She shivered suddenly, violently, remembering the way von Heusen had
threatened her. She would be getting out of town, he had told her. If
not by stagecoach, then by some other means.
What could he do to her? She wasn't alone. She had help now.
But to pay for it she was about to turn over half her property--half of
Uncle Joe's legacy to her--to Jamie Slater. If he chose, he could be her
neighbor all her life. She could watch him, and torture herself day
after day, wondefing who he rode away to see, wondering what it was like
when he took a woman into his arms.
She groaned and pushed away from the table. She couldn't solve a thing
tonight. She needed some sleep. She needed some sleep very badly.
She doused the light and crawled beneath the covers. It felt so good to
be in her own bed again. The sheets were cool and clean and
fresh-smelling, and her mattress was soft and firm, and it seemed to
caress her deliciously. A faint glow from the stars and the moon entered
the room gently. It kept everything in dark shadows, and yet she could
see the familiar shapes of her dressing table and her drawers and her
little mahogany secretary desk.
The breeze wafted her curtains. She closed her eyes. Perhaps she dozed
for a moment. Not much time could have passed, and yet she suddenly
became aware that nome thing was different. Her door had been thrust
open.
She wasn't alone.
Jamie was standing in the doorway, his hands on his hips, his body a
silhouette in the soft hazy moonbeams. There was nothing soft or gentle
about his stance, however. She could feel the anger that radiated from
him.
'All right, Tess, where's my room?'
His room?
'Oh!' she murmured.
'Your room ... well, I didn't think you were going to stay here.'
Long strides brought him quickly across the room. She scrambled to a
sitting position as he towered over her.
'I
just spent two days riding with you to get here. I spent two nights
sleeping on the hard ground beneath the wagon.'
'The hay in the barn is very soft.'
'The hay in the barn is very soft,' he repeated, staring at her. He
leaned closer.
'The hay in the barn is very soft? Is that what you said?' She felt his
closeness in the shadows even as she inhaled his clean, fascinating,
masculine scent.
His eyes seemed silver in the darkness, satanic. She was rid- died with
trembling, so keenly aware of him that it was astonishing.
'You don't have a room for me?' he demanded. 'All right, I am sorry.
But you were gone, and we were all exhausted. And you did have a bath
somewhere. I just believed that you meant to sleep where you had
bathed.'
He was still for a moment--dead still. Then he smiled. 'Miss. Stuart,
