“And you want to get to know me better first?”
“Exactly.” She was relieved. He wouldn’t be so difficult to manage after all. Just as long as he understood she wouldn’t allow any intimacies.
“But how am I to get to know you if you keep me at arm’s length? If you don’t like kissing, then we’ve got a problem.”
His approval of her seemed to rest on her answer. She bristled.
“I am not in the habit of letting strangers kiss me,” she said stiffly. “And you are still a stranger.”
Lucas shook his head. “You’re telling me to keep my distance, but if I go along with that, we’ll end up being strangers much longer than necessary. It’s going to take a few months as it is for me to find out if you can fit in here. Am I supposed to waste that amount of time andthenfind out if you and I are compatible?”
Sharisse was aghast. In his mind, it would be purely a waste of time if, after she passed muster in other ways, he discovered there was absolutely no chemistry between them. True. But what he was suggesting was abhorrent. Was she supposed to let him take liberties with her?
Sharisse drew on her years of contrived confidence. “Mr. Holt, I realize our situation is unique and I will have to make allowances for it. However, I really must ask for at least a little time to feel comfortable with you. After a while a kiss or two might be permissible—if you insist. More than that I simply cannot allow, not before we are wed. And if that is not satisfactory to you…”
Lucas knew when to back down. “I guess you can’t get more reasonable than that. Your room is right there on the left. I’ll get your things now.”
Sharisse sighed as he left and turned to look around. There were two doors on the left wall of the room she was standing in. The room was bigger than she had imagined, but it was the only room besides those two doors to the left. Against the back wall was a kitchen of sorts, a wood-burning stove, a sink with a hand pump, some cupboards cluttered with dishes, and a big table. A window behind the sink looked out on the backyard. There was a door to the left of the stove. The rest of the room, to her right, contained a fireplace with a thick rug in front of it and a gray wooden settee without cushions. Next to that, near the front door, were an old arrow-back rocker and a candle stand.
Sharisse felt her shoulders sag. It was such a depressing room. So austere. She shuddered to think what her bedroom would be like. She faced that door and opened it. The two windows inside it were open and the curtains drawn, letting in a cheery light, but also the heat. She couldn’t find a single thing to her liking and she didn’t try, moving quickly to the other bedroom before Lucas came back. This room proved more dramatic, with dark coloring and a look of being lived in. The bed was unmade, and a wardrobe stood open with dirty clothes slung over the doors. Other articles were scattered around. His room, to be sure. She was rather embarrassed to have looked in.
She closed the door quietly. Then it dawned on her. These three rooms were all there was. No servants’ quarters. That meant…
“How do you like the place?” Lucas asked as he walked in the front door carrying her luggage.
Sharisse couldn’t answer, not with the alarming thought that they would be the only two people sleeping in the house. “You don’t have…any servants here, do you?”
“Not the kind that see to a house, I don’t.” He gave her that engaging boyish grin. “Now you know why I need a wife.”
He was teasing her again, yet she was insulted. “Wouldn’t it be simpler to hire a servant?”
“A lot simpler,” he agreed. “But I couldn’t expect a servant to share my bed, could I?”
He said it so casually that Sharisse felt a tremor in her belly. Fear? She stayed where she was as he took her luggage into her room.
“You’ll want to get unpacked,” he called out, “and I recall you wanted a bath. I’ll see about that and some grub for you, then leave you to rest.” He came back into the room, and his vivid green eyes probed hers for a moment. “You’ve nothing to fear here, Sharisse. No harm will come to you as long as you’re my responsibility.”
He left her standing there, weighing what he had just said against everything else that had been said and done that day. Nothing to fear? If only she could just walk away from the situation! But she had no alternative. Even writing her sister, which she intended to do that very night, would produce no results for some time. She was stuck, she was there under false pretenses, and she didn’t have the remotest idea how to make the best of things.
Seven
Sharisse’s eyes opened to a blinding glare. She sat up quickly, confused, then saw that the hot light had been caused by the little standup mirror she had set on the bureau yesterday. She hadn’t realized that the mirror would reflect the morning sun right onto her pillow. The sun was rapidly heating the house.
Slipping into the thin silk robe left on the end of her bed, Sharisse walked over to the window. The lovely robe, a creation of lime green and white lace, matched the negligee given to her by her aunt when they were in France. Sharisse had brought it along, and another like it, because she had thought she would be alone in some sweet little cottage, not sharing a cabin with a man.
Packing thin summer clothing had been the only sensible thing she’d done thus far. Everything else could be counted as simply disastrous—especially her rash decision to leave home in the first place. When she thought of the safety she had thrown away!
Sharisse sighed, looking out at the sun hiding behind the fat fingers of a giant saguaro cactus in the side yard. She could see part of the corral, and she realized with a start that the window was low to the ground. Just about anyone could have walked by it and seen her lying in bed.
She yanked the curtains closed, her face flushing. There was only one person she could visualize looking in. She quickly closed the other curtains, too, then went back to sit on the bed, trying to calm herself. Everything in the room made her think of Lucas, the large round tub he had filled yesterday, still full of cold water, the tray of dishes. Her eyes fell on the blouse she had gone through so much discomfort to save, lying now in a torn heap in the corner where she had thrown it in a fit of temper. She had had to rip it off her back after all, something she couldn’t afford to do, not with the meager wardrobe she had. But she couldn’t very well have askedhimto aid her, or Mack. Alone with two men—that was his idea of being chaperoned!
On the bureau was the letter she had stayed up late writing. Oh, the things she had packed, including her personal stationery, thinking of a quiet existence in some quaint village! It was laughable. Negligees, linen morning gowns, day dresses, an outing costume complete with gloves, bonnet, and matching shoes. A formal evening dress. She had brought along more toiletries than she needed, fans, hair ornaments, silk stockings, petticoats and bustles, even an extra corset. She had stuffed her trunk and yet found herself in an unwelcoming climate in an uncivilized area with nothing suitable to wear. It really was laughable, or something to cry over.
And she did feel like crying, but she hadn’t said that to Stephanie. She had taken hours wording the letter just right so she wouldn’t throw her sister into a panic or consume her with remorse. She hadn’t mentioned the jewels at all except to say they were missing, and that was meant to explain how she had ended up in Arizona after all. There was a brief paragraph describing Lucas Holt, and she had been charitable in the describing. Yet she had made certain Stephanie understood that she couldn’t stay away very long. Something else would have to be arranged, and Stephanie would have to handle it.
Sharisse dressed slowly, delaying as long as possible the inevitability of facing Lucas Holt again. Charley was still asleep in the empty washbowl where he had buried himself during the night. He had made one exploratory trip out the window, prowled around the room until she was ready for bed, then settled in the cool porcelain bowl. She wondered if he would adjust to the heat and stop losing so much fur. She wondered if she would adjust. She sighed, leaving the room braced.
She was relieved to find no one in the outer room, but then she realized she was hungry and there was no food on the table and nothing on the stove, not even a pot of coffee. She set her tray of dishes by the sink and considered a search through the storeroom. She supposed they ate early around there and she had just missed it.
