White Christmas in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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СКАЧАТЬ Renee said, promising a rare treat. “Turn the Disney Channel on. They have that princess show you like so much.”

      Tessie looked down at the man, clearly reluctant to leave.

      “Please, sweetheart,” Renee said. “Mommy needs you to go.”

      Tessie nodded and headed down the hallway.

      “Close the door.” Renee waited until Tessie did so, shutting herself in the bedroom.

      Renee turned her attention back to the man. He wasn’t moving his lips anymore, so she gingerly opened his wool-lined jacket. His gray flannel shirt had a large damp spot where his wound had bled and the whole garment was plastered to his chest. She didn’t see any bulges that would indicate a shoulder holster, though. Of course, she knew from her ex-husband that there were many places to hide a gun if a man didn’t want it to be seen. She ran her hands down the sides of his torso. The man flinched and moaned. At one point, she wondered if she didn’t feel something taped to his chest. She wasn’t taking any chances, so she unbuttoned his shirt and opened it.

      “Oh, my,” she gasped softly as she reached out to touch a bandage that stretched across the man’s bare midriff. Nothing was hidden there, but he had faded red burn scars and dark bruises all over. They were not recent, but there were so many. She let a finger trail across his skin, wondering what trouble he’d seen—or caused—in his life to end up with all of these.

      She felt a tremor race through her, making her hand shake slightly. His skin, while bruised, was baby soft. She pulled her hand away quickly and then pulled his shirt back together. She knew what bruises like that might mean and it frightened her. It wasn’t right looking at him when he was not aware enough to stop her, though. His scars were his own business. And maybe the sheriff’s.

      She picked the phone up again.

      “I think he’s been beaten,” she said to Betty. “Maybe he really is a criminal. Or maybe he tried to go straight and this is what the others did to him.”

      “Don’t go feeling sorry for him, now,” Betty advised, her voice low and serious. “Finish searching him before he comes to. And keep the phone close to you.”

      Renee reached for his pockets. A man like this could have a knife, too.

      All she found was a scrap of paper in the front pocket of his jeans that had a smudged telephone number written on it in pencil. The melting snow had made the marks practically illegible.

      His breathing became more labored as she knelt there.

      “Easy, now,” she said in a soothing voice as she turned the paper over. The front was a receipt for a hamburger and a cup of coffee. She couldn’t make out the name of the business where he’d bought the food. She set the paper aside to give to the sheriff when he came. Maybe the phone number would be a contact for the man’s next of kin.

      His eyes had been closed when she found the paper, but his eyelids were twitching now. And a muscle along his jaw was clenching. Then he groaned.

      Renee spoke into the phone again. “He’s regaining consciousness.”

      “Did you find a gun?” Betty asked.

      “No.”

      Renee heard a siren in the distance and realized the sheriff was close. She wondered if the man heard the sound. If he did, he didn’t react. Her ex-husband had always flinched when he heard a cop’s siren, even if he wasn’t doing anything illegal at the time.

      Then the man’s eyes fluttered open.

      “You look like an angel.” His words slurred and a small, lopsided grin started to form.

      “I know karate,” Renee announced.

      “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?” the man said, his grin spreading.

      She realized then that he must have seen Tessie’s angel wings. He likely hadn’t realized Tessie was a different person, but he had glimpsed the wings even in the condition he was in. They’d repaired one of them earlier tonight, replacing the gold glitter border.

      Renee felt her knees grow weak. She’d do anything to protect her daughter. A blast of cold air hit her neck and she turned to see that the sheriff had stepped into the room. She hadn’t locked the door after she brought the stranger inside. Now she was relieved someone was here to take him away. She and Tessie didn’t need this man around. Even if he was not a rustler, he wasn’t safe. The quiver in her stomach told her that much. She was still breathless from touching the bruises on his chest. This man was trouble.

      * * *

      Rusty Calhoun just lay there and looked at the angel kneeling beside him. She looked stressed, but in a vague, delicate way. He’d had concussions before in the eight years he’d spent in the army and he’d seen his share of hallucinations, but nothing like this. The woman’s skin was so translucent it looked like a white South Seas pearl—the expensive kind. Her hair floated around her like a halo. Sometimes, when she moved her head, a speck of gold would fall from her like a star coming down to earth. He took that as a sign from the heavens that she wasn’t real.

      “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he finally said, deciding he could say that because she was a figment of his imagination. And a man should be able to say anything he wanted to a vision he’d created in his own mind.

      The woman made a dismissive sound, but he didn’t care. Not when her skin shone the way it did. It made sense that any hallucination he had would look like a pearl. His mother had loved pearls. And his nightmares in Afghanistan had been littered with them.

      When he’d rambled on about a pearl necklace in his delirium on that awful night when his platoon had been bombed in the Wardak Province, the doctors searched through his belongings until they found the strand he carried with him. When they gave it to him, he’d cursed and thrown it across the room. That was when they’d called in the chaplain.

      “Are you awake?” the woman asked now.

      Rusty barely had time to wonder if he should answer his hallucination before a lawman took her place. Or was it two lawmen? Rusty wasn’t sure. But he figured whether they were one or two, they were real enough.

      “He’s awake,” the lawman said with authority and the two images of him slowly merged into one. “Tell me your name.”

      “U.S. Army ranger Rusty Calhoun, sir.”

      “What happened?”

      The clipped voice of command sounded familiar. Voices like this had demanded his report when he had been returned to safety that dark night in Afghanistan.

      “I was the only one left.” The medics had pulled him out of the rubble. He hadn’t wanted to leave. Not with the others lying around him.

      “Who else was with you?” the voice asked.

      “My platoon. The eleventh mountain division, sir. It was a trap.”

      There was silence after that. Rusty closed his eyes and saw the flashes of the bombs. He’d failed them all.

      “Tonight?” The man’s voice had softened, but it was СКАЧАТЬ