.

he pinched a dollop of dough from the bowl and popped it into his mouth.

      Lips pursed, cheeks hollowed, he considered the flavor. Annabel studied the rugged features, now clean-shaven instead of covered with a thick coat of beard stubble.

      Her attention settled on his mouth, and all of a sudden a wave of heat rolled over her. She knew she was blushing scarlet. Clay stiffened. The change she was learning to recognize in him came over again, as if a storm cloud had rolled in from the ocean, obliterating the sun.

      “Better get back to work.” His voice was gruff.

      Annabel watched him go. And something tempted her to go after him. Curiosity. Devilment. Playfulness. The strange new tugging in the pit of her belly. Perhaps even the challenge she had set for herself earlier, to jolt him out of his carefully constructed coolness and indifference.

      Quickly, she finished her kitchen chores. When the bread was baking in the oven and a pot of beans simmering on the stovetop, she left the shelter of the kitchen canopy and strolled over to the arrastre. The mule was going round and round again, the stones crashing and grinding, dust rising in the air.

      Clay was bent over a bucket to splash water over his face and arms. When he straightened, their eyes met. For a moment, they looked upon each other. Annabel held her breath. She could feel all those pent-up emotions seething within Clay, creating pressure, a force as powerful as the head of steam that drove the engine on the train.

      Like a door closing, Clay’s features hardened. Using the flat of his palm, he flicked away the droplets from his face, and then he turned to look the other way. Pointedly ignoring her, he went to coax the mule to a greater speed.

      Bolder now, not even trying to hide her interest, Annabel watched him. She could feel his irritation rising, as if the storm clouds in his mind were about to burst into thunder and lightning.

      When the mule needed a break, the noise ceased. At first, the world appeared silent in contrast, but an instant later Annabel could pick out the mocking call of a blue jay and the rustling in the trees as a squirrel leaped from branch to branch.

      “Your skin is nicely bronzed,” she called out to Clay. “You ought to always stay clean-shaven. Otherwise the top half of your face will tan but the lower half will remain pale. It will look funny. Girls won’t like it.”

      “Girls?” Clay drawled. “What might you know about it?”

      “Plenty. I have two older sisters.”

      “How old?” Clay stole a glance toward his shirt hanging on a juniper on the edge of the clearing, but he made no move to retrieve the garment.

      “Twenty-four and twenty-two.”

      His shoulders shifted in a careless shrug. “Just right for me, then.”

      The jolt of jealousy at the imaginary prospect took Annabel by surprise. She brushed the feeling aside and went on with her probing. “How old are you?”

      “Twenty-three.”

      “Twenty-three?” Her voice rose in surprise. “I thought you were older. Close to thirty.”

      “Everyone grows older at the same rate but some grow up faster.”

      “Mr. Hicks says you have been with him for five years. That means you were eighteen when he employed you. Are you an orphan as he says?”

      “Yes.”

      “How old were you when your parents died?”

      Clay took down his hat, raked one hand through his thick brown curls and replaced the hat on his head. For a moment, Annabel thought he might not reply. When he spoke, his tone indicated his patience was wearing thin.

      “Six.”

      Six years old. So, he hadn’t been abandoned at birth. He’d have memories. He’d have suffered the grief of loss, something they had in common. “Do you remember your parents?” she asked softly.

      “I remember a woman’s voice singing.” He gave her a sly look from beneath the brim of his hat. “And a man’s voice telling her to shut up.”

      For an instant, the cutting reply silenced Annabel. Then she launched into another attempt to get a peek into his mind. “What happened to you when they died?”

      “Aren’t you full of questions today?” Clay glanced up into the clear blue dome of the sky. “Could it be that the sun is frying up your brain?”

      Annabel gave him an innocent smile. “Just passing the time.”

      Clay walked over to the mule, squatted on his heels to inspect the hooves and spoke without looking up. “Someone took me to the nuns. The nuns only looked after girl orphans, so they sent me to an orphanage that was little more than a workhouse. Boys as young as three were hired out to chimney sweeps and farmers and storekeepers—anyone who would pay.”

      Annabel could see the tension in Clay’s naked back and shoulders, could hear the bitter note in his voice. Pity welled up inside her. They were both orphans, but the similarity ended there. Unlike her, Clay had no happy memories of loving parents to draw upon. He’d grown up with cruelty and neglect.

      Had he ever felt love? Did he even understand such emotion? Did those hidden feelings of kindness and caring she had credited him with really exist, or had she merely imagined them, fooled by her own sentimental nature?

      “How old were you when you left the orphanage?” she asked, aware that any moment now he might decide she was pushing too hard and react with anger.

      Clay rose to his feet. Although his voice remained calm, there was no mistaking the warning in his manner. “I was fourteen, and I was not a scrawny kid like you. I was capable of doing a man’s job, instead of loafing about in the sun and bothering other people who have better things to do.”