Buch lesen: «No Ordinary Home»

Thank you to all of the staff at Harlequin, who are unfailingly polite and lovely.

Thank you to every copy editor, line editor and proofreader who fixes my mistakes for me.

Thank you to every member of the art department for giving me stellar covers time and time again.

Thank you to Megan Long for helping me to make this the best book it could be!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EXTRACT

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

AUSTIN TRUMBALL STOOD under the sickly green fluorescent lighting of a Wyoming truck-stop diner waiting for a table, with the devil eating a hole through his belly. He shouldn’t have waited so long to stop for lunch.

The smell of charbroiled burgers and greasy fries seeped into his hair and clothes. Short-order cooks called for servers to pick up orders. Waitresses yelled back, “Hold your horses,” or “Coming!” Not-so-nimble fingers slid into Austin’s back pocket and lifted his wallet.

The brazen act carried out so clumsily startled a laugh out of him.

Not only did the pathetic amateur lack skills, he had no idea he’d just robbed a cop.

Austin walked like one, talked like one, scoped out his surroundings like one, but the thief had failed to scope him out. Big mistake.

Leaning forward, he murmured to his buddy Finn, “Be right back,” and spun around just as a boy ran out the front door. Austin followed without calling. The biggest mistake people made was screaming they’d been robbed or yelling to the thief to stop. What sense was there in warning a criminal you were coming after him?

Outside, a flash of dark clothing rounded the far corner of the building.

Light-footed, Austin followed around to the back.

The boy stood beside a Dumpster that reeked of garbage left sitting too long in the sun. He stuffed Austin’s credit cards into his pockets and tossed the wallet into the bin. It hit the side and bounced onto the asphalt. Good thing, or Austin would be tossing the boy into the trash to fish it out.

The kid wasn’t even smart enough to watch his back, but actually stood and counted the money instead of hightailing it out of there. No shortage of stupid here.

Using the stealth he’d learned on the job, Austin snuck up right behind the boy just as he breathed, “Two hundred dollars,” as though he’d won the lottery. The boy was young; his voice hadn’t even dropped yet. Austin shook his head, disgusted with today’s youth. Or with their parents. What would drive someone so young out of his home, onto the road and into a life of crime?

The boy’s skinny neck peeked out from beneath a dusty baseball cap, narrow enough that Austin would have sworn he could circle it with his hands. The thought made him realize just how vulnerable this kid actually was.

Didn’t matter. The boy had robbed him. He was going to jail.

Austin grabbed the back of the kid’s hoodie. The thief let out a high-pitched yelp. “Who—?”

“That’s my hard-earned cash you’re counting.” Austin shook the boy.

“Crap on a broomstick.” Kid couldn’t even swear properly yet. Truly pathetic.

Austin spun him around then dropped his hand from the shirt. His jaw dropped, too. This was no green kid, definitely not a thirteen-or fourteen-year-old boy, but a twenty-something woman.

A woman?

After that observation came another one more interesting, considering she was such a poor thief. This woman had been around; she was pretty, but in a hard-knocks seen-too-much kind of way, skin baked by the sun, jaw defiant. Certainly no pushover.

The bill of her baseball cap shaded her eyes. A person’s eyes, Austin had learned, said everything about them. He needed to see hers. He knocked the hat from her head. Startled pale blue eyes shadowed with darkness dominated a hungry face.

“Hey,” she yelled and caught the cap before it hit the ground.

He had time only for impressions—high cheekbones, full lips, roughly shorn black hair to match coal-black eyebrows arched like birds’ wings ready to take flight—before she came to life, exploding like a Thoroughbred out of the gate.

She was fast. He was faster, and snagged her sleeve before she got far. The fabric tore in his hand, but he managed to grasp her arm.

“Noooo.” Desperation rode shotgun with terror in her scream. “Let me go. I won’t do it again.”

“Damn right you won’t, lady. You’re going to jail.”

The second she realized she wouldn’t get far—he was six-one, after all, and she all of five-five, if that—those big hollow eyes filled with more panic than Austin could remember seeing in anyone. In his hometown of Ordinary, Montana, they had homeless people, those who were needy, but this level of despair was something else altogether.

She bared her teeth like an animal, came alive in his arms and fought like a keening cyclone, elbows and knees everywhere at once.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” he said, calm because he had control. “I can read you like a book.” An autobiography. By the time Austin had turned twelve, he’d perfected the fight-or-flight response to a fine art, until one good man had tamed him, and another had given him a stable home, even if only briefly.

The woman cast her eyes about, looking for escape. There was none. He’d backed her in between the wall and the Dumpster. She growled and clawed his face.

“Enough!” he shouted, grasping her forearms and spinning her around so her back was against his torso, her wrists locked in one of his hands. He’d been gentle so far because he hadn’t wanted to risk cracking one of her bird bones, but nobody scratched him and got away with it.

He swiped his stinging cheek. Blood dotted his palm. That was a piss-off.

“Listen, stop fighting me. I’m bigger and stronger and this is going my way.”

“I won’t go to jail.” The raw anguish in her voice struck a chord with him—panic used to be both his best friend and his worst enemy—but he ignored it. This thief was getting what she deserved.

“How much would you have charged on my credit cards if I hadn’t felt you taking my wallet?”

“Nothing. I needed cash for food.”

“Then why didn’t you throw them away with the wallet?”

“What?” She sounded surprised. “You actually want some other stranger picking them up and using them?”

“You trying to tell me you pocketed my cards so no one else would use them?” How naive did she think he was?

“Yes.”

“You think I’m stupid? That I’ll believe that crap?”

Her slight frame bowed away from him like a willow branch, as though she could break free just on the strength of her willpower. Despite her weakness, her helplessness in his arms, tension resonated in her. She might be down, but she wasn’t out. Not yet, but he could tell how close she was to the end from the tremor that ran through her body as though she’d just run a marathon. Her legs shook and he was holding up much of her weight. What there was of it.

He admired her fight, her unwillingness to give in, even if he wouldn’t cut her a break.

“Let go.” She strained against his hold.

He didn’t budge. “Nope. You just broke the law, lady. Where I come from, we punish people for their mistakes.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Everyone has choices. You just have to make the right ones.”

“Spoken like a man who’s never wanted anything.” Her bitterness rang loud and clear. “You’ve obviously never been starving.”

He thought of how many times Cash Kavenagh, when he’d still been sheriff of Ordinary and Austin’s Big Brother, had caught Austin Dumpster-diving behind both the restaurant and the diner on Main Street scrambling for leftovers. Austin’s stomach had been so hollow he’d thought he would die if he couldn’t find something, anything, to cram into his mouth.

More times than he could remember, Cash had bought him food because his mom had spent all their money on booze and cigarettes. Big Brothers weren’t supposed to buy their Littles gifts, but Cash had.

Once, he’d caught Austin smoking up behind Chester’s Bar and Grill, because any escape for Austin from the numbing drive of keeping his mom’s head above water was a blessing. But Cash had caught him and warned him away from drink and drugs with a simple lesson. He had tossed the twelve-year-old into a jail cell for the day so Austin would see how it felt.

If Austin got into trouble, who would take care of his mom? As much as the routine of the child taking care of the mother had worn thin, he loved her. She never would have survived on her own. Not then. He knew she could now. She didn’t agree with him.

That day, Cash had stepped out of the sheriff’s office for a while and had returned with the best winter coat Austin had ever owned, and mittens and a hat, too. The guy had achieved godlike status that day. No one, certainly not his father, had ever cared enough about Austin to give him anything.

Cash had scared him straight, and had cared for him enough that Austin had stayed straight ever since.

“Don’t make assumptions,” Austin ordered. “I’ve gone hungry, but I never stole a wallet in my life.”

She struggled in his arms. “Bully for you.”

Austin chuffed out a laugh and tightened his grip. “That the best you can do? It’s pretty lame.”

“I might be a thief, but I don’t swear.”

“You’re strange.”

“And you’re holding me too tightly. What are you? Some kind of perv looking to cop a feel?”

She was trying to get a rise out of him, probably hoping he’d get so mad he’d let go so she could get away. Not a chance. People said rude things to cops all the time. This was nothing.

“I’m not a pervert, but you were right about the cop part.”

He appreciated how she stilled in his arms, got a kick out of shocking her. Good. Maybe she’d think twice before robbing someone again.

“Gotcha,” he said. He could feel her pulse in her wrist under his thumb, and her panic sizzled like bacon on a griddle.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a cop. You just robbed a sheriff’s deputy.”

“Crap,” she whispered, not sounding so tough now.

“You picked the wrong person to rob this time.”

“There is no this time. I’ve never stolen a wallet before in my life,” she said, defiant, and he believed her. No experienced thief would have been so clumsy.

“Why did you do it?”

He sensed her pride warring with misery before she bit out, “I’m hungry.”

In those two words, he heard the stark terror he used to feel. He heard a hell of a lot more than just, I missed lunch. Her tone whispered, My body hurts and I’m scared I might never eat again.

She didn’t smell clean. She needed a shower and to shampoo her short, greasy hair. Her cheap, ill-fitting clothes needed a good launder. Her breath wasn’t so great, either. He knew homelessness when he smelled it.

“If you need money, get a job.”

“Easy for you to say. Do you have any idea how hard it is? Even when you want to?” Her voice cracked, but she forged on. “I don’t have money. I went in there for breakfast. I wanted food, but I wasn’t asking for charity. I told them I would work for it. They wouldn’t let me wash dishes. They wouldn’t let me sweep the floors. I even offered to clean their toilets. I wasn’t asking for a freebie, but they kicked me out anyway.”

He eased her out of his arms, but held on to one wrist while he studied her. The hollows under her cheekbones and the dark circles under her eyes tugged at him. He remembered how exhausting hunger was.

But he’d been a kid. She was an adult. On close inspection, he figured she had enough miles on her tires to be nearer to thirty than twenty. So how had she fallen so low?

Everyone had a story, and sometimes the fall wasn’t such a long drop. His mom came to mind. With that thought, Austin knew he wouldn’t press charges.

When he’d caught her, he’d scared her. When he’d mentioned jail, he’d witnessed an unholy terror shoot through her. Maybe she’d learned a lesson today.

Before he went back inside, he needed his stuff back.

He held out his hand. “My money.”

She stared at the bills crumpled in her fist. During their struggles, she’d had the presence of mind to hold on to them. Slowly, as if it physically hurt, as though her fingers were crippled with arthritis, she opened her hand enough to pass him the money.

“Here,” she mumbled, but her eyes said mine. No doubt about it, she had a fierce need.

He bent down to pick up his wallet and opened it. “Give me my credit cards.”

She pulled them out of her pockets. Only when he was certain he had everything did he let go of her wrist.

“You telling the truth? About this being your first time stealing?”

“My first time stealing a wallet.”

Right. Of course she’d stolen before. Wallet robbing didn’t start in a vacuum. “What else have you stolen?”

“Two date squares from the counter of a diner. Two days ago. They wouldn’t let me work, either.”

“And you didn’t get caught?”

Her eyes slid sideways and down. Here it comes, whatever lie she’s concocting. Then her gaze shot to his. She’d decided on honesty. “I nearly got caught. I had to run into a field with a bull in it to get away from the waitress.”

It sounded like a joke, but she wasn’t laughing. Neither was he. As petite as she was, she could have been torn apart by a bull in a rage.

“He didn’t charge?”

“He tried to, but I was fast and climbed up into a tree. He butted it, but I held on until he lost interest and left. I climbed out onto a branch and jumped off over the other side of a fence. Then I ran for it.”

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.

Food.

Every time her stomach cramped, all of those years of taking her blessings for granted haunted her.

Things hurt so badly now that she wondered if her internal organs were starting to eat each other. How did starvation work? What did it do to the body that made it hurt so much?

The scent of charbroiled burgers drifted out of the diner’s vents, so strong she gulped it.

She kept pace with the man who said he would feed her, but hobbled because her ankle still throbbed.

There were so many things Gracie should be worried about right now. Was the guy really a cop? Had he been lying about not arresting her? About wanting to feed her? Why would a guy she’d stolen from want to help her?

Ahead of her, he walked with a long, confident stride, his shoulders broad and square.

What would he expect in return? She’d fallen so low lately she’d actually stolen food two days ago and a wallet five minutes ago, but that was as far as her crime spree would take her. Did he want her body in exchange for food? She wouldn’t do that.

Despite the questions, the one word that overrode all of them—food—won out.

She chased the tall, handsome stranger around to the front of the building. Tall, handsome stranger sounded like something out of a palm-reading session or a romance novel. Ha. As if there truly were happy endings in real life. She knew better.

What did he want in return?

If this guy wanted to feed her, fine and good, but she would owe him what she chose to owe him. She would polish his shoes, do his laundry if he gave her the chance, or wash his car, but he would take nothing from her other than what she chose to give. She was long past the point of letting people take advantage of her.

But what if he wouldn’t feed her if she didn’t give in to his demands? Where would she be then?

Her head hurt—from the hunger, but also from the endless uncertainty. It was time to stop running. In two days, she would.

Only two more days to go.

In two days, she would say goodbye to the road forever. No more running.

So close.

She stepped into the diner, desperate for the comfort of a full belly. Her lizard brain just wanted the food this stranger offered. Her developed brain would have to worry about consequences—and how to deal with them—later.

The smells overwhelmed her, of hot fat, bacon, eggs frying. Toast. They’d burned a slice or two. Even if burnt to charcoal, she would eat it. With or without butter. Or jam. Oh, jam. How long had it been?

Another scent teased her. The man beside her smelled clean, more than clean, as though the soap he used was part of him, oozing from his pores like the purest thing on earth.

She hadn’t showered in weeks. A month, even? At the last gas station, she’d washed her underarms using cold water, a cheap paper towel as rough as sandpaper and industrial hand soap. Her armpits had burned afterward. They still itched.

Grease and dust coated her hair. What could she do about that? When you were hungry, shampoo was a hell of a lot less important than food. And conditioner? A luxury. She hadn’t used it in a couple of years.

She hadn’t really cared until this man with his disheveled blond hair, clear blue eyes and broad shoulders made her want to comb her hair. Maybe put on a little lipstick.

She’d given up on all of that six years ago. Cripes. Had she really been on the road that long? Only two more days until the end of her journey. Another couple of days and her money problems would end. For too many years, she’d been running from. Now, she was finally traveling to.

Inside the diner, the stranger talked to another man and Gracie’s instincts for self-preservation kicked in. Did this guy think she’d be good for an afternoon three-way?

She might be homeless, she might have fallen lower than she’d ever been in her twenty-nine years, but she was not, never had been and never would be a prostitute. Not even for food.

She stomped out of the diner.

A second later, a hand clamped down on her shoulder and spun her about. For a big man, he sure could move quietly.

“I thought you were hungry. Why are you running off?”

“I saw you talking to your friend. Did you think I’d sleep with you both in exchange for a meal? I’m not a whore.”

He reared back. She’d offended him. “I didn’t think you were. I was just going to feed you. What kind of guy do you take me for? I’m a cop.”

“Cops aren’t always lily-white.”

“Neither are homeless women who hang around truck stops and steal wallets.”

Shame flared in her chest, hot and unwelcome. She used to have a conscience, before life and desperation had taken over. She shouldn’t have touched this man’s wallet, or stolen those date squares two days ago. Gran would be disappointed in her. “I told you I’ve never done it before. This was the first time.”

“I think you’re telling the truth and that’s the only reason you aren’t already sitting in the back of a police cruiser.” He hooked his thumbs into his back pockets. “Figured you just needed a good meal. That’s all I’m offering.”

Gracie wanted to believe him, not because she trusted anyone anymore, or because she had any naive belief in the innate goodness of humanity—a lot had been burned out of her by experience—but because if she didn’t eat soon, she was going to pass out.

“And the other guy with you?”

“He’s a good man.” He didn’t need to add too. She could see in his face he was probably exactly who and what he said he was.

“Let’s pretend we trust each other for the hour it’ll take for lunch.” He watched her steadily, like a poster boy for good health.

Shaggy, dark blond hair framed a face carved by a hard, but loving hand. Sharp, intelligent and wholesome with a generous side of sexy. GQ could put him on its cover and women would swoon. Blue eyes drooped down at the outer corners in a languid parody of sensuality, but the awareness in their depths was anything but lazy.

He differed from the people she saw on the road—too many truckers with potbellies from hours spent sitting behind a steering wheel, or the obesity of housewives and kids who watched too much TV or spent too much time at computers.

But this guy? He exercised a lot.

“Let’s start over.” He stuck out his right hand. “Austin Trumball.”

She didn’t want to touch him, because she knew she was unworthy of him. If she hadn’t stolen his wallet, he would never have given her the time of day, not only because she was down and out, but because she had chosen to be that way, a position most didn’t understand. If he knew that, he’d boot her to the curb.

The choice had been hers and she had long ago accepted it as the right one. Lately, though, as she’d grown so thin her ribs were prominent, she’d had her doubts.

Now here was this man offering not only food, but also decency. Accept, she ordered her pride. Take his free meal and then move on.

Keep a wary eye, but trust him long enough to eat.