Authors: Ciana Stone
in to inquire if they had job openings. A very nice middle-aged woman informed her
that the shop was not currently hiring, but offered to keep an application on file. Ana
declined since she had no contact information to put on the form, but thanked the
woman and said maybe she would stop back at another time.
She used some of her precious funds to purchase a newspaper, put in her ear buds,
turned on her iPod and strolled down the sidewalk, reading the classifieds. She came to
a crossroads, glanced around and stepped into the street. She was not halfway across
when the sound of a warning scream from Fergi made her look up.
“Oh, shit!” was all she had time to say before the pickup hit her. Then everything
went black.
* * * * *
Chase wrestled his cell phone from his dog’s mouth and turned his attention back
to the road. His heart jumped up in his throat a split second before his foot slammed
down on the brake.
He saw an enormous hawk dive down toward the small woman reading the
newspaper in the middle of the street. The woman glanced up just as he bore down on
her. Try as he might, he couldn’t get the truck stopped in time. As if in slow motion, he
saw the front of the truck strike the woman and her body become airborne. Her arms
went up and out, the paper flew out of her hands and fluttered in the breeze. Her
shoulder bag slung off and headed in the direction of the sidewalk.
Chase was out of the truck almost as soon as the woman hit the street. He raced
over to her. She was lying partially twisted, her upper back flat on the street with arms
spread akimbo, twisted at the waist so that her right hip was against the road, her left
leg bent at the knee and crossed over the right. Newspaper pages blew all around them.
Her left ear had an ear bud in it. The other side of the headset lay draped across her
body. There was no sign of a player that he could see. Even in the midst of the anxiety
pressing in on him he still noticed that she was quite lovely.
She was breathing, which was definitely a good sign. As he gently moved long,
silky, dark hair aside from her smooth neck to check for a pulse, he dialed 911 on his
cell phone and requested an ambulance. The big hawk he’d noticed right before he
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plowed into the woman swooped down at them and Chase threw himself across the
woman to protect her.
He’d never seen a hawk do anything like that. Was the bird loco? Must be, because
it perched on a light pole and watched everything happening on the street. Chase forgot
about the bird as he and the unconscious woman became a focal point of attention.
People were gathered, as is wont to happen at any accident. By the time the
ambulance and police arrived, there was quite a crowd. Chase sat on the road beside
the woman, his fingers on her neck, monitoring her pulse. It seemed to be okay to him,
but what did he know? He was a rancher, not a doctor.
The paramedics took over, efficiently checking and then transferring the woman to
a stretcher. The police officer responding to the call was an old friend of Chase’s, Jason
Weeks.
“What happened here, Chase?” Jason asked.
“Shit on a stick, Jas. I hit her.” Chase had visions of his rodeo career flying high and
far away to be replaced by the sight of a jail cell.
Jason pulled Chase over to the still-running pickup. “Don’t speak too quick now,”
he advised. “What we have to determine is if you were at fault here.”
“At fault?” Chase looked at his friend like he’d grown two heads. “Christ almighty,
it’s clear as the damn nose on your face.”
“Just calm down and tell me what happened,” Jason said calmly.
Chase blew out his breath, snatched off his hat, slapped it against his leg and with
his free hand, smoothed back his dark hair. “I was driving along. Don’t know how fast,
just regular speed for town. My cell phone rang and Cody grabbed it. I reached over to
get it out of his mouth and when I looked back she was…just there…in the middle of
the road, reading the paper. I slammed on the brakes but couldn’t get stopped in time.”
“You say she was reading the paper while she was crossing the street?” Jason
asked. “So, even though you didn’t have your eyes on the road the whole time, she
wasn’t paying attention either.”
“Yeah, uh, I guess.” Chase could not, in good conscience, lay the blame on the
beautiful dark-haired woman now on her way to the hospital. “No. No, it doesn’t
matter, Jas, it was my fault. Question is, am I gonna go to jail over this?”
Jason pursed his lips and squinted his eyes, mulling it over. “Not if she admits to
being careless, and refuses to press charges.”
“And what are the chances of that?” Chase asked.
Jason smiled. “Well, I guess that depends on you, old buddy. As an officer of the
law, I can’t advise you to get your ass over to the hospital and make sure yours is the
first face she sees when she regains consciousness. Just like I can’t advise you to turn on
the Hawks charm with that little filly.”
“Thanks, Jas.” Chase crammed his hat back down on his head and gave Jason a
friendly pound on the top of the shoulder. “Okay for me to leave?”
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Ciana Stone
“Yeah, go on. I got what I need for my report.”
Chase got back in his truck and rubbed Cody’s broad head when the dog whined.
Like it or not, his plans for the day had changed. Instead of paying a visit to the
superficial but nonetheless delectable Mandy Fuller, he headed for the hospital.
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Chase ‘n’ Ana
Chapter Two
Ana blinked several times, trying to wrap her mind around the sights that met her
eyes. A hospital monitor blinked beside the bed she lay on. Through the open door she
could see medical personnel behind a long counter and people moving up and down
the hallway. She turned to look at the other side of the room and her eyes widened in
surprise.
Okay
,
I
’
m dreaming
, she decided,
or dead
.
Either way, the sight that met her eyes was
quite appealing. A man dressed in snug, faded jeans, scarred boots and a tight white tee
shirt that stretched enticingly over his broad chest and brawny arms, sat in a chair
beside the bed, his elbows on his knees holding a black cowboy hat in his hands
between his spread knees. His head was bowed, his dark hair falling over his forehead.
Ana had always been a sucker for the cowboy type. Maybe it was genetic. Her
paternal grandfather had been a bull rider. Her father, Joshua Stillwater, was not
interested in following in his father’s footsteps and left at the age of sixteen to seek his
future elsewhere. He found it in the shape of Fia MacGregor, a young woman from the
highlands of Scotland whose family had immigrated to America.
Fia, as it turned out, had a soft-spot for cowboy types, so Fiana, shortened to Ana,
spent many an evening sitting on rough bleachers watching local rodeo events in
whatever place her parents landed for the moment. Even after her parents had been
killed in an auto accident, Ana had secretly continued the tradition, watching the rodeo
on television and secretly dreaming of real cowboys with piercing dark eyes and long,
lean bodies.
Now it looked like she’d come full circle, because unless her eyes deceived her, the
man seated beside the bed was not of the drugstore cowboy variety. His jeans were
worn but clean, clinging snuggly to the well-developed muscles of his thighs. His hands
appeared rough, not the hands of a desk worker, and his arms were corded with the
kind of muscle that develops from work instead of achieved in a gym. He had the kind
of body her mother would have called a “real man”.
At the moment Ana could not help but admire that real man physique. But then the
man raised his head and looked at her and time stopped. Ana looked into dark eyes
that belonged only in her dreams. So dark was the brown that it was barely
distinguishable from the black of his pupils. Black thick lashes rimmed the hooded
wells of darkness and thick brows drawn elegantly together parted and lifted in
surprise.
His face might well have been carved by a master, all masculine angles with a firm,
strong chin and slightly long straight nose over a set of lush full lips that begged to be
kissed.
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Ciana Stone
Chase was shocked immobile when her eyes met his. He’d been watching her for
hours, waiting for her to regain consciousness and planning his strategy to charm her
into letting him off the hook for running over her.
She was a small woman, no more than a couple of inches over five feet.
Surprisingly, for a woman so small, she had sumptuous full breasts. Her arms were
muscled but not heavily, just well toned with enough definition to stand testament that
she was in good shape.
Her hair was long, silky and dark, the color so deep a black that even in the artificial
light of the hospital, it shone with highlights like the midnight of a raven’s wing. High
cheekbones gave her a slightly exotic appeal, as did the luscious full lips and bronze
tone of her skin.
But the eyes that locked unblinkingly with his were the most arresting feature of
her face. Large and almond-shaped, they were the amber-yellow eyes of a jungle cat.
Ringed by the thickest, longest lashes he’d ever seen on a woman that were not
manufactured or enhanced, her eyes were the stuff of male fantasy. Which would
explain why there was action taking place in a part of his anatomy that made him
distinctly uncomfortable. The longer they stared at one another, the harder he got.
Chase finally broke eye contact. He looked down at his hat, using the moment to
clear his thoughts, and then looked back up at her.
Ana was disappointed when the man broke eye contact. As long as their eyes were
locked she did not have to be connected to the real world. She could stay inside the
fantasy, imagining that she was looking into the eyes of her destiny.
But the moment ended and she was forced out of fantasy and back to the real
world, where she was in a hospital with a man she did not know.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked.
Chase nearly groaned. It wasn’t bad enough that she was hot enough to start a fire.
She just had to have a slightly husky, low voice that inspired thoughts of hot sweaty
nights and passion that burned long after the stars had faded from the sky.
“You were—uh, you were in an accident.”
“Yeah, that part I remember,” she said. “But what’s wrong with me? I’m kind of
scared to look for myself. Do I still have all my arms and legs and necessary things? Do
I look like I went through a meat grinder? Do I still have both ears and a nose and all
that?”
Chase could not help but grin at the questions. “Yeah, Fancy, you still have
everything and lucky for you there’s not a mark on your pretty face. You have some
busted-up ribs but that’s the worst of it.”
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Chase ‘n’ Ana
Ana blew out her breath in relief and started to sit. “Ouch!” She grumbled at the
pain sitting caused. But at least she could sit. She checked out her arms, and lifted the
sheet to peer underneath at her legs as she moved them and wiggled her toes.
“So,” she pulled the sheet up and arranged herself with her legs crossed in front of
her beneath the sheet. “Who are you and why are you sitting here with me? Are you the
sheriff or marshal or whatever you have here? Do you know who hit me? Where’s Fergi
and where is my purse? How long have I been here? How long was I unconscious?
How long do I have to stay—”
“Hold on, there.” Chase held up one hand. “One question at a time.”
“Okay,” she agreed, thinking he was as attractive when he smiled as wearing a
somber expression, and what a nice low-pitched voice he had, very soft and low but
extremely masculine and sexy. “First question. Who are you and why are you here?”
“My name’s Chase Hawks and I’m here because…” He got up and paced to the foot
of the bed, clutching his hat nervously in front of him. “Well, I’m here because it was
me that hit you.”
She turned to face him. “You’re the truck that ran over me?” Obviously her bad
luck was holding since the guilty party was standing in front of her, looking for all the
world like someone she’d rather rape than rip. But sexy or not, he’d still run her down,
and now she’d be faced with hospital bills she couldn’t pay, which was the last thing
she needed.
“Yes, ma’am. I am.”
“Yes, ma’am?” she blurted. “No, I didn’t mean to—it wasn’t my fault—you should
have been watching more carefully or I didn’t see you?” she shot the questions racing
through her mind at him in rapid fire. “Just yes, ma’am?”
He didn’t respond and she studied him. “Well, I appreciate you being so honest,
Mr. Hawks, and I’m sorry this messed up your day. I’m sure you have better things to
do than sit in the hospital with a stranger.”
Chase had not expected that from her. “Miss…uh, I don’t know your name.”
“Fiana Stillwater.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now, Mr. Chase Hawks, if
you’d be so good as to call the doctor, I think I’ll be leaving.”
“You can’t just leave,” Chase objected.