Relative Strangers (4 page)

“Don’t you remember?”

Puzzled by the harshness in his voice, she watched curiously as he rose and walked over to a huge picture window. There his dark silhouette stood out in stark relief against the sky, which was about all she could see from her position. The view was pretty spectacular, though, an ever-changing panorama of sapphire sky and drifting clouds. The shape it outlined wasn’t bad, either.

It came to Corrie then that she was inside the cabin. The building marked “private” on the map was a snug little home where the hotel manager lived.

“I remember . . . something . . . striking me.” Her voice faltered. The suggestion she’d been about to make, that she’d been hit by a misdirected snowball, seemed absurd even to her. Besides, she didn’t think anyone had been close enough at the time . . . except Lucas Sinclair.

Her scattered wits slowly regrouped. If he’d been in the cabin, then he had to have seen her fall. He’d come out and picked her up and carried her back inside while she was unconscious. The fact that snow was still clinging to her clothing, unmelted, indicated that very little time had passed since then.

Cautiously, she sat up. Her head still throbbed, but after a moment the ache began to abate, and she told herself that in a day or so it would be forgotten. She wished she could feel as sure that she’d also be able to dismiss Lucas Sinclair from her thoughts.

He had left the window. Behind her she could hear the sound of water running in a sink. He was rinsing the washcloth, rinsing away her blood. She shuddered a second time, then made a concentrated effort to think about something else.

The sofa she was sitting on was long and wide and comfortable, covered with fabric that felt smooth and expensive to her restlessly moving fingers. She risked a glance at the throw pillow that had cushioned her head. It was stained with what was unmistakably blood.

Her gaze darted away, to a chair, to an end table with a brass-based lamp on top, to a coffee table. The cabin looked rustic from the outside, but the inside had been furnished with comfort in mind. She risked moving her head a little and saw that bookshelves lined one wall, surrounding a built-in, state-of-the-art computer workstation. Apparently Lucas Sinclair maintained an auxiliary office in his home.

Drawing in a strengthening breath, she attempted to stand. The headache remained marginally bearable, but a sharp spasm of pain in her leg took her by surprise. Her gasp was loud enough that Lucas heard. She caught only a glimpse of him over the back of the sofa, as well as the tiny kitchen area to which he’d retreated, before she fell back onto the soft cushions.

His face appeared in her line of vision, and she was both surprised and gratified to discover that the long, lean features were fixed in an expression of genuine concern. “Lie back down,” he commanded in a markedly gentler voice.

She ignored him and continued to massage the cramp that had caused her to gasp. It was already easing.

“What’s wrong with your leg?”

“Nothing.” She was not about to confess that she’d gone out skiing without warming up first. This man did not need additional reasons, no matter how petty, to think less of her. Any clear-cut reason why she should
care
about his opinion continued to elude her, but the annoying fact of the matter was that she did.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Forget it already?”

His lips twitched at her sarcastic response but did not quite form themselves into a smile. “I’m asking if
you
know it, not if I do.”

“Of course I know my own name.” She snapped the words out, suddenly on the defensive. “Cordelia Marie Ballantyne.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two. Happy now?”

“Not entirely, but at least your vision is okay. That was one of the things the doctor I talked to said I should check.”

“You called a doctor? When?”

“As soon as I dumped you on the sofa and realized you really were unconscious.”

This time her gasp was one of outrage. The arrogant beast actually thought she’d been faking to get his attention!

“He’ll check you out as soon as I get you to the hospital,” Lucas continued.

“I don’t need to go to a hospital. I’m fine now.” In an attempt to prove it, she flexed her leg, then swiveled until she could plant both feet on the floor. The movement jarred her head, and she couldn’t keep herself from wincing.

‘‘Sure you are.”

Disapproval had etched a frown into his face, but neither his attitude nor her irritation with him nor her physical discomfort could prevent her from noticing how good the dratted man looked in casual clothes. Snug, faded jeans and a crewneck sweater hugged the hard, muscular lines of his body.

His fingers made featherlight contact with the side of her head. She jumped, her nerve endings all aquiver. It was not a reaction to pain. In fact, her head was hurting less with each passing second.

“Someone who knows something about head wounds needs to examine that gash,” he said.

“I’m sure it looks worse than it is.” Corrie hated having people fuss over her. “If I decide I need a doctor, I can get one on my own.”

“I can’t take the risk that you may suffer some delayed reaction.” For a moment she thought he was truly concerned about her health. Then he added, “Or that you’ll decide to sue the hotel for negligence.”

Infuriated, she batted his hand away. “I suppose next you’ll say I knocked myself out as part of some scam.”

The odious man actually seemed to be considering that possibility. Determined not to put up with his nonsense for another minute, she tried once again to get up. This time a wave of dizziness swamped her before she could reach her feet.

Instantly, Lucas’s hands clamped down on her shoulders. His grip was all that kept her upright.

“I’m fine,” she insisted.

“You’re stubborn,” he corrected her. Gently but firmly, he used that same hold to force her back against the sofa cushions. “Were you that way before you fell on your head?”

She blinked up at him in confusion. For the first time she really thought about what she could remember. It didn’t seem possible she could have gotten this injury from a fall. She’d been standing still. Blacking out and somehow injuring herself in the process made no sense at all. Her recollection of the few seconds before she’d lost consciousness was pretty disjointed, but she honestly couldn’t think of any good reason why she should have ended up out cold in the cold . . . unless something had struck her on the head first.

“Did you actually see me fall?”

His grip tightened on her shoulders for just a moment before he relaxed his fingers, but he left his hands where they were. The contact began to have an unsettling effect on Corrie’s heart rate. That sudden, deep awareness of his warmth and strength made her nervous. It wasn’t like her to respond in such a basic, physical way to a man.

“Did you see me fall?” she repeated. “What do you think happened?”

“Damned if I know.” He continued to hold her, as if to prevent her from making any further attempts to get up too soon. His fingers gently clenched and unclenched on her shoulders. His eyes were intent as he studied her flushed face. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. It scared the hell out of me when you didn’t get up again. The only thing I can figure is that there must have been a rock buried in the snow. You must have hit your head on that after you . . . fainted.”

For the moment she let his skepticism pass without comment. “Did you find a rock?”

“I didn’t look for one.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to do it.” She glanced pointedly at one of his hands, then the other.

He slowly released her shoulders. His expression gave nothing away, but after a moment he sighed with resignation and stood. “I’ll go, and I’ll retrieve your precious earmuffs while I’m at it, but as soon as I’ve done that, we head for the hospital.”

Corrie said nothing, but she didn’t much care for the way he was ordering her about.

After Lucas had shrugged into a down jacket and slammed out the door, she got to her feet. The room swayed, then steadied. She took a moment to examine her surroundings more carefully. There was a sleeping loft on the second level. What she could see of a huge cathedral window beyond a king-size bed indicated that Lucas woke up every morning to a fantastic panorama. On a clear day like this one he could probably see all the way to Mount Washington in neighboring New Hampshire.

Dropping her gaze, she contemplated the view through the window in front of her. No other buildings were in sight, only the snow-covered cross-country course and the trees all around. The woods were quite thick just beyond the spot where she’d fallen. As she watched, Lucas collected her skis and poles, hunted up her earmuffs, and gave the surrounding terrain a cursory glance. The scowl he sent in her direction afterward was not reassuring. She limped back to the sofa and was sitting primly, her hands folded in her lap, when he returned.

Still scowling as he came through the door, Lucas announced that it was time to head for the hospital. He let Corrie get up by herself, but he did offer an arm as they maneuvered the flagstone walk that led from the cabin to a van that was parked a few yards away.

“So, did you find the rock that attacked me?” she asked as he settled her in the passenger seat.

“No. No rock. No branch. No sharp objects at all. I don’t know what you struck your head on. Maybe one of your own ski poles. A freak accident.”

That sounded pretty far-fetched, but she didn’t say anything else until he’d loaded her ski equipment into the back of the van and had slid into place on the driver’s side.

“I didn’t come looking for you,” she told him, “and I didn’t faint, either. I’ve never fainted in my entire life.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

After that remark, they maintained a strained silence the rest of the way to the hospital.

CHAPTER THREE

Lucas sat alone in the stark emergency room waiting area, shifting restlessly on the hard plastic chair. “Rule one of successful innkeeping,” he muttered darkly. “Do not get too involved with any one guest.”

“Need to talk to you, Mr. Sinclair.” Officer Gordon Tandy looked unhappy as he shrugged out of his uniform jacket and took the chair opposite Lucas.

“What’s wrong, Tandy?” The way his day was going, Lucas figured Corrie Ballantyne had decided to press some sort of charges against him.

“I just talked to Ms. Ballantyne’s doctor.”

“Why?”

“He was puzzled by her injury.”

“What are you getting at, Tandy?”

“The crease in her temple is actually a shallow groove. He thought she might have been grazed by a bullet.”

“That’s crazy!” Lucas was on his feet, hands fisted at his sides. “I can’t imagine anyone discharging a gun for any reason on Sinclair land.”

“Not even Stanley Kelvin?”

The suggestion made Lucas hesitate. As Tandy well knew, Lucas suspected Kelvin was behind all the petty vandalism, the bad press, and the odd rumors that had plagued the Sinclair House for the last few months. Lucas couldn’t prove Kelvin was responsible for any of it. If Kelvin was responsible, though, it made a macabre kind of sense that having failed to do serious damage with such things as nails strewn in the parking lot to puncture guests’ tires and annoying middle-of-the-night phone calls to guests’ rooms, the vendetta might now extend to violence.

Lucas had no more logical explanation for Corrie’s mysterious injury. Was he paranoid? Maybe. Suspicious at the very least. But he had nothing concrete to offer Officer Tandy.

“I’d have heard a shot if there was one. I didn’t.”

“That’s what the lady says too.” Tandy glanced at the spiral notebook he’d taken out of his breast pocket. “No bang of a pistol. No crack of a rifle. And you didn’t hear anything . . .” He scribbled another note to himself. “Okay. That’s all I need for now.”

“Wait a minute. That’s it? Throw out some crazy speculation and then let it drop?”

“Doctors have to report any suspected gunshot wounds. Cops have to check out the reports. I’m going to make a few calls, take a look at the ground where she fell. I’ll let you know if I find anything, but it doesn’t seem likely. Probably just a freak accident.”

“Yeah.” He’d said the same thing himself, but the possibility they were both wrong worried him all the same.

When Corrie came out, accompanied by the doctor, she was very quiet. Whatever had caused her injury, the physician’s primary concern now seemed to center on the fact that she’d been out cold for close to five minutes.

“I wanted to keep her overnight here at the hospital,” he told Lucas. “She refused.”

“Pure pigheadedness,” he muttered. He already knew her well enough to realize that he couldn’t change her mind. Unfortunately, his comment made conversation between them stilted during the drive back to the hotel.

“I’ll be glad to sign papers absolving the Sinclair House of all liability,” she finally offered. He heard the hint of sarcasm in her voice and winced.

“I’ll send my mother up to keep an eye on you,” he countered.

“I am perfectly capable of setting an alarm clock to wake me every few hours. Besides, Rachel will be back soon. I’ll be just fine. My head has already stopped throbbing.”

“Liar. Dammit, Corrie! Stop being so stubborn. It’s no crime to accept help.”

At once she looked contrite, but she didn’t apologize. Instead, she touched his forearm. “You’ve done more for me than you needed to already,” she said softly.

Surprised at the touch, he glanced away from the road for a moment to stare at her. She seemed about to withdraw her hand when he moved, sliding his arm free and at the same time capturing her gloved fingers with his own.

“I can take care of myself,” she said in a faint voice.

Reluctantly, he released his grip. Whether she liked it or not, he now felt responsible for her wellbeing.

* * * *

“My God, Corrie! What did you do to yourself?”

Calmly setting aside the newspaper she had been reading while she waited for Rachel, Corrie managed to keep her tone casual. “Like it?” She touched the fresh white bandage decorating her brow. “I’m thinking of starting a new fashion trend.”