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wondered aloud. “Where did you come
from?”
    He looked like a cowboy. If he wasn’t missing from a movie
company, he could be a genuine cowboy. There were ranches in the area. Had he
come from one of those? Did cowboys in this day and age wear guns? She supposed
they might. There were wild animals in the hills. Snakes. Even supposing working
cowboys wore guns, she was pretty sure they didn’t go around shooting each
other, although, being men, it was not out of the realm of possibility. The
nightly news was full of stories of men, old and young, who seemed to think
guns and violence were the answer to everything.
    She thought for a moment. Perhaps he was one of those
re-enactors, the ones who had made a hobby of dressing up in Old West duds and
firing old-fashioned weapons at targets. Maybe someone had fired wildly, and this
had been just an accident. He was just as wounded as if it had been intentional
though. And how had he showed up here? Her mind raced with questions.
    But she wasn’t likely to find the answers to any of them
today.
    She sponged him off several times during the day and into
the night, even managed to get him to drink a little water. He was incoherent
the few minutes when he was conscious; but, for the most part, he slept.
    It was after midnight when she went to bed, only to awake at
every sound, always aware that there was a stranger in the house. The last
thing she had done before she went to bed was put his gunbelt on the floor in
the back of her closet. She felt safer, somehow, knowing it was in her room,
and out of his reach.
    * * * * *
    She woke early after a restless night. She started to go
downstairs in her gown and robe, then, remembering the stranger, she decided
against it. She dressed quickly in a long-sleeved tee shirt and jeans, turned
up the heat, and went downstairs to check on her patient.
    He was lying on his stomach, his head turned toward the
door. She thought he was asleep, but his eyes opened the moment she stepped
into the room.
    He stared at her through narrowed, pain-glazed eyes. “Who
are you? Where am I?”
    “Who are you?”
    He rolled onto his side, groaning softly. “What happened?”
    “Well, I’m not sure what happened, or how it happened, but
you’ve been shot.”
    He grunted softly, his gaze moving around the room. “How’d I
get here?” He had a voice like aged whiskey, she thought, warm and smooth. And
sexy.
    Amanda shrugged. “You tell me. And while you’re at it, you
can tell me who shot you, and who you want me to notify.”
    “You can’t tell anybody about this.”
    “Surely you want your family to know you’re all right.”
    He shook his head, then licked his lips.
    “Are you thirsty?” she asked.
    He nodded.
    “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
    Trey watched her leave the room, his mind filling with
questions. How had he gotten here? Where the hell was here? And who the hell
was she?
    He glanced around the room again. White walls. Blue curtains.
A blue rug that covered the whole floor. A three-drawer chest. A table beside
the bed. A lamp on the table, but a lamp like none he had ever seen. It had a
flowered shade, no oil, no wick. Where the hell was his gun?
    He started to sit up, swore as pain lanced through his back.
Easing back down on the bed, he closed his eyes. How had he gotten here,
wherever here was?
    He opened his eyes at the sound of footsteps. The woman
offered him a drink of water and he drank it greedily, then sank back on the
pillow. She was a pretty woman, tall and slender, with a wealth of wavy red
hair, dark-green eyes, and a mouth that begged to be kissed. Long, slender legs
encased in a man’s jeans. He hadn't known many women who wore pants, surely
none as lovely and curvy as this one, and he averted his eyes, afraid he had
stared at her legs too long.
    She gazed down at him, a worried look in her eyes. “Are you
hungry?”
    He shook his head.
    “Who shot you?”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “Well, you