No Ordinary Home

She’d been taking too many chances.

He turned the subject back to what he really wanted to know. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Those date squares.”

“Jesus, are you shitting me?”

Her mouth tightened. Pride. He understood pride. “I’m serious.”

No wonder she’d stolen his wallet. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and cradle her to a safer place.

Whoa, buddy. She’s nothing and no one to you.

She touched a spot deep inside him that he’d thought long buried, the kid who’d gone without too many times. The kid whispered, Help her.

His adult self shouted, Don’t.

He fought the urge to tuck her under a protective wing.

Don’t do it, buddy.

He’d been taking care of someone else all his life. Now, when he’d wrangled and scratched and clawed his way out of Ordinary, Montana, for his first vacation ever, when his only problems should be deciding what fishing rod and bait to use tomorrow, or whether to buy the cattle he was checking out when they got to Texas, he was actually contemplating getting entangled in this woman’s issues.

You got a screw loose or something, buddy? Leave her be. Did you hear me? Leave her be. She can be someone else’s problem. You don’t need this.

Damn right I don’t. I’ve got two weeks of footloose and fancy-free to take advantage of.

Even as his thoughts whirled, he knew he wouldn’t turn his back on her, and wasn’t it a piss-off that he was so honorable? That he couldn’t keep himself from helping any wounded or sad creature who crossed his path? Life would be a heck of a lot easier if he could just walk away.

He sighed, giving in to the inevitable rush of misguided decency. Damn.

“Come on.” He headed back around to the front of the diner. When he didn’t hear her behind him, he tromped back.

“You coming?”

She stood where he’d left her, rigid, her intelligent brow furrowed.

“Are you arresting me?”

“No.”

She relaxed her spine and eased her fists open. “Then why do I have to follow you?”

“I’m going to feed you.”

A frown knit those raven’s-wings eyebrows together. If she’d been on the road for any length of time, he figured her distrust of strangers was hard-earned.

“I can’t let you walk away hungry,” he admitted.

“Why not?”

Might as well tell her the truth. She’d figure it out soon enough. “Because I’m a hopeless sap.”

She still didn’t seem to believe him.

“Look, I know you probably see the worst of people on the road, but you can trust me. I come from a small town, where we treat others kindly.”

For some reason, that won her over. Her frown cleared.

“Are you coming to eat, or what?”

She might have had a pack of hounds on her tail, she shot forward so quickly, ready to follow wherever he might lead if it meant a meal.

Yeah. He could read her like a book. He knew how hunger felt when you’d gone past the point of a grumbling stomach to sheer hollowness, to the ceaseless physical ache. To dreaming about food, thinking about it endlessly, obsessing about it, until it shut all else out of your mind.

He didn’t need the reminders of a hard past, should leave her here and be on his way, but God, she was thin. Holding her had been like wrapping his arms around a sapling.

He stepped away from her abruptly because the last thing he wanted was more memories coming back to haunt him. They got worse before they got better.

She stumbled and he caught her arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I wrenched my ankle when I jumped out of the tree.”

“How far did you jump?”

She shrugged, lips tight. Fine. She could keep her secrets.

For a tough woman, she needs a keeper.

Damned if that’s going to be me. I’m sick of that role. I’ll feed her and get rid of her. No “taking care” of her beyond one hot meal.

Even so, he led her around front to do exactly that—take care of her.

* * *

FOOD.

Food had dominated Gracie Travers’s every waking moment for days, weeks, every minute, every painful second.

Hunger was a vicious, angry rat gnawing at her stomach walls. Relentless. Overwhelming. Unwilling to give her a moment’s peace.

She’d been through rough patches before, but nothing like this. No one would hire her to do even the most mundane, unskilled work. She wasn’t asking for a paycheck. Just for food. Nothing else. Just a meal.

Food.

She didn’t want a handout. She could work. Would work. In her former life, she’d been known as a hard worker. She still knew how to be one. She just couldn’t get a real job.

She couldn’t work full-time. She had her reasons. She certainly wouldn’t share them with a cop.