Boardwalk Cottage Read online

  She tried again to unbuckle her seat belt.

  "Stop moving," he said. "Seriously, you could have internal injuries or neurological problems or something like that. You shouldn't move."

  "Neurological problems? And how would you know if I had internal injuries?"

  "I was pre-med at Stanford—never did get to the 'med' part, but I did get my first aid merit badge when I was twelve."

  "Impressive credentials."

  He laughed. "I think we can rule out brain damage. You're doing a pretty good job of keeping up your half of the conversation.

  She had to smile at that. "Then I'm getting out."

  "Wait." There was that authoritative tone in his voice again. "Just indulge me for a minute here. My family's already held one wake for you, and that's all you're entitled to as far as I'm concerned."

  "Your family?" She must have brain damage not to have noticed before. The dark, curly hair, emerald eyes, the quick smile. "You're a Madrigal."

  He doffed an imaginary hat. "Kyle Aidan Madrigal, at your service. And you're Windy's divorcée. Glad you could, uh, drop in to see us." He winced. "Sorry. That was really bad." He leaned in closer to her.

  "Now hold still." His fingers brushed across her forehead. "That's a bad bruise. Are you sure it doesn't hurt?"

  "If you'd stop touching it, it'd stop hurting."

  "Sorry," he whispered. His hands continued their inspection of her body.

  All of a sudden she became aware of just how thin his cotton tee-shirt was, how the heat from his body seemed to radiate right through it. She felt an urge to put her hands up to his chest, like warming herself in front of a fire.

  He looked concerned. "Do you feel dizzy?"

  "Huh?"

  "Dizzy, light-headed, disoriented in any way?"

  She sure hoped he couldn't read her mind. "Nope. I'm okay. I'm sure. Just a headache." If she could get distracted by a man's chest, she must be doing all right.

  "And you don't feel any pain anywhere?"

  She shook her head.

  "No numbness?"

  "No. But if I don't get out of this car I'm going to scream."

  Silently he reached across her to unbuckle the seat belt. She gave in to the urge and put her hands on his chest. It was warm. Her palms seemed to fit naturally against the hard muscles.

  "Don't be scared," he murmured. "I'm not going to hurt you." Gently he lifted her out of the driver's seat until she found herself standing in the mud next to the car, still with her hands resting lightly on his chest. "That didn't hurt, did it?" His voice was soft.

  He looked down at her hands and frowned. She had forgotten about her hands. She pulled them away from his body and put them behind her back, trying to ball them into fists, but of course they didn't cooperate, and three of the fingers stayed stiffly pointing at odd angles as if they had a mind of their own.

  "Your hands?—"

  "They're old scars," she said, closing the subject.

  There was an awkward moment of silence, then Kyle's ready smile was back. "So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? You know, we would've let you in the front gate. You didn't have to crash your way in."

  "I didn't crash."

  He looked at her blankly. "You have to admit you came to an abrupt stop."

  "Not funny."

  "No, it isn't," he agreed. "You're lucky to be all right." He leaned against the hood of the car. "Maybe you oughta tell me what did happen. You missed a turn in the fog, right?"

  "No... Maybe?" She tried to figure it out, but she couldn't seem to remember anything after they'd left the main street.

  "Calle Principal," she said, trying out the pronunciation Windy had used.

  "You came through town on Calle Principal?" he asked.

  "I was supposed to pray at Paco's Bluff," she mumbled.

  "Paco's Bluff?" Kyle shuddered, as if he were shaking off a bad thought. "You didn't go off Paco's Bluff. That's a good half-mile from here, gracias a Dios."

  "So where am I?" she asked, now knowing why people who woke up from amnesia on TV shows always asked that.

  "This is part of the Madrigal Rancho. Listen," he said, apparently noticing the tears in her eyes, "are you sure you're not hurt at all?"

  "I'm sure," she said firmly. She looked at the car. "But Windy's gonna kill me for wrecking her car."

  "Yeah. I'm surprised she let you drive her Little Guy."

  Windy had let her drive the car? Why couldn't she remember that part? The part between them leaving town and her landing here all alone. The part that explained what was going on....

  She must have looked upset, because he smiled at her. "Now, don't worry about it! Luckily for us, you chose an unplanted part of this field, or we'd be picking berry thorns out of the Little Guy's suspension for a week. Oh, and sorry about the muck."

  She looked down, realizing she had mud all over her sneakers.

  "We've been having a little plumbing problem today. I imagine your steering probably would feel a little sluggish if you tried to drive a Volkswagen through this adobe mud."

  She sighed. "Yeah, I guess."

  "All in all, I'd have to say we're lucky. If you'd gone over Paco's Bluff, Windy would've been crushed. We'd never have been able to put the Little Guy back together." He winked at her, and she couldn't help smiling. Somehow the whole thing didn't seem so bad with him here.

  He straightened up, as if he'd reached a decision. "Will you be all right alone here for a minute?"

  She nodded. "Why?"

  "I'm going up to the road. Don't worry," he said when he saw her expression. "I just want to take a look around and see exactly where you went off the road." He touched her lightly on the shoulder. "Hold on. I'll be right back."

  He headed off into the fog as if he knew exactly where he was going, which he probably did. Even if the skies were clear Hallie wouldn't have known where she was, but with Kyle here she hadn't felt lost. Standing in the mist next to the car she started to get scared again.

  "Please come back, Kyle," she whispered. Don't be an idiot. You're not going to die standing in the fog for a few minutes. Get a grip. She felt so lost, so confused. What was wrong with her? And where was Windy?

  He was back before she'd finished chastising herself. "Nothing," he answered. "Nothing except tire marks where you slammed on the brakes, and the broken railing beside the road. No sign of what caused you to swerve off the road."

  "I'm sorry."

  He looked surprised. "There's no reason to be sorry. You were in an accident." He bent down to look her in the eyes closely. "Are you positive you're all right? You look a little, well, off around the eyes."

  She shrugged. "I just… can't figure out what happened."

  "You mean how you lost control of the car?"

  "I… guess."

  He shrugged. "Don't worry about it right now. There isn't much more we can do here at the moment. So we've got three choices."

  "Choices?"

  "We've got to get you home. We've got a couple hours until it gets dark, so you could wait here while I go get my truck."

  "Alone?" Her voice quavered.

  "Or we can walk—but it's about half a mile uphill to the house from here. Or I can carry you."

  "All the way?"

  "It's not my first choice. But you are a little thing." He towered over her. She only came up to his chest—that expanse of hard muscles. He probably could carry her up a mountain, she thought. But there was no need for that.

  "I can walk," she said firmly. "I don't need anybody to carry me. I can make it on my own."

  Kyle smiled. "I believe you." He looked down at her sneakers. "I love a woman in sensible shoes."

  He gestured into the fog. "This way, milady."

  The way he led her sloped gently uphill through what seemed to Hallie to be endless rows of raspberries. The fog seemed to thin out a bit as they climbed, until she could see for quite a way in all directions, but the air was still damp and misty around
them. They didn't mention the accident again, but instead Kyle kept up a running monologue about the ranch and farming, and the antics of his three siblings.

  She trudged along beside him, feeling like she was in a dream. It seemed like her memory of the day was a bunch of disconnected images, with nothing adding up, nothing making sense.

  She tried to focus on what he was saying, tried to stay grounded in the moment.

  He was talking about the day he'd taken over the rancho.

  "Twenty?" said Hallie, walking a little faster to keep up with his long strides. "I guess I hadn't realized how young you were—Windy always described you as being grown up."

  Kyle laughed. "I guess twenty probably seemed pretty grown up to a six-year-old." He waited until she'd caught up with him, then started walking again, more slowly.

  "Then Zac and Chris would've been only—"

  "—Two and a half. Yup," he said, in response to her raised eyebrows, "I had no clue what I was doing. But somebody had to take care of things after our parents died. Anyway, I got the twins potty-trained in record time. I don't know how we would've survived otherwise."

  "It must've been tough." Hallie wondered how on earth a boy barely out of his teens could've handled parenthood and running a ranch all by himself.

  "I grew into the role as I went along."

  Hallie glanced sideways at him while they walked. She tried to picture this tall, confident man as an overwhelmed boy, trying to cope with the death of his parents, and the care and feeding of three little kids.

  "I've managed to do all right. I think I've done the best I could with the kids, and they've turned out amazingly well, in spite of my mistakes." A smile touched his lips at the mention of the children. Then he frowned. "But I'll be glad when it's over."

  He glanced down at her, looking a bit sheepish. "I don't mean that the way it sounded. I love the kids. And I know they needed me these past years. But, well, it's not like being the Madrigal patriarch is my calling."

  "Calling?"

  "My calling in life. The thing I was meant to do. Everybody has something they were meant to do, I think."

  "You sound like Windy. She says family history's her calling. She got that from you, I take it?"

  Her skepticism must have come through in her voice.

  "Don't you think people have things they were meant to do in life?" he asked.

  Her raised eyebrows answered that question.

  "Maybe you just haven't found your calling yet," he said. "Don't you have any dreams?"

  Hallie shoved her scarred hands into the pockets of her jeans. She had learned what happened when you believed in fairy tales. "I think you take what life gives you. Dreams are for children."

  They walked in silence for a while.

  She wondered what he thought his 'calling' was. He seemed so connected to this place, so much like Windy's descriptions of him. Confident, funny, as much a part of this land as the trees surrounding them—he seemed to be just what he said he wasn't: the patriarch of the legendary Madrigal family and heir to all that entailed.

  He walked on in silence, something in his expression keeping her from asking him about his own calling. In all the stories Windy had told of Kyle she'd never mentioned the restless energy that rippled off him like a wave. His little sister apparently hadn't noticed the edge of unhappiness in the man she worshipped as a hero and a father-figure. Maybe he wasn't always like this. Perhaps he was just having a bad day.

  She'd had a few of those herself. And it was hardly her place to pry into his business.

  She wondered if it was too late to give up her "carefree" summer and go back to waiting tables at Rudy's....

  "Here. Let's go this way," said Kyle. They stood on a dirt road that bordered the berry fields, but Kyle was pointing to a small footpath that branched off to the right. "It's a little out of the way, but it's not so steep."

  The footpath took them through a small stand of trees—windswept, twisted pines barely knee-high to the giant redwoods she'd seen earlier.

  They came to a clearing in the pines.

  A row of fruit trees stood on either side of the path, all covered in clouds of blossoms. Flowers had drifted off of the trees and littered the path and the brambles along its edge with a sprinkling of white petals.

  "Oh," Hallie said. "It's like snow."

  "They bloom later here under the shade of the big pines," he explained.

  It was yet another bizarre moment in what had become a bizarre day.

  "Shhh!" Kyle whispered suddenly from behind her. He pulled her body close to him.

  "What the...? What're you doing?" Her voice seemed loud in the muffled woods. She wiggled against him and he immediately loosened his grasp.

  Kyle pointed toward the path ahead, his other arm still resting lightly around her waist. He bent his head down to her. "It's okay. Shhh, don't move," he whispered in her ear.

  She looked down the path where he had pointed. At first she didn't see anything. Then, after a moment, a misty, gray-white creature became visible in the fog. "Ohh," she whispered. She watched while a tiny white deer picked its way delicately through the brambles at the edge of the path.

  "They're leucistic, not albino."

  "Huh?" she said eloquently.

  "It's a genetic anomaly," Kyle whispered. "White fur but not pink eyes like albinos. With their big, dark eyes they look sorta magical, don't you think?"

  She nodded.

  "Windy used to call them her unicorns when she was little. They had almost died out, but they're coming back now. We counted six fawns this spring." His breath felt warm on her ear.

  The little deer stepped onto the path only a dozen yards away from them. They watched while it nibbled at the brambles. Cherry blossoms drifted off the trees, a few petals wafting like snowflakes around them.

  "It's like an enchanted forest," Hallie whispered.

  Kyle chuckled softly. "Don't break the spell."

  Hallie felt overwhelmed by sensations. The ocean smell of the fog mingled with the musty scents of woods and earth. Kyle's arms felt warm around her waist and his breath gently ruffled her hair each time he exhaled.

  The only sounds were the crackle of twigs as the deer moved, and Kyle and Hallie's breathing.

  Hallie found herself leaning back in Kyle's arms, enjoying the way she felt nestled against his body. It was a strange feeling, being so close to a man she hardly knew, and yet feeling warm and secure in his arms. He was so much bigger than her, but somehow he didn't frighten her at all. She felt safe and relaxed.

  They stood rock-still until the deer wandered off, disappearing back into the fog.

  Hallie pulled away from Kyle. Her heart was pounding. She shook her head to clear the fuzziness, and lost her balance.

  Kyle immediately grabbed her again, supporting her in his arms so she didn't fall.

  "Hey, you're not getting dizzy, are you?" Kyle asked. "Do you need to sit down?"

  He helped her sit down on the path, then knelt in front of her. She put her hands out on the petal-strewn path to brace herself.

  She could almost believe that this gentle, warm-hearted man had conjured up the blossoms and the little "unicorn" just for this occasion. She felt a part of her that she'd thought had died, the part that believed in dreams and magic and wishes that came true, begin to stir to life inside of her.

  "Are you sure you're okay?" His voice was a deep murmur, low and gentle as a caress. "I can carry you the rest of the way if you want." He reached up to pull a flower petal from her hair. When he touched her, the reconnection with him sent a shock through her and she froze. What was he doing to her? She'd never felt like this before.

  Hallie came back down to earth with a thud. What was she thinking? There was no such thing as magic. The unicorn was just a mangy old deer. Windy's larger-than-life brother was no storybook hero, but just a mortal man with problems that were none of her business. And her head hurt, and she felt confused, and all of this was wrong, somehow.
/>
  She pulled away from him and he frowned. "Hallie?"

  "I'm fine," she managed to say. "It's just... magical. The unicorns, I mean."

  Kyle shrugged his shoulders. "Well, magic or no, it's time to get you home. I'll call Dr. Lil to have a look at you. And," he added with a mischievous grin, "I'll leave it to you to break the news about the Little Guy to Windy."

  "Windy?" Hadn't she been talking to Windy? She put a hand up to her forehead. "Windy?" she repeated.

  "Yeah, Windy. You know. About this high," he gestured. "Talks a mile a minute. Giggles incessantly. That Windy."

  "Windy."

  "Yeah. What's wrong, Hallie?"

  She looked up at him. "Where's Windy?"

  Chapter Two

  Windy's phone was ringing again. She listened as the "Call Me, Maybe" ringtone repeated itself, its volume muffled by her purse. It had been one of Zac's little jokes, changing her ringtone to some old pop song every time he got his hands on her phone. He thought he was so funny. As soon as she got out of here, she was putting whipped cream in his track shoes. That'd show him. The phone stopped, then a minute later started ringing again.

  "I should answer that call," she said.

  The guy holding her purse in his lap just shook his head. Who was this crazy dude? She had no idea why he'd brought her to this stuffy little room, no idea why he was fidgeting with an old but lethal-looking Colt pistol and eyeing her with a thoughtful look.

  "People will wonder where I'm at."

  Again he shook his head.

  So she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, trying to ease the aching from the zip-ties holding her to the creaky wooden chair, and looked around again, trying to figure out where she was. A basement, maybe. No windows, no sense of where she'd been taken by this guy. Four walls, a low ceiling, a door. Cement floor. Lots of cobwebs. Single bare lightbulb hanging in the middle of the room. Yup, it was the standard horror movie basement room.

  "There's probably already a search party out looking for me." She heard the beep from the phone that told her somebody had left her another text message.