A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek Novel. Linda Lael Miller

you calling me a liar?”

      “In a word, yes.”

      Lark felt an inexplicable need to convince him. “I did grow up in St. Louis, in my grandfather’s home. I went to boarding school, too.”

      “And you lived in Denver. Beyond those things, though, you’ve been lying through your pretty teeth.”

      Lark was indignant, and she forcibly suppressed the little thrill that rose inside her at the compliment couched in his accusation, as she had the delicious, strangely urgent languor she’d felt when he touched her feet. “I cannot think why you’re interested in my personal affairs,” she said, as haughtily as she could.

      “You’d have been better off not to be so secretive,” Rowdy observed. “When somebody presents a puzzle, I have to figure it out. It’s part of my nature, I guess.”

      “Maybe you’re just nosy.”

      He laughed, low and soft. Something quivered in resonance, low in Lark’s belly, like a piano string vibrating because the one next to it had been struck. “Maybe I am,” he agreed. “Nevertheless, there will come a day—or perhaps a night—when I know everything there is to know about you, Lark Morgan, and a few things you don’t even know about yourself.”

      The implication, though subtle, was unmistakable. Lark was suddenly too warm, and would have thrown off the blanket if it hadn’t meant sitting in close proximity to Rowdy in a gossamer nightgown and a woefully inadequate matching wrapper.

      An achy heat suffused her as she imagined herself—the images flooded her mind and body, quite against her will—naked beneath Rowdy Rhodes’s strong, agile frame.

      Worse, he knew what she was thinking. She could tell by the look in his eyes and the amused way he quirked up one side of his mouth, not quite but almost grinning.

      “You are the most audacious man I have ever encountered,” she said.

      “I’m a few other things you’ve never encountered, too,” he drawled.

      She stood up, swayed, flinched when Rowdy steadied her with one hand.

      “Sit down,” he said, “before you trip over that blanket and take a header into the stove.”

      “I don’t have to listen to—”

      He tugged on the blanket, and she landed, not in her own chair, but square on his lap. For a moment she was too stunned to struggle. She simply stared at him.

      “Just let me hold you,” he said.

      If he’d made a move to kiss her, or touched her in any inappropriate place, she’d have had some way of defending herself. As it was, he simply wrapped his arms loosely around her and pressed her head to his shoulder with one gentle hand.

      She was helpless against him.

      He propped his chin on top of her head. “There, now,” he said soothingly.

      Lark closed her eyes, bit her lower lip and fought back tears. Other men had held her, particularly Autry, but never in that undemanding way. No, never once in all her twenty-seven years.

      Perhaps Rowdy knew that had he risen to his feet, carried her to his bed and made love to her, she wouldn’t have resisted him. Perhaps he didn’t.

      Lark finally stopped shivering, relaxed against his hard chest, cosseted inside the blanket, and promptly fell asleep.

      * * *

      HE WOKE HER AT DAWN, figuring Mai Lee would be up and around soon, or Mrs. Porter.

      It wouldn’t do for either of them to come upon such a scene.

      Lark yawned and stretched, wreaking havoc with Rowdy’s senses—he hadn’t so much as closed his eyes since she’d landed on his lap, all soft and warm and woman scented.

      He’d felt acquiescence in her, and been sorely tempted to bed her.

      He knew she’d be responsive, give herself up to him with shy fervor. He knew precisely where to touch her, where to kiss her, how to set her ablaze with need.

      He’d been a fool not to, and he’d suffered for his restraint.

      She’d surely been with a man before.

      And yet there was that troublesome, contradictory innocence about her.

      With an inward sigh, he set her on her feet, held her firmly by the waist until, blinking and sleepy, she found her balance.

      “Go,” he said hoarsely. “They’ll be awake soon, Mrs. Porter and the others.”

      Lark bit her lower lip, hesitated, then hiked up the blanket and hot-footed it for the back stairs.

      Rowdy stood up, groaned. He was hard as tamarack, and it would be a while before the raw wanting slackened.

      Pardner got to his feet, went to the door and whimpered to be let out.

      Rowdy didn’t bother to put on his coat and hat. He just worked the latch and opened the door, welcoming a rush of wind so cold that it made his eyes water.

      Yes, sir.

      A little fresh air was just what he needed.

      * * *

      UPSTAIRS, IN THE SAFETY of her room, Lark washed hastily and donned her primmest dress, the modest, high-collared black wool she’d been wearing when she’d fled Denver during a funeral. She’d feigned a headache, knowing Autry wouldn’t flaut convention by leaving the huge, stuffy church before the service was over, and asked his carriage driver to take her home.

      Once there, she’d packed in a desperate rush and prevailed upon that same driver to deliver her to the railroad depot, claiming she’d just gotten word, by telegram, that her sister had taken gravely ill.

      She’d been anxious all the way to the station. She knew the train schedules by heart, and if she missed the two-o’clock, she’d never escape. Moreover, Autry would realize she’d deceived him, and the consequences of that didn’t bear considering.

      The carriage driver, the oldest retainer on Autry’s large household staff, might have been suspicious, but he hadn’t questioned her orders. He’d simply taken the most direct route to the depot, unloaded her belongings onto a porter’s cart, tipped his hat to her, and wished her Godspeed.

      Now, standing in a boardinghouse room, trembling with cold and the fear stirred up by remembering, Lark considered filling a single reticule and running away again.

      There wouldn’t be a stagecoach through town until Thursday morning, and she didn’t have the fare, but perhaps she could prevail upon someone, a freight driver or a peddler, for instance, to give her a ride to—where?

      Flagstaff?

      She sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. What would she do when she got to Flagstaff?

      Perhaps she could pawn her cameo brooch there and buy passage on a train—

      No, not a train.

      Autry might have agents aboard, because of the recent robberies, to protect his financial interests. And any one of them might recognize her as the upstart wife who’d dared to fly the coop and add insult to injury by having divorce papers served upon her outraged husband only ten days after her departure.

      Tears filled Lark’s eyes. She pinned the cherished cameo brooch, her mother’s most precious treasure, to the bodice of her dress. How could she part with it?

      Besides, she didn’t want to run. She loved her pupils, loved seeing the light of understanding in their eyes when they suddenly grasped some new concept or idea, mastered some elusive skill. She loved Stone Creek, damnably cold though it was in winter and, anyway, she’d been invited to the O’Ballivans’ home for supper on Friday night.

      She bit down hard on her lower lip. She’d behaved like a hussy, down there in the kitchen.