Necessary Action

Realistically, he doubted she could take Silas down the same way he had. But there were ways. “You just have to be smarter than your opponent, do the unexpected and be fierce about committing to the attack. I could show you escape maneuvers—and you probably already know some of the key targets if you want to incapacitate a man.”

Her gaze dropped down to the zipper of his jeans and up to the column of his throat.

“I see you already know a couple of vulnerable spots.” He really should feel guilty about saying things that triggered that graphic response on her skin. Instead, he was wondering what else he could say or do to make her skin color like that.

She quickly averted her face. “I’d appreciate that. If you have the time.”

Her hip brushed against his thigh as she inserted the first stitch. Duff turned his nose to the crown of her hair, inhaling the scents of baby shampoo and damp summer heat. “I’ll make the time for you.”

“You don’t even know your work schedule...” Before she made the next stitch, she tipped her face to his. Her breath caught with an audible startle at how close he was to her, but Duff made no effort to retreat.

Her eyes weren’t ordinary at all. Their cool brown color, spiked with flecks of amber, reminded him of the fine Irish whiskey he and his brothers liked to sip on special occasions. With her sweet scent and eyes like that, he wouldn’t have to pretend that this woman had some pretty about her, after all.

“When I say I’m going to do a thing, I do it.”

He lowered his gaze to the quiver of her lips and felt a twist of hunger low in his belly. He could kiss her right now if he wanted to. Maybe the bold move would shock her into kissing him back. Or she might just slap his face for doing without asking.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Her hands were suddenly very busy with the cut on his shoulder.

“I don’t.”

Yep. Busy, busy. She didn’t know what to do about her interest in him. She didn’t know how to hide it, either. As long as he didn’t spook her, he could give her a few lessons about how to indulge that awareness she was feeling. And, damn it, he was going to take advantage of that attraction. Because the mission required it.

But that meant ignoring his conscience and his errant libido, and taking it slow so he wouldn’t frighten her off before he had the chance to solidify a connection between them. So he dialed back his own curiosity about what her lips might taste like and thought about the vanishing man who’d shot his grandfather and the reason he was here in the first place. Duff set the ice pack on the bed beside him and captured a strand of Melanie’s auburn hair, pulling it away from the damp spot on her left breast. The kinky tendril was thick and soft as he rubbed it between his thumb and fingers, stirring up the scents he’d noticed earlier. She must use baby products for all her personal toiletries. If he needed any further testament to her innocence...

Melanie pulled away at the same moment he forgot that touching her was supposed to be an act.

“Give me a sec.” She exited the room for a minute or so, and came back in, sans the blush, tying a rubber band around the long braid that hung over her shoulder. Without another word, she pulled on a new pair of sterile gloves and prepped the needle for the next stitch. Her tough-chick armor was back in place.

But Duff wasn’t about to surrender the opportunity to get closer to her. “That’s a shame, winding up all that wild hair like that.” He reached out and twisted the heavy braid between his fingers, using it to tug her into the vee of his legs. “I liked it better down.”

Chapter Four (#u730608af-c96e-51b1-83db-681c5cca6368)

“You liked...?” Melanie caught her breath when the back of Tom Maynard’s knuckles brushed across her breast as he played with the braid of her hair. The caress tingled over her skin, tightening the tip into a tender pearl. Was that an accident? Or had that touch been intentional? She cringed at the sound of denim rasping against denim. She was nestled between his thighs and she wasn’t making any effort to move away from the warmth surrounding her.

“Are you hitting on me?” With an awkward push and a nearly stifling amount of embarrassed heat creeping up to her cheeks, she stepped around his knee. A half-sewn suture linking her hands to his shoulder kept her from bolting across the room. “You’ll make me mess up this stitch.”

She’d been stripped down to wet undies that were transparent to the skin an hour or so ago and hadn’t felt as exposed as she did fully dressed with Tom Maynard. Of course, no one had touched her, accidentally or otherwise, when she’d been swimming in her skivvies. And this man seemed to keep finding reasons to touch her. Where was that sharp tongue she’d used to tell off Silas and her uncle? Was she really so starved for some tender attention from a man that she’d forget her vow to steer clear of any entanglements on the farm?

She stopped herself from reaching inside her pocket again to touch her father’s watch. It was a superstitious habit, really, thinking that holding on to the busted watch could bring back either of her parents. The scratched-up piece of gold couldn’t really channel her father’s spirit and give her clarity and reassurance when she needed it. She had to be smart enough to remember all the life lessons her widowed father had taught her right up until the night he’d died.

Except that she’d been a girl of eleven when Leroy Fiske had drowned. And, somehow, the lessons she’d learned as a little girl never included how she was supposed to react to a man who stirred things inside her. Even when he didn’t mean to. Or did he? She’d been secretly cheering for Tom Maynard when he’d stood up to Henry and Silas’s authority. They’d had to gang up on Tom and pull a weapon to turn the tide of power back in their favor. For a few moments, she thought she’d found her hero—the perfect ally—a way out of the nightmare unfolding around her these past few months. No wonder she’d been so eager to defy her uncle’s authority and step into the middle of a fight.

Then she realized he was going to be like the other men here—overlooking her uncle’s lies and accepting his questionable dictates in exchange for a share of the farm’s profits—or whatever a man like Tom needed.

But the promise of a hero must have lingered inside her because she’d been ogling Tom’s imposing chest and the T-shaped dusting of brown hair that tapered into a line that disappeared beneath his belt buckle, imagining being held close to all that muscle and heat again. Did her reaction to his touch mean she liked Tom? Had catching her admiring the muscular landscape sent her patient the message that she wanted to be touched? If so, how did she change that message? Because it really wasn’t in her plans right now to...to what? Make a friend? Have an affair? Completely embarrass herself by revealing that she’d reached the age of twenty-five with more experience fishing than kissing?

“Hey, Doc, you okay?” His voice rumbled in a drowsy timbre. “You got quiet on me.”

She hated how her skin telegraphed every emotion, putting her at a disadvantage when she couldn’t read whatever Tom was thinking or feeling. “I did?” She cleared her throat to mask the embarrassingly breathless quality of her own voice. “I’m sorry. What were we talking about?”

“Why you tamed all that hair into a braid like this. You’ve sure got a lot of it.” Was that supposed to be a compliment? Or a remark about how the Missouri humidity could wreak havoc on too much naturally curly hair? And, goodness, was he still twirling the tail end of her braid between his fingers?

She couldn’t summon her father’s spirit to guide her, but she could muster up a little common sense. Melanie pulled the braid from his fingers and swung it behind her back. “It’s not practical to have it flying all over the place when I have to do work like this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been tempted to cut it all off.”

“Now that would be a shame. It’s like earthy fire.”