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"Do you have a death wish?"

"Not particularly."

"Then stop trying to tear open your stitches."

"You could ask nicely."

"I could also knock you unconscious."

My mouth curved before I could prevent it. "Is that how you treat all the men you bring home?"

"You're the first."

That took the smile off me entirely, and she heard it the moment it left her.

"The first sheriff," she added.

"Of course."

"Don't look so pleased."

"I'm trying not to."

"Try harder."

She had put her hand on my arm to pull me away from the shutter, and the pull had turned me, and the turn had brought us together in the narrow space between the wall and the table. I put my palm flat on the boards beside her head to steady myself, and that was the end of any distance between us.

Her scent rolled over me, warmer now than it had been an hour ago, sweet and rising, and every instinct I own stood up at once and strained toward her like a dog on a chain.

"Robin."

"What?"

"You're very close."

"You're the one blocking the door."

"I could move."

"Then move."

The command ought to have been easy to obey. I had obeyed orders under fire, crossed rivers in winter, held a line while men fell on either side of me. Yet here I was, defeated by two words from an outlaw with rain caught in her locs.

"You could move too," I said.

"I was here first."

"You usually are."

Her mouth curved. "And you always come looking."

"Perhaps I've begun to enjoy being found."

She lifted her chin a fraction. The distance between our mouths seemed to shrink without either of us taking a step.

I did not.

Neither did she.