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Charlie let Garreth Kline in. “She’s right here.” He led the young doctor to the sofa.
“What’s her name?” the tall dark-haired man asked.
Charlie realized he didn’t know and told him so.
Garreth took a penlight and raised one of the woman’s eyelids at a time. “Her pupils are equal and reactive.” He removed the cloth to examine the cut. “This needs a couple of stitches. Miss? Can you hear me? Miss?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Knocked out, I’d say. Took a good whack on the head there.”
“Are those medical terms?”
Garreth ignored him and rubbed his knuckles against her sternum. “Can you wake up and look at me?”
Her eyelids fluttered open.
“Hi. I’m a doctor. Do you know your name?”
She frowned, but she said softly, “Starla.”
“Good. Starla, you have a cut on your head. I’m going to numb the area first, and then I’ll suture it.”
She nodded and closed her eyes.
The doctor tugged on latex gloves and prepared a syringe. Charlie washed his hands in case Garreth needed his help, but then just stood by as Garreth neatly closed the wound, tied a knot and clipped the thread. “She’s going to have a whopping headache,” the doc said, removing the gloves and placing supplies back in his bag. “Do you have any Tylenol?”
Charlie found a bottle.
“She should rest, in case she has a concussion. If she falls asleep and isn’t responsive, or if she vomits, call me.”
“What am I going to do with her?” Charlie asked.
“Just keep her comfortable. And don’t let her drive.”
Charlie shook his head. “Funny.”
Garreth shrugged. “Seriously. Looks like you’ve got yourself a house guest for the duration of the storm.”
Charlie studied the woman on his sofa, then looked at Garreth, whose eyes held a twinkle.
“The situation doesn’t look all that bad, Charlie.”
“I just had one of the worst scares of my life. I need some time to recover.”
“Meredith’s okay? Should I have a look at her?”
“I’d appreciate that, thanks.” He led the way to his daughter’s room. “Look, honey, Dr. Kline is here.”
Meredith sat up on her bed, a worn blue bunny hugged to her chest. “Is the angel lady okay?”
“She’s fine,” Garreth told her. “She just got a bump on the head and a cut. How about you? Did you bump your head?”
Meredith said no. “The angel lady covered my head up with my coat. I was scared.”
“She was protecting you, you know that, right?”
Meredith nodded. “That’s what angels do. That’s what Aunt Edna’s angel did. Protected her from a car crash.”
Charlie exchanged a look with the young doctor. Janet Carter’s aunt would tell the story of the angel in the car to anyone who would listen, and anyone who’d ever met her had heard the tale. What that old lady’s story and his daughter’s experience today had in common, he couldn’t imagine, but Meredith had found a comparison. Confirmation of her theory, apparently.
With his penlight, Garreth checked Meredith’s pupils. He felt her arms and legs and pushed lightly on her chest and her stomach. She seemed to have no pain anywhere. “Looks like you came through without a scratch,” he said to her.
She nodded gravely. “But my daddy’s mad.”
“I’m sure he’s more glad to see you safe than he is mad.”
She gave her father the resigned look of a condemned prisoner. “We’re gonna talk ’bout it later.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to that,” Garreth said, straightening and heading into the other room.
Charlie followed him. “Thanks for coming.”
“Your lady vet’s snowmobile has come in handy more than once.”
“I had dinner with her once, she’s hardly my lady vet.”
Garreth only shrugged. He made his way back to the patient. “I’m leaving now, Starla. Charlie is going to watch out for you. You’re in good hands. If you need anything, he’ll call me.”
She opened her eyes and nodded.
Garreth pulled on his coat and gloves. “Call if you need me.”
Charlie closed the door behind him. Slowly he made his way back to the exquisite woman on his sofa. She was here because of his daughter. Had been injured returning his precious Meredith. “I’m really sorry about this,” he said.
Her lids raised and she focused those unusual blue eyes on him. Something in his chest fluttered. “That’s okay.”
“Do you have a headache?” he asked.
She licked her lips. “Either that or there’s a little guy with a jackhammer inside my skull.”
“The doc said you could have some Tylenol. I’ll get it for you.”
“Thanks.”
He went for water, shook a couple of capsules out of the bottle and secured the childproof lid.
“How’s Meredith?” she asked.
“She’s just fine.”
“She didn’t get any bumps?”
“No.”
“What about the truck?” Her eyes held grave concern.
“In the ditch. Snow up to the wheel wells. It’s not going anywhere.”
“I was afraid of that. Was it still running?”
“Yes, I shut it off and took the keys?”
“Did you lock it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s not going anywhere, and the roads are closed. Nobody’s going to be on that highway.”
She tried to sit up. “Oh, boy, I’m dizzy.”
Charlie knelt beside her and reached an arm behind her back to help her sit. He had to help her hold the glass, too, because her hand was shaky. She smelled like a blend of powder and spice, exotic and feminine, and her fingers beneath his were slender and soft. He experienced the same trouble breathing that he had in the restaurant when he’d first seen her.
He lowered her back to a lying position. “I’ll get you some pillows and covers,” he told her. When he returned, he went to the end of the sofa. “Can I take your boots off?”
She raised one foot.
He reached inside her pant leg and unzipped, then tugged and the black leather boot came off, revealing a slender foot in an ordinary white sock. The sight gave him a hard-on so quickly, he almost turned away. Instead he unzipped and removed the other boot, opened the blanket and covered up the sight of her feet and her legs and her hips in those low-cut jeans and…
The shoulder of her pink sweater was soaked with blood. “I’m going to get you a clean shirt. I’ll bring a pan of water and a cloth. You can clean up and change. Can you do that?”
She glanced down at her sweater. “Sure. I didn’t get blood on your furniture or carpet or anything, did I?”
“No. You may have some inside the cab of your truck, though. I don’t really remember. I was in a hurry to get you both out.”
He found the smallest sweatshirt he owned, which happened to be a faded gray and emblazoned with Iowa Hawkeyes, filled a pan with warm water and suds and handed her a washcloth. “I’ll be in the other room. Call if you need me.”
He helped her sit up and left.
Meredith would be getting hungry. He should think about finding something to eat. He opened a cupboard and listened to the sound of water splashing behind him.
“I don’t know if this stain will come out,” she called. “Would you mind soaking it?”
“I’ll give it a shot. Looks like a nice sweater.”
“My dad gave it to me. He likes me in pink.”
He doubted there was a color of the rainbow she didn’t look good wearing. She was probably even more appealing in nothing at all.
Closing the cupboard, he opened the refrigerator and stared inside. Why had he thought that? He was going to be cooped up with her for the time being; he’d better control his thoughts—and his hormones.
“Your name’s Charlie?” she called.
“Yeah.”
“Charlie, I’m finished.”
He went to get the sweater, warm from her body, and the pan of sudsy water. She swam in his gray sweatshirt, and had pushed the sleeves up to reveal slender forearms.
Back in the kitchen, Charlie used the same pan to fill with cold water and soak her sweater. First he rinsed the soft fabric under the faucet until the water stopped running pink, then he plunged it down in the water.
“Add a little salt,” she called.
“Salt?”
“It’s supposed to help take out blood stains. I read that somewhere.”
“Okay.” He poured a teaspoon in and swished it around. Martha Stewart, he wasn’t.
Meredith appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Can I talk to the angel lady now?”
“Her name is Starla. Can you call her that, please? And while you’re at it, maybe you should tell her you’re sorry for making her come back here in a snowstorm.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
He dried his hands and stepped to the doorway. Meredith crossed the living room and paused beside the sofa.
Starla’s blond head moved as she turned to look at the little girl. “Hi,” Starla said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Did the doctor do that to you?” Meredith pointed to Starla’s forehead.
“Yes. Does it look pretty bad?”
Meredith nodded. “Does it hurt?”
“No, he gave me a shot of novocaine before he stitched it. Do you think I’ll be able to play the violin after they take out the stitches?”
Meredith eyes widened. “I don’t know. Daddy?”
Charlie chuckled and joined them, sitting on a chair. “It’s an old joke, honey. I’ll bet Starla didn’t play the violin before she hit her head.”
“Were you tricking me?” Meredith asked.
“Yes, I was.” Starla turned her attention to Charlie. “You didn’t happen to grab my phone, did you?”
He shook his head.
“I need to call my dad. He’s expecting to hear from me, and he’ll be worried, especially if he calls and my phone just rings and rings.”
“No problem.” Charlie grabbed the cordless phone from the counter between the kitchen and living room and handed it to her. “Use mine.”
“It’s long distance,” she warned.
“And you’re here because of me,” he replied in the same tone.
She took the phone and punched in numbers.
“Come on, Meredith, I’ll fix a snack.”
“But I didn’t getta say it yet.”
“Say it after she makes her call.”
She followed him to the kitchen.
For once when he would have welcomed Meredith’s chatter to cover the conversation in the other room, the child remained silent. Bits of Starla’s side of the conversation floated to them as she explained what happened. “I swear, I’m all right… I know…well, I don’t know…how long it will be before they can get here to pull it up… The highway’s closed, anyway… I’m so sorry…make it up some other way. Maybe if I call… I know what this meant to you… Yes, I’m perfectly fine…yes, it’s just a truck…some other way… Daddy….”
Charlie got the impression that something more than a few days’ travel was at stake. Was she in some kind of trouble?
He put together grilled cheese sandwiches and mugs of hot tomato soup, and carried a tray into the other room.
Starla sat up, but she only took a few bites. She sipped the cup of tea he brought her, then nestled back down into the covers.
“Starla?” Meredith said timidly.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I got in your truck and made you get in a accident.”
“The accident wasn’t your fault, honey. They call them accidents because they’re nobody’s fault.”
Meredith didn’t seem reassured by those words, but Charlie stayed out of the dialogue.
“It’s okay,” Starla said, somehow understanding the child needed forgiveness. “I’m not mad at you.”
Meredith nodded. “Okay.”
Meredith picked at her food and Starla drifted into sleep. After cleaning up their dishes, Charlie held his daughter on his lap.
“It’s time to talk now,” he told her.
She nodded gravely and raised innocent wide eyes that immediately filled with tears. “I did a naughty thing, huh, Daddy?”
“Yes, you did. It was a dangerous thing. There are rules about strangers and about going anywhere by yourself, and the rules are to keep you safe. Do you understand?”
She nodded. To her credit, she didn’t use an excuse. “I’m very, very sorry.”
“What do you think is a fair punishment?”
They’d had similar conversations in the past, so she understood the concept. “I shouldn’t get to play with something I really like for a whole year.”
Time was a concept she had a problem with, however. “I think a week will do. What should that favorite thing be?”
She glanced aside, then up at him. “My angel book.”
She loved that book, so not having it for a week would be stern punishment. “I think that’s fair.”
“I must have left it in the angel lady’s truck.”
“We’ll get it tomorrow.” She nestled her head against his chest and he rocked her. “I love you with my whole heart.”
“I love you with my whole heart, too, Daddy.”
He picked up a book and read it to her, then just held her until she fell asleep. Eventually he carried her to her bed and tucked her in, pausing to touch his face to her cheek and smooth her dark hair.
He wouldn’t have been able to go on living if anything had happened to his Meredith.
Back in the living room, the woman still slept. Charlie added a log to the fire and sat across from her. She had a few dark streaks on her cheek and in her hairline. He got a wet cloth and dabbed it on her face.
She opened her eyes. That incredible blue gaze wreaked havoc with his senses every time she turned it on him.
“There was still some blood,” he explained.
Her eyes drifted shut.
He removed the dried blood gently, smoothing her hair back from her temple with the cloth. Her hair was so pale and fine; it darkened visibly when it got wet. The skin of her temples seemed almost translucent, and her brows were fair and shaped like wings. Her golden lashes lay against her cheeks in soft curls.
He’d never seen anyone so exquisite—there was just no other word for her—beautiful didn’t cut it, couldn’t describe those striking cheekbones and hair that begged to be touched. His fingers itched to learn just how silken and soft it would be.
Charlie wiped his palm against the thigh of his jeans.
In the firelight, her hair shimmered like gossamer threads of silver and gold. He touched it then, just to move it from under her cheek and make her more comfortable. It was cool and satiny in his fingers. He drew a breath that came from his toes and curled a hitch in his chest.
Her eyes opened.
His breathing stopped.
“Charlie,” she whispered sleepily.
It was the sexiest word in the history of language. “What?”
“Is it still snowing?”
He roused himself from his visual trance to go peer out the window into the night. The moon revealed swirling flakes still falling to blanket the countryside. “Yes,” he answered.
“Charlie,” she said again.
If he didn’t guard his reactions to every sigh and word and each flutter of her lash, he was going to lose all self-respect. “Yes?”
“Do you suppose I could have a bath?”
Ohmygod.
“I’m kind of achy.” She brought her open hand to her chest. “Probably from the seat belt, but I’m thinking a warm soak would feel good.”
“You’re in luck, then. I just happen to have a whirlpool in my master bath.”
“Oh, that would be heaven.”
Damn near. “Let me help you. Are you dizzy?”
She sat up and brought a hand to her temple. “A little.”
“Wait while I go fill the tub.” He hurried to run hot water and turn on the jets, add Meredith’s bubble bath, then returned for Starla. He slid one arm around her waist, and she wrapped hers around him and steadied herself. They walked that way, hip to hip to the hallway, and then he guided her ahead of him with both hands on her shoulders.
“Here are towels and a robe.” All he had to lend was his own. He helped her sit on the corner of the enormous tub. “Tell you what. You just sleep in my room tonight. While you’re in here, I’ll change the sheets. Then I’ll take the sofa.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Her hair draped over her shoulder in a silken wave. He opened a drawer and pulled out an elastic band. “Here. It’s Meredith’s.”
“Thank you.” She smiled up at him. “You’re a sweet guy, you know that?”
She captured her hair in a loose knot on her head, then, bending to remove one sock, she swayed.
“Whoa.” Charlie caught her by the shoulders and balanced her. “Here.” He knelt in front of her. “Bending over probably isn’t a good idea.” He picked up her foot and peeled the sock away. Her feet had turned him on with socks, he didn’t dare look now. He looked straight ahead at the Hawkeyes emblem on his sweatshirt.
She steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder.
After pulling off the other sock, he purposely stared at the mounting bubbles in the tub. “Can you get your jeans?”
She straightened up in her sitting position, reached under the sweatshirt and unbuttoned and unzipped.
It was obvious that she’d have to bend over, so he took control. He could do this. Not everything was about sex. This was about helping a person his daughter had managed to get into this situation. “Stand up.”
She did. The sweatshirt hung over her hips, thank God.
Charlie reached under it, concentrating on finding the waistband, located it and jimmied the denim down over her hips, his fingers coming in contact with warm skin and satin in the process. This activity would raise any man’s blood pressure, and he’d been without a woman for a long time. She’d said he was sweet. If she only knew. She had to know. “Okay, have a seat again.”
She sat. Concentrating on the task alone, he pinched both denim legs at the hem and pulled the jeans down her legs and off. His peripheral vision didn’t miss the length of slender bare limbs. The most gorgeous woman he’d ever met was getting naked in his bathroom.
“Holler if you need anything.” He backed out of the room and pulled the door shut, then leaned his forehead against the wood for a full minute. When water splashed, he backed away as if the door had jolted him with a high-voltage current. Sheets. He was changing the sheets now. He tucked and smoothed, found an extra clean blanket.
Charlie saw the room as she would view it. A man’s room. Practical. Simple. He imagined her pale hair against the plain navy-blue sheets and pillowcases, her ivory skin touching the cotton… He didn’t even know her. He’d never seen her before today, but her presence was the most disturbing experience he’d had in…forever.
He was obsessed. Enchanted. Horny, he wanted to rationalize, but that word corrupted the beauty of what he really felt when he was around her. No, she didn’t inspire lust. She inspired awe. A purity of admiration he should be laughing at himself for feeling.
“Charlie?”
He would change his name after she’d gone.
Charlie stepped to the door. “Yes?”
“I’m feeling pretty dizzy. From the hot water probably. Would you mind terribly…helping me, I mean?”
He opened the door enough to speak to her. “You want me to come i-in there?” His voice cracked like a seventeen-year-old’s.
“I’m afraid I’ll fall and bump my head or something. I don’t want to be any more trouble.”
Forcing one foot in front of the other, he crossed the room. He was an adult, after all. This was his bathroom, and he could assist a person in need without slobbering all over himself.
Good God in heaven, there was a pale pink bra dangling from the back of the chair he’d placed there for her; her jeans were folded on the seat, his sweatshirt tossed over those and a minuscule scrap of satin that might have been her underwear was on top of the whole pile….
There were bubbles up to her midchest, thank goodness, but her pale shoulders were sleekly wet and slender. With her hair gathered on her head, her neck looked slim and vulnerable…like the rest of her.
What exactly did cardiac arrest feel like?
No, his heart was beating because blood throbbed in the most conspicuous place, and he hoped she wouldn’t notice. He picked up one of the towels he’d left and managed to look at her.
Her cheeks were bright pink with embarrassment. She hadn’t wanted to call on him for help. He was a complete stranger—and a man besides, and she probably felt awkward and vulnerable. Everything slipped into perspective in that second and somehow he was back in control again.
“Can you stand by yourself? I’ll face the other way and hand you back the towel. You just hold on to my shoulder or my arm or wherever you need to keep your balance.”
He turned around then, and behind him water sloshed. She took the towel, and then her hot moist fingers clamped on to his shoulder in a firm hold. “Okay. I’m going to sit here for a minute and dry off.”
She used the chair behind him. Charlie stared straight ahead at the foggy mirror. Here and there a watery streak revealed a glimpse of flesh and white towel. He got light-headed, too.
“I can’t tell you how good that felt,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“But now I’m so tired again.”
“You can go to sleep. The bed’s ready.”
“That sounds wonderful. I didn’t let the water out.”
“I’ll do it. Do you have the robe on?” Please God, let her have the robe on.
“Almost.”
He’d left the door open, and the cool air was drying reflective spaces on the mirror. One of them revealed a length of spine and a swell of hip. Charlie honorably looked the other way. Then back.
The robe fluttered the hot air of the room as she pulled it around her. “Okay. I’m ready. Just let me get my clothes.”
Charlie turned as she was gathering her clothing, discreetly tucking the bra and panties between layers of denim. He offered his arm and she took it, leaning heavily on him for balance as he led her to his bedroom and the king-size bed with the covers turned back.
Starla placed her things on a chair, sat on the edge of the bed and tugged the band from her hair. The platinum mass fell over the shoulders of the robe. “Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome. I’ll clean up in there and leave you to your rest.”
After he’d drained the tub and hung the towels, he passed through to find her fast asleep…the robe tossed to the foot of the bed. He’d have to buy a new one because he’d never be able to wear that one without seeing her in it.
After he changed his name, he would buy new sheets, too—and a different bed. He would never be able to fall asleep in this one again. Not after the most beautiful woman in the universe had slept in it…bare-assed naked.
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