Copyright © 1998 Kathleen Kane.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-312-96808-6
Chapter One
HIGH TIMBER, NEVADA, 1876.
It ain't right, nor fittin'."
"Leave it alone," Conner James grumbled and sank deeper into the cushions of his favorite chair. He flicked a quick, irritated glance at Grub Taylor, housekeeper/ cook/thorn in his side.
"Man your age," the older man went on, warming to his familiar theme, "with nothin' to show for livin'. No wife. No young'uns."
Conner reached out one hand for the glass of whiskey resting nearby, took a sip, then interrupted Grub's sermon. "I've got this ranch, don't I?"
Unimpressed, Grub snorted. "Yeah, and you've had it for two whole years and still livin' in it alone."
"If I was alone," Conner shot back, a rumble of temper coloring his tone, "I wouldn't be having to listen to you harpin' on me to get married, now would I?"
That statement bought him a moment's peace. Conner looked at the older man and silently admitted something he would never own up to out loud. He was glad to have the old coot around. Even if he did have to hear Grub's opinion on absolutely everything.
Darn near bald but for one or two strands of iron gray hair that he insisted on combing across the top of his gleaming pate, Grub boasted snow-white whisker stubble that rose and fell on his lined, weathered face like fresh powder on mountain crevices. But the man's keen black eyes were as sharp as ever and his thin, wiry body was stronger than a man of sixty-eight had a right to expect.
They'd been together a long time and Conner was downright fond of the old cuss. But what he didn't know about women could fill Lake Tahoe basin.
"We been through this, Grub."
"Let's do 'er again." The older man set his jaw in a line that clearly said he was ready and willing to fight.
Conner shook his head. "No woman in her right mind is gonna want to marry a man like me."
"What the hell's wrong with you?" Grub demanded. "You got a nice place. You're young. Not too stupid. And you ain't stop-a-train-ugly."
Conner scowled, took another long drink of whiskey and felt the fire spread throughout his chest. Despite Grub's notions, Conner knew good and well that no decent woman would ever marry the son of a whore and a gambler.
But he didn't care.
He'd been alone most of his life--but for Grub--and he'd gotten along just fine. When he wanted a woman, he found a good-sized town and bought one for the evening. A simple, honest transaction. No feelings or emotions involved. No disappointments or broken promises.
Grub mumbled something and Conner sighed. Whenever his old friend had some comment he was sure no one else would agree with, he had a habit of muttering that comment--just loud enough to drive a body crazy wondering what he said. "What was that?"
"I said, you're talkin' like a fool."
Conner laughed shortly, stretched his long legs out and crossed his booted feet at the ankle. Closing his eyes, he balanced his whiskey glass on his chest and decided to ignore Grub and try for a little peace and quiet.
That hope was shattered in the next instant when a crashing thud sounded from upstairs.
Conner's eyes flew open and he shot a quick look at the hall and stairway, half expecting to find the shingled roof lying across the scarred wood floors.
"What the hell was that?" Grub demanded.
"Sounds like the whole damn place is falling in," Conner shouted as he set his glass aside. He raced for the stairs and the second story beyond. Blast it, he should have fixed the dang roof before building that new corral. But he'd wanted to take care of important things first. And his small string of horses was the most important thing in the world to him at the moment.
He took the steps two at a time, his long legs carrying him far faster than poor Grub could manage, Absently, he heard the older man's footsteps pounding heavily on the stairs behind him, but didn't slow his pace to wait for him.
The long hallway stretched out in front of him. The frayed, threadbare carpet runner snaking along the marred oak flooring masked his steps slightly as he hurried down the hall toward a series of smaller sounds; muffled crashes and a tinkle of broken glass echoed in the big old house.
He hardly paused before the closed door to his bedroom. Grabbing the brass doorknob, he twisted it and gave the door a push. Stepping across the threshold, he stopped dead.
It looked as though a twister had set down in the middle of his room. Through the roof. A wide, gaping hole displayed the deep blue sky and Conner stared for a long, stunned minute as threads of clouds drifted past the opening. "Damn it," he muttered before turning his gaze on what was left of his room. The mattress on his four-poster bed now lay drunkenly half on the floor, its supporting slats broken beneath it. A side table lay on end, the contents of its single drawer scattered across the faded Oriental rug. The globe hurricane lamp that had once rested on that table lay smashed into fragments and the smell of lamp oil permeated the room. Even the curtains hung askew on the windows.
How the hell had this happened? he wondered. And why now? Didn't he have enough to worry about without picking up after some rogue tornado?
Behind him, Conner heard Grub breathing heavy from his run up the stairs. "What--" Puff, "--in tarnation--" Pant, "--is goin' on?"
"Looks like some blamed twister dropped in."
"A twister?" Grub repeated, astonished, as he took in the mess. "Here?"
"You got a better explanation?" Conner snapped in disgust and kicked at a shard of glass that lay winking at him in a patch of late afternoon sunshine.
"Here now," an indignant female voice shouted from behind the torn, dark green draperies hanging from one of the bed's four posts. "There's no need to be slicin' me into ribbons. Haven't I only just survived bein' crushed by this great bed of yours?"
A woman?
What the devil was going on around here? Conner stomped farther into the room and looked around the end of the bed. His gaze landed on a redheaded female, sitting on his floor with her skirt hiked up above the knees of extremely shapely legs. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
She didn't even blink those huge green eyes of hers, she simply looked him up and down, then said, "There's no need to shout. My hearing's quite unaffected by my upset, thank you very much for asking after me health." Pushing a mass of wild red hair back off her face, she went on in a rush of words. "Meara Simon's my name," she said. "Though why you should be carin' about such a thing when it's clear to any who have eyes. . ." She paused knowingly as she tugged her skirt down over her legs. ". . . and who haven't been struck blind for lookin' where they've no right, that I'm in need of a bit of assistance, is beyond my understandin' at the moment."
Amazing female. She actually looked offended.
"You're Irish," he said lamely.
"My, but you're a quick one," she snapped, her green eyes glinting dangerously. "Just what is your name, then?"
"Conner James," he told her.
"Conner, is it?" She gave him a brief smile that dazzled him. "Then you've a bit of the Irish in you as well. I should have noticed straight off, what with your black Irish good looks starin' me in the face . . . but. . ." She sighed and looked around her. "What with all that's happened an' all . . ."
He didn't want to be dazzled by her, so he ignored the odd lurch of his heartbeat, threw his hands wide, and demanded, "What exactly did happen?"
She frowned at him. "Isn't that what I'm tryin' to understand myself?"
Her emotions were like quicksilver. Anger, pleasure, and confusion streaked across her features in dramatic shifts of expression.
"Look, lady," he said tightly, determined to get to the bottom of this despite her tendency to wander off the subject. "This is my house and my bedroom you've destroyed."
"Aye, well, I'm sorry about that," she offered lamely. "Though I can't imagine how . . ."
"Just tell me how the hell you got into my room."
"As you've no doubt noticed," she answered, with a quick glance at the yawning hole in the ceiling, "through the roof." She frowned uncertainly. "I suppose."
"Don't you know?" he asked and threw a glance himself at the hole, as if expecting to find a clue to this mess.
"Well now, if I knew the answers to everything, I could apply for the Almighty's job, now couldn't I?"
She had the nerve to look insulted. Behind him, Conner heard Grub's muffled laughter. He was glad somebody was enjoying all of this.
All right, maybe it wasn't her fault she'd crashed through his roof. But he'd be damned if he was going to let her make him feel as though his house had been in her way.
Scowling, he looked from her to the roof and back again. He'd heard of wagons being sucked up by twisters and plopped down again, sometimes miles away. Once or twice, he'd even heard people talk about cows that had survived a ride in a tornado. But damn it, Conner had never heard tell of a person living through such a thing.
And, as far as he knew, there hadn't been a tornado seen in Nevada in . . . ever.
But what other explanation was there? Women didn't just fall from the sky.
"Now," the redhead said, capturing his attention completely. She blew a stubborn red curl out of her eyes and held out one hand toward him. When he didn't take it immediately, she shook it for emphasis. "Will ya be be givin' me a hand or do ya expect me to crawl up out of this mess on me own?"
He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled with all the delicacy of a man snatching a trout from a river.
Meara flew off the floor and smacked right into the hard, broad wall of his chest. A white-hot bolt of something too exciting for words streaked through her, but before she could try to identify it, he released her and her knees buckled. Instantly, he grabbed hold of her again and this time, didn't let go, a fact for which she was grateful.
Now that's odd, she thought, looking down at her legs. Why did her limbs feel so weak and trembly? And at the same time, she had a sense of heaviness about her as well. As though her body was somehow . . . wrong. Too clumsy and large by half. She frowned thoughtfully. Oh, she wasn't well a'tall.
His long fingers bit into the flesh of her upper arms and she felt as though his touch was the only thing holding her in place. Tipping her head back, she stared up at him. Blast if he wasn't a big one, though. Her neck was getting a crick in it already and she hadn't begun to look her fill of him.
Thick black hair was swept back from a high, intelligent forehead, yet one wavy lock refused to be tamed and fell forward to hang just above an arched black eyebrow. Eyes as blue as the lakes of Kerry glared down at her, and his fine, generous mouth was tightened into a grim slash across his well-cut features.
Well, what right did he have to be so bloody angry? But for some bits and pieces of furniture, he was hale and hearty. Which was more than she could say for herself as an assortment of aches and pains began to make themselves known.
Heat from his hands settled into her bones and something inside her swirled into a flutter momentarily and stunned her to her toes. Blood rushed into her cheeks and her heartbeat thundered in her chest.
"Aren't you as handsome as the devil himself," she muttered, not even realizing she'd spoken aloud until she heard the older man behind him sputter into laughter.
He practically growled at her. "The devil and me have more in common than looks, lady," he said, clearly determined to ignore his friend's amusement. "Now that you're on your feet," he went on in a voice as deep and dark as a well on a black night, "why don't you tell me who the hell you are and what you're doing in my house."
Her eyebrows lifted and she looked at the older man. "`Handsome is as handsome does,' my mother used to say. Well, apparently, this boyo's handsome only goes skin deep."
Grub snickered.
"If you're through insulting me," Conner grumbled through tightly compressed lips, "answer my questions."
"I've already told ya," she said, turning her gaze back to Conner. "My name's Meara Simon. As for what I'm doin' here . . ." She scowled at the sudden and total blankness welling up in her mind. "I'm afraid I've no idea."
"What?" He let go of her abruptly.
She swayed and teetered for a long, breathless minute, then locked her knees and willed herself to stay upright.
"I don't know why I'm here," she said, glancing around the room as if looking to find answers hidden there somewhere. "Or how I came to be here. Do you?"
"Would I ask you if I did?" he bellowed, and she winced at his tone.
"How'm I to know the answer to that?" she fired right back. "I've only just seen ya, haven't I?" Rubbing at the spot on her forehead directly between her eyes, she muttered, "You could be as honest as the Pope or as crooked as a hunchback for all I know."
Grub laughed out loud.
Conner exhaled in a rush of frustration.
She knew just how he felt. Sweet Saint Bridget, she thought, if she could just lift the curtain of fog clouding her mind, surely she could think her way out of this kettle of fish she'd landed in. Idly, she reached around and rubbed at the aching soreness in her behind. However she'd gotten there, 'twas obvious to her at least, that she'd landed square on her bottom.
A shift of emotions crossed Conner's face until at last, she spied a bit of concern. Perhaps he wasn't all bad after all, Meara told herself.
"It was a twister, wasn't it?" he asked, his voice less hostile than a moment before.
"Twister?" she repeated.
"A tornado."
She frowned up at him. "Now what in blue blazes is a tornado?"
He stared at her as if she was speaking Gaelic, which she knew she wasn't because she wasn't sure she remembered how to speak Gaelic at all. Oh, this was a fine mess indeed, she thought, disgusted.
"A tornado," he said, and clearly his patience was at its end, "is a big wind. Strong enough to lift farm wagons into the air and drop them miles from where they started."
"Holy Mother," she whispered and crossed herself hurriedly. "And ya think I've been sucked up by one of these great winds and tossed into your fine house?"
"It's the only thing that fits," he said, lifting his gaze to look at the huge, wide hole in the ceiling. He inhaled sharply and blew it out again.
"'Tis a miracle I'm alive," she said and immediately began patting herself down, just to make sure she had all of her parts and that they were in working order.
Turning his deep blue gaze back to her, he asked, "Are you all right? Did you break any bones?"
She sniffed and shot him a narrowed look. "'Tis high time you think to ask that question." His eyebrows lifted, but she went right on. "And as for this tornado of yours . . . if that's what brought me here, you've no right to be blamin' me for fallin' through a roof that was apparently no stronger than two sticks an' a prayer."
The whiskered man behind him gave up all pretense of smothering his laughter, and Meara sent him a broad smile in appreciation.
Conner "Handsome Devil" James inclined his head slightly, one corner of his mouth tilting in a suggestion of a smile. "You're right. It wasn't your fault. Are you hurt?"
Well now, he was much more agreeable when he wasn't shouting. But then, she liked a good shouting match as much as the next Irishman, too.
She ran her hands up and down her body, then shook both legs and arms for good measure, just to be sure. She seemed to be sound of limb, but she couldn't help wondering why her own body should feel so . . . strange. Different. Wrong. 'Twas as if she'd no notion of how to move or stand. She felt burdened by the heavy weight of her limbs and the clothing she wore.
'Twas all so very odd.
"Are you hurt?" Conner repeated, less patiently than before.
"No," she said softly, her mind racing with question after question. "I don't think so."
"That's something, I guess," he muttered, with another look at his precious roof.
"Very gracious of you, I'm sure."
Grub muffled another snort of laughter and Conner shot him a disgusted look.
Turning to look at the more pleasant of the two men, Meara said to Grub, "If it wouldn't be too much bother, do ya think I might have a cup of tea?"