Page 21 of A Second Chance for Love

Her lips twitched into a faint smile.

The vent slid open. “There’s a light just up ahead—but it seems to be moving.”

“Moving? Good God,” Juss muttered. “Well, you’d better give it a look—it could be some poor dumb bas—” Juss glanced at Oona. “Er, it could be another traveler who is lost.”

“Aye, guv.”

“Do you really think it is somebody lost in this storm?” she asked once the vent had closed.

“I don’t know,” Juss said. “But I’m guessing we’re about to find out.”

Nine

It was somebody out in the blizzard, but they were not lost.

“He’s looking for what?” Juss asked again, just to make sure he’d heard correctly.

“Er, ‘e’s lookin’ for ‘is cat, sir,” Beekman said, his tone of disgust communicating his thoughts on the matter.

They’d turned off the main road to follow the light—a man with a lantern—a short distance down a branch road and it would be impossible to turn back at this point.

“’E says ‘is ‘ouse is just ahead, sir. A small farm, but we’re welcome to stay.” He hesitated and then added. “’Is name is Jonathan Cantrell and ‘is wife’s name is Mary. ’E seems like the a right ‘un, guv.”

Juss nodded. “All right. Tell Charles to take the rear coach lantern and help the man find his cat—and that you and I will come help them once we’ve settled the horses.”

Juss would have helped the man find his bloody cat right now—it was the least he could do for an offer of shelter—if he’d not had Oona with him, but he hardly wanted to send her into an unknown house alone.

“Aye, guv.” Beekman trudged off and Juss pulled up the window.

“He must be a nice man if he is out in this searching for a cat.”

Juss snorted. “Or perhaps he’s just crazy.”

Her chuckle was unexpected. “Have you never had a pet?”

“No.”

“That is very sad,” she said with exaggerated pity.

“Are you mocking me, Miss Parker?”

“Perhaps a little.”

“Did you ever have a pet?”

The carriage started moving and she settled back in her seat, the pile of rugs on top of her barely shifting.

She gave him an assessing look. “Well, sort of.”

“A sort of pet?”

“You aren’t allowed to tease.”

“Oh? But I do it so well.”

“Yes, I know.”

The atmosphere in the carriage was suddenly charged, like the air before an electrical storm. Because Juss had lighted both lamps in the carriage an hour before he saw her pupils flare. Predictably, his body responded to her involuntary sign of desire, the blood rushing south, a wave of warmth flooding him.