swear to you, I’m not that. I didn’t have any feelings for them. We were just passing time.”
She relaxed slightly. “I believe you. I’m glad that the one man who kissed me was you.”
“With you it’s far more than I expected. With each kiss, each touch, a hunger grows in me. It’ll be hard saying good-bye to you, Em, but I’ll do it if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want,” she said. “You have to become a memory.”
He wanted to hold her gently in his arms all night. There were deep, dark secrets within this woman. Secrets he wasn’t sure he could bear to know, but it helped realizing that somehow he’d reached her and she felt safe in his arms.
Pulling away from her, he turned down the light until the room was in shadows, guessing she wouldn’t want to be in the dark. “The rain’s slowed. It’s too cold to sit on the porch swing tonight, but would you sit with me for a while in here? We could listen to the rain.”
He touched her hand and tugged her toward the couch.
She hesitated, then followed and curled up beside him as if they were on the swing. After a while, she said, “I’m sorry you didn’t find your dream here.”
His arm tightened slightly over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I think it was an impossible dream. I thought it would be grand to have a wife and maybe kids. A home I could come to at night when I’m tired. A place where the world would seem at peace.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the leather couch. “It wasn’t to be. Not for a man like me, I guess.”
She cuddled closer. “You’ll find it someday. You found me for a friend, didn’t you?”
“That’s true. The first day I went out with you I thought you might be trying to kill me.”
“I was.” She laughed, and he wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Should we play for another kiss?”
“It’s too dark.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to let you win,” he said, with his lips already brushing hers. She giggled and collected her winnings.
When he broke the kiss, she cuddled close to his side as she had before. “Stay here with me tonight, Em. Sleep on my shoulder. Let me hold you.”
“But it’s not right.”
“No one’s in this part of the house. No one will know. I just want to hold you for a while.”
“All right,” she said. “For a while.”
A few minutes later he felt her breathing slow, and he knew she was asleep. This was as near as he’d ever come to sleeping with a woman. He smiled, loving the peace of it.
In her sleep, she reached for his hand and held on tight. Lewt drifted into sleep, feeling as if all was right in the world.
Six hours later at dawn, the pounding on the door woke him to the fact that he’d guessed wrong. Something was very wrong.
CHAPTER 20
DUNCAN FELT AS IF HE WERE DRIFTING IN A NIGHTMARE of pain. Once in a while someone dripped water into his mouth, and he tried to remember to swallow. Fever raged through his veins like a freight train loaded with hot coals. Again and again small hands wiped the sweat from his face.
The fog cleared for a time, and he managed to open his eyes. He was in a room made from logs with the bark left on the wood. There was no sign of the old woman who’d helped him, but the room was warm and someone slept on the floor a few feet from his bed. She looked little more than a child, with wild hair the color of dark rich earth.
Duncan remembered someone touching him, cleaning his wound, washing him with cold water when the fever raged. He drifted back to sleep, thankful that whoever she was, she was near.
One time, deep in darkness, he thought he heard the old woman shouting orders, but he didn’t know or care what she said. There was movement in the room and the sound of someone sweeping with a slow rhythm that reminded him of the sound the water makes along the Gulf Coast. Without windows he had no idea whether it was day or night.
When he woke again the door was open, and he saw that it was daylight beyond. The girl with the wild brown hair was helping him drink. She had a