She waited a few more minutes—gun in hand, her body tense and alert-but heard nothing unusual. While she scanned the clearing a couple of dozen times, she saw nothing unusual either.
While her heartbeat steadied itself, her breathing remained harsh and erratic. She was no longer tired. The surge of adrenaline that fright had dumped into her bloodstream served to burn away fatigue. Right now she felt restless and... dirty.
She hadn't taken a bath last night because she hadn't camped near water. Tonight, she could hear the gurgle of the narrow creek where she'd tethered her mare a mere one hundred feet away. The crisp, cool water beckoned.
Five minutes later, after a thorough search, Amanda had assured herself that she was indeed alone. Five minutes after that, she was sponging herself off in the icy mountain creek.
The cold water made her gasp, and made goosebumps prickle on her arms and legs. Amanda didn't care. Being clean felt too wonderful, too rare. She quickly lathered and rinsed twice, then washed her hair, scrubbing viciously with her fingertips until her scalp tingled and the thick golden mass felt squeaky clean.
It wasn't until Amanda had toweled her hair semi-dry, and was in the process of heading up the bank wearing her only clean chemise—and clutching her clean, damp clothes to her chest for warmth—that she felt another prick of awareness at her nape.
Her shiver had nothing to do with the cold. It had everything to do with the shadowy line of trees her attention fixed upon. A twig snapped, and she blinked hard when she saw one of the shadows separate itself from the others. It was wide, that shadow, and shaped like a man. Her breath caught when the shadow took a step forward.
Jake, she thought, then instantly dismissed the idea. If Jake was going to come after her, he would have done it days ago. Besides, there was something about this shape—she wasn't sure exactly what—that didn't look quite right. Something that told her this man was not Jake Chandler.
Amanda dropped the pile of freshly washed clothes, barely noticing when they scattered over the ground at her feet. This time, she found the pistol in record time. She coaxed the hammer back with her thumb; the metallic sound of revolving chambers was loud and grating.
Did the intruder see how badly she was shaking? Could he hear the wild pounding of her heart, the ragged give and take of her breathing? Despite the brisk air and her recent bath, Amanda felt a bead of perspiration trickle between her breasts.
"You can come out now," she called, and was surprised that her voice gave away none of her anxiety. "The show's over."
A sense of déjà vu tingled down Amanda's spine when she heard grass crunch beneath boot heels, and saw the shadow take another step forward.
A sliver of moonlight glinted off raven black hair. A pair of light-colored eyes burned out of the shadows, burned into her. It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn she heard a husky chuckle blend with the normal night noises. And then all she could hear was the clatter of her heart, and the voice that shot out of the darkness; the tone husky, thick... oh, so wonderfully familiar!
"Pity. That was one hell of a show, princess."
Amanda fumbled the gun. It fell onto the pile of damp clothes with a muffled thump. She didn't notice. Couldn't. Her concentration was fixed on the way that voice wrapped around her like a scrap of sun-warmed velvet. "Jake?"
"Uh-huh. Expecting someone else?"
"No. No, of course not. I-I wasn't expecting you."
"I can see that." That, and a hell of a lot more than Jake thought his sanity could bear to see right now. For example, he could see the pale white chemise; the garment fell from her shoulders to her ankles in inviting white folds that looked like a splash of vibrant color against the night. And—he swallowed hard—beneath the nearly transparent linen he could see the dusky rose tips of her...
"What are you doing here, Jake?"
Her voice jarred his attention back to her face. Good thing, too! He'd been half a second away from stalking the space between them and hauling the woman roughly into his arms, whether she wanted to be there or not. That wasn't a good idea. Not yet, anyway. He was clinging to the shadows for a reason, wanting to give her only one shock at a time.
"Jake?" Amanda asked when he said nothing, but continued to stand there staring at her. Even through space and darkness, she could see the veiled hunger in his eyes. Well, all right, maybe she couldn't see it exactly, but she could feel it. Just as she could feel her own molten response. The irony of it was, Jake wasn't even all that close to her. He certainly wasn't as close as she would have liked for him to be!
"What am I doing here?" Jake repeated the question flatly and took another step forward, but not enough to reveal himself to her. "Why, I'm taking you up on your challenge, lady. It's about time you learned that you can't bruise a man's ego the way you bruised mine, then expect to turn and walk away from him. Maybe the pansies you knew back East would put up with that... but I won't."
His words were huskily spoken, filled with a raw, sensuous promise. They rolled over Amanda in a wave of acute, sexual heat, reminding her of how very long it had been since he'd held her, touched her, loved her. If the time came, could she deny him? Deny herself? "So, you've come to prove you're man enough for me? Is that it?"
"Yeah, something like that." His gaze glinted out of the darkness, raking her from head to toe. He missed nothing. Not the way the moonlight glinted off her long, damp hair, not the way the thin chemise hid so little of her charms. Nothing. "Come here, Amanda."
Amanda sucked in a sharp breath. She wanted to—Lord, how she wanted to!—but she couldn't. Her pride wouldn't let her. She'd told Jake once that she loved him, and
she still hadn't gotten over the humiliation of his silence. She simply could not open herself up to that sort of pain again. It hurt too much.
"Dammit, Amanda, come here!"
"No!" She shook her head and forced herself to take a step backward. It wasn't easy. Despite the cold night air, every nerve in her body was on fire with his nearness, with the promise of his touch. Ignoring the needs of her body in favor of the needs of her mind was the hardest thing she'd ever done.
"Don't make me hunt you down, princess."
Amanda knew he was losing what little patience he'd had with her. Still, she took another step back. Her body tensed, preparing to run fast and far if it came to that. "I don't want you to touch me, Jake. I don't ever want you to touch me again."