Sarah's Sin

bitterness from him.

He pulled her gently against him as the song built to its soulful crescendo, and felt the most incredible sense of lightness and peace. It felt so good, it ached inside him. He brushed his lips against her temple, kissing the fragile skin, his breath stirring the baby-fine tendrils of hair that curled there like wisps of silk.

As the last strains of the melody drifted away Sarah stepped back and looked up at him, her eyes so dark a blue, they looked the color of pansies. She stared up at him a long moment, saying nothing, her expression carefully blank.

“Sarah.” He didn't know what he meant to say. All that came out was her name, as soft as a secret.

“I … I'd best say good night,” she whispered, backing slowly away from him, the way she would from a dangerous animal encountered in the wild.

He stayed where he was, watching her go, saying nothing. Then she was in the comforting dark of the hall. She curbed the urge to run. By the time she got to the stairs, she stopped altogether, her hands clutching the polished oak newel post as if it were the only thing keeping her from sinking into bedlam.

“Oh, dear heaven,' she whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. “Please don't let this happen. Please don't let me fall in love with him.”

But as she climbed the stairs to her room, she had the terrible feeling it was already too late for prayers.

It seemed like the wisest course of action was to distance herself from Matt as much as she could. Sarah had come to this conclusion during the course of another long, sleepless night. He wouldn't be staying forever. If she could just manage to keep her heart out of reach until he had gone back to the city, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when he left.

Her taste for adventure had been seriously depleted by her fear of pain. Adventure probably wasn't all it was cracked up to be anyway, she told herself as she readied a tray of warm muffins and fresh fruit for Matt s breakfast. So far this one had mostly just upset her.

Her thoughts strayed to the memory of being held in Matt's arms and swaying against him as an unseen person in the background sang out all the yearning that had ever been in her heart.

Yes, that had been a sweet moment. And the kiss. That had been precious to her as well. But the risk here was so great and the chance of happiness so small. She had to be realistic about it. Matt was a good man, but there was no future in letting herself fall in love with him. She just had to accept that fact. If she still wanted an adventure, she could try something safer, like figuring out how to make brownies in the microwave oven. Plenty of challenge there, and the only risk was exploding brownie mix all over the kitchen. Or she could have another go at running the VCR. Now there was a real adventure. Every time she tried to put in one of the cartridges Ingrid had told her contained movies, the thing spat it right back out at her. She'd tried touching various buttons, but it only blinked and beeped at her and now the clock would do nothing but flash 12:00—12:00—12:00, and she was terrified she'd ruined it.

Yes, mastering electronic appliances was an adventure that was more her speed. Adventures of the heart were out of her league. Now if she could just get Matt to take the hint.

She wrote him a note telling him she was going into town and stuck it among the muffins. She was hoping he would still be asleep so she could just leave the tray inside his door and slip away from the house before he had a chance to interfere with her plan. There were errands that had to be run in preparation for the guests that would be arriving later in the day. She figured it would take her all morning at the very least to take care of them. That seemed like a good start on escaping the magnetic charm of Dr. Thorne.

She crept up the stairs, taking great care not to rattle the china or slosh the juice. The aroma of coffee wafted up into her face from the thermal carafe, and her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she hadn't taken any time to feed herself yet today. She shushed it and tiptoed down the hall, creeping along the wall to avoid the squeaky spot in the floor. Blossom shuffled along behind her making snuffling noises, trailing the scent of blueberry muffins.

Cradling the tray against her, Sarah managed to work one hand free to grasp the knob on the door to Matt s room. With excruciating patience she turned it a fraction of an inch at a time so as not to make any noise. She pushed the door open a bare inch, then two. Then Blossom butted it wide open with her nose and went bounding in, howling, long ears waving like flags. The basset hound hurled herself at the feet of Matt Thorne, who stood dead center in the room, naked as the day he was born.

“Oh, mein Gott!” Sarah exclaimed on a shocked gasp. Her fingers went instantly numb and the breakfast tray made a noisy trip to the floor. Orange juice spewed across the hardwood. Muffins went bouncing in all direc tions with Blossom chasing after them, trying to catch them in her mouth like balls.

Matt stayed where he was, too enchanted by the sight of a grown woman turning purple with embarrassment to worry about his unclothed state. Sarah dropped to her knees and glued her gaze to the floor as she fumbled with the scattered contents of the tray. Silver rattled against china. The tightly capped coffee thermos slipped out of her grasp and rolled across the floor like a bowling pin.

“I'm so sorry,” she mumbled. “I should have knocked. I thought you would still be asleep. I had no idea you'd be … be—”

“Naked,” Matt supplied, amusement twitching his lips.

“Oh, mein Gott?”

It didn't matter that she was no longer looking at him. She'd already gotten an eyeful and all of it was burned into her brain. She'd seen him with his shirt off and she'd seen him in his running shorts, but what she'd just seen certainly made a big impression on her overall view of the man. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the image from her mind and only succeeded in calling up every detail in startling clarity. Trim hips, muscular thighs. Flat belly with a line of dark hair leading down the center from the edge of his bandages to spread into a thicket of curls around that which made him male—extremely male. “Oh, mein Gott” she mumbled in despair.

“Gee, Sarah, I think that's enough praise. Ill get a big head … or something,” Matt said, barely able to contain his chuckles. He grabbed his bath towel off the end of the bed and slung it around his hips out of deference for her delicate sensibilities and to disguise the fact that he was enjoying having her see him just a little too much. 'Its okay, honey, really. I'm decent now.”

She chanced a peek up at him and went crimson all over again. Decent? Decadent was more like it. The man had no sense of propriety. He certainly had other fine attributes, she thought with a flash of heat in her face, but modesty was not among them.

Matt dropped another towel on the floor to sop up juice and knelt on a dry spot, bending over to look into Sarah's face.

“Sweetheart, its okay. Its no big deal. I don't mind you seeing my body. We've all got one under our clothes.”

She looked at him, utterly shocked, and sputtered, “I don't got one and you had ought to keep yours covered! It looks like a very big deal to me!”

She shoved her soggy note at him and fled, leaving the tray behind. Matt fell over on the floor, laughing and groaning, holding his aching ribs, finally howling in a combination of hysteria and pain. Blossom dropped the muffin she was devouring and howled along.

Sarah grabbed her cloak and bonnet and rushed out the back door of the house. Gravel scuffed her shoes as she ran across the driveway and down to the small barn where the Woods allowed her to keep her horse. Her breath fogged in the crisp fall air like steam. It probably was steam, she thought. Everything inside her felt hot and churning.

Why had she had to see Matt that way after making her big decision to end the adventure of getting to know him? Now everything female in her just wanted to get to know him better. Lust. Pure, sinful lust, that was what it was. And to her discredit, she didn't feel the least bit ashamed of it. What she felt was angry and frustrated.

She grabbed a section of harness and tossed it on Otis without taking the time to brush him first. She had kept the brown gelding for herself when she had sold the rest of the farm and equipment after Samuel's death. The horse looked at her now with his limpid brown eyes, blinking as if she had just awakened him from a deep, restful