Blindsided (3 page)

Disconcerted, Kerin mumbled, “All right then, Jesse.”

Dark brows lifted a fraction. “And you are?”

Had she not even told him her name? She paused a moment before she said quietly, “Kerin. Kerin Smith.”

It was better for the both of them if he didn’t know her real name.

Wasn’t it?

She had no idea.

Jesse McCutcheon didn’t even blink at her unoriginal deception.

He just scanned her up and down with a quick look. “I’ll see if I can come up with something dry for you to put on.”

Staying with some unknown man, wearing his clothes...the situation was crazy, almost as crazy as the situation she was running from. Kerin quickly shook her head. “Don’t go to any more trouble, I’m fine.”

A violent gust shrieked past the house, rattling the kitchen window and sighing uncannily like a wounded animal. Her host asked politely, “You really want to spend the rest of the evening in soaking wet clothes?”

“Well, no.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay.” Her reply sounded a little ungracious, even to herself.

She modified it by adding, “You’ve already done too much.”

He tilted his head slightly and looked at her with a disconcerting, intelligent gaze. “Would you drive past a stranded motorist, and leave them there in the middle of a storm?”

Even though the house was warm, Kerin felt cold from the sodden fabric sticking to her legs and upper body. He was right about her needing to change clothes. She shook her head.

“Of course not.”

There was an undercurrent of amused exasperation in his voice.

“So then, relax a little, Kerin Smith. I wasn’t out prowling for my next victim, I was just driving home. And I didn’t stop because I wanted to lure you to your doom. I just did what you would have done
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yourself. I’m a nice guy, I promise.”

At that moment, the entire house went pitch dark.

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Mother Nature, Jesse couldn’t help but think cynically, had very good timing. Good timing, that is, if the situation were some sort of romantic farce being played on stage in Broadway or the West End of London. In that case, when the hero reassures his innocent leading lady that he has no evil designs on her virtue just as the lights go out, the audience would laugh.

Kerin Smith didn’t seem to find the sudden plunge into darkness amusing. He clearly heard a sudden intake of breath as it happened, almost like a little moan. Another fierce volley of wind swallowed the sound.

It was funny, even after the room vanished from sight and he was left blinking and blind, he could still see her eyes, wide and very blue, looking at him with a sober regard that might be disconcerting if it wasn’t so apparent that the woman was afraid.

And not just of him. Of him, certainly, but not
just
of him. When he’d knocked on the window of her car, he’d seen then her face was already pale and still and she’d started as if the very devil might be asking entrance instead of being glad that someone had stopped to help her.

He said calmly, reassuringly, “I have a generator. This particular corner of Wisconsin doesn’t have the full attention of the electric company. If the power doesn’t come on in the next minute or so, I’ll go out into the garage and start it.”

She made some exclamation in the dark that he didn’t quite catch but he almost felt her dismay cross the room in palatable waves. He wasn’t exactly thrilled either at having the furnace blower not
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operable or the well useless, which is exactly why he had gone through the expense and trouble to have a generator installed. Reading by candlelight was fine by him, but having no heat and not being able to flush a toilet because the pump didn’t work—that was a different matter. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light coming through the windows, he moved into the kitchen and opened the cabinet where he kept the flashlight. From the fury of the blast outside, he was surprised the whole building wasn’t shaking. It seemed doubtful that the electric company could even send someone out to fix the problem.

Smaller storms than this one had left him without power for hours. He flashed the light on and the beam bounced across the shining wood floor before fastening on the door by the stairs that led to the garage.

“This will just take a second or two.”

Ms. Smith, if that was even her last name, had a gift for silence.

She just stood there, a slender shadow, undoubtedly miserable and cold in her damp clothes.

With a shrug, he made for the door to the garage.

He peered into the building, wincing at the cold, shining the light at his feet as he thought about his guest. She was a bit bedraggled, but he had noticed that her skin was very smooth and unblemished under the smeared mascara and wet wisps of dark blond hair clinging to her cheeks and graceful neck. Delicate eyebrows framed those very blue eyes and her mouth was pink and softly formed. Her figure too, was athletically slim and shapely, the wet material of her blouse clinging to the curves of her breasts and her tan slacks tight over perfectly rounded hips. Probably around thirty, if he had to guess her age. She was pretty despite being almost blown to pieces by one of Northern Wisconsin’s more inspired fast moving fronts, so he guessed she’d be a knockout under normal circumstances.

It had been a while since he’d met a woman he was attracted to so quickly.

And that was a hell of a thing to be thinking, he told himself in disgust, when it was obvious he was going to be stuck with this
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distrustful young woman for the next twenty-fours at the least.

To Jesse’s relief, the generator started sweetly and easily. He heard the furnace kick on immediately, so at least they wouldn’t freeze to death. When he went back inside, the great room—the room that had sold him on the place—was illuminated once again by soft track lighting that ran along one of the huge beams below the pitch of the ceiling.

Kerin Smith hadn’t moved. Not one inch, as far as he could tell.

She still stood rigid by the edge of the kitchen, her leather purse clutched in one hand, her face pale and wet.

Actually, she looked uncomfortably a little like someone in shock.

Every few seconds a ripple of shivers shook her entire body.

Just from the lights going off?

He asked slowly, “Ms. Smith, are you all right?”

* * * *

She had to get a grip on herself. There was no doubt about it. It had all been bad enough; her unplanned abrupt flight from Indy, the roundabout and unfamiliar route, the onslaught of the horrendous weather, and then having to place her trust in some strange man...but when the room had suddenly gone black, it had shaken her to the very core.

She wasn’t doing a good job at all of hiding her distress from Jesse McCutcheon.

The real trouble was, of course, that though her everyday life had been slowly disintegrating for the past weeks, the worst damage was how much her faith in human beings had been compromised. Had the same scenario happened two months ago—what seemed to be a nice man stopping to help her, offering shelter and warmth and no apparent threat—she would have been grateful, and probably trusting.

But, my God, suddenly being alone with him in the dark...

Her throat worked, unexpected tears coming to her eyes. The
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lights were on now, the room was warm and very nice, and he stared at her with dark eyes full of undisguised confusion and alarm.

She did feel odd, off-balance, almost weak. Taking a deep breath, she tried a wobbly smile. “I’m fine. Maybe a little confused at how one minute I could be driving down a pretty country road and the next be stranded in some stranger’s home, but I’m okay. Could I use the restroom, please?”

Jesse McCutcheon didn’t smile back. He frowned, drawing his ebony brows together. “You’re white as a sheet. You don’t have some medical condition I should be aware of, do you? Diabetes or something like that?”

“No.” A half-hysterical laugh escaped her lips. “I promise you, there’s nothing like that wrong with me.”

He didn’t look much like he believed her and she wasn’t sure she blamed him. God alone knew what she looked like. However, he did turn and point to the stairs. “Bathroom’s upstairs off the bedroom.”

She could feel him watch her as she walked across the room and climbed the wide and open wooden stairs.
No doubt wondering just
what kind of a weird stray he’s picked up
, Kerin thought with a welcome twist of wry humor.

His bedroom wasn’t quite as pristine as the rest of the house. It was a big room, taking up the whole loft area, and had two large triangle shaped windows on either side of the chimney. A rich patterned oriental rug in dark greens and red covered the hardwood floor and the bed was huge with an ornately carved wooden headboard that looked antique. It was as lovely as the rest of the house, with the same sort of rustic elegance, masculine yet appealing and comfortable.

Two steps through the door Kerin stopped, arrested by the intimacy of being in such a private space. The covers on the unmade bed were tossed back as if he’d just climbed out and his damp clothes from their flight through the snow lay on the floor.

She could suddenly picture her handsome host lying on the bed,
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and that quick little fantasy was both unexpected and unwelcome.

The bathroom was to her left, a gleaming white affair with a tiled shower and pedestal sink. The large framed mirror didn’t exactly show a promising picture, and she stared back at her smudged face and disheveled hair with some dismay as she ran hot water into the sink. There were washcloths and towels in a cupboard by the shower and she dried her hair and removed her streaked make-up, saying a little prayer of thanks those long and unexpected hours at work made it sensible to always carry a comb and some cosmetics in her purse.

Repairing the damage actually made her feel a little better, more in control of the bizarre situation. She combed her hair back into a semblance of her usual casual straight-to-her-shoulders style, applied new mascara and lip gloss, and lightly dusted her face with some sheer powder. Her clothes might still be damp, but at least she looked a little more normal. With one last glance in the mirror, she squared her shoulders and opened the door.

Sometime during her stint in the bathroom, Jesse McCutcheon must have come upstairs for a blue shirt lay neatly folded on the now made bed, and there was a pair of soft woolen socks as well.

Gallant, thoughtful,
and
good-looking, she thought as she went back into the bathroom and slipped out of her sodden blouse. Maybe God didn’t hate her as much as she thought.

Still, as nice as is was for him to stop and help her, offer her shelter, and even share his clothes so she would be more comfortable, the size of the shirt was a reminder that Jesse McCutcheon was a much larger human being, undeniably male, and she was a virtual prisoner due to the storm.

She didn’t know a thing about him. Any sensible woman would be nervous in her position.

However, she had pretty good faith in her own judgment of people and he didn’t send off any bad vibes, or at least he hadn’t yet in the approximate hour since she’d met him.

Rolling up the sleeves of the well-worn denim shirt and putting
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the giant socks on her admittedly cold feet, she squared her shoulders and went back downstairs. Her slacks might be still quite wet around the knees and ankles, but she was much warmer. Mr. McCutcheon moved around the kitchen. He’d switched on a radio somewhere. She could hear the low sound of classical music muffled by the rattling of the storm along the eaves and windows. He glanced up when she approached the long counter, and she chose a stool, carefully sliding upward onto the seat.

“Thank you.” She indicated the shirt with a swift motion of one hand.

“You’re welcome.” He made no secret of inspecting her appearance. “Better? You actually have a little color now.” The lamplight shone off his wavy dark hair and high cheekbones.

It was lightly, almost delicately, put. Kerin ducked her head in an attempt to disguise how embarrassed she felt at her near breakdown.

She murmured, “Yes, very much so.”

“Please feel free to use the phone.”

“I already did.” She glanced up.

The corner of his mouth lifted and his gaze was direct and quizzical. “Surely you need to tell someone where you are, Ms.

Smith.”

Actually, that was only good thing about this unusual situation.

That
no one
in the world except the man standing right in front of her knew where she was. Very coolly, she responded, “No, not really.”

“No husband, parents, friends, that would worry about you, given they might hear about the storm?”

“I...” Kerin opened her mouth, and then shut it, not sure what to say. She had no one to call that was for sure. No one she
dared
call.

But then again, it wasn’t at all smart to tell him, however nice he might seem. She said lamely, “I might do that in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” He smiled. It was a very charming, half-crooked curve of his mouth that echoed the awkwardness of the moment. “Whenever you like. In the meantime, would you like a glass of wine or anything
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else?”

A glass of wine. God, yes. Stuck in the middle of a maelstrom of snow and shrieking wind and the man could offer her soft music and wine. She managed to say with fair courtesy, “Yes, very much.

Actually, after today, wine would be heaven.”

Jesse McCutcheon laughed, his face lightening in a disturbingly attractive way. “My thoughts exactly. Red or white?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

He was having red, it turned out. A deep, dark burgundy that she would never have drank so early in the evening ordinarily by itself, but it was so smooth and excellent that from the first sip she was won over. It was served in the proper glass as well, the rounded bowl trapping the scent yet letting the liquid breathe and grow during its exposure to oxygen, showing that the man was also at least a little cultured.