This Perfect Stranger. Barbara Ankrum

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СКАЧАТЬ you want to know more, find Remus Trimark.”

      “Who?” Maggie scrambled into the bedside drawer for a pen and a scrap of paper. “Who’s Remus Trimark?”

      There was another long pause before the caller said, “It’s not over,” and clicked off.

      “Hello?” The dial tone buzzed in her ear. Maggie stared at it, feeling dizzy and off balance. Not over? What’s not over? She hung up the receiver and scribbled the name he’d mentioned down on the back of an old Hallmark anniversary card from Ben.

      She remembered to breathe.

      Remus Trimark? What kind of a name was that, and what did he have to do with Ben’s death? And why had the man on the phone waited six months to tell her about it?

      She eased back down on the pillow, clutching the card between her shaking fingers. Her mind raced over those last days with Ben, trying to remember something, anything he’d said about a Remus Trimark—what an odd name—or anyone he’d mentioned for that matter. She came up blank. Completely blank.

      It wasn’t as though she hadn’t already racked her brain for months on end, trying to piece together the how’s and why’s of his death. Trying to deconstruct those last weeks. The only conclusion she’d come to was that she and Ben had been so far apart by then it was as if they were strangers.

      She turned the card over in her hands, running her fingers over the picture on the front of a yellow rose in a slender glass vase. He’d given her this card on their first anniversary. Inside, the sentimental Hallmark greeting had nothing to do with why she’d kept this particular card. It was the handwritten inscription there that had made her tuck the card away here years ago.

      Happy Anniversary, sweetheart. When we’re old and gray, sitting around the fire on some cold winter night, remind me to thank you for taking a chance on me.

      All my love,

       Ben.

      It seemed so far away now, those days when he’d loved her so completely. That fire had been banked long before he’d died. He’d gambled that away along with nearly everything else.

      He had help.

      The stranger’s words echoed in her ears. Help? What did he mean by that? And how was she going to find some man named Remus Trimark? In the phone book?

      The sound of thunking came from outside Maggie’s window. Silently, she slid out of bed and padded barefoot to the window. The filmy drapes billowed as the cool night air slid through the one inch crack between window and sill. She wrapped her arms around her waist and searched the dusky yard for the source of the sound.

      She spotted him half-hidden beneath the ash tree in her yard, shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his elbows, hacking away at what was left of that old tree limb.

      Cain.

      What was he doing up so early? Maybe he figured to finish the job and leave before she could get him to change his mind.

      Maybe he hadn’t slept any better than she had.

      She’d spent most of the night thinking about him, her situation, and the impossible scenarios she’d constructed around how she could save her home—everything from auctioning off the nonessential contents of her house to taking up striptease dancing at the local hangout. But none was as far-fetched as the one that had hit her sometime before she’d drifted into an uneasy sleep. It was too insane to even consider. Really. And Cain would probably call the men in the little white suits to come and take her away for even suggesting it.

      Maggie chewed on her thumbnail, watching him bend over to scoop up an armload of wood. The muscles in his thighs bunched like liquid iron. He was strong. And if she didn’t miss her guess, a little reckless and maybe even a little desperate. Exactly the sort of man she needed.

      It’s not over, the voice on the phone echoed in her mind.

      Neither was she, she decided. Not while she still had a shred of hope.

      With a grateful smile, Cain took the glass of lemonade from her hand and guzzled the cold liquid down. The afternoon heat had backed up in the barn where he was shoveling out stalls and he’d taken off his shirt again. He didn’t miss the way her gaze traveled across his bare chest, or the way that little bead of sweat had gathered above her lip.

      “Where’s yours?” he asked.

      She jerked her gaze upward with a flustered little flush of color. “What?”

      “Your lemonade,” he said.

      “Oh. Um.” She took the empty glass from him. “I…I’m not thirsty.”

      He nodded, not believing her for a second. She’d been working her butt off in the pole corral with that demon seed, Geronimo, for the last two hours, getting nowhere. But she looked like she had more important things on her mind.

      She’d been quiet at lunch, but he’d figured those dark circles under her eyes might explain that. She looked like she hadn’t slept any better than he had. But work, for him, was like a tonic. It made him feel useful. She looked plain worn down.

      Or maybe she’d decided he’d worn out his welcome.

      He braced a hand on his pitchfork and stabbed at the dirty straw near his feet. “I got that gate latch working again. It just needed a little grease, a couple of screws.”

      “Gate latch?” she asked, lost.

      “By the paddock.” When she still looked blank, he pointed. “By the north pasture?”

      “Oh! The gate latch! Of course…the gate…latch. Thank you. Thanks…” She squeezed her palms together, as if she were looking to enhance her bustline. Something, as far as he was concerned, she didn’t need to do.

      “Somethin’ wrong?” he asked.

      “Wrong? No.” She smiled broadly. “Nothing’s wrong.”

      Her teeth tugged nervously at her lower lip for the second time since she’d come in here, and she turned away from him, pacing to the other side of the barn hallway.

      He couldn’t help but notice the way her jeans hugged those long legs of hers, curving against her backside. Nor did he miss the way that little sleeveless cotton blouse of hers outlined the slenderness of her waist and pulled against the fullness of her small breasts. Thoughts he had no business having pulsed through him with little jabs of awareness in regions he’d been ignoring for far too long. But, hell, no matter what his convictions, he was still a man. And she was a—

      “I’m just going to say it,” she blurted out, whirling back toward him. “There’s no point beating around the bush. I have a proposition.”

      His eyebrows went up. He liked the sound of this already.

      “Cain?” she said in a voice usually reserved for pleas to the executioner. “Will you marry me?”

      Chapter 4

      Following a moment of protracted silence, he laughed out loud. СКАЧАТЬ