten-year-old flung against them with the water’s raging force.

It was only a matter of time before the debris knocked Chip free from his perch and swept him downstream.

The tumble of rocks at the side of the river made it treacherous going. Casey slipped and slid over them, turning back to give Becca a hand.

She didn’t need or want his help. “I’m fine,” she shouted at him. “Keep going!”

Finally, they were both there.

“Hang on, kid,” she heard Casey call to Chip. “We’ll get you out of there!”

“I want my mom!” The little boy was weeping.

“Please, I want my mom!”

“Just let us pull you out of there, and we’ll find her right away,” Casey told him, his voice reassuring. They would get the boy out of the river. And if he was feeling any doubt about it, he wasn’t letting it show. He tugged at the thick end of the branch Chip was clinging to, but it wouldn’t give. Becca set down her flashlight and helped. It didn’t take long to realize that the damned thing wasn’t going to budge. They weren’t going to be able to free the branch to pull the kid out of there.

The rain was falling unmercifully now, streaming off the brim of her hat in a solid sheet.

“I’ll have to climb out after him,” she shouted to Casey.

He used one hand to wipe the water from his face, little good that it did. He shook his head. “No. I’ll do it.”

“Are you kidding? That branch won’t hold your weight!”

“It might not hold yours.”

“Hold onto my legs,” Becca told him. “If the branch breaks, I’ll hang onto it, and you can haul us both out of the water.”

He didn’t like it, but she didn’t give him a chance to argue. She just started inching her way out along that branch.

She could feel his hands on her legs, his fingers hooking around the bottom edges of her jeans. She could see Chip’s pale, frightened face as lightning flashed again.

The boy was edging toward her, even as she was moving closer to him.

She was so close. Another foot and a half, and—

It happened so fast.

A piece of wood barreling downstream caught Chip full in the chest, and with a shriek, his handhold on the branch was broken.

Becca heard herself scream as the boy, eyes wide with terror, fingers reaching for her, was swept underneath the water.

She felt herself hauled upward and nearly thrown onto the shore and sensed more than saw Casey scrambling back up and over the rocks. She grabbed for her flashlight, holding it high, illuminating the river, praying for a glimpse of Chip’s brown hair, praying he’d manage to grab hold of another branch.

She saw him!

Dear God, no! The boy was being swept downriver. Another few seconds, and he’d hit those rapids.

But then she saw Casey, running along the river bank, heading directly for the place where the river turned. She saw him dive, a graceful, athletic movement.

And then he was out of range of her light, and she saw nothing more.

* * *

Mish knew without a doubt in the stretched-out seconds that he hung suspended over the raging water that he knew how to swim.

And he didn’t just know how to do the dog paddle. He knew how to swim. As uncomfortable as he’d been while riding Stormchaser, here in the river he was completely in his element. He was at home in the water unlike anywhere else in the world.

He hit the river with a splash and it grabbed him, tugging, pulling, yanking him downstream. He went with it, using its power to push him up back toward the surface. Only when his head was above water again did he fight the current, searching for any sign of Chip.

He saw the debris coming—it looked like a solid chunk of a telephone pole—but he didn’t have time to get completely out of the way. It hit him solidly in his left side, pushing him under and spinning him around, the white blaze of pain made worse by the water burning his lungs.

He kicked and stroked against the pain, surfacing with a rush, coughing out the water he’d inhaled and gasping in a blessed flood of air.

And the kid was swept right into his arms.

If he hadn’t believed in the workings of some kind of higher power before, he did now.

Mish let the force of the water take him again, using his strength as a swimmer merely to steer them toward the rocky shore.

And then he was crawling out, his side on fire, Chip still clinging to his neck, both of them sobbing for air. And Becca was there, helping pull the kid to even higher ground. She then reached for him.

Lightning flashed, and he saw that she’d lost her hat. Her dark curls were plastered to her head and beneath her jacket, her shirt was glued to her breasts. It wasn’t a shirt, he realized. She was wearing a white nightgown. And absolutely nothing underneath. She had an incredibly gorgeous body, but it was her eyes he found himself wanting to see again. Brimming with the warmth of emotion and relief, her eyes were impossibly beautiful.

He could have sat there in the rain all night, just waiting for the lightning, so he could get another glimpse of her face.

But Becca scooped Chip into her arms and pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s get back to the ranch.”

* * *

Ted Alden, Chip’s father, came out of their cabin. “The doctor says he’s got a few broken ribs, but his lungs are clear and his blood pressure’s strong. We’ll monitor that through the rest of the night—make sure there’ve been no internal injuries we don’t know about.”

The rain had stopped, and the clouds were breaking up. Becca could see the first faint stars shining hazily in the sky. She nodded. “Do you need help? You look as if once you fall asleep, you’re going to stay asleep for a day or two.”

Alden ran his hands down his face. “No, we’ve got the alarm clock set. And Ashley’s set hers, too. Just in case.”

“Well, I’m here if you need me.”

“Thanks.”

Becca turned to go, but he stopped her.

“We’ve caused nothing but trouble this trip. Are you going to ask us to leave tomorrow?”

She had to laugh. “You mean, like the way I asked Travis Brown to leave?” She shook her head. “No, I’m trying not to make a habit of running paying guests off with a shotgun. It’s bad for business.”

“Thank that cowboy again for me,” Alden said. “If the two of you hadn’t been there, Chip might’ve…”

Chip would have died.

Becca knew what Ted Alden couldn’t bring himself to say aloud. His son would have died. The hell with her—she’d had very little to do with saving the boy’s life. The truth was, if it weren’t for Casey Parker, they would be dragging that river right this very moment, searching for Chip’s crushed and lifeless little body.

Becca swallowed a sudden rush of intense emotion. She had to blink hard to push back a surge of moisture in her eyes. “I’ll thank him,” she said quietly. “Kiss Chip good-night for me, all right?”

Alden nodded, easing the screen door shut behind him.

It must have been the fatigue bringing all these waves of emotion to the surface. Becca couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, yet here she was, ready to curl up into a soggy ball and weep like a baby.

Everything was all right. The boy was safe. But she couldn’t keep herself from thinking about what might have been. She couldn’t help remembering that look of pure fear on the little boy’s face as he was swept out of her reach, Why didn’t you save me? echoing in his eyes. If Chip had died, his face would have haunted her for the rest of her life.

If Chip had died…

What if Casey hadn’t been there with his amazing ability to swim like some kind of sea animal? What if the river had swept Chip past him? What if…?

Her insides churned and bile rose in her throat. She had to sit down, right there on the edge of the muddy road, and try her damnedest not to retch. She clung to her wet jacket, wrapping it tightly around her, praying for the nausea to pass.

“Are you all right?” The voice came out of the darkness, soft and gentle.

“Yeah,” she lied, not wanting to look up and into the bottomless depths of Casey’s eyes, not wanting him to see that she was shaking. “I’m just…I’m…”

She felt him sit down next to her, felt his closeness and warmth. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there as she tried to breathe, as she desperately tried to regain her equilibrium and stop this damned shaking that was rattling her very brain.

When he finally did start to speak, Becca thought she might’ve been imagining it. His voice was so soft and perfectly woven into the velvet tapestry of the predawn.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a horse before,” he told her. “At least not since I was a kid. I don’t know why I haven’t tried it—it was great. Exhilarating. Kind of like flying. But you already know that, right? I can picture you as the kind of kid who was born astride a horse.” He paused, but only briefly. “When I was riding Stormchaser, I remember thinking it was kind of like being on a motorcycle, except this thing I was riding had a brain and a soul… ”

Becca knew exactly what he was doing. He was gentling her, soothing her with the softness of his voice, the way someone might talk to a frightened animal. The way she’d spoken to Stormchaser just that morning. And as Stormchaser had, she clung to the sound of that gentle voice. It was the only thing solid and steady in a night that was spinning and shaking.

No, it wasn’t the night that was shaking. She was shaking. And crying, she realized. Although there was nothing she could do to stop her tears. Nothing at all.

He was still talking, describing his ride, describing the way he’d put the bridle and saddle on Stormchaser. His words were unimportant and she stopped listening, focusing only on the rise and fall of his voice. And when he reached out and touched her, gently, lightly running one hand across her shoulders and down her back, she didn’t pull away. She didn’t want to pull away. Instead she leaned toward him, letting him enfold her in his arms.

He held her as she trembled, rocking her slightly back and forth, infusing her with his warmth, encircling her with his solid strength. “It’s okay now,” he murmured over and over. “Everything’s okay.”

It was working. She could feel her nausea begin to fade, felt herself relax into his strong arms.

And he was strong. His slenderness was only an illusion. His arms and chest were solid muscle. She hadn’t missed that fact when she’d gone in to wake him up and found him half-naked in bed. He had no extra fat or weight on his body, none at all. Yet his arms were soft, too. Gentle.

He continued to stroke her back, then ran his fingers gently through her hair, murmuring words of reassurance. He held her close without being threatening, offering only comfort, falling into silence as her trembling finally stopped.

She let her head rest on his still-damp shoulder, let her eyes close, let all of the awful what-ifs float away.

Except for one. What if this man whose arms felt so good around her turned his head and kissed her?

Becca opened her eyes. That was a completely crazy thought. She pulled herself away from him, pushing herself to her feet.

She shivered slightly, cold without Casey’s arms around her, as the first glimmer of dawn started to light the eastern sky.

He was still a shadow, sitting in the grayness. Becca backed away quickly, both afraid that he might break the silence, and afraid that he might not.

“There’s no way I could ever pay you enough for what you did tonight,” she said softly. Oh, she could think of one way she could certainly try to repay him, but she firmly pushed that wayward thought away.

“I didn’t pull the kid out of the river for money,” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said, afraid she might’ve offended him.

“I didn’t mean that. I just meant…I wish there was some way I could thank you for what you did.” Her voice shook slightly. “And for sitting here with me just now.”

“Sometimes the hardest part of the battle comes after it’s over,” he said quietly, “when the adrenaline level drops and there’s nothing left to do but think about what went down.”

Becca lingered as the sky continuously grew lighter, knowing she should say good-night and put a healthy distance between herself and this man. She was drawn to his gentle voice and quiet smile more than she wanted to admit. And as for his arms…