Best of Desire. Оливия Гейтс

that simmering kiss, she would seduce him.

      She had to admit that she was looking forward to the coming seduction with a lot more eagerness now than she had when she first arrived. There were dark fires simmering inside Jericho King. She’d felt the heat of them all too briefly and couldn’t wait for the chance to experience it again. And when they did, he wouldn’t be telling her that it hadn’t happened. Smiling to herself, she gasped when the first, eerie howl lifted into the air.

      “What was that?”

      “Coyote.”

      “Oh, God.” She blew out a breath and pretended to not be shaken by the wild, eerie sound still reverberating through the mountains. “I didn’t hear them last night.”

      “Probably farther away then. They move around a lot, but they always come back to their home ground.”

      “Which is here,” she mused, staring off into the darkened forest surrounding them.

      “They were here first,” he told her with a shrug.

      “Well, that makes me feel so much better.” She’d get used to it, she told herself firmly. After all, it wasn’t as if she had to live outside with wild animals. She and Nikki would have their own room at the main lodge and they’d be careful to not stray too far from the… Nikki.

      Daisy turned her head, looking for her dog and felt her heart chill when she didn’t see the tiny poodle. Now that she thought of it, she hadn’t seen Nikki since dinner. As if to deliberately terrify her, another howl from what was probably a very hungry coyote lifted into the air.

       Seven

      “Jericho,” she cried, “Nikki’s gone. Nikki! Nikki baby, come to Mommy.”

      She jumped to her feet as yet one more howl sounded out, sending shivers down her spine. That one seemed closer than the one before, she thought frantically. How many of the blasted things were out there?

      “Damn dog,” Jericho muttered, scrambling to his feet as Daisy began to walk a fast, frenetic circle around the fire. She peered into the woods, struggling to see past the encroaching dark, straining to hear the slightest sound, the faintest yip. But there was nothing. It was as if the forest had swallowed up her dog.

      “Where is she?” Daisy sent a quick, panicked look at Jericho. “She must have wandered off when I wasn’t looking. Oh, God, how could I have been so careless? Nikki!”

      Before he could say anything, Daisy rushed off blindly into the tree line, pushed by a driving sense of urgency. If there were coyotes close by, Nikki would be helpless. Nothing more than a snack to an animal three times her size.

      With her heart in her throat, Daisy shoved through low-hanging pine branches, hardly noticing when the limbs and needles poked at her. “Nikki! Come here, girl!”

      “Daisy, damn it!” His shout followed her into the brush but didn’t stop her.

      Her gaze swept the darkness, checking every shadow. Beside herself with worry now, she called the dog to her again and then listened for an answering bark that never came. The farther she got from the river, the more terrified she became. Nikki wouldn’t have strayed this far. But she might have gone another way. How would Daisy find her? They should go to the lodge. Get a search party. Flashlights. Something. But she couldn’t leave without Nikki, so Jericho would have to go for help alone.

      She’d wait here. She’d keep looking. She had to find the little dog that was her last remaining link to the brother she’d lost. Visions of Nikki hurt, or worse, filled her mind and strangled the breath in her lungs. Her imagination was running at full steam so she screamed when a hand came down on her arm and spun her around.

      “Stop,” he ground out, holding onto her upper arms. “You’re not going to find the damn dog running through the woods like a crazy woman. Hell, you don’t even know where you are. How can you find her if you’re lost, too?”

      “I’ll find her. I’ll just keep looking until I do. I can’t lose her,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “She’s all I have. She’s my family. She’s…”

      He gave her a hard shake to get her attention, then released her and stepped back. “You go running off like that in the dark and you’re going to end up at the bottom of a ravine. You don’t know these woods.”

      “No, but you do,” Daisy said, grabbing hold of his shirt with both hands. “Find her, Jericho. Please find her.”

      Clearly disgusted, he said, “I’m going to. But you’re going back to camp.” He turned her around, pointed her at their campsite and gave her a gentle shove. “Go back now and wait by the fire or I’ll be looking for you and the stupid dog.”

      She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t be sent off to wait for the big strong man to come to her rescue. But even as she started to speak, Daisy realized he was right. She’d only slow him down. He knew these woods. This was his territory and she’d only make his search that much more difficult if she insisted on going along.

      So for Nikki’s sake, she’d do what he said. She’d sit down and she’d wait. “Okay. Okay, I will. But find her, Jericho. She must be so scared…”

      Muttering darkly under his breath, he jerked his head at her, silently telling her to go back. Then he moved off without so much as a whisper of sound and disappeared into the deep shadows of the forest.

      Daisy shivered and walked back to the campsite. She waited, but she couldn’t sit. How could she? She was alone by a campfire, and Jericho was off moving through the darkness in silence and Nikki… If anything happened to her dog…

      Daisy continued to pace in tight, worried circles around the perimeter of the campfire, her mind racing, her heart pounding. The coyotes howled again and she wondered if they were hungry. If they’d already spotted a tiny poodle snack. If Jericho would never find the little dog because she’d already been…

      “She’s fine.” Jericho’s voice broke into Daisy’s thoughts and she whirled around to face him.

      He stepped into the firelight and held a trembling Nikki against his chest in one huge hand.

      “You found her!” Daisy raced to him, scooped up her dog, murmuring soothing sounds and sighs as Jericho watched her with a bemused expression on his face. “Where was she?”

      Nikki’s tiny pink tongue swiped Daisy’s face in gratitude just before the little dog sent Jericho a look of complete canine adoration.

      “Cowering under a rock,” he said, with a shake of his head. “She was shaking so hard, the leaves on the bush beside her were trembling. Quite the ferocious little watchdog you’ve got there.”

      “You’re making fun of her, but you saved her. Poor baby, alone in the woods.” She looked at him, her heart in her eyes and felt something inside her tremble as violently as Nikki was. “Thank you for finding her. I was so scared.”

      “It’s fine. She’s fine.”

      “I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to her.”

      “Nothing did.”

      “Because of you. My hero.”

      He stopped, frowned and told her succinctly, “I’m nobody’s hero.”

      But he was, Daisy thought as she watched him walk down to the river, effectively closing himself off. Jericho King might be a reluctant hero, Daisy told herself, but that didn’t change the facts. He was a man to count on. A man to admire.

      The perfect man to be the father of her child.

      * * *

      He woke up with both Daisy and