Heart of Gold - By Tami Hoag Page 0,28

she could not turn away from him while he was stricken with fever.

Fever wasn’t all that was plaguing him, she thought, as she tried to quiet him. He moaned and mumbled protests, his head snapping from side to side on the pillow. Sweat beaded again on his forehead as he struggled with some hidden demon. Faith thought of the emotions she had heard in his music—the longing, the loneliness—and wondered if there was any connection to what haunted his dreams.

Romanticizing again, Faith, she scolded herself, and nibbled on her lip.

In all fairness it was difficult not to fantasize, considering the circumstances. She felt like the heroine of a historical novel, a damsel nursing a fallen knight—who happened to be more handsome than the devil himself. With a sigh she sat back and studied him as he settled into a deeper sleep.

Again the lines of his face struck her as being aristocratic—the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the finely chiseled mouth. Even in sleep it was a strong face. And the strength continued down the corded muscles of his neck to his broad shoulders. Whorls of black hair adorned the planes of his chest and swirled down in a line bisecting his abdomen, disappearing beneath the sheet he kept trying to kick off. Faith’s cheeks bloomed fuchsia as her imagination rushed to picture the half of him covered by eyelet-edged ecru linen. If the top half of him was anything to go by, the bottom half of him had to be breathtaking.

Who was he, she wondered, trying frantically to get her mind off his anatomy. Where was he from? What was his family background? How could she be so attracted to him without knowing these vital bits of information? She wasn’t the sort to fall for a man based on looks alone.

Her gaze wandered around his room, taking in every detail that might give her some clue to the enigma that was Shane Callan. He was neat. His clothes hung in the armoire rather than over the furniture. What few personal items he left out were on the oak nightstand. There was a silver flask, a pack of cigarettes, two guns, and a book of poetry.

Smith and Wesson, and William Butler Yeats.

He was a riddle inside a puzzle inside an elegantly handsome facade.

Unable to stop herself, Faith reached out with one finger and traced the length of his arm. It was a trail that followed the hills and valleys of muscle of a man who used his body as well as his mind. The hair on the back of his forearm rasped gently against her fingertips, and tingles of awareness shot through her. She pulled her hand away as if his fevered skin had singed her. Her gaze jerked back up to his shoulder, where a fresh bandage covered the bullet wound that was giving him such grief.

She wanted a simple life, a quiet life.

“No, Faith,” she whispered to herself. Even now attraction tugged between them, but she denied it. “You don’t want to get involved with this man.”

FIVE

“YOU LOOK LOTS better.”

Shane’s brows shot up as he opened his eyes and slowly turned his head on the pillow to see little Lindy planted beside his bed, staring up at him with an expression of almost adult certainty on her cherubic face. Remnants of her bout with the chicken pox dotted her cheeks and forehead, but her dark eyes glowed with energy.

“Me and Mama are taking care of you,” she informed him, lifting a small red plastic case onto the bed. Opening it, she revealed an array of miniature doctor’s tools and a stash of candy. “It’s my turn now ’cause Mama’s busy. We have to see if you have a temp’ture. Open up!”

Obediently Shane opened his mouth and let Lindy stick a toy thermometer between his teeth. She pulled a pint-sized stethoscope out of her case, stuck the ends in her ears, and pressed the business end to his muscular biceps.

“Hmm …” she mused, pursing her lips, her eyebrows pulling together in thought.

“Well, nurse,” he asked soberly, “what do you think?”

Lindy beamed a smile at him, dimples cutting into her rosy cheeks. “I think you’re all better enough to color for a little while, but Mama will probably make you take a nap after that.”

Pushing her doctor’s bag aside, she scrambled up on the bed beside him with a coloring book and box of crayons clutched to her.

Keeping a discreet hold of the quilt that covered him, Shane eased himself up