The Loner's Guarded Heart. Michelle Douglas

afraid of Molly here?’

      Wasn’t that obvious?

      She glanced at the dog. Molly? The name wasn’t right up there with Killer or Slasher or Crusher, was it? And with Kent Black standing beside her the dog didn’t look anywhere near as formidable as it had a moment ago. Josie gulped. ‘She’s a girl?’

      ‘Yep.’

      The dog that had attacked her had been a big male Dobermann. ‘She growled at me.’

      ‘You frightened her.’

      ‘Me?’ She nearly fell out of the clothes-line.

      ‘If you’d clapped your hands and said boo she’d have run away.’

      Now she really didn’t believe him.

      His lips twisted, but not into a smile. ‘Moll.’ The dog wagged her tail and shuffled across to him. He scratched her behind the ears. ‘Roll over, girl.’

      His voice was low and gentle and it snagged at Josie’s insides. Molly rolled onto her back and a part of Josie didn’t blame her. If he spoke to her like that she’d roll over too.

      Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, she ordered. She focused her attention back on Kent. He parted the fur on the dog’s belly. He had large, weathered hands. Even from her perch in the clothes-line she could see the calluses that lined his fingers.

      ‘Look,’ he ordered.

      She did, and saw a mirror image of her own scar etched in the dog’s flesh. An ugly white raised scar that jagged across Molly’s stomach and ribs.

      ‘A man with a piece of four-by-two studded with nails did that to her.’

      Sympathy and horror pounded through Josie in equal measure. How could someone hurt a defenceless animal like that? It was inhuman.

      She scrambled down out of the clothes-line, dropped to her knees at its base and held out her arms. ‘You poor thing.’

      Molly walked straight into them.

      Kent had never seen anything like it in all his thirty-two years. Molly hid from strangers. When someone surprised her, like Josephine Peterson here obviously had, she’d try and bluff her way out of it by growling and stalking off. Then she’d hide. The one thing she didn’t do was let strangers pet her. She sure as hell didn’t let them hug her.

      For the first time in a long time Kent found himself wanting to smile. Then he remembered Josephine Peterson’s blood-curdling cry for help and he went cold all over again. He didn’t need a woman like her at Eagle Reach.

      A woman who couldn’t look after herself.

      He’d bet each and every one of his grass-fed steers that Josephine Peterson didn’t have a self-sufficient bone in her body. And he’d be blowed if he’d take on the role of her protector.

      His lip curled. She was a mouse. She had mousy brown hair, mousy brown eyes and a mouse-thin body that looked as if it’d bow under the weight of an armload of firewood. Even her smile was all mousiness—timid and tentative. She aimed it at him now, but he refused to return it.

      It trembled right off her lips. Guilt slugged him in the guts. He bit back an oath.

      She rose and cast a fearful glance at the back of the house. ‘Do…do you have any other dogs?’

      ‘No.’ The memory of her scarred abdomen rushed on him again. His hands clenched to fists. When she’d lifted her shirt, shown him her scar, it wasn’t tenderness or desire that had surged through him. He had a feeling, though, that it was something closely related, something partway between the two, something he didn’t have a name for.

      What he did know was he didn’t want Josephine Peterson here on his hill. She didn’t belong here. She was a townie, a city girl. For Pete’s sake, look at her fingernails. Long and perfectly painted in a shimmery pink. They were squared off at the tips with such uniformity he knew they had to be fake. This wasn’t fake-fingernail country.

      It was roughing-it country.

      He hadn’t seen anyone less likely to want to rough it than Josephine Peterson.

      When he glanced at her again she tried another smile. ‘Do you have a wife?’

      Her soft question slammed into him with more force than it had any right to. She needn’t look to him for that either!

      He glanced into her hopeful face and despite his best intentions desire fired along his nerve-endings, quickening his blood, reminding him of everything he’d turned his back on. Now that she stood directly in front of him, rather than perched up in his clothes-line or on her knees with her face buried in Molly’s fur, he could see the gold flecks inside the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate of her iris. That didn’t look too mousy.

      Get a grip! Whatever the colour of her eyes, it didn’t change the fact she wasn’t the kind of woman he went for. He’d been stuck up this hill too long. He liked tall, curvy blondes who were out for a good time and nothing more. Josephine Peterson wasn’t tall, curvy or blonde. And she looked too earnest for the kind of no-strings affairs he occasionally indulged in.

      She continued to gaze at him hopefully. ‘No,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t have a wife.’ And he had no intention of landing himself with one either. The sooner this woman realised that the better.

      Rather than light up with interest, with calculation, her face fell. Kent did a double take.

      ‘That’s a shame. It would’ve been nice to have a woman around to talk to.’

      He’d have laughed out loud at his mistake only he’d lost his funny bone.

      ‘Is there anyone else here besides you?’

      ‘No.’ He snapped the word out. ‘I’ll get the key to your cabin.’

      She blinked at his abruptness. ‘Which one is mine?’

      ‘They’re all empty.’ He strode around to the back of his house. She had to run to keep up with him. With a supreme effort he slowed his stride. ‘You can have your pick.’

      ‘I’ll take that one.’

      She pointed to the nearest cabin and Kent found himself biting back another oath. Damn and blast. Why hadn’t he put her in the furthest one and been done with it? He disappeared inside, seized the key then strode back outside and thrust it at her.

      ‘Thank…thank you. Umm…’ She shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘Does the cabin have a phone?’

      His lip curled. He despised city folk. They came here mouthing clichés proclaiming they wanted to get away from it all, get back to nature, but all hell broke loose when they discovered they had to do without their little luxuries. It made him sick.

      Granted, though, Josephine Peterson looked as though she wanted to be at Eagle Reach about as much as he wanted her here. Her earlier words came back to him and a laugh scraped out of his throat. ‘This is the end of the earth, remember? What do you think?’

      She eyed him warily. The gold in her eyes glittered. ‘I’m guessing that’s a no.’

      ‘You’re guessing right.’

      She wouldn’t last a month. At this rate she’d be lucky to last two days. What on earth had possessed her to book a cabin for four whole weeks? The advertisement he’d placed in the local tourism rag made no false promises. It sure as hell wasn’t the kind of advert designed to attract the attention of the likes of her.

      ‘Look, Ms Peterson, this obviously isn’t your cup of tea. Why don’t you go on into Gloucester? It’s only half an hour further on. You’ll find accommodation more suited to your tastes there.’ Behind his back he crossed his fingers. ‘I’ll even return your deposit.’

      ‘Please, call me Josie.’

      She paused as if waiting for