Her eyes widened at his sharp tone. “You can’t be jealous of yourself, Slade.”
“You didn’t know we were the same man, Sharisse. In your mind we were completely different men.”
“In my mind you were an extension of him, the dangerous, unpredictable side—” She stopped as he began that infuriating grin. “What is so amusing, please?”
“You just admitted that you love me, honey.”
“I most emphatically did not!” she said indignantly. “I fell in love with Lucas, not you.” His cool look flustered her. “Oh, you know what I mean!”
“And what makes you think I’m not the man you fell in love with?”
“You don’t act the same. You’re not nearly as nice.”
“There’s only one man, Sharisse—me. Now I can be myself. No more acting, no more having to be cautious every time I do something.”
“But you always frightened me as Slade.”
“That was intentional, honey. You don’t think I wanted you giving in to both of us, do you?”
She remembered the first two times she had almost succumbed to him, that first time at the ranch, and then again at the mountains. Not almost—shehadsuccumbed. And she recalled her confusion as he set her away from him both times. She remembered his look of triumph when she said she would beg him to leave her alone. She had thought at the time it was because he enjoyed humiliating her, but now she realized it was because she had made the choice—she didn’t want them both.
“But why did you show up at the ranch again?” she asked him. “You had already accomplished your purpose. Lucas and I—”
“That time wasn’t intentional, Sharisse. The fact is, I was heading home early that day because, after the way we had parted, I couldn’t wait the whole day to be with you again. But then I ran into those Apaches, and I knew I couldn’t show up with them as Lucas. You might have wondered why I could communicate with them so easily.”
“But you didn’t have to make advances again.”
“No, but after I got there, I remembered what we—or you and Lucas—had fought about, and it was an impulse to get that settled once and for all. And you made your choice. But you certainly enjoyed rubbing it in, didn’t you?”
She couldn’t meet his knowing eyes, recalling her vindictiveness once she had been assured he would leave her alone. “What if I hadn’t started crying? Would you have made love to me?”
He shook his head. “I would have found some other way of making you fight me. You were never in any real danger of my ravishing you, beautiful.”
“I wish I had known that at the time,” she said tartly.
“You know I always let you go. It wasn’t easy,” he said. “Every time I got near you I got carried away, no matter which role I was playing. And they were both roles, Sharisse. I’m not like the Slade you met in Arizona, and I’m not Lucas, either.”
She frowned. He was a combination of them both, and he was neither. Well, hadn’t she once wished they could be the same man? Whatever else he was, she knew one thing. This was the man she had fallen in love with, despite her firm resolution never to lose her heart.
But what did he feel? She would be able to get used to him as he truly was. But what did he feel toward her?
She gazed at him for a long while, and then she asked, “Why did you follow me to the stagecoach that day?”
“I saw you leaving the ranch and figured you’d try to leave town.”
“But why come as Slade?”
“If you were upset enough to leave Lucas, then I figured you’d cause a scene in town if Lucas showed up.”
“But you could have caught up with me before I got to Newcomb. Why did you let me get to the stage?”
“I felt I’d done you enough harm, Sharisse. If you were set on leaving, I wasn’t going to stop you. That wouldn’t have been decent. But I had to say good-bye to you, or say something. I could manage that as Slade without making you panic. I couldn’t just let you leave without doing something.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“For God’s sake, woman, haven’t you realized yet that I love you? Why the hell else would I be here? And why would I be standing here answering these fool questions when all I really want is to take you in my arms and show you how much I love you?”
“Well,” she said quietly, “what’s stopping you?”
