His fondling was relentless and brutally pleasurable for Maggie. She found herself bent far backward over Reeve’s arm, surrendering to the magic his hand ignited while his teeth again tormented breasts that craved to be bared to him and were not.

“Oooooh,” she moaned as the second pinnacle was reached, and her hips spasmed in response to Reeve’s skillful touch.

When the tumult had ended, Reeve withdrew his hand from Maggie’s drawers, let her skirts fall back into place, lifted her so that she again stood upright. She stared at him, dazed by the glory of the moments just past.

And Reeve gave her a hard swat on the bottom, turned, and left the wagon, whistling. Damn and double damn, the man was whistling!

Maggie pressed her hands to her cheeks in an effort to cool them and stood stock-still until her breathing was normal again. Then, not wanting to hide inside Reeve’s wagon all day, she climbed bravely out the back.

The sky was a deep, rain-washed blue, the sun bright as polished brass. People milled about everywhere, talking and eating as they moved between puddles of muddy water. Almost immediately, Maggie spotted Tansy, standing by one of the new bonfires, casually warming her hands.

Maggie stormed toward her friend, furious beyond all good sense. If Tansy hadn’t disappeared the way she had, Maggie might not have ended up in Reeve’s wagon. She might not have given up the most precious thing a woman could offer a man. “Tansy Quinn,” she demanded in a scathing whisper, “where have you been?”

Tansy looked at Maggie and then at the wagon she’d crawled out of, a knowing, saucy gleam in her blue eyes. “I was doin’ the same thing you were doin’, only in the barn,” she answered, bold and brazen as you please.

Maggie stiffened, her face burning. Unable to think of an answer to Tansy’s remark, she remained silent.

Tansy drew nearer, catching Maggie’s rigid arm in her hand and ushering her away from the fire and the people waiting there for their breakfast. “You’re the luckiest of us all, Maggie Chamberlin,” she confided in a delighted whisper. “Imagine beddin’ a man like that!”

Unfortunately, Maggie didn’t have to imagine bedding a man like Reeve. But neither did she have to admit to anything. “It so happens that nothing of the sort took place last night. Nothing at all. Mr. McKenna simply allowed me to sleep in his wagon because I’d been caught in the rain and had nowhere else to go!”