Montan a Wildfire

I can't help it if you don't trust me, he'd said. Well, she was trying to trust him, while at the same time proving to them both that she was not a shallow white princess. But... well, this was simply too much! The least Jake could have done was to warn her!

Perhaps this was Jake's way of testing her? Did he want to see how the prissy society lady would react to spending a few days alone with people she was supposed to feel were beneath her? Jake didn't seem the type who played such childish games. Then again, he wasn't exactly what she would call predictable. It was a possibility she couldn't dismiss.

Amanda squared her shoulders as she breezed past the man. If Jake was putting her to the test then, by God, she was going to pass it. Perhaps once she'd met this man's wife—Jake had said a young couple was living here, hadn't he?—she would feel more at ease. Somehow, Amanda rather doubted it, the same way she doubted she would be able to keep her anxiety a secret from probing brown eyes for very long.

The man who'd greeted her at the door was not a reassuring sight. Far from it. Everything about him—his rugged body, his impassive expression, his wary gaze—seemed coiled and tense, like a twisted wire ready to break. .

The door slammed shut. The sound was unnaturally loud, magnified all out of proportion by the taut silence.

Amanda shivered. She felt as if she had been thrown into a jail cell, with impenetrable iron bars being slammed into place, caging her in. Though she tried to shake the feeling off, it clung tight.

"Blackhawk sent you?" the man said thoughtfully. His words were slow and precisely spoken.

Amanda turned to face him, just as he moved away from the door. She watched as, with unnaturally quiet steps, he crossed to the center of the room. Lacing his arms over the firm wedge of his chest, he stared at her, stared through her.

A small fire crackled in the hearth at his back. The muted light came low to the ground, casting his features in indecipherable orange shadows. But that was all right. Amanda didn't need to see his face to know his suspicions were aroused. She felt it. An icy chill rippled over her shoulders.

"Yes, Jake sent me. Is...?" She discreetly scanned her surroundings. The lower floor of the cabin consisted of this one room and a closet carved into the far right wall. An old curtain fell in tattered folds from the top of the doorframe down to the freshly swept dirt floor. Thick, planked stairs edged the timbered wall to her left. Was the man's wife up there? If so, the woman was sitting in the dark; though Amanda squinted, she couldn't detect a shred of light coming from the upstairs room.

Her attention returned to the man, who was studying her as though she was some rare form of bird. "Where is your wife?"

His eyes narrowed cautiously. "Why?"

Amanda shrugged, her fingers playing nervously with the ribbons that secured her cloak beneath her chin. She considered untying the

m, then decided against it. At this rate, she wouldn't be here long enough to bother getting comfortable. "No reason. I just thought it would be nice to meet her... if she's here, that is. She is here, isn't she?"

"No, woman, you misunderstand," he said, and he shook his head. The fringed ends of his blacker-than-black braids bobbed against the solid wall of his chest. On this man, what she had thought of as a feminine decoration most assuredly was not. "My question was why Blackhawk sent you here, not why you would want to see my wife. You will tell me."

"Of course I'll tell you," Amanda snapped, her gaze shifting to the table on her right. Her legs felt watery, and her knees were shaking beneath her damp skirt. While she wanted nothing more than to sit before she collapsed, something told her a move like that would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. That was not the impression she was striving to convey.

"So, you will tell me," he insisted coldly.

Amanda waved a hand at the window. Her fear, oddly enough, made her bolder than she normally would have been. It loosened her tongue. She would not let this man intimidate her. Dammit, she would not! "I don't suppose you've looked outside recently?" she asked in her most proper Bostonian tone. "If you had, you would have noticed that it's storming. That's why Jake sent me here. He didn't want me caught out in it."

"And where is Blackhawk now?"

Amanda feigned an unconcerned shrug. "I imagine he had better things to do." She wouldn't tell this man the real reason Jake wouldn't come to the cabin with her, mostly because now that she'd seen who was living here, she wasn't sure of his reasons herself!

"You imagine?" He sighed impatiently. "In other words, you are only guessing?"

"Of course. If you know Jake Chandler at all, then you also know that no one knows what goes on inside that man's head."

Was it her imagination, or did a hint of a grin tug at one corner of his mouth? It could have been a trick of the light—he was standing mostly in shadow—but she didn't think so.

"I know Blackhawk," he said finally, flatly.

One golden brow arched. If the man hadn't had her full attention before, he had it now. And not only because of what he'd said. Something about him—she wasn't sure what—seemed more relaxed, less cautious. Why? "You know Jake?"

He nodded. Briskly. Just the once.

"And do you know him well?"

He nodded again, and this time added the barest of shrugs. "Better than most."

"Then maybe you can tell me—"

"No." The braids whipped against his shoulder as he spun on his heel and stalked to the closet she'd spotted earlier. With a flick of his wrist he swept the curtain back and reached inside.