Heart and Soul

“Go on home,” Sheriff Cameron Durango had told her at the scene.

Go home? She hadn’t caused the accident, but she felt responsible. She couldn’t explain why. She just was. From the moment she saw his big male form sprawled out on the road, the rise and fall of his chest, the ripple of the wind stirring the flaps of his jacket, she’d been involved.

When she’d lifted his visor and saw the hard cut of his high cheekbones, the straight blade of his nose and the tight line of his strong mouth, he looked strong and vulnerable at the same moment.

She’d seen him crash. She’d seen him bleed. She couldn’t just walk away as if it hadn’t happened. As if she didn’t care. As if she didn’t have a heart. She couldn’t have left a wounded bird in the road, let alone a wounded man. Even if she’d been waiting for hours and hours.

Where was he? What was taking so long? Okay, the waiting room was crammed with people coughing and sneezing and one man was holding a cloth to his cut hand—the nurse came out and took him away quickly. They were busy, she got that, but what about Brody? Was he so hurt that he was in surgery or something scary like that? Maybe she ought to go up to the desk and ask.

She grabbed her purse and tucked her cell safely inside. With great relish, she abandoned the hard black plastic chair that was making her back ache. She wove around sick people and some cowboy’s big-booted feet that were sticking way out into the aisle.

The line behind the check-in window was long. She fell into place. But when she looked up, she nearly fell off her wedge-sandals at the sight of Brody limping down the wide hallway toward her.

Alive. Walking on his own steam. He looked bruised but strong, and her spirit lifted at the sight. Relief left her trembling and weak, and wasn’t that really weird because he was like a total stranger?

He was holding his helmet in his left hand and a slip of paper in the right. The white slash of a bandage over his left brow was a shocking contrast to his brown hair and sun-golden skin.

His eyes were dark, shadowed with pain and his mouth a tight unhappy line as he strolled up to her. “I remember you.”

He could have said that with more enthusiasm. Like with a low dip to his voice, the way a movie star did when he was zeroing in on his ladylove for the first time. He’d say, with perfect warmth in the words, “I remember you,” and the heroine would flutter and fall instantly in love.

Yeah, that would be better than the way Brody said it, as if she were a bad luck charm he wanted to avoid. “They’re letting you walk out of here, so that must mean you’re all right.”

“My ankle’s wrapped. I’ve got a few stitches and I’m as good as new.”

“I’m glad. I mean, like, you really crashed hard. I couldn’t go home until I knew for sure that you were all right.”

So, that’s what she was doing here.

Brody stuffed the pain prescription in his pocket and mulled that little piece of information over. According to his research, Michelle McKaslin was the spoiled favorite of the family, the youngest of six girls. The oldest had been killed in a plane crash years ago. She was working two jobs, one at the local hair salon and the other at her sister’s coffee shop, and still living at home. The Intel he had on her was that she loved to shop, talk on the phone with her friends and ride her horse.

“You came here to see a doc, too,” he said, not believing her. Nobody sat in a waiting room for hours without a good reason. Unless she suspected who he was. What had he muttered before he’d come to? Had he given himself away? “I saw your truck skid to a stop. Hit your head on the windshield, didn’t you?”

Her big blue eyes grew wider. “Oh, no, I was wearing my seat belt. It just looked so scary with the way they put the neck collar on you and took you off in the ambulance. I can’t help feeling responsible, you know, since I was there. I’m really glad you’re not seriously hurt. I started praying the minute I saw the deer leap onto the road.”

There wasn’t a flicker of dishonesty in her face. Only honest concern shone in her eyes, and her body language reinforced it. None of the paperwork he had on her had indicated she’d be sincere. That surprised him. He didn’t run into nice people in his line of work.

Unless the niceness was only a mask, hiding something much worse inside.

“Let me get this straight. You drove all the way back to the city to sit in a waiting room for two hours just so you knew I was all right?”

“Yep. This is Montana. We don’t abandon injured strangers on the road.”

She seemed proud of that, and he had no choice but to take what she said as the truth. He relaxed, but only a fraction.

“Wait one minute!” the clerk behind the desk shouted at him, forcing him to abandon Michelle and approach the window where intimidating paperwork was pushed at him. “Your insurance isn’t valid.”

“Not valid?” It figured. None of his ID matched his new name. His cover was supposed to be Brad Donaldson, and that’s what his Virginia driver’s license said, his new insurance card, everything.

“We can make arrangements if you can’t pay the entire bill right now.” The woman with the big, black rim glasses and the KGB frown could have had a job at the Bureau intimidating difficult people.

Brody glanced at the total. Blinked. His heart rate skyrocketed. “Are you sure you billed me right? I didn’t have a liver transplant.”

The woman behind the window turned as cold as a glacier. “Our prices are so high because of people who do not pay their hospital bills.”

Great. Why did that make him feel like dirt? He paid his bills. Not that he had eight hundred dollars in his wallet to spare.

The woman, whose badge identified her as Mo, lifted one questioning brow. She glanced at his biker’s scarred bomber jacket, the right shoulder seam torn, and the unshaven jaw as if drawing her own conclusions.

Michelle stepped discreetly away from the scene to give Brody his privacy. She probably should go home now that she knew he was all right and could go on his way. She’d tell him where his bike was, and hand over his bike’s saddle pack. Yep, that would be the sensible thing to do.

“Are you able to pay the bill in full?” Mo demanded.

“Yes, but I need an ATM machine.”

“Do we look like a bank?”

The big man sighed in exasperation as he rubbed his brow. His head had to be hurting him.

Just walk away, Michelle. That’s what her mom would say. Sure, he looks nice and he’s handsome, but he’s still a stranger.

A stranger stranded in a city without his own transportation, she remembered. The sheriff had called the local towing company to have the bike hauled away.

What should she do? Maybe the angels could give her a sign, let her know if this man was as safe as she thought he was. He didn’t fit the stereotype of a biker, if there was one. He was youngish, probably in his late twenties. He wore a plain black T-shirt and a pair of Levi’s jeans. But it was his boots that made her wonder.

They were special order, handmade and cost more than she made in three months. Not just anyone could afford those boots to ride a motorcycle. Just who was this handsome stranger? Maybe he was a software designer on a vacation. Or a vice president of a financial company getting away from the city on an always-longed-for road trip.

There she was, off on her romantic daydreams again. The question was, did she help him or not?

As Brody leaned forward to thumb through the contents of his wallet, a gold chain eased out from beneath the collar of his T-shirt. A masculine gold cross, small but distinctive, dangled at the curve of the chain.

He was a man of faith. It was all the sign she needed. Michelle stepped forward, intending to help.

“Are you going to pay or not?” Mo demanded.

“I’ll give you what’s in my wallet, how’s that?” One-hundred-dollar bill after another landed on the counter.

He had that much cash? Michelle’s jaw dropped. Didn’t he have credit cards? It was a travesty. “I’ll take you to the bank, if you need a ride.”

Brody shoved the pile of bills at the somewhat mollified Mo and pivoted on the heels of his boots. His dark eyes surveyed her from head to her painted toenails. “You’d help me out, just like that?”

“Sure. I don’t think you’re dangerous and you are in need. I don’t think you should walk very far being hurt like that.” She reached into her purse and started rummaging around. Where had her phone gone to? She pushed aside her sunglasses and kept digging. “Oh, here it is. Is there someone you should call? To let them know you’re okay?”

He stared at the cell phone she offered him. “No, thanks. I’ve got my own phone. Besides, there’s no one waiting for me.”

“Someone has to be concerned about you. A mother? A wife?” Since he wasn’t wearing a gold band, it didn’t hurt to ask. “A girlfriend?”

He blushed a little and stared at the ground. “No, there’s no girlfriend.”