Finally close enough, he fell to his knees beside her. Ace nudged at her legs with his nose and Luke swatted his big head away. With one shaking hand, he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek and said her name as a fractured, ragged whisper. He laid his palm on her forehead. So cold, goose bumps covered her arms and legs. He wanted to take her in his arms, warm her soft skin, and hold her, safe and protected.
He gently laid his palm across her abdomen and leaned down to her ear. “Sarah, wake up. Are you okay?”
She didn’t stir. She simply lay there breathing evenly, but not moving. He didn’t realize that he gently stroked her hair and held his palm over her heart, feeling its steady beat.
“Sarah, come on, wake up. You’re scaring the hell out of me. Open your eyes.”
Sarah came awake with a start, her eyes wide open, surprise and uncertainty filling the depths. “Are you okay, Luke?”
“Am I okay? No, I’m not okay!” In the blink of an eye, fear, relief, and finally anger settled in his mind. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Am I sleeping on your kitchen table?” With her lying below him, his face inches from hers, she couldn’t see the sky behind him.
“My kitchen table would be an improvement. You’re sleeping in the middle of my pasture with several horses ready to trample you! How the hell did you get here?” He didn’t mean to yell, but she’d put him through a hell of a lot the last two days. Including a few erotic dreams that kept him up at night and left him aching with a need he couldn’t slake.
Her cold hand settled on his wrist. He’d laid his hand on her stomach earlier to feel her heartbeat and the soft, shallow rise and fall of her ribs.
Her cheeks pinked and her eyes turned shy. “Help me up?”
He took her hands in his and hauled her up, but kept her at arm’s length, resisting the urge to crush her to him and give in to his relief that she was okay.
She slowly surveyed her surroundings and did something he didn’t expect at all. She laughed.
“What the hell is so funny?”
“Well, I was just thinking this isn’t a bad way to wake up. I’m surrounded by horses and men. Two of my favorite things.” She gave him a brilliant smile, obviously trying to alleviate the tension in the air.
He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, while the guys around him let out a crack of laughter. Unable to reconcile his emotions, he wanted to shake her for scaring him. He also wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her and hope that some of the brightness of her smile warmed up all the cold, dark places inside him.
Instead, stupid reigned and he snapped at her for making him crazy. “Start talking.”
Her chin tilted up, all beauty and defiance in a tiny, taut package. “Sometimes when I’m under a great deal of stress, and I haven’t gotten enough sleep, I sleepwalk.”
He didn’t expect her to say that either. “That’s how you got here?”
“Yep.” She looked him right in the eye, daring him to . . . He didn’t know what.
“That must be . . . scary.”
“I’ve woken up in some odd places,” she admitted. “And yes, sometimes it’s scary. At home, I take precautions so I don’t leave the house or hurt myself.”
Luke’s eyes swept from her head down to the gruesome bruise on her leg. She’d been lying on her left side, so he hadn’t seen the bruises that covered almost her entire thigh and disappeared under her shorts.
“What the hell happened to your leg?”
He knelt, grabbed her knee, and gently ran his fingertips over the dark bruises, studying them and the all too familiar pattern they made. A horseshoe.
“Your vet spooked Ace.”
Damn. He had no idea and wanted to kick the doc’s ass. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
“You were too busy snapping at me for being reckless with your prize horse and telling you how to run your ranch. Remember?”
He stared up at her, hoping she saw the remorse he couldn’t hide and the apology lodged in his throat because words didn’t seem enough.
Her eyes softened. “It hurts like hell, but I’m fine.”
“I really don’t know what to say.”
Jerry stepped forward. The other guys had already abandoned the pasture to get back to work. “Why’d you ask Luke if you were sleeping on his kitchen table?”
Sarah relaxed her stance and turned her attention to Jerry. “On one of my sleepwalking . . . adventures, I woke up to my neighbor cooking breakfast for her family. I had fallen asleep on their dining room table. The funny part is, it was their daughter’s seventh birthday. I had taken her beautiful birthday cake out of the fridge and used it as a pillow.”
Jerry busted up laughing.
Luke felt sorry for the little girl.
“What did your neighbors say when they found you?”
“Good morning.”
Anything could have happened to her. Where were the boys? Home alone?
Jerry went along with the amusement of it all. “Just, ‘good morning’?”
“It was the third time they’d found me on their property. Of course, this was the first time I’d picked the lock on their door and ended up on the dining room table with cake in my hair.” She waved that all aside. “They took it all in stride. I had a beautiful cake delivered that afternoon for the party. Pink roses and blue and lavender butterflies, just like their daughter wanted. Later, I also had a crystal-covered cake dish made for them with a Sleeping Beauty handle on top that looked like she was sleeping on top of the cake. They got a huge kick out of it.”
Jerry smiled, obviously a little in love with Sarah. Which irritated Luke to no end. “That’s a great story. The cake thing was clever and thoughtful.”
Luke thought so, too, but he wanted to know about something else she’d said. “How’d you know how to pick the lock?”
“Contrary to what most people think, you can do just about anything when you’re sleepwalking. I’ve even heard of people driving. Picking the lock was a snap. I acquired a great many unseemly talents as a teenager.” She eyed him. “I’m sure Margaret gave you all kinds of juicy tidbits about my sordid teenage years.”
And he’d learned a lot from her sealed juvenile records. They painted a dark picture. But her record after living with her uncle remained spotless. Because she got what she wanted from Sean? Did financial security change her? Maybe it was having the boys.
Whatever it was, it didn’t change the facts.
“I’ll add criminal to the list of things she called you, including arsonist, master manipulator, and gold digger.”
She fell back a step, then caught herself. “Do you believe all that?”
He shrugged, and said, “Jury’s still out,” without thinking.
Sadness filled her eyes.
Why the hell did he say that?
To protect himself from being disappointed by yet another woman? By her?
He owed her yet another apology, but before he could find the words, Ace stuck his head between them, demanding her attention. He’d waited for her to wake up and had kept her safe and now he wanted his reward.
“Jerry, how about a leg up.”
Jerry cupped his hands and Sarah stepped into them with her bare foot and he lifted her to Ace’s back.