Wildstar

His accusation seemed to startle her at first. Then her cheeks colored with a flush of embarrassment and anger. "How am I supposed to kiss then?" she demand-ed, per­haps before realizing what she was saying.

"With your mouth open. With your tongue. With your hands and body. A little passion wouldn't hurt, either."

Her flush deepened.

His rough chuckle softly mocked her discomposure. "It's obvious why no one's ever shown you how to kiss." His gaze dropped to the revolver still aimed at him. "Do you threaten to shoot every man who tries?"

"No, of course not!"

"Just if he gets too close, then? You know what I think? You're afraid to let yourself enjoy being a woman."

"That isn't true! I don't have time to enjoy being a woman. I don't have time to primp and preen and deck myself out in fancy clothes."

"Oh yes, you're afraid, sweetheart. You're afraid to feel a woman's passion."

Jess stared at Devlin in dismay, realizing there was some truth to his accusation. She was afraid . . . of him, of the sinful promise in his eyes, of the way he made her feel. He stood there, arrogant and self-assured, his denim-covered legs spread slightly, his right thumb hooked over his gun belt. He looked more strikingly handsome than a man had any right to look.

"Oh yes, Miss Jess." His voice dropped to a husky mur­mur that sent tingles of physical awareness running along her skin. "Some man ought to take you in hand and show you the kind of desire a woman can feel . . . make you a complete woman."

"I suppose you think you're that man."

His grin slowly became tantalizing. "I could be."

Her breath seemed to stop at the notion.

"But not tonight. As you said, you're paying me to guard your mine, not teach you about womanhood. Do you intend to give me my gun back?"

"I don't know."

"Your virtue's safe . . . for tonight."

He held out his hand, waiting with apparent patience but. with a glint of maddening amusement in his eyes. After a moment's hesitation, Jessica lowered the revolver and handed it to him, butt first.

He holstered it, then turned to the table and retrieved his hat. "I'll stay outside for the rest of the night. You can put a chair under the door handle if you're afraid of me."

Not answering, Jess watched as Devlin picked up his Winchester and crossed the small room. Reaching over­head for the lamp, he turned down the flame till it gave off only a faint glow. "Get some sleep," he ordered softly, be­fore leaving the cabin solely to her.

When the door shut behind him, Jess let out the breath she'd been holding. The urge to shove a chair under the door handle, as he'd suggested, made her palms itch, but she refused to let that provoking devil think she was afraid of him. Determinedly she made herself get up from the ta­ble and walk over to the bed.

Sitting on the lumpy mattress, she struggled to unfasten her slim-heeled, high-button shoes. Then crawling beneath the blanket, she pulled it up to her chin and lay staring at the rough pine ceiling, trying unsuccessfully not to think of Garrett Devlin. It was a long, long while before her eyes drifted closed.

Outside, Devlin settled himself on the rocky ground near the hut, with his back to a boulder, and tried unsuc­cessfully not to think of Jessica Sommers. It was a novelty for him, being held off at gunpoint by a woman. For that matter it was a novelty that a woman had refused his ad­vances. Females usually tripped over themselves trying to please him and win his attention. That Jessica hadn't was doubtless because she didn't yet know the size of his bank account.

What would she say if he told her that he owned mines, ranches, and railroad stocks worth millions? That he could claim two newspapers, seven banks, a dozen factories, a racing stable, and his own private railroad car? Her atti­tude toward him would change quickly enough then. She needed money badly—to get her father back on his feet and their mine operating in the black. If what he suspected was true, she would have to use her life savings simply to pay him the salary she'd offered.

Devlin hunched his shoulders as a cool night breeze blew off the mountain and swept across his overheated body; this high up the air was thin and pure and bracing. Yes, Jessica would change. While he might be intrigued by her courage, while he might admire her fierce loyalty to her father, he had little faith that she was any different from other women. As soon as she learned his net worth, she would prove to be just as mercenary as all the other money-hungry females in his past. . . . His mother, who had married his father for money and position. The mar­ried socialite who'd seduced him when he was fifteen in order to gain an introduction to his father. His one-time fiancée, who'd taught him that the lure of wealth and power could poison simple feelings like love.

It had been a hard lesson, one that had changed his life.

As the only son of wealthy Chicago railroad magnate C. E. Devlin, Garrett had grown up in the lap of luxury and been groomed to take over his father's empire. But the transition had never occurred. In fact, he'd scarcely spoken to his father in the past ten years, since their bitter es­trangement when they'd quarreled over his future.

C.E. had always been a hard, exacting, aloof man who drove his son to meet impossibly high standards—until Garrett finally rebelled. He was twenty-one and fresh out of Harvard when he'd fallen head over heels in love with a young woman and asked her to marry him. His father, though, objected to her lower social status and threatened to cut Garrett off without a penny if he went through with the marriage. Declaring he could live without his father's money, he asked his fiancée to leave town with him.

Never once had he considered that she might turn him down. But her reaction quickly revealed her horror at the prospect of a life other than the wealthy one she'd bar­gained for.

"Go west? Garrett, darling, you don't honestly expect me to sacrifice my entire future simply so you can defy your father. Why don't you make up with him, tell him you're sorry?"

Garrett felt a sickening sense of disillusionment knotting in his stomach. "I don't think you understand. He means to disinherit me if we marry."