Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(91)

“Be serious,” she gently rebuked. “I know you’ve had other women. Were you ever in love with any of them?”

He shrugged slightly and lifted her hair from her shoulder, smoothing it down her back. “Only a small infatuation when I was a lad, ‘tis all.”

“A lad?” Shanna queried. “Nine? Ten?”

“Not so young,” Ruark grinned. “I was eighteen, and she was a young widow with flaming red hair. She taught me much about women.”

Shanna’s curiosity would not be satisfied with only bits and parts. “What happened? Did you make love to her?”

“Shanna, Shanna, my inquisitive little mouse. Why would you want to know that? ‘Twas long ago and best forgot.”

“I’ll leave if you don’t tell me,” she threatened. “And you can lie here and rot.”

“Vicious wench,” he teased. “Jealous, too, I think.”

“Of the widow? Ha!” Shanna scoffed. “You are conceited.” A moment of silence passed and then, “I suppose you were terribly in love with her. Was she pretty?”

“Pretty,” Ruark conceded. “Tail, slender. Twenty-and-four she was. She bought a stallion and I did but deliver—”

“Then you became her stallion,” Shanna broke in and could not fathom the rising irritation within her. “Is that not right, milord? Was she like your little trollop in the inn?”

Ruark recognized the sneer in her words and sought to divert her interest, hooking his arm behind her head and drawing her down. But Shanna gave a small, muffled shriek and flung his arm away, sitting up on her heels.

“Tell me, damn you,” she cried. “Was she like your little trollop in the inn?”

“Oh, hell!” Ruark growled and knelt before her, frowning into her eyes as he leaned toward her, forcing her back against the wall. “I don’t even remember anymore what either of them looked like.”

He softened as his eyes lowered to caress her nakedness and, giving a ragged sigh, he tried to carefully explain.

“I was but a lad, Shanna. The widow was worldly. If you can believe this in that beautiful, stubborn head of yours, she seduced me. For a time I thought she was everything to me. Then I grew up. Much of the splendor faded. She began to demand too much of my time. I was training horses and working other places besides. She married an old but wealthy lord, and when I refused to continue as her lover, she became angry and ended the affair. I was actually relieved. ‘Tis simple enough. I was glad to be rid of her. And if you can believe another thing, Shanna, there have not been too many entanglements since. What I said this morning was mostly true. My father thought me married to my work, and perhaps I was—until you.”

Shanna chuckled wickedly, and her eyes gleamed with gleeful mischief as Ruark braced an arm on the wall beside her, contemplating her impish smile.

“What devilment are you up to now, wench?” he inquired. “ ‘Tis naught of good, I swear.”

Shanna ran her fingers through the light matting of dark hair on his chest as she spoke in a teasing tone.

“I suppose if I’m to be free of you I must bore you first with constant demands.”

Ruark smiled with an easy assurance. “Try, lady. Send for me whenever you’re free, and we’ll find out if you can bore me. ‘Twould be interesting to see if you have the strength, if you can stay in bed that long working your heart out to weary me. I find the idea most intriguing. But there is some danger, of course, and we’re both susceptible. What happens should hearts grow fonder? What would you do if you fell in love with me?”

Shanna dropped her eyes from his, wondering what she would do if she found herself in love with him. Silence dragged out, growing pained, yet Shanna’s mind still struggled in a turmoil. No answer came to the surface. She was almost afraid to plunge into the turbulent depths because of what she might find there. She had never been in love with anyone but the ideal man of her imagination and, in fact, had never even been attracted to a man before Ruark. The whole idea was simply beyond her experience, although she could little admit it, even to herself.

The rain had stopped. Its soft patter was gone from the roof. The birds were still, the wind had died, the quiet was thick—almost as if one could rend it with a blade—and still Ruark waited for an answer.

Then from a distance, a thud of horse’s hooves rapidly nearing the shanty broke the silence. With a curse Ruark leaped from the cot and snatching up his damp breeches, hurriedly slipped them on. It appeared very likely that the door would be flung open momentarily, revealing the tryst, and Shanna could do naught but draw herself into a small shape as she huddled beneath the linen quilt in a corner of the bed. The hooves rattled on the boardwalk and halted just outside the door. A pause intervened, in the midst of which Shanna exchanged a somewhat pained grimace with Ruark. Then an odd scraping sound intruded, and a slow smile spread across Ruark’s face as he looked at Shanna. It became a chuckle and grew into a laugh. At Shanna’s bemused stare, he stepped to the door and threw it wide despite her gasp of protest.