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  It went against her nature to let the conversation lie between them. She liked to prod, to ask, to learn. The most cantankerous of Dr. Goodale’s patients rarely held out long against her cheerful interest. And, despite this man’s exceedingly cantankerous nature, there was plenty to be curious about. She longed to know why he’d come there—then and now—and why he’d left. And why he’d left so much behind.

  But asking would be pointless. He still hadn’t even given her his name. Or asked hers.

  What an interesting few days she’d had, she reflected. She’d lied to her sister, quit the city of her birth, traveled halfway across the country, chosen her new home, and been summarily delivered to the middle of nowhere. And now this, a stalemate with a stubborn stranger.

  He sat with complete stillness, blending easily into the night, and she could almost pretend he wasn’t there. She closed her eyes, tried to sink into the idea.

  Except she could hear him breathing. Even, deep, a steady pulsing rhythm beneath the whoosh of the wind. She found herself breathing in the same cadence, as if her lungs responded to his control rather than her own. No, not there—not with him—breathe now…and now. Not then! Now! Try as she might, she couldn’t keep from falling into the pace he set; it was like purposely trying to dance off beat, when the music kept slipping into your bones and your heart and leading you into the insistent rhythm.

  In…out. So deeply. So evenly.

  Why, she thought vaguely, was she even trying to fight it?

  He stayed in the shack as long as he could stand it.

  It’d probably been a good thing, Jake decided, that the girl had been there when he arrived. She’d distracted him enough that the memories hadn’t had a chance to whack him all at once. If they had, maybe he’d be halfway back to Chicago by now, looking for another bottle.

  But then she’d fallen asleep, not five minutes after she stopped yapping. Just closed her eyes and toppled right over on the bed like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Like the presence of a strange man, one who wanted her gone, didn’t give her a moment’s pause.

  And that’s when the memories arrived. So many, so fast, spinning out from every corner, crawling up from the floor, dropping down from the ceiling. Reeling out from every corner of his brain, pressing in on him until it felt like he might suffocate under them all.

  And so he’d fled the pitiful excuse for a house that he’d worked so damn hard on. He stood in front of it, hands on his hips, sucking in air like he’d just run all the way from McGyre. The air even tasted different out here. Sometimes, in Chicago, when he’d breathed in the thick, sour air, he tried to summon exactly what this air had been like and he’d never gotten it quite right. Even so, it seemed utterly familiar now, the snap of cedar and tang of sage, the sweet dust of grass, a faint tinge of animal musk.

  Coming back here might have been a stupid idea. For a long time he’d believed he’d rather go anyplace on earth, no matter how dismal—and hell, too, if it came right down to it—than here. But he’d given up everything for this place, lost too much of himself here. He’d battled the urge to come back, tried to drown it, and finally gave in. He’d win something out of this place, by damn, by finally proving up the claim. Sell it or keep it, he’d decide when the time came, but he wouldn’t be defeated by this cursed quarter section. He refused.

  He didn’t figure the girl’d be much trouble to dislodge. Her type was easy to recognize, and just as easy to dismiss; the only thing he couldn’t figure was exactly what had lured her there in the first place. But then lots of people, young or foolish or both, believed the rosy propaganda spread by the government and railroads and came West without having a clue what they were getting into. He should know; he’d been one of them. And while it had been only two years ago, he’d come a good long way from young. Foolish remained to be seen. But if that term still applied to him, it wouldn’t be the same kind of foolish. No more of that new and bright optimism. No longer did he believe that everything’d be all right, that he could make it all right.

  He knew better. Oh damn, he knew better now.

  Reg snuffled off to his left, dipped his head and cropped another mouthful of grass. Jake had given the gelding his head. As long as there was food nearby, the horse wouldn’t wander far; it always took determined encouragement to get him moving. Jake dragged his pack from the horse’s back and dropped it on a bare patch of the ground a few feet away.

  He hadn’t brought much with him. He didn’t know whether thieves had found the place or whether all his supplies and equipment remained in the shack, and he hadn’t wanted to waste his money by doubling up. It’d taken three months of unloading freighters at the docks, three hard, sweaty, nasty months to save up the little he had, and it’d take careful use to see him through the winter and pay the fees next spring. No way he was waiting the five years it’d take to prove up the cheap way.

  He plopped down and nestled his head on the pack. The ground was hard and cold beneath him, but that didn’t make much difference to Jake; he probably wouldn’t be sleeping much anyway. It was the one thing he missed about drinking: sleep. Not that the kind of rest he’d found after downing half a barrel of whiskey was particularly restful, anyway, but at least it was some, a lot more than he’d been managing since.

  The tiny shack squatted not twenty feet away, a box dropped on a wide stretch of stubbornly flat land, looking no more permanent than if he’d emptied one of the crates he unloaded at the docks and plopped it down in the middle of Montana. He’d sweated every nail he’d put into it, worried over it, tried his inexpert best, conscious every instant that it would be his and Julia’s first home. But he’d had to rush because the thin-walled tent he’d temporarily pitched wouldn’t suffice for long.

  He’d watched Julia avidly, every time she glanced at his progress. Even more closely the first time he carried her through the door, searching for any sign of disappointment, terrified he’d find revulsion. Her expression never changed; she’d assured him she found it cozy, and that she’d enjoy living there, and that it’d be easy to keep clean. Try as he might, he’d never been able to tell if she told him the truth or not. The claim shack was a million miles from the house she’d grown up in, paled in comparison to even the meanest stables there. But Julia loved him; it was the one thing he’d never doubted. And she’d never let on if he disappointed her.

  He’d disappointed himself, though, with a desperate, hollow regret he hadn’t been able to shake. He’d build her a real house, he swore, a beautiful one, solid and sturdy as his love, as their future. He’d promised her, and himself, that. Even planned it, at night as they snuggled into the narrow bunk and her belly grew with their child. Two stories, big enough for a family, with a sunny kitchen and a broad porch and windows that encouraged the breeze.

  Moonlight wasn’t kind to the old shack. Old. He’d built it barely two years ago, but it was indisputably old, the roof sagging, the door loose, the tar paper peeling like birch bark.

  I’m sorry, Julia. It was as close as he ever got to a prayer, the refrain he murmured every night, the words he rose to every morning.

  I’m so sorry.

  The sound awoke her, a deep heavy rumble that vibrated the bed, her chest. For a moment Emily thought she was still on the train, chugging across the countryside through the night, the car swaying over the track.

  She opened her eyes to dense and gloomy gray. Awareness came in stages: not the train, but her new house. And the man—oh darn! That obnoxious man.

  “Sir?” Had she just plopped over and fallen asleep while he stared at her? How embarrassing, if not surprising. Years of being called into the clinic in the middle of the night had taught her to fall asleep, suddenly and deeply, when given the opportunity.

  “Sir?” she tried again, a bit louder. But maybe, blessedly, he’d slunk off after all. Maybe the fact that the claim was legally hers had finally sunk in. Though he hardly appeared the kind to capitulate easily. And even less the sort who cared much about l
egalities.

  Still no answer; she heard nothing but the wind and the rain and the…

  Rain. “Shoot!” She blasted out of bed, tumbled out of the door, and burst into the storm.

  Gray hazed the sky, hinting that morning approached. The curtain of water rippled when the wind picked up. It wasn’t a violent storm, filled with rage and destruction. Instead it was just wet, cold, and drenching, dousing the supplies she’d assumed safe in the yard.

  She briefly considered grabbing a blanket to drape over her head, but there seemed no point—she was already soaked. Better to keep dry things dry.

  She dashed toward her small, precious cache of supplies. And tripped right over a lump on the ground.

  “Ouch!” She skidded on the slippery grass, slid right down onto her rump. Swiping her burning palms on her skirt, she rolled over, and realized in horror exactly what had tripped her.

  He sat on the ground a foot from her, for all appearances comfortably settled despite the chilly rain pouring over him, one knee pulled up, his wrist resting on it.

  “Oh. It’s you.” She swiped at the rain dripping off her eyelashes, realized it was futile. “I didn’t realize you were there.”

  “Obviously.”

  “You okay?”

  He stared at her so long she had to work not to shift under his regard. Finally he nodded. She waited, until it became clear he’d no intention of saying more.

  “I believe I’m all right as well,” she told him, making no attempt to hide the censure in her voice. After so many years with the doctor, she should be accustomed to rude men. But instead she’d never understood what a few simple manners would cost them. When she married, she’d long ago resolved, her first requirement in a husband would be impeccable politeness.

  “Figured you were.” He nodded in the direction of her boxes. “Best be getting your stuff in.”

  He said it like he’d pegged her as too stupid to drag her things in out of the rain. “I fully intend to,” she said, and went to do just that.

  This was going to be almost pathetically easy, Jake thought as he watched her struggle to get a good grip on a rain-slicked crate. She dropped it three times before she maneuvered it through the front door.

  If there was ever a woman less cut out for the plains than Julia, it was this one. She’d sat there on her butt, a poor, pitiful kitten some heartless person had pitched out into the storm, her hair matted down around her shoulders, eyes all big and curious and wounded. The rain plastered her clothes to her, soaking down all the frills and ruffles, which made her look half the size she did dry.

  She whipped back out of the house again, head down, arms pumping as she went back to her pitiful stack of supplies. Grabbing the handle of a case in both hands, she heaved and lifted it all of maybe three inches off the ground. After pondering for a second, she started backing toward the house, rear stuck out like she was wearing a bustle, even though she wasn’t, dragging the case behind her.

  The sky was lightening up in the east, nudging at the edges of the dark clouds. At this rate the rain’d be over by the time she got all her junk inside.

  And then she stopped in her tracks, dropping the case where she stood. Hands on her skinny hips, she stared at him through the pulsating waves of water, her mouth puckered up like she was pondering something. Then, her mind made up, she headed for him with the same direct line and determined step she’d taken toward her boxes.

  He planted his feet, resisting the urge to turn and run before she reached him. While he’d never claimed much knowledge of women—far from it—even he could recognize one with a plan on her mind. And he figured he wasn’t going to like any scheme hatched in that pretty head.

  Pretty. Now, why’d he called her that? It wasn’t something he’d cared much about one way or the other, not in a long time. But she was, he realized when she took up a position a few feet in front of him with all the resolve of a general claiming the high ground. If one was partial to delicate, fine-boned, cream-skinned, huge-eyed females, and he guessed he was, considering he’d noticed and all. He’d thought he’d gotten such things out of his system once and for all. Well, he’d just have to try harder.

  “I’ve got a proposition for you, mister…?”

  Mutely he returned her leading question with a glare. He didn’t want to know her name, didn’t want her to know his. That would imply a level of connection, however shallow. The first step toward a relationship, even just a slight one, and that was the last thing he needed.

  She frowned. “Mister, then.” She almost gave up at that; he saw her waver, but then she squared her shoulders, firm, sharp rounds under thin green cotton nearly black with moisture. “I’ve been thinking. I could use some help moving all my things inside before they float away. And it certainly can’t be comfortable out here for you. So what I suggest is, you could help me lug in a few things—you look like you could take most of it in one load.” She smiled at him, winsome, practically flirty, and he wondered if he looked like he could be flattered that easily. And led about by it so simply. “And then you could share the roof, just until it stops raining.”

  Unbelievable. If he’d wanted out of the rain, did she really think she could have kept him out? But there she stood, with her little drowned kitten face and cheerful smile—just what did she have to be so happy about, all things considered? Nearly every woman of his acquaintance would be complaining a blue streak by now, but she clearly didn’t have enough sense to know when she was beat.

  All in all, he figured, it’d be doing her a favor, to send her back to her nice, neat, warm life before this place did her any permanent damage.

  And so he shook his head slowly.

  Her smile never wavered. Maybe even widened a bit.

  “Your concern is very kind, but, truly, I don’t think there’s much danger to my reputation out here. Who’d know? And, even if they did, well, I’ve been assured that some of the usual rules of propriety must bow to practicality in the West. It’d be understandable, wouldn’t it? And I’m obviously in no danger from you.”

  The raindrops hit his skin and shattered, leaving him tingling and raw. For a man who’d spent a fair amount of time benumbed, trying his best not to feel anything, the sharp edge of sensation was brutally new.

  “I like the rain.”

  “Oh.” Her brow furrowed; not unhappy, just puzzled. “You could help me move everything inside anyway. Just to be polite.”

  It was a wonder she’d made it to Montana whole. It had to be pure, blind good fortune that kept her from falling prey to every confidence man, thief, and plain old rogue west of the Mississippi.

  “It’d be pretty stupid of me to help you, wouldn’t it, given that I’d prefer it if you lost everything and had to give up sooner rather than later. I’d have a shot at getting a crop in this year, if I could get started soon enough.”

  That earned him a glare, as effective as that kitten hissing at a battle-scarred old tomcat, and he almost laughed.

  Almost.

  “You’re going to be sadly disappointed if you pin all your hopes on my giving up. I realize you don’t know me, but you’d be wise to trust me when I say that I’m not the quitting kind.”

  “Really.” Yeah, he’d bet she’d had to persevere a whole lot in her life. He wondered what had been her biggest challenge. Learning to embroider? Being forced to waltz with a partner who kept stepping on her toes? He jerked his chin in the direction of her drowning supplies. “If you’d kept moving, instead of trying to charm me into doing it for you, you might have most of that stuff inside by now.”

  Now, that comment she hadn’t appreciated at all. If she could have, he was sure, she’d have flounced off. Probably flounced real well under normal circumstances. But her petticoats must have soaked up a washtub of water, and so she just spun and squished off.

  So he just stood in the rain and watched her scurry frantically back and forth between her cache and his house. And he wasn’t one bit guilty about it.

/>   Damn it, he wasn’t.

  Chapter 3

  He was gone.

  When Emily, refreshed by sleeping far later than she’d intended, stepped out into streaming sunlight and glistening wet grass and found no sign of her midnight visitor, there’d been a twinge of…something. Not disappointment, certainly. It would be foolish to be disappointed about being easily relieved of a complication, and a very uncongenial one at that. It was merely that when one had spent a fair amount of time and energy preparing for something, having it not happen was disconcerting.

  And she had prepared.

  She’d put on a lovely cream blouse and a winning smile, started a big pot of strong coffee bubbling on the little monkey stove once she’d figured out how to use it. After all, who had more experience with bad-tempered men than she? Plying them with female charm and good coffee worked wonders. Though Gabriel, Anthea’s husband, had cheerfully accused her of unfair manipulation when he caught her trying it out on one of his ranch hands, it was, in her opinion, simple good sense. Men had many advantages in the world; women must even the odds however they could.

  And so, Emily consoled herself, merely the loss of an anticipated battle had her frowning when she circled the shack completely and found absolutely no sign of him. Him. She still didn’t know his name.

  Oh well, she decided, shrugging. She’d plenty to do without worrying about him.

  First she spread out all her wet things, strewing them over chair backs and tabletops until the place resembled a laundry more than a home. Then she set to unpacking, humming happily, putting serious consideration into the arrangement of her things. She knew that Norine, Dr. Goodale’s daughter, would dismiss her small treasures without a second glance. It didn’t bother Emily a bit. There was so much pleasure in having to satisfy no one but herself. She’d always felt very much the visitor at the Goodales’, perching lightly in her room without settling in. Her place had always been crystal clear.