The Quiet Seduction

She handed him the crutch and helped him position it before he embarrassed himself. It was short, but at least it allowed him some mobility. He thanked her and hobbled off to tend to nature’s call. And incidentally, to look in the mirror to see who the hell he was.

The face that stared back at him moments later would have looked right at home on any Wanted poster. A jaw that redefined the word stubborn. A largish nose that canted slightly to the southwest. High forehead, distorted at the moment by the large, discolored lump above his left temple. Nothing rang any bells, including the stubble, the mud-stiffened brown hair and the suspicious dark eyes. After staring for long moments at the mirror image, he felt like crying. Howling like a lovesick coyote.

If he’d ever before come face-to-face with the man in the mirror, he didn’t remember it.

He managed to wash up, even doused his head in the basin a few times to remove some of the mud. The rest he left behind on one of her pretty pink towels.

She was still there when he made it back to the room. Ms. Wagner. Mrs. Wagner. She had a son.

Think, man! Get it together!

How the devil could he get it together when his head felt like a filing cabinet that had been bludgeoned with a sledgehammer? The image of a silver-gray metal filing cabinet flickered in and out so fast he didn’t have time to latch on to any details.

“Are you hungry? We had supper hours ago, but I could heat you some soup. What about chicken noodle?”

“Coffee. Strong, black and sweet. I don’t usually take sugar, but I need the…” His voice trailed off as it occurred to him that things were starting to come back. Any minute now he’d remember who he was, and where he was supposed to be. According to the boy, he’d been in a hell of a hurry, but then, with a tornado bearing down on them, that was understandable.

Was anyone looking for him? A family? A wife? Chances were that whatever transportation had brought him this far was no longer available. Picturing the scene when he’d first looked around that ditch, he didn’t recall seeing anything resembling wheels. Not even the kid’s bike.

“What shall I call you?” She was waiting quietly. Patience was a quality he’d always admired, especially in a woman. Without knowing how he knew, he knew.

“Uh, might as well call me Storm.”

She had a way of tilting her head that spoke louder than words. You’re kidding, right?

“Look, I seem to have temporarily mislaid a few things. Like my long-term memory. Can we just make it easy until I get it back?”

“I’ll bring you the coffee, but you’d probably better eat something, too. The minute the lines are up I’ll call my doctor.”

“My cell phone—” He broke off, confused, frustrated—feeling helpless and somehow knowing it was not something he was accustomed to feeling.

“If you had one, it wasn’t on you when I found you.”

It was then he noticed for the first time that his shirt was striped cotton, and so were his drawstring pants. They were also too wide and too short.

“I never wear pajamas,” he said, oddly offended.

“You do now. No matter how sick you are, you’re not getting into my bed in those muddy rags you were wearing. I threw away your tie—it was hopeless. I washed your shirt and underwear. As for your pants, well, I sponged them, but I doubt if even a dry cleaner will be able to do much with them. I’m sorry. Pete went back and found your other shoe. I did the best I could, but I’m afraid they’ll never be the same. Cordovan leather doesn’t take kindly to being scrubbed inside and out, even with saddle soap.”

He took a moment to absorb the implications. There were several. There might be something in one of his pockets that would give him a clue as to his identity—even a monogram would help. Half joking, he said, “I don’t suppose you found a name, address and serial number among my effects, did you?”

“Serial number?”

Serial number? “I mean phone number. Hell, I don’t know, I’m just reaching here. Help me out, will you?”

“Sorry. You were wearing a nice wristwatch, but I’m afraid it didn’t survive. The crystal was broken and it was full of muddy water. You might be right about your name, though. There was a handkerchief in your hip pocket that had what looked like an H with an S in the middle—sort of a design, you know? Storm…hits? Storm Help? Harry Storm?”

“Nice try. Don’t worry, it’ll come. And tell your husband thanks for the use of his pajamas.”

“I’m a widow,” she said quietly. “I kept Jake’s things after he died because…well, just because, I guess.” Leaning her hips against the dresser, arms crossed over her breasts, she shrugged. “I’d better go heat some soup—I hope canned is okay. I’ll bring the coffee as soon as it’s made.”

“I see the power’s on.”

“Ours wasn’t off more than a few hours, but just up the road—you can see some of it from here—things are pretty torn up. A few miles south of here, two farms and a trailer park were completely wiped out. I’m not sure about the rest, I haven’t had time to watch much news.”

“Casualties?”

“None reported so far.”

“Do you have a radio I can borrow?”

“I can bring one in, but right now you probably need sleep more than you need news. If you can make it as far as the living room in the morning, you can eat breakfast while you watch the storm coverage on TV. Maybe something will ring a bell.”

She left then, and he sat for a moment longer and considered what he knew and what he didn’t.

What he knew was easy. He was alive. He’d been rescued by a widow with a kid named Pete, although he was usually called Hon. Her husband, Jake, had been shorter and broader. As for the widow herself, she had a surprisingly womanly body under the baggy clothes she’d been wearing when she’d found him in that ditch and the bathrobe she’d worn later.

Oh, yeah, he knew all that, all right. It was what he didn’t know that was giving him fits. Like who the devil he was.

Like where he’d been going in such a hell of a hurry. Like what he had been doing that had left this nagging sense of urgency inside him. Almost a sense of wariness.

Like what happened to his vehicle.

And which one of them—the woman or her son—had got him out of his clothes and into these striped pajamas.

Two

At a quarter to midnight, after checking the doors and switching off the outside lights, Ellen glanced toward the stairs, feeling as if she’d just run a three-day marathon. Pete was finally asleep; the stranger had been fed and was now sleeping—safely and normally, she sincerely hoped. When he’d opened his eyes earlier, she’d looked closely and could detect no sign of irregular pupils, but with such dark eyes it was hard to tell.

Nice eyes, really. It wasn’t like her to notice a man’s eyes—or a man’s anything else. But as she’d been the one to get him out of his clothes and into a pair of pajamas…

Well, there were some things no woman who wasn’t blind and totally devoid of hormones could help but notice.

She yawned. She would try to cram eight hours of sleep into what was left of the night, but she knew in advance that it wouldn’t be enough. All too soon the alarm clock would go off and she’d have to get up again, get Pete off to school. After that, unless Booker and Clyde showed up, she would turn out the horses, come back inside and make the beds and put the breakfast dishes in to soak, then go back to the barn and muck out the stalls, clean troughs and do all the other things she paid that worthless pair to do. Even when they went through the motions, she had to follow right behind them to see that things were done properly. It was almost easier to do them herself in the first place, but there were still some jobs that needed a man’s strength.

Absently she picked up a plastic robot and a model airplane and put them on the stairs to go up. Crossing to the fireplace, she wound the mantel clock, touched the framed picture beside it and yawned again.

Lord, she was tired. There weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needed doing, nor enough energy to last, even if she could have found the hours.

She was halfway up the stairs when someone knocked on the front door. “Oh, shoot, what now?” she muttered, glancing at her watch. No matter how tired she was, she could hardly ignore a summons in the middle of the night, not after what had happened only a few hours ago. She’d got off lucky. Others hadn’t been so fortunate. If someone needed her help…

She switched on the security light again and peered out the window. A dark car had pulled up to the front gate, one of those low-slung models with a spoiler on the rear end and decorations all over the body. Long, curling flames, in this case.

Almost everyone she knew drove a truck, but most families also had a car. That detailing, though, was unfamiliar.

“May I help you?” She opened the door only a few inches, keeping her right foot wedged against the bottom so that she could slam it shut if need be. If worse came to worst, Jake’s old .420 gauge shotgun was propped in the corner behind the coatrack. Of course the shells were upstairs in her dresser under her socks and sweaters, but a housebreaker wouldn’t know that.

House-breakers also didn’t go around knocking on front doors.