The Heart of a Stranger. Sheri WhiteFeather

pieces had been taken, but the silver cross had been an emotional loss.

      She turned the shining object over. And found the inscription.

      To keep you safe.

      It was her cross. Her family history. Her heart.

      Had this man purchased it from the pawnshop all those years ago? Lourdes had tried to recover the necklace after she’d discovered what her husband had done, but the sentimental heirloom had already been sold.

      “Where did he get this?” she asked aloud. And why had he showed up at her ranch? Beaten and bruised?

      He opened his eyes, and she flinched and dropped the necklace. It thumped against his chest. Against his heart.

      Cáco didn’t say a word. She stood back as the man lifted his hand and stroked Lourdes’s cheek. The tips of his fingers grazed gently, making her warm and tingly.

      A lover’s touch. A stranger’s unexpected caress.

      A second later, his hand slid from her face and melted onto the bed, loose and fluid against a starched white sheet.

      From there, he remained still. He seemed dazed, confused. Lost in the recesses of his mind.

      I’m confused, too, Lourdes thought, glancing at the sterling silver cross once again.

      Cáco stepped forward and unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt, working the garment from his arms, resuming her task.

      Lourdes took heed, knowing she was expected to do the same. But it wasn’t easy, not with him watching her through those glazed eyes.

      Feeling sensuously intrusive, she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans, mindful to leave his boxers in place as she pulled the pants down his legs.

      Endless legs. Long, muscular and dusted with hair.

      While Cáco ran her clinical hands along his body, looking for cracked ribs and swollen kneecaps, Lourdes rummaged through his jeans, hoping to find his wallet—his ID, his name, his date of birth, an address, pictures of his family.

      She searched every pocket and uncovered absolutely nothing. No indication of who he was.

      “He must have been robbed,” she concluded out loud, glancing at his scraped knuckles.

      Had he fought back? Enraged his attackers by defending himself? Surely more than one man had accosted him.

      How many had he battled? Two? Three?

      “No bones are broken,” Cáco observed.

      The man blinked and turned his head to the sound of the old woman’s voice. In turn, she dipped a washcloth into the basin of root-boiled water and cleaned his face with the now-tepid liquid, reassuring him that he would be all right.

      Once the dirt and blood were wiped away, Lourdes couldn’t deny his appeal. Even with a swollen eye, a split lip and discoloration from the bruises, he was remarkably handsome.

      Cáco handed her a fresh washcloth. “Finish bathing him, and I’ll tend to the rest of his medicine.”

      After her surrogate grandmother left the room, Lourdes sat on the edge of the bed. He made a rough sound, a low masculine groan, as she sponged his neck and worked the damp washcloth over his chest, unintentionally arousing his nipples.

      She inhaled a shaky breath and took care to bathe his stomach. It revealed a ripple of muscle, a line of hair below his navel and the horrible marks where he’d been pounded or kicked.

      “I’m sorry someone hurt you,” she said, wondering if he knew how intimately he’d touched her cheek. If he’d meant for her to feel that tingly connection.

      He didn’t respond. Instead the mysterious stranger closed his eyes and slept, leaving her with the echo of a rapidly beating heart.

      And the image of her most prized possession blazing against dark, dangerous skin.

      Hours later, after completing her chores on the ranch, Lourdes prepared the family meal.

      Aside from modern appliances, the kitchen reflected vintage charm. She supposed the old place was a bit eclectic, with its unusual style. The house had been built in the ’40s and remodeled in the ’70s, and both decades melded together in a hodgepodge of warm woods, gold-and-green tiles and crystal doorknobs.

      She seared pork chops and added grated cheese to a big pot of elbow macaroni, making her daughters’ favorite dish.

      Cáco came in and drew her attention. The old woman placed an empty cup in the sink. Lourdes knew she’d fixed a coral root tea for her patient to drink, along with a comfrey poultice for his bruises. Cáco acquired herbs from suppliers all over the country, keeping whatever she needed on hand.

      “How is he?” Lourdes asked.

      “Confused,” the older woman answered. “But that’s to be expected. He mumbled some nonsense for a while, then went back to sleep.”

      Lourdes leaned against the counter. “We should call the sheriff.”

      “What for?”

      “To report what happened to him.”

      Cáco washed her hands and dried them on a paper towel. Her bun had come loose, and now her bound hair dangled softly on the back of her head. Silver discs danced in her ears, spinning two carefully engraved bear paws.

      “We don’t know what happened to him,” she finally said.

      Lourdes turned to stir the macaroni and cheese. “He was beaten.”

      “Yes, he was.” The old woman began mixing a ranch dressing for the salad. “But he was meant to come here. To find you. To return the necklace.” She lifted her head, her dark eyes glittering. “And we’re meant to help him. To be here when he needs us.”

      Lourdes wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. Cáco often knew things, sensed things that left other people with goose bumps. Of course that didn’t make her an all-wise, all-knowing Indian. Sometimes she twisted logic and made life seem more supernatural than it was.

      Cáco’s superstitions ran deep. She refused to gaze in a mirror when the sky thundered, fearful lightning would look in and strike her. She’d tied crow feathers to the twins’ cribs when they were babies to protect them from evil influences. Cáco had insisted on either that or a taxidermy-stuffed bat to watch over the girls.

      Lourdes had agreed to the feathers.

      She looked up to find Cáco staring at her.

      Okay. Fine. A stranger had appeared out of the blue, wearing a piece of Lourdes’s heart.

      “I won’t call the sheriff,” she found herself saying. She wouldn’t let the authorities intervene. Not yet. Not while the man was still under Cáco’s care.

      “Good.” The stubborn old woman’s lips twitched into a triumphant smile. She liked getting her way.

      Lourdes added a little water to the pork chops, making them sizzle. Her skin had sizzled, too. Heated from his touch. “He’ll probably want to contact the police on his own.”

      “Maybe.” Cáco blended the salad dressing with a whisk. “And maybe not. We shouldn’t push him. He needs to rest.”

      Already the old woman had become possessive of the injured stranger, protecting him as if he were one of her own. But Lourdes had expected as much.

      “Mama?” a small voice said.

      Lourdes turned to see her daughters standing in the doorway. Her beautiful girls, with their long, tawny hair and root beer-brown eyes. They held hands, as they often did, clutching each other the way they must have done in the womb.

      Nina, the chatterbox, and Paige, the observer. Sometimes they conversed in an odd guttural language, words only the two of them understood.

      They probably wouldn’t