Then the man’s eyes fluttered open.
“You look like an angel.” His words slurred and a small, lopsided grin started to form.
“I know karate,” Renee announced.
“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?” the man said, his grin spreading.
She realized then that he must have seen Tessie’s angel wings. He likely hadn’t realized Tessie was a different person, but he had glimpsed the wings even in the condition he was in. They’d repaired one of them earlier tonight, replacing the gold glitter border.
Renee felt her knees grow weak. She’d do anything to protect her daughter. A blast of cold air hit her neck and she turned to see that the sheriff had stepped into the room. She hadn’t locked the door after she brought the stranger inside. Now she was relieved someone was here to take him away. She and Tessie didn’t need this man around. Even if he was not a rustler, he wasn’t safe. The quiver in her stomach told her that much. She was still breathless from touching the bruises on his chest. This man was trouble.
* * *
Rusty Calhoun just lay there and looked at the angel kneeling beside him. She looked stressed, but in a vague, delicate way. He’d had concussions before in the eight years he’d spent in the army and he’d seen his share of hallucinations, but nothing like this. The woman’s skin was so translucent it looked like a white South Seas pearl—the expensive kind. Her hair floated around her like a halo. Sometimes, when she moved her head, a speck of gold would fall from her like a star coming down to earth. He took that as a sign from the heavens that she wasn’t real.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he finally said, deciding he could say that because she was a figment of his imagination. And a man should be able to say anything he wanted to a vision he’d created in his own mind.
The woman made a dismissive sound, but he didn’t care. Not when her skin shone the way it did. It made sense that any hallucination he had would look like a pearl. His mother had loved pearls. And his nightmares in Afghanistan had been littered with them.
When he’d rambled on about a pearl necklace in his delirium on that awful night when his platoon had been bombed in the Wardak Province, the doctors searched through his belongings until they found the strand he carried with him. When they gave it to him, he’d cursed and thrown it across the room. That was when they’d called in the chaplain.
“Are you awake?” the woman asked now.
Rusty barely had time to wonder if he should answer his hallucination before a lawman took her place. Or was it two lawmen? Rusty wasn’t sure. But he figured whether they were one or two, they were real enough.
“He’s awake,” the lawman said with authority and the two images of him slowly merged into one. “Tell me your name.”
“U.S. Army ranger Rusty Calhoun, sir.”
“What happened?”
The clipped voice of command sounded familiar. Voices like this had demanded his report when he had been returned to safety that dark night in Afghanistan.
“I was the only one left.” The medics had pulled him out of the rubble. He hadn’t wanted to leave. Not with the others lying around him.
“Who else was with you?” the voice asked.
“My platoon. The eleventh mountain division, sir. It was a trap.”
There was silence after that. Rusty closed his eyes and saw the flashes of the bombs. He’d failed them all.
“Tonight?” The man’s voice had softened, but it was persistent. “Here in Montana?”
Rusty felt the pounding in his head and opened his eyes. He remembered the snow now.
“Where am I?” he asked.
He smelled Christmas. The scent of pine trees and popcorn.
The doctors hadn’t wanted to release him yet, but his younger brother, Eric, had called to say he needed him. Rusty had let down so many people already that he was determined to save his brother from whatever trouble he was in. The doctors said they wouldn’t release Rusty until next week, but he had pressed them and left early. He hadn’t called Eric and told him that he was here, though.
“You’re in Montana, son. You were out riding a horse—”
“Annie. Is she all right? And my dog?”
“There was no dog,” the woman said. “Maybe the wolf chased it off.”
“Not a wolf. It’s my dog.”
“Goodness,” the woman gasped.
“I—” Rusty paused. His felt sweat on his forehead, but it was cold. He’d picked up Annie and the dog from the Morgan ranch this afternoon. After his family lost the ranch, he’d paid the Morgans to board his horse and dog along with his brother until he could get back here.
“Take a minute. Think about tonight,” the man’s voice urged.
Rusty took a ragged breath and offered up a prayer for strength. Thanks to that chaplain, he and God had forged a truce of sorts in Afghanistan. Rusty wasn’t sure the connection was going to hold in Montana, but he wasn’t ready to give it up, either.
“There was a pickup.” Rusty forced his mind to leave the old battles and remember the past few hours. The wind had been frigid, but he’d welcomed the bite of the snow as it hit his face.
He’d been riding on the south section of his family’s ranch. His father had died while he was overseas, and riding on the land was the only way Rusty knew to say goodbye to the man. He’d been out for hours and was ready to turn back when a large black pickup seemed to emerge from the night as it came across the fields.
The pickup went off-road and into a ravine. When Rusty rode to the top of the ravine and looked down, he saw another pickup was already parked at the bottom, sitting there with its lights off. Someone stepped out of the smaller pickup, leaving the door open. The small overhead light let Rusty see enough. He knew it was Eric standing there because the boy was wearing his brown baseball cap backward. It was unlikely anyone else around here would wear a cap like that, especially when the wind was so strong.
“They shot me,” Rusty added, remembering that much from his scramble up the side of the ravine. “It hurts pretty bad.”
He’d signaled his dog to stay silent so it wouldn’t be shot and the animal had obeyed. Rusty marveled that even though he had been gone so long, his dog still saw him as master. They’d been through some tough times together, he and that dog.
“Who shot you?” the sheriff asked as he took a small notebook out of his pocket.
Rusty hesitated. “I don’t know.” Fearing that might not be enough, he added, “It was too dark to see any faces.”
He waited for the accusation to come. He had never lied—not even by withholding information. Until now. He knew he’d seen Eric tonight even though he hadn’t seen his face. And he wasn’t willing to give up his brother that easily. Not until he heard the other side of things.
The sheriff didn’t press and Rusty breathed deep. Maybe the doctors were right that he merely needed some rest.
He turned to search for the woman’s face. If the lawman’s voice was real, she must be, too.
Just then he heard the soft sounds of slippers on the hardwood floor and he saw the woman turn to look behind her. She had a lovely neck, he thought with a smile.
“No,” the woman whispered in horror as she looked at something.
Rusty tried to raise himself up to defend her from whatever was coming, but he had no strength. Then he saw the woman was merely worried about