Chapter 2

“What do I do with these?” she asked from behind him.

Caleb had just finished spreading a plastic tarp on the ground and topped it with a wool blanket. When he turned and saw her standing there, his shirt covering her from neck to mid-thigh, exposing long, strong, sexy legs and her wet clothes held in one hand, he momentarily lost the ability to speak.

Damn she was sexy. Wet hair cascading down over her shoulders to nearly her waist, eyes watching him with the curiosity of a cat and those lips. Those full, please-kiss-me lips. It was enough to drive a saint to sin.

“My clothing?” she asked with a seductive little smile.

“Oh, right. Here let me take care of that.” He grabbed a couple of stout sticks and jammed them into the ground near the fire, draping her shirt and pants over them. “There. They’ll dry in a few hours.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Mr.?”

“Russell. Caleb Russell.”

“Thank you, Mr. Russell.”

“You’re more than welcome, Miss…?”

“Raenee Thotthoft,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation.

“That’s an unusual name.”

“So is Caleb,” she said with a smile and gestured to the pallet on the ground. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“Oh, sorry. Sure. There’s an extra blanket there if you want to wrap up. It gets pretty cold at night.”

“Thank you, but I’m fine,” she said and sank down in an Indian style, cross legged position.

“You rest and warm up. I’m going to change and get things going for dinner.”

“Might I assist you?”

He knew her offer was for food preparation, but he could not help but think about her assisting him in getting out of his still damp shorts. “No, thanks I got it.”

She smiled and nodded then turned her attention to the fire, staring into it as if there were secrets in the flames that only she could discern. He watched her for a moment then hurried to the truck, changed into jeans and a shirt, and grabbed the cooler.

Raenee stared into the flames of the fire. She had no doubt that Caleb would revisit the topic of her unusual arrival. Naturally he was curious. She didn’t blame him. It wasn’t every day a person fell out of the sky. Her dilemma was what to tell him.

It was against her nature to lie. But could she trust him? She’d made the mistake of putting her trust in a stranger and it had landed her here, on the run and unsure what to do.

She did sense that he was an honest and honorable man. And was obviously compassionate, giving her dry clothing and building a fire so that she could warm herself. And now, preparing food.

But her experience of late had taught her that compassion could sometimes be a self-serving act. People would feed you, keep you safe from the elements and provide you with the necessities to survive, but in return they wanted to take your life from you, make you their prisoner.

She could not afford to be taken prisoner again. Now that she was free, she had to stay that way. Which meant she was going to have to find one trustworthy person. She had no money, no identity papers and no way to secure food and lodgings.

And then there was the matter of the people who would be looking for her. Fear swelled inside her at the thought of being found. They claimed to be good people, interested only in the benefit of mankind through scientific exploration and research. But their methods spoke otherwise.

“You hungry?” Caleb’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

She looked up at him, thinking that her mind must have been more affected by the impact that she realized because suddenly it was very clear that she needed to learn how to speak as he did, master the accent and the cadence so that she did not sound quite so much the foreigner. She’d pay close attention and hope he didn’t notice the change in her speech patterns.

“Yes.”

He sat down, putting the cooler between them. “Not a lot to choose from, but I have stuff to make sandwiches, some fruit, beer, water.”

“Sand witches?” Wouldn’t you know he’d offer something she had no clue what it was.?

“Yeah, roast beef and cheese.”

“Roasted beef?” She felt her stomach recoil. “You mean the roasted flesh of a bovine?”

His face crinkled in a puzzled expression. “Uh, yeah.”

She shook her head. No way was she going to eat flesh. That was disgusting. “Fruit?”

He pulled a fat red apple from the cooler, and she accepted it with a smile, taking a big bite. “Mmmmm,” she moaned, nodding and chewing. “This is heavenly. Thank you.”

He shook his head with a smile and popped open a beer. “Want one?”

“What is it?”

The question stopped him cold turkey. “What is it? You mean you don’t know what beer is?”

“Oh, yes, of course. A general name for an alcoholic beverage created by the fermentation of a cereal or mixture of cereals and flavored with hops.”

He laughed despite thinking that was the oddest way of explaining beer he’d ever heard. It sounded like something quoted from a dictionary. “Yeah, right. So, you’ve never tasted beer?”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

She cocked her head to one side for a moment then nodded. “Very well, I would love to taste beer.”

Caleb handed her his bottle and watched as she lifted it to her lips, tipped it up and guzzled half of it. When she lowered the bottle, her lips pursed for a moment, her eyebrows drew together slightly and then she smiled and handed him back the bottle. “Interesting and—” She suddenly belched then laughed. “My apology.”

“No worries,” he said and tilted the bottle up for a drink. “So, you want one?”

“Hmmm, no. Thank you.”

“Water?”

“Oh yes, please.”

Caleb handed her a bottle of water and watched her tip her head back and guzzle it down. How was it possible that just watching her throat as she drank was one of the most erotic things he’d ever seen?

He needed to get a grip. Turn his attention to something besides how much she got to him sexually. Like how out of place she seemed and how she’d fallen from the sky.

“So, Ran ̶ eh, so where’re you from?”

“Rain,” she corrected his pronunciation then answered. “I am not really from anywhere.”

“Everyone’s from somewhere.”

“Really?”

“Well, sure. Usually, people consider the place they were born or grew up as being the place they’re from. So where did you grow up?”

She saw that the moment had come. Either she took a chance and was honest with him, or she had to concoct an elaborate lie. And lies tended to trap the person who spoke them, even if it took a while.

“I have no idea,” she said at last.

“What?”

“I don’t know where I’m originally from.”

“I heard what you said, I just don’t understand.”

She sighed and picked at the peel of the apple. “I have no memory of my origins. My memories begin when I was…I don’t know how old I was. I only know that my first memory is of being in the Song Sang in the Henan province with an elderly man, Shen, whom I came to love as a father.”

“China?”

She nodded.

He frowned at her for a moment. “Well, your name sure isn’t Chinese.”

“No, I was not given a Chinese name since it was clear by my appearance that I am not.”

“So, how’d you end up here?”

“It has been a long journey.

“You want to elaborate on that?”

Raenee looked down at the apple then tossed it away. The questions robbed her of her appetite. “I lived in the Henan province for many years then we moved to India. From there we traveled to Iran and on from there to Egypt. After a time, we left Egypt and spent some time in Russia and the Ukraine, then on to Spain, Portugal and finally to Brazil and the Yucatan. We were in Mexico when my father—when Shen—was killed.”

“Which doesn’t explain how you came to be here, falling out of the sky.”

She sighed and studied his face for a long time. He reached over and put his hand on her shoulder. “Raenee, I don’t know what kind of trouble you’ve got, but it’s a sure bet that people don’t fall from the sky without a reason. And it’s clear that you’re hesitant to tell me what happened to land you here, but I promise you that whatever you say I’ll keep in confidence and will do whatever I can to help.”

She’d never heard more honesty in a man’s voice or felt more assurance of sincerity. It was as refreshing as happening upon an oasis in the desert. But still, it was frightening. Secrets once revealed could not be retracted.

“You’re right. There are…difficulties in my life. I did not simply fall from the sky. I escaped from a military aircraft in route to a base somewhere in the southwest of the United States.”

Caleb didn’t know what he’d been expecting but it sure as hell wasn’t that. “You—you escaped a military aircraft?”

She nodded confirmation.

“Why did the military have you? Are you a terrorist or something? How did you come to be a military prisoner? What’d you do?”

“I am not a terrorist,” she replied. “I came to be the prisoner of the United States military when my father was killed in an attempted robbery in a street market. I…I killed Shen’s assailant. When the authorities arrived upon the scene, a man who claimed to be a representative of your government claimed that he saw what happened. He said that my act was self-defense and he claimed to be traveling with me and Shen. They believed him and he offered to help me arrange to have Shen’s body transported back to his homeland for burial.

“But instead, he drugged and held me hostage for weeks, then I was transported via automobile to an airfield where I was put on a jet and flown somewhere. I am not sure where. I was kept drugged. I do not know how much time passed, only that many medical examinations occurred. I was wakened in the night to be told I was being moved. I do not remember much about it except for being transferred to an aircraft. I regained consciousness as the military helicopter I was being transported in flew over this area.”

“And you escaped?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I jumped.”

Caleb wanted to believe but it was too much to ask of any sane man. “That’s impossible. I didn’t hear any helicopter before you landed in the lake.”

“I believe I heard the pilot talking about stealth mode and keeping under the radar to avoid having the flight logged or recorded.”

“Still, you’d have had to have fallen from…thousands of feet. There’s no way you could’ve survived.”

“But as you can see, I did.”

He opened his mouth then closed it and picked up a stick to poke at the fire. “Okay, let’s say I believe that it did happen. Why were you a prisoner to begin with?”

She was silent for a long time. Finally, he looked at her. She stared at him silently. Either she was trying to cook up another elaborate tale or she had run out of lies. As beautiful as she was, she had to be lying. Her story was just too fantastic to be real.

“Well?” he asked.

She sighed before speaking. “Caleb, the wisest course of action for you would be to pack your belongings, get in your vehicle, and pretend that you never met me.”

“Why?”

“Because they will be looking for me and I do not wish to bring you trouble.”

“What makes you think they’ll be looking? Just what is it about you that makes them want you so bad?”

Again, she hesitated, then raised her hand, gracefully rotating it at the wrist so that her palm faced upward. “This.”

To his shame, he actually yelped as his body suddenly floated up off the ground. His legs unfolded from a seated position and dangled a good two feet from the earth.

“What the hell?”

She smiled and slowly turned her hand palm down. His feet touched the ground and for a moment he felt a little weak in the knees. Was this possible? Had the accident in the kayak left him unconscious and cooking up fantasies in his mind?

“How’d you do that?”

“I do not know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

Raenee was trying to be patient, to understand how unbelievable and fantastic it must sound and seem to him. But her patience was being sorely tested with the continuous bombardment his maleness was having on her and the fear that the longer she stayed there the stronger the possibility that she would be found and taken again.

She stood and faced him. “I do not know why it is I possess these abilities. I only know that they exist and because of that your government wants to dissect me and I have no desire to be their laboratory rodent. Believe me or not. That is your choice. All I know is that I have to find a place that is safe where I cannot be found.”

He stared at her for a few moments then reached out to grasp her hand. “This is, well, it’s pretty unbelievable. I mean people don’t survive falls from helicopters without a scratch and what you just did…well, it’s like something out of a sci-fi movie. I’m sorry if I seem harsh, but I’m a down-to-earth kind of guy and I sure as hell haven’t ever dealt with anything like this before—well not exactly like this anyway.”

“I apologize,” she said, wanting to extricate her hand from his. His touch was sending tendrils of fire up her arm to spread throughout her body, igniting the primal female within her and making her long to couple with him. “I have been less than understanding. I realize this must seem quite strange to you. And I do not want to endanger you. Again, the wisest course of action for you would be to—”

“I’m not abandoning you,” he said in a determined tone. “That’s not an option. If you need a safe place, then you can come home with me. To the Circle R.”

“What is a Circle R?”

He chuckled and gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s a ranch.”

“Are there others who live on this ranch?”

“Well, yeah. We have a lot of employees and provide housing for some of them. And my father and stepmother live there from time to time. When they’re not at the capital.”

“The capital?”

“Yeah. My father’s the governor of Arizona.”

Fear spiked inside her. “He is part of the government?” She jerked her hand from his and took a step back.

“Of the state, Rain. He’s not part of whoever’s responsible for what happened to you. I promise you that.”

She felt the fear recede at his assurance and wondered if she was being completely foolish in placing her trust in him. But something inside her said that he was worthy of trust. She prayed her instincts were not wrong.

“Then the people on your ranch would also be at risk, Caleb. Would you endanger their lives to aid me?”

“They won’t be in danger,” he insisted and sat down, tugging on her hand to get her to sit beside him. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll give you another name and tell everyone that you’re…shit, we have to come up with a good cover story.”

He fell silent and she waited for him to continue. After a time, his eyebrows rose, and he turned to her with a smile. “We’ll tell them that you’re someone I hired to work for me and you’re staying at the ranch until you can get settled into a place of your own.”

“You want me to work for you? Doing what?”

“Do you know anything about horses or cattle?”

“In the breeding or raising of such animals? No.”

“Okay, then what about as a vet assistant?”

“A vet assistant?”

“Yeah. See, along with ranching, I’m also a large animal vet. I have a clinic at the ranch and mainly focus on horses and cattle but sometimes people bring their pets to me for vaccinations or to set a bone or something like that.”

“And you would like for me to assist you in caring for these creatures?” The idea appealed to her. She loved animals and had an affinity with almost every species.

“Yeah.”

“I think I would enjoy that.”

“Great! Now we just need to come up with a new name for you. Got any favorites?”

“Constantia,” she said without hesitation.

“Constantia?”

“Not good? Then perhaps Constance, or Conner.”

“Conner? Doesn’t that sound a little masculine?”

“I do not think so, but if it offends you then perhaps Connery.”

“Okay, fine. Connery. And your last name will be…”

“I am not familiar with contemporary American surnames.”

“Okay, how about Hoffman?”

“Connery Hoffman,” she murmured. “Yes, I will be Connery Hoffman.”

Caleb stuck out his hand and she looked at it then at him. “Shake on it,” he said. “It’s a way of sealing a bargain.”

“Oh!” She smiled and put her hand in his. The moment their flesh touched a spark ignited.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I believe it is called energy,” she said with a smile.

Caleb chuckled. “Looks like it’s going to be real interesting having you around, Rane—I mean, Connery.”

She grinned in return. For the first time since Shen’s death, she had hope. And as her teacher had always told her, where there was hope there was possibility. She prayed he were right.