"Forever," Ash murmured, losing herself in the feel of him, the taste of him. Her heart thundered in her breast, the whole world seeming to whirl away into magic. A magic sweet with the sounds of wind whispering through the trees, crystal brooks burbling over stones like polished gems, birdsong pure as the finest crystal.
And something heavy banging against wood...
Ash's brow furrowed at the disturbing sound intruding into the most delightful dream she'd ever known. She tugged the covers over her head, trying to recapture the soul-searing kiss, but old Sister Michael, who was stone deaf, could not have blotted out the crashing and banging, the cursing and shouting somewhere outside the wagon.
The misty dream world disappeared, and she opened her eyes to see the dim pattern of quilt patches over her head, hear the sleepy grousing of the children.
Embarrassment surged through Ashleen, as potent as the imagined kisses had been. Her very skin seemed to be humming with the sensations the image of Garret MacQuade's loving had provoked.
Loving? Ash berated herself, scrambling into a dressing gown as reality crashed down around her. Far better to label his kisses as a display of his many talents to—how had he put it?—some lucky winner.
"Sister Ash... who's making that noise?" Shevonne asked, scooting up to a sitting position.
"It sounds like a dragon fight, or a cyclops, or—"
"Well, whoever it is, I'm going to tell them to go about their marauding more quietly," Ash began.
But at that moment the whole wagon rocked on its springs, a tall, buckskin-clad figure pulling himself up onto the seat. A broad-brimmed black hat with a beaded band was jammed low over features Ash couldn't quite see, deep fringe accenting shoulders dauntingly broad, set with a pugnacious stubbornness that made Ash stare. But it was the dark hair spilling past his collar in rich ebony waves that sent recognition jolting through her.
"Mr. MacQuade," Ash stammered, her cheeks firing as if he could see in excruciatingly sensual detail what she had been dreaming. "What are you doing?"
The man slanted her a glance seething with impatience, irritation, and a resignation that made her think of Renny those times he'd almost managed to escape going to Mass. "What the hell does it look like I'm doing, Sister?"
His hands closed about the small wood table stashed in the wagon. With a grunt he jerked it through the opening in the canvas, then, under Ash's stunned gaze, flung it to the ground below.
A splintering sound cracked the air, outrage racing through Ash. "That's my table!"
"Wrong, Sister, thatwasyour table. Now it's kindling." Was there a certain smug satisfaction in that whiskey-warm voice?
"You have no right to—"
"To what?" Garret pushed his way past her. "To lighten up your load so this wreck of a wagon might have some chance of making it to Texas?" Amid the squeals of the children Garret dredged up the rocking chair Ashleen had tucked lovingly in one corner of the wagon box.
"This wagon is none of your concern!" Ash blustered. "You're not responsible for it, or for us—"
Garret spat a crude expletive.
Stiffening, Ash barred his path to the back of the wagon. "And as for my furnishings, Mr. MacQuade, I'll haul whatever I please. My guide, Mr. Spader, examined the wagon last night and found nothing amiss."
"Damn right he found nothing amiss." MacQuade's lip curled, his eyes raking her. "Unfortunately, your guide, Mr. Spader, has had an accident. He ran in to my fist."
"Your—"
"Yeah." Garret's eyes blazed silver fire. "After he told everyone in the Double Eagle Saloon what he intended to do to that sweet little body of yours once you were on the trail."
Ash raised one hand involuntarily to where the neck of her dressing gown hung open. "I didn't give him the least encouragement," she said faintly.
"You didn't have to. Most men don't have my willpower, Sister. They see lips like those, all red and ripe, and hair all gold like sunshine, and they want to bury their hands in it."
Their gazes locked, and Ash could see in the turbulent gray eyes of Garret MacQuade a reflection of her own too-vivid memory of how their lips had melded. For the briefest of instants a fever hotter and more virulent than anything she'd ever experienced had swept through her.
Something wild, unexpected.
Something a man like Garret had doubtless indulged in so many times he could not even remember the women's faces.
She saw his hands knot upon the smooth wood of the chair.
"Bloody hell, woman!" he roared, flinging the rocker out inches over her head. "Quit looking at me like that, or I'll be as bad as Spader! I'm not a blasted saint! Unlike you, denying myself the pleasures of the flesh is not my idea of a good time."
