Sleeping With Beauty. Laura Wright

you at least tell me your name?” she asked.

      He stopped but didn’t turn around. “Dan.”

      “Dan what?”

      “That’s all you need to know.”

      And with that, he left the room. Left a woman with no memory and a million questions staring after him.

      As twilight arrested and called in the day, Dan hauled in the wood he’d chopped that morning and dropped it beside the fireplace.

      Physical labor of any kind was his saving grace. If his mind dropped back to the past or shot into the future, he’d just grab the ax and have at it. Sometimes mucking out Rancon’s stall emptied his mind as well.

      But not tonight.

      The mystery woman with her violet eyes, I-need-you voice and fancy accent was sleeping in his bed, between his sheets—had been for the past four hours—and the thought was slowly but surely making him nuts.

      He was now entirely over the fact that she could be a criminal or a spy or some such bull. Now his suspicious nature had turned into something far more dangerous: desire. With just a glance, that woman had his blood pumping and his curiosity piqued—two things he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

      Two things he’d never wanted to feel again.

      Bottom line, if he wanted to stay marginally sane, she had to go. And soon. He wasn’t looking for romance. Anything close to that had rendered itself defunct four years ago.

      Besides, foreign debutantes weren’t his thing. Especially foreign debutantes with zero memory. No doubt she had family, friends and some top-drawer kinda guy from England or Scotland—or wherever she was from—waiting for a word of her whereabouts.

      After lighting a fire in the fireplace, Dan grabbed a beer from the fridge, cracked it open, took a healthy swallow, then plunked his body down on the couch. Tomorrow, if the woman was up for it, he’d take her into town, drop her off at the doctor’s and head back, back to silence and solitude and the always interesting notion of peace.

      Dan paused, beer halfway to his mouth. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

      He heard a small gasp behind him, glanced over his shoulder. Hands behind her back, the petite beauty stood a few feet away in her rumpled hiking gear with the moonlight beaming through the window, illuminating her face. She looked a little dazed. But beautiful. Too beautiful.

      He turned back around. “You need to rest.”

      “I know.” She walked around the couch, sat down beside him, crossed her legs at the ankles. “I woke up and felt a little scared, so I thought…”

      “You thought you’d come hang out with me?”

      “If you don’t mind.”

      Mind? Why should he mind? Just because his body revved to life whenever he looked at her? “No, I don’t mind. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s any safer out here.”

      He watched her lips part, shock brighten those killer eyes, and pink color those high cheekbones. He tilted his beer toward her, trying for a lighter mood. “Thirsty?”

      Her smile was short and tentative. “No, thanks.”

      “No, probably not good for you.” Neither the beer nor the company.

      “Not tonight anyway. Maybe another time.”

      Her words snaked through him. Innocent enough, but they were sulfur to a match that had been stripped for a long time.

      His hand tightened on the neck of the beer bottle as he watched her brush a strand of long curly hair away from her face, hair that reflected several shades of red and blond and brown in the blaze of firelight.

      Aside from the bruise on her forehead, she really did have the look of an angel about her.

      The kind of look a devil like him steered clear of.

      He took a pull on his beer, dropped back against the couch and asked, “Are you feeling any better?”

      “A little tired. My body aches. But otherwise, not too bad.”

      “How about your head? That fall you took was pretty serious.”

      She inhaled sharply. “I fell? Where? In the mountains? Why?”

      “Take it easy, lady. Look, all I know is that you and my horse scared the bejesus out of each other this morning, that you both ended up injured and that as soon as it’s possible, we’ll get you back to who and where you belong.” He took another swallow of beer. “Now, are you going to tell me how that head of yours is doing?”

      “All right,” she said, a soft smile twitching her lips. “The pain’s gone and the head’s still attached.”

      “And the memory?”

      That smile wavered. “I still don’t remember anything.”

      “You will.”

      “Well, if you say so, then I’ll believe it.”

      It was as though someone had wrapped a tire iron around the stone he used for a heart and squeezed. “Why is that?”

      “I don’t know, I just…I feel like I can trust you.”

      He shot her a cynical twist of a smile. “You shouldn’t trust anyone.”

      Confusion lit her eyes. And right then Dan knew exactly where she’d come from: Innocent Avenue, round the corner from Sheltered Street, in the never-polluted city of Naive. Those kind of people made him crazy. You had to see the world for what it was if you wanted to survive. Didn’t she know that?

      Of course she didn’t.

      “You hungry?” he asked, hoping to redirect both their attentions.

      She nodded eagerly. “But I’d like to wash up first if you don’t mind.”

      “I don’t mind at all. How about a shower?”

      Her eyes went wide. “A shower?”

      Dan wanted to laugh. Really he did, that is, if he could remember how. “That was just a gentlemanly offer, not a come-on.”

      “A come-on?”

      “A line. A play to get you naked, wet and soapy.”

      Her pretty face glowed with pink embarrassment. “Oh.”

      This was getting out of control. This prim-and-proper thing she had going was really getting under his skin, making his body ache like hell. On an irritated grumble, Dan seized her hand, helped her to her feet and led her into the bedroom and over to his closet. After grabbing a few extra-large items that wouldn’t tempt him, he handed them to her. “Here.”

      “What are these?”

      “Clean clothes.”

      “I know that,” she said. “I was just wondering if these were your clothes?”

      “Yeah. Gotta problem with that?”

      For a moment she just stared at him, then shook her head and said, “Not in the least.”

      “Good.” He led her to the bathroom door, beckoned for her to walk past him. And as soon as she did, he followed.

      It took her about three seconds to notice him. And when she did, when she turned to look at him, that stubborn chin of hers was tilted up. “Where do you think you’re going, Dan?”

      He pointed past her. “In there.”

      She blinked. “With me?”

      “That’s right.”

      “Absolutely not!”

      “Listen, lady, as I said before, this isn’t a come-on.”