“What do you do in your spare time, Mr. Cooper?” she asked.Do you stand in the darkness and watch me? Is it your gaze I feel on me? Constantly watching?
“Please, call me Hank, and I don’t have much spare time. There’s always something that needs to be done on a spread this size.” For a moment his gaze held hers, intense and probing, it made her feel as if he attempted to violate her mind.
With an effort, she broke away from the gaze, wondering again why she felt such an uneasy familiarity with the man. “Abby tells me she hired you about a month ago. Where’s home for you?” she asked.
“Here and there. I’ve never had much need for a permanent home base. What about you? I heard that before you arrived here you were someplace in California.”
She could still feel the heat of his gaze on her and once again her eyes met his. “If you’ve heard that, then you’ve also probably heard I have amnesia. I don’t remember anything before coming here.”
His smoke-dark eyes lingered a moment longer on her as a muscle jumped in his lower jaw. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.” Again she averted her gaze from his as the heat in her stomach reignited and spread overher entire body. Why did he affect her this way? What was it about him that made her think of long nights of lovemaking, of tangled limbs beneath rumpled sheets?
Had he lied when he’d told her they hadn’t met before? Did her unease have nothing to do with suppressed memories and everything to do with the fact that he was an enormously attractive man who oozed sex appeal?
Relief flooded her as they reached the community building and he tipped his hat in parting. She watched him go, her heart slowly resuming a more normal rhythm as he moved into the distance.
Going inside, she tried to shove thoughts of Hank Cooper out of her mind, but found him as impossible to dismiss as a case of hives. She set Brook’s carrier on the table in the playroom and went to the window, unsurprised to see Hank still in viewing distance. In the past couple of days she’d noticed he always seemed near to where she was, appeared to shadow her movements whenever she left the main house.
Why? Why did Hank Cooper seem to have such interest in her? Was his attention drawn from something in the past, or merely the passing interest of a man for a woman? What man in his right mind would be interested in a woman who had no memory and had just given birth? A fleeting smile curved her lips. Who said Hank Cooper was in his right mind?
The morning passed quickly and lunchtime came and went. Late afternoon the kids left with their parents and Colette busied herself cleaning up the room.
She’d finally put everything away when the outerdoor flew open and a ranch hand she’d not seen before stood in the doorway.
Thin and wiry, the man brought with him the sour smell of perspiration, stale smoke and strong alcohol as he stepped into the room. Beneath the dusty hat he wore, his brown eyes peered around the room.
“May I help you?” Colette asked, moving closer to the table where Brook rested in the carrier.
“I’m s’possed to put up shelves,” he slurred, a drunken grin lifting the corners of his mouth as he eyed Colette. “You’re a pretty little thing.” He stumbled several steps toward her.
“I think you’d better leave and put the shelves up another time,” Colette said, her voice wavering with uncertainty.
He shook his head. “Can’t. Ms. Abby told me to do it today, and Ms. Abby gets plum crazy when chores don’t get done.” He staggered forward another couple of steps and Colette realized the man was thoroughly, completely drunk.
His grin widened as his gaze focused once again on her. “I’ll bet you smell as pretty as you look.” When he stepped forward again, Colette backed up, disturbed to find herself pinned between the wall and the man.
“I think you’d better go.”
“Ah, come on, don’t get all bossy like your sisters. Why don’t you try being a little nice to me.” He reached up and touched her hair. “I could be very nice to you.”
His touch made her skin crawl, and the glassiness of his eyes made her aware that he might be too drunk to listen to reason. Unreasonable terror swam insideher. He was just a drunken ranch hand, but something about his unwanted closeness brought panic to the surface. “You’re so pretty,” he repeated, his grimy hand stroking the length of her hair, his breath rancid in her face.
She tried to sidestep him, but he grabbed her arm. “Let me go,” she demanded, trying to yank her arm from his viselike grip.
“Ah, come on, don’t be that way,” he protested, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her, effectively making her his prisoner.
“Sims. Let the lady go.” Hank Cooper’s voice rang with authority. He filled the doorway, his posture tense, his dark eyes radiating undisguised danger.
“Ah, I was just having a little fun,” Sims protested.
“Well, the lady doesn’t appear to be having fun.” Hank stepped into the room and placed a hand on the back of the man’s neck. “Get on out of here. Go back to the bunkhouse and sleep it off.” Colette wasn’t sure whether it was the tone of Hank’s voice or the strength of his hand on Sims’s neck, but Sims nodded and with Hank’s assistance headed out the door.
Colette sagged against the wall, her knees trembling uncontrollably as adrenaline slowly dissipated. She shuddered as she remembered the way his body had pressed close to hers, how his arms had formed a prison to contain her. Something about the incident evoked a murmur of a memory. A memory of another time, another man pressed against her, his breath hot against her neck as he whispered threatening words into her ear.
“You okay?”
She looked to see Hank once again standing in the doorway. She nodded, afraid to move from the wall, afraid her shaking legs wouldn’t hold her. “I’m fine.” To her horror, tears blurred her vision and a sob shook her.
