Selected praise for
Sherryl Woods

“A Love Beyond Words is that wonderful combination of a strong heroine and a strong, fun-loving hero. Sherryl Woods does it well.”

—TheRomanceReader.com

“Like a fine wine, Sherryl Woods’ latest offering is full-bodied, rich in texture and romantically delicious.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on A Love Beyond Words

“Sherryl Woods always delivers a fast, breezy, glamorous mix of romance and suspense.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

“Sherryl Woods is a uniquely gifted writer whose deep understanding of human nature is woven into every page.”

—New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers

“Sherryl Woods gives her characters depth, intensity, and the right amount of humor.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

A Love Beyond Words
Sherryl Woods

MILLS & BOON

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SHERRYL WOODS

has written more than seventy-five novels. She also operates her own bookstore, Potomac Sunrise, in Colonial Beach, Virginia. If you can’t visit Sherryl at her store, then be sure to drop her a note at P.O. Box 490326, Key Biscayne, FL 33149, or check out her Web site at www.sherrylwoods.com.

To Pat and Mark and all the others

who went through the travails of

Hurricane Andrew right along with me…

here’s to clear skies from now on.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Help me. Please help me. The words echoed in Allison’s head, though she had no idea if she had actually spoken them aloud.

Everything around her was eerily silent, but it had been that way long before Hurricane Gwen, with its 130-mile-an-hour winds, had struck Miami just after midnight. In fact, her world had been silent for nearly fifteen years now, a long time to go without hearing her parents’ voices, a long time for someone who had studied music to miss the lyrics of a favorite love song…an even longer time to adjust to a life of perpetual quiet.

Watching the newscasts about the approaching storm, she had read the lips of the veteran meteorologist and sensed, rather than heard, his increasing panic over the size and force of the storm and its direct aim at Miami.

Then the power had gone out, and she had been left in total darkness to wonder what was happening outside. She’d tried to tell herself it was beyond her control, that she ought to go to bed and attempt to sleep, but for some reason she had stayed right where she was, on the living room sofa, waiting for morning to arrive. Unable to listen to a radio for updates on the storm’s progress, she had simply replayed the last reports over and over in her mind and prayed she had done everything she could to protect herself and her home.

Anyone who’d lived in South Florida for any length of time knew the precautions to take. From the start of the hurricane season in the spring until it ended in November, they were repeated with each tropical storm that formed in the Atlantic.

Allie had arrived from the Midwest only a few months earlier, but she was a cautious woman. After living her whole life with the surprise factor of devastating tornadoes, she was grateful for the advance notice most hurricanes gave from the instant they began to brew off the coast of Africa. Unlike some newcomers, she took the potential threat of these powerful storms seriously.

At the very start of her first hurricane season, she had read every article on preparedness. She had installed electric storm shutters on her pretty little Spanish-style house before she’d spent a dime on the decorating and landscaping she wanted to do. She had a garage filled with bottled water, a drawer jammed with batteries for her flashlight, plus stashes of candles and canned goods. She had double what anyone recommended, enough to share with neighbors who weren’t as prepared.

She suppressed a hysterical laugh as she wondered where all of those precious supplies were now, buried right here in the rubble with her, but defiantly out of reach and useless. As for the house in which she had taken such pride, there appeared to be little left of it but the debris that held her captive. Obviously, despite all she’d done, it hadn’t been enough.

It was pitch-dark, though she couldn’t tell for certain if that was because of the time of day or the amount of debris trapping her. She suspected the former since every once in a while rain penetrated the boards and broken furniture that were pinning her down in painful misery.

Every part of her body ached. She had cuts and scrapes everywhere. The most intense pain was in her left leg, which was twisted at an odd angle under the weight of a heavy beam. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but sensed it couldn’t have been more than minutes. Her stomach still churned from the sudden shock of shutters ripping loose, windows blowing in and walls collapsing around her.

There had been no time to run. Perhaps if she had heard the wind and lashing rain, things would have turned out differently. Instead, out of the blue she had experienced the odd sense that the walls were quite literally closing in, and then everything had begun to break apart around her. Her house had seemingly disintegrated in slow motion, but even at that, she hadn’t been able to move quickly enough.

She had taken one frantic step toward the safety of a doorway, then felt a wild rush of air as the roof lifted up, then shattered down in heavy, dangerous chunks. Those expensive shutters—which had wiped out the last of her savings—had been no protection at all against the fury of the storm.

She remembered the slam of something into the back of her head. Then her world had gone blissfully dark for however long it had been. When she’d come to, there had been nothing but pain. A foolhardy attempt to move had sent shafts of blinding agony shooting up her leg. She had passed out again.

This time she knew better. She stayed perfectly still, sucking in huge gulps of air and fighting panic. She hadn’t been this terrified since the day nearly fifteen years earlier when she awoke in the hospital and realized that everything seemed oddly still and silent. Sensing that something was amiss, she had flipped on the TV, then tried to adjust the volume. At first she had blamed the television, assuming it was broken, but then she had inadvertently knocked over a vase of flowers. It had crashed to the floor without a sound. And then she had known.

Panicked, she had shouted for her parents, who had come running. They had brought the doctors, who had ordered a barrage of tests before concluding that nerves had been damaged by the particularly virulent attack of mumps she’d contracted.

For a while they had hoped that the effect would be reversible, but as time passed and nothing changed, the doctors had conceded it was likely that her world would forevermore be totally silent. It had taken days before the devastating news finally sank in, weeks more before she’d accepted it and slowly learned to compensate to some degree for the loss by relying on her other senses.

Now, because she couldn’t see what was happening, it was as if she had suddenly lost yet another of her senses—her sight. She wasn’t sure she could bear it if the inky darkness that was her world right now was permanent.

Frantic, Allie again shouted for help, or thought she did. In that great vacuum of silence in which she lived, she had no idea if anyone could hear her and was responding. She didn’t even know if anyone was searching the area for casualties or whether the worst of the storm had passed or was still raging overheard.

She had no idea if the dampness on her cheeks was rain, blood or tears. On the chance that it was the latter, she scolded herself.

“Stay calm,” she ordered. “Hysteria won’t accomplish a thing.”

Though, she conceded, it might feel good to give in to a good bout of tears and rage about now.

That wasn’t her style, though. She hadn’t valued or even tested her own strength before she’d lost her hearing. At nineteen she had cared more that she was pretty and popular, that her college studies in music education came easily. Then, in an instant, none of that had mattered anymore. She had been faced with living her life in total silence and she had been terrified. What would she do if she couldn’t share her love of music with others? Who would she be if she couldn’t perform in the occasional concert with the local symphony as she had since her violin teacher had won an audition for her when she was only fourteen?

For a time Allie had quit college and withdrawn into herself. Once gregarious, she had sought isolation, telling herself it was better to be truly alone than to be in a room filled with people and feel utterly cut off from them. Her parents had hovered, distraught, taking the blame for something over which they’d had no control.

Then one day Allie had taken a good, hard look at her future and realized that she didn’t want to live that way, that in fact she wasn’t living at all. Her faith had taught her that God never closed one door without opening another. And so, she had gone in search of that door.

Not only had she learned sign language, she had studied how to teach it to others. She might have lost something precious when the raging infection had stolen her hearing, but she had gained more. Today she had a career that was full and rewarding, a chance to smooth the way for others facing what she had once faced. The hearing-impaired children she worked with were a challenge and an inspiration.

The strength it had taken to view tragedy as an opportunity would get her through this, too. She just had to ignore the pain, the nearly paralyzing blanket of darkness, and stay focused on survival.

“Think, Allison,” she instructed herself, calmer now.

Unfortunately, thinking didn’t seem to be getting the job done. Determined to make her way to safety, she tried to maneuver one of the smaller chunks of debris on top of her, only to realize that the action was causing everything to shift in an unpredictable, potentially deadly way.

This time when the tears came, there was no mistaking them. They came in tandem with the pain and fear.

“I am not going to die like this,” she said, then repeated it. She thought it was probably just as well that she couldn’t hear the quaver she could feel in her voice. “Just wait, Allie. Someone will come. Be patient.”

Of course, patience was not a virtue with which she was very well acquainted. Once she had accepted her hearing loss, she had moved ahead with learning sign language and lip reading at an obsessive pace. She seized everything in life in the same way, aware of just how quickly things could change, of how a sudden twist of fate could alter a person’s entire vision of the future.

Now, just as it had been when the doctors had been unable to battle the infection that had cost her her hearing, it appeared her fate was in someone else’s hands. She could only pray that whoever it was would hurry up.

“Come on, Enrique,” Tom Harris taunted. “Let’s see those cards. I could use the down payment on a new car.”

“In your dreams,” Ricky retorted, spreading his full house on the bench between them.

The other firefighters had gathered around to watch the high-stakes, winner-take-all hand between two men who were intense rivals for everything from women to poker winnings in their spare time, but dedicated partners when it came to rescue operations. Ricky’s grin spread as Tom’s face fell.

“Come on, baby. Show ’em to me,” he said, tapping the bench. “Put those cards right down here where everyone can see.”

Tom spread three aces on the bench, then sighed heavily. Just as Ricky was about to seize the cash, Tom clucked disapprovingly.

“Not so fast, my man. This little devil here must have slipped my mind.” He dropped another ace on top of the other three, then grabbed the pot. “Come to Daddy.”

The other firefighters on the search and rescue team hooted at Ricky’s crestfallen expression.

“Next time, amigo,” Ricky said good-naturedly.

There would always be a next time with Tom. About the only thing Tom liked better than playing cards was chasing women. He considered himself an expert at both pursuits, though even he grudgingly admitted that Ricky was the one with a real knack for charming any female between the ages of eight and eighty.

“You may be lucky at cards, but I am lucky at love,” Ricky boasted.

“It’s those dark eyes and that hot Latino blood,” Tom replied without rancor. “How can I compete with that?”

“You can’t, so give it up,” Ricky retorted, as always. “You can’t match my dimples, either. My sisters assure me they’re irresistible.”

“Your sisters aren’t exactly unbiased. Besides, they have spoiled their baby brother shamelessly,” Tom retorted. “It’s no wonder you’ve never married. Why should you when you have four women in your life who wait on you hand and foot? I’m amazed their husbands permit it.”

“Their husbands knew I was part of the bargain when I allowed them to date my sisters,” Ricky said. “And there are five women, not four. You’re forgetting my mother.”

“Saints forgive me, yes. Mama Wilder, who comes from the old school in Cuba where the husband is king and the son is prince. She’s definitely had a part in shaping you into a scoundrel.”

Ricky grinned. “I dare you to tell her that.”

Tom turned pale. “Not a chance. Last time I offended her precious son, she chased me with a meat cleaver.”

“It was a butter knife,” Ricky said with a shake of his head at the exaggeration. His mother might be a passionate defender of her offspring, but she wasn’t crazy. Besides, she considered Tom to be a second son, which she felt gave her free rein to nag him as enthusiastically as she did Ricky or his sisters. She was still lecturing Tom about his divorce, though it had been final for three years now. If it had been up to her and her meddling, he would have been back with his wife long ago.

“Hey, guys, cut the foolishness,” their lieutenant shouted, his expression somber as he hung up the phone. “We’ve got to roll. There’s a report of houses down.”

“Casualties?” Ricky asked, already moving toward his gear.

“No word, but it’s the middle of the night. Some people might have gone to shelters, but outside the flood zones where evacuations were required, most stayed home to protect their belongings. Worst-case scenario? We could have dozens of families whose ceilings came crashing down on top of them as they slept. Clearly the construction in that part of town was no match for Mother Nature.”

“Multiple houses?” Ricky asked. “I thought we’d lucked out. I thought this sucker had all but ended. Was it the hurricane or a tornado spawned by the storm?”

“No confirmation on that. Either way, it’s trouble,” the lieutenant said.

Within seconds the trucks were on the road, traveling far more slowly than Ricky would have liked. The main street in front of the station was ankle deep in water and littered with debris. Rain was still lashing from the sky in sheets, and the wind was bending nearby palms almost to the ground. Other trees had been uprooted, their broken limbs tossed around like giant pick-up sticks.

Street signs had been ripped from the corners, making the trip even trickier. With signs down and landmarks in tatters, it was going to take luck or God’s guidance to get them where they needed to be, even though it was less than a mile from the station. He murmured a silent prayer to the saints that they would reach the devastated street before someone died in the rubble.

As if in answer to his prayer, the rain and wind began to die down. In a few hours the street flooding would begin to ease, but that was no help to them now. They crept along at a frustrating pace.

The scene that awaited them when they eventually reached the middle-class Miami neighborhood was like a war zone. Power lines were down, leaving dangerous live wires in the road. Here and there a home had miraculously escaped the worst of the hurricane’s wrath, but those were the exception. Most of the two-storey houses had been leveled by the winds or by an accompanying tornado. Those that hadn’t collapsed completely were severely damaged. Roof tiles had been stripped away, glass was shattered and doors had been ripped from their hinges. Another testament to lousy inspections and shoddy construction, Rick thought wearily as he surveyed the damage. Hadn’t the city learned anything from Hurricane Andrew?

There was no time to worry about what couldn’t be changed. With the precision of a long-established team, the firefighters assessed the situation, then split up. A call was placed to the electric company to get a crew on the scene. In the meantime, barricades were set up to prevent people from stumbling onto the area around the live wires.

A few people were walking around dazed and bloody, oblivious to the light shower that was now the only lingering evidence of Hurricane Gwen. Some of the paramedics set up a first aid station and began to treat the less severely injured, while others took their highly trained dogs and began to search for signs of life.

A woman who looked to be in her seventies, clutching a robe tightly around her, hobbled up to Ricky. She seemed to be completely unaware of the bloody gash in her forehead, though her expression was frantic.

“You have to find Allie,” she said urgently.

“Your daughter, ma’am?”

“No, no, she’s my neighbor.” She gestured toward a severely damaged house. As Ricky and Tom headed in that direction, she trailed along behind. “She’s a wonderful young woman and she’s already been through so much. This house was her pride and joy. She just bought it a few months ago, and she’s been spending every spare minute fixing it up, putting in flowers all around.”

Her eyes shone with tears. “None of that matters, of course. Houses can be rebuilt. Flowers can be replanted.”

“You say her name is Allie?” Ricky asked.

“Allison, actually. Allison Matthews.”

As Tom went to get the equipment they’d need, Ricky surveyed the collapsed structure in the early dawn light. He opened his mouth to shout, but the woman’s frail hand on his arm stopped him.

“Calling out won’t help,” she said urgently. “She won’t be able to hear you. Allie’s deaf.”

As if the situation weren’t complicated enough, he thought, then reminded himself to treat it as he might a rescue in a foreign country where he didn’t know the language. It wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t communicate with this Allie in the usual way. He just had to find her.

He circled the twisted pile of debris, looking for any sign of the woman, any hint of where rooms might have been. Would she have been in an upstairs bedroom or downstairs?

Shadow, the highly trained dog at his side, moved gingerly through the rubble, sniffing. Rick stood where he was, waiting, letting Shadow do his part. This was always the hardest part of a rescue, hanging back, leaving it to the German shepherd to pinpoint signs of life.

Finally Shadow stilled, whimpered, then barked.

“So, you found her, did you, boy? Good dog.”

Shadow yipped excitedly, but didn’t move, as if he sensed that one tiny shift could be fatal.

“Let’s get her out of there, boy,” Ricky said. He paused long enough to give a reassuring smile to the neighbor. “Looks like we’ve located your friend. We’ll have her out of there in no time.”

“Thank God,” she said. “Allie’s one of those special people put on this earth to show others the meaning of goodness. She’s an angel, sure as anything.”

Ricky didn’t know a lot of women who could live up to such high praise. He tended to gravitate toward women who could best be described as free and easy with their affections, the kind who placed no demands on him, who knew that his job came first. Definitely not the sort of women to take home to meet his mother, who bemoaned his failure to marry on an almost daily basis. The only time she let up was when he brought Tom home for a meal of her famed pork roast, black beans and rice. Then she served up marital advice along with the food. Tom enjoyed her cooking too much to complain.

Of course, right now it didn’t much matter whether Allie was a saint or a sinner. She was someone who needed his help, and that was all that mattered.

He intently studied the collapsed home again, looking for the best possible access, using Shadow’s watchful stance as a guidepost to Allie’s location.

“Shouldn’t you hurry?” the elderly neighbor asked, wringing her hands anxiously.

“Better to do it right than rush and cause more injuries than whatever she’s suffered so far.” Thinking of his grandmother and how she would feel under these circumstances, he took a moment to cup the woman’s icy hands. “It’s going to be okay.”

No sooner were the words spoken than he heard a feeble cry for help from deep within the rubble. The sound tore at his heart. Knowing that there was nothing he could say, that words of reassurance would quite literally fall on deaf ears, he settled for reassuring her friend instead.

“See, there? She’s alive. We’ll have her out of there in no time,” he said optimistically. “In the meantime, why don’t you go over to the first aid station that’s been set up and let somebody take a look at that cut on your forehead. Looks as if you might have a sprained ankle, too.”

“At my age, hobbling’s normal. As for the cut, it’s nothing,” she said, facing him stubbornly. “I want to be right here when you bring Allie out. She must be terrified. She’ll need to see a familiar face.”

Ricky recognized the determined set of her jaw and gave up arguing. Like his abuela, this woman knew her own mind.

He looked around until he caught sight of Tom, who had assembled the necessary rescue equipment and was ready to get started.

“All set?” his partner asked.

Adrenaline kicked in as it always did when the hard work was about to begin. Ricky nodded.

“Let’s do it,” he said with an eagerness that always struck him as vaguely inappropriate. Yet it was that very anticipation that had driven him to take on such highly dangerous work in the first place. True, what he did sometimes saved lives, which was incredibly rewarding, but it also tested his skill and ingenuity at outwitting the forces of nature and near-certain death in the aftermath. A part of him craved that element of risk.

Often he was halfway across the world. Today, however, he was in his own backyard, so to speak. Somehow that raised the stakes.

He thought of the elderly woman’s assessment of Allie and grinned. He had to admit that his anticipation was heightened ever so slightly by the promise than when this particular rescue was over, for the first time he might be face-to-face with an angel.

Chapter Two

Allie fell in and out of consciousness. Or maybe she only slept. She just knew that every once in a while her eyes seemed to drift shut and her pain faded away. When she awoke, there was always the throbbing, more intense than ever.

“Help!” she cried out again. Surely by now there were rescuers in the area. If they could hear her, they could find her. Gasping at the pain, she steadied herself, then shouted again, “Help!”

When her shouts were met with nothing but more of the same silence, she felt as if she were calling into some huge void. As her cries continued to go unanswered, she began to lose hope. What if they never found her? How long could she stay alive in this unrelenting heat without water? Despair began to overwhelm her.

Then, suddenly, just when she was about to give up, she thought she caught sight of a faint movement far above her. Was it possible? In the pitch-blackness, she couldn’t be sure. Had there been a glimmer of light?

“Here,” she called on the chance that it hadn’t been her imagination playing cruel tricks on her. “I’m down here.”

A chunk of what once had been her roof—or maybe a wall, considering how topsy-turvy everything was—was eased away, allowing her a first glimpse of sky. Ironically, given the storm that had raged so recently, the sky was now a brilliant blue, too beautiful by far for anyone to imagine that such destruction had been wreaked by the heavens only hours before.

Relieved that she still had her sight, she wanted to simply stare and stare at the sunshine, but she was forced to close her eyes against the brilliance of it. Still, she could feel the blazing heat on her cheeks and vowed she would never again complain about Miami’s steamy climate. It felt wonderful.

When she finally dared to open her eyes again, there was a face peering back at her, the most handsome face she had ever set eyes on. Of course, at this point, she would have been entranced by a man with whiskers down to his knees and hair the consistency of straw if he’d come to save her. This man was a definite improvement on that image.

Even with his hard hat, she could see that he had black hair, worn a little too long. He had dark, dark eyes and a complexion that suggested Hispanic heritage and dimples that could make a woman weep. It was all Allie could do not to swoon and murmur, “Oh, my.”

He was too far away for her to read his lips with any accuracy, but she could see his mouth slowly curve once again into that reassuring, devastating smile. She clung to the sight of that smile. It was a reminder that life could definitely be worth living. No man had smiled at her like that in a very long time, if ever.

Or maybe she just hadn’t noticed, she admitted candidly. From the moment she’d lost her hearing, her life had taken on a single focus. Everything had been about learning to adjust, learning to cope, opening that new door…and forgetting about the social life that had once consumed her. She discovered that not many men were interested in a woman who couldn’t hang on their every word, anyway.

For fifteen years now she had had male colleagues, even a few men she counted as friends, but not a single one of them had made her blood sizzle the way this one had just by showing up. She figured it had to be a reaction to the circumstances. After all, this hardly seemed to be an appropriate time for her hormones to wake up after more than a decade in exile.

As time slid by, she kept her gaze locked on that incredible face. She sensed from the way the debris was slowly shifting above her that there was a scramble to free her, but that one man stayed right where she could see him, easing closer, inch by treacherous inch.

“Hi, Allie,” he said.

By now, he was close enough that she could read his lips. And she guessed from the way he’d spoken, being so careful to face her, that he knew she was deaf.

“Hi.” She breathed the word with a catch in her voice, even as relief flooded through her. It was going to be okay. As long as he was there, she knew it.

“Can you read my lips?”

Eyes glued to his face, she nodded.

“Good.” He reached out his hand. “Can you take my hand?”

She tried to move her arm, but it felt as if it, too, were weighted down, just like her pinned leg. She almost wept in frustration.

“That’s okay,” he said. “Hang in there a little longer. You’re being incredibly brave, and if you give us just a little more time, I’ll be able to reach you and this nightmare will be over.”

She nodded.

“Anything hurt?”

“Everything,” she said.

He grinned. “Yeah, dumb question, huh?”

He turned his head away. She could see a change of expression on his face and guessed he was speaking to someone out of sight.

More debris shifted and bits of plaster rained down on her. She yelped, drawing his immediate attention.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his expression filled with concern.

She nodded, her gaze locked with his worried brown eyes.

“Good. Then here’s the deal, Allie. I imagine you want to know what we’re up to out here, right?”

“Yes.” She wanted to know everything, even if she didn’t like it. She’d learned a long time ago that she could cope with just about anything as long as she knew what she was up against.

“Okay, then. I’m going to disappear for just a minute. We’re not happy with this approach, so we’re going to come in a different way. It’ll take a little longer, but there’s less risk. Are you all right with that?”

She wanted to protest the delay, but he was the one who knew what he was doing. She had to trust him. Gazing into his eyes, she found that she did. And even though she didn’t want him to move, didn’t want to lose sight of him, she nodded again. “Okay.”

She turned her head away to hide the tears that threatened. Suddenly she felt what seemed to be a deliberate dusting of powder sprinkle down on her face. She glanced up to find him watching her anxiously.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I needed to get your attention. I promise you’ll see me again in no time. I never leave a pretty woman in distress.”

She almost laughed at that. Even when she wasn’t under a ton of debris, no one in recent years ever said she was pretty. Now she imagined she must look a fright. She had been dressed for bed when disaster struck, wearing a faded Florida Marlins T-shirt and nothing else. At the end of the day, her hair was always a riot of mousy-brown curls, thanks to Miami’s never-ending humidity. She imagined she looked pretty much like a dusty, bloody mop about now.

“Go,” she told him. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

He chuckled. “That’s my girl.”

And then he was gone, leaving Allie to wonder if it was possible that angels ever came with dancing eyes…and looking like sin.

Ricky was still chuckling as he eased his way off the mound of debris. Allie Matthews was something, all right. Scared to death but doing her level best not to show it. He’d caught the occasional glimpse of panic in her amazing blue eyes, but not once had she complained. She had to be in pain, as well, but beyond her one joking admission, she’d never mentioned it again.

“You find something funny about this?” Tom asked, regarding him with curiosity as he leaped to the ground beside him.

“You probably had to be there,” Ricky admitted.

“How’s she doing?”

“Her sense of humor’s intact, but she can’t move. No way to tell if that’s because she’s pinned down or because of an injury. Bravest woman I ever saw, though. She’s not hysterical, but those eyes of her are killers, blue as the ocean and shimmering with tears, though she’s fighting them like crazy.”

Tom shook his head. “Leave it to you to go all poetic about a woman’s eyes in the middle of a rescue.”

“I was hoping to motivate you,” Ricky claimed, though the thought of Tom getting ideas about Allie bothered him more than he cared to admit. It was crazy to be jealous over a woman to whom he hadn’t even been introduced.

He gazed at the rubble with frustration. “Any idea how we can get in there without bringing this mess tumbling down around her?”

They stood surveying the crazy haystack of debris. It was far from the worst they’d ever seen. There had been whole apartment complexes to dig through in earthquake disasters. But Ricky had never felt a greater sense of urgency. Something about Allie’s spirit and bravery had caught his attention in a way that few women did. In just a few minutes he had felt some of that strength and resilience that her neighbor had bragged about.

For the next few hours Ricky, Tom and the others worked with tedious patience to reach Allie. When they finally had a clear view of her through a tunnel that seemed safe enough, Ricky was the one who inched forward on his belly, clearing more debris bit by bit until he could reach out and touch her hand. Again those huge, luminous blue eyes latched on to him and held him captive.

He passed a water bottle to her, but she couldn’t seem to negotiate it to her mouth. She stared at her immobile hand with evident frustration.

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “I’ll get it to you. Hang in there.”

He eased forward an inch at a time, waiting between movements to make sure that the precarious arrangement of debris wouldn’t shift. Finally he was close enough to touch the plastic straw to her lips. She drank greedily, her gaze never leaving his face.

“Is Jane okay?” she asked the minute she’d satisfied her thirst.

“Jane?”

“Next door. Mrs. Baker.”

He thought of the woman who’d guided them to Allie. “About seventy-five? Five-two? Feisty?”

“Yes, yes, that’s her. She’s okay, isn’t she?”

“A cut on her forehead and possibly a sprained ankle, but you’re the only thing that seems to concern her,” he said. “She hasn’t budged since we started trying to reach you. She found a lawn chair down the block and planted it right out front so she can keep an eye on us.”

Allie grinned. “That sounds just like her. And the rest of the neighbors? How are they?”

“We’re checking on all of them now,” he said, unwilling to mention that so far there was one dead and several unaccounted for. Fortunately, she seemed to take his response at face value.

“How long have I been down here?” she asked.

“Not so long. A few hours. We got the call shortly before six a.m. It’s just about noon now,” he told her. “Must seem like an eternity to you, though.”

She nodded.

“Well, it’s almost over. You stay perfectly still, querida. I’ll have you free in no time,” he promised.

“Couldn’t move if I wanted to,” she said as a tear slipped down her cheek. “I—” her voice faltered “—I think I might be paralyzed.”

“Now, don’t go getting any crazy ideas. Looks to me as if it’s just because of the way you’re wedged in here,” he reassured her. “No need to panic. Once you’re out, I’ll take you dancing.”

The teasing drew a watery smile. “You’ll regret it. Even before this I had two left feet. On top of that I can’t exactly hear the music.”

“I’ll take you someplace where it only matters if you can swivel your hips.”

“Ah, salsa,” she said knowingly.

“With a little tango mixed in,” he said. “You’ll just have to hang on and follow my lead.”

She gave a decisive little nod. “I can do that.”

“Then it’s a date.”

All the while he talked, chattering nonsense mostly just to keep her attention focused on his face, he cleared debris from on and around her. When he saw the bloody gashes in a long shapely leg, he had to fight to keep his expression neutral.

That was the worst of it, though. If he could free her leg, he thought he could get her to safety. He just had to keep his mind on what he was doing and off the fact that she was all but naked. The T-shirt she’d presumably worn to bed was shredded indecently. She apparently hadn’t noticed that yet or else she was more brazen than he’d imagined.

“Make sure there’s a blanket ready and waiting when we come out,” he murmured into the radio tucked in his pocket, his head turned so she couldn’t read his lips. She tapped his shoulder, her expression frustrated. He smiled. “Sorry. I was talking to my partner. I just wanted to be sure he’d be ready for us when we blow this cozy little cave under here.”

It took another hour of careful excavation around her leg before he felt confident enough to move her.

“You ready?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed softly.

“I’m not guaranteeing there won’t be some pain.”

“What else is new?” she said bravely.

“You want something for it?”

“Just get me out,” she pleaded.

He cradled her as best he could, aware of every bare inch of skin he was touching, then slowly worked his way back the same way he’d come. It seemed to take forever, but at last he saw Tom’s face peering at them intently.

“You have that blanket?”

“Right here.”

Ricky reached for it, then wrapped it around Allie as best he could in the confined space, before shimmying the rest of the way out.

Allie blinked against the brilliant glare of sunlight and continued to cling to Ricky as if he were all that stood between her and an unfamiliar world.

And, of course, the neighborhood must seem strange—nothing like what it had been the last time she’d seen it before the storm. Ricky could only imagine how it must feel to emerge and find everything changed. He’d seen that same sense of shocked dismay on the faces of other victims of other tragedies as they realized the extent of the damage around them and the likelihood of casualties among their friends and family.

As for the way Allie was looking at him and holding on, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen that reaction, either. The bond between victim and rescuer could be intense, but in most instances it wasn’t long before familiar faces arrived and the bond was broken.

This time, though, only the elderly neighbor stepped forward to give Allie a fierce hug, even as the paramedics moved in to begin their work. Allie was on a stretcher and headed for an ambulance in no time, Jane right beside her, giving instructions. Ricky grinned at the bemused expressions of the paramedics at taking their orders from a pint-size senior citizen in a flowered housecoat and bright-pink sneakers.

“Wait,” Allie commanded as they were about to lift her into the ambulance. Her gaze searched the crowd.

Ricky felt a quick rush of heat at the precise moment when she spotted him. Her gaze locked on his.

“Thank you,” she mouthed, too far away for him to actually hear the words.

“You’re welcome,” he said, then deliberately turned away from the emotion shining in her eyes to move on to another complicated search taking place a few houses away.

“You going to see her again?” Tom asked as they began work on the recovery of a victim who had been less fortunate than Allie.

“I wasn’t down there making a date,” Ricky retorted.

“I was asking about your intentions.”

Those blue, blue eyes came back to haunt him. He wondered if he might not have to see her again before he could get them out of his head.

“I promised to take her dancing,” he admitted, earning a punch from Tom.

“Next time there’s a pretty woman involved, I get first dibs,” Tom said. “There’s nothing like a little gratitude to get a relationship off to the right start.”

“And what would you know about relationships, Mr. Love ’em and Leave ’em?”

“More than you,” Tom said. “I was married.”

“For about fifteen minutes.”

“Three years,” his friend corrected.

“And in that time you learned what?”

“That women get all crazy once you put a ring on their finger.”

Ricky chuckled. “Are you referring to the fact that Nikki thought you ought to stop dating other women after the wedding?”

“Very funny. You know it wasn’t that. I might have looked, but I never went near another woman during that whole three years. Nikki just got all weird about the job. She knew what I did for a living when we met, but for some reason after we got married she seemed to think I’d give it up and go to work for her father.” He shuddered. “Me, behind a desk. Can you imagine it?”

No more than he could imagine himself there, Ricky conceded. “Mama says Nikki still loves you.”

“Not enough to give up that crazy idea,” Tom said, a hint of something that might have been sorrow in his eyes. But it was gone in a flash, replaced by an irrepressible glint of laughter. “That divorce was the best thing that ever happened. Women figure if I got married once, I might risk it again. You’d be amazed what a woman will do when she’s optimistic about your potential. You should consider it.”

“What? Get married, just so I can divorce? Not me. If and when I ever take the plunge, it’s gonna have to be forever. Between Mama and the priest, my life wouldn’t be worth two cents if I even breathed the word divorce.”

“Which is why you never date a woman for more than two Saturday nights running,” Tom concluded. His expression turned thoughtful. “I wonder if Allie Matthews could make you change your mind.”

“Why would you even say something like that? I barely know the woman, and you didn’t exchange two words with her.”

“I got a good look at her, though,” Tom said. “A man doesn’t soon forget a woman who looks that incredible even after being buried under a collapsed building. Besides, if her neighbor is right about what an angel she is, she’s nothing at all like your usual dates. Did you ever consider that you make the choices you do precisely because you know they’re not keepers?”

Ricky scowled at the analysis of his love life. He had a hunch it was more accurate than he wanted to believe. “We’ve got more houses to check out,” he said, stalking away without answering Tom’s question. His friend’s hoot of knowing laughter followed him.

What if he did protect himself from winding up married by dating women he would never, ever spend the rest of his life with? What was wrong with that? It wasn’t as if he led any of them on. As Tom said, Ricky rarely went out with the same woman more than once or twice, and he always put his cards on the table, explaining that in his line of work he was on the go way too much to get seriously involved.

Maybe it was a pattern he’d developed to avoid commitment, but so what? It was his life. He liked living alone. He liked not being accountable to anyone. After spending his first eighteen years accountable to an overly protective mother, an iron-willed father and four sisters who thought his love life was their concern, he liked having his freedom. His nieces and nephews satisfied his desire for kids, at least for the moment. He got to play doting uncle, soccer coach and pal without any of the responsibility that went with being a dad.

There wasn’t a woman on earth who could make him want to change the life he had.

Satisfied that Tom was totally and absolutely wrong, he dismissed his taunt about Allie Matthews. He’d probably never even see her again, never make good on that promise to take her dancing. She wouldn’t even expect him to.

He was still telling himself that the next day, but he couldn’t seem to shake the image of Allie’s cerulean gaze as it had clung to his. If what he’d seen in her eyes had been expectations, he might have run the other way, but that hadn’t been it. There had been gratitude, but underlying that there had been a vague hint of loneliness.

He tried to imagine being rescued from the debris of his home, having only an elderly neighbor for support, rather than the huge, extended family he had. He couldn’t. He knew without a doubt that his hospital room would be crowded with people who cared whether he lived or died, people who would help him to rebuild his home and his life. Who would be there for Allie?

He spent an hour telling himself that surely a woman described as an angel would have dozens of friends who would be there for her, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Allie might not.

“Damn,” he muttered, slamming his coffee cup into the sink and grabbing his car keys.

On the drive he told himself that if he got to the hospital and found that Allie had all the support she needed, he would just turn right around and leave. That would be that. End of story. End of being haunted by those big blue eyes.

Unfortunately, something in his gut told him he was about to go down for the count.

Chapter Three

Allie hated the hospital. The antiseptic smell alone was enough to carry her straight back to another time and place when her life had been forever changed. This time she was an adult and her injuries weren’t either life-threatening or permanent, but the doctors still had no intention of releasing her until she could tell them she had both a place to go and someone to care for her.

Unfortunately, there was no one. She knew only a few of her neighbors, and their lives and homes were in as much a shambles as her own. Her parents had offered to fly down immediately and stay with her, but the expense of paying for hotel accommodations for all three of them struck Allie as foolish. In addition she knew that they would hover just as they had years ago. She didn’t need that. She needed to get back into a familiar routine as soon as she was physically able to. She had promised to let them know if she couldn’t come up with another solution. There had to be one. It just hadn’t occurred to her yet.

“What about that lovely young woman at the clinic?” Jane asked helpfully. She had been to visit the night before and was here again, taking a bus from her sister’s, where she had been staying since the storm.

“Gina has a brand-new baby and a two-bedroom apartment. I couldn’t possibly impose on her and her husband,” Allie said, though her boss had indeed come by and issued the invitation.

“I would insist that you come to Ruth’s with me, but she’s not in the best health herself and, to be perfectly honest, she’s a pain in the neck,” Jane said.

Allie bit back a laugh. Jane’s opinion of her sister was something she had heard with great regularity since she’d moved in next door to the elderly woman. They barely spoke, because Jane thought Ruth spent way too much time concentrating on her own problems and not nearly enough thinking of others.

“Old before her time,” Jane often declared. “She was a cranky old woman by the time she hit fifty. Dressed like one, too. I tried to talk her into a snazzy pair of red sneakers the other day. You would have thought I was trying to get her to wear a dress with a slit up to her you-know-what.”

Now she sighed. “The minute I get that insurance check, I’ll move to an apartment, so I won’t have to listen to her complaining all the livelong day.”

“She did open her home to you,” Allie reminded her. “She was right there as soon as she heard about what had happened.”

“Yes, she was,” Jane admitted. “Of course, she said it was her duty. She wouldn’t have come, I promise you, if she hadn’t worried what her pastor would think of her if she left her only sister on the street.”

Jane waved off the topic. “Enough of that. We need to decide what’s to be done about you. If I thought we could find an apartment in time, you could move in with me until you rebuild, but there’s no way I can get settled someplace that fast.”

“It’s very sweet of you to want to do that, but this isn’t your problem,” Allie told her. “I’ll figure something out.”

Jane looked as if she wanted to argue, but eventually she stood. “Okay, then,” she said with obvious reluctance, “but I’ll be back tomorrow. Same time. You have my sister’s phone number. If anything comes up and you need me, you call, you hear me? Any time, day or night.”

Her elderly neighbor bent down and brushed a kiss across Allie’s cheek. “I think of you as the granddaughter I never had, you know. I hope wherever we end up, we don’t lose touch.”

“Not a chance,” Allie promised, squeezing her hand.

She watched as Jane left, admiring her still-brisk step in her favorite pink shoes. She wore them today with an orange skirt and flowered shirt. A bright-orange baseball cap sat atop her white hair. It was an outfit that could stop traffic, which Jane counted on, since she hated wasting time on a corner waiting for a light to change. It was a habit that scared Allie to death.

All in all, her neighbor was a wonder, interested in everything and everyone. Allie saw her pause in the hallway and watched her face as she carried on an animated conversation with a nurse she’d befriended on her first visit. Jane had all of the doctors and nurses wrapped around her finger. Allie didn’t doubt that Jane was the reason they’d been taking such extraspecial care of her, bringing her treats from the cafeteria and lingering to chat to make up for the fact that she’d had so few visitors.

Once Jane was gone, Allie struggled to her feet, determined to take a walk around the room at least to begin to get her strength back. She closed the door on her way past so no one would witness her awkward, unsteady gait.

She was still limping around the confined space, filled with frustration, when the door cracked open and eyes the color of melted chocolate peered at her. When her visitor spotted her on her feet by the window, a grin spread across his face.

“You’re awake. They told me not to disturb you if you were sleeping.”

“Come in,” she said, glad to see her rescuer again so she could thank him properly for saving her life. “I just realized that I don’t even know your name.”

“Enrique Wilder,” he said. “Ricky will do.”

“Thank you, Enrique Wilder.”

He looked almost embarrassed by her thanks. “Just doing my job.”

“So you spend your life scrambling around like a cat saving people?”

“If I’m lucky,” he said.

She shuddered a little at the implications of that. “Well, I’m grateful.”

He moved carefully around the room, his gaze everywhere but on her. He seemed so uneasy, she couldn’t help wondering why he had come. He paused to gaze out the window, and after a moment she tapped him on the shoulder so he would face her.

“Why are you here?” she asked finally.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure.”

“So this isn’t follow-up you do on everyone you’ve pulled from a collapsed structure?” she teased lightly.

He looked away. She could see his lips moving, but because of the angle of his head, she couldn’t read them. She touched his cheek, turning his head to face her.

“Oh, sorry,” he apologized. “I forgot. I just came to make sure you’re okay. No lasting damage?”

“None. You can check me off as one of your success stories.”

“When are they springing you?”

“Not fast enough to suit me,” she said.

“I thought the goal these days was to get people out as quickly as possible, too quickly sometimes.”

“That’s the general rule, yes, but these are unusual circumstances. It seems I don’t have a home to go to, and they don’t want me alone.”

“You don’t have a friend you could stay with?”

“None I feel I could impose on. I haven’t been in Miami very long. Most of my friends are neighbors.” She shrugged. They both knew the situation most of her neighbors were facing.

“Of course. How is Mrs. Baker, by the way?”

“Living with her sister and grumbling about it,” Allie said with a chuckle. “Jane is very independent. She thinks her sister is a stick-in-the-mud. A half hour ago, you could have heard all about it.”

His devastating smile tugged at his lips. “She was here?”

“Yesterday and today. She says it’s to check on me, but I think she’s just desperate to get away from her sister.”

“I know the feeling,” Ricky said.

“You have a sister?”

“Four of them.”

Fascinated by the idea of such a large family, Allie sat on the side of the bed and regarded him eagerly. “Tell me about them.”

He looked doubtful. “You can’t really want to hear about my sisters.”

“I do,” she assured him. “I was an only child. I’ve always been envious of big families. Tell me about your parents, too. Is your mother Cuban?”

“How did you guess?”

“Your coloring and your first name are Hispanic, but your last name is Wilder. Those looks had to come from somebody.”

He laughed. “Ah, deductive reasoning. Yes, my mother is Cuban. She met my father at school when she had just come to the United States. She swears she fell madly in love with him at first sight.”

“And your father, what does he say?”

“He says she didn’t look twice at him until they were twenty and he’d used up all his savings sending her roses.”

Allie chuckled. “Maybe she just liked roses.”

“That was part of it, I’m sure, but Mama has always understood the nuances of courtship. She might have been madly in love, but she wanted my father to prove his love before she agreed to a marriage that would be forever.”

“And the roses proved that?”

“No, but the persistence did.”

“And she passed all of this wisdom on to her children, I suppose, assuring that all of you have nice, secure relationships.”

“Let’s just say that my sisters each made their prospective husbands jump through hoops before they said yes. On occasion I felt sorry for the poor men. They had no idea what they were getting into. Sometimes I tried to warn them when they showed up for the first date, but it was too late. My sisters are very beautiful, and the men were already half in love with them before they arrived at the house.”

“How about you? How have you made your mother’s wisdom work for you?” she asked, surprised by how much she wanted to know if Ricky Wilder was married or single and how very much she wanted it to be the latter.

“I haven’t. Haven’t met a woman yet I wanted to impress.”

“But I’m sure you’re swimming in eager admirers,” she said, teasing to hide her relief.

“What makes you think that?”

“Please,” she chided. “Look in the mirror.”

His grin spread. “Are you trying to say that you think I’m handsome, Allie Matthews?”

“Facts are facts,” she said, as if she were stating no more than that. She hardly wanted him to know that he was capable of making her blood sizzle with little more than a glance. “Back to your sisters. Tell me about them.”

He settled into the room’s one chair. “Let’s see, then. Maria is the oldest. She’s thirty-six and has four children—all boys, all holy terrors. Each of them is fascinated by bugs and snakes and chameleons. To her horror, they’re constantly bringing their finds home and letting them loose in the house. I told her it’s penance for all the rotten things she ever did to me as a kid.”

Allie laughed, sympathizing with the other woman’s dismay. “How does she handle it?”

“She gives her husband and the boys exactly five minutes to find the missing creature and get rid of it.”

“And if they fail?”

“She leaves and goes shopping. She can buy herself a lot of perfume and lingerie in a very short period of time. She claims her skill with a credit card is excellent motivation for her husband.”

“I don’t know,” Allie said doubtfully. “Some husbands might consider the prospect of a little sexy lingerie as a benefit, rather than a threat.”

Ricky grinned. “I know. I don’t think she’s figured that out yet.” His expression sobered. “Then again, maybe she has. Maria is a very sneaky woman.”

“And the others?” Allie prodded.

“Elena is next. She’s thirty-five and is married to a doctor. They have only one child so far, because they waited until her husband’s medical practice was well established before starting a family. My mother prayed for her every day. She will not be happy until there are enough grandchildren to start their own school.”

“Are the other two sisters cooperating?” Allie asked eagerly, already able to envision the noisy family gatherings.

“Daniela and Margarita are twins. My mother despaired of ever getting them both married, because they took their own sweet time about it. Neither married until they turned thirty and had their own careers. Daniela is a stockbroker. Margarita is a teacher. Daniela has two daughters and insists that she’s through. Margarita has a son and a daughter, but she’s expecting again and the doctor thinks it might be twins. Needless to say, my mother is ecstatic.”

“I think I would love your mother,” Allie said wistfully. “And your sisters. I love my parents dearly, but they never anticipated having children at all. They’re both college professors and loved the quiet world of academia. I came as a total shock to them. Not that they didn’t adore me and give me everything a child could possibly want, but I always knew that I was a disruption in their lives. They would be horrified if they knew that I’d sensed that.”

Ricky’s gaze narrowed. “Do they know you’re in the hospital?”

“Yes, and before you judge them, they did offer to fly down, but it’s the beginning of the fall semester.”

“So what?”

“I couldn’t ask them to do that. It would disrupt their classes.”

Ricky stared at her incredulously. “You can’t be serious. That’s why they’re not here?”

“They’re not here because I told them not to come,” Allie said defensively. “We would have ended up in a hotel, anyway. It just didn’t make sense.”

“You’ve just been through a terrible storm,” he said indignantly. “Your house was destroyed. You’re in the hospital. They should have been on the next plane, no matter what you said.”

Allie refused to admit that a part of her had hoped they would do exactly that, but she had known better. They had taken her at her word, because it had suited them. It didn’t mean they didn’t love her. They were just practical, and they’d never been especially demonstrative except for those weeks after she’d lost her hearing. That it had taken such a thing to get their attention had grated terribly.

“I won’t defend my parents to you,” she said stiffly.

He seemed about to say something more but fell silent instead, his expression troubled.

Allie waited, and eventually he met her gaze.

“What will you do?” he asked.

“Stay here a day or two longer, I imagine. Then the insurance company will no doubt insist the hospital kick me out no matter what. Or I suppose they could send me to an intermediate treatment center of some kind for rehab if the insurance would cover it.”

“A nursing home? At your age?”

“There aren’t a lot of options,” Allie said. “Besides, I don’t think it will come to that. I’m getting stronger every minute.”

“I saw you limping when I came in here. You’re probably not even supposed to be on your feet, are you?”

The doctors had insisted on a few days of bed rest for her ankle and knee, but she didn’t have the luxury of waiting. She had to prove she was capable of managing on her own. “It’s nothing,” she insisted.

“I could ask your doctors about that,” he challenged. “Would they agree?”

She frowned at him. “Really, you don’t need to worry about it. You did your job. I’ll manage.”

“Allie—”

“Really,” she said, cutting off his protest. “It’s not your concern. The social worker is looking into some possibilities.”

“I can just imagine,” he said dryly. He stood up, then moved to the window to stare outside as if something out there fascinated him.

Allie used the time to study him. Even if he hadn’t been the one to rescue her and carry her out of the rubble, she would have recognized his strength. He was slender, but the muscles in his arms, legs and shoulders were unmistakable in the snug-fitting jeans and T-shirt he wore.

More important, there was strength of character in that handsome face.

As she watched, it was evident that he was mentally struggling with himself over something. She didn’t doubt that it had to do with her. He seemed to be feeling some misplaced sense of responsibility for her predicament and nothing she’d said thus far seemed to have lessened it.

Finally he faced her and spoke very deliberately. “I have a solution.”

“To what?”

“Your situation,” he said with a touch of impatience.

“Which is?”

“You need a place to stay.”

She told him the same thing she’d said to Jane earlier and to him repeatedly. “It’s not your problem. I’ll work it out.”

“I’m sure you will, eventually, but you’d like to get out of here now, right?”

She couldn’t deny it. “Of course.”

“Okay, then. You could come home with me.”

She wasn’t sure which of them was more startled by the invitation. He looked as if he wanted to retract it the instant the words left his mouth. If she wouldn’t impose on her friends, she surely wasn’t about to impose on this man whose duty to her had ended when he saved her life.

“That’s very kind of you, but—” she began, intending to reassure him.

“It’s not like I’m there a lot,” he said hurriedly, cutting off her automatic protest. “But I’d be there enough to satisfy the doctors, and it would be a roof over your head till you figure out what you want to do.”

Before she could follow her first instinct and turn him down, he seemed to reach some sort of decision. His chin set stubbornly.

“I’m not taking no for an answer,” he said, then headed for the door. “I’ll speak to your doctors.”

She launched herself off the bed and managed to get between him and the door. Her ankle throbbed with the effort. “You will not,” she declared, trying not to wince at the pain. “I have no intention of being a burden on anybody, much less on someone I barely know.”

“I don’t think you have a choice,” he said, his gaze unwavering.

“Of course there are choices,” she insisted, even if most of them were impractical or unpalatable to someone who treasured her independence and didn’t want to lose it even temporarily.

“Give me one.”

“I’ll go to a motel and hire a nurse,” she said at once, grabbing at the first idea that came to her.

“Why waste that kind of money, when you can come with me? Do you have money to burn?”

“My homeowner’s insurance will pay for the motel, and my medical coverage will pay for the nurse,” she said triumphantly, praying it was true.

“And where will you find this motel room?” he asked.

“Miami’s a tourist destination. There are hundreds of hotel rooms.”

“And most of them are either packed with tourists willing to pay two or three hundred dollars a night or are filled up with insurance adjusters, fly-by-night contractors who’ve swarmed down here hoping to make a quick killing doing repairs or people just like you who’ve been displaced by the hurricane and who got there first.”

Allie sighed. He was probably right. “Then I’ll go into a treatment center. How bad can it be? I’ll only be there a few days.”

Ricky shrugged. “If that’s what you want,” he said mildly. “Institutional food. Antiseptic smells. A hard hospital bed. If you prefer that to my comfortable guest room and my mother’s home-cooked meals, which I’m sure she’ll insist on bringing over, then go for it.”

He wasn’t playing fair. This room was already closing in on her. She doubted a change to another medical facility would be an improvement. And she’d definitely had her fill of bland, tasteless meals. Cuban food was her very favorite. Her mouth watered just thinking about sweet, fried plantains.

But could she move in with a man who was virtually a stranger? Especially one who stirred her hormones in an extremely disconcerting way?

As if he sensed that she was wavering, he gave her an irrepressible grin. “I won’t even try to seduce you, if that’s what’s on your mind.”

“Of course that’s not on my mind,” she protested a little too vehemently, even as a guilty flush crept up her cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

His grin spread. “If you say so, mi amiga.”

Friend? she translated derisively. That’s all she was to him? For a man she’d barely met forty-eight hours ago, it was actually quite a lot, but for reasons she probably shouldn’t explore too closely, she found it vaguely insulting.

As if to contradict his own words, he lifted his hand and caressed her cheek, allowing his thumb to skim lightly, but all too sensually across her lips.

“Come on, Allie. A few days. It’s a way out of here. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

She swallowed hard. More than anything, she thought. More than anything, she wanted not just out of the hospital, but to go home with Enrique Wilder. The powerful yearning terrified her.

Not once in recent years had she given in to her own desires. She had become cautious and practical and self-protective. Heaven help her, without even realizing it, she had turned into her parents.

And two nights ago she had almost died. Maybe it was time she got back to living every single minute of every day.

“If you’re absolutely sure that it won’t be an inconvenience,” she said finally, trying to ignore the wave of heat that continued to build simply from that light touch against her cheek. “And it’s just for a few days.”

His gaze locked with hers. “A few days,” he echoed softly. He bent his head, his mouth hovering a scant inch above hers.

She yearned for him to close the distance, prayed for it, but he jerked away instead, his expression suddenly troubled.

“Sorry,” he said roughly. “I’ll go find the doctor.”

And then he was gone.

Sorry, Allie thought, sinking gingerly to the side of the bed. He was sorry he’d almost kissed her. She was trembling inside, filled with anticipation, and he was sorry?

If she could have backed out of this deal of theirs right now, she would have, but he would have no trouble at all guessing why. It would be too humiliating.

She could keep this crazy lust under control for a few days, especially if he was gone most of the time as he’d promised. It was probably no more than some out-of-whack hormonal reaction to coming so close to dying. It probably had nothing to do with Enrique Wilder at all.

He walked back into her room just then, and her pulse ricocheted at the sight of him. Okay, she thought despondently, it had everything to do with him.

But she could control it. She had to.

“All taken care of,” he announced. “Let’s get you out of here and go home.”

Just the mention of the word did her in. Two days of pent-up emotions crowded into her heart. Allie thought of her own home, unrecognizable now, and had to fight the sting of tears. Ricky regarded her with alarm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What did I say?”

Before she could respond, he gave a low moan and knelt in front of her, taking her hand in his. “Home? That’s it, isn’t it? I’m sorry. You’ll rebuild, Allie.”

“Of course,” she said with sheer bravado. “It just caught me by surprise for a second, realizing that I don’t actually have a home anymore.”

“Well, for now you have a home with me,” he reassured her.

The promise gave her comfort. It might be only a stop-gap solution, but it was enough for now. For the first time since the whole ordeal began, she didn’t feel quite so terrified and alone.

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