LITMIR.BIZ

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single woman—shows up in camp and the whole place is thrown into an uproar.”

      “Seems like you’re the one in an uproar,” Ethan said. “Everybody else is doing fine.”

      Jason grumbled under his breath and stalked away.

      There was nothing like a brisk walk to take the edge off of one’s emotions, Amanda decided as she made her way toward town. Particularly a walk over a road as rough as this one, where a lady might easily fall on her bustle and embarrass herself in front of anyone and everyone passing by.

      Amanda stopped and caught her breath. Which was worse? Being embarrassed by total strangers, or being embarrassed by the two Kruger brothers?

      One of whom she’d kissed. Hard. On the mouth. With her lips opened.

      Amanda’s cheeks flamed again, churning up her emotions once more. At this rate she’d have to hike all the way to Beaumont to burn off the sting of that memory. Such wanton behavior. What had possessed her to do such a thing?

      Jason Kruger. Amanda was tempted to curse aloud. The words burned her tongue. Jason had caused her to act in such an unladylike fashion.

      He was no gentleman, she decided. A gentleman didn’t have big hulking muscles. A rock-hard chest. A hot mouth. A gentleman didn’t lock a lady in his arms and pull their bodies together so that they touched. He didn’t allow a lady to feel his thighs, his belly, his—

      Amanda gasped aloud, and plastered her fingers to her lips. She glanced around quickly. A man she didn’t recognize sauntered toward the animal pens on the other side of camp.

      Had he seen her? Did he suspect what she’d been thinking? Not to mention what she’d been doing.

      Amanda hiked up her skirt and hurried toward town.

      She was short-winded by the time she reached Meg’s house and went inside. One of the ways Meg made money to feed herself and Todd was by doing mending for the loggers. She was hard at work sewing on missing buttons, closing ripped seams and patching holes when Amanda sat down on the settee.

      “Has Shady come by?” Amanda asked.

      Meg lowered the worn shirt. “Does this mean Jason turned you down again?”

      “I’m afraid so.”

      “Even after you explained about your brides?”

      Even after she’d kissed him.

      Amanda shifted on the settee, anxious to change the subject. “If you won’t let me pay you for a night’s lodging, the least I can do is help with your mending.”

      “Don’t be silly,” Meg insisted. “I was glad to have you here. You can’t imagine how lonely this mountain gets without another woman to talk to.”

      They spent the next several hours working their way to the bottom of the mending basket. Meg talked nonstop, and Amanda realized that she was indeed lonely for female conversation. Her heart sank a little. Another reason she was sorry to leave with her mission unfulfilled.

      “Gracious, it’s late.” Amanda looked out the window and saw that the sun was high overhead now. “I can’t imagine where Shady is.”

      “Shady operates on a timetable of his own,” Meg said.

      “Maybe I should look for him.” She didn’t want to wait until it was too late to go down the mountain and risk not finding a hotel room in Beaumont.

      “The crews will be down from the mountain soon to eat,” Meg said. “The smell of the food will draw Shady out, if nothing else.”

      “I think I’ll go look for him,” Amanda said. She pinned her hat in place, and headed out the door.

      Though she tried to resist, her gaze turned to Jason’s office just down the road. A strange quivering sensation passed through Amanda. Her lips twitched suddenly at the memory of the kiss they’d shared. Why couldn’t she forget?

      Amanda turned quickly and walked the other way.

      By the time she reached the barber shop in town, Amanda had decided it was simply this place that made her act so wanton in Jason’s office. The isolation. The wild, rugged mountain. The lack of anything resembling the civility of the city.

      After all, what else could it be?

      Amanda strolled through the town. It seemed to have grown up on the edge of the logging camp as an afterthought. There was no boardwalk in front of the few businesses that were open. Most of their trade came from the loggers, Amanda guessed, because only a few patrons were on the street.

      The town had a temporary feel to it. The buildings looked hastily thrown together with little concern for appearance or appeal. There was debris and clutter outside the stores as if the owners had no one to impress but the loggers, and the loggers weren’t there to be impressed.

      It was all so different from the shops she was used to. The magnificent stores, restaurants, the streets crowded with carriages and people. Amanda hadn’t expected this place to look like San Francisco, but still….

      After peering into shop windows and down tiny alleyways, Amanda didn’t find Shady. She sighed and headed out of town. Shady knew he had to take her down to Beaumont and would find her soon enough. Maybe Meg was right, that he’d come for her after he’d eaten. She’d get her things together and wait at Meg’s house until he arrived.

      A shudder passed through her so violently she stopped dead in her tracks. Her satchel. She’d left her satchel in Jason Kruger’s office.

      Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose, thinking hard about what to do. She had to get it back, of course. She couldn’t possibly leave it.

      Meg had told her this morning that Jason usually went up to the mountain with the logging crews, so it was probably safe to go to his office and retrieve her satchel. Probably.

      Amanda drew in a heavy breath and started walking again. How did she keep ending up in so many awkward situations on this mountain?

      Amanda knocked on the closed office door hoping she’d get no response. She glanced around. This part of the camp was nearly deserted during the day. She heard the whine of the sawmill in the distance.

      She knocked again, then opened the door and stepped inside. No one was there.

      When she’d been in the office before she’d noticed little more than Jason himself. He seemed to take up the entire room.

      Now she had a chance to look the place over. Jason’s desk and another one, presumably Ethan’s, sat at right angles, with Jason’s facing the door. Maps and charts were tacked to the wall. Ledgers, papers, more maps and charts were stacked haphazardly on the desktops and on shelves. Sawdust had been tracked across the floor.

      The office was still. Amanda walked through the room. She touched the ledgers, flipped one open and saw heavy, straight figures entered in neat columns. She ran her hand over the back of Jason’s chair, felt the smooth grain of the wood. On his desk a technical journal lay open.

      For all his faults—and Amanda had counted many—Jason Kruger had to be admired for what he’d accomplished. When she first received the letter requesting one of her brides, the letter she’d thought came from Jason, she’d asked around.

      Logging was backbreaking work, she’d learned, requiring tireless energy and strength. New, inventive techniques had to be devised to get the huge trees out of the forests. The size of the trees here in these woods presented problems unheard of by loggers on the east coast. She’d been told that any man who could harvest the big trees in the Sierra Nevada would find fortune greater than the West’s silver and gold.

      Amanda sighed in the silent office. Too bad Jason didn’t want to share that wealth with anyone. Or that life. She picked up her satchel where she’d left it beside his desk and headed for the door.

      It swung open as she reached for it. The doorway filled with Jason Kruger.

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