having his routine disturbed, but he’d have no choice but to adjust to her presence.
She’d seen him once. Did she remember?
A noise from overhead caught his attention. She was talking to someone, even though he knew full well that she was alone. No one passed through his territory unnoticed. A few minutes later, the shower came on, warning him that his time was limited. He needed to leave before she walked down those steps, although it was tempting to linger long enough to get a closer look at her.
But for the moment, he had time to poke around a bit. He moved toward the kitchen where she’d dumped a few things on the table the night before. He studied the clutter, trying to make sense of the stuff. It wasn’t worth the energy it would take to dump the bag out. Besides, he wasn’t there to drive her away, just to learn more about the woman who would be sharing his mountain and town.
A paper caught his attention. Careful not to disturb anything, he gently reached out to touch it. Would she remember if she’d left it faceup or facedown? He didn’t care. Hell, what was life without a few risks?
Laughing at his own joke, he turned the paper over. Shock rolled through him as soon as he got a good look at the picture staring up at him, leaving him unable to do anything but stand and stare down at the image.
Where the hell had she gotten that?
So caught up in the memories that came flooding back, he failed to notice the silence from upstairs. The shower was no longer running. Before he could react, one of the steps behind him creaked. Hellfire and damnation, the woman was coming down the stairs.
* * *
The hot steam had washed away the last bit of tension from talking to her mother. Eventually, maybe she’d long for the company at the other end of the phone line but definitely not today.
About halfway down the stairs, a weird shiver started at the base of her spine and danced its way right up to her head. Even the hair on her arms stood up, as if lightning were about to strike. Had the late spring weather taken a sudden turn for the worse?
No, sunshine was streaming in through the skylights overhead.
Rayanne couldn’t shrug off the feeling that something wasn’t right. As a city girl born and bred, maybe she wasn’t ready to face life alone on the mountain. However, she wasn’t about to admit that her mother had been right all along. No, it was only a matter of adjusting to the quiet murmurs of nature outside the window rather than the jarring cacophony of city noise.
That was when she heard a sound that had nothing to do with any four-legged beast that lived on the mountain: human footsteps. She swallowed, trying to get her heart out of her throat so she could breathe. The silence felt frozen now, as if in anticipation of the next sweep of cloth against cloth. It wasn’t long in coming.
“Who’s there?” Her voice echoed hollowly.
No answer. To her surprise, that made her mad. She came down two more stairs, hoping to find evidence that it was only her imagination running wild. This time the steps were more definite and headed right for the door. Should she remain cowering on the stairs forever or take control of the situation?
This was her home; she would not be a prisoner of her own fear. Besides, if the intruder had meant her harm, he’d had ample opportunity.
Bracing herself for the worst, she charged down the last few steps, determined to give someone a piece of her mind. The bottom few stairs curved down into the kitchen near the door. One glance told her that the door was still bolted but that didn’t mean much. If someone had broken in, it could have been through a window, instead. But if so, why hadn’t she heard anything?
Nothing in the kitchen looked disturbed, but then she sensed a movement off to her right. Time slowed as her mind scrambled to make sense of what she was seeing. She made a grab for the wall as her knees gave way. Surely this was some kind of joke.
“Who are you?”
Her question was little more than a whisper, but the man heard it all right. There was no mistaking the temper in those ice-blue eyes, not that she really needed him to answer her. His outfit matched the one he’d worn in the picture he held clutched in his fist: scuffed boots, a faded shirt, dark trousers and a worn duster. It couldn’t really be him, but every cell in her body screamed that it was.
“Wyatt McCain?”
His name was the last thing she said as the floor rushed up to meet her.
Cool. Smooth. Hard.
Slowly, the fog in Rayanne’s mind faded and awareness of her surroundings returned. Right now, her cheek was pressed against something flat and cool to the touch. Her eyes refused to open; instead, she concentrated on moving her right hand and then her left.
Her fingertips felt just the slightest grittiness to the surface, like a hardwood floor that hadn’t been swept recently. She slowly processed all the data, because the side of her face was pounding. Finally, she arrived at the obvious conclusion that she was sprawled on the floor, most likely in the kitchen.
Why?
Flashes of memory played out in her head. Shower. Brushing her teeth. Sweats rather than jeans. All of that made sense. What next? She’d started downstairs to fix her breakfast. Halfway down she’d heard something.
No. Someone. Wyatt McCain. Well, not him, but someone who looked just like him, down to the faded blue shirt and scuffed boots. Thanks to her dream, his image had been the first one she thought of.
Her eyes popped open, and she found the strength to push herself up to a sitting position. Ignoring the fresh wave of dizziness, she scooted back until she bumped up against the nearest wall. It offered support but no comfort as she surveyed her surroundings.
From where she sat, she could see the entire ground floor of the A-frame cabin. She was alone. Gradually, her pulse slowed to somewhere near normal, and the pain on the right side of her face eased up enough to allow her to think straight.
The deadbolt on the front door was still firmly in place. No broken windows. No back door, so no other exit. Adding up all the facts, she had to think that she’d imagined the whole thing. Whatever she’d heard had to have been just the wind or a tree limb brushing against the cabin in the wind.
The side of her face was tender to the touch. Obviously, she’d tripped and fallen, landing hard enough to bruise. Nothing that a bag of ice and some aspirin wouldn’t cure. She slowly pushed herself to her feet, taking care not to move too quickly.
She rooted around in the cabinets until she found a small plastic bag and filled it with ice. After zipping it shut, she wrapped it in a thin dish towel and pressed it to her cheek. The cold burn stung but gradually numbed the pain. Next up, the painkillers.
She always carried some in her purse, which she thought she’d left here in the kitchen. Where was it? Hadn’t she set it down on the counter when she’d first come in last night?
It wasn’t there now. She was sure she hadn’t taken it upstairs with her, so that left the living room. Before she’d gone two steps, she spotted the strap of her purse sticking out from underneath the microwave cart. She bent down to pick it up, wincing as the motion exacerbated the throbbing in her face.
How had her purse gotten down there? It wasn’t anywhere close
