Ruthless by Lisa Jackson (30)

CHAPTER TWO

Life seemed to have a way of turning things around. Just when you thought you knew what you wanted, you found out you were wrong, or so it seemed to Brandon Scarlotti as he took in the panorama that was the Macgruder homestead. The very things that had driven him from this part of Oregon—weathered buildings bleached from the harsh sun in the summer and driving snow in the winter, acre upon acre of dry grass and windswept plateaus, a slow pace and friendly people who knew not only their business but yours, as well—had been reasons enough to climb onto his motorcycle and bum up the road to Southern California.

He studied the man who had taken the time to show him the place. Max McKee was tall, straight shouldered and seemed to shoot from the hip—a far cry from the spoiled rich boy Brandon remembered. “You’ve got yourself a deal, McKee.” Brandon extended his hand and strong fingers clasped his open palm.

“I think you’ll like it here.”

“Plan to,” he said, thinking that the place was perfect, just what he was looking for. Peace and quiet, a sense of solitude, and yet close enough to Elkhorn Lake to oversee the job site, and a ranch where his half brother Chris could stretch his legs, explore, maybe even learn to ride. For the first time in over ten years he wouldn’t be battling traffic, on the road for hours, concerned about earthquakes, mud slides, freeways that could pass for parking lots, wild fires and gang violence. Crowded city life was behind him. It was time to return, time to take things in slower stride. L.A. had been good to him and he’d loved the sunny days, elegant palm trees, calming Pacific Ocean and miles of white beaches, but for the past couple of years he’d felt the nagging urge to move on—or back here. Home to Oregon.

He had some old business here that needed to be finished, and of course there was his family to consider—what little family he had. His jaw grew so tight it ached when he considered how he’d grown up and what he’d lacked. No father. No money. A mother who loved a glass of wine more than her son. His gut still burned at the memories, but the chip on his shoulder had disappeared over the years as he’d learned how to cope, how to make a name for himself, how to become successful on his own. Why he still felt hollow inside, he didn’t understand, assumed it was just a character flaw inherent in him.

He surveyed the dry acres that he would call home—golden fields dotted with the dark shapes of cattle and horses. The sigh of the wind, low moans of the cattle and the ever-present choir of crickets as the night beckoned would replace the sound of traffic. Steep, rimrock-topped cliffs guarded this valley, casting deep shadows over the land. His new home. At least for a while.

When he’d left this part of the country, he thought he’d never return, but here he was, pumping hands with a man he’d known long ago, a man he’d despised. Max McKee, firstborn son of the richest man in the county had worn his wealth easily, as if it had been written somewhere in the stars that he was destined to be born with a silver spoon wedged firmly between his teeth. Brandon, from a distance, had detested the rich kid. Max had always been too perfect, molded too much in his old man’s image, doing whatever old Jonah had wanted. Well, almost. Things had changed over the years and Max McKee had mellowed, learned that his father wasn’t the god he’d pretended to be, and eventually Max had become his own man while suffering a few tragedies of his own. All in all, McKee seemed a decent sort now, made of tougher, more independent stuff these days, and old Jonah was dead, killed by someone he crossed in one of his shady dealings.

Good riddance.

“You think I’ll be able to move in by the weekend?” he asked, taking off his sunglasses as night brought a dark cloak to the land.

“Sooner, probably.” Max flashed a quick, confident McKee smile—the kind that once had gotten on Brand’s nerves. “My sister-in-law is anxious to sublet and from the looks of it—” he motioned to the boxes stacked on the front porch “—she’s nearly cleared out of the house.” Fingering a corner of one of the crates, he said, “The deal is that the place is just too much for her alone. She and her husband ran the ranch together, but then ... well, I won’t bore you with the sordid details, but Jeff split.” Max’s mouth thinned slightly, as if he was trying to keep a lid on an anger that just kept boiling inside him. “She doesn’t talk about it much and I guess I respect her decision to try to make it on her own, but just the same, I for one will feel better knowing that someone’s in the main house—that there’s a man on the place.”

Brand felt suddenly cornered. He hesitated as he clicked his pen. The one part of the deal he didn’t like was that his new landlord would be living so closely to him in an apartment over the garage. He valued his privacy and didn’t want some busybody woman peering through her blinds at him. Nor did he want to hold her hand. He’d gotten the impression from Max earlier that this wouldn’t happen, that he’d have as much solitude as he needed. Now he wasn’t so sure. “You don’t expect me to play some kind of baby-sitter or bodyguard, do you?”

Max barked out a laugh and his face, so recently serious, was animated once again. The idea of Brand trying to take care of the woman who lived here seemed to amuse him. “You don’t have to worry about that. My sister-in-law, well, she’s not exactly meek. She can rope a steer, ride a runaway horse bareback, climb mountains and knows her way around a rifle—supposedly can shoot the head off a dandelion, or probably a squirrel, at a hundred yards.”

“Superwoman,” Brand said dryly.

“Not exactly. She can’t cook and she’s not all that excited about keeping house. She won’t be showing up on your doorstep with a batch of freshly baked cookies to welcome you, if you know what I mean. You’ll be lucky to get an offer for some of the worst coffee brewed in the state.”

Brand couldn’t help but smile. “Won’t bother me.”

“Good.” Max slid a glance toward the house. “She’s a stubborn thing and arguing with her is like tangling with a wildcat.” He flexed his hand nervously. “I was afraid that the divorce might kill her, but she’s pulled herself up by the bootstraps, and other than being unable to keep this place in the black all by herself, she’s done all right. She’s independent, not looking for husband number two, and proud of it.”

Satisfied that the woman wouldn’t be showing up on his doorstep with flimsy excuses to get to know him or spy on him and that she wouldn’t be peering through the curtains of her apartment to keep track of what he was doing, Brand held the lease against the rough cedar walls of the house and scrawled his name on the bottom line. The other spot was blank, the typed name reading Danielle Stewart.

Danielle. For a moment his throat closed, then he gave himself a swift mental kick. It was a common enough name, especially when fathers hoped their firstborn would be sons and sometimes tagged them with manlike names to get even. He’d known several girls named Danielle in his lifetime. Nonetheless, he felt a premonition, a sense that he might be making a mistake, that somehow this ranch might be connected with a girl he’d known a long time ago, a girl who had messed with his mind and toyed with his heart.

But that was crazy. Just because he was back in eastern Oregon, he seemed to be caught in this time warp. Ever since crossing the mountains, he’d experienced a few pleasant, though disturbing thoughts. Of her. He shoved those sensual, better-left-locked-away memories out of his head. So he’d known a girl named Dani a long time ago. What were the chances that his landlord was one and the same woman? And even if she was, so what? He wanted this place. He’d been shown other ranches and houses in town that weren’t suited to him either in terms of the lease, location or amenities. This spread, the old Macgruder homestead located between Dawson City and Rimrock, seemed perfect.

True, Max hadn’t explained much about the mysterious woman who lived here, just that his sister-in-law was divorced, saddled with a lot of debt and anxious to sublet the house and part of the property to a new tenant. But the less he knew of her, the better off he was.

“Dani will probably give you a wide enough berth.”

“Dani?” he repeated, and that strange feeling, something akin to déjà vu, crawled through his innards again.

“My sister-in-law.”

Danielle Stewart. Not an unusual name. “She from around here?” he asked casually. No reason not to know what he was up against.

“Lived here all her life. Here she comes now.” Max hitched his chin in the direction of a lone rider on a muscular red horse. The animal was racing flat out over the windswept fields, hooves thundering, legs flashing. The woman, tucked low over her mount’s straining neck, tanned legs gripping the beast’s sweating ribs, rode bareback, as if she’d been born on a horse. Streaming behind her was a banner of red-gold hair, tangling wildly in the wind. For a second, Brandon’s stomach dropped. He remembered a younger girl, surly and sexy as hell, with a devil-may-care attitude, pouty lips and laughter that was as clear as a June morning. Her hair had been the same brilliant shade.

His throat tightened as she reined in and their gazes met. Instant recognition flared in her eyes. The color drained from a pretty face flushed from a breathless ride.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath.

“Brand.” Her voice was soft and low, like a prairie wind. Shoving the tangled mass of curls from her face, she slid to the ground. There wasn’t the hint of a smile on her sweat-streaked face, not so much as a glimmer of relief to see him again. “Well, well, well.” Silently appraising him with the rebellious gaze that had always cut straight to his soul, she wrapped the reins of her mount around the top rail of the fence and walked with quick, determined strides through the gate. “What’re you doing here?”

Max, glancing from Brand to his sister-in-law, scratched his chin with the pen. “You two know each other?”

“Yeah. A long time ago.” Brandon was fascinated by her. Her figure, though still slim, had filled out a little and there was a maturity in her face that he didn’t remember. She’d aged well and he imagined she was probably one of those women who just looked better and better as the years wore on. Too bad. He didn’t need her kind of distraction. Even in faded, dusty cutoff jeans that frayed around her thighs and a sleeveless blouse that had seen better days and stretched a little too tightly over her breasts, she was earthy and beautiful in a way that touched him deep in a dark spot of his soul he usually didn’t admit existed.

Max was right about one thing, Brand decided as she glared at him with an expression about as warm as the bottom of Macgruder’s old well in the middle of winter: Dani wouldn’t be showing up on his doorstep with a platter of freshly baked cookies, unless, maybe, they were laced with strychnine.

“We barely knew each other,” Dani clarified, and Brandon kept his mouth shut though he couldn’t resist lifting an eyebrow in silent mockery at the baldness of her lie.

Barely knew each other? Who was she kidding? Their lovemaking still burned in his mind and seared his guts. He wondered what it would have been like if she’d really known him. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, but he kept it resolutely at bay. If she had secrets to keep, he wouldn’t be the one to betray them.

Her spine was straight as a board, her face tense. She was sweating, but it could have been from the exhilaration of the fast-paced ride. “You didn’t answer my question.” Folding her arms over her chest, she continued to stare at him with those soul-searching whiskey-colored eyes. “What are you doing here?” Was there a thread of dread running through her question? She seemed to be asking it while already guessing the answer.

“Brandon’s renting the house,” Max said, his gaze thinning as if he was thinking hard, putting two and two together and coming up with five.

“No way.” A flush stole up her neck. Her fingers curled into fists of frustration.

“There’s a problem?” Max looked from one to the other.

“Don’t think so,” Brand drawled, enjoying watching her squirm, though why he didn’t understand. There was and always had been something about Dani Donahue—make that Dani Stewart—that brought out the devil in him. “My credit should be good.”

Max cleared his throat and handed her the paperwork. “Credit’s not a problem.”

Dani was frantic, her heart beating as wildly as the wings of a bird suddenly trapped in a small dark cage. Brandon? Here? Wanting to rent her house? Of all the bum luck! Brandon Scarlotti was the last person she wanted to lease the place to. Anyone, anyone else would be better. She caught her brother-in-law’s scrutinizing gaze and couldn’t stop her tongue. “I thought I told you I wanted a family—” She stopped short. She didn’t know anything about this man anymore. Maybe Brandon wasn’t single. For all she knew he could have a wife and a dozen kids tucked away somewhere.

She turned her gaze on his ringless left hand and suddenly felt like a fool. What did it matter? He was here wanting the place and had the cash to make the deal work. A check for several thousand dollars was clipped to the lease, flapping in the honeysuckle-laced breeze, mocking her. First and last month’s rent, security deposit, cleaning deposit, the works. She was running out of time and options. He provided the resources for her to hold on to her dream. That was all and it certainly wasn’t a crime. In fact, if she wasn’t such an emotional wreck today, she might realize that he was a blessing in disguise.

A blessing? Oh, sure! She made a deprecating noise in the back of her mouth and both men stared at her. Brandon Scarlotti may have been a lot of things, but a blessing? Was she suddenly out of her mind? She licked her lips, conscious of the time ticking by and the tension running in deep, noiseless undercurrents through the air. All she had to do was collect his rent each month and be civil to him. Nothing more. No strings attached. Squaring her shoulders, she shook her hair out of her face and cleared her throat. “Fine,” she muttered, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. Somehow she managed not to sound breathless. “I, um, I just thought—”

“You didn’t expect to ever set eyes on me again.” Brand’s voice touched a hidden place in her heart, a place she’d nearly forgotten, a place she’d rather not acknowledge.

She slid her hands into the back pockets of her cutoffs and nodded. “Yeah. Something like that.” Her fingertips brushed the edge of the letter she’d written so long ago and her throat clogged. Brandon had never known about the baby. Few had. She’d spent a few months away from Rimrock, out of sight, so that no one—aside from her mother, Jonah McKee, in whom her mother, Irene, confided, and the hospital staff in a small, private hospital—could say for certain that she’d been pregnant.

His hair was still the color of ebony—not a trace of gray showed in the thick strands. His eyes were clear and blue and only a few lines from spending hours in the sun had altered his face, stealing away the traces of the boy she’d once known. He looked harder edged, honed to a more ruthless man than she remembered. A shame. “Yep,” he drawled evenly, his gaze warm as it touched hers, “I’m back.”

“So it seems.” She could hardly believe this was happening—on the very day she’d discovered the letter she’d written eleven years before. Was it kismet? Fate? Destiny? Or just plain bad luck? “For how long?” she heard herself ask, hoping she didn’t sound as anxious as she felt. “Permanently?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Eight to ten months at least. That’s about as permanent as I get.”

This was her out and she grabbed for it. “But I wanted a tenant for a minimum of a year.”

Max thumped a finger on one paragraph of the agreement. The check flapped in the breeze. “Brandon’s signed for a year.”

Dani’s heart sank. How could she possibly live this close to Brandon for the next three hundred and sixty-five days? The distance between her apartment over the garage and the main house was less than twenty yards.

If she didn’t rent to Brandon, she’d have to find another tenant, or give up the ranch and all the money she’d put into it, or borrow cash from her sister. Not that Skye hadn’t offered. But Dani had spent too many years growing up poor and dependent upon the charity of others—first with her mother and their choking reliance on Jonah McKee with whom Irene had been half in love, then with Jeff who had always been pushing her to borrow from Skye and “tap into the McKee money.” She still remembered his skewed reasoning. “Hell, they can’t spend it all in a million years! We have a right to it, Dani. Why should we suffer?” Jeff’s words still stung. Fortunately, she’d never listened to him. She’d always had too much pride to accept any offer of a loan, even from her older sister.

But Dani was running out of time. It was now or never and she couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, even one that came with extra emotional baggage. Like it or not, she had to accept Brand as her tenant. “Then I guess there’s nothing more for me to do but sign on the dotted line,” she said, forcing that practiced smile that felt so fake—the one she donned whenever someone asked her how she was getting along now that she was single. Propping the document against the side of the house, she inked her signature on the appropriate line, pushing hard as the forms were in triplicate. “You can move in tomorrow,” she said to Brandon as she clicked the pen closed.

“Good.” Brandon’s gaze held hers for a second too long. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Her stomach seemed to drop to the dusty ground.

“I’ve only got a few things,” he said. “Believe in traveling light. I’ll bring them by in a couple of days.”

“I didn’t think you were ever coming back,” she blurted out, unable to stop herself.

“Me, neither.” His voice lost some of its warmth.

For years she had envisioned him wandering the globe, a man running from his past, uncertain about his future. Now, she realized, she’d been wrong—so very wrong. Brandon Scarlotti wasn’t the hard-luck boy from the wrong side of the tracks any longer. No, in his expensive slacks and crisp white shirt, he looked confident and assured and she doubted that he was afraid of anything. Even his tie, loosened and casual, reeked of good taste.

His gaze found hers briefly and his blue eyes landed long enough to suck some of the breath from her lungs before he looked quickly away.

“So what brings you back to Rimrock?” She surprised herself with her calm voice that belied the perspiration collecting on her palms and the urge to scream the truth at him. The letter in her pocket seemed to scald through her jeans and panties to her skin.

His lips tightened almost imperceptibly. “A project.”

“Project?”

“Brandon’s in charge of building the new resort on Elkhorn Lake,” Max interjected, his blue eyes twinkling with an unlikely amusement.

“You?” she said, disbelieving.

“My company,” he clarified. “S & J Limited.”

“You must be the S,” she reasoned, surprised that she’d never heard his name in connection with the resort that the townspeople had been gossiping about for months. After years of red tape, the project had finally been given the go-ahead by all the state and local agencies involved.

“Yep. A friend of mine, Mitch Jones, was the J, but I bought him out last year. Didn’t seem reasonable to change the company name. We’d just ordered more letterhead,” he said, teasing, of course, though she didn’t smile at his attempt to lighten the mood. Too many unchecked emotions were raging through her system, too many fears. Dear God, how could she live this close to him without telling him the truth?

“But that project—it will take longer than six months. . . .”

“Two, maybe three years.”

“You said—”

His face was suddenly grim. “I said I’ll be here for a minimum of six months. After that I might have to move closer to the lake.”

Relief drizzled through her blood, but she still found it impossible to believe that he was back. Dear Lord, now what?

He checked his watch and scowled. “I’ve got to get back—I’m expecting a phone call.” When he lifted his head, he stared straight at Dani. “Maybe you could give me a tour of the place tomorrow. Max showed me the house, at least through the windows, since that’s all I’m really leasing, but I’d like a look around the place. That is, if you don’t mind.”

“’Course not,” she responded with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. He may as well have asked her to visit the graveyard at midnight, for all the joy she found in his request. She couldn’t imagine spending even a second alone with him, but she nodded. After all, they were going to be neighbors. Close neighbors.

“Late afternoon?”

“Fine.” She lifted both shoulders as if it didn’t matter in the least, as if they’d never shared a look, a touch, a kiss before. As if she hadn’t lain naked in his arms, her body bathed in sweat, his ragged breathing warm against her ear. Everything had happened so long ago. What could it matter? “What about your family? Will they be coming—?”

The muscles in his face turned to stone. “Just me. Don’t you remember, Dani?” His hair caught in a breeze that had suddenly kicked up and his nostrils flared just a little. “Things haven’t changed all that much. I’m still not a family man. No wife. No kids. No strings attached.”

Max watched the exchange and said nothing, but Dani read the interest in his eyes he tried so vainly to veil. If she and Brandon weren’t careful, Max would guess the truth. And she wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

“You can take possession tomorrow,” she said stiffly as she studied Brandon’s face—a face she was sure, at seventeen, she’d loved with all of her naive heart. Silly girl.

His smile was older than she remembered; his eyes had seen far more than they had when he’d left Rimrock so many years ago. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said and her heart did a silly little flip. There was a moment when their gazes touched that she remembered just why she’d found him so irresistible.

With a wave he climbed into Max’s truck, and as the pickup left behind a thin cloud of dust, Dani leaned against the post that supported the roof of the porch.

What was it about Brand that had touched her? Why was he different from a dozen other boys who had been interested in her so long ago? Why had she let him near her?

Because of his wild irreverence? Because she’d seen a spark of nobility hidden deep in his blue, blue eyes? Or because she’d been a foolish young rebel herself, hell-bent to live her life her own way despite her mother’s worries and her older sister’s concerns?

Her throat grew thick and memories swirled through her mind like a whirlpool, moving rapidly, blurring, carrying her on a spinning tide, but getting nowhere.

* * *

The first time she’d seen Brandon Scarlotti she’d been barely seventeen, full of life and wanting to break free of the shackles of her tedious existence. She was tired of doing what was right, tired of being poor, tired of her mother’s incessant warnings and tired of living in her older sister’s shadow.

She’d been driving home from work in her mother’s rattletrap of a car when the engine had sputtered twice and died. “Oh, God, no,” she’d whispered, silently cursing and looking out at the highway. “Not now. You can’t quit on me now!” It was nearly midnight, she was alone, and another car might not come along for a while. Even if one did come by, who was to say it would stop or that it would be driven by a Good Samaritan? At this time of night, chances were whoever was behind the wheel might be drunk or looking for trouble. “Great!” she muttered, slapping the steering wheel and trying once again to start the old brown sedan.

“Come on, come on,” she encouraged as the engine fired only to die again. All her mother’s warnings came back to haunt her. Not knowing what else to do, she waited, then tried to start the car several times but to no avail. Eventually the damned engine wouldn’t even turn over.

“Oh, save me!” she muttered, flinging herself back against the seat. She was dead tired after a full day of school followed by an eight-hour shift waiting tables at the diner of the Dawson City Truck Stop, five miles out of town. She reached in her purse, dug around and unearthed a pack of cigarettes, not yet opened, the pack she’d picked up from the vending machine on her way through the lobby of the diner. She opened the pack, found some matches and lit up, inhaling deeply, hoping the smoke would calm her nerves.

“Think, Dani, think,” she muttered as she released a white cloud. In five minutes, no car had appeared, so she brushed aside maps and napkins and a pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment until she felt the ribbed handle of a flashlight. Climbing out of the car, she squashed her cigarette, looked up and down the winding, desolate stretch of road and felt an utter sense of defeat. She was in the mountains between Rimrock and Dawson City, but the main highway was far enough away that it could be a long time before someone came along. She switched on the dim beam of the flashlight, located the latch and managed to prop the hood open.

Knowing it was a waste of time, she swept the beam of the flashlight over the grimy metal contraption that was the engine, but she didn’t know enough about cars to have the first idea what was wrong with her mother’s old lemon. There seemed to be an excess of oil, steam rose from the radiator, and corrosion had settled over the battery posts.

To be honest, it looked like the car was ready for the junkyard. “Not yet,” she said, adjusting some wires, burning her fingers in the process and getting nowhere. “Perfect,” she said on a sigh. “Just perfect.”

The car breaking down was a fitting end to the worst day of her life. She’d already been referred to the principal’s office when she’d been caught smoking during lunch, then she’d been fired from her job at the truck stop. One of the other waitresses, Brandy Barlow, had accused her of stealing tips and another girl had said she’d seen Dani skim some of the bills off one of Brandy’s tables. Though the story was pure fabrication—concocted by two girls who didn’t know how to smile and wink and ease a little extra cash out of the truckers’ wallets—Dani was let go. Her boss regretted the decision, but he was tired of the bickering between his crew and it seemed strange to him that Dani’s tips were always twice what the other girls were making.

Guilty until proven innocent. Dani had learned a long time ago that life wasn’t fair. Truth to tell, she hated her job at the diner. It wasn’t so much the work as being cooped up inside. She didn’t mind flirting a little and listening to a few wolf whistles or compliments, but some of the patrons thought that for an extra couple of dollars they could make lewd remarks or paw at her and that’s where she drew the line. She’d rather work with animals anyway and was only saving the money she earned at the all-night diner so she could buy a horse that she’d been eyeing for the past few years. The mare, a fleet brown five-year-old, was owned by Glenn Stewart and he was finally willing to sell her. For the right price. Dani nearly had enough money to buy the horse and board her at the stables just outside of town.

But she was still a couple of hundred dollars short. “Thanks a lot, Brandy,” she muttered, leaning her hips against the fender of her mother’s car and tapping her fingernails nervously on the dull finish. Walk or wait? Even though she was dead tired, she was far too restless to sit idly, hoping some kind stranger would show up. She’d just decided to hike to the nearest farmhouse, pound on the door, wake up the poor farmer and call her mother. Irene, in turn, could call a friend and have the car towed. Dani cringed at the thought of how much hauling the dead auto would cost. Her mother was already on overload, worried about her wayward daughter.

Blowing her bangs from her eyes, Dani heard the distant whine of a motorcycle racing through the mountains. She listened hard, holding her breath, trying to determine which direction the rider was moving—closer or farther away? She crossed her fingers and hoped that the biker was riding in this direction and was a decent man who would give her a lift home.

Inwardly Dani winced when she imagined explaining all this to her mother who, along with raising two daughters single-handedly, held down a job at McKee Enterprises as Jonah McKee’s secretary. Oftentimes, Irene Donahue worked overtime, her hours stretching long into the night. Dani wished, as she had all her years growing up, that she’d had a father. At times like this, she needed a man who would know what to do.

But Tom Donahue was dead, killed in a logging accident while working for Jonah McKee. Dani didn’t even remember her dad. She’d seen snapshots, of course, photographs of a strapping blond man with a muscular build, shaggy mustache and daredevil smile.

“Yeah, well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” she told herself, spouting the words her mother often quoted. So she didn’t have a father—big deal. She was getting along. She kicked at a tire of the car and stopped to listen. The motorcycle was getting closer. Maybe she could flag down the midnight rider.

And what if he’s a pervert? A rapist? A murderer? Drunk or loaded on drugs? Her fingers curled more tightly around the flashlight. Small weapon. Even smaller consolation.

Ignoring the drumming of her heart, she waited while the motorcycle roared through the mountains, gears whining as the rider put the bike through its paces. “I hope you’re a good guy,” she said as the beam of a single headlight became visible, just a speck at first and then brighter and brighter, a luminescent disk boring down on her. “Please be a good guy.”

Swallowing back any trace of fear, Dani stood by the car, one arm thrown up to shield her eyes from the blinding light as she waved wildly.

She heard the engine slowing as the driver noticed her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. The bike—a big Harley—slid to a stop only a few feet away. Dani pushed herself upright. All her nerve endings were aroused, the metallic taste of fear in her throat.

A man, dressed in black leather from head to toe, straddled his bike. The huge machine thrummed between his legs. Crossing her fingers again and swallowing against a suddenly dry throat, she prayed that he wasn’t part of some kind of wild motorcycle gang, the kind she’d seen in the movies.

“Car trouble?” he yelled. A tough, deep voice.

“’Fraid so.”

“Humph.” He ran a hand through hair that was unruly, hair that hadn’t been trapped beneath a helmet. “Don’t know if I can help much, but I’d be glad to take a look if ya want.”

“Thanks . . . I, um, appreciate it.” Her palm was so sweaty she nearly dropped the flashlight.

He rolled the bike onto the shoulder, cut the engine and swung a leg over the seat. “Okay, let’s see what’s going on.”

“I can tell you what. Nothing.” She didn’t know his name, wasn’t sure that she could trust him. Unfortunately, on this star-studded night, alone on the highway with mountains looming on either side of the road, she was stranded and had no choice but to place her life in the hands of this stranger.

She held her breath.

Whether he guessed it or not, this man she’d never met before was about to change the course of her life forever ....