LITMIR.BIZ

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the Bible scholar you seem to be, so you lost me at the end there. But I’ll accept what you said about lying just now. You didn’t hope I’d forgotten you, Suze. You knew damn well I wouldn’t, just like I knew damn well you weren’t about to forget me anytime soon. Who the hell’s Mr. Scratch?”

      “You swear too much.” Even as the automatic comment left her lips Susannah knew it was more of a defense than a reproof. Was it was her imagination or had the space between them, slight as it had been in the first place, lessened somehow? She took a step away from him, all her earlier misgivings suddenly flooding back.

      Could you call a man beautiful? she asked herself, forcing a deep breath into her lungs in an attempt to dispel the unfamiliar edginess that was electrifying all her nerve endings. But breathing was a mistake. As she inhaled, the very scent of him seemed to rush into her—a scent compounded of cordite and skin salt and the faintest trace of the soap he’d presumably used earlier this evening.

      He was beautiful. He was beautiful the way a stallion was beautiful, beautiful the way a timber wolf standing over its prey could be beautiful, beautiful because he was a perfectly built male animal.

      And that overpowering maleness could make even someone like her forget everything else except the basic fact that she was a female.

      “Mr. Scratch is the devil,” she said, making herself turn back to face him. “Bible scholar or not, you must have heard of him.”

      “Red tail and horns, pointed beard?” He hacked off a couple of slices of ham, his question disinterested, and something about the careless tone of his voice roused a tiny spark of anger in her.

      “I don’t think that’s what he looks like at all,” she said. “If he did we’d be able to recognize him, and he couldn’t do us any harm. If you’ll show me where Del keeps his skillets I’ll take over from here, Tye. I’m not partial to having a man in the way when I’m cooking.”

      She started to move past him toward the stove, her posture rigid, but even as she took a second step he was in front of her, barring her way.

      “Okay, so tell me, Suze,” he said, his tone edged. “How do you know him when you see him? What exactly does he look like, your Mr. Scratch?”

      His hands were on her shoulders, and suddenly the worn cotton of her dress felt as insubstantial as shattered silk. He tightened his grip by a fraction, and at the barely noticeable adjustment she felt the fabric of her bodice tautening against the swell of her breasts. Instant heat suffused her, and this time when she tried to breathe she found she couldn’t. She stared up at him, her gaze painfully wide.

      Steal the blue from the most perfect summer sky on the most perfect summer’s day and you’d have his eyes, she told herself. A woman could fall into that blue—fall straight in and never want to come out again. What would it be like to let those eyes see every inch of you, to feel that mouth everywhere on your skin, to forget everything you’d ever been taught and give yourself for just one sinful night to the de—

      The breath she’d been trying to take slammed into her with the force of an arctic gale, sweeping away all heat and replacing the lassitude that had gripped her with cold awareness. She swallowed past the dryness in her throat, and he released his grip on her.

      “I—I think he looks just like you, Tye,” she said unevenly. “That’s why he’s so dangerous.”

      Just for a moment she would have sworn she saw something flash behind those eyes—something that could have been pain. Before she could identify the emotion it was gone.

      Or maybe it hadn’t been there in the first place. A crooked smile lifted a corner of his mouth.

      “What’s that expression about giving a dog a bad name?” This time it wasn’t her imagination. Without seeming to move at all, suddenly he’d lessened the distance between them to no more than a few inches. Behind her she felt the hard edge of the counter pressing into her back.

      “Give a dog a bad name and he’ll bite?” she ventured. “Tye, I—”

      “That’s it.” He bent his head, obliterating the last of her precious buffer zone. “You can call me off anytime, Suze,” he said, his tone velvety. “But maybe you don’t want to. Maybe after a lifetime of putting the devil behind you, just this once you’d like to be tempted.”

      His last words were murmured against her lips. For the space of a heartbeat his gaze held hers, and during that heartbeat Susannah knew she should step away from him.

      Her lips parted. Her veins felt suddenly as if they were filled with something much thicker than blood, something so heavy and hot she found it impossible to move her limbs. An identical heat pooled in the pit of her stomach and seemed to spill downward toward her thighs.

      She heard herself sigh, the sound so light and insubstantial it was barely audible. His mouth came down onto hers before the soft exhalation was completed.

      Tye’s tongue moved past her lips, past her teeth, and without conscious volition she felt herself opening up to him, her startled reaction based on instinct rather than experience. The next moment his palms were on either side of her face, pulling her closer to him and steadying her. His tongue went a little deeper, as if it were trying to coax her very soul from her, and some last spark of self-preservation flared desperately inside her.

      With the half-formed intention of pushing him away she brought her hands up, but even as her fingers spread against the solidity of his chest he lifted his head.

      “You don’t have to do that. I said you could call me off anytime.” His whisper was hoarse, his breath warm on her lips. “But you don’t trust the devil, do you? Is that why you ran from me the day you disappeared, Suze—because you were afraid of what I was?”

      Dazedly she shook her head, her gaze locked on his. “I don’t think so.” The heat that had been spreading through her was now a searing ache. Her throat felt scratchy and raw as she forced the words out. “I don’t think that was it at all. I think I ran because I was afraid of what I was, Tye. Or of what I wanted to be, from the first moment I saw you,” she ended, her voice low.

      His gaze darkened to indigo. “I don’t get it. What did you want to be?”

      She didn’t reply immediately. Instead she allowed herself to drink in the sight of him, needing every detail her gaze lingered on to be imprinted in her mind—the tanned cheekbones, the thick and incongruously dark lashes half veiling his eyes, the chiselled cut of his mouth. A muscle moved at the side of his jaw. She attempted a smile, and knew her attempt had failed.

      “Why, everything I wasn’t, of course,” she said softly. “Beautiful and sophisticated and—and sexy, the kind of woman a man like you would be used to.”

      She stepped away from him, staring down at the tea towel around her waist. She blinked, and tightened the loosened knot. Although this time her lips curved as she wanted them to, she felt a stinging moisture behind her eyes.

      “When I looked at you I didn’t want to be me. And I knew that was wrong.”

      Susannah glanced toward the table, where Danny was still fast asleep in his carry-cot. She took a deep breath. “He’s my world, Tye. I can’t let anything get in the way of keeping him safe, and no matter what Sheriff Bannerman thinks, those men showed up tonight looking to find me. So even if you’re right and I knew I wasn’t going to forget you when Greta stopped to help me that day, I couldn’t let myself think about that. I still can’t.”

      Tye held her gaze for a second longer. Then he looked away, his shoulders lifting again in that half shrug she’d seen him give before, as if he were unconsciously trying to adjust the weight of a burden he couldn’t rid himself of. When he spoke there was a harsh edge to his voice.

      “Want to hear something funny, Suze? When I looked at you I didn’t want to be me, either. And just for a while I persuaded myself there was a chance I could change.”

      He exhaled tightly. “Bannerman might have taken

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