In The Stranger's Arms. Pamela Toth

was uncharacteristic for him to ignore such important details, but he wasn’t used to dealing with such an annihilating defeat as he’d recently experienced. All he had wanted when he’d left California was to put the ruins of everything for which he had worked so hard behind him. Apparently he was paying the price for his haste.

      “Look, I’m not fussy.” The desperation and the resignation he could hear in his own voice made him wince. “Can’t you find me somewhere to bunk, at least for tonight?”

      Maybe Wallingford had a couch that pulled out or a damned lounge cushion on his back porch that Wade could borrow. At six-two, he was too damned tall to sleep in his car.

      “You can deduct it from what you owe me,” he added. Had Wallingford hoped Wade might forget about the healthy deposit he’d paid? Not a chance.

      The other man spread his hands in a gesture of helpless regret. “I’d put you up in the spare room for nothing, I swear, but my daughter’s home from Wazoo, over in Pullman.” He cleared his throat nervously. “Concerning the refund of your deposit—”

      “I know,” Wade cut in, smothering a yawn. “Read the fine print. Now you read my fine print and hand it over.”

      As soon as Wallingford pulled out his wallet and handed over a stack of bills, Wade jammed them and the useless rental agreement back into his pocket. He stalked back to his car, wondering if he should buy a sleeping bag and camp on the beach.

      He was about to open his car door when Wallingford called out to him. “There’s a garage apartment behind one of those old Victorians on Cedar, a couple of blocks over. I didn’t hear of it being rented out.” He pointed in the direction of a stand of tall firs. “The house is blue with purple trim and a big weeping willow tree in the front yard. You can’t miss it.”

      Wade felt a twinge of hope. “Have you got the address?”

      By the time Pauline had closed up her needlework shop on Harbor Avenue and driven back up the bluff to her house, her earlier anxiety had turned to dull resignation. She had no choice but to have the damage repaired as soon as Steve was available, no matter what the ultimate hit on her precious nest egg.

      Mayfield Manor had been in her family for three generations before she and her younger sister had inherited it. Even though Lily had obviously abandoned the family home as well as her only living relative, Pauline felt a deep obligation to maintain it. In addition to her strong affection for the old house, she still clung to her dream of someday replacing her female boarders with a family of her own.

      When she came around the corner of her street, she saw the bright-blue tarp covering the corner of the garage roof. Except for some sawdust and a few drag marks in the gravel of her driveway, all signs of the fallen limb were gone.

      As soon as she emerged from her Honda with her purse and her laptop, a dusty black car with out-of-state plates pulled into the driveway behind her. Her elderly boarder, Dolly Langley, was perched in the passenger seat next to an unfamiliar man wearing sunglasses.

      As Pauline waited, he got out from behind the wheel, moving with surprising stiffness for someone with such an athletic build. Nodding to Pauline, he circled the car and opened Dolly’s door. As spry as a little white-headed bird, she hopped out, holding on to his hand.

      “Pauline, wait till I tell you what happened,” she chirped in the British accent that all her years on this side of the pond had failed to eradicate. “I found this nice young man on my way home from the market.”

      Her satisfied smile stopped Pauline cold. Widowed a decade before, Dolly insisted that a woman of Pauline’s age could be neither happy nor complete without a man to share her life. Had Dolly brought him home for her, in the same way a cat might offer a dead mouse?

      “I appreciate the endorsement,” the stranger said in a husky voice as he bowed over Dolly’s hand, “especially from a lady as lovely as you.”

      Dolly’s wrinkled cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink, and she patted her tightly permed hair with her free hand while Pauline studied him with mixed wariness and curiosity. His black hair was cut short above his lean face. Even dressed as he was in a blue chambray shirt and jeans, stubble darkening his angular jaw, he would certainly be called a prize catch by most women.

      Still clinging to his hand, Dolly tugged him forward, her eyes twinkling behind her trifocals. “Come and meet my landlady. She’s the one I told you about.”

      Oh, Lord. Pauline’s mind reeled at the possibilities her chatty boarder could have disclosed.

      Maintaining an air of quiet dignity might have been easier if Pauline’s blouse hadn’t been streaked with dust from digging through freight, if her makeup hadn’t completely worn off and her hair hadn’t been restyled by the breeze blowing through her open car windows on her drive home.

      As the man slipped off his sunglasses and tucked them into his pocket, she met his gaze squarely. Without the tinted lenses, his eyes were a startling shade of silver that contrasted sharply with his dark lashes. The intensity of his expression sent a shiver of awareness through Pauline as unwelcome as it was startling.

      “This is Wade Garrett, fresh from San Francisco,” Dolly said, releasing his hand. “Wade, Pauline Mayfield, my landlady.”

      Despite the polite smile that transformed his expression from intimidating to innocuous, Pauline hesitated before offering her hand.

      She was being silly. As a member of the Waterfront Business Association and a candidate for the Crescent Cove city council, she had learned to cloak her shyness. Even so, his firm grip sent a jolt of reaction up her arm. Before she could identify the sensation, he released her.

      “It’s nice to meet you,” he said with no indication that he, too, had felt the momentary shock.

      “You, too,” she replied automatically, relieved that she could speak without stammering. “And it was kind of you to give Dolly a ride.”

      “I was walking back from the market, and the strap on my grocery bag broke,” Dolly interjected as he reached into his car, a luxury model beneath the road dust. “The oranges rolled right into the street, but he pulled over and chased every one of them down for me.”

      He held out the damaged bag to Pauline, who managed to take it without touching him again.

      Dolly patted his bronzed forearm. “Where are you staying?” she asked him. “I’ll bake you some nice banana bread. You aren’t allergic to nuts, are you?” She glanced at Pauline. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for putting such a helpful person in the hospital.”

      “You don’t have to do that,” he protested, hooking one thumb into his wide leather belt. “I was actually on my way here when I stopped.”

      “Here to this house?” Dolly asked. “Well, isn’t that nice.”

      He must have spread the tarp earlier, Pauline realized, wondering how he’d transported a ladder. Perhaps he had a truck, too.

      “Let me show you the apartment above the garage,” she said, reaching into her purse for her keys. “I keep the door locked.”

      His thick brows shot upward. “Did Wallingford call you already?” he asked. “That was quick.”

      Perplexed, Pauline hesitated. “Kenton Wallingford?” If Wade was connected with that no-good scam artist, she wasn’t sure she wanted to have anything to do with him.

      Wallingford had a reputation for get-rich-quick schemes that inevitably failed, taking other people’s money in the process. “I don’t know how you heard about me,” she added, “but if you think the two of you can go around undercutting Steve Lindstrom’s prices, you’re sadly mistaken.”

      Wade held up his hands, palms outward as though to ward off a blow. “Whoa, hold on,” he exclaimed. “I don’t know about any damage and I have no idea who Steve might be—unless he’s trying to rent the apartment from you, too.”