“Ryder? Have you ever had great sex?”

His hands froze for a second, then resumed massaging. “Yeah. A very long time ago. At least, I remember it as being great.”

“I never have,” Marti continued. “I thought it was one big disappointment and couldn’t understand why it was such a huge deal.”

Again his hands froze. Then he whispered, “Oh, lady, you just handed me a grenade.”

She opened her eyes to half-mast. “Grenade? What do you mean?”

“I’ve been wanting you since I laid eyes on you. Now you’ve all but asked me. Tell me you don’t mean it.”

“Why?”

“You know all the reasons. You’re pregnant. I’ll be leaving eventually to go see Ben. I’m an emotional train wreck…Why in God’s name would you want to get mixed up with me even temporarily?”

She barely hesitated. “Because I want to know.”

About the Author

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve, and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

To my readers, who bring so much joy into my life.

The Widow’s Protector

Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Prologue

Ben Hansen hung up the phone, and he was furious. He’d been furious ever since Brandy had killed herself, and he knew who was responsible. Of course he knew who was responsible. Brandy hadn’t had a single problem until she’d married that dolt Ryder Kelstrom.

That was when the sickness started, and Ben didn’t need a map to tell him who had made Brandy so depressed. But damn it, he wished Ryder would just get his butt out here.

He’d looked for an opportunity to pay the guy back at the funeral in New York and hadn’t been able to get Ryder alone for even ten seconds. Even if he had, he’d have left too much evidence behind.

No, he reminded himself. He needed to get Ryder away from anyone who would even know he was there. Then he’d deal with him.

He’d pushed Ryder to come out to Fresno by himself, but instead of hopping a plane, the guy had decided to take the bus and hike. Weeks. Weeks! And Ben had already been waiting eight months for his opportunity.

At first he’d thought Ryder’s trip would make it easier. The guy was in the middle of nowhere, for God’s sake, where no one knew him. If something happened to him, they’d never trace it back here to Fresno.

But the trip was taking too long, and Ryder never said exactly where he was.

Drumming his fingers on the table, Ben counseled himself to patience. At some point he’d figure out where Ryder was planning to travel. At some point he’d pin the guy down.

And then he was going to leave Ryder to bleed to death just the way Brandy had.

Chapter 1

Ryder Kelstrom strolled along one of Wyoming’s dusty roads in no particular hurry. He’d chosen the slowest way possible of getting from the East Coast to the West because he had a lot of emotional baggage he wanted to deal with before he met his brother-in-law in Fresno. So here he was, hiking along some desolate county road in a place he’d never heard of, with only a map to guide him to the next town and the next bus station.

Fine by him. He was still sorting through a lot, trying to make sense out of the insanity. He felt events settling inside him, but understanding was still beyond reach. Maybe it always would be.

The sky was turning an ugly black-green, and the clouds hung low and heavy. Getting wet didn’t worry him, though. He’d managed to live most of his life outdoors, working construction and eventually owning his own building business. He wasn’t one to fear the elements except as a possible delay on a contractual deadline. Right now he didn’t have any deadlines at all.

Wind pushed at him suddenly, at first chilly enough that he buttoned up his denim jacket. After another half-mile, though, it suddenly turned warmer.

That was odd. He looked up again and could have sworn some of those inky clouds would have scraped treetops if there had been any trees in sight. These wide-open spaces had become familiar to him in his travels, but it still astonished him sometimes to realize he could look horizon to horizon and not see any sign of habitation. He was used to the denser population of the East, and the seemingly empty spaces he’d found since hitting the Midwest delighted him. It was almost possible to feel as if he were alone on the planet.

Certainly he felt utterly alone these days.

The wind buffeted him again, still warm, nearly knocking him off his feet. He staggered a bit then kept on walking. He was definitely going to get wet. A crackle of lightning in one of the clouds concerned him, though. He seemed to be the tallest thing around for miles.

He heard an engine roaring up from behind him, but he didn’t bother to stick out a thumb. It was okay to get wet, and he really wasn’t in a mood to converse with a stranger. And these days thumbing a ride didn’t get you very far very fast. Most people knew better than to pick up hitchhikers and, as he’d already learned from a cop, hitchhiking was now illegal in many places.

But the engine roared up beside him, and he glanced over to see a woman in a battered pickup pacing him. What the hell?

She turned her head and shouted out to him. “Get in. There’s a tornado coming and I have a shelter.”

He shook his head. “I’ll be fine, ma’am. I may get wet, but what’s the likelihood a tornado will find me? Slim, don’t you think?”

“You don’t understand,” she shouted as the wind picked up. “This tornado is a mile wide!”

That drew him up short. A mile wide? He’d never seen a tornado in his life outside of news programs, but even so he could appreciate the size of that danger. He’d have to be really foolish to stay out here.

He turned and she braked the truck to let him climb in. He pulled the heavy backpack off his shoulders, tossing it on the floorboard. When he slid into the passenger seat, he couldn’t help but notice that she was pretty, with blond ringlets around her face and nicely delineated features. The kind that would be photogenic for sure.

Nor could he escape noticing that she was pregnant. Very pregnant. No judge of such things, he could only guess that she was in her last trimester.

Before he could register more, she hammered the accelerator and dirt and gravel spun out behind them in the seconds before they gained traction. Then they were speeding down the rutted road, bouncing like balls inside the cab.

“It’s coming this way,” she said, her voice tight. “Straight at us. My place is only a couple of minutes from here.” A huge tumbleweed raced across the road in front of them, but she didn’t even slow down.

“Maybe it will blow out,” he suggested, trying to offer hope.

“Not likely when it’s this big.”

What did he know? Just what he’d picked up from casual viewing of the news and weather broadcasts. A mile wide? Instinctively he felt she was right: it wasn’t going to die very soon, not with that much power in it.

She rounded a bend in the road and he could have almost sworn two of the wheels lifted from the ground. As they swung around, he got a different view of the sky. Now those black clouds seemed to have reached the earth. Was that the tornado?

Drops of rain splattered the dusty windshield. She ignored it. Ahead he could finally see a small farmhouse sheltered by a circle of trees. A few hundred yards away stood an ancient-looking barn. The buildings seemed to be in a slight dip, which had concealed them from him earlier. She headed straight for the buildings as if she wanted to win the Indy 500.

At the last minute she veered, throwing him against the truck’s door. This woman was giving no ground to anything in her determination to reach safety. Her fear reached him and made him even more concerned about the weather’s threat.

She braked hard and switched off the ignition. “Come on!”

He jumped out, slamming the truck’s door, although he wasn’t sure it would do a damn bit of good as it seemed the sky had come to earth, inky green, and was racing toward them.

She ran. He worried that she might stumble but she didn’t. Then out of tall grasses he spied a metal door in the ground. She bent to open it, but he brushed her hand aside and did the heavy work himself.

It was a heavy steel door. “Get in,” he yelled at her as the wind began to howl and tried to pull the door from his grip. She hurried down some cement stairs, vanishing into the ground. Waiting only a second, he followed, battling to drag the door shut behind him.

The day outside had grown as dark as night, but still he glimpsed the bolts that would hold the door closed. There was a moment of struggle, then he banged it shut. Feeling around, he found the heavy bolts and drove them home.

Even with the door shut, he could hear the banshee’s wail of the wind outside. He waited.

Then a flashlight beam punctured the darkness, lighting the stairs.

“Come down,” she said, her voice shaking, “in case the door goes.”

He obeyed and found himself in a tight shelter. It might have held six or eight people at most, but it had a few comforts: a couple of benches, flashlights, a battery-operated radio. It was enough to survive the onslaught.

By the glow of the flashlight, he watched her twist her hands nervously as she listened to the wind howl. He tried to think of something reassuring to say, but he couldn’t imagine what. There was a tornado coming and they could do nothing but ride it out.

“My house,” she said, fear edging her voice.

“Worry about that if you have to,” he said as gently as he could. “We don’t know. It might miss you entirely.”

“I hope so.”

“What about your husband? He’s not home I gather.”

“He’s dead,” she said baldly.

He sure as hell didn’t know how to respond to that. A woman so far along in pregnancy, and she had no husband to help her? That was pretty bad all by itself, especially out here in what seemed to him, at least, to be the middle of nowhere. “Anybody else?”

“I haven’t lived here that long. I don’t really know anybody but my doctor.”

He was sure this line of conversation wasn’t making her feel any better. When she reached over and switched on the battery-operated radio, he was glad of it.

Static hissed loudly, and a mechanical voice advised there was a tornado warning for all of Conard County. It advised taking shelter immediately because there was a large funnel moving northeast from the state highway. Several other funnels had been spotted.

“That’s not good,” she said, her voice thin. He watched her gaze trail to the storm door that protected them, and just at that moment something banged it hard. They both jumped a little.

The mechanical warning kept repeating in the background, fading out completely to static from time to time. How long could this go on? Ryder wondered. Only a few minutes, surely. But how would they know whether the storm was still approaching and when it had passed? Maybe they’d get an all-clear.

She looked ghastly in the flashlight’s beam, and her face seemed to grow more pinched with every second.

“I guess I should introduce myself,” he said, hoping to distract her. “I’m Ryder Kelstrom.”

Her frightened gaze left the door and returned to him. “Marti Chastain.”

“When’s the baby coming?”

“About two months.”

“That’s soon.”

“It feels like forever sometimes.”

But he noted the protective way she folded her arms over her belly, cradling her unborn child.

“Boy or girl?” he asked.

“Girl. I’m going to call her Linda Marie.”

“That’s pretty.” Maybe talking about the baby was the ticket, he decided, not that he had a whole lot of experience with pregnant women. His own wife had never wanted to conceive, a good thing given how it had all turned out. It was hard enough to explain her suicide to himself without having to explain it to a child.

“Have you got everything ready?”

Before she could answer, however, something else slammed the steel door, nearly deafening them, and then a steady hammering began. Hail maybe. It was loud enough to drown out the radio, which might actually be a mercy.

“I’m from back East,” he remarked, raising his voice to be heard, trying more distraction. “I’m not used to this.”

“I’m not used to this, either,” she called back. “I’ve only been here a few months. I never expected this.”

“Nobody does,” he agreed. “I bet even the people who live in Tornado Alley don’t expect it’ll hit them.”

“Probably not.”

But she was looking at the door again, as if she feared it might give way under the assault. He kind of wondered himself, although he’d felt its heft and weight and judged it to be sturdy. But he had no idea how it might react to a truly powerful tornado. Photos of heaped debris didn’t tell him much about the tensile strength of a door like that, just a lot about the tensile strength of the wood used in construction.

“Do you work?” he asked as the elements beat on the door like an insane drummer.

“What?” Her face turned back to him. “Oh. No. I didn’t need to, at least not until after the baby—” She broke off sharply as the storm’s giant fist pounded the door again.

Who would have thought, Ryder wondered, that you might need ear protection in a storm shelter?

Then, so suddenly as to be startling, the world fell absolutely silent.

After a few seconds, she whispered in the silence. “It can’t be over yet. That was a big storm.”

He agreed. “The tornado might have passed, but the weather still has to be threatening. I guess we should wait for an all-clear from the radio.”

“I guess.” She wrapped her arms more tightly around her belly, protectively. “The house. It’s all I really have.”

“Do you have insurance?”

She shook her head. “We couldn’t afford it. My husband inherited it, and when he lost his job we moved out here. We figured we could make it on land leases until one of us found work.”

“Then you lost him. So no income at all?”

“Just from the leases. There’s a lot of land. We’ve leased it to grow hay, and some as grazing land. It’s not a lot, but it was enough for the basics.”

She glanced at the door again as the drumming resumed.

“Everything may be okay,” he said pointlessly. Although it was easy to tell someone not to worry about things they didn’t know, and they certainly didn’t know if anything had happened to her house, worry seemed to be a natural human state.

He hated sitting here like this, unable to do anything but wait, and if he hated it, so must she. She had a lot more at stake. But if he’d learned anything at all from his marriage to Brandy, it was that sometimes no amount of effort could solve a problem.

Of course, he still wasn’t sure which lessons to take from that. It didn’t seem to have improved his patience any. But Brandy had tested his patience for years. He’d learned to roll with the punches and deal with each day as it came. Maybe that was the maximum patience a man could learn.

The radio crackled and a voice came back, telling them the tornado warning had been lifted for Conard County.

Then Marti reached out to switch the dial, and a staticky news station came on. The sheriff reported that damage to Conard City appeared to be minimal, but they were still awaiting reports from outlying areas. Power and telephones were out, and some cell towers seemed to be down. The station pleaded for folks to check on their neighbors and find a way to report emergencies to the sheriff’s department.

Marti looked at the closed storm door again, and Ryder could read the anxiety in every line of her. She needed to look but was afraid to.

Finally, despite the drumbeat of what he assumed to be rain, Ryder realized that nothing heavy was battering them any longer, and the wind had stopped wailing. Time to check.

He climbed the stairs, unlocked the bolts and threw the door back.

“Oh my God,” he heard Marti say on a breath right behind him.

If it hadn’t passed right overhead, the tornado had certainly come close. He saw a cluster of debris around the shelter opening, and beyond it he could see her house.

Part of the roof was gone and some of the trees had come down, although not on the house, the only mercy he could see. The tree trunks looked like splintered matchwood, giving him some idea of the power of the storm that had just passed them.

He shoved debris aside, making a clear path for the woman behind him. He didn’t want her tripping on anything.

Then he climbed out and turned to offer her a hand. Steady rain fell, although not heavily, and the sky had lightened to a deep gray. The inky green was gone.

But so was part of her life.

Marti stood there staring at her house, the one thing she had counted on to get her through, taking in the corner of the roof that had been stripped of its covering, leaving rafters bare. The rain would get in, she thought numbly. It would ruin everything.

The downed trees didn’t shock her as much, though it troubled her to see them. They had provided protection in the winter from the wind and then shade as spring had deepened. Now they were just kindling.

Then, feeling as if every muscle in her body had turned to lead, she pivoted to look out over the fields that had been planted with hay.

“Oh my God,” she said again, clapping one hand to her mouth. The hay had been mown right down to the bare earth as if by a giant scythe, along a line so clearly marked she could have believed a surveyor had laid it. It told her how close that tornado had come, missing her buildings by a couple of hundred feet. And the slash was so wide.

“My God,” she said helplessly. There went her income. Nobody was going to be able to pay up on those leases if they lost their crop.

Her knees started to weaken, and she was grateful when Ryder gripped her elbow, steadying her.

“It’s gone,” she whispered hollowly. “It’s all gone.” What was she supposed to do now?

“Do you have any decent tarps?” Ryder asked her.

Slowly her gaze tracked to him. Any other time she would have thought him a fine-looking man, with his chiseled, slightly weathered face, his lean, hard build. Those gray eyes of his were filled with compassion, and the compassion almost made her weep. How long had it been since anyone had given a damn about her?

Not that it mattered. He was a stranger she had picked up along the roadside only because she couldn’t leave another human being out in this storm. He’d probably resume his trek in a matter of minutes.

“Tarps?” she repeated blankly.

“I need to cover that hole in your roof before the rain does too much damage.”

“You don’t have to….” She had trouble grasping that he was offering to help in some way. The idea didn’t want to penetrate the haze of total despair.

“I have to,” he said. “It’s the least I can do. Looks like you saved my life. Tarps?” he repeated.

“In the barn,” she said woodenly. “I think there are some there.”

“Okay.” His steadying grip on her elbow tightened a bit. “I want you to stay in the truck out of the rain. Come on.”

She was in no condition to argue. What would she argue about anyway? There was nothing she could do herself, not in her condition.

So she let him guide her back to the truck, let him help her climb back in.

“Just stay,” he said, his gray eyes stern. “I can at least keep the rain out if I can find enough tarps.”

“Thank you.” It was a paltry expression of gratitude, but she was having trouble feeling grateful about anything right now. The baby inside her kicked, and she laid her hand over the spot. The baby. Whatever she did about this, the baby had to be her first concern. Her only concern. If that meant moving on…

She couldn’t even consider it then. She stared at the house, stared at the hole in her roof, then watched Ryder trek to the barn through the rain. Why couldn’t it have been the barn roof?

Sometimes she just wanted to yell at the heavens. But right now she didn’t even have energy for that. The devastation she saw everywhere she looked…Well, right now she didn’t even feel grateful for having survived.

Then the baby kicked again, reminding her why she had to carry on. The baby, she murmured to herself, over and over. Whatever came next, she had to do it for Linda Marie.

The tears came then, silent large drops that rolled down her face like rain.

Ryder took a flashlight to the barn with him, well aware that what he was about to do was dangerous. It was still raining, and he could hear rumbles of thunder. There was some small hail on the ground, too, which could make planting a ladder dangerous, and there might be more. What did he know about storms like this? He was no meteorologist.

But he just couldn’t bring himself to walk away from this woman’s problem without at least protecting her house from more damage. Rain getting in would do far more to cause her problems than the tornado had.

So he started hunting the unfamiliar space. The flashlight at least picked up on an aluminum ladder quickly, one that looked of recent vintage and would get him up the twenty feet he needed to climb to the roof.

Hammer and nails were next, easily found in the tack room at the back. Some of the nails looked a bit rusty with age, but they weren’t bad. Enough to do a temporary job. The tarps gave him more trouble, although he couldn’t imagine a place like this, if it had ever been worked, would lack them. A lot of things you might want to leave outdoors needed to be protected from rain and the inevitable rust or mold.

It seemed to take forever, but at last he found a stack of them, musty and heavy. They weren’t the lighter-weight new ones, but as he checked them, he thought they would do. Canvas, and full of clay to judge by the weight. If they leaked anywhere, that’s what they made buckets for.

With some rope, he bound them together in stacks he felt he could carry on his back up a ladder. An old tool belt came in handy for carrying hammer and nails.

When he stepped back outside, the day had darkened again. The smell of the earth, freshly churned by the passing tornado, filled his nostrils. But at least it had stopped raining for the moment.

He set up the ladder against a part of the roof that hadn’t been damaged, settling it carefully in the wet ground, then began lugging up the stuff he would need. A streak of lightning rent the sky to the west, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

He needed his head examined. At any work site he had supervised, he’d have stopped all exterior work while something like this was going on. But in this case, he felt he had no choice. Who knew how much rain would fall and how much damage Marti’s house would suffer? It was easy to deal with broken wood compared to water damage.

And given the news report, he doubted anyone would come by here soon to help. Hell, probably a lot of her neighbors were trying to do exactly the same thing right now.

Damn tornado.

Up on the roof at last with everything he needed, he studied the problem, deciding how best to nail the tarps into place. At least the storm hadn’t removed the underlying roof trusses when it had torn away shingles, tar paper and plywood decking. The gable pieces were still firm and steady to his touch, and he was able to stand on joists some of the time as he worked his way across the opening.

Right then he’d have given just about anything for a nail gun or a heavy-duty staple gun. Instead he had to hammer each nail individually as he attached the tarps.

Rain swept across him from time to time, and occasionally the wind snatched at the tarps, but he lost himself in the comfort of working with his hands. He had always loved working this way, much more so than he had enjoyed running his own business.

Manual labor made him feel good, and before long he was feeling better than he had in months. That ought to tell him something, he thought bitterly. Hard work was good for the heart, body and soul.

Maybe that was what he needed more than anything. More than trying to sort things out in his head, things that didn’t sort at all because they knew no logic. Maybe he just needed to work, and work hard, until all the confusion settled and he found the missing pieces of himself that Brandy had taken with her.

He didn’t even realize that he had grown soaked to the skin. He didn’t notice when the wind took on a bit of a chill.

Hammering nails was good. If nothing else in life could at the moment, the feel of a hammer in his hands and the force he exerted with every downward swing satisfied him.

Sort of like a primal scream, he thought wryly, and reached for another nail. He was exorcising a whole lot of unhappiness and anger and confusion with every blow of that hammer.

Lightning jagged across the sky, followed so closely by a clap of thunder that it reminded him how foolhardy he was being. He wouldn’t have let any man who worked for him do this. But he felt he had no choice. The more rain, the higher the likelihood that Marti Chastain’s house would suffer severe damage. He couldn’t leave anyone like that, least of all a pregnant widow.

She was a pretty woman, he thought as he struggled against the wind to hammer down the last tarp. Pretty with her short blond curls, and pretty in her pregnancy. Funny, he’d never before noticed that a woman so far along could be sexy. But maybe that was because he hadn’t been looking. Every bit of him had been utterly focused on Brandy for a long time now.

Okay, so Marti Chastain was a sexy-looking woman, but he felt guilty for even noticing, given her pregnancy and the current state of her life. That woman sure had a whole heap of troubles.

At last he got the final tarp nailed into place, just in time for another wave of heavy rain to sweep through. Sitting on the roof nearby, he watched the water roll off the tarps with satisfaction. Now he’d just need to check inside the attic and see if there were any leaks.

When the rain lightened a bit, he tested the ladder. It still felt stable, so he climbed down cautiously. The rungs were wet but gripped his hiking boots well enough, and the ladder didn’t tip at all until he had only a few more steps to take.

When he reached the ground, he carried the ladder and tools back to the barn. There he found an old rag and wiped as best he could at the hammer and nails. The ladder could dry on its own.

The barn roof leaked in a couple of places, he noticed, and he almost sighed. At least the drips weren’t falling on anything important, but the idea of another leaking roof bothered the builder in him. Things like that needed fixing to protect a structure, and he had a feeling Marti couldn’t afford it.

Great.

As he exited the barn, he saw Marti had left the truck and was now standing on her front porch. He trotted over to her, taking in her dejected posture and the way her blue eyes seemed too large for her face.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“I was going to ask you that. Thank you for what you did.”

“It was nothing.” He stepped up on the porch beside her, out of the rain. “I’d like to check the attic, though. If there are any leaks, we need to put buckets or something under them to catch the water so your ceilings don’t collapse.”

She nodded, looking out over the destruction again before shaking herself. “Let me make you something to eat,” she said. “And you should stay the night. I’m not sure I can get you to town when the road is so soggy. Well, I probably could, but then the question would be whether I could get home. Ruts get deep fast when it’s this wet. Plus,” she added almost as an afterthought, as if the enormity hadn’t really hit her, “some of the roads could be blocked by debris.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

“You’re all wet,” she remarked. “You must be freezing. Do you have a change?”

“My backpack’s in the truck.”

“Well, go get it. I’ll start a meal.”

He jogged over to the truck, which she had brought closer to the house, and wondered what he was doing. Part of him, most of him, just wanted to resume his travels even in this inclement weather. He wouldn’t melt, and the solitude had been quieting his emotional pangs.

But he also realized that Marti was just being neighborly, trying to thank him for putting those tarps on her roof, and she’d probably feel bad if he just marched off into the quieting storm without accepting any mark of her gratitude, whether it was a meal and a bed or a ride to town.

He could identify with that, being pretty much built the same himself, but he looked down the road with a moment of longing as he retrieved his backpack.

Not now, he thought, slinging the heavy pack over his shoulder. At the very least, he needed to make sure her house was snug and safe. He wouldn’t rest easy unless he did.

He needed to check more than the roof. The wind had to have struck awfully hard to tear away that portion, and there might be hidden damage.

Then he started thinking about her leaking barn. Her advanced state of pregnancy. Her lack of friends or family in these parts.

Aw hell, he thought as he tromped back to the house. He couldn’t leave with a clear conscience. Not yet. Maybe not for a week or so.

Ben was just going to have to wait a little longer.

Chapter 2

Marti sent Ryder up to change in the guest room, telling him to feel free to use the hall shower, and anything that was in there, if he wanted. It wasn’t much of a room. The iron bedstead looked as if it had been there since the house had been built back around 1902, but the mattress had been replaced at some point and was in great condition. The bedding was fresh, too—since she’d had a burst of energy just a week ago and washed all the linens. A battered but large old chest of drawers completed the furnishings. Minimalist but adequate.

She pulled a thawed chicken out of the fridge. She had been planning to roast it tonight anyway and use the leftovers for meals during the week. Ryder looked like he might have a big appetite, but if the chicken disappeared at one sitting, it wasn’t as if she’d be left hungry. She had other things in her freezer to cook if she needed them.

But after the way he had climbed up on her roof, braving the elements, to protect her house from further damage, there was no way she was going to let him just leave without a decent meal and a night’s sleep.

She’d been scared watching him up there. Sometimes the lightning had seemed so close, and then those bands of rain had blown through with strong winds and she had seen him struggle with the tarps. Fear that he might get struck by lightning or take a fall had never been far from her mind.

What would she have done if he had gotten hurt? Her phone was out, and she couldn’t have moved him by herself, certainly not in her present condition.

His willingness to risk his neck to save her from additional damage was startling. She wasn’t used to men like that. Jeff, her late husband, probably would have shrugged, popped the top off another beer and told her he’d get to it when the storm passed. If he got to it at all.

Although, seriously, she didn’t see how he could have avoided it. This house and the land was all that had stood between them and starvation.

It wasn’t like they could sell it. Jeff had tried that when he first lost his job, but nobody was buying rundown farms in the middle of nowhere. At least not at a price Jeff considered fair, assuming he ever had an offer. He’d said not, but as she had learned, Jeff hadn’t always told the truth.

She sighed, rubbing the chicken with olive oil and seasonings after rinsing it. Good thing she had a propane stove, because the power seemed to be out, too. She had better get out a couple of oil lamps before the day got any darker.

They were in the pantry, and while she was in there getting them, she found a package of wild rice a friend had given her before they had moved out here, and she decided that now was as good a time as any to make it. Jeff hadn’t liked it, and she’d never felt right about making it just for herself.

So Ryder provided an excuse to go all-out on a meal for the first time in a long while. Cooking for one and eating all by herself rarely inspired her to get fancy.

A loud crack of thunder startled her and the baby kicked in response. “It’s all right,” she murmured, rubbing her belly gently. How she longed for the day she’d actually be able to hold her daughter in her arms.

She lit the two lamps, heard the shower running upstairs and smiled at how suddenly and unexpectedly this place felt homey. While the elements raged outside, she was cozy in her house, saved by a total stranger, and she was going to have company for dinner.

She decided that for tonight she wasn’t going to worry about how she would manage to fix her roof. Wasn’t going to worry about anything.

As she had learned all too well, life brought contentment only rarely.

The power was out, the shower had been lukewarm at best, but Ryder felt considerably refreshed as he headed back downstairs in a fresh flannel shirt and dry jeans. His walking boots were sodden, so he’d switched to a pair of joggers, which made his feet feel suddenly light.

He found Marti in the kitchen. The first sizzling of a roasting chicken filled the air with its aromas, and she was perking a pot of coffee on the stove top.

“Thanks for the shower,” he said. “I needed it.”

She turned from the stove. “Thanks for covering my roof. It needed it.” Then she smiled. The expression was unexpected, warm and genuine. In fact, it almost stole his breath. He felt a little icicle in his heart crack.

“Um …” He had to hunt for words as he drank in that smile. “I need to check your attic for leaks. How do I get there?”

“There’s a drop-down ladder in the hall at the end away from the guest room.” She paused to rummage in a drawer, then handed him a big flashlight. “You’ll need this. You probably noticed the electricity is out.”

“I did. I’m afraid I used whatever was left of your hot water.”

She shrugged. “That’s okay. As long as there’s lightning I wouldn’t get in the shower anyway. And without power, we’ll just be using cold water regardless.”

“True.” He took the flashlight and smiled. “Whatever you’re making sure smells good. I shouldn’t be gone long unless I find a problem.”

“Thank you so much for everything.”

“My pleasure. It’s not like I’ve done all that much.”

And he really didn’t feel as if he had, he thought as he climbed the stairs again. Putting up a few tarps had probably done him as much good as it had her.

The springs on the attic stairs squealed their thirst for some oiling as he dropped them and locked them into place. Well, that would be easy enough to fix, he thought. A can of oil and about thirty seconds. He’d take care of that, too.

The ladder was sturdy despite its age. He climbed up and then crawled out onto some plywood that had been laid over the rafters to protect the ceiling underneath. He crawled along until he ran out of plywood, seeing that nothing was wet, then reached the area were he had tarped the roof. Everything was damp, but he expected that. He didn’t see any fresh puddling, and a scan of the tarps overhead didn’t expose any water drips. He waited a few minutes, listening to the steady rain drum. It seemed to be okay, but he’d have to check again later. He’d be surprised if there wasn’t at least one leaky patch in tarps this old.

But as usual, now that he was looking around, he saw other things that needed doing. There were places where the roof decking looked as if it was starting to pull loose as wood dried and stopped holding the nails. Screws and some glue would be better.

Then he caught himself. Not his house, not his problem. So why the heck was he making a mental checklist?

Maybe because he knew somewhere deep inside he was going to try to help this lady out. He had the time. He had the know-how. He even had the money.

And the thought of leaving her in a tumbling down house in her state sorely troubled him.

When he rejoined her in the kitchen, the aromas were enough to make his stomach growl. Marti had a saucepan simmering on the stove now also, and she stood at the counter cutting fresh broccoli.

She turned, wiping her hands on a bib apron. “Coffee?”

“I’d love some. Just tell me where the cups are.”

She pointed to a cabinet and let him serve himself as she resumed slicing the broccoli. “I hope you like wild rice and broccoli.”

“I love both.”

She flashed him a smile then went back to work as he sat at the table with his coffee. “How was it up there?”

“Dry so far. Well, dry considering the rain that got in before I could put up the tarps. I’ll check again later for leaks.” He paused as another thought occurred to him. “I don’t know how things work out here. Do you get city water? Or are you on a well?”

“On a well. There’s a backup generator for the pump, but that’s about all it runs. As long as it holds we won’t be without water. Why?”

“Just curious. It struck me you might be on a well out here, but we still had running water.”

“My in-laws did something right,” she remarked, leaving him to wonder how much they had done wrong. “I’m glad it kicked on, though. I don’t know much about it at all. We only needed it once before, and Jeff took care of it.”

Jeff, he supposed, was her late husband. “I’ll check it out tonight, too. Make sure it’s not running out of gas.”

“Thank you. I honestly don’t know. We have some five-gallon gasoline cans in the pump house, but I don’t even know where to fill the generator. I’m just glad it kicked on the way it’s supposed to.”

A babe in the woods, he thought. Out here in the middle of nowhere, all by herself, and knowing next to nothing about this place. Maybe he could remedy a little of that before he left.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Just six months. It was winter when we got here. I’d just found out I was pregnant.”

“I’m sorry about your husband.”

“This is going to sound terrible,” she said, turning her back as she gave her attention to her cooking, “but I’m not.”

That left him utterly flat-footed. He hadn’t the least idea how to respond to that. He watched her stir a pot, seeking some appropriate response.

With her butcher knife, she swept the broccoli from the cutting board into another saucepan, added a little water, then started washing her tools. The silence would have seemed deafening except for the endless spattering of rain against the darkening windows.

Finally she joined him at the big old farm table with coffee of her own.

“I told you it would sound awful,” she remarked, holding her mug in both hands. “I’m sorry he died, but I’m not sorry he’s gone, if you get the difference.”

“I get it.” He did, but as his thoughts trailed back to Brandy, he realized that, although he didn’t miss the constant daily struggle with her depression, he still missed her. There was a difference, but he suspected the difference Marti was talking about wasn’t the same as his.

“I don’t miss him,” she said. “I thought I would, but I don’t.”

“What happened?”

“When?” Her short laugh held an edge. “He was an alcoholic. When he drank, especially when he drank, he was verbally abusive. Then he lost his job because of it and couldn’t get a good enough recommendation to find another. That’s when he decided we’d move out here. He’d inherited the house from his parents a couple of years ago, and he was sure we’d be fine. The land was leased every year and he figured we could live on those leases if we were careful. It also prevented him from having to find another job.”

“Which was difficult.”

“The times are hard. Being an alcoholic makes them harder.”

“I imagine it would.”

“So we came out here right about the time I realized I was pregnant. I hoped things would get better. I should have known they wouldn’t. Not having to sober up to get to work in the morning didn’t help. I thought maybe taking the pressure off him might make a difference, but it didn’t. If anything, he got worse. Then three months ago he was driving drunk on an icy road.” She shook her head. “I may be lonely, but somehow I don’t feel as lonely as I did when he was still around.”

Before he could react, she seemed to catch herself, giving a quick shake of her head. “Sorry, you didn’t need to know all that. I guess it’s too easy to talk to a stranger.”

“That’s okay.” He suspected she hadn’t talked to anyone about any of this in a long time, if ever. Sometimes you just needed to say things out loud, which was the whole reason he was headed west to see his brother-in-law. To tell Ben the whole story. To get it off his chest with someone else who was grieving. He gathered she didn’t have anyone close at all, so why not talk to a stranger? “You’ve had a rough time of it.”

“Others have it worse. I’ve still got a roof, thanks to you. The rest I can deal with.”

“Well, you don’t actually have a roof,” he reminded her. Then he asked, hesitantly, “Are you in any financial shape to have it repaired?”

“No,” she admitted. “I’ll figure out something some how. Right now, after looking at the hay fields, I’m wondering if the people we leased the land to will be able to pay up at the end of the season.”

Implied in what she said was that she might be completely broke in a few months.

“I can’t do anything about the fields,” he said slowly, as feelings warred within him. Part of him was demanding he at least put this woman on a safe footing before he left, and another part of him was demanding he get back on the road before he got tangled up in problems with a size he didn’t know. That could be a recipe for a mess for both of them.

But then he made the offer anyway. “I can fix your roof.”

“No! Oh no,” she said, looking horrified. “I couldn’t pay you. I can’t buy the materials. But thank you.”

He shook his head, wondering if he were losing his mind. Then he remembered how good he’d felt only a few hours ago on her roof, working with his hands again.

“Money isn’t an issue for me,” he said flatly. “I sold my construction business two months ago. I like working with my hands. In fact, right now I think I need to work with my hands. All I need is a few hot meals and a place to sleep, and I can take care of the roof and maybe a few other things.”

“I couldn’t ask that.” She looked genuinely distressed.

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. I’m telling you, Marti, it’s been a long time since I felt as good as I did pounding those nails today to put those tarps up. So humor me. Call it my therapy.”

“What do you need therapy for?”

“My wife killed herself eight months ago.” That was the first time he’d said it that bluntly, and he watched as Marti clapped a hand to her mouth, her blue eyes widening.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered behind her hand.

“Me, too. She suffered from chronic depression. All the docs, all the meds, all the psychiatrists …” He paused. “She finally seemed to be getting better. I came home from work and there she was.”

“I can’t imagine,” she said, her voice thin. She dropped her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“So am I. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life wondering how the hell I failed her. But that’s neither here nor there. I have to live with it. But fixing your roof would make me feel better about something. Is that too much to ask?”

She stared down at her coffee mug for a long time. He felt the endless minutes tick by.

Finally she looked up at him, her blue eyes damp. “Who’s asking whom?” she asked.

“Does it matter? We both have needs, and they seem to mesh. Your roof in exchange for a few days of labor that’ll make me feel better. Fair trade?”

At last she nodded. “Fair enough.”

Then he forced a smile. “Look out, lady. Construction is my business and my life. I’m going to take over.”

At that a fragile smile appeared on her lips. “Have at it,” she said. “But only as much as makes you feel good.”

Dinner felt like a feast after the way she’d been cooking for herself, although it was nothing really special: roast chicken, seasoned wild rice and buttered broccoli.

She insisted on doing the dishes by herself, even though leaning over the sink now made her back ache a little. Keeping active was getting harder and harder for her as her pregnancy progressed and she had so little she needed to do, living by herself. Yet she knew staying active was essential. She put two kettles on the stove to heat some water for washing and rinsing the dishes, then set to work.

Ryder took the flashlight and headed up to the attic again.

Night had closed in on them. Rain still rattled at the window over the sink, and sometimes she heard the house creak a bit as the wind gusted.

Ryder was going to stay to fix her roof. Amazed that a stranger would make such an offer, her thoughts kept coming back to him. He was a good-looking man, with dark hair and gray eyes and a body that boasted of hard work.

But that was not what impressed her the most. Picking him up to bring him to shelter from the tornado was a small thing, something she would have done for anyone. It cost her nothing but a few seconds of time.

But what he was offering astonished her. To pay for materials and do all that labor in exchange for a bed and some meals? That told her more about him than anything he could have said.

He saw someone in need and stepped up. Not everyone would do that. On the one hand she felt almost guilty for letting him, but on the other she had to admit she needed it, and she hadn’t even asked for it.

Wouldn’t have dreamed of asking for it.

She almost wanted to cry as she stood there doing dishes. His generosity made her acutely aware of how little generosity she had known since her marriage to Jeff. How little he had taken care of her or cared about her. It was as if Jeff’s failures had left an aching hole in her heart, one so big that the kindness of a stranger was almost painful.

She blinked back an unwanted tear, sighed, and kept on washing and scrubbing. Life was what it was. She certainly ought to know that by now. She had plenty of experience of it not being what she wanted, after all.

Except for the baby. Linda Marie was an unexpected blessing, one she looked forward to with the only joy she had felt in a long, long time. Jeff hadn’t been happy about it, but at least he hadn’t given her hell about being pregnant. Of course, that could have changed with time. She’d only just begun to start showing, really showing, about the time he died. For all she knew, he’d been in denial about the baby.

Wouldn’t that have been just like him? He’d been in denial about everything. Every single thing from his drinking to the reasons he could no longer find work.

Yes, she was sorry he was dead, but she didn’t really miss him at all.

It was an ugly thought, but it was a truth that had burrowed deep into her heart and mind over the past few months. These days she couldn’t even remember if there had ever been any good times with Jeff. Maybe at the beginning. There must have been some back then.

But she couldn’t remember them. They were layered over with five years of ugliness, and as far as she was concerned they could stay buried.

She had a different future now, a future that included a new daughter. She needed to keep her attention on that, not the past.

She was wiping the last plate with a towel when she thought of Ryder again. Imagine coming home to find your wife had killed herself. How could you live with that? His words about depression and doctors and medicines indicated that she’d had good care, but evidently it hadn’t been enough.

Drying her hands, she thought about that and intuited that at some very deep level, no matter what you had done to try to care for someone, if they committed suicide then you were bound to feel you had failed in some essential way.

No wonder he wanted to pound nails and work on her roof. With demons like that, what other outlet could there be?

She heard him come down the stairs, then he appeared in the kitchen door. She noticed again how attractive he was but pushed the thought away. Now was not the time, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever want to become involved with a man again anyway.

“One small, slow leak,” he said. “I’ll need the biggest pot or bucket you have to make sure it doesn’t do any ceiling damage overnight. Other than that, we should be good for now. I’ll check again at bedtime to be certain.”

She gave him the five-gallon bucket she used for mopping and watched him disappear once again.

The night yawned before her, and she wondered how they would spend the time. No TV, no power. They could talk, become a little better acquainted, but that prospect frightened her a bit.

Did she really want to know him better? What if she started to really like him?

Not that it would matter, she told herself. He’d be leaving as soon as he had fixed the roof. He had said so.

He wouldn’t want to spend any more time in this godforsaken place than he had to. She wasn’t sure she would if she had a choice.

But she didn’t have one. Not yet. There was nothing to do but endure.

At least she knew she could do that much.

Ryder went to get the portable radio from the storm shelter so they could try to find some news about the extent of damage around them and when they could expect the weather to clear. He had to detach the antenna that had allowed them to use it in the shelter, but he didn’t think he was going to have much trouble aboveground. If he did, he could always find a wire somewhere.

He checked the phone when he returned and found it still out. His cell phone continued to give him no connection. Oh, well, Ben hadn’t expected him for a week or two anyway. Tomorrow would be soon enough to give him a call. Ben was already irritated that Ryder was taking the slow route out there. Another few days couldn’t matter.

In the meantime, he realized he was grateful to be here. He couldn’t imagine that woman being alone and pregnant with no power, no phone, no idea whether roads were passable and nobody to help.

It definitely wasn’t right.

She had moved the oil lamps to the living room right off the small entry hall, and he joined her there with the radio. “Do you mind?”

“No. That’s a great idea. I was just sitting here wondering what was going on in the rest of the county.”

“Maybe we’ll find out if I can get a signal. Right now my cell phone thinks the world has vanished.”

Her lovely smile reappeared. “It’s never easy to get a cell signal out here. Closer to town they have more towers, but out here where ranches are so spread out, we don’t have many. I hear a lot of the ranchers and farmers who can afford them have satellite phones.”

But that would be beyond her means, he thought. That didn’t sit well with him, either. He supposed in the old days pioneer women had dealt with worse, but this wasn’t the old days, this woman didn’t much resemble a pioneer with loads of knowledge about how to do things, and a pregnant woman without a reliable telephone struck him as dangerous. But of course he couldn’t say so. He’d already inserted himself too much into her life. Maybe more than she wanted.

The radio crackled and the announcer’s voice emerged and then disappeared again into the static. Road crews were out trying to clear roads. At one point Marti looked at him.

“I won’t be able to get you to town until they clear Eighty-six.”

“I’m staying at least a few days anyway.”

Bursts of information got through. Line crews from surrounding areas were arriving to help restore power. Conard City had completely lost power. Damage reports remained sketchy as the sheriff’s department tried to visit outlying properties. Emergency aid had begun to arrive.

They received an incomplete picture of the situation, some speculation about how many tornadoes and how strong, but the information sufficed to tell Ryder that it was bad. Very bad.

With each bit of news, Marti sagged more. Drawn and pale, she appeared exhausted.

“You need to get to bed,” he said finally. “It’s been a stressful day. Let me just check the attic one more time, then you get some sleep. We can assess things better in the morning.”

She nodded wordlessly.

He climbed one more time into the attic, checking around, but found no more new leaks. The bucket had hardly filled, so he felt no need to empty it.

Back downstairs, he sent Marti up and watched her climb those stairs as if her feet weighed a ton.

Sympathy squeezed his heart. Unwanted, unwelcome, it happened anyway.

Unbidden, a thought floated across his mind: maybe he could help this woman out in a way he’d never been able to help Brandy. It probably wouldn’t ease his sense of guilt much, but it might put a bandage on his soul.

And he so desperately needed a bandage.

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