He could use whatever excuse came to mind—checking her breathing, making sure she was just exhausted and not injured further or feverish—but when it came down to it, Graham simply wanted her close.
Not just close...in your bed.
He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d even thought about taking a girl to bed.
Somewhere between four years and never again.
Or longer.
Because even before your life fell apart, things on that front were less than satisfying.
Graham ran his fingers through a loose strand of Keira’s hair and watched her eyelids flutter. He sure as hell didn’t lack desire right that second. Or any second since she’d appeared out of thin air. In fact, his desire for this girl seemed more central to his life than any other thing.
Keira shifted a little beside him, and her slim fingers found his shirt. She tightened her grip on the fabric for a moment, and then she stilled again. As if she’d just been making sure he was still there. Graham’s heart squeezed a little in his chest before he could stop it.
Stupid.
Very carefully, he put his hand over hers and loosened her hold on his clothes, then eased out of bed.
As silently as he could, he slipped on his favorite plaid jacket, then let himself out onto the porch.
Graham was startled to see that the sun had dipped down behind the mountain and that dusk was already settling in. He’d done none of his usual chores, performed none of the ritualistic tasks that had occupied him for the past four years. No perimeter scan, no check to make sure everything was ready to go should he have to leave suddenly, nothing. He’d somehow slept the day away. With Keira London Niles.
Graham took a deep breath, trying to clear the thoughts in his head and her delicate aroma out of his nostrils. The inhale of cool air helped with the second, but did nothing at all in regard to the first.
He fought to keep from heading straight back inside, then tightened his jacket and shoved aside a pile of snow so that he could slump down onto the rarely used porch rocker. The wood underneath him was icy enough to creep through his jeans, but Graham continued to sit there anyway. It seemed like a suitable punishment for the heat that stirred in him each time his mind drifted toward Keira.
Dammit.
He couldn’t afford to be feeling like this about a girl he barely knew.
Hell. He couldn’t allow himself to have feelings at all. His soft side was what got him into this mess in the first place.
What was she doing there? Was she telling the truth about not knowing Graham was on the mountain?
The second she was well enough, he was going to demand answers. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. To protect himself, and more important, to protect her.
Graham’s chest constricted again as he thought of how dangerous it was for Keira to be there with him. She couldn’t have picked a worse savior. Even just knowing his name was enough to pull unnecessary, unwanted attention her way. If she repeated it, the authorities would descend on her.
Or worse.
Mike Ferguson might come looking.
Graham needed to ensure that didn’t happen. More than he needed anything else. And sitting around thinking about that didn’t help any more than lying in bed beside her did.
He started to stand, but only got as far as putting one hand on the arm of the rocker.
Keira was up. Awake. Standing in the doorway. Even though she’d draped a blanket around her shoulders, Graham could see that she’d taken the time to get dressed in one of his T-shirts and a pair of his sweats—cinched tight, but still hanging off her hips. She looked sleepy and sexy and about as perfect as one person could.
Graham stared for a long second, mesmerized by the way the waning light brought out the creamy tone of her skin and deepened the auburn in her hair.
He took a breath, then wished he hadn’t because her sweetness was in his nose once again. He did his best to ignore it and forced himself to speak.
“You shouldn’t be up,” he greeted gruffly.
“Morning to you, too, Mountain Man,” she replied.
Graham’s eyes flicked to the moonlit sky.
“Evening,” he corrected.
“Always have to have the upper hand, don’t you?”
He gave her a considering look, wondering how she could possibly believe he had the upper hand. Just looking at her made him feel...not exactly helpless. Not exactly powerless.
Spellbound, maybe.
“You should go back inside,” Graham said, deflecting her question so that he wouldn’t have to admit just how out of his element he felt right then.
In reply, she narrowed her eyes in the already-familiar way that told him she wasn’t interested in doing what he thought she ought to do.
With the same stubborn look on her face, Keira moved toward him instead of away from him.
Graham opened his mouth to point out that she might not like the way things turned out if she did as she wanted instead of as she should, but he didn’t have to say a word. Right before she reached the porch swing, the slippery ground did it on his behalf.
Keira’s feet, which were dwarfed inside a pair of his socks, skidded along the ice and with an “Oomph,” she landed in his lap.
She made as if she was going to get up, but Graham wasn’t going to let her go so easily; she felt far too good, right there in his lap.
“Stay.”
He realized immediately that he’d echoed her earlier request—the one he hadn’t been able to deny—wondered if she noticed it, too. If she did, she didn’t say.
But after a minute, she leaned against him and tucked her feet up. Automatically, Graham’s arms came up to pull her even closer. It was strange, how natural it felt to hold her like that.
“At least this way, I know you’re not freezing your rear end off,” he said into the top of her head.
There was a tiny pause before she asked, “Is that why you want me to stay?”
“No,” Graham admitted.
“But you’re still not going to tell me anything, are you?” she replied.
He ran his hands over her shoulders, then down her arms and rested his palms on her wrists.
“No,” he said again. “Not because I don’t want to.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“My gut.”
“Your gut tells you not to trust me?”
Graham chuckled. “Actually, my gut tells me that I should trust you.”
Graham moved his hands from her wrists to her hands and threaded his fingers through hers.
He suddenly found himself wondering if she trusted him. What her gut had to say.
Maybe she hadn’t even considered it.
Did he want her to?
She really shouldn’t trust him. His past was too troublesome, his heart too marred. He might hurt her in his attempt to keep her safe. Hell, he had nothing to even offer. Not until he’d taken care of Mike Ferguson and all that went along with finding the man.
But he wanted her faith, and not blindly. He wanted to know that he hadn’t lost the quality that made a girl like Keira believe in him.
“So...” she prodded after his long moment of silence.
Graham jerked back to the present moment. “My gut tells me to trust you. But it’s warning me even louder that if I tell you my story, it’ll put your life at risk.”
“Isn’t that my risk to take?”
“It should be, yes,” he agreed.
“But not now?”
“I didn’t save your life just to let you get killed, Keira.”
Her hands tightened on Graham’s. “Are you sorry?”
“Sorry about what?”
“That you saved me.”
The quiet, tryin
g-not-to-sound-hurt voice cut into Graham’s chest. He couldn’t stand the thought of her believing that.
He released her hands so he could reposition her, so he could see her face and she could see his.
“No matter what happens, Keira,” he stated softly, “I’ll never be sorry that I saved you.”
A little smile turned up the corners of her so-kissable lips, and Graham wanted to make it even wider.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If you come inside and let me feed you dinner and you manage to stay awake for more than five minutes after, I’ll answer one question. Your way.”
“Carte blanche?”
That smile of hers reached her eyes.
In spite of his head screaming at him not to say yes, Graham couldn’t help but give in.
“If you promise not to ask me anything too terrible during dinner, then yes.”
“What do you want? Small talk?”
Graham nodded. “Small talk. In exchange for carte blanche.”
And her full lips widened into a grin, and that spellbound feeling slammed into Graham’s heart once more.
Chapter Twelve
True to his word, Calloway kept the conversation light. He fed the woodstove and heated up some thick soup and told her he hadn’t seen so much snow in the mountains in a long time. With a head shake, he deflected her question about precisely how long.
And in spite of her resolve to stay awake, and her nearly daylong nap, the second she finished her soup Keira could feel her eyes wanting to close and sense her mind wandering. She tried to keep it focused. But when she pushed her bowl away, a yawn came out instead of a question.
If she did manage to stay awake...what would she ask?
Just a few hours ago, she swore that she had a dozen all-important, totally articulate things she had to know about who Calloway was and what he was doing there on the mountain. About his interaction with the man outside. About the box of newspaper clippings.
Now all the specifics were muddled.
“Keira?”
His voice, rumbling with amusement, made her jerk her head up from its unintentional resting place on her hand.
Calloway had cracked one of the beers from the fridge and looked far more relaxed than Keira expected.
He looks so...normal.
Which was somehow comforting. A beer and a fire and cozy evening. Keira wished wistfully that it could be that simple.
“You awake?” he asked.
“Yes,” she lied.
Clearly, she’d drifted off enough to give him time to get the beer from the fridge. Funny that she was already so comfortable with this man—complete with all his dangerous edges—after such a short time. And not a single alarm bell was going off, either.
Calloway took a swig of his beer and gave her a considering look that matched her own. “So. Does this mean you have something to ask me?”
Keira tried again to recall what, specifically. She’d had something in mind. It eluded her now.
“Did you feed me soup to make me sleepy?” She wanted to know.
A grin broke out on Calloway’s face. “I give you carte blanche and that’s the question you choose?”
“You know perfectly well that wasn’t it at all.” Another yawn took away from the emphatic way she meant to make the statement.
“Why don’t you lie down while you think about it?” he suggested.
“Nice try.”
Calloway’s smile widened. “I could carry you over to the bed again.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe I would.”
His eyes did a slow head-to-toe inventory of Keira’s body. They rested on each part of her just long enough to make the object of his attention warm, then moved on to the next.
Feet and ankles. Knees and thighs. Hips and waist. The swell of her breasts.
He paused at her lips and lingered there before he raised his gaze up again, and then he came to his feet and began to clear their table.
And even though Calloway had broken the stare and his eyes were otherwise occupied, Keira knew there was no maybe about it.
He would enjoy taking her to bed.
And if Keira was being honest, she craved the closeness, too. She wanted the feel of his arms around her and she wanted to taste his lips again.
Maybe the heated desire she felt was amplified by her surroundings, maybe it was made more intense by how close she’d come to death just yesterday.
Probably.
It made sense psychologically—reasonably. Her training in the social work field had taught enough about transference.
But underneath that, Keira felt a stronger pull.
He’d rescued her, at the risk of his own safety. And he was still putting her life ahead of his own.
A man like that...he deserved appreciation.
Appreciation. Yeah, that’s what you feel.
She shoved aside the snarky thought and watched Calloway rinse their bowls, then dry them.
His body moved smoothly and confidently, undaunted by the stereotypically feminine activity. Keira liked the glimpse of domesticity. A lot.
“Keira?”
She jumped in her seat. “Yes?”
“Nothing. Just checking.”
“Checking what?”
“Whether you’d fallen asleep or whether you were staring at my rear end.”
“Very funny.”
Calloway chuckled. “It was the only reason I could think of for you not offering to dry while I washed.”
Keira’s face warmed, and she stood up quickly. But the big man was at her side in a second, his hand on her elbow.
“Hey,” he said. “I was kidding. You need to rest, not do dishes.”
“I’ve rested an awful lot already.”
“Not enough.”
Warmth crept from his palm into her arm and through her chest, and she couldn’t argue as he led her across the room to the bed. And she felt a little lost as he released her.
Definitely more than transference.
She looked up at his face, wondering how she’d ever questioned whether or not he was handsome. He was near perfect.
“In my other life,” he told her, his voice low, “it was my job to take care of people. I want you to get better, Keira. Soon. So all I need right now is to make sure you’re all right.”
He pulled up the blanket from the bed, tucked it around her face, then cupped her cheek. And that second, Keira remembered what he’d said about his gut and trust, and something clicked home for her.
“I work for child protective services,” she said slowly, “and I have to form snap judgments sometimes. I need to know if I’m leaving a child in a potentially unsafe environment, or decide if someone is trying to deceive me into thinking it’s safer than it is. And I know this is different, but I’m used to listening to my gut, too, Calloway. And it’s telling me that even if you’re not sharing everything... I should trust you, too.”
For a brief second, a mix of emotions waged a war in the Mountain Man’s stormy eyes. Relief. Worry. Fierce want. Frustration.
Then he kissed her forehead and strode across the cabin.
Keira considered going after him, but something told her she didn’t have to. Calloway wasn’t holding his secrets as tightly as he had been, just hours earlier, and she could be patient.
She leaned her head down on the pillow and squished up against the wall, making room for him. Whenever he was ready.
* * *
GRAHAM BUSIED HIMSELF with tasks around the little house. None of them really needed doing, but none of them took him very far from Keira, either.
He wasn’t so bogged down in denial that he didn’t recognize the burgeonin
g feelings he had for the injured girl. Nor was he naive enough to believe that a relationship between them was possible.
Which was a good enough reason for not climbing in beside Keira.
The bigger problem was: it wasn’t a good enough reason to stop him from wanting to do it. From wanting her.
He paused in his counting of his emergency candles to look over at her. She was pushed to the far end of the single-size bed, leaving just enough room for Graham’s body. More than enough room if he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
Her position on the bed wasn’t an accident. It was an invitation. One that made an uncomfortable ache spread out from his chest and threaten to take over the rest of him.
You owe her an explanation.
Yes, she deserved some honesty about who he was and what he was doing there.
He just wasn’t sure how he was going to go about telling her.
He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
There just didn’t seem to be an easy way of letting someone know you’d been accused of murder.
His eyes slid over Keira, then away from her.
And abruptly, he went still.
Maybe he wouldn’t have to tell her after all. Maybe she knew already.
A box—one he’d shoved aside and forgotten about and hadn’t touched in long enough to let it get covered in dust—sat across the room, its lid askew.
* * *
KEIRA WOKE TO FIND the bed empty and she couldn’t quite deny her disappointment that Calloway’s warm body wasn’t beside her. And her heart dropped even further when she sat up and spied him slumped over a cup of coffee. He was still dressed in the previous evening’s clothes, his hair wild.
Did he sleep at all?
“Calloway?”
He turned her way, and she saw that his face was as ragged as his appearance.
“I need to ask you something, Keira.”
“Carte blanche?” she replied, managing to keep her voice on the lighter side.
He nodded, but instead of asking a question, he made a statement. “Holly Henderson.”
The murdered woman from Derby Reach. Keira felt the blood drain from her cheeks. Why was he bringing her up now?
“You know the name.” Calloway said that like a statement, too, but Keira seized on it.
Trusting a Stranger Page 8
