“Why, welcome back.”
Her voice was light music, and his vision was nothing but brightness and a round blur of a shadow directly overhead. The bright light speared pain through his skull. Dimly he registered the pain but his body felt so far away.
Who was talking to him? It was that silhouette before his eyes. Wait, it was no silhouette but an angel kneeling over him, golden-haired and radiating light. A light so pure and perfect, he’d never seen the like.
Where was he? A fraction of a memory flashed into his mind. The rumbling vibration of the bike’s engine, the kiss of the summer wind on his face, the rush of the asphalt beneath him as he shifted and the deer and fawn leaping onto the road in front of him.
He was dead. That’s what happened. The crash had killed him and he was looking at heaven. At an angel who watched over him with all of the good Lord’s grace.
Boy, his captain was sure going to be disappointed, and Brody was sad about that, but he’d never seen such beauty. It filled his soul, made insignificant the pain beginning to arch through his body—
Wait. He was in pain? That didn’t seem right. And he was lying on something hard—the road. And where was St. Peter? No pearly gates, no judgment day.
Pain slammed against him like a sledgehammer drilling into his chest. He wheezed in a breath, alive, on earth and gazing up into the face of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Lie still.” Her voice was like the sweetest of hymns. Her touch was like a healing balm as she eased him back onto the ground.
He hadn’t realized he’d even lifted his head, but he was breathless as he rested against the road. His senses cleared, and he could feel the breeze shivering over him, the heat radiating off the pavement. See the blue of the flawless sky and the peaches-and-cream complexion of the concerned woman gazing intently down at him.
“The paramedics are coming.” Relief shone in her deep blue eyes. “You just lie still and have faith. You’re going to be fine.”
She said those words with such force that he believed her. Even with the pain rocketing through his head and jabbing through his ribs and zipping all the way down his right leg. He knew he was going to be fine.
The siren shrilled louder, closer, magnifying the pain in his throbbing head. He gritted his teeth, refusing to give in to the inviting darkness of unconsciousness. He could hold on. He would.
She laid her hand against his unshaven jaw, and it was as if light filled him from head to toe.
Who was she? Why did she affect him this way? Maybe it was shock setting in or how hard his head had hit the pavement, but when he looked at her, his soul stirred.
Boots pounded to a stop. Men dropped equipment and a uniformed man—a local fireman—dropped to his knees.
“Had a spill, did you?” Kindness and wisdom were written into the lines on the man’s face. “No, don’t try to sit up. Not yet. What’s your name, cowboy?”
“Brody,” he said before the fog cleared from his brain and he realized he was in big trouble.
He’d blown his cover. He hadn’t been on the job more than five minutes, and what did he do?
Blow it all to bits. He’d given his real name instead of the cover name he’d been given. And this was his final mission. When he wanted to go out with a bang, not hanging his head.
It’s not over yet, he realized, biting his tongue before he could say his first name. He had to think quick.
“Brody,” he repeated. “Brody Gabriel.”
It wasn’t the name that matched his false ID and social security card, his insurance information and the registration papers to the bike, but he’d worry about that later.
This mission could still be salvaged.
“Don’t worry about your bike,” the fireman reassured him, the name Jason was embroidered in red thread on his shirt, “It’s still in one piece. Sure is a beauty. How’d you wipe out on a straight stretch?”
“A deer.”
“Rough, man.” The fireman shook his head and patched in his equipment.
Brody tried looking around again. Where had his rescuer gone? All he knew was that he couldn’t see her. He tried to sit up and nausea rolled through him. He sank weakly to the pavement and let the medics check his pulse and blood pressure.
While they did, he took a quick inventory of his pain. His ribs were killing him. But his right ankle hurt worse.
Lord, Brody prayed, please don’t let my leg be broken. That would be an end to everything. He’d worked hard to prepare for this mission. No one was as primed and prepared as he was. He refused to hand over his hard work to a junior agent. This was supposed to be the mission he’d be remembered for.
“I’m good,” he told Jason. “I just need to sit up, get my bearings. I hit pretty hard going down.”
“You’ve got a mild concussion to prove it, is my bet.” The fireman flicked a flashlight and shone it into Brody’s eyes. “Let us take care of you. Sometimes you can’t tell how bad you’re hurt right off. It’s good to go to the hospital, let ’em take their pictures and run their tests. Make sure you’re A-OK. Now move your fingers for me. Can you feel that?”
“Yep.” Brody’s relief was tempered by the cervical collar they snapped around his neck. His toes moved, too. Another good sign.
That’s when she moved into his line of sight. His golden haired rescuer leaned against the front quarter panel of the sheriff’s cruiser and crossed her long legs at the ankles.
My, but she was fine. Tall, slim and pure goodness. Her long blond hair shimmered in the sun and danced in the breeze. Her blue eyes were now hidden behind sunglasses, but her rosebud mouth was drawn into a severe frown as she gestured toward the road, as if describing what had happened.
She wore a faded denim jacket over a light pink shirt and stylish jeans. The sleeves were rolled up to reveal the glint of a gold watch on one wrist and a glitter of a gold bracelet on the other. Her voice rose and fell and he was too far away to pick up on her words, but the sound soothed him. Made longing flicker to life in the middle of his chest.
He’d never felt such a zing of awareness over a woman before. He was on duty. He was the youngest senior agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He knew better than to take a personal interest in anyone when he was dedicated to a case, to upholding the laws of this great land.
What he ought to do was put her out of his mind, ignore the sting of longing in his chest and concentrate on his job.
Then she turned in profile to gesture toward the side of the road, and that’s when he recognized her. The perfect slope of a nose, the delicate cut of cheekbone and chin. She was one of the McKaslin girls. Michelle.
The youngest daughter of the family he’d come to investigate.
Chapter Two
In the harsh fluorescent lights of Bozeman General’s waiting room, Michelle stared down at her new toe-thong, wedge sandals that went so perfectly with her favorite bootleg jeans.
It was a perfect sandal. And on sale, too. She’d been wanting a pair of wedge sandals for over two months now, salivating each and every time she saw a model wearing them on the pages of her beloved magazines. So, when she’d saw them in the window display at the mall on her way to the Christian bookstore, she’d bought them on impulse.
An