of blue or green—it was hard to tell in this light. Definitely redrimmed, though. As for her nose, it was short, straight, narrow, red and shiny. Prominent cheekbones, but that might be just the shadowy hollows underneath.
She was thin. Skinny, in fact. He was no expert on the female form, but she reminded him of the way a high-fashion model might look after a weeklong binge of dieting.
He had a feeling there was more to her story than that.
He also had a feeling he didn’t want to hear it.
Trav was Coast Guard. Retirement couldn’t change a lifetime of tradition, not to mention conditioning. If he came across someone who needed rescuing, he did the job. But that didn’t mean he had to take on their personal problems. He had enough of those himself.
“Where’re you headed?” She must be a local. This time of year, tourists were a rare species. Or in this case, an endangered species.
She named a restaurant in Hatteras village on the far end of the island. He’d never eaten there, but he’d heard it was pretty good.
“I’m not sure,” he said cautiously, “but I think it might be shut down for the winter.”
“I’ve been offered a job there.”
A job. Right. He didn’t know who she was, much less what she was doing here, but he did know that waitresses didn’t usually turn up out of season wearing cashmere coats, looking feverish and hungry and lost. “You’re sure about that? Not much business down here this time of year.”
“Just take me there. If it’s not out of the way. Please.”
Oh, hell. If he had good sense he’d drop her off at the doctor’s office—only the island’s doctor was down with the flu, as he’d found out yesterday when he’d driven an elderly neighbor to his office for a routine checkup.
“Who’s your contact at the restaurant?” From the look she gave him, he might as well have been speaking Mandarin. “I mean, who hired you? Are they expecting you? I can give ’em a call.”
She was hoarse. What he’d taken as a soft, sexy drawl sounded painful to him now that he’d had time to size her up better. She had one hell of a cold, if that’s all it was.
He’d better hope that’s all it was. He’d put off having a flu shot this year until he figured it was too late to do any good. The last thing he needed now was one more hitch in his plans.
She pulled an address book from her purse and read off a number. He punched it in his cell phone, and they both heard the message on the other end. “Sorry, we’re closed for the season. See you in April.”
“Oh,” she said plaintively, and he resisted the urge to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. These days, a man couldn’t be too careful. She thumbed through her book. “Could you try this number?”
He tried it, only to be rewarded with another recording. An irritatingly cheerful woman’s voice came on with, “Leave a message, hon—I’ll get back to you sooner or later. Surf’s up.”
Yeah, sure it was. God, he hated flippant messages.
By then they’d entered Buxton village and were within a quarter of a mile of his house. The last thing he wanted was to take her home with him. His house wasn’t even finished, much less furnished. He’d been more or less camping out there while he put up paneling in what would be Matthew’s room once he could get his ex-wife to let the boy come east.
The lady was shivering again. He had his heater cranked up to the max. He’d already shed his coat, and sweat was trickling down his throat, but he’d figured she’d be chilled—what with the wet clothes and all. No telling how long she’d been standing out in the rain, beating a dead horse.
Or in this case, a dead sedan.
“Look, I’m going to take you to my house until we can track down your friend, okay? By the way, my name’s Travis Holiday.” She looked at him dully, so he tacked on a few credentials, figuring it might reassure her. “Lieutenant Commander, retired, U.S. Coast Guard. Uh...I could call somebody to stay with you if it would make you feel more comfortable ”
Right His nearest neighbor was Miss Cal, who was arthritic, pushing ninety and had a tongue like a whipsaw. Except for a stone-deaf sheepdog named Skye and a few yard chickens, she lived alone.
He didn’t think either Skye or his mistress were going to be much help in this situation.
“Do you have any aspirin?” the woman croaked.
Aspirin. He had a feeling she needed more than that. Like maybe a full brain transplant. “Yeah, sure—at home. I’ll make you something hot to drink when we get there, and then we’ll try again to contact your friend ”
Ruanna had probably felt worse, but at the moment she couldn’t remember when. She’d been driving since yesterday, feeling sicker with every mile. If she could have afforded a longer stay in the cheap motel where she’d spent last night, she’d have slept until she either recovered—or didn’t. The alternative had been to get to Moselle’s place before she collapsed, only her car had collapsed first.
Once she’d crossed Oregon Inlet, traffic had all but disappeared. Even before that she’d begun to suspect that whatever bug she’d picked up, her car had caught it, too, but by then there was nothing to do but keep going, hoping they’d both last a few more miles.
She’d filled up the tank in Manteo. Not even her old guzzler could guzzle that fast, but when it had started to cough in a way that suggested it wasn’t getting enough fuel, she’d slowed down and watched for a service station. The first two stations she’d passed had been closed, and she’d foolishly gambled on making it to the next village.
And then her car had coughed twice and died, right there in the middle of the highway. With the wind howling and the mixture of rain and sand beating against her, she hadn’t even heard the truck approach. By the time Sir Galahad of the gray hair and the granite jaw had loomed up beside her, it was all she could do not to hurl herself into his arms and bawl her eyes out.
Which was so totally out of character she knew she must be even sicker than she’d thought. Every bone in her body ached, including her head. Her throat was so sore she could hardly swallow, and her legs felt about as sturdy as wet linguini. All that on top of a whole mountain range of stress and desperation, and it was no wonder she was irrational. A rational woman would have given up long ago.
He was taking her home with him. She didn’t know him from Adam, yet she’d meekly crawled up onto his horse and galloped off into the sunset, bound for heaven only knew where. Or what.
Ru, even more than most people, had reason to be wary of strangers. By tomorrow her sense of survival would probably have resurfaced, but at the moment she was simply too tired, too discouraged and too utterly miserable to care.
They turned off the highway and followed a crooked sand road. Headlights picked out moss-hung live oaks and ghostly dead pines and glints of water. The house, when they finally reached it, was no more inspired than the landscaping. Of the shoebox school of architecture, it sat on a row of naked posts along a low ridge. There was no welcoming light in the window, no smoke from a chimney. The place looked bleak and deserted.
Oh,
