Lorna Michaels - Stranger In Her Arms

Christy sat across the table from J.D., opened her book, and glanced at him. Here she was, spending the day with a man she hadn’t known twenty-four hours ago. She’d housed him, fed him, tended to him…and now she was providing him with reading material.

Unable to get interested in her reading, she watched him. His head was bent over the book. Despite the black eye and the bruise along his jaw, he was a handsome man. A man she acknowledged she’d have been attracted to in a different situation. No, she was a woman who tried to be honest with herself. Judging from her reaction to barely touching him, she admitted that even in these circumstances she was strongly attracted. There was strength in his features and an animal magnetism about him that could draw a woman’s eye…and fuel her dreams.

Abruptly, she turned her chair sideways so that she faced away from him and tried to read. But she couldn’t concentrate. She had to force herself to keep still.

Thump!

She gasped at the unexpected sound. Heart racing, she fumbled for the gun as she looked up. J.D. had tossed his book on the table, that was all. “Wh-what?”

“Asinine story. Makes no sense. The author knows nothing about international intrigue.”

“And you do? Is that your line of work—espionage?”

He blinked as if he’d just awakened from a deep sleep. “I can’t say.” He got up and paced to the window and stood staring out into the gloom.

Christy watched him, noticing the rigid set of his shoulders, the hands clenched at his sides. He wasn’t faking his amnesia. He was confused, out of control, and like the majority of men she knew, what he needed most of all was control.

He unfolded his hands, spread them on the windowpane and leaned close to the glass. He reminded her of a caged animal, straining against the limits of his enclosure.

He turned and met her eyes. Quickly, she looked down at the book and pretended she was absorbed. But she knew he was watching her, felt his eyes bore into her like twin lasers.

Finally she couldn’t stand him staring any longer. She shut her book and stood. “It’s almost dinner time. I have some tuna in the pantry. I can’t do much with it. We’ll have to take it like it is. And I’d better light some candles. It’s getting dark.”

She placed the candles on saucers and set them on the table and prepared their meager meal. “Thanks,” he said. “Tuna by candlelight.”

Not what you’d expect of a candlelight dinner, Christy thought. Tasteless tuna on paper plates in a steamy kitchen. And yet, in the near-dark, with the candles flickering, and the light playing across J.D.’s skin and adding bronze highlights to his hair, she felt her heartbeat quicken.

Christy couldn’t keep her eyes off his smooth chest, the muscles that rippled in his arms. She’d seen his body—more of it, actually—last night, but this was different. Then he’d been a patient; now he was a man.

Disturbed by the powerful figure before her, confused by her response to him, Christy forced her gaze down to her plate. Her hand trembled as she picked up her fork. She knew why. There was always an attraction in danger—the challenge of seeing how close you could venture to the fire without getting burned. J.D. was danger personified.

They ate in silence. The only sound was an occasional growl of thunder and the incessant rain. And then it slacked off.

“It’s stopping.” Christy jumped up and ran to the window. The force of the rain had lessened, but even in the dark she could see that the sky was still leaden. Water lapped threateningly at the porch. No one was going to rescue them tonight.

She got out more candles, set them in saucers and lit them. The flames cast shadows that fluttered against the walls and disappeared like ghosts.

J.D. rose. He yawned and stretched, and, to Christy, his figure, silhouetted on the wall behind him, looked large, menacing. The man who’d intrigued her minutes ago now seemed threatening.

“You should get some rest,” she told him. Her voice sounded thin.

He nodded and picked up one of the makeshift candleholders. “You should, too.”

He was right. She couldn’t stay awake to watch him for another eight hours.

What should she do?

She wished she could lock him in the front bedroom, but the bedroom doors had no locks. Carrying her own candle, she followed him down the hall and into his room. “I want to check your wound,” she told him.

He gave her a little-boy frown. “Aw, geez, Mom, do you have to?”

“Yes, I do. Sit.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and clenched his fists while she dabbed more peroxide around the wound. “Nurse Ratched,” he muttered.

“I heard that.”

“Sorry.”

“You remember the book or, later, the movie,” she said hopefully.

“Sure. One Flew Over the…um, Robin’s Nest.”

“Cuckoo,” she corrected.

“You talkin’ to me?” he asked.

“Nope, and that’s another movie.”

He looked up. “Taxi Driver. Also about a nut case,” he said and gave her one of his dazzling smiles.

She backed quickly away. “Good night. Call me if you need anything.”

She hurried down the hall to her bathroom. She needed a long, cool shower, but she settled for a short one, then went to the bedroom. She shut the door, stared at it, then got a chair and shoved it against the door and under the knob. It wouldn’t keep him out if he really wanted in, but at least it would slow him down, give her time to get her weapon. Lord, how could she have predicted when the doorbell rang last night that she would spend tonight barricaded in her room?

She lay down and shut her eyes, but couldn’t sleep. The room was stifling. She cracked the window open, then shut it when rain blew in.

A floorboard creaked somewhere in the house. She held her breath. Was it him? Was he coming this way? She sat up, reached for her revolver and waited. Nothing happened and she ordered herself to calm down. They’d been alone all day and isolated. Why should she be any more afraid of him at night?

Who was he?

Unable to answer that question, she asked another. What did she know about him? What had she learned in the day they’d been together?

He was strong. In spite of his injury and what had to be considerable pain, he’d worked all day without a word of complaint. He’d been helpful and—and kind. He’d backed off immediately when she’d let him know his questions and his uncannily accurate observations made her uncomfortable. No matter who—or what—he was, there was something about him, something that drew her. Maybe it was his combination of strength and compassion; maybe it was because he was a mystery, even to himself. Although she believed people control their own destiny, she had a strange feeling that Fate had sent him to her door. Finally she fell asleep, seeing his face in her dreams.

Down the hall, J.D. lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Through clenched teeth, he whispered, “Who am I?”

Was someone searching for him? Agonizing over his disappearance? Maybe not.

For a while at least, Christy had thought he might be a criminal. Could she be right? He wanted to say no, but he remembered the bullet wound in his thigh, the blow to his head last night—evidence of violence, even though he didn’t think he was a violent person.

Maybe he didn’t remember what happened because he didn’t want to. He had no clue.

The only thing he was sure about was Christy. When she’d bent over him, he’d wanted to touch her, to draw in her scent, to see if her skin was as soft as it looked. He’d had to clench his fists to keep from reaching for her.

He shut his eyes, pictured her face and fell asleep.

His dreams were as disjointed as they had been last night and frightening. Empty rooms that weren’t really empty. Faces in the shadows. Someone stalked him, grabbed him by the throat. He twisted, groaned, trying to get away.