From Glowing Embers

  * * *

  The apparition was real. The wraithlike female was flesh and bones and pale red-gold hair, a curling mane of it that reached past her shoulder blades in a fiercely glorious profusion. Her skin was cream, scorching to an unhealthy rose as Dillon watched. And if his first impression had been correct, her eyes, now squeezed tightly shut, were the pale brown of outback desert before the spring rains.

  Dillon took two huge strides to the collapsing woman and circled her with arms that were turning black and blue from the battering of another rescue mission that day. "Here, let's get you into the shade."

  Kelsey let him take her weight for a moment. Gratefully she leaned against his chest, barely aware of anything except strong arms and the rasp of a cotton shirt against her face. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I guess I'm just not used to the sun. I feel like a fool."

  Dillon realized he was just about to stroke her hair. His right hand hovered over the gold-red mass like a falcon with no place to roost. "Let's get you into the shade," he repeated awkwardly. He was suddenly very much aware that he was holding a beautiful stranger in his arms and that the smell of his own filthy clothing had been replaced by the fragrance of lavender.

  Half-assisting, half-dragging, he helped her to the porch and seated her in the chair he had just vacated. He gave the cat a helpful nudge with the toe of his boot and watched him slink a yard or two to rest between potted plants. "Are you going to pass out?" he asked, turning his attention back to the young woman.

  Kelsey shook her head, and Dillon nodded in satisfaction. "I'll get you a drink." Without waiting for her answer, he disappeared inside, coming back out a moment later with a glass of water. "Take it slow, a sip at a time."

  Kelsey gripped the glass with trembling hands. Every bit of coordination she still possessed went into guiding it to her mouth. The first sip tasted like salvation. Three sips later she cleared her throat. "Thanks."

  Dillon went back inside and returned with a wet washcloth. Kelsey flashed him a wan, grateful smile and bathed her face and hands, appreciating the moist coolness against her heated skin. "I don't even know your name."

  "My name's Dillon. Dillon Ward." Dillon satisfied himself that she was recovering before he took the chair next to her. He watched her smooth the cloth over her cheeks until the worst of the flush disappeared. Only then did he let himself think about her announcement. "So you're looking for Jake."

  "Am I looking in the right part of the universe?"

  Dillon didn't know how to answer. He made a steeple of his hands, resting his unshaven chin on his fingertips. "You say you're his daughter."

  Kelsey drained the glass and wished for another. She turned to examine the man she had only viewed through sweat-tainted eyes. He wasn't just tall, he was broad, although she would stake her life on the fact that there wasn't an ounce of fat on him anywhere. His shoulders were wide enough to create problems in doorways, and his chest strained against the buttons of a remarkably grimy shirt. His curly hair was shaggy and rumpled, and what might otherwise be an intriguing face was dirt-streaked and unshaven. He was an unlikely savior, but her savior nonetheless. "I am his daughter." She set the glass beside the washcloth on a wooden table. "Can you tell me where to find him, or shall I push on?"

  "You won't find him if you push on," Dillon said grimly.

  "I was told his house was nearby."

  "This is his dugout." Dillon gestured behind him. "Rather, it's my dugout. He's been living with me recently. Jake and I are partners."

  "Partners?" She savored the sweet thrill of being so close to the end of a search that had begun a lifetime ago. In strange ways she had been searching for Jake Donovan since he had walked out of her life with nothing more than a kiss on her chubby, baby cheek.

  "Mining partners."

  Kelsey wet her lips and tried to figure out how anyone could live inside a hill. "Is he inside?"

  "He's not."

  She ignored her frustration. "Then where is he?"

  Dillon wondered how he had worked beside Jake for years and never once heard him mention a daughter. He wanted to dispute her claim, at the least tell her she was mistaken, that this was not the Jake Donovan she was looking for. But there was something about the anticipation in her brown eyes that forced him to be silent about his qualms. And if she were indeed Jake's daughter, he sensed how devastating it would be if he told Kelsey Donovan that in all the years Dillon had known him Jake had never mentioned a daughter, never mentioned a marriage, never mentioned anyone name Kelsey. The news would be almost as devastating as what he had to tell her instead.

  "Where is he?" she repeated.

  "Jake's been hurt," he said, watching to see if he was going to have to pick her up off the ground after all. "There was an accident at the mine. Jake's in the hospital."

  Kelsey heard the words, but she couldn't absorb them. They skittered somewhere in the sunshine, just out of reach. "Hurt?"

  He passed a hand over his hair, belatedly giving a thought to his appearance. If he and Kelsey had met on a dark city street, he would probably have struck terror in her heart. But then, no one looked like a prince after crawling through mine drives dragging rescue equipment and lights and. . .

  "There's no pretty way to tell you," Dillon said. He stared at the horizon, wishing for the first time that there was a tree to focus on. But there was nothing, just red-brown dirt and conical hills, a numbing sameness that was broken only by patches of scruffy saltbush. There might still be the occasional wildflower—pink hops and even Sturts desert pea—hiding in the shade. But from his porch he couldn't see them.

  Kelsey felt herself deflate, like a balloon slowly losing helium. She had come so far. So far. "What happened?"

  "He fell down a fifty-foot shaft."

  She nodded blankly, as if she understood. "He's been hurt."

  Dillon was exhausted. He hadn't slept for sixty hours; he hadn't eaten for twelve, and then he had only wolfed down someone's idea of a sandwich so he could keep searching for the man who now lay unconscious in a hospital bed. Dillon was a man of both warmth and wit—or so he had been told by the occasional women in his life. Now his insides were frozen, and each word he spoke was a death knell.

  "I'll take you to him," he said wearily.

  Jake was hurt, maybe dying. Kelsey mentally repeated the words, trying them out like a half-memorized poem. Jake was hurt. Her father was hurt. She felt nothing except the first sting of sunburn on her cheeks. Giving up, she looked down at her sweat-stained, dust-covered dress. "I should change."

  Dillon wondered if Kelsey even knew what she had said. She was in shock; the response had been rote. Someone, somewhere, had taught her that a clean dress could solve any of life's problems. "Have you got something else?"

  Kelsey gestured to the small suitcase she had brought with her. "Only photographs," she said softly. "Photographs of me with my father. And my birth certificate. I didn't want to leave them in the taxi." She sighed. When she looked up, Dillon saw that her eyes were still dry. "I've come too far to be stopped by a dirty dress." She stood and inclined her head toward him, jutting her strong, pointed chin in a movement that made his heart drop to his stomach. "Will you please take me to see him now?"

  And because Dillon had seen Jake's own pointed chin assume the same angle more times than he could begin to count, he rose to his feet. There was nothing else about Kelsey Donovan that was like Jake, but at that moment there was no one in the world who could have persuaded him that she wasn't Jake's child. And Jake was Dillon's partner, his mate.

  He grasped her elbow, although for whose support he wasn't sure. "We'll be there in ten minutes."