The redhead shook her head, her hair moving about her face like an airy cloud. “Highly doubtful.When we lose power around here, it’s hardly ever a short-term thing. If we’re lucky, we’ll get power back by midafternoon tomorrow.”
Alain glanced down at the coverlet spread over his body. Even that slight movement hurt his neck.“Well, as intriguing as the whole idea might be, I really can’t stay naked all that time. Can I borrow some clothes from your husband until mine are ready?”
Was that amusement in her eyes, or something else? “That might not be so easy,” she told him.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have one.”
He’d thought he’d seen someone in a hooded rain slicker earlier. “Significant other?” he suggested. When she made no response, he continued, “Brother? Father?”
She shook her head at each suggestion. “None of the above.”
“You’re alone?” he questioned incredulously.
“I currently have seven dogs,” she told him, amusement playing along her lips. “Never, at any time of the night or day, am I alone.”
He didn’t understand. If there was no other person in the house—
“Then how did you get me in here? You sure as hell don’t look strong enough to have carried me all the way by yourself.”
She pointed toward the oilcloth she’d left spread out and drying before the fireplace. “I put you in that and dragged you in.”
He had to admit he was impressed. None of the women he’d ever met would have even attempted to do anything like that. They would likely have left him out in the rain until he was capable of moving on his own power. Or drowned.
“Resourceful.”
“I like to think so.” And, being resourceful, her mind was never still. It now attacked the problem of the all-but-naked man in her living room. “You know, I think there might be a pair of my dad’s old coveralls in the attic.” As she talked, Kayla started to make her way toward the stairs, and then stopped.A skeptical expression entered her bright-green eyes as they swept over the man on the sofa.
Alain saw the look and couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking. Why was there a doubtful frown on her face? “What?”
“Well…” Kayla hesitated, searching for a delicate way to phrase this, even though her father had been gone for some five years now. “My dad was a pretty big man.”
Alain still didn’t see what the problem was. “I’m six-two.”
She smiled, and despite the situation, he found himself being drawn in as surely as if someone had thrown a rope over him and begun to pull him closer.
“No, not big—” Kayla held her hand up to indicate height “—big.” This time, she moved her hand in front of her, about chest level, to denote a man whose build had been once compared to that of an overgrown grizzly bear.
“I’ll take my chances,” Alain assured her. “It’s either that or wear something of yours, and I don’t think either one of us wants to go that route.”
It suddenly occurred to him that he was having a conversation with a woman whose name he didn’t know and who didn’t know his. While that was not an entirely unusual situation for him, an introduction was definitely due.
“By the way, I’m Alain Dulac.”
Her smile, he thought, seemed to light up the room far better than the candles did.
“Kayla,” she told him. “Kayla McKenna.” She saw him wince as he tried to sit up to shake her hand. Rather than a handshake, she gently pressed her palms against his shoulders and pushed him back down on the sofa. “I think you should stay there for a while. You gashed your head and cracked a couple of ribs. I sewed your forehead and taped you up,” she added. “Nothing else appears to be damaged. I ran my portable scanner over you.”
Other than running into someone from Star Trek, there was only one conclusion to be drawn. “I take it you’re a doctor?”
Kayla shook her head. “Vet,” she corrected.
“Oh.” Gingerly, Alain touched the bandage around his head again, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. “Does that mean I’m suddenly going to start barking, or have an overwhelming urge to drink out of the toilet anytime soon?”
She laughed, and he caught himself thinking that it was a very sexy sound.
“Only if you want to. The basics of medicine, whether for an animal or a human being, are surprisingly similar,” she assured him. “They don’t even automatically shoot horses anymore when they break their legs these days.” He began to stir, then stopped when she looked at him a tad sternly. “Why don’t you rest while I go see if I can find my dad’s clothes in the attic?”
Without his realizing it, the pack of dogs in the room had closed in on him. They appeared to be eyeing him suspiciously. At least, that was the way it seemed to him. There were seven in all, seven German shepherds of varying heights and coloration: two white, one black and the rest black-and-tan. And none of them, except for the little guy with the cast, looked to be overly friendly.
Alain raised his eyes toward Kayla. “Are you sure it’s safe to leave me with these dogs?”
She smiled and nodded. “You won’t hurt them. I trust you.”
“No offense, but I wasn’t thinking of me hurting them. I was worried about them deciding they haven’t had enough to eat tonight.” He was only half kidding. “Survival of the fittest and all that.”
“Don’t worry.” She patted his shoulder, and realized it was the same gesture she used with the dogs to reassure them. “They haven’t mistaken you for an invading alpha male.” She looked around at them and realized, to an outsider, they might seem a bit intimidating. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll take some of them with me.”
That was a start, he allowed. “How about all of them?”
“You don’t like dogs.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. She felt a bit disappointed in the man, although she wasn’t entirely certain why.
“I like dogs fine,” he countered. “But I prefer to be standing in their company, not lying down like the last item on their menu.”
She supposed, given his present condition, she could understand his frame of mind. “Okay, they’ll come with me. I’ll just leave you Winchester.” She nodded toward the smallest dog.
The shepherd looked friendly enough. But Alain was curious as to her reasoning. “Why? Because he broke his leg?”
“He didn’t break his leg,” she corrected. “Someone shot him. But I thought the two of you might form some sort of bond, because Winchester was the one who found you.” She left the room with the menagerie following her, closer than a shadow.
It came to him about a minute after Kayla walked out of the room with her four-legged entourage that she was wrong. Winchester hadn’t found him; the dog had been responsible for his sudden and unexpected merging with the oak tree.
But it was too late to point that out.
Chapter Three
The door to the attic creaked as she opened it. For a moment, Kayla just stood in the doorway, looking at the shadows her lantern created within the room.
Ariel bumped her head against her thigh, as if to nudge her in.
Taking a deep breath, Kayla raised the lantern higher to illuminate the space, and walked in.
She hadn’t been up here in a very long time. Not