LITMIR.BIZ

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because I was beginning to think you were afraid of sleeping with little ol’ me.”

      She huffed. “Please. There is nothing little about you.”

      “Babe. I’m flattered.”

      She gave him a baleful look that made him want to smile even more. “You know they say the larger the ego, the smaller the, um—”

      “Id?” he supplied innocently.

      She huffed again and threw herself down on the pillow. “Blow out the candles.”

      “I thought you’d never ask.” He got up and did so, turning the small, cozily lit room into one that was dark as pitch.

      She was silent. So silent he couldn’t even hear her breathe.

      “You all right?”

      “It’s really dark.”

      He wondered how hard it had been for Angeline to admit that. She damn sure wouldn’t appreciate him noticing the hint of vulnerability in her smooth, cool voice.

      Two steps to his right and he reached the dresser. The small tin of matches was next to the pitcher and bowl and he found that easily, too. A scrape of the match against the wall, a spit of a spark, the flare of sulfur, and the tiny flame seemed to light up the place again. “I can leave one of the candles lit.”

      “You said you weren’t a gentleman.”

      He set the flame to one of the candles and shook out the match. “I’m not,” he assured.

      “Then stop acting like one, because now I have to give you room on this bed, too.” She moved on the mattress, and the iron frame squeaked softly. She groaned and covered her face with her hand.

      He laughed softly. “It’s just a few squeaky springs. I doubt any of the good sisters are holding glasses against these thick walls hoping for a listen. You act like you’ve never shared a bed with a guy before.”

      She didn’t move. Not just that she was still, but that she really didn’t move.

      And for a guy who’d generally considered himself quick on the uptake, he realized that this time he’d been mighty damn slow. “Ah. I…see.” Though he didn’t. Not really. She was twenty-nine years old. How did a woman—a woman who looked like her, yet, with her intelligence, her caring, her…everything—how the hell did she get to be that age and never sleep with a guy?

      “Why are you still—why haven’t you ever—oh, hell.” Disgruntled more at himself than at her, he scraped his hand down his face. “Forget it. It’s none of my business.”

      “No,” she agreed. “It’s not. Now, are you going to sleep on the bed or not?”

      He snatched up the pillow from the floor and tossed it beside her.

      She’s a virgin. The thought—more like a taunt—kept circling inside his head. Probably what he got for catching a glimpse of that sexy underwear of hers when he’d promised not to look.

      He lay down next to her, and the iron bed gave a raucous groan.

      “Not one word,” she whispered fiercely.

      That worked just fine for him.

      Chapter Four

      Angeline didn’t expect to sleep well.

      She knew she’d sleep, simply because she’d learned long ago to sleep when the opportunity presented itself. And even though Brody’s long body was lying next to hers, his weight indenting the mattress just enough that the only way she could keep from rolling toward him was to hang on to the opposite edge of the mattress, she figured she would still manage to catch some z’s.

      What she didn’t expect, however, was to sleep soundly enough, deeply enough, to miss Brody leaving the bed.

      Or to find that someone had filled the pitcher on the dresser and laid out a freshly folded hand towel on the dresser top.

      Okay. So she’d really slept soundly.

      Not so unusual, she reasoned, as she dashed chilly water over her face and pressed the towel to her cheeks. Making that climb in the storm had been exhausting.

      Or maybe you’re more comfortable with Brody than you’d like to admit.

      She turned and went out of the room, leaving that annoying voice behind.

      As before, the corridor was empty, still lit by candles in the sconces. She went down the stairs, visited the long, vaguely industrial-like restroom and then went searching.

      But when she reached the ground floor without encountering the impossible-to-miss dining hall, she knew she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

      Annoyed with herself, she turned on her heel, intending to head back and make another pass at it, but a muffled sound stopped her in her tracks.

      Footsteps?

      Nervousness charged through her veins and she tried to shake it off. She was in a convent, for pity’s sake. What harm could come to them there?

      Even if the nuns realized the identity fraud they were perpetrating, what would they be likely to do about it, other than call the authorities, or kick them out into the storm? It wasn’t as if they’d put them in chains in a dungeon.

      Nevertheless, Angeline still looked around warily, trying to get her bearings. She went over to the nearest window, but it was too far above her head. She couldn’t see out even when she tried to jump up and catch the narrow sill with her fingers. So she stood still, pressing a hand to her thumping heart, willing it to quiet as she listened for another sound, another brush of feet, a swish of long black robes.

      But all she heard now was silence. She was listening so hard that when melodious bells began chiming, she very nearly jumped out of her skin.

      She leaned back against the roughly textured wall and waited for the chiming to end.

      “If you’re praying, there’s a chapel within spitting distance.”

      Her heart seemed to seize up for the eternal moment it took to recognize the deep, male voice.

      She opened her eyes and looked at Brody. She came from a family of tall, generally oversized men, much like Brody. And she was used to the odd quietness with which most of them moved. But Brody seemed to take that particular skill to an entirely new level. “It’s a good thing my heart is healthy,” she told him tartly, “because you could give a person a heart attack the way you sneak around!”

      “Who needs to sneak?”

      “Evidently you do,” she returned in the same quiet whisper he was using.

      Despite the wrinkles in his gender-neutral tunic and pants, he looked revoltingly fresh, particularly compared to the rode-hard-and-put-up-wet way that she felt.

      “Did you know you pretty much sleep like the dead?”

      She wasn’t going to argue the point with him when ordinarily, as a result of her paramedic training, she was quite a light sleeper. “What are you doing sneaking around? Do you know what time it is?”

      “It’s almost 3:00 a.m. And what are you doing sneaking around? I’ve been trying to find you for ten minutes.”

      “I needed the restroom,” she whispered. A portion of the truth at least.

      He cocked his head. “You got your boots on. Good.” He closed his long fingers around her wrist and started walking along the hallway, sticking his head through doorways as he went. “While you were dreaming of handsome princes, I was scoping out this place. Hard to believe, but the fine sisters have an interesting collection of vehicles.”

      Her stomach clenched. “You’ll ask to borrow one?”

      Despite the dim lighting, she could tell

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