guess you’re determined to stay, ignoring the advice of the locals,” he went on.
“I have business to conclude here.”
“Can I ask what that business is?”
“Cleaning up my father’s things. He lived here on and off until recently.”
The ranger kicked dirt off his boots and looked down, suggesting that he knew what had happened to her dad.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” He glanced up again to meet her scrutinizing gaze.
Nervously, Skylar glanced away. The flutter inside her chest spread to her arms. She gripped the gun tighter so she wouldn’t drop the damn thing.
“Were you watching my father, too? He had an accident, they said.”
Skylar let the word accident hang in the air before continuing. “Was anyone patrolling around here when he died?”
Unable to resist the urge to look at him again, almost as if he requested it, she dragged her focus upward until their gazes connected across the small front yard.
Shudders rocked her with the immediacy of the connection, and she shifted from foot to foot to cover the quakes. He stared back at her with a seriousness that set off more alarm bells. His penetrating eyes were very light against his bronzed skin. Though she was unfamiliar with the dream man’s eyes, she was sure these were his.
You’re a handsome sucker, I’ll give you that.
But how do I know you?
Why have I modeled a dream after you?
If she’d met this guy before, she would have remembered, and yet her treacherous body was responding to him as though he’d stepped right out of her dream and was presenting himself to her now in order to culminate all those pent-up feelings.
While reading body language was a trick both her father and her own classes in medical school had taught her, this situation was different. Meeting his gaze was like sharing secrets without having to speak. It felt weird, and also incredibly sexy in a messed-up way.
“Two of us were on duty that night, but not near here,” he said in answer to the question she’d almost forgotten.
“Night?” she echoed. “Dad was hiking at night?”
“I don’t know that for a fact,” he replied. “Sorry again.”
Even in stillness, the ranger seemed to be moving, evidence of the wild streak he harbored. Chances were good he was a loner, preferring to live on the fringes of the city, communing with trees. Weren’t all forest rangers born with some kind of special calling for the great outdoors?
How about werewolves?
Glad she hadn’t said that out loud, Skylar fisted her free hand in the dish cloth, trying on the word figment for size. This ranger, so like the man in her dreams, was quite possibly a figment of her overwrought imagination.
“You don’t need the gun,” he said in a lowered tone. “Not with me.”
Although his blue-eyed gaze held steady, Skylar also noted a hint of weariness in his features. He might have been up all night. He could have been near here the whole time, either guarding this cabin’s sole resident, or drawn to her for reasons that went beyond being neighborly. Reasons like sharing unusual dreams or offering genuine condolences in person for her loss.
Fingers tight on the gun behind her back, Skylar smiled. “Do all rangers have X-ray vision, or just you?”
He shrugged. “Merely an educated guess since you showed me the gun last night.”
“It’s a precaution. After all, how do I know you’re what you say you are?”
“You’re right to mistrust strangers. That’s a good sign.”
“A good sign of what?”
“Wariness, where it’s necessary. Caution. A healthy respect for self-preservation.”
He pulled a small radio from his belt and held it up. “This is how I check in.” He spoke to the radio. “Harris here, on the eastern slope.”
An answer crackled back from the radio, and Skylar heard enough to make her feel better about believing him. His voice, as he spoke, also made her familiarity with it more unsettling. Disconnecting from the dream was proving to be tough.
Puzzled, she said, “I recognize your voice.”
Ranger Harris nodded. “We spoke last night.”
It’s so much more than that. What though?
“Why did you come back today?” she asked.
“I thought I’d check on you. Make sure everything is okay.”
“Do your rounds take in all of the cabins out here?”
“Usually. But very few people are in residence right now.”
“I passed four cabins on my way to this one.”
“Most folks don’t live in them year-round. And those who do have taken off for a while.”
Breaking the disconcerting eye contact, Skylar looked to the east. “Because of what happened to my father?”
“Your father had an accident.”
“So they say.”
Other than offering a brief nod, he didn’t react to her remark.
“You’re alone out here. I just thought you might like to know we’re around,” he said.
“Rangers, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Skylar crossed her arms over her chest, bringing the gun front and center. If nothing else, she needed the weapon to protect her from herself. This guy’s gaze made her feel naked, though he didn’t appear to be staring at anything other than her face. Outwardly, he acted like a gentleman, the warden of this place, but the sparks tickling her insides weren’t appeased by his surface calm, his coolness or his distance.
Hearing him had set off a chain reaction. Too many of her fantasies were built on that voice. In the flesh, this guy, whoever he was, stranger that he might be, was like catnip to a serial dreamer.
Skylar reached for the flush creeping up her neck, hoping to stop it from reaching her face.
“How did they find him?” she finally asked.
Ranger Harris tilted his head to ponder the question.
“Who found my father’s body?”
“Hikers, I believe,” he replied.
“Near
