Home To Copper Mountain

“Forgive me for frightening you, Ms. Jarrett,” he said in a low voice. “I’m Clint Hawkins’s son Rick. I told Pam I’d pick you up for her.”

Rick Hawkins?

She fought to catch her breath and waited for her heartbeat to return to normal. Her mind began to clear now that the threat of bodily injury had passed. Audra recognized him from Pam’s wedding photographs. In those pictures his tall, well-honed physique had been dressed in a formal suit instead of a black T-shirt and jeans. He was even more attractive in person.

“When I got out of my car, I could hear screaming. It gave me the chills,” he explained. His compassionate gaze let her know her nightmare must have been a beaut.

Audra moaned while she willed her body to calm down. To think he’d heard her carrying on from clear outside.

How awful! How humiliating!

“I thought you were being attacked. Your front door was locked, so I got in through your bedroom window, which had been left open.”

Last night she’d been too physically exhausted to check the window. Her driving need had been to reach the bed before she collapsed.

To her chagrin the clock radio by her bed said five after twelve. She hadn’t thought to set it because she rarely needed an alarm to wake her up. Normally she only slept seven hours.

“It’s a-all right,” she stammered. “If you would please wait for me in the living room. It’s down the hall on your left.”

“Would you like some help getting up first?”

“No— I can manage, thank you.”

The concerned gray eyes staring down at her from between heavy black lashes made a sweep of her five-foot-five figure. They started with the toes peeping out of her cast, and ended with her dark red curls, missing nothing in between. She felt as if he’d just sucked all the air out of her lungs.

“So you’re the cousin who almost lost a limb.” His voice had a faraway sound, yet his gaze was all too personal as it took in her other leg, which was bare to the fringe of her denim shorts. “Thank God it didn’t happen.”

Thank heavens she hadn’t changed out of her clothes before she’d finally drifted off. He could have found her in her underwear…

Audra had never felt so embarrassed in her whole life. Heat poured into her cheeks.

“So,” she mimicked. She was attracted to him yet his presence in her bedroom made her feel violated, though she knew he’d meant her no harm. “You’re the son with the death wish. The Hill Country’s a little far out of your way for a pit stop, isn’t it?”

Avoiding his eyes, she waited until he’d disappeared out the door before reaching for her crutches.

That’s when she saw her spiral notebook still open and lying on the bed next to her hip. The pencil had fallen to the floor.

“Racetrack Lover!”

Oh no! Had he read what she’d written?

Audra closed the book and put it on the bedstand. In a few clumsy moves she eased herself off the mattress and was able to grab fresh underwear from the drawer.

No way was she going to wear another pair of shorts in front of him. Snug jeans were impossible to put on. A blouse and skirt would be easier to manage than a dress with a zipper up the back.

She pulled a light-blue blouse and denim skirt from the hangers in the closet, then moved to the bathroom across the hall as fast as she could.

Since she was unable to shower with the cast on, a quick sponge bath would have to do for today. The small bathroom left little space for her cast and the crutches, too.

She applied a dusky pomegranate shade of lipstick and flicked a brush through her curls. There wasn’t anything she could do about the shadows under her eyes.

“Did you close and lock your window?” he asked as she entered the living room a few minutes later.

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Until a few minutes ago we’ve never had a break-in.”

She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but it must have come out sounding that way, because he grimaced.

“Then you’re damn lucky.”

“According to your father, so are you,” she drawled.

The room was charged with tension, which broke as he moved toward the hallway. Audra made a half turn with her crutches.

Over her shoulder she said, “If you’re determined to be a Boy Scout instead of an intruder, you might as well put the screen back on while you’re at it.”

After that reminder she opened the front door and started down the porch steps. There were only two of them. She managed without difficulty.

It didn’t surprise her to find a new, gleaming black BMW parked in front of the bungalow. The kind of car she was seeing more and more of these days on the back roads…

Rich trespassers were raping the land with their easy money and didn’t know a gelding from a stallion. Did the racetrack lover know the difference? It would be interesting to find out.

RICK STARTED UP the car without saying anything to her. He backed out of the driveway, past the mailbox, to the road leading to the main ranch house. When he’d offered to pick up Pam’s cousin as a way to help, all he’d known about her was that she was recovering from an automobile accident in which the driver had been killed. Apparently, the man had worked at the same radio station she did.

Though he was armed with that much knowledge, he couldn’t have imagined what awaited him at the bungalow. The screams he’d heard coming from inside were so bloodcurdling, he still hadn’t recovered.

Ms. Audra Jarrett had come as a big surprise to him in more ways than one.

She was in her early to mid-twenties. For some reason he’d had the erroneous impression she was much closer to Pam’s forty. He’d never been partial to red hair, but then he’d never seen a shining mass of dark-mahogany curls before. They danced above a pair of blue-gray eyes so close in color to his mother’s, he was taken by surprise.

While he’d tried to wake the writhing woman on top of the bed, his gaze had been drawn to the curves of her slender body, making it impossible for him to look anywhere else.

Right now she didn’t appear to be in the mood to talk. Who could blame her for her silence?

No doubt she’d been plagued by horrific dreams since the crash. They had to be disorienting and probably stayed with her even after she awakened from them.

He’d known several racers who’d had to be cut from a wreckage. While he’d watched and listened to Audra fight her way out of her nightmare, it was evident she’d been trapped in the car accident that had broken her leg.

Neither his father nor Pam had shared those details with him. His breaking into her bedroom couldn’t have helped the situation any.

“I’m sorry a total stranger had to be the cause of more distress,” he apologized again. “You were in such a highly agitated state, my only thought was to get to you and wake you up so you wouldn’t have to suffer any longer.”

“I realize I sounded like a soldier back from Vietnam, so you’re forgiven,” she said without looking at him. “Last night Pam told me your father had gone out looking for you, so I can’t say you came as a complete surprise. Otherwise I’d have cracked your head open with the end of my crutch.”

“Ouch,” he teased.

“Obviously he found you,” she replied without a hint of warmth. “How far off the beaten track were you?”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel.