The Quiet Seduction Page 9

  “Did you know that guy? That friend of my mom’s?”

  They had told him only that an old friend of his mother’s from her hometown had stopped by for a brief visit, and that his mother had been feeling homesick.

  “Like when I used to have to change schools in the middle of the year and I always hated it?” he’d asked.

  “Something like that,” Ellen had conceded, and Storm had nodded in silent agreement. He wasn’t nearly as embarrassed as he probably should have been.

  “I’d never met him before,” Storm said now as he pitched in a forkful of clean hay and let the boy spread it. The work should have been done by the two hired hands, but they were still out working on the fence—as far as anyone knew.

  “I pro’ly wouldn’t have liked him.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Yeah. Okay, but don’t you dare make my mom cry or anything like that. I take care of my mom.”

  “I never doubted it for a moment,” the tall, solemn man said gravely.

  As the last of his doubts dissipated, Pete shot him a grin full of eight-year-old charm. “Boy, that was one hell of a storm you and me got caught in, wasn’t it? This kid at my school says a tractor trailer full of grapefruit turned over real near his house and all these cars skidded in the gunk and man, was it a hell of a mess!”

  Ignoring the profanity, Storm spoke thoughtfully. “I’m not sure if a tornado is classed as a storm. Now, you take a hurricane—”

  “You ever been in one of them? A hurricane?”

  “Ah…”

  “Oh, yeah. You don’t remember. Joey’s been in lots of hurricanes. He used to live in Galveston. Joey says you have to take pre—pre—”

  “Precautions?” Storm filled in. As Ellen brought in the two geldings, he stepped forth and took one of the lead lines, moving the horse into the stall they had just finished cleaning. It never occurred to him that he might not be able to handle horses, he simply did it.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Pete picked up where he’d left off and went on to regale the two grown-ups with the wisdom of his hurricane-wise friend. “Joey’s got three cats, only two of them are babies. Mom, did you know cats can swim?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.” Using a pick, she was cleaning out one of the mare’s hooves.

  “I’d rather have a dog, but I wouldn’t mind having a pet cat?” It was a question. Storm waited to see how she’d answer it. There were cats slinking around the barn, but none seemed particularly friendly.

  Why not a house cat? he wondered. Or better yet, a pup? He’d have to remember to inquire sometime when Pete wasn’t around. It might be an issue between them, one that could do without outside meddling.

  The geldings were calm. The mare called Miss Sara was feeling frisky, but Storm found he could handle her easily. Unselfconsciously, he began to talk to her, stroking her long, sleek neck. When she responded by nudging his shoulder, he promised her a treat.

  “She likes apples,” Pete said. “Mom said she likes carrots, too. I tried her with broccoli. Yuck! She hates it.”

  Storm cuffed the boy’s head gently. “Better not let your mom see you palming off your vegetables on the horses. She’ll double your rations.”

  “Double yuck,” the boy said, grinning to show a pair of oversize front teeth.

  “Is Zeus’s stall ready?” Ellen called through the door. “I’m going to raise the dickens with that lazy pair of no-goods when they get back from mending that fence. They know what’s supposed to get done first, and they didn’t muck out a single stall this morning.” She brought in the stallion, whose disposition matched his name.

  Pete measured out oats. He said, “I know what precautions means. It means putting everything up where the tide can’t reach it, and the wind can’t blow it away. Joey says—”

  With half an ear, Storm listened to the secondhand wisdom while he waited for Ellen to maneuver the big stallion into his stall. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with him, but she remained firm. Treated him, in fact, much the way she did her son. She had already brushed him down outside. “I haven’t cleaned his hooves yet, but Clyde can do it when he gets in. Believe it or not, he’s pretty good with horses.”

  “Racetracks.”

  “Pardon?” She dropped the bar across the bottom half of the double door and glanced around the barn to see what else needed doing.

  “Nothing—he just struck me as the type to hang around the track, doing odd jobs. There’s a name for them, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it is.”

  “But you know about it—about racetracks. That’s something, at least.”

  Stroking the nose of one of the mares, he looked thoughtful for a moment. “What about it? Think I’m too big to be a jockey?”

  “About twelve inches too tall and fifty or sixty pounds too heavy. How about a trainer? There’s no weight limit there.”

  He considered it. Actually thought about it, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty comfortable around these hay processors, but it doesn’t feel quite right.”

  On the other hand, there was a lot of loose money floating around racetracks. And lots of guys who answered the description of that pair who’d come looking for him. One more reason to lay low until he knew which way the wind blew.

  “An owner, then. Actually, you were dressed more like an owner when I found you. Except for the mud, of course.”

  He liked the way she could joke about it. Any day now, he figured, things would start to come back. Maybe it would all pop into focus at once, and then he’d be on his way to…wherever.

  But he’d be back. He would make a point of returning because if ever he’d met a lady who needed a friend, it was Ellen Wagner. He could be that friend. He would like to be that friend. Who knows, he mused, leaning against the handle of the pitchfork in the warm, uncomplicated ambience of the big old horse barn, maybe they could even be more than friends.

  Right. And maybe he had a wife and kids waiting for him to come back from wherever—a business trip, more than likely.

  “Mom, I’ve finished my chores, so can I go over to Joey’s? We’re gonna bat some balls. Did you know Mr. Ludlum used to play first base in Triple A?”

  “Have you done your homework?”

  “Aw, Mom…”

  “Spelling and math. Do those and then we’ll see.”

  “Will you take me in the truck?”

  “If you get busy on your homework right now, I’ll drive you over. You’ll have an hour before dark.”

  After Pete raced out, Storm lifted the wheelbarrow and started out to dump the last load on the manure pile. “Does he usually walk? I thought it was a couple of miles.”

  “It is. He usually rides his bike, but of course…”

  “Right. When’s his birthday?”

  “September.”

  “I guess it’ll have to be Christmas, then. Unless you had bike insurance?”

  By the time Ellen returned from dropping Pete off at his friend’s house, Storm had supper under way. Somewhat to his surprise, he seemed to know his way around a kitchen pretty well. He knew the basics, at least: thawing and microwaving.

  She dropped into a red-enameled chair that had been painted to match the trim on the white cabinets. If the kitchen had ever been redecorated, it hadn’t been recently. More of Pete’s art was pinned to the checkered curtains. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, but he could tell she was tired. The unexpected visit from an old acquaintance and the run-in by proxy with her father had evidently been the last straw in a day filled with last straws.

  It struck him that after long days of mucking out stalls, wrestling with heavy bales of hay and playing nursemaid to a bunch of animals that did nothing so far as he could tell except eat their fill—not to mention letting out hems on Pete’s Sunday pants, hearing his homework and then tackling the paperwork that went along with running even the smallest operation—she needed something more. Something for herself.

 
; He would like to take her out for a night on the town. Dinner, a movie—maybe a bit of dancing. Oh, yeah…with Ellen wearing silk and pearls and him in his borrowed jeans and his ruined shoes.

  He’d never even seen Ellen wearing a dress. She’d be a knockout, though. He’d lay odds on that. She was a knockout in baggy jeans, scuffed boots and her husband’s old shirts.

  Idly, he wondered what kind of frivolous interests she would pursue if she had the time, the freedom and the money. Tennis? Bridge? Shopping sprees? He had an idea it would be more on the order of charity drives and volunteer work.

  There was a field full of stubble where hay had recently been cut and baled. Booker and Clyde must have extended themselves at some point in their good-for-nothing lives, because he couldn’t see Ellen up on that old tractor.

  Or maybe he could. Hell, he didn’t know what she was capable of. She kept on surprising him. First with her strength, then with her vulnerability. It was a tricky combination.

  “Supper’s ready in ten minutes,” he announced. “You want to pick up Pete first, or will Ludlum bring him back?”

  “I’ll get him. I hate to ask the Ludlums to do it. Mr. Ludlum has a handicapped tag, although he seems to get around pretty well. I’ve never even met Mrs. Ludlum. They keep to themselves.”

  “Next time you might want to pick nosier neighbors.”

  “Why, so they’d help us find out who you are and where you belong?”

  He was reading the instructions on the back of a box of rice—part two of the three-part meal he was concocting. “So they’d check on you after a disaster to see how you fared. Only common courtesy.”

  “I told you they called.” Ellen placed three plates on the table and grabbed a handful of cutlery. “Storm, why won’t you let me see what the library has on amnesia? You could hold back supper and I could go on into town after I pick up Pete.”

  He rummaged around in a drawer and came up with a set of measuring spoons. “I’m not sure. I guess I thought I’d have snapped out of it by now.”

  “Or you’re afraid of what you might find out,” she suggested.

  His bleak look said it all. “There you go.”

  “But what harm could it do just to read about the causes, the possible treatments—maybe the possible duration?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe amnesia is a means of avoiding something I’m not ready to confront.” It was only one of the things he had considered. There were others, each scarier than the last.

  The cutlery clattered onto the table. “And maybe that’s a big bunch of bologna. You had a knot on your head the size of a turnip. It was physical, not some psycho hoodoo you worked yourself into believing to keep from facing something you’re not ready to deal with. If there’s one thing I know about you, Storm Hale, or whoever you are, it’s that you’re not a coward.”

  “Oh, yeah? Since when did you get to be such an expert? And for your information, my knot was the size of a cantaloupe, not a turnip. Which pan do you use for rice?”

  She bent and jerked a stainless-steel pot from under the counter while Storm stared at the ridge of her panties clearly visible under her worn jeans. He could visualize each layer all too clearly—right down to the motherlode.

  Damn it, he was no better than that beer-swilling pothead of a hired hand.

  Plunking the stainless-steel boiler down on the counter, she said, “This one, the lid fits tight enough. Do you know how to cook rice?”

  “Why not ask me something simple, like why the sky’s blue?”

  “I already know the answer to that one.”

  He measured out a cup and a half of water, then reached for the box of rice. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Dry the cup before you measure the rice, else you’ll never get it all out. It’s called turbid media.” On another woman, her smile would have been called a smirk. On Ellen, it was…a smirk.

  “Smarty pants,” he muttered, holding the cup up to eye level to check the measurement. “You’re just dying for me to ask what that means, aren’t you?”

  “No I’m not,” she said, all innocence. “I’d better go get Pete before he wears out his welcome.”

  The chicken and vegetables—more of the latter than the former—was rubbery. He’d forgotten to salt the rice, but it was edible. Pete wasn’t hungry. Storm couldn’t much blame him. From now on, maybe Ellen should do the cooking.

  Along with everything else, he thought guiltily.

  She said something. He wasn’t paying attention. She tilted her head to stare at him while Pete shoved his supper into a neat pile and compacted it with the fork. “What is it? What’s wrong? Are you starting to remember?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Almost. I think. Something just popped into my head, but when I tried to grab it, it was gone.”

  “A name? An S name or an H name? The monogram, remember? How about Storm Harrison? Harrison Storm? Harry Smith?”

  “How ’bout Kevin Costner?” Pete offered. “It’s got a s and h in it.”

  “Sorry, partner, no h. Your spelling grade just slipped another notch.”

  It was like trying to race over a patch of quicksand. No matter how fast you ran, you got sucked down. He remembered once when…

  “’Scuse me,” he said, raking back his chair.

  “Storm?”

  “It’s okay, I just feel like getting some air. Save the dishes, I’ll do ’em later.”

  She rose and came after him. “You’ll do no such thing. Tell me what’s wrong, and don’t tell me it’s your cooking, it really wasn’t all that awful.”

  “Damning with a bit of faint praise?” Shoving his arms into Jake’s flannel-lined denim coat, he turned toward the door.

  Ellen caught him by the hand. “Please, I can’t help you if you won’t let me. Whatever it is you remembered—almost remembered—tell me and maybe I can make a connection.”

  “Get the books.”

  She stepped back, catching her breath. “All right,” she said quietly. “I’ll go back now. The library doesn’t close until nine.”

  Cold air flowed in through the open front door. In early winter, the days were warm enough, but the temperature plummeted once the sun went down. Storm said, “No, don’t go. It’ll wait. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, it’s just— It was so close!”

  She’d picked up his hand again and was unconsciously rubbing his knuckles. If it was supposed to be soothing, he could have told her it missed by a Texas mile. To hell with his name, right now he was tempted to sweep her into his arms and take her upstairs. Not to the bed he slept in, because that had been her husband’s bed those last few weeks before he’d gone to the hospital.

  “Sorry if I was a little too dramatic.”

  “Stop apologizing. I want to help any way I can, but I refuse to fight you for the privilege.” She had a way of looking him directly in the eye, but where hers were clear as tourmaline, his had more than once been called inscrutable.

  And how in the hell did he know that?

  “Listen, don’t go to the library tonight.” He started to tell her she could drop him off there tomorrow, or better yet, lend him her truck. Only he didn’t have a library card and he didn’t have a driver’s license. He had a name—Harrison. Maybe.

  The phone book was full of Harrisons, a few of them with the right initials. He had called another one today, only to have a woman’s voice answer, “Jessica Harrison. I’m unable to come to the phone now, but if you’ll leave a message—”

  He’d hung up, too discouraged to hear any more. He was increasingly certain he had some connection with the missing district attorney. With that much to go on, it might have made sense to let the police take over his search for an identity, but for some reason he was gut-deep reluctant to do it. That very reluctance seemed to feed on itself, making him even more reluctant. It was almost as if the information was there for the taking, but he was afraid to reach out. Afraid of something, anyway.

  Hadn’t
she as much as accused him of just that? Of being afraid to face reality?

  “Ellen, there’s something you’d better know. It might be important.” Now he was stroking her hand.

  From the kitchen Pete yelled, “Mom, I’ve cleaned off my plate, now can I have seven cookies?”

  “Three,” she called back without removing her gaze from Storm’s face.

  “He actually ate that stuff?” Storm queried softly.

  “Technicality. He cleaned it off into the garbage can. Pete doesn’t lie.”

  Chuckling, he lowered his chin so that it rested on the top of her head. God, he needed moments like this. Call it respite—call it salvation. She smelled like shampoo and hay and just a bit like horse, but it was a good smell. A wholesome smell.

  “What do I need to know?” she prompted, her voice partially muffled in the folds of the shirt he was wearing.

  “That I think I might have a reason to avoid cops. I could have turned myself in as soon as I could’ve made it into town, but for some reason—” He broke off, sweat beading his forehead with the effort to drag forth the information that was so tantalizingly close. “Can you think of one good reason for a man to be afraid of the law? Other than the obvious, that is.”

  She didn’t move. Didn’t look up and didn’t reply.

  “Ellen?”

  “I’m working on it.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Look, you want to know what I think? I definitely don’t think you’re a criminal. I’m sure there are any number of perfectly good reasons why someone wouldn’t particularly want to get involved with the police.”

  “Name one,” he challenged. She stepped back and his arms fell away. He replaced them and pulled her close again. She might not need it, but he sure as hell did.

  “All right, I will. How about if the cops were crooked?”

  He took a deep breath and held it. “Are they?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard. But then, I’ve never had any reason to find out. Out here in the county we have a sheriff. So far as I know, his department is above reproach.”