Heart and Soul

Or all the catastrophic ways the man the firemen called Brody could still be hurt.

“Go on home,” Sheriff Cameron Durango had told her at the scene.

Go home? She hadn’t caused the accident, but she felt responsible. She couldn’t explain why. She just was. From the moment she saw his big male form sprawled out on the road, the rise and fall of his chest, the ripple of the wind stirring the flaps of his jacket, she’d been involved.

When she’d lifted his visor and saw the hard cut of his high cheekbones, the straight blade of his nose and the tight line of his strong mouth, he looked strong and vulnerable at the same moment.

She’d seen him crash. She’d seen him bleed. She couldn’t just walk away as if it hadn’t happened. As if she didn’t care. As if she didn’t have a heart. She couldn’t have left a wounded bird in the road, let alone a wounded man. Even if she’d been waiting for hours and hours.

Where was he? What was taking so long? Okay, the waiting room was crammed with people coughing and sneezing and one man was holding a cloth to his cut hand—the nurse came out and took him away quickly. They were busy, she got that, but what about Brody? Was he so hurt that he was in surgery or something scary like that? Maybe she ought to go up to the desk and ask.

She grabbed her purse and tucked her cell safely inside. With great relish, she abandoned the hard black plastic chair that was making her back ache. She wove around sick people and some cowboy’s big-booted feet that were sticking way out into the aisle.

The line behind the check-in window was long. She fell into place. But when she looked up, she nearly fell off her wedge-sandals at the sight of Brody limping down the wide hallway toward her.

Alive. Walking on his own steam. He looked bruised but strong, and her spirit lifted at the sight. Relief left her trembling and weak, and wasn’t that really weird because he was like a total stranger?

He was holding his helmet in his left hand and a slip of paper in the right. The white slash of a bandage over his left brow was a shocking contrast to his brown hair and sun-golden skin.

His eyes were dark, shadowed with pain and his mouth a tight unhappy line as he strolled up to her. “I remember you.”

He could have said that with more enthusiasm. Like with a low dip to his voice, the way a movie star did when he was zeroing in on his ladylove for the first time. He’d say, with perfect warmth in the words, “I remember you,” and the heroine would flutter and fall instantly in love.

Yeah, that would be better than the way Brody said it, as if she were a bad luck charm he wanted to avoid. “They’re letting you walk out of here, so that must mean you’re all right.”

“My ankle’s wrapped. I’ve got a few stitches and I’m as good as new.”

“I’m glad. I mean, like, you really crashed hard. I couldn’t go home until I knew for sure that you were all right.”

So, that’s what she was doing here.

Brody stuffed the pain prescription in his pocket and mulled that little piece of information over. According to his research, Michelle McKaslin was the spoiled favorite of the family, the youngest of six girls. The oldest had been killed in a plane crash years ago. She was working two jobs, one at the local hair salon and the other at her sister’s coffee shop, and still living at home. The Intel he had on her was that she loved to shop, talk on the phone with her friends and ride her horse.

“You came here to see a doc, too,” he said, not believing her. Nobody sat in a waiting room for hours without a good reason. Unless she suspected who he was. What had he muttered before he’d come to? Had he given himself away? “I saw your truck skid to a stop. Hit your head on the windshield, didn’t you?”

Her big blue eyes grew wider. “Oh, no, I was wearing my seat belt. It just looked so scary with the way they put the neck collar on you and took you off in the ambulance. I can’t help feeling responsible, you know, since I was there. I’m really glad you’re not seriously hurt. I started praying the minute I saw the deer leap onto the road.”

There wasn’t a flicker of dishonesty in her face. Only honest concern shone in her eyes, and her body language reinforced it. None of the paperwork he had on her had indicated she’d be sincere. That surprised him. He didn’t run into nice people in his line of work.

Unless the niceness was only a mask, hiding something much worse inside.

“Let me get this straight. You drove all the way back to the city to sit in a waiting room for two hours just so you knew I was all right?”

“Yep. This is Montana. We don’t abandon injured strangers on the road.”

She seemed proud of that, and he had no choice but to take what she said as the truth. He relaxed, but only a fraction.

“Wait one minute!” the clerk behind the desk shouted at him, forcing him to abandon Michelle and approach the window where intimidating paperwork was pushed at him. “Your insurance isn’t valid.”

“Not valid?” It figured. None of his ID matched his new name. His cover was supposed to be Brad Donaldson, and that’s what his Virginia driver’s license said, his new insurance card, everything.

“We can make arrangements if you can’t pay the entire bill right now.” The woman with the big, black rim glasses and the KGB frown could have had a job at the Bureau intimidating difficult people.

Brody glanced at the total. Blinked. His heart rate skyrocketed. “Are you sure you billed me right? I didn’t have a liver transplant.”

The woman behind the window turned as cold as a glacier. “Our prices are so high because of people who do not pay their hospital bills.”

Great. Why did that make him feel like dirt? He paid his bills. Not that he had eight hundred dollars in his wallet to spare.

The woman, whose badge identified her as Mo, lifted one questioning brow. She glanced at his biker’s scarred bomber jacket, the right shoulder seam torn, and the unshaven jaw as if drawing her own conclusions.

Michelle stepped discreetly away from the scene to give Brody his privacy. She probably should go home now that she knew he was all right and could go on his way. She’d tell him where his bike was, and hand over his bike’s saddle pack. Yep, that would be the sensible thing to do.

“Are you able to pay the bill in full?” Mo demanded.

“Yes, but I need an ATM machine.”

“Do we look like a bank?”

The big man sighed in exasperation as he rubbed his brow. His head had to be hurting him.

Just walk away, Michelle. That’s what her mom would say. Sure, he looks nice and he’s handsome, but he’s still a stranger.

A stranger stranded in a city without his own transportation, she remembered. The sheriff had called the local towing company to have the bike hauled away.

What should she do? Maybe the angels could give her a sign, let her know if this man was as safe as she thought he was. He didn’t fit the stereotype of a biker, if there was one. He was youngish, probably in his late twenties. He wore a plain black T-shirt and a pair of Levi’s jeans. But it was his boots that made her wonder.

They were special order, handmade and cost more than she made in three months. Not just anyone could afford those boots to ride a motorcycle. Just who was this handsome stranger? Maybe he was a software designer on a vacation. Or a vice president of a financial company getting away from the city on an always-longed-for road trip.

There she was, off on her romantic daydreams again. The question was, did she help him or not?

As Brody leaned forward to thumb through the contents of his wallet, a gold chain eased out from beneath the collar of his T-shirt. A masculine gold cross, small but distinctive, dangled at the curve of the chain.

He was a man of faith. It was all the sign she needed. Michelle stepped forward, intending to help.

“Are you going to pay or not?” Mo demanded.

“I’ll give you what’s in my wallet, how’s that?” One-hundred-dollar bill after another landed on the counter.

He had that much cash? Michelle’s jaw dropped. Didn’t he have credit cards? It was a travesty. “I’ll take you to the bank, if you need a ride.”

Brody shoved the pile of bills at the somewhat mollified Mo and pivoted on the heels of his boots. His dark eyes surveyed her from head to her painted toenails. “You’d help me out, just like that?”

“Sure. I don’t think you’re dangerous and you are in need. I don’t think you should walk very far being hurt like that.” She reached into her purse and started rummaging around. Where had her phone gone to? She pushed aside her sunglasses and kept digging. “Oh, here it is. Is there someone you should call? To let them know you’re okay?”

He stared at the cell phone she offered him. “No, thanks. I’ve got my own phone. Besides, there’s no one waiting for me.”

“Someone has to be concerned about you. A mother? A wife?” Since he wasn’t wearing a gold band, it didn’t hurt to ask. “A girlfriend?”

He blushed a little and stared at the ground. “No, there’s no girlfriend.”

“There used to be one?” Okay, call her curious. But she had to know. Maybe he’d had his heart broken. No, wait, maybe he’d been jilted at the altar, and he’d taken off on his bike not knowing where he was headed only that he had to get away and try to lose the pain.

The shadows in his eyes told her that she was close. The poor man. Anyone could see how kind he was. How noble. It was in the way he stood—straight and strong and in control of himself. A real man.

She sighed as she stuffed her phone back into her purse. “Which bank do you need to go to?”

“I don’t care. Nearest cash machine is good enough.” Brody crumpled his receipt and jammed it in his coat pocket.

“No problem. Do you want to get your prescription filled, too?”

“No. Where’s my bike? My pack?”

“The town mechanic towed your bike to his shop in town, but I thought to grab your bag. I told the sheriff I’d look after you. Since I feel responsible.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, but I was there. I saw you fall. I’ve got to know that you’re all right.” She had the energy and grace of a young filly, all long-legged elegance as she led the way toward the electronic doors. “You’ve got to be hungry, too. And you’ll need a place to stay. Unless you have reservations nearby?”

Things couldn’t be working out better if he’d planned it this way. What seemed like a disaster was a godsend. How many times had that happened in his missions over the years? Brody knew, beyond a doubt, that’s what happened when a person followed his calling. The Lord found a way to make everything work out for the good.

Brody decided to ax his plans and improvise. Go with the flow. “No, I don’t have a place to stay.”

“Then we’ll find you something.”

Excellent. He couldn’t ask for more. He didn’t mention the local classifieds he’d pored through on the Internet at his office in Virginia. Or the fact that he’d already chosen a place to stay in town not far from the McKaslin ranch. A dirt-cheap hotel with convenient kitchenettes that rented by the week. What a biker like him would be expected to afford.

What would Michelle McKaslin suggest? This opportunity was too good to turn down and adrenaline pumped through his blood. He forgot that he was hurt. That pain was shrieking through his ankle and up his leg. With Michelle McKaslin willing to help him, it could only help his mission.

He fell in stride beside her, only to have her dart away from him in a leggy, easy sprint. Where was she going?

“Oh, I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder. She trotted down the brightly lit sidewalk in front of the emergency area.

Away from him. What was going on?

He watched Michelle dash up to a gray-haired, frail woman. The two spoke for a moment. The elderly woman dressed neatly in a gray pantsuit and a fine black overcoat looked greatly relieved.

Someone she knew? Brody wondered. From his records he’d already ascertained that Michelle had a grandmother. But the woman Michelle was speaking to didn’t look anything like Helen, whose picture he’d seen in the local paper as a member of the Ladies’ Aid.

To his surprise, Michelle escorted the older woman toward him and pointed to the wide doors to the desk where Mo was now collecting information from another patient. “Right there, she can help you,” Michelle said.

“Oh, you are a good girl. Thank you so much.” Looking seriously grateful, the older woman made her way to Mo’s counter.

“She was lost. It is confusing around here,” Michelle said easily as she hopped off the sidewalk onto the pavement. “They need more signs.”

Brody was speechless. Michelle really was a sweetheart. She’d stopped to help an elderly woman find her way with the same good spirit as she was helping him tonight. Unbelievable. Yet, true. He didn’t see that often in his line of work.

He recognized the somewhat rusty and slightly dented 1992 Ford Ranger as the same one he’d been passing this afternoon. Dust clung to the blue side panels and someone had written “wash me” on the passenger door.

“That was probably one of my sisters,” Michelle commented as she unlocked the door for him. “When I find out which one, she will regret it.”

Michelle looked about as dangerous as a baby bunny. Still, he recognized and appreciated her sense of humor. “A cruel retribution?”

“At the Monopoly board, of course. We play board games every Sunday night. Fridays, when we can manage it.”

“How many sisters do you have?” Although he already knew the answer.

“I have four older sisters.” She didn’t mention the oldest sister, although she sounded sad as she walked around the back of the truck to the driver’s side. “They are great women, my sisters. I love them dearly. They are so perfect and beautiful and smart. And then there’s me.”

He settled in on the bench seat. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What isn’t?” She rolled her eyes, apparently good-natured about her shortcomings and dropped into place behind the steering wheel. “First of all, I didn’t go to college. Disappointed my parents, but I’ve never liked school. I got good grades, I worked hard, but I didn’t like it. I like working with hair.”

Michelle yanked the door shut with an earsplitting bang. “I like my job at the Snip & Style. I’m fairly new at it, and it takes years to build a clientele, but I’m doing pretty well.”

“You’re a beautician?”

“Yep.” The engine turned over with a tired groan. “What do you do?”

“I used to ride rodeo,” he lied, and his conscience winced.

It was his job, and being dishonest had never bothered him like this before. He’d justified it all knowing it was for the greater good. He was trying to bring justice, right wrongs, catch bad guys.

As he gazed into Michelle’s big blue eyes, where a good brightness shone, he felt dirty and ashamed.

“Rodeo? Oh, cool. I used to barrel race. I was junior state champion two years in a row. I’m not as good as my sister, though. Her old room at home has one whole wall full of her ribbons.”

“You have a horse?”

“Yep. Keno. I ride him every day. I’ve been riding since I was two years old.”

“I was eighteen months.” Brody couldn’t believe it. Not everyone he met had been riding nearly as long as they could talk. “My dad was a cattleman. He’d take me out in the fields with him as early as I could remember. I’d spend all day in the saddle on my pony, Max. I rode better than I could walk.”

“Me, too. All my sisters had horses, and so I had to ride, too. My mom has pictures of me sitting on my sister’s horse, Star, when I was still a baby. I got my own pony for my fifth birthday.”

“I traded in my pony for an American quarter horse. My dad and I would pack up after a day in the fields and head up into the mountains. We’d follow trails up into the wilderness, find a good spot and camp for the night. Just like the mountain men used to do. Those were good times.”

“I know what you mean. Before my oldest sister died, my family used to take trips up into the mountains. We’d ride up into the foothills and we’d spend a few days up there. Catching trout and having the best time. Real family times. We don’t do that anymore.”

Sadness filled her, and Michelle stopped her heart because it hurt too much to think about how the seasons of a person’s life changed. It wasn’t fair. She missed the closeness of her family. It seemed like everything she’d ever known was different. Her sisters had moved out on their own. Karen and Kirby had gotten married. Michelle couldn’t believe it. She was an aunt now.

“That’s what I like about taking off on my motorcycle.”

“Camping?”

“Yep. That’s what I’ve been doing, but not tonight.” Brody’s rumbling baritone dipped self-consciously. As if he were embarrassed he’d wiped out.

No wonder. It took a tough man, one of determination and steel and skill, to survive on the rodeo circuit. One who wouldn’t like to be seen crashing his motorcycle, even if it was practically unavoidable. “You’re probably a little sore from hitting the pavement so hard.”

“That’s an understatement.” His grin was lopsided, and the reflection of the dash lights made him impossibly handsome. “It sounds as if you miss going camping.”

“Not so much. I’m sorta fond of hot water and plumbing.” It was hard to talk past the painful emotion knotted in the center of her chest. “I guess what I miss is the way things used to be. How close we all used to be. The fun we used to have. I know everyone grows up and everything changes, but it just seems sad.”

“Some days I think the best part of my life is behind me. Times spent with my folks on the farm. Those were good memories. I haven’t been that happy again.”

“I hope that I will. One day.”

“Me, too.”

Amazing that this perfect stranger understood. That they had this in common. The knot of emotion swelled until her throat ached and her eyes burned. It was grieving, she knew, for the better times in her life. Pastor Bill had told her that the best was still ahead of her. To have faith.

Is that the way Brody felt? Did he look around at other people who were starting marriages and families or raising their children and see their happiness? Did he long to be part of that warm loving world of family and commitment the way she did? Did he feel so lonely some nights it hurt to turn the lights out and hear the echoes in the room?

Maybe Pastor Bill was right. Maybe life was like a hymn with many verses, but the song’s melody remained a familiar pattern. One that God had written for each person singularly. And maybe she was starting the second verse of hers.

She had faith. She had no patience, but she had faith. And knowing that a perfect stranger, and one as handsome as the man beside her, was walking a similar path helped.

She pulled up to the well-lit ATM at the local bank and put the truck in Park. As Brody ambled up to the machine, rain began to fall. Small, warm drops polka-dotted her windshield and felt like tears.

Chapter Three

The plump woman behind the motel’s front desk cracked her gum and tilted her head to the side, forcing her bleached beehive at an angle that reminded Michelle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Honey, we’re booked up solid. It’s tourist season. There are no vacancies from here to Yellowstone, but I’ll call around for you, if you’d like. See if there was a last-minute cancellation somewhere.”

“I’d sure appreciate that, ma’am.” Brody sounded patient and polite.

Michelle noticed he was looking pasty in the bad overhead lighting. He was in pain, she realized with a cinch in the middle of her chest. Much more than he was letting on. She remembered the prescription he didn’t want to fill.

So, he was a tough guy, was he? She wasn’t surprised.

But she was shocked at the dark patches in the woman’s hair. Someone had done a bad job—a seriously sloppy coloring job. Shameful, that’s what it was.

That was something she could fix. Michelle dug around in her purse and found a business card. This side of Bozeman wasn’t far at all from the pleasant little town she lived and worked in, and so, why not?

God had given her a talent for hairstyling, and maybe she ought to do good where she could. She dug around for a pen, found one beneath her compact and wrote on the back of her card, “Free cut and coloring. Just give me a call.”

“Maybe you’d better sit down before you fall down.” Michelle eyed Brody warily. He stood militarily straight, but dark bruises underscored his eyes. The muscles along his jaw were rigid, as if it took all his will to remain standing.

“I’m fine.” His terse reply was answer enough.

Yep, definitely a tough guy. Too macho for his own good. Michelle rolled her eyes and capped her pen. He wasn’t her responsibility, not entirely, but what was she going to do? Just leave him? He obviously needed help and he didn’t even know it.

“I’m sorry,” the clerk returned. “I’ve called all the chains and independents around. The closest vacancy I could find was a room in Butte.”

An hour away. Brody groaned. That wasn’t going to work. Maybe he’d call his emergency contact at the local office. See if he couldn’t crash on a fellow agent’s couch for the night. Brody thanked the woman for her trouble.

“If you’re interested,” Michelle said as she handed something to the woman. “On the house. For your trouble tonight.”

“Why, that’s awful nice of you.” She beamed at Michelle. “I’ll sure do that. I’ve been needing to make an appointment, and gosh, just couldn’t fit it into my budget.”

“Then I’ll be seeing you.” Michelle joined him at the door.

Had she just given away a free haircut? Brody pondered that.

“What are we going to do with you, mister?” Rain dripped off the overhead entrance and whispered in the evening around them as she flipped through her key ring.

“Abandon me in the street?” He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Let me get my pack out of your truck before you go.”

“I’m not leaving you here.” With a flick of her hair, she marched toward her truck, fearless in the rain. “What are you standing there for? Hurry up. You’re coming with me.”

“As in, going home with you?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

No way. That was too good to be true.

“What are you going to do? Sleep in the rain? My parents have this big house. They won’t mind a guest for the night.”

An invitation to spend the night in the McKaslins’ home. He was speechless at this rare opportunity. “They’d take a stranger into their house, just like that?”

“You can have the bed over the garage. Don’t worry. It’s nice. You can get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning one of us will drive you to town so you can check out the damage to your bike.” With a shrug, Michelle unlocked her truck and climbed behind the wheel.

He swiped rain out of his eyes and took refuge inside the cab. Unbelievable.

As the rain began falling in earnest, tapping like a hundred impatient drummers on the roof, he had this strange, sinking feeling. Just like the time when he’d been diving and his gear hung up on a snag, pulling him down against his will. “You shouldn’t be offering perfect strangers rides in your truck. Or to stay overnight in your parents’ house.”

“I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“You’re a man of faith.” She touched her own dainty cross.

“I don’t suppose you realize some people pretend to be what they’re not. To take advantage of others.” When he did so, he did it for justice. To protect the innocent citizens of this country.

He knew for a fact there were bad people in this world. And those bad people kept him and his colleagues well employed. Didn’t she have a clue? “I could be dangerous.”

“But you’re not. I have a sense about these things.” Michelle’s smile was pure sunlight—gentle and bright and true—as she turned her attention to her driving.

Unaware that she was about to bring a wolf in sheep’s clothes into her family’s home. A protective wolf, but one just the same.