Last of the Ravens. Linda Winstead Jones

as much as she did disbelief. Maybe more.

      He shook a finger at her, and she noted that he had a workingman’s hands, long-fingered and callused and rough and beautiful. “You weren’t talking to yourself this morning or after you fell off the road. You were talking to a ghost.”

      “I was. You don’t seem at all surprised,” she observed.

      “It takes a lot to surprise me.” He smiled. For a man who didn’t smile often, he did so very nicely. “To be honest, I’m relieved. For a while there I thought you might be a little bit off your rocker, talking to yourself and all.”

      “I do sometimes talk to myself,” she said, experiencing the strongest rush of ease she’d felt in a long time.

      “Yes, but you probably don’t tell yourself to go away.”

      She drew back a little. “You heard that?” This morning when she’d tried to order Dee to go she’d whispered so softly and Bren had been standing so far away…

      “Yeah.” He motioned to one ear with one of those long, fine fingers. “I have the Korbinian hearing. You can’t pull anything over on me.”

      Heaven above, she liked him. Cheryl’s psycho, Roger’s irate neighbor who was determined to own the entire mountain, a man who’d literally run her off the road and then chastised her for being there. She liked him much more than she should. He was alternately funny and pensive, grumpy and hospitable, and he did look fine in those worn jeans. And then an alarming thought occurred to her, a thought that wiped away all her ease.

      “You’re being nice to me so I’ll convince Roger to sell you the cabin!” She put the glass bowl down too hard. “I should’ve known,” she muttered to herself.

      “I am not,” he said without anger.

      “You are. That’s why you offered to give me a ride, that’s why you stopped and helped me after you ran me off the road.” She threw her hands up in the air. “If you didn’t want me to help you get the cabin, you probably would’ve left me there to fend for myself. You probably would’ve gotten a good laugh and just kept on driving.”

      Finely shaped eyebrows arched. “You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked, calm as could be.

      “No, I don’t.” Miranda defensively crossed her arms and took a pose that clearly said Keep away. Clear as it should’ve been, Bren wasn’t listening.

      “Do you want to know why I offered you a ride?” He took a step closer and she backed away. “Do you really want to know why I found myself outside the cabin on your first night on the mountain?”

      Naked, as she recalled.

      Again he moved forward and she moved back, until she found herself trapped in a kind of hole fashioned from an antique wardrobe and a noisy clock. Tick tock, tick tock. “Do you really want to know why I didn’t run from you when you made it very clear that was what you wanted?”

      “Yes,” she whispered.

      He leaned in, cupped her chin and lifted her face, and then he placed his mouth over hers. She was so surprised by the move that for a moment she didn’t react. She simply stood there and accepted; she experienced; she felt. Yes, it had been a long time since she’d been properly kissed, and this simple touch of mouth to mouth was more than proper. It was extraordinary. The kiss rocked her to her toes, it paralyzed her, it shook her to the center of her being and fired up a wave of desire that was strong and primitive and totally unexpected. She heard the ticking of the big clock and the beat of her own heart, she felt Bren’s lips and the wobbling of her knees and a tingle that shook her and took her to a place she had not been in a very long time.

      Desire. She couldn’t say the sensation was entirely unknown to her, but it was something she’d denied herself for years, and she had never experienced it so fully, so deeply or so quickly. Bren’s lips moved gently and she shuddered. Her lips parted and so did his, and for a moment she was frozen, unable to breathe, unable to describe the connection and pleasure she experienced. When he removed his mouth from hers it took all the will she had not to grab the front of his shirt and pull him back.

      “That’s why,” he said, and then he turned away and left her standing there, shaken and confused and very tempted to chase after him.

      Bren helped Miranda carry her purchases into the cabin he had so long coveted. If he had his way he’d buy the place and raze it to the ground. A good look at the interior did nothing to change his mind about those plans.

      A couple of decent lamps and a decorative bowl were hardly going to help matters. What the cabin that marred his mountain really needed was a good fire.

      “Cozy,” he said beneath his breath as he surveyed the orange sofa and matching overstuffed chair. “Ugly as sin, but cozy.”

      Miranda laughed. “Tell me what you really think, why don’t you?”

      They had managed to ignore the kiss, at least openly. He couldn’t forget it and he knew she hadn’t forgotten, either. He could almost swear there was an electric current running between them, a current that repelled and attracted at the same time, a current that changed the smell and the feel of the air he breathed.

      Bren had known at first touch that she was the one for him. Sexually, reproductively, to the soul and to the bone, Miranda was for him. From that moment he’d felt as if he was being led—hell, dragged—into a life that was predestined and he had no choice in the matter. But just because she was here and they had some kind of ancient connection didn’t mean they had to act on it. Her presence and his knowledge of the possibilities didn’t mean he had to follow his impulses. For a moment the kiss had chased his doubts away and he’d been ready to dive in, body and soul, but the doubts were back. He would not be led, not in a matter as important as this.

      He wondered if Miranda felt anything out of the ordinary. She was Kademair, but that didn’t necessarily mean she knew, as he did. That didn’t mean she looked at him and realized he was meant, biologically at least, to be the father of her children. Did she struggle with the possibilities, as he did? Maybe she was blithely and wonderfully ignorant of how momentous their meeting was.

      The father of the rebirth of a species or a childless bachelor and the last of his breed—that was his choice. It was not a choice to be made in an instant, no matter how natural one path seemed to him at this moment. The natural path would take him directly to Miranda Lynch’s bed, into her body. With everything he was, he wanted to peel those black jeans away from her skin, taste her, arouse her, claim her in a way he had never thought to claim any woman.

      If he were an animal there would be no choice to be made. But he was not an animal, he was a man. Difficult as it was, he would attempt to think rationally. He would try to push back his natural attraction until he was sure of what he wanted.

      His well-ordered life could change in an instant. Did he want the dramatic change this woman’s appearance offered?

      Miranda showed him where to place the lamps, while she put her sodas and skim milk in the refrigerator, commenting on how rude the cashier at the grocery store had been. It was true. Tammy had not been happy to see Bren return with another woman. Bren had barely spared a glance for the cashier, unnaturally taken as he was with Miranda, but he’d noticed.

      “So,” Miranda said while her head was in the refrigerator and she didn’t have to look him in the eye, “why do you want this place so badly, anyway?”

      “It’s an eyesore.”

      “This cabin might not be up to your standards, but it’s hardly an eyesore,” she said, closing the refrigerator and turning to face him. “Are you really such a loner that you want to have this entire mountain to yourself?”

      He didn’t want to answer that question, not yet. Was he still a loner? “Why is your friend Talbot so determined to hang on to it? I’ve offered him more than enough to buy a better place elsewhere.”

      “I