"Really?" I asked. "You know where my home is?"
"Yes."
"You won't drag me off and murder me or something, right?"
He gave a surprised chuckle. "No, ma'am, I won't. I'm the local law. It's my job to make sure that doesn't happen."
After a brief hesitation, I took the arm he held out to me. With ease that hinted at his strength, he pulled me onto the horse to sit behind him. I settled between his muscular frame and the horse's rump, instinctively wrapping my arms around him.
"How did you find yourself out here, ma'am?" While polite, there was something in his tone that made me think he wasn't as surprised as I was to discover me in the middle of a crater.
The horse began walking, and I debated what to say. My teeth chattered almost too much to speak.
"Take my coat," my rescuer said. He pulled it from a saddlebag and handed it back to me.
I hugged it around me. The interior was soft from wear and smelled of the man it belonged to: leather, horses, rain, and his own dark, subtle musk. It was a natural, purely male combination with no trace of cologne or fruity soap like I used.
I rested my cheek against his back, absently breathing in his scent. It was oddly comforting, not quite familiar, but pleasant enough that it could be.
Like Carter. There was no such thing as a time machine, no way in the world I was in the past. I didn't even know why I considered it, except that being blown out of town by a meteor opened the door to other strange possibilities.
He waited until my shaking stopped before asking again how I came to be out in the rain.
"I don't really know," I said. I wasn't about to tell him what I suspected. It was hard enough for me to humor the idea without speaking it aloud and ending up humiliated when we reached my aunt and uncle. "What did you mean when you said not again?" I asked.
"I usually find the town drunk in a hole in the middle of a storm."
I frowned. He was hiding something. He'd uttered the phrase after I told him my name, not when he found me. Not about to lose my coat or ride, I didn't challenge him.
"Rare day when you rescue a pretty girl out in the middle of the storm. Your governess know you're out?" he added.
The man with amazing eyes called me pretty. I smiled. "Governess?"
He muttered something beneath his breath without answering.
Dressed in my usual pajama bottoms - an old pair of yoga pants - and a tank top, I hadn't gone to bed thinking I needed a coat in the desert when I awoke. I was soaked, though the rain had turned to a light drizzle. Without his coat, I would catch a cold for sure.