第 6 页

A shiver swept her body, bringing a smile to his lips. His plan was working. Any minute she'd pluck up her rumpled skirts and run for home.

"W-What are you doing?" She sounded edgy, nervous.

Still massaging the base of her neck, he moved closer to her. The soft, worn flannel of his workshirt melted into the prim navy-and-white stripes that ran down her back. With his other hand he pulled out the wiggly little pins that confined her hair.

"Relax," he whispered in her ear as he plucked out the final hairpin. Even to his own ears his voice sounded strained, raspy.

A waterfall of russet hair cascaded down her board-straight back. Her only response was a small, mouselike whimper.

He couldn't help noticing the way her hair captured the light. Hundreds of red and gold highlights swirled in and out of the heavy, rust-colored curls. A strange and foreign urge seized him. For a heartbeat he wanted to bury his face in her hair, to feel the soft strands brushing his skin.

Mentally he shook himself. He had to remember the plan. So what if she had pretty hair? So did a red fox, and a wilier, more troublesome animal didn't exist. It was just that he'dj been so long without a woman.

Remember the plan. He leaned toward her, and as he did, ! her scent filled his nostrils. She smelled so different... so good. She smelled of rain and summer air and homemade; soap. He kissed the soft flesh of her earlobe.

A small shiver crept along her skin, vibrating against the callused hardness of his fingertips. Still tasting the sweetness' of her skin, he turned her around and gathered her into his arms.

She refused to meet his gaze. Staring straight ahead, her eyes bright and wide, she focused intently on the row of buttons that marched down his shirt. Her lips were pressed together tightly, but she couldn't stop their trembling.

He felt her warm breath sliding through the mat of salt-, and-pepper hair that peeked from his open collar "Devon..." Her name slipped from his lips.

She didn't look up. Her small, pink tongue darted out, leaving a trail of sparkling wetness on her lips.

His insides clenched. His hold on her shoulders tightened, His breathing quickened.

Damn. He was acting more like an untried youth than a thirty-nine-year-old man who'd grown up in one of the seediest brothels in New Orleans. His mouth was dry, his hands were shaking.

He had to get control of the situation. Now.

He took her face in his hands. Burrowing his fingers through her hair, he forced her face upward.

The dark, rough flesh of his hands framed the milky paleness of her skin, and next to hers, his skin looked obscenely dirty. Shame curled in his stomach.

Their gazes locked. In the depths of her forest-green eyes, he could see a flicker of barely contained fear.

His shame intensified. How often had he sworn never to hurt another human being? And yet here he was, preparing to hurt- No. He wouldn't hurt her; he was merely going to scare her. She'd leave here with her body intact.

With an animal-like growl, he lowered his head and crushed his lips to hers. He kissed her the only way he knew; hard and without tenderness or thought or caring.

Pure instinct-a force he never questioned-drove him to kiss her harder and harder still. His hands roved freely across her shoulders, down her back, pinning her body against his. The warmth of her breasts and thighs seeped through the worn fabric of his clothes. Her breath, fast and shallow, pelted his beard.

The rock-hard shell of his self-control cracked. All thoughts of "the plan" vanished. A shiver rattled up his spine. His hold on her body tightened, became almost an embrace. The assault on her mouth changed subtly, softened. His tongue slipped past the barrier of her lips, tasting, testing, probing. Ah, she tasted so good, so sweet...

Lost in a sea of sensation, it took him a moment to realize what was happening. She was letting him kiss her! Growling angrily he wrenched his head up and shoved her away. "What the hell are you doing?"

Her fingers traced the red scratches that were already coiling around the edges of her mouth, the leavings of a wire-hard beard on velvet skin. Tenderly she tested the puffiness of her lips. With no small thanks she realized that although his personal grooming habits were only slightly better than a barnyard pig's, at least they extended to brushing his teeth. "I give you credit for trying, Mr. MacKenna." Her voice was husky, her breathing uneven. "In your place I would certainly have tried the same thing. However, you cannot scare me into leaving. I've made a decision to stay, and I never change my mind."

He backhanded the moisture from his lips. "You bitch," he snarled.

"Perhaps," she snapped back. "But I'm not a whore, Mr. MacKenna, and the next time you kiss me, you'd better protect your..." Her gaze lowered pointedly, "privates. A knee can be a powerful weapon."

"Lady, if there's one thing you're in no danger of touching, it's my privates."

She smiled grimly."And here I was thinking I had nothing to be thankful for."

Green-tinged light emanated from the battered tin lantern, creating a strange, unearthly pall in the tomblike tent. The Yukon stove sputtered and hissed, its metal top clattering at the fire's bright orange onslaught.

Devon was ready to scream. The only human sound in the, tent was the ceaseless staccato of her tapping toe on the planks beneath her feet. It drummed in her ears. She and Stone Man had been sitting not more than five feet apart for three hours. In all that time not one word had passed between them. Not a syllable.

Right now, she decided, even a grunt would be a relief.

In all her twenty-nine years she couldn't remember ever! feeling so edgy. He was making her crazy. She'd always hated hostile silences. They reminded her of her father.

As a child she'd had no choice about how she lived. But she was an adult now, and things were different-she made the rules that governed her life. She refused, positively refused, to live like enemies for ten months. She'd spent her whole childhood walking on eggshells around her father's! sullen silences and terrorizing tempers. She'd be darned if she'd do that again.

Her foot stilled. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her head and leveled a heavy stare on her partner."What's wrong with talking?" she demanded.

He didn't even look up from the book he was reading.

She shot to her feet and started pacing. It was a struggle not to wring her hands together. Maybe a less shrewish approach would work."Shall we play cards? Whist, perhaps?"

Nothing.

She tried again. "How about a cup of tea?"

Less than nothing. She yanked hard on the reins of her temper. She wouldn't let him goad her into a tantrum. Forcing her lips into some semblance of a smile, she remarked, "Is that Treasure Island you're reading? I must say, I wouldn't have expected a... man such as yourself to be-"

He slammed the book shut. "Shut up."

She smiled triumphantly. It might not be much, but it was better than that horrible silence. "I will not."

He flipped the book open again and pinned his gaze to the volume's water-warped pages. "Talk all you want, lady. From now on, I'm deaf as a post to your caterwauling."

Caterwauling! Her hands curled into white-knuckled fists. Oooh! He had a lot of nerve, slandering her conversational skills. Him! A big, dirty, disgusting specimen of a man who-She gathered her wits about her. There was no sense in plunging to his Neanderthal level. Nice, intelligent people could argue without shouting, and she was certainly intelligent. "We are humans, Mr. MacKenna, and humans talk. That's the distinction between us and the animals." Her chin popped to a self-righteous angle, and she peered down at him from her loftier position. "Of course, with some of us, the line blurs."

The barb was delivered so calmly it took Stone Man a moment to realize he'd been insulted. When it sunk in he surged to his feet. "Who the hell are you to find fault with me? I am what I am. If you don't like it, get the hell out. No one invited you here."

Her lips tilted upward in the barest glimmer of a smile. "Not true. You invited me here."

His face turned purple. A small blue vein throbbed at his temple. "Quit goddamn reminding me."

A small sigh escaped her lips. There was no victory in baiting him. It was like taking candy from a baby.

The only victory lay in remedying their animosity. Somehow she had to get him to observe the most basic social amenities. Otherwise... she shuddered at the thought of "otherwise."

"Mr. MacKenna," she said evenly,"let's try to get along, shall we? Otherwise it's going to be a long, supremely unpleasant winter."

His eyes flashed with anger. "Not for me it won't."

"Mr. MacKenna, if you could just try to be reasonable, I'm sure we could reach a compromise."

"If you'd stop flapping your jaw for five seconds, you'd hear me. I don't get along with people. I steer clear of them. Got it?"

She counted to ten and tried again. "Mr. MacKenna-"

"Quit goddamn calling me that! I'm not the king of England."

"A relief to Englishmen everywhere, I'm sure." The observation slipped out before she could stop it.

"That's it!" He flung his book toward the makeshift book-rack. It missed, thudding into the sagging canvas wall and landing on the floor with a soft thunk. Without sparing a glance at the fallen book, he stood up and peeled off his shirt.

Every muscle in Devon's body tensed. She stared at him with bulging eyes. "W-What are you doing?"

His pants slid to the floor, puddling around his ankles. His eyes met hers, and there was a wicked glint in the golden orbs. "Dancing," he answered as he bent to untie his work-boot laces. Kicking off his boots, he peeled off his stinking socks and tossed them over the sagging clothesline.

Devon had to jump out of the way to avoid getting a faceful of filthy sock. She glared at him, her hands pressed tight to her hips.

He'd peeled down to the dirtiest pair of red long Johns Devon had ever seen. Scratching his sweat-stained underarm and bulging groin, he said, "Night, lady," and climbed into bed.

Devon stood rooted to the floor, her mouth agape. It was one thing to decide logically to share a divided bed with this man all winter. It was quite another to crawl between the sheets.

Moving nervously, she plucked up his discarded pants and shirt and hung them up.

He stretched out, the movement strangely graceful and feline for so big a man. With his broad back to the wall, he propped his head in his hand and watched her. In the darkened corner his eerie, whiskey-colored eyes glimmered.

"Quit fussing," he commanded.

She swallowed hard, unable to tear her eyes away from him, from the bed. The scratchy iron-gray blanket covered him like a layer of dirty snow.

The blanket concealed his beard and mustache, but she knew he was smiling at her discomfort.

Not a humorous smile, of course. His eyes were as hard as glass and twice as cold. Beneath the blanket, she knew, his smile was a tense, angry slash of lips and nothing more. It was probably the only type of smile his lips knew.

His lips. Without warning she remembered the kiss, remembered how his lips had started out so cold and tight- and how they'd suddenly turned soft, almost welcoming. God, he wasn't planning on trying it again, was he?

"Are you going to wear that dress to bed?"

She stiffened. "A gentleman would turn away."

This time the smile was unmistakable. "Would he?" he drawled. "Howdull."

She scanned the tent, looking nervously for a corner of privacy. There was none; no nook or cranny that would shield her from his prying, penetrating eyes. She swallowed dryly.

"No sense putting it off. You strip here, in front of me, or outside-in front of all of them."

Walking stiffly across the tent, she blew out the lantern. It helped a bit. The light went from eerie green and flickering to a dull and dingy brown. Lines blurred in the shadowy gloom, becoming a series of indistinct shapes. His body became a range of mountains and valleys sheathed in metal gray. His breathing, soft and even, blared in the tent's thick quiet.

"When does it get dark around here?" she muttered.

"September," came his answer from the darkened corner of the bed. His voice was rich, deep, mocking.

Gathering as much courage as she could find rattling around in her soul, she shimmied out of her skirt, shirtwaist, and jacket, then slipped a white cotton nightdress over her head and wiggled out of her undergarments.

Letting the lace nightdress flutter around her ankles, she looked around for her hook. Barely able to make it out in the shadowy gloom, she felt her way along the stove and table to the support beam she was seeking. Careful to shield her corset and petticoat beneath her clothing, she hung her belongings on the hook.

It was time. With one sharp, indrawn breath, she squared her shoulders and headed for the bed.

She moved slowly, her bare feet padding silently across the moss-chinked floor. Gingerly she lifted the blanket. A shudder tiptoed up her spine at the thought of sleeping in this bed with this man. Squeezing her eyes shut, she clambered up the rough-hewn plank sides and slithered under the blanket.

She gasped. Good heavens, there were no sheets on the bed. The blanket felt worn and dirty, and it made her legs itch. And it smelled. First thing tomorrow her beautifully embroidered bed linens got unpacked.

She lay stiff as a switch, the blanket clutched up to her chin. Beside her, he settled deeper into the flat, ghastly-smelling mattress. His breathing slowed.

She let out her breath in a long, relieved sigh. He was going to sleep. She was safe. Squeezing her eyes shut, she started to pray. God almighty, bearer of all light- Something scurried up her naked leg. She let out a banshee scream and scrambled out of bed.

He snapped upright. "What the hell!"

She stared at the bed. "Insects," she whispered. In her imagination, she could see the blanket moving.

Oh, God. She could handle disorder, animosity, filth, but not bugs.

"Christ, is that all? If you're still here next week, you won't even notice them."

She stood beside the bed for a long time, her eyes glued to the bunched-up blankets. All she could think of were her lovely sheets folded away in her chest and her soft, fresh-smelling bed back home. A wave of hopelessness washed through her. Her body started to tremble.