At Close Range by Marilyn Tracy

andshoved her bare feet into a pair of boots Dulce had given her, not caring that they were two sizes too big.
    She snatched up a bottle of aspirin from her bathroom cabinet, a book from the bulging bookcase on the wall and, not questioning why, a pen and empty notebook from atop her desk. She shoved all these items into the pockets of the elegant duster Leeza gave her two months ago and opened the exterior door to the veranda.
    She shuffled across the broad expanse of driveway to the guest quarters and hunched in her duster as if snow lay on the ground, shivering in the cold desert air.
    She marched up the stairs of the teachers’ quarters, but, as she raised her fist to the front door, her need to help Mack Dorsey dissolved and so did her resolve. She back stepped, feeling like a fool, hoping he hadn’t heard her determined scuffles across his narrow porch.
    He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake; not one of the wounded children that needed tending as if he were a little bird with a broken wing. His cold eyes could lance evil at eighty yards; he wouldn’t need a painkiller for the bruises inflicted by some drunken uncle or father. He wouldn’t need a book—and a soft voice—to lull him to sleep, or a pen to write his experiences down. He would know how to survive until morning.
    One of the porch steps creaked beneath her too-large boots as she turned to go. As if the stray sounds were an alarm system, the bunkhouse door flew open and made an enormous clang as the heavy metal hinges collided with the brackets against the side ofthe house. Light spilled from the teachers’ quarters, incandescence escaping into the night.
    Mack Dorsey stood silhouetted in the light, naked to the waist, barefoot, and standing as if he anticipated a grizzly to rush him. His knees were bent, his bare feet spread apart, as if he anticipated a need to move quickly. He held his hands out from his sides as though she might attack him.
    â€œIt’s me,” she said. And when his eyes strafed the brightly lit driveway at the main house and jerked back to where she stood, she realized how foolish she sounded. “Corrie. Corrie Stratton.”
    He muttered a curse before slowly straightening.
    â€œSorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—I was just…”
    â€œIt’s okay,” he growled. The light behind him blocked her from reading his face.
    â€œNew place,” he said gruffly
    That he was in a new place didn’t account for the hours of pacing. “I saw your light on. I thought perhaps you needed something?”
    He turned his head toward the main house, eyes zeroing in on the only light visible, then, back to her. “You were up at this hour?”
    â€œDrink of water,” she lied.
    â€œMe, too,” he lied right back at her.
    â€œOh. Of course. So you don’t need anything?” At best her question sounded lame, at worst it sounded like a come-on. She blushed.
    Luckily, he didn’t seem to read meaning into her words. “You and your partners have thought of everything. Except for clothes, I wouldn’t have had to bring a thing.”
    And he wasn’t wearing many of those, she thought. “Jeannie gets all the credit,” she said, and hoped he didn’t hear the breathlessness in her voice.
    â€œShe deserves it,” he said.
    She shivered against the cold. Despite his lack of clothing, he seemed impervious to the deep chill and she wondered if his many wounds, the scars she could only faintly discern in the dimness, blocked the sensation of cold.
    â€œWell…thanks for thinking of me,” he said. His hand ran the length of his torso, a wholly unconscious gesture, but one that robbed her mouth of moisture.
    â€œWhat?” she asked.
    â€œThanks for thinking of me.” There was a bitter note in his voice.
    She’d thought of little else since she opened the front doors to find him standing there for an