Milk and sugar had been added, and Bliss wondered idly how Jamie had known how she liked her coffee. He sat down, wincing a little, on the edge of the bed, while Bliss avoided his eyes and took a cautious sip of the hot brew.

“We need to talk,” Jamie said gently.

Bliss still could not look at Jamie; the things they’d done in that very bed the night before were too fresh in her mind. “About what?” she asked, and though she attempted to sound blithe, the effort was fruitless.

Jamie curled an index finger under her chin and lifted, so that Bliss had to choose between meeting his gaze and closing her eyes. She came very near to doing the latter, but in the end, her natural fortitude won out.

“About last night,” he replied. When he smiled, his handsome face all askew from the battering he’d endured, Bliss’s heart clenched painfully in response. Trembling a little, she took a sip of her coffee in an attempt to steady herself.

“Oh,” she said, and again she felt wildly embarrassed. If it hadn’t been for the mug of coffee, she would have burrowed back under the covers.

Jamie spoke with typical bluntness, but with sensitivity, too. “I’ve never known a woman to take hell and single-handedly turn it into heaven,” he said quietly. “Not before you, that is.”

Bliss swallowed. Jamie’s words were high praise, but it wasn’t as if he’d said he loved her, or that he would refuse an annulment. And she was still not sure herself.

“Tell me how you met Cutter,” she said, when the silence lengthened to the point where she could no longer bear the strain.

Jamie grinned to let her know that she hadn’t fooled him, but his expression turned sober as he set himself to remembering. “When I came to New Zealand, those scars on my back were fresh. I was young and bitter, and though I had a friend who tried to help me, I went back to stealin’. Cutter took me in and taught me everything I’d yet to learn about the trade.”

Bliss closed her gaping mouth. “Cutter is a thief?”

Jamie gave a short, rueful chuckle. “Not anymore. He’s too old for the life. The—uncertainties of it were getting to him.”

“What about you, Jamie McKenna?” Bliss dared to ask, the half-filled mug grasped tight in both her hands. Dorrie’s words about Jamie’s mysterious transformation following a trip to Australia were clear in her mind, and her gaze dropped to the sleeve of his borrowed shirt. Beneath the fabric, she knew, was the scar he bore as a reminder of that journey across the Tasman Sea. “What brought about the change in you?”

A haunted look came into Jamie’s eyes, and even before he spoke, Bliss knew he was going to hedge. The brogue was further proof of his agitation. “We’ll be leavin’ this place while the sun’s ’igh, lass, so tend to what needs tendin’ and let’s be gone from ’ere.”