Where Texas society reigns supreme—

and appearances are everything.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Lourdes Quinterez had her share of trouble. Managing a run-down stud farm, juggling mountains of debt and raising twin four-year-olds left Lourdes little time for a love affair with a mystery man—even one with sinful brown eyes, a sexy crooked grin and a body to die for!

Juan Guapo awakened to a world of hurt and no memories. He didn’t even know his name—his real name. All he had were vague feelings about a past that made him feel uneasy. Now he owed everything to the sultry, blond-haired angel of mercy who made his heart beat in double time each time their eyes met.

Nina and Paige Quinterez had never known a father’s love, and yearned for a daddy to call their own. It didn’t take long for the sprites to decide that their mysterious houseguest would make an excellent addition to their family.

Dear Reader,

When it comes to passion, Silhouette Desire has exactly what you need. This month’s offerings include Cindy Gerard’s The Librarian’s Passionate Knight, the next installment of DYNASTIES: THE BARONES. A naive librarian gets swept off her feet by a dashing Barone sibling—who could ask for anything more? But more we do have, with another story about attractive and wealthy men, from Anne Marie Winston. Billionaire Bachelors: Gray is a deeply compelling story about a man who gets a second chance at life—and maybe the love of a lifetime.

Sheri WhiteFeather is back this month with the final story in our LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB trilogy. The Heart of a Stranger will leave you breathless when a man with a sordid past gets a chance for ultimate redemption. Launching a new series this month is Kathie DeNosky with Lonetree Ranchers: Brant. When a handsome rancher helps a damsel in distress, all his defenses come crashing down and the fun begins.

Silhouette Desire is pleased to welcome two brand-new authors. Nalini Singh’s Desert Warrior is an intense, emotional read with an alpha hero to die for. And Anna DePalo’s Having the Tycoon’s Baby, part of our ongoing series THE BABY BANK, is a sexy romp about one woman’s need for a child and the sexy man who grants her wish—but at a surprising price.

There’s plenty of passion rising up here in Silhouette Desire this month. So dive right in and enjoy.

Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor

Silhouette Desire

The Heart of a Stranger
Sheri Whitefeather

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SHERI WHITEFEATHER

lives in Southern California and enjoys ethnic dining, attending powwows and visiting art galleries and vintage clothing stores near the beach. Since her one true passion is writing, she is thrilled to be a part of the Silhouette Desire line. When she isn’t writing, she often reads until the wee hours of the morning.

Sheri’s husband, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, inspires many of her stories. They have a son, a daughter and a trio of cats—domestic and wild. She loves to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: P.O. Box 17146, Anaheim, California 92817. Visit her Web site at www.SheriWhiteFeather.com.

When Silhouette invited me to participate in this series, I was thrilled. Of course I had no idea an Italian mobster would be my hero. I was expecting, well…an American Indian. But being of Italian/American descent, I became quickly attached to my new hero. I’d never paid much attention to the long-since-dead mobsters barely mentioned in my family, but as I researched this project, I couldn’t help but ask my mom all sorts of questions about them. Simply put, this story blends fact, fiction and some creative liberties.

Special thanks to Joan Marlow Golan for offering me this book and assigning Mavis Allen as the editor. To Ann Major, a major star and dear lady, for encouraging me to write faster and strive for new goals. And finally—to Kathie DeNosky, a rising star and treasured friend, for burning the midnight oil. Getting our plot-obsessed minds together was a workaholic’s delight. I can’t wait to create heroes and villains with you again.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

One

Life was complicated. That much twenty-eight-year-old Lourdes Quinterez could attest to.

Her only ranch hand had returned to Mexico to attend to a family emergency today. By all indications he would not be coming back.

His understandable defection was the least of her worries, she supposed. Painted Spirit, the once-thriving horse farm she’d inherited from her grandfather, suffered from financial neglect. Back taxes had culminated into bank loans, and honoring those loans had drained the ranch’s resources dry, making other debts nearly impossible to pay.

As the dry Texas wind scorched her cheeks and whipped her unbound hair away from her face, Lourdes entered the barn and headed to the granary to take inventory, telling herself to keep her wits. Her family—a surrogate grandmother, a visiting teenager and her sweet four-year-old twins—depended on her to make ends meet.

If only those ends weren’t so frazzled. If only the farm hadn’t gotten so run-down. If only—

Suddenly a shadow, a dark intrusion behind a pallet of grain, snared her attention. Was it a predator?

She froze, hugging the clipboard she carried to her chest. Lourdes didn’t scare easily, but the distorted figure, or what she could see of him near the ground, appeared human.

She preferred the animal variety.

A man in her barn meant trouble. Was he a drifter? A drunk sleeping off a hangover? Someone prone to violence?

She glanced around for something to use as a weapon, and spotted an old, rusted hay hook stored with several dilapidated boxes of junk in the corner.

Thank goodness long days and exhausted nights had left her too busy to haul away the collected debris.

She inched forward and latched on to the hay hook, setting down her clipboard in the process.

The human shadow didn’t move. But she did. Slowly, cautiously, silently cursing the shuffle of her timeworn boots.

She peered around the view-obstructing pallet and caught her breath.

The intruder, a broad-shouldered man slumped against the wall, was in no condition to fend off an attack, not even by an adrenaline-pumped female wielding metal prongs.

He was already bruised and bleeding.

She moved closer. He’d been beaten, pummeled, she presumed, by hard-hitting fists. His rumpled clothes, a denim shirt and a pair of jeans, bore signs of a struggle. Had his face taken the brunt of the beating? Or had he sustained other injuries, as well?

She knelt at his side, and for a moment their gazes locked.

Then she realized he fought to stay conscious, battling for the strength to hang on.

Lourdes abandoned the hay hook and pressed her hand to his forehead. His skin was hot and damp.

Without thinking, she smoothed the front of his thick, dark hair away from his face, the way a mother would soothe a fevered child’s brow.

He squinted. One of his eyes nearly swelled shut. Streaks of dirt and dried blood camouflaged his face, smearing below his nose and across his cheeks, where he’d apparently wiped the mixture with a telltale sleeve.

How long had he been in the barn? All night? Or had he taken refuge early this morning?

She had to get him inside, into a safe, warm bed. Cáco would know what to do. Her surrogate grandmother was a healer, practiced in the art of ancient medicine.

Suddenly a sensible voice in her head cautioned: Don’t bring a stranger into your home. Don’t invite trouble. Pawn him off on an ambulance instead.

And offend Cáco? Some of the Indians in the area lived and breathed by the Comanche woman’s healings.

But she doubted this man was Indian. He looked—

What? Latino? Greek? Italian? A combination thereof?

Did it matter? Cáco would insist on taking him under her wing nonetheless.

Lourdes went to the granary door and called out to Amy, Cáco’s biological granddaughter, a city girl who stayed at the ranch during her school breaks.

Amy appeared almost instantly. After Lourdes led her to the stranger, the teenager practically swallowed the wad of gum in her mouth.

Although Amy was the descendant of a long line of medicine women, the girl blanched. “Who is he?” she asked, with wide-eyed horror.

“I don’t know. But we have to take him to Cáco.” Before he passes out, Lourdes thought.

Gauging the man’s bulk, Amy made a worried face. “Can he walk?”

“I hope so. At least as far as the truck.” Lourdes knelt beside the stranger again. He probably weighed two hundred pounds. Carrying him was out of the question.

“Can you walk?” she asked him, echoing Amy’s concern. When he didn’t respond, she added, “If we help?”

He blinked, then nodded, his gaze not quite focused.

Getting him on his feet proved the most difficult, but once he was up, Lourdes and Amy refused to let go. They kept their arms around his waist, encouraging him to lean on them for support. Sandwiched between them, he stood at least six-three, hulking like a bruised and battered giant.

Lourdes prayed he didn’t give up and fall to the ground, taking her and Amy with him. Already the teenager’s narrow shoulders sagged from his weight. Lourdes wasn’t faring much better. His unsteady steps put her off balance, making her weave like a tanked-up cowboy on a saloon-slumming night.

They helped him into the truck, and he landed on the bench seat and slumped against Lourdes as she climbed in beside him.

From this proximity, the stranger’s sweat-dampened skin mingled with the faint, metallic smell of blood, creating a dark and dangerous pheromone.

Everything about him seemed dark and dangerous—his olive skin, those midnight-colored eyes, the blackish-brown hair Lourdes had smoothed across his brow.

She gave Amy the keys to the pickup, and the fifteen-year-old accepted them eagerly, making use of her driver learner’s permit.

The young girl clutched the steering wheel, lead-footing the Ford across the terrain, popping her gum with each jarring bump. Lourdes didn’t ask her to slow down. A half-conscious man seemed like a good excuse to speed.

The desertlike air blasted through the open window, fanning Lourdes’s face with heat. She wondered if the feverish man could feel it, too.

Amy stopped at the house, killed the engine and tore off, racing through the back door for her grandmother.

“We should wait here,” Lourdes said to the stranger, knowing the anxious teenager hadn’t given them a choice.

She certainly couldn’t haul him up the scattered-stone walkway herself.

Cáco, a robust woman with a gray-streaked bun, finally appeared. Her cotton dress flurried around her, billowing in the breeze.

Lourdes had never been so happy to see Cáco.

“Amy is looking after your daughters,” the older lady said as she opened the truck, informing her that all of the youngsters, including the gum-smacking teenager, had been gently shooed away.

Lourdes nodded and stepped aside, giving Cáco access to the injured man.

First the Comanche woman gazed steadily into his eyes, and then she ran deft fingers through his hair, cupping the back of his head. As she found a tender spot, he flinched.

“Someone must have hit you with a blunt object. That’s why you’re so dizzy,” she told him. “Do you think you can stay on your feet until we get you inside?”

He nodded, and even though the effort cost him, he remained upright. But the moment, the very instant Lourdes and Cáco guided him to an empty bed, he pitched forward, losing the consciousness he’d been fighting all along.

The stranger wasn’t out for long. He came to with Cáco checking his vital signs. Testing his basic brain functions, she evaluated the size of his pupils and their reaction to light. He didn’t appear to pass the memory tests. He answered her questions with jumbled words.

“Watch him,” she told Lourdes. “Call me if he loses consciousness again. I’m going to boil a root mixture.”

“All right.” Lourdes kept a bedside vigil.

The stranger rolled over, moaned and grabbed a pillow. Too tall for the double bed, his booted feet draped over the edge.

His partially untucked shirt bore a torn sleeve and two missing buttons at the hem, Lourdes noticed, and his Wranglers were stained, as well. They rode a bit too low on his hips. Someone had nearly beaten the life out of him, and his clothes had gotten tugged and tattered in the scuffle.

Cáco finally came back and placed a basin of water and a stack of washcloths on a functional nightstand. The guest room was small and tidy, with paneled walls, braided area rugs and a gold-veined mirror, depicting the era in which Lourdes had been born.

She glanced at the bed and wondered how old the injured man was. Thirtysomething, she suspected.

“Help me undress him,” Cáco said, as the stranger closed his eyes.

Remove the bloodied shirt stretching across his ample chest and the jeans slung low on those lean hips? “Is that necessary?” Lourdes asked stupidly.

Cáco gave her an exasperated look. “Of course it is. I need to examine him for other injuries, and he should be bathed. Cleansed of the fever.”

She reached for his shirt, leaving Lourdes his boots and pants.

“Did he say anything to you?” the older woman asked.

“No.” She could do this, damn it. She knew how to work a cowboy boot off a person’s foot.

“He has a concussion.” Cáco released his shirt buttons. “We’ll have to keep a close eye on him. Even a mild head injury can cause the brain to malfunction. For days, sometimes weeks.” She opened his shirt, then made a stunned sound.

In the midst of peeling off his socks, Lourdes glanced up to see what had startled the old woman.

Instantly, she knew. The silver cross around his neck looked hauntingly familiar.

“Cáco?” She stared at her surrogate grandmother, but got no response.

Unable to stop herself, Lourdes moved closer. It couldn’t be, could it?

She reached for the necklace. It looked the same, identical to the one that had belonged to her father. The sentimental heirloom Lourdes’s now-deceased husband had pawned years before, with her other jewelry. More valuable pieces had been taken, but the silver cross had been an emotional loss.

She turned the shining object over. And found the inscription.

To keep you safe.

It was her cross. Her family history. Her heart.

Had this man purchased it from the pawnshop all those years ago? Lourdes had tried to recover the necklace after she’d discovered what her husband had done, but the sentimental heirloom had already been sold.

“Where did he get this?” she asked aloud. And why had he showed up at her ranch? Beaten and bruised?

He opened his eyes, and she flinched and dropped the necklace. It thumped against his chest. Against his heart.

Cáco didn’t say a word. She stood back as the man lifted his hand and stroked Lourdes’s cheek. The tips of his fingers grazed gently, making her warm and tingly.

A lover’s touch. A stranger’s unexpected caress.

A second later, his hand slid from her face and melted onto the bed, loose and fluid against a starched white sheet.

From there, he remained still. He seemed dazed, confused. Lost in the recesses of his mind.

I’m confused, too, Lourdes thought, glancing at the sterling silver cross once again.

Cáco stepped forward and unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt, working the garment from his arms, resuming her task.

Lourdes took heed, knowing she was expected to do the same. But it wasn’t easy, not with him watching her through those glazed eyes.

Feeling sensuously intrusive, she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans, mindful to leave his boxers in place as she pulled the pants down his legs.

Endless legs. Long, muscular and dusted with hair.

While Cáco ran her clinical hands along his body, looking for cracked ribs and swollen kneecaps, Lourdes rummaged through his jeans, hoping to find his wallet—his ID, his name, his date of birth, an address, pictures of his family.

She searched every pocket and uncovered absolutely nothing. No indication of who he was.

“He must have been robbed,” she concluded out loud, glancing at his scraped knuckles.

Had he fought back? Enraged his attackers by defending himself? Surely more than one man had accosted him.

How many had he battled? Two? Three?

“No bones are broken,” Cáco observed.

The man blinked and turned his head to the sound of the old woman’s voice. In turn, she dipped a washcloth into the basin of root-boiled water and cleaned his face with the now-tepid liquid, reassuring him that he would be all right.

Once the dirt and blood were wiped away, Lourdes couldn’t deny his appeal. Even with a swollen eye, a split lip and discoloration from the bruises, he was remarkably handsome.

Cáco handed her a fresh washcloth. “Finish bathing him, and I’ll tend to the rest of his medicine.”

After her surrogate grandmother left the room, Lourdes sat on the edge of the bed. He made a rough sound, a low masculine groan, as she sponged his neck and worked the damp washcloth over his chest, unintentionally arousing his nipples.

She inhaled a shaky breath and took care to bathe his stomach. It revealed a ripple of muscle, a line of hair below his navel and the horrible marks where he’d been pounded or kicked.

“I’m sorry someone hurt you,” she said, wondering if he knew how intimately he’d touched her cheek. If he’d meant for her to feel that tingly connection.

He didn’t respond. Instead the mysterious stranger closed his eyes and slept, leaving her with the echo of a rapidly beating heart.

And the image of her most prized possession blazing against dark, dangerous skin.

Hours later, after completing her chores on the ranch, Lourdes prepared the family meal.

Aside from modern appliances, the kitchen reflected vintage charm. She supposed the old place was a bit eclectic, with its unusual style. The house had been built in the ’40s and remodeled in the ’70s, and both decades melded together in a hodgepodge of warm woods, gold-and-green tiles and crystal doorknobs.

She seared pork chops and added grated cheese to a big pot of elbow macaroni, making her daughters’ favorite dish.

Cáco came in and drew her attention. The old woman placed an empty cup in the sink. Lourdes knew she’d fixed a coral root tea for her patient to drink, along with a comfrey poultice for his bruises. Cáco acquired herbs from suppliers all over the country, keeping whatever she needed on hand.

“How is he?” Lourdes asked.

“Confused,” the older woman answered. “But that’s to be expected. He mumbled some nonsense for a while, then went back to sleep.”

Lourdes leaned against the counter. “We should call the sheriff.”

“What for?”

“To report what happened to him.”

Cáco washed her hands and dried them on a paper towel. Her bun had come loose, and now her bound hair dangled softly on the back of her head. Silver discs danced in her ears, spinning two carefully engraved bear paws.

“We don’t know what happened to him,” she finally said.

Lourdes turned to stir the macaroni and cheese. “He was beaten.”

“Yes, he was.” The old woman began mixing a ranch dressing for the salad. “But he was meant to come here. To find you. To return the necklace.” She lifted her head, her dark eyes glittering. “And we’re meant to help him. To be here when he needs us.”

Lourdes wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. Cáco often knew things, sensed things that left other people with goose bumps. Of course that didn’t make her an all-wise, all-knowing Indian. Sometimes she twisted logic and made life seem more supernatural than it was.

Cáco’s superstitions ran deep. She refused to gaze in a mirror when the sky thundered, fearful lightning would look in and strike her. She’d tied crow feathers to the twins’ cribs when they were babies to protect them from evil influences. Cáco had insisted on either that or a taxidermy-stuffed bat to watch over the girls.

Lourdes had agreed to the feathers.

She looked up to find Cáco staring at her.

Okay. Fine. A stranger had appeared out of the blue, wearing a piece of Lourdes’s heart.

“I won’t call the sheriff,” she found herself saying. She wouldn’t let the authorities intervene. Not yet. Not while the man was still under Cáco’s care.

“Good.” The stubborn old woman’s lips twitched into a triumphant smile. She liked getting her way.

Lourdes added a little water to the pork chops, making them sizzle. Her skin had sizzled, too. Heated from his touch. “He’ll probably want to contact the police on his own.”

“Maybe.” Cáco blended the salad dressing with a whisk. “And maybe not. We shouldn’t push him. He needs to rest.”

Already the old woman had become possessive of the injured stranger, protecting him as if he were one of her own. But Lourdes had expected as much.

“Mama?” a small voice said.

Lourdes turned to see her daughters standing in the doorway. Her beautiful girls, with their long, tawny hair and root beer-brown eyes. They held hands, as they often did, clutching each other the way they must have done in the womb.

Nina, the chatterbox, and Paige, the observer. Sometimes they conversed in an odd guttural language, words only the two of them understood.

They probably wouldn’t have minded being watched over by a stuffed bat.

“Can we see the sick man?” Nina asked.

Lourdes wanted to gather her inquisitive little chicks and hug them close, shield them from what had been done to the stranger, but keeping them away from him would only make them more curious.

She glanced at Cáco for approval and received a silent nod in response. Then a word of caution.

“Try not to wake him.”

Nina’s eyes grew big and innocent. “We’ll be quiet.” She turned to her sister. “Won’t we?”

Paige bobbed her head, and as Lourdes led them to the guest room, both girls walked with an exaggerated tiptoe, proving how quiet they could be.

Their silence didn’t last.

They gasped when they saw him, sleeping amid his bruises.

“He has lots of ow-ees,” Nina said.

“Yes, he does.” Lourdes gazed at Cáco’s patient. He lay on his side, one long leg exposed, the other tangled within the sheet. He held a pillow next to his body, the way a man might hold a woman he intended to keep.

Gently, possessively.

Suddenly her skin grew warm, and she longed to touch him, to feel the impression the silver cross made against his chest.

What impression?

The necklace wasn’t a brand. And for now, it was hidden, trapped against the pillow in his arms.

“Did somebody hurt him, Mama?” Paige, the observer, asked.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

Paige and Nina moved forward. Lourdes tried to stop them, but the children slipped past.

The four-year-olds stood for a moment, just staring at the stranger, then they reached out and patted his hair, giving him the kind of comfort they liked to receive.

Lourdes’s eyes went misty. Her girls had never known a father. There were no important men in their lives, no one to offer masculine guidance.

Of course the louse who’d sired them wouldn’t have fit the bill. Gunther Jones had been a criminal and a convict, a drug addict and a thief.

And what kind of man are you? she wanted to ask the sleeping stranger.

Maybe he was married. Maybe he had a wife and children, a family who loved him, who wondered and worried why he hadn’t come home.

She glanced at his left hand, at the absence of a ring. Then again, maybe he was single. Or divorced. Or—

What? A criminal? A thief?

I should call the sheriff, she thought.

But she’d promised Cáco that she wouldn’t.

“Come on,” she said to the twins, drawing them away from the bed. “It’s time to eat.”

She prodded her daughters out the door, then stopped to look back at the man.

The handsome intruder was already weaving his way into her life.

Two

Something went bump in the night. Battling sleep, Lourdes glanced at the clock—2:46 a.m.

Another bump sent her reaching for her robe. The house might be old, with creaking floors and rattling windows, but she recognized human footsteps when she heard them.

Belting her robe, she crept to her door and peered out.

The shadowy figure coming down the hall stood tall and broad-shouldered.

Was he sleepwalking?

She blew out a breath and prepared to guide him back to bed. She’d read somewhere not to awaken a sleepwalker, not to alarm the person into consciousness.

Would it be all right to talk?

Probably not.

Silent, she headed toward him, stopped and took his arm. He wasn’t a shadowy figure anymore. He was solid and real, his muscles strong and hard beneath her fingers.

“Can’t find the bathroom.”

She started at the sound of his voice. “You’re awake?”

“Gotta pee.”

Oh, my. “Okay. But you’re going the wrong way.” Still holding his arm, she turned him around. He didn’t seem particularly steady on his feet, and she was too concerned to let go.

“It’s here. This door.” She put his hand on the wood, guiding him as if he were blind. Could he do this by himself? Lord, she hoped so. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Know how to use the bathroom,” he muttered. “Not a kid.”

No, he was a grown man, struggling to find the doorknob. “Maybe a bedpan would be better for now.” Not that they had one lying around, waiting for this opportunity to present itself. “Or a bucket,” she added, deciding Cáco had probably placed a basin of some sort near his bed. The older woman wouldn’t have left something like that to chance.

“No bedpan. No bucket.” He pushed the door open and fumbled for the light switch.

She turned it on for him, blasting them with a hundred-watt bulb.

He squinted, and she noticed the glazed look in his eyes. He had no idea where he was or who he was talking to. All he knew, apparently, was that his bladder was full.

He zigzagged into the bathroom, then closed the door with a resounding click.

Lourdes stood by nervously, not wanting to listen, but knowing she had to. In case he tripped and stumbled. Bashed his head against the sink.

She heard the telltale sound and breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, it wasn’t a very consistent sound, making her wonder if his aim was off. After a long pause, the toilet flushed. Then running water. Even in his confused state, he’d managed to wash his hands. Habit, she supposed.

He opened the door and stared at her.

She reached for his arm. “I’ll take you back to your room. But next time, I think you should use a bedpan.” Or one of those plastic bottles designed for his gender, she thought. The pharmacy probably stocked them.

“No bedpan,” he told her.

“Stubborn man,” she said.

“Stubborn woman,” he parroted.

Lourdes couldn’t help but smile. Never in a million years could she have imagined engaging in a conversation like this one, with a stranger no less.

His room was dark, so she turned on a night-light. He made a beeline for his bed, climbed in and pulled the sheet to his waist. He’d kicked away the rest of the covers, she noticed.

Was he still feverish?

She decided not to jam a thermometer under his tongue. Instead she pressed a hand to his forehead.

“You’re a little cooler, but still warm.” She reached for the pitcher on the nightstand and filled his glass, which already contained a straw. “Do you want some water?”

He shook his head. “Who are you?”

“Lourdes.”

“Like the place in France?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a dream?”

“No. I’m real.”

She picked up the water he’d refused, encouraging him to drink. He sipped from the straw and winced. Not from the taste, she suspected, but from the nasty cut on his lip.

“Will you lie down with me?”

Her heart jumped, pounding triple time. “I can’t. I have my own room.”

“Will you kiss me?”

Heaven help her. “Your lip is split.” Had he already forgotten the pain?

He made a face. “This is a crummy dream.”

She set his water down, realizing the glass was sweating in her hand.

“I have a headache,” he said suddenly. Tilting his head, he measured her with swollen, glassy eyes. “Sorry. That should have been your line.”

Lourdes nearly laughed. In spite of his concussion, he had a sense of humor.

“You should go back to sleep,” she told him.

“I’m already asleep. Can’t dream when you’re awake.”

Oh, but you could, she thought.

Of course, she never did. She was too busy to daydream, to create fantasies in her mind. Her life consisted of hard, strong doses of reality.

A horse farm she could barely keep afloat.

“Good night,” she said, rising to shut off the light.

“Lourdes?”

She turned, surprised to hear her name in his rough timbre. “Yes?”

“Are you sure you can’t lie down with me?”

She smiled. She shouldn’t have, but she did. He was quite the charmer.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, wondering how much of this he would remember in the morning. “I’ll bring you breakfast.” She glanced at the clock. “When it’s light out.”

Just to see if he recalled that the lady named Lourdes wasn’t a dream.

The aroma of fresh-perked coffee, frying eggs and bacon sizzling and snapping on the grill wafted through the air.

Lourdes followed the glorious scent and found Cáco in the kitchen, where she bustled around the stove in an oversize dress and a tidy bun.

“Good morning.” Cáco stopped bustling long enough to pour a cup of coffee and hand it to Lourdes.

“’Morning. Thank you.” Lourdes added a nondairy powdered creamer. She never used milk. She liked her coffee piping hot, and diluting it with another liquid defeated the purpose.

She’d dressed for a long day on the farm, donning jeans and boots and clipping her dark blond hair back with a huge barrette. Already she’d called a friend who’d offered to loan her a ranch hand until she could find someone permanent.

Lourdes was picky about who worked for her. With only women and children in her household, she wasn’t willing to take chances.

Yet she’d allowed an injured stranger into one of her beds.

Find the logic in that, she told herself, recalling every detail from last night, including her offer to bring him breakfast.

The logic? Hadn’t Cáco already convinced her they were meant to help him?

“Is your patient ready for solid food?” Lourdes asked.

The old woman lifted the lid on a small pot. “Oatmeal.”

Hot cereal made sense, she supposed. Easier on the stomach than bacon and fried eggs, but heavy enough to stick to his ribs.

“I dressed his wounds this morning,” Cáco said. “Argued with him to take his medicine, too.”

“Argued?”

“He doesn’t like the taste. Stubborn man.”

“Yes.” Lourdes’s entire body went warm.

Stubborn man. Stubborn woman. Will you lie down with me? Will you kiss me?

She finished her coffee and spooned oatmeal into a bowl. “Is it all right to bring him some juice?”

Cáco looked up. “You’re feeding him?”

Not literally, she hoped. “You’re busy. I don’t mind helping out.”

“Give him fruit instead.”

“Canned peaches?” Her daughters liked them in the morning. Maybe he would, too.

“That’s fine. Don’t dawdle. Your own breakfast is almost ready.”

With an indignant sniff, Lourdes prepared his tray. “I never dawdle.”

Cáco sniffed, too. “You haven’t been in the company of a handsome man in a long time.”

She wouldn’t let the old woman rile her. Not now. Not while her heart had picked up speed at the prospect of seeing him. “He’s handsome? I hadn’t noticed. It’s a little hard to tell through all those bruises.”

“You’re a bad liar.” Her surrogate grandmother almost smiled, then added a napkin to the tray. “And I suppose your breakfast will keep.”

Okay, so she’d been found out. But hey, she had the right to look, didn’t she?

Yes, but not too closely, she decided as she ventured down the hall with his breakfast. He could be married. Not all married men wore wedding bands. She’d do well to remember that. To keep reminding herself that she knew absolutely nothing about him.

Lourdes found him sitting up in bed, staring into space.

“Hi.” She moved closer. “I brought you some food.”

He shifted his gaze, looked at her. “Where am I?”

“You’re in Texas, on the outskirts of Mission Creek.” Not knowing what else to do, she placed the tray in front of him and sat on the edge of his bed. “At a horse farm. We’re taking care of you until you feel better.”

“I’m not a horse.”

She almost smiled. “No, of course not.” Adjusting the tray, she centered it over his lap. She wanted to comfort him. To ease his confusion. “Do you remember me? My name is Lourdes.”

He measured her, the way he’d done last night. “The girl from France. From my dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream, and I’m not from France. But my father was.” She caught sight of the silver cross. Her father’s necklace, the one he’d given her mother a month before he’d died. “Do you like oatmeal? Cáco added milk and sugar to it.”

“Cáco?”

“My surrogate grandmother. She helped raise me.” When Lourdes was a child, Cáco had been hired as a cook and housekeeper, but somewhere along the way, she’d become family.

“The gray-haired lady?”

“Yes. It’s okay to think of her as an old woman. She’s Comanche, and they recognize five age groups.” Or at least Cáco did. “Old men and women are one of the age groups.”

“She made me drink that awful tea. I don’t like tea.”

Now Lourdes did smile. “Coral root is a plant that grows around the roots of trees in dry, wooded areas. It’s rather scarce. Some people call it fever root because it’s an effective fever remedy.”

He reached for his spoon and tasted the oatmeal. Then alternated to the peaches and back again. She poured him a glass of fresh water. He put his cut-and-swollen mouth around the straw and sipped.

Will you kiss me?

Your lip is split.

“Cáco is helping me raise my daughters,” she said, filling the awkward silence.

“You have children?”

“Yes. Twins. They’re four. Very smart and very pretty.”

“You’re pretty,” he told her. “I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed about a girl from France before.”

“I’m not from France,” she reminded him again, flattered that he thought she was pretty and uncomfortable that he still considered her a dream.

It seemed romantic somehow. Like a transposed fairy tale, where the princess awakens the handsome stranger with a warm, sensual kiss.

“Why am I so confused?” He pushed the oatmeal away. “I don’t like being bumble-brained.”

“Cáco says it will pass. It’s part of the concussion. Your head injury,” she clarified.

He went after the peaches again, ignoring the oatmeal he’d discarded. He ate carefully, inserting the spoon in the side of his mouth that wasn’t swollen. “Your name is Lourdes, and you’re not from France.”

“That’s right. What’s your name?” she asked, wondering why she hadn’t inquired before now.

He gave her a panicked stare.

Dear God, she thought. Dear, sweet God. He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. “It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t.” He dropped his spoon, and it bounced against the tray, making a metallic hum. “I don’t know who the hell I am. Not my name. Where I live. Where I’m from.”

“It’ll come back to you.”

“When?”

A few days? A few weeks? She had no idea. “I’ll ask Cáco. She understands more about head injuries than I do.”

“Where’s my driver’s license?”

“We think it was stolen. With your wallet.”

“I don’t have a name. What kind of person doesn’t have a name?”

She reached for his hand to stop the quaking. She would be afraid if she’d lost her identity, too. “I’ll give you one.”

His chest rose and fell. He was a handsome stranger, she thought. A disoriented John Doe.

John?

No, that was too obvious. “Juan,” she said.

“Juan,” he repeated, accepting her choice. “Juan what? I need a last name. People have last names.”

A handsome stranger.

“Guapo,” Lourdes decided.

He merely blinked.

“Is that all right?” she asked.

Was it? he wondered. He knew what Guapo meant. Handsome in Spanish.

Had she chosen that name purposely? Did she like the way he looked?

How could she? He’d caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. He’d seen the swelling and the bruising, the gash across his mouth.

What was ugly in Spanish?

Feo.

Maybe she should have called him Juan Feo instead.

“Is the name I gave you all right?” she asked again.

A little embarrassed, he nodded. If the pretty woman in his dream thought he was handsome, what could he do?

He cocked his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. This wasn’t a dream. She kept telling him that. This was real.

But how was that possible? She seemed like an angel, with the honey-colored streaks in her hair and the gilded light in her chocolate-brown eyes.

Angels only existed in dreams.

A French angel who spoke Spanish. Surely, he was confused.

He didn’t stop to think of why he spoke Spanish, too. He just knew that he did. Or that he understood enough of the language to get by.

“I’m not very hungry anymore,” he said. His head hurt from all the confusion, and his eyelids had grown heavy.

She took the tray away and placed it on top of a simple oak dresser. “You look sleepy.”

“I am.” He wanted to ask her to lie down with him, but decided that wouldn’t be a very gentlemanly thing to do. Then he remembered that he’d already asked her, and she’d refused. Of course, she’d refused. They were strangers. And she had children with another man.

“Where’s your husband, Lourdes?”

She turned and fussed with the collar on her shirt. She was dressed like a cowgirl, with varying shades of denim hugging her curvaceous body. “I don’t have a husband. He died before I could divorce him.”

He thought that was an odd thing for her to say, but he was glad she wasn’t married. He didn’t want her cuddling up to someone else at night.

He had a right to covet his dream.

“I should let you sleep. Besides, I still have to eat. And get my daughters up. And go to work.”

“When will I see you again?” he asked, worried that she’d disappear, that he’d truly created her in his mind.

“Soon,” she said, reaching for the tray.

He closed his eyes for what seemed like a second, but when he opened them, the room was empty.

Juan Guapo’s angel was already gone.

Three days went by, but Lourdes hadn’t seen much of Juan. She’d deliberately kept her distance. He was Cáco’s patient, after all. And Lourdes was busy with the ranch. A busy bee, trying to keep her mind off a man who might be married.

She gazed at the horses in pasture. Her herd was small, but striking, a glorious sea of color, patches of chestnut, bay and black splashed against white. The paint horse was an eye-catching champion, praised in cultures all over the world.

Their image appeared in cave drawings in south-central Europe and on tombs in ancient Egypt.

Lourdes revered them with all her heart.

The way she revered the silver cross Juan wore.

Damn it. She ran her hands through her breeze-ravaged hair. Why did her thoughts always turn to him?

Because she was a foolish woman behaving like a schoolgirl.

She checked her watch and realized she was stalling, dragging her feet to go home for lunch.

Cursing her growling stomach, she gave up the fight. Her temporary ranch hand had headed into town to meet his wife at the diner.

And Juan—

Would disappear from her life soon enough, she acknowledged as she drove to her destination with the windows down and the radio turned up.

Two songs later, Lourdes entered the house and headed for the kitchen. After opening the refrigerator, she removed the covered containers Cáco had left for her. Beneath the lids, she found a ham and cheese sandwich, a pasta salad and an assortment of diced fruit.

Where was Cáco? Lourdes glanced at the microwave clock. Ironing clothes in the laundry room, most likely. Finishing her chores so she could watch the two o’clock soap opera that entertained her for an hour each day.

Lourdes made up a plate and went to the dining room, then stopped when she saw Juan sitting at the table with Amy, Nina and Paige.

The twins occupied the chairs on either side of Juan, and Amy had taken up residence across from them.

The teenager drew on a sophisticated sketchpad while the other three made haphazard art with crayons and coloring books.

He was coloring with her daughters.

Dressed in the jeans Cáco must have laundered for him, with no shirt and no shoes, he looked like a tenderhearted renegade. He’d shaved, showered and combed his damp hair away from his face. Lourdes knew Cáco had purchased a few simple toiletries for him at the market, adding an extra toothbrush, disposables razors and deodorant to the grocery list. He’d probably washed his hair with the no-more-tears baby shampoo already in the bathroom. But she supposed that was safer on his bruise-ringed eyes.

Nina wiggled in her chair, turned and saw Lourdes. “Hi, Mama.”

“Hi, baby.”

“We’re coloring.”

“So I see.”

Paige wiggled a little, too. Then grinned at Lourdes.

Her girls looked happy. Thrilled to have a big, brawny man beside them.

Amy spared a friendly glance, and Juan worked his lips into a lopsided smile. The cut had begun to heal, the swelling barely noticeable.

Will you kiss me?

Because Lourdes stood in the middle of the room with a plate of food, she moved forward and took a chair.

“Look, Mama.” Nina pushed a coloring book toward her. “Juan made the lady’s hair green.”

He defended himself with his crooked smile. “You told me to,” he said to the child. “And you, you little rascal.” He turned to the other twin. “You told me to color her hands purple and her feet pink.”

Paige didn’t deny his claim. Instead she looked up at him with big doe eyes.

Her quiet daughter had already developed a crush on him, Lourdes realized. Paige, the observer, was smitten.

That made two of them. Only Paige’s crush didn’t seem nearly as consuming as the one Lourdes battled. But how could it? Paige was only four years old, with an attention span that flitted like a butterfly.

“That’s quite a picture,” Lourdes told the three amigos who’d created it. “A true masterpiece. A collaboration worth framing.”

“We think so.” Juan took the coloring book back. And for a moment their eyes met and held.

“I’m surprised to see you up and about,” she said to him.

“Staying in bed all the time was making me stir-crazy. Besides, I’m feeling better. I’m not seeing double anymore.” He shifted to look at each twin. “Then again…”

The girls giggled, and Lourdes admired his easy manner with her kids.

Maybe he had a few little ones of his own.

And a loyal wife who missed him terribly.

Defending herself, she took a bite of her sandwich. So she was attracted to him? So what? Even if he were single, she wouldn’t get involved with him. Lourdes didn’t do affairs.

She wouldn’t be doing Juan.

Amy, who’d been silent up until now, closed her sketchbook and rose. “I’m going to get some pudding and watch TV.”

“Can we get pudding and watch TV?” Nina chirped. She always spoke for her sister, making plans for both of them. Today they wore matching T-shirts and identical ponytails. They insisted on being groomed with the same clothes, the same shoes, the same accessories. If Nina sported a red hair ribbon, Paige did, too. If Paige picked a lavender dress from the mall, Nina decided lavender was her new favorite color, as well.

Lourdes granted them permission to follow Amy, and the trio scattered, leaving her and Juan alone.

Silence drifted between them.

Awkward silence.

Lourdes tasted the pasta salad, then wished she hadn’t. Suddenly she felt self-conscious chewing in front of him.

He began gathering crayons and dumping them into the plastic container in which the twins kept them.

She glanced at the cross around his neck. As usual, it dangled near his heart, shining like a memory.

Should she say something? Tell him it had once belonged to her?

No, she couldn’t. Not now. Not this soon. She wasn’t ready to spill her emotions. Or to explain that Cáco thought his arrival at the ranch was fate.

“Have you had lunch?” she asked instead.

“Cáco made soup and sandwiches. I ate with her and the girls.” He studied a broken crayon, a waxy, worn-down shade of blue. “I’m sorry if I said some strange things.”

She tried for a casual air. “Strange things?”

“When my brain was bumbled.”

“You didn’t.” But he did, she thought. He’d said plenty of strange things. Sexy, she-was-his-dream things. “I mean, it’s okay. You were confused.” But he seemed focused today, completely aware of his surroundings. He still appeared tired, though, as if he needed a nap.

“Are you ready to talk to the police?” she asked.

He shuffled the broken pieces of the blue crayon. “To question them about missing persons in the area? No, I’m not. I’d prefer to regain my memory first. Cáco is convinced my amnesia is only temporary.”

“Juan, someone is probably worried about you, wondering where you are. Surely you have family somewhere.” Dare she say it? “A wife. Children.”

“I’m not married,” he responded quickly.

Too quickly? she wondered.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I can feel things about myself. And I know I’m not married. There’s no one special in my life. Nor do I have children.”

He made a troubled face, and she suspected some of the things he “felt” about himself made him uncomfortable.

“Cáco says I need some time to adjust.”

She picked at her sandwich. Was he avoiding his real identity on purpose? Hiding from mysterious shadows? From dimly lit corners? Or was he simply trying to make peace with his empty mind?

Now wasn’t the time to ask.

She would let him adjust, and then she would question him.

Because Lourdes Quinterez had the right to know what kind of man Juan Guapo truly was.

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