Prologue Read online

  Toward noon, she fixed the kind of lunch she'd been serving him before all this began: big sandwiches, blueberry pie, lemonade. She would have made potato salad, too, but Morris Caldwell must have gotten into her garden again because the potatoes were mostly picked over.

  She carried everything outside, and with a quick nervous smoothing of her blouse and skirt, she walked into the shop.

  "Travis?"

  He was so surprised to hear her voice, he almost swallowed the nails he held in his mouth. A big draft gelding stood behind him, patiently waiting for his last shoe. Travis glanced up and saw Chloe standing by the scrap bin.

  His heart lightened at the sight of her, his defenses jostled. His memory of her soapy and sleek in her bath raced from his mind through his heart to his crotch. "Chloe," he said. He wasn't willing to let her see the effect she was having on him. He returned his attention to his work but not without noticing every detail about her.

  Her hair was pulled to a loose twist on the crown of her head. She was dressed in a lavender skirt and creamy muslin blouse, clothes she'd often worn in the evenings when Peterson came for dinner. But it was the middle of the day so he was probably in the kitchen at this very moment. They must have reached a compromise—she'd ordered him to come back. Great. Peterson could have her.

  At the thought, a funny twinge coiled in him that felt a little like jealousy. He swiftly crushed the feeling.

  Chloe could only see the top of his dark head as he bent over the gelding's huge hoof. She'd felt his glance as his eyes swept over her, giving her a brief, oddly intimate look from her hair to her hem, as though he'd long ago claimed her as his own. She shook off the frivolous notion when he spoke.

  "What brings you out to the wrong side of the yard?" he inquired curtly, nailing the shoe on.

  Chloe hadn't thought of what she would say, then suddenly the words popped out. "I have forgiven you, even though I don't know why you started this disagreement, and I've brought your lunch."

  He shook his head and there was a hint of incredulous, taunting laughter in his voice when he spoke. "Hot damn, isn't this my lucky day," he said, not bothering to favor her with a glance. "Mercy from the woman who sent her fiancé to order me to stay out of the house just because I danced with her." He dropped the horse's hoof and straightened to look at her. 'Yessir and yes ma'am, this sure is my lucky day."

  His clear gray eyes were so piercing Chloe almost backed up a pace, but when he mentioned Evan again she stopped and held up her hand. "What did Evan tell you?" she demanded.

  "Exactly what you wanted him to. That dancing on the porch with someone like me would ruin your reputation and from now on, I'm to remember my place, and that place is out here." He gestured broadly at the low ceiling of the shop. "As if you don't remember."

  Those were the very words. Evan had used when he carped about that evening he'd found them. All the pieces fell into place and Chloe realized what had happened.

  "Evan said that I asked him to talk to you? And you believed him?"

  "Why shouldn't I?" he asked, raking his hair back off his forehead. "After all, you've reminded me how fortunate I am to have this job, griped about what I do with my free time, tried to sell me to the sheriff—" He shrugged. "I had no reason not to believe it."

  Chloe was chagrinned. She turned away, glancing for a moment at a joint in the rafters where sparrows had found a nesting place. Everything he said was true and she had no defense. Absently she ran her hand over the smooth, cold surface of the anvil, then turned back to him. "I apologize for Evan. He shouldn't have done what he did. He feels insecure with you here, I guess."

  "Don't make excuses for Peterson."

  “Well, then, he was wrong," she conceded softly. "I didn't send him out here to talk to you. I didn't want you to stay away . . ." She trailed off, embarrassed at how that sounded, then straightened to her full height. "I promised you board and room for your work, and I insist that you accept them."

  His brows rose. "You insist?"

  Damn him, he was thinking she was being bossy again. She relented. "Please."

  Travis thought it over and then nodded. She noticed how a shaft of sun falling from the loft window revealed mahogany-colored strands in his dark hair. He held out his arm as though he would put a guiding hand on her back to escort her through the door, but didn't touch her.

  Outside he found she'd brought a little table to their picnic spot in the shade of the shop.

  "It looks a lot better than plain bread," he said, lowering himself to his chair.

  She looked at him sharply and realized where her baking had disappeared to. "Did you take my bread?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Butter, too, when you were asleep upstairs, and potatoes from the garden."

  There was a barely concealed touch of humor in his voice and she imagined him sneaking into the house in the dead of night to steal bread and butter.

  She started laughing then and the sound of it reminded Travis of music.

  "I thought I was losing my mind when I couldn't find those loaves," she said, glad to have back their unpredictable truce. He had a full-blooded vitality, even when he was sullen and angry, that she enjoyed and had missed. She shouldn't, she knew. No matter what she might think of him, he was still an escaped convict, maybe a thief or a murderer. But she had a hard time remembering that.

  He watched her profile and the way the sun caught the shine and fire in her hair. A breeze came up and ruffled the wispy curls framing her face and blew a long strand across her eyes. She reached up to pull it aside.

  What did a woman like Chloe see in Peterson? he wondered, not for the first time. She was smart, strong, brave—why did she want a worthless do-nothing like him dragging her down? When he thought of her trapped in marriage to Peterson, a familiar uneasiness nagged at him.

  Travis considered this while devouring two sandwiches. As she was pouring his lemonade, he said, "So you're still going to marry the teacher, huh?"

  Chloe was handing him the glass and she faltered for an instant. "I know you don't like him, Travis."

  "No, that's a fact. I'm just wondering why you do. We've established that you don't love him and he doesn't love you. Doesn't sound like a grand passion."

  "All that passion business is for young people. It's just a lot of fuss and bother about nothing," Chloe scoffed, trying harder than ever to convince herself it was true.

  "Where did you get an idea like that?" Travis demanded with a frown and leaned toward her, his elbows on his knees. "It's one of the best things about being alive. To hold a person in your arms and feel their heart beating against your own. To become one with someone you love and join bodies and souls. To wake up in the night next to that person, knowing if the world ended at that moment, your life would be complete." He leaned back and shook his head, as though at her thoughtless ignorance. "God, girl, no one is too old for that."

  Chloe sat wide-eyed and hot-faced at the vehement intimacy of his words. She had no firsthand experience of what he was talking about. She'd sometimes tried to imagine what married people did and mostly had come up with an embarrassed blank. But life's ancient rhythms—the ones that turned the seasons and tides, that made earth's creatures yearn to pair off—were strong within her. She'd been most aware of their power since the day Travis McGuire arrived.

  What if he was right? Oh, she hoped he wasn't because she feared that a life with Evan would never bring her any of those things Travis mentioned.

  He put his plate on the table next to him and slouched down in his chair. He stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles, lacing his fingers over his full stomach. With his head resting against the wall behind him he thought of the spark of response he'd felt shoot through her when he'd kissed her. And that had been more a battle of wills than anything else, he knew. How would she react to the kind of kiss he sometimes imagined giving her when the night was getting long and sleep wouldn't come to him?

  "Peterson isn't the man you need.
You need a man with some guts to stand up to you and the strength to think of you before himself." He caught her green eyes with his own. "You need a man who loves you."

  The certainty in his remark shook her. "But Evan cares about me," she protested, clinging to the threadbare illusion. "He's told me so."

  He heard the shadow of desperation in her voice and it irked him. He was fed up with her blind defense of the schoolteacher. "Oh sure. By trying to drive me off, the only other person besides you who can help to put a roof over his head when he marries you. If you ask me, he's nothing but an opportunist—and not a very smart one."

  "I didn't ask you," she snapped, furious that inexplicable tears began to gather behind her eyelids. She turned her head until she forced them back. "Why do you care about this, anyway? It's none of your business."

  This truth sliced through him, steadying him. "You're right, Chloe, it isn't. I don't mean to meddle in your personal affairs, as you put it the other day. But if Evan Peterson comes back to this shop while I'm here, I'll beat the living hell out of him." He gave her a long, even look. "I'd get a lot of pleasure out of smashing his face."

  Travis stood and held out his hand to help her to her feet.

  Chloe looked up at the storm-gray eyes, beguiled. Despite his violent promise, the lulling tone of his voice, warm and familiar, made his words sound like a hypnotic endearment that pulled her to him. She put her hand in his and stood.

  His grip was sure and gentle when it closed around her fingers. She studied the lines beginning to fan out from his eyes and the strong mouth that was overshadowed by his dark beard. It would be good to rest against him, to depend on him.

  As though an unseen force controlled her, she found herself leaning toward him and then he toward her. The tip of her tongue wet the center of her upper lip as she looked at him.

  He put his free hand to the base of her neck, resting his thumb on her jaw. His other hand, the one that held hers, he tucked against his chest. She felt the leather of his apron and his bare skin above it, warm and smooth. Her eyes closed of their own accord, without her help. Somewhere a magpie twittered. . . .

  The scent of her hair and skin and soap blended together to fan the low blue flame she'd kindled in him weeks ago. When he heard a little moan deep in her throat, his hand slid from her head and down her back to her waist to press her softness to his torso. He looked at her closed eyes and saw for the first time the delicate scattering of pale freckles across her nose. Her long lashes threw crescent-shaped shadows on her cheeks. His gaze drifted to the soft, tempting lips. This was what he wanted to taste, what he'd struggled to resist, but now she was here, yielding and sweet.

  He lowered his head to touch his mouth to hers, first to the place where her tongue had licked it and—

  "Say, young feller, where are you? Old Gus and me got to be gettin' back to the farm," Elmo Sturgis called from the dooryard.

  "Shit," Travis muttered in Chloe's ear just before she jumped out of his embrace. Then in a louder voice, "Out here, Mr. Sturgis. We just stopped for lunch." He kept his eyes on her lips.

  The weathered old farmer came through the shop to the door. Chloe was certain her face must look sunburned it felt so red. Elmo would take one look at it and know exactly what they'd been doing. But he only stopped to greet her, "Oh, how do, Chloe," then turned to Travis. "Old Gus and me got to be going. I hope he's ready."

  While Travis concluded his business with Elmo, Chloe, glad for a distracting task, escaped to collect their lunch dishes with hands that trembled ever so slightly.

  Still, she couldn't stop her eyes from straying back to Travis. Standing in the low-lit shop, he controlled the powerful broad-chested draft horse with just a light touch on his bridle and a stroke of the animal's nose while he talked to the farmer.

  Travis must have felt her gaze on him because he turned to her for an instant and sent her a brief look of such raw yearning she hurried to the kitchen, overwhelmed by the desire he kindled in her.

  * * *

  That evening after dinner, Travis lingered at the kitchen table while Chloe washed the dishes. God knew he shouldn't. A voice in his head cautioned him again and again to keep his distance, to go outside. Especially after that near-kiss in the shop at lunch. But there were so many things here that enticed him—the comfortable kitchen, the homey surroundings, the simple pleasure of her company. So he ignored the warning and remained.

  Chloe was very aware of Travis sitting behind her. Her senses seemed to expand with his presence. From the corner of her eye she saw him, leaning back in his chair, his ankle crossed over his knee, his fingers around the handle of his coffee cup. An evening breeze lifted the curtains and carried his clean smell to her nose. She heard the chair creak when he shifted in it. She remembered the heat of his palm on her waist earlier today, pulling her close; her mind had let her think of nothing else for the rest of the afternoon.

  She rinsed the last dish, then wincing, carefully blotted her chapped hands with the flour sack towel. They felt like she'd held them over an open flame.

  "You should put something on that raw skin," Travis said, unhooking his ankle and rising from his chair.

  Startled to realize he'd been watching, Chloe faced him, clenching her dish towel. She let her hands drop to her sides, hiding them in the folds of her skirt. She knew they looked as bad as they felt and an unusual twinge of self-consciousness flashed through her. "Nothing I've tried works for this."

  Travis took the towel from her, hanging it over the edge of the sink. Then he reached for her fingers and examined them in his own, his dark head bent in concentration. A slight frown creased his forehead at what he saw. "Do you have a pair of gloves?"

  She nodded.

  "Go get them and the petroleum jelly you put on my face," he said.

  "Why?"

  "If you coat your hands with the petroleum jelly and wear gloves all night, this will be better tomorrow," he said, tapping her knuckle.

  Chloe closed her hand and withdrew it, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, and gave a jittery little laugh. "Like a lady of leisure? I'm too busy for that."

  "At night you're only busy sleeping. It'll work." A shadow darkened his expression for an instant and he glanced out the window at the soft, violet dusk, muttering, "I used to know someone who did it."

  "But the gloves will be ruined," she protested.

  "So? When did you last wear them in this town?" he asked, bringing his eyes back to hers and holding them there.

  'Well, I can't remember exactly. But I only have one pair." She supposed there wasn't much logic in that statement. True, she couldn't recall the last time she'd put them on. But she had only a few dressy things in her chest of drawers. Most of her clothes, even her underwear and nightgowns, were so plain. Those gloves, a few lace hankies, and her new wrapper were the only really feminine things she had. "Nice things are hard to come by."

  Was that empathy she saw in his eyes? She searched their gray depths, but the mask to which she was so accustomed was firmly in place, and she chided herself for the wishful thought. She must have imagined it.

  "Go on now and get them," he repeated, nudging her elbow. "I'll show you what I mean."

  Skeptical, she turned and went after the ointment and gloves. When she returned with them, he pointed to a chair at the kitchen table.

  "Sit down," he said and took the chair next to her.

  She sat, somewhat gingerly, filled with a tension that she couldn't name. "What are you going to do?" she asked warily.

  Travis scooped two fingers of ointment from its tin and reached for her right wrist.

  "Really, Travis, I can take care of this myself. I'm not helpless." Chloe moved to free her arm. It wasn't that she didn't like his hand around hers. That wasn't the case at all. The rare circumstance of being touched, with him so close, so fiercely vital—she worried she would tremble and betray her nervousness.

  "Stop fidgeting and sit back," he ordered, tightening his grip. "This will
help."

  He began smoothing the petroleum jelly over the back of her inflamed hand.

  A delicious, soothing languor settled over her. It felt dangerous, almost wicked. The approaching dusk filled the kitchen with soft lavender light and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open.

  "Hmm," she breathed, the involuntary sigh wrested from her.

  "Does that hurt?" he asked, rubbing in the ointment with his fingertips in long, slow strokes. He looked up from the task, waiting for her reply.

  This intense contact—eyes, fingers—robbed her speech and she could only shake her head.

  No, she didn't feel pain. She was confounded by the opposing sensations building within her—comfort and craving, respite and restlessness. She glanced at his hands, strong and dexterous, hands she'd seen control a high-strung horse, swing a maul, and lift an iron bar as though it were a willow stick. With the same firm but gentle skill, he calmed the fire in her skin and started another deep within her.

  When he put her hand, warm and slippery with ointment, between both of his and massaged it, Chloe suppressed a moan. His fingers enclosed hers, threaded with hers. If this wasn't utter heaven, it was as close as she'd ever been.

  He repeated the intoxicating treatment of her left hand, then encased them both in her good white gloves.

  "Leave these on until tomorrow morning," he instructed, and stood abruptly. He wiped his hands on the towel he'd hung earlier.

  She sat with her own hands drooping over the ends of her chair arms. From beneath heavy lids she gazed up at him and wondered why he looked vaguely annoyed, as though she had done something wrong. But before she could ask, she heard his boots thundering down the back stairs.

  * * *

  Be careful, Travis warned himself again as he paced in restless irritation around the darkened yard. It had begun innocently enough. He'd only meant to do a good deed, helping Chloe with her hands. He knew what a beating they took every day, and they really looked painful.