Finding West (4 page)

“But you’re not,” he said matter-of-fact.
“If you were, you wouldn’t be using the word
harlot.
”

“What happened to you?” I asked,
refusing to admit defeat. “You were more tolerable earlier. Less of an arrogant asshole.”

That
finally got to him. He blinked, not saying anything.

One point
to Kat. Zero to Jimmy.

4

STRANGER

Kat was right. Sometime during the day, perhaps during my long and painful walk
into town, I became a different person. I found a sense of purpose, and then later, a glimpse of my true character. I was unsure of myself as I tried to make sense of what was happening, but I finally stopped fighting the inner voice and just let him have his say.

Turns out he—or rather, I—was a bit of an arrogant prick. A part of me was afraid that Kat would take offense and kick me out, but a larger part just wanted to see how far I could push her. And judging from the way she pushed right back, I’d say it was pretty far.

I had to admit: I liked her. She had some guts. And to find her
working out in the metal shed, performing moves that most men would have trouble with, while her body was on display in little more than a sports bra made me all the more glad the town had been deserted.

I’d fully intended on
leaving, but as I walked towards the police station I realized I didn’t want to say goodbye to her just yet. I wanted to get to know the prickly woman who lived alone, who tried to pass herself off as androgynous but failed miserably, who saved strangers from certain death, lent them her father’s clothes, then held them at gunpoint just for kicks.

I wanted to get to know her, to figure out what made her tick.
So it came as a great relief when I had to turn around and trudge back the way I’d come.

And now he
re she was, face dewy with exertion, calling me an arrogant asshole because she got caught ogling my body. She was reckless and daring and just a little bit crazy. I wanted nothing more than to crack her mind wide open.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, leaning against the back of the couch casually.

“Yes to what?”

“To whether or not you like my body
.” I chuckled when she pursed her lips and ground her teeth. I almost expected her to snarl. Instead she said, “I’m going to take a shower.” She walked to her bedroom and came back out a minute later with a stack of folded clothes and a gun on top.

I
strolled into the kitchen, standing behind the counter to make her feel more comfortable and leaving my hands flat out on the laminate surface. “I’ll be right here the entire time. You have my word,” I said. “Better yet, I can make some dinner. What would you like?”

She crooked one eyebrow. “You remember how to cook?”

I shrugged. “
How hard can it be?”

“Well, there’s a fr
ozen pizza in the freezer. If all else fails, there’s a can opener in that drawer and Spaghetti-O’s in the pantry.”

I looked through the pantry after she left. As the showe
r started running I studied her groceries, scratching my head at her unusual food choices. Here was a grown woman with a pantry full of premade food—mainly of the Chef Boyardee kind—and canned vegetables. And just when I thought she ate like a child, I found jars of truffles and other exotic kinds of food. In her fridge she had fresh vegetables and leftovers in plastic containers. In the freezer she had the frozen pizza and burritos alongside a rack of ribs, a side of chuck roast, and ground beef divided into neat little bagged packages.

I racked my brai
n, trying to remember a recipe—any would do—but couldn’t come up with a single one. Either my memory was worse than I thought or I was just not the cooking kind. Frozen pizza it was.

Figuring out her oven took a minute; I had a sneaking suspicion I’d never used one before
in my previous life. After I slid the pizza into the oven I looked down at my hands, feeling the pads of my fingers and my palm. The skin was a little calloused but nothing that would indicate I was a man used to hard labor.

The picture that was starting to form
of my past was not one I liked.

Kat’s shower took all of five minutes. She emerged from the bathroom
looking fresh and wearing an oversize grey t-shirt and sweat pants, her long blond hair hanging wet down to the middle of her back. Even though she was hiding the curves I knew were there, my body reacted to hers with urgency. I was warm all over and there was a definite stirring in my crotch, which wasn’t helped by the fact that it was getting a denim fondling every time I moved.

“You clean up nice,” I said
with a lack of finesse, and turned back to the oven to hide my growing erection. The last thing she needed to see was the strange man in her home sporting a huge woody.

Better than
discovering I had a muscular body was finding out just how well-endowed I was.
Monster python
was a reach, but
average
was a huge understatement. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be ashamed to be caught having sex on film.

Kat
walked around the counter separating us and crouched beside me, peering into the oven. I could smell her Irish Spring soap and something else, something more feminine and sweet, a scent my body was definitely responding to. I squatted beside her to get a better smell, feigning interest in the pizza.

“So you’re cooking me a gourmet pizza?”
she asked with a hint of sarcasm in her raspy voice.

Our faces were
so close I could see the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks. “It’ll be good, I promise,” I said, not really talking about the pizza. My head filled with thoughts of the X-rated kind, and I had to avert my eyes out of fear I’d be discovered.

I didn’t know how I knew, but somehow I sensed it would be electric with us, combustible.

She took her pizza to the couch
and turned on the TV. I sat on the recliner, as far away from her as possible. This woman was helping me; the last thing she needed was a horny amnesiac who was sexually attracted to her. If I acted on my impulses, I’d find myself out in the snow faster than I could blink. And that’s if her dog didn’t tear me a new one first.

Said dog was sitting beside her owner
on the couch, her eyes flicking to me every time I made a move. She didn’t trust me yet and with good reason. I could try to ply her with food, but something told me she was smarter than that. It would take time to earn her trust, just like her owner.

“Thank you for taking me
in for another night,” I said after some time.

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“You do. I can sleep in the shed or the Jeep.”

“And then I get to take your
popsicle of a body to the morgue in the morning?”

“Something like that.”

She shook her head. “You can take my dad’s room.” She set her empty plate down and took a swig of soda then held up two fingers. “But two things: one, I sleep with my gun under my pillow and won’t hesitate to use it should you try anything; and two, Josie will rip your nuts off before you even get close enough.”

“
Duly noted.”

Her face was all seriousness when she said, “I’m not even kidding.”

I nodded, not knowing how else to show her that I had no ill intentions. “This is your home and I’m a guest,” I said. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“Then prove it.”
The look in her eyes was a glittering challenge. I gave another nod in response.

After dinner, Kat washed the dishes. I stood nearby, leaning against the counter with my arms folded across my chest.

“I didn’t take you for a woman who washed dishes for a man,” I said, goading her.

She immediately rose to the challenge. “I’m not. I’m washing these because you made dinner. Fair’s fair.”

I
kept watching her, trying to figure out what was going on in that brain of hers.

“Can you please stop looking at me like that?”
she asked, keeping her eyes on the sink.

“Like what? I’m just looking at you.”

“Why? Why would you need to look at me?”

Her question took me aback. “I didn’t know I needed a reason.”

She shook her head. “I have no idea what is so interesting to look at.”

It was, quite possibly, the first thing she’d revealed about her.
Her blustering bravado was a shield for the insecurities that lay underneath. I wanted nothing more than to rip off that metal plate and get to the heart of her. “You have no idea, do you?” I asked.

She turne
d to me, her blue eyes narrowed. “What? Please tell me exactly what it is that I don’t know.”

“How beautiful you are.”

Her indignation seeped out, leaving her deflated, but I knew she wouldn’t take the compliment. Not this one. “You’re so full of shit,” she said, flicking me with water. “Grab a towel and dry some dishes, Don Juan.”

I picked up the
dish towel, keeping my eyes trained on her. “What happened to you? Why can’t you take a compliment?”

“I have what you call a Bullshit Radar. I can see it coming a mile away.”

I snickered. “And you think I’m bullshitting you? You should turn that radar on yourself.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“I’m calling you an attractive woman who should just accept the compliment with grace and say thank you.”

“Screw
you.”

“Close enough.
” I laughed, shaking my head. She was a piece of work.

A few minutes of silence passed as we worked alongside each other. I put away the dishes with some direction, and she cleaned out the sink then fed the dog.
It was so… domestic.

After I hung the dish towel on the oven handle, I turned to her and asked, “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

She stood up, dusting off her hands. “Should I be?”

“No, but you have to admit
your reaction to me—letting me stay here—is not normal.”

She gave a wry grin. “I couldn’t even tell you what normal is anymore.”

“Have you lived by yourself all this time?”

“I have. Since my dad went to jail.”

“Huh.”

Her features immediately hardened.
“Yeah, he’s in jail. Is that a problem?”

I shook my head.
“No, I was just wondering if you work? Date? Have friends?”

“
No and no and no.”

“So you spend a lot of time alone?”

She looked me in the eye, her chest puffed out. “Yes and I like it that way,” she said almost proudly. “I don’t need to date. I don’t need friends. Josie is the only company I need.”

“Doesn’t it get lonely?”
I knew I’d struck a nerve when she averted her eyes. So the strong Kat was not so impervious after all.

“Maybe
sometimes,” she said, her voice so soft I almost didn’t hear her confession. “But I prefer it this way. I don’t like people and people don’t like me.”

“I like you,” I said.
“I think you’re—”

“If you say beautiful, I will knoc
k you upside the head with the bag of dog food.”

I grinned. “Interesting.
I was going to say interesting.”

She
gave a small nod of approval. “I can live with interesting.”

I smiled to myself, feeling my chest swell with pride from my tiny victory.

5

KAT

The night was long and sleep came in fits and starts. Unable to relax, I crept out of my room to pee, taking care to avoid the creaky places on the floor so as not to wake the stranger.

I slipped into the bathroom
without bothering to turn on the lights and ran smack dab into a wall of warm, hard skin. I shrieked and stumbled backwards, my hands scrambling for the light switch.

There stood the stranger
with his back to me, his ass completely bare as he took a piss.

“Shit, sor
ry,” I said, averting my eyes, but the image remained burned behind my eyelids, allowing me to see that meaty butt and thick, muscular legs over and over again.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling his pants up and flushing
the toilet. “I should have locked the door.”

“What are you doing peeing in the dark?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want to bother with the lights.”

“You’d better have
damn good aim, then.”

“My aim is impeccable.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know, I’m getting very sick of seeing your ass everywhere.”

He raised one playful
eyebrow. “Are you now?” he asked and suddenly it was as if the room had shrunk in size and he was taking up more than his fair share of it.

My first instinct when faced with a
dark hulking figure was to retreat, but I stood my ground. I wasn’t about to let him see me intimidated. Even if he was incredibly, attractively intimidating.

He took a step closer until we were almost touching. If I took a deep breath, my breasts would touch his bare chest.
I hated that I was so aware of him, as if my body was tuned into his pheromone frequency and couldn’t get enough. But I supposed that’s what happened to people when they’ve been celibate for so long. To be honest, I just hadn’t met anyone I’d felt physically attracted to.

Until now.

“Excuse me,” he said with that playful little smile.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m just trying to leave.”

I
walked out into the hallway to let him pass. His arm brushed mine as he walked by, making my skin tingle in its wake. At the bedroom door, he flashed me a look over his shoulder, the darkness concealing his expression. “Goodnight, Kat,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”

Finally alone in the bathroom,
I splashed cold water on my face and tried my best to calm my nerves. One day. One freaking day and already I was panting after this man like I was in heat. I’d hate to see what would happen if we had a week.

I woke the next morning shivering from the cold. Even Josie, who was normally fine with the cold weather, was snuggled up behind me with her face buried under a pillow.

“
Holy hell, it’s freezing,” I said, my breath coming out in white wisps. This trailer was fine during milder weather but every now and then, when the temperatures dipped below a certain level, the house just said “Fuck it” and gave up trying to retain heat. Today it seemed was one of those days.

I hid my head beneath the blanket and tried to go back to sle
ep. It was there in my warm cocoon that I suddenly remembered I had a guest. I jumped out of bed, swearing as the chill stung my skin, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, sweatshirt, and a pair of wool socks. I smelled something in the air, telling me that the stranger was already up.

I threw my door
open and skidded to a halt. He was standing by the west window, wearing my father’s pants and dark blue fisherman’s sweater. The stranger was looking out over the snowy landscape as he held my favorite Christmas mug in his hand. He looked so beautiful in the wan morning light, his strong, dark profile contrasting the vast whiteness outside.

He turned to me with a smile
that jumpstarted my heart. “Morning,” he said with that deep, rumbly voice of his.

It struck me then, as the aroma wafted up my nose, that the mug he was holding was filled with coffee. “You made coffee?”

He grinned and in several long steps he was in the kitchen, pouring me a cup.

“I’ve never woken up t
o fresh coffee before,” I said, accepting the mug gratefully and taking a long pull from the dark liquid. It was at that perfect temperature, still hot but not enough to burn. I moaned into the cup. “Why does coffee taste better when I’m not the one who made it?”

“Because your tears of bitterne
ss are not mixed in?” he teased with a twinkle in his eyes.

I
chuckled into my cup.

“You should laugh like that more often,”
he said.

“You should make coffee
more often then. Every morning if possible,” I said and immediately regretted it. “Well, not literally. But... you know what I mean.”

He smiled
at me over his mug then looked back towards the window. “So it looks like it snowed several more inches overnight.”

I walked to the window above the sink and looked out
, seeing my Jeep still stuck in the ditch and buried under even more snow. “That sucks.” I turned back to him. “Are you going to try and walk back into town today?”

He waited a few heartbeats before saying, “
I think that would prove an exercise in futility.”

I nodded,
trying not to show my relief. Truth was, somewhere along the way, I’d become accustomed to his presence. I’d never admit it aloud of course; he’d have to employ torture tactics to get me to divulge that I didn’t want him to leave just yet.

After eating Cocoa Pebbles cereal, we sat across the table from each other awkwardly.

“So…”
I played with the milk, sliding the spoon into it over and over.

“So…”
he echoed, stroking his beard.

“Is it itchy?” I asked, motioning to his face.

“Not usually,” he said, pinching pieces of it between his fingers. “But it’s there, you know?”

“I wond
er what you look like under all of that?” I was just musing out loud, but suddenly I was burning with curiosity. “I bet you’re a complete uggo under there. Maybe that’s why you grew a beard to begin with.”

He grinned. “Possibly.
Or maybe I’m an international male model who just wanted to be incognito for a while.”

“Until you were kidnapped for ransom—”

“But the kidnappers realized nobody would pay the ransom, so they took my belongings and dumped me in the middle of nowhere.”

“No, no,” I said, enjoying our banter. “Your kidnappers were women, fans of yours, and they didn’t want money, they just wanted your body. So they had their way with you, but you somehow escape
d. You wandered in the snow, lost for days…”

“
Until you found me and nursed me back to health.” He leaned back in the chair and brought his hand up to his mouth, rubbing his beard absently. “I’ll forever be indebted to you,” he said with a hint of a grin.

I p
ushed away from the table, ignoring the sincerity in his last comment. “Come on then. Why don’t you shave that beard off and let’s find out if our theory’s correct?”

A few minutes later we found ourselves in the tiny bathroom going through my dad’s old leather toiletry bag. I pulled out an old-school safety razor, the kind with the rounded top that opened up.

He
picked it up and studied the blade inside. “This is pretty dull. It would eat my face up.”

I rummaged in a drawer and found a package of pink disposable shavers.
“Would you rather use these?”

He returned the safety razor in the leather bag and picked up a pink one. “
Why not? I’m more scared of tetanus than the color pink.”

I produced a ca
n of berry-scented shaving gel. “And this?”

“Okay,
now maybe I’m a little scared.” Nevertheless he squeezed some onto his hand then began to massage it onto his face.

I watched him closely
in the mirror, completely engrossed by the process.

He paused, the pink razor inches from his face.
“Can I help you with something?”

“
I don’t remember my dad shaving. At least, I never saw him shave. I’ve always wondered how it’s done, how you don’t just nick an artery and bleed all over the place. I mean, I’ve shaved my legs, but the thought of shaving a face is kind of scary.”

“Sometimes you nick something and you have to stick a piece of toilet paper on it.”

“Men actually do that?”

“Sure. I think.” He holds out the
razor. “Would you like to try?”

“You want me to shave you?” I asked
, my heart immediately racing. “You trust me with a blade near your throat?”

The crinkling around his eyes was back. “
You went to all that trouble to save me. I don’t think you’ll end me this way.” He left the room and came back with a dining chair. He sat down and lifted his face to mine. “Hack away.”

I grabbed him by th
e hair and tilted his head back, enjoying this little amount of dominance I was wielding. It was intoxicating, this power to control a man—and an immense one at that—and move him any way I wanted. I was thinking maybe I could really get used to it before I caught myself. There was nothing to get used to. This man and I had no future together beyond today.

“Has nobody ever told you?”
he whispered after some time.

“Told me what?” I asked, concentrating on the
dip in the middle of his chin.

“That you’re beautiful?”

I stopped, irritated. “Look, I know I’m nothing special to look at, so please stop with the beautiful shit because it’s getting old. You don’t have to keep blowing smoke up my ass so I don’t kick you out.” I tried to return to the task but he grabbed my wrist.

His grey gaze held mine, his dark eyebrows drawing together.
“I’m not flattering you just for flattery’s sake,” he said, sounding a little irritated himself. “I’m telling you because you’re apparently blind.”

I tried to keep from re
sponding the way he intended. I’m not that girl who gets all gushy and blushing when complimented about her looks. I’d much rather hear that I’m strong or that I’m intelligent, but to be told I was attractive by this stranger did something unusual to my insides. It made me feel… soft.

And for once,
being soft wasn’t so bad.

“Well then, thank you,” I mumbled under my breath and went back to shav
ing him, painfully aware of his eyes watching me.

“Give it some time, and I’ll have you receiving compliments with grace.”

“You planning on sticking around, stranger?”

He must have realized that what he’d said hinted at permanence, but he just shrugged. “
I might, if my memory never returns.”

The idea that he would be here with me for a long time sent a jolt of fear and anticipation through my veins.
My brain and my heart were at war over the issue, one shouting that he was a complete stranger and the other retorting that it didn’t matter, that he had somehow already made his way under my skin.

But that was the real danger, wasn’t it? That I’d be so foolish and inexperienced
and give my heart to the first man who came along?

I was
so entrenched in my thoughts that it came as a surprise when I was done. I wet a face towel and wiped the remaining traces of foam and hair off his cheeks. I pulled away and, for the first time, took in his entire face. What I saw made me lean against the counter to keep from falling.

Holy hell. T
he man was fucking gorgeous.