It was then that Maggie was struck by the distinct possibility that her spare clothes were as wet as the ones she wore. Her fingers trembling, she fumbled with the catch until the reticule opened, plunging one anxious hand inside. Sure enough, her new pink and white gingham dress and her best cotton nightgown were soaked.

With a groan of despair, Reeve McKenna’s presence having slipped her mind for the moment, Maggie rose as far as her knees, pulling out the spoiled garments for closer inspection.

“I suppose Duncan bought those things for you.” The flat words brought the full gravity of her situation home to Maggie. Legs shaky, she got to her feet and stared down at Reeve’s expressionless face.

“Yes,” she heard herself say. “I’m to be his hostess, you see—”

Reeve stood up, towering over Maggie to such a degree that it hurt her neck to look up at him. One of his hands snatched the sopping wet nightgown from her, a thumb and forefinger assessing the weight of the delicate fabric. “You’ll be greeting his guests in your nightdress, will you?”

Maggie was a moment grasping the implications of what he’d said. The rain pounded at the taut canvas top of the wagon, dripping through here and there, and still Maggie thought she could hear the beat of her own heart.

She faced Reeve with what proud dignity she could conjure up under the circumstances. “Of course not,” she replied weakly, and then she reached out and grabbed the garment back.

Without so much as a word of warning, Reeve turned away, lifted the glass chimney of the lamp he’d lit earlier, and extinguished the flame. The wagon went dark as the cellars of hell, and Maggie drew in a swift, stunned breath.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded of the gloom. She couldn’t see an inch in any direction; it was safe neither to stand fast nor to flee.

“Do you want the whole of the camp to watch you undress?” Reeve retorted from somewhere in the black desolation that surrounded Maggie.

“I have no intention of undressing!”

“Brave words,” Reeve responded, unconcerned. “The trouble is, Yank, that you’re wet to the skin and cold as a banker’s heart in the bargain.” Some unidentifiable but dry garment flew through the blackness and Maggie clutched at it. Flannel. Warm, blessedly dry flannel.

Shivering, Maggie felt the article of clothing and determined that it was a man’s shirt. “I’m leaving,” she said, making no move to do so. The only thing more dangerous than the inside of that wagon, of course, was the storm that raged outside.

“Get out of your wet things, Miss Chamberlin,” Reeve ordered wearily, “or I’ll take you out of them myself.”