The Quiet Seduction

Well, sure he had one. Why else would he be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere? He’d been on his way to—

Where? Where the hell am I going? A sense of urgency overrode the pain and he struggled to get up.

Firm hands held him down. “Wait,” she said. “We don’t know yet if anything’s broken.”

Taking the line of least resistance, he closed his eyes again, releasing the vague feeling of urgency as pain rolled over him in shuddering waves. The woman leaned over and placed her hands on his sides, patting him down as if she were searching for weapons. “I’m just trying to see if anything’s noticeably out of place,” she said apologetically. “I took a course in first aid a few years ago.”

When she got as far as his knees, he began to curse, then bit it off. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Kids and angels don’t—”

“Shh, I’ve heard worse. Look, I didn’t find anything obviously broken, but your left knee feels swollen to me. Was it that way before—” She broke off, biting her lip. “Oh, lordy, I hope I didn’t do anything awful when I rolled you over onto your side. Pete was half under water. I had to pull him out from under you.”

“Give me a minute,” he growled. Carefully, he flexed his fingers, testing. So far, so good. Wrists still functioned, arms and elbows were still in working order. They hurt like the devil, but still obeyed his brain’s instructions.

The angel said something about rocks in the ditch, as if that might explain everything. Next time he took a header he’d make certain there were no rocks in the ditch first. “I think they’re just chunks of old culverts,” she said apologetically. “From when they replaced them along this stretch of highway winter before last.”

As if he gave a damn.

He moved his left leg and sucked air in through his teeth. Not a good sign. “Would you mind looking to see if there’s a bone poking through my skin?” he said through clenched jaws.

Tearfully—he could have sworn he saw tears streaking down her face—she leaned back and peered at the lower half of his body. If he was in bad enough shape to make an angel weep, he wasn’t too sure he cared to hear the details.

“I don’t think it’s broken, but you must have twisted it. There’s part of a pine tree lying over there—lots of junk everywhere. You probably tripped. I think your left ankle might be sprained, too, but I don’t think it’s broken. Is that your shoe caught under that branch over there? Pete, how about digging it out?”

“Left knee, left ankle.” His attempt at a smile was more of a grimace. “The good news is, I’ve still got one good limb, otherwise you’d have to shoot me.”

“Hush,” she said sternly. “Lie still a minute and let me think.”

He didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Aside from the injuries she’d mentioned, he’d already discovered a lump above his left temple that was roughly the size of a West Texas cantaloupe.

And then he lost it again. Flat out fainted. Later he had to wonder how they’d managed to get him up and moving. Angels, he figured, had their methods. He didn’t remember flying. Sure as hell didn’t remember any harp music. Remembered hearing a siren in the distance that wailed on and on and on until he felt like taking it out with a high-powered rifle. Somewhere a dog was barking. At least the kid had stopped whimpering. Now he couldn’t seem to shut up, chattering on and on about the noise, and how scared he was, and wow, look at all those broken trees.

By the time he was able to focus on anything besides his own pain, they had reached a shabby, two-story farmhouse neatly surrounded by two-thirds of a picket fence.

Working together to support his not-inconsiderable weight, the kid and the woman, who was a lot stronger than she looked, had managed to ease him onto the front porch. Somewhere during the painful journey he’d figured out that she was no angel. He remembered gazing up from his undignified position in the foul-smelling wheelbarrow they’d used to trundle him down a long, bumpy lane, to focus on her face. It was probably not the most beautiful face he’d ever seen, but he’d clung to the image, because he’d desperately needed to cling to something.

“Give me a minute,” he gasped. Seated on the porch floor, both hands gripping his swollen knee, he focused on riding over the pain. Breathe in, breathe out, slowly and deeply. Count off, count off, count off….

A glimpse of something vaguely familiar slipped in and out of his mind—a mind that admittedly wasn’t working too well at the moment. Uniforms…semi-automatic weapons…?

His head felt as if it had been shot out of a mortar.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” the woman said.

Squinting through narrowed eyes, he sized her up when she came and knelt in front of him. She was soaking wet, dirty, but had all the right curves in all the right places. Oh, yeah—he’d have to be dead to miss that much. Green eyes, brown hair—nice, but nothing fancy. The kind of woman a man might have given a second look, but probably no more. And yet…

“Do I know you?” he asked cautiously. He felt the need to reach out and hold on to something—someone—familiar. At the same time he felt an unsettling need for caution.

Why?

Who knew?

“I don’t think so. I’m Ellen Wagner. The boy you saved is my son, Pete. I’ll never be able to repay you, Mr….?”

There was something at once earthy and ethereal about her. Thin face, hollow cheeks, haunting eyes—or maybe he meant haunted. Without being actually pretty, she was beautiful. She was obviously waiting for him to introduce himself. He ran a quick mental check before the walls slammed down.

It’ll come, he thought with growing desperation. This kind of thing happened in books and movies, not in real life. At least, not to him.

Whoever the hell he was.

By the time he woke up again, it was pitch-dark. There was a night-light on, one of those small, fake-candle things. He waited for his eyes to adjust. Nothing looked familiar. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but nothing about the room rang any bells. Evidently he wasn’t at home. He couldn’t quite remember what home looked like, but he’d lay odds this wasn’t it.

Cautiously sitting up, he began to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Pain slammed through him as it all came back.

Correction. The immediate past came back. For all he knew he could’ve been born in a ditch with a pale-faced angel for a midwife and a skinny wet kid for an assistant.

Hell of a thing. He was used to—

What? He didn’t know what he was used to; he only knew this wasn’t it.

“How long have I been out of it?” he asked as the woman came silently into the bedroom. Any minute now, he assured himself, things would begin to click into place.

She was barefoot. White robe, no halo, no wings. Avid for information, he latched onto the smallest detail. She glanced at her watch. A man’s watch, he noted, on a delicate wrist.

“It’s just past eleven now—p.m. They say the tornado struck at seven minutes to one this afternoon. I woke you up several times just to be sure you were all right, the way you’re supposed to with a head injury. Don’t you remember?”

“Lady, I don’t remember shi—anything.” Evidently he did remember how to talk to a lady.

“We’ll have to call you something. What comes to mind?”

“Bathroom. And no, I don’t want to be called John, but if you’ll point me in the right direction, I’d be much obliged.”

Seeing the smile that trembled on her lips, he’d have given anything to have met her under better circumstances.

She indicated a door across the hall and mentally he measured the distance. If he could grab a chair he could probably use it to lurch across the room.

“You really need to keep your left leg elevated as much as possible,” she told him.

“I can handle it.” He could handle the pain better than he could handle asking her to help with his more intimate needs.

“There was a crutch—I think I put it in the attic. If you’ll wait right here a minute, I’ll run see.”

“Take your time,” he said through a clenched jaw.

Evidently she recognized his most pressing problem at the moment. She was gone and back before he could decide whether to risk falling on his face or an even worse indignity.

“Here, I don’t know if it’s the right height. It was in the attic when we moved in. Thank goodness I never got around to clearing things out.”

She eased into position under his arm to help him up, and even in his battered condition, he recognized the smell of a woman fresh from her bath. At any other time he had a feeling he’d have responded to it.