“That’s what you were thinking?” By the way he held her gaze, she knew he sensed there’d been other things.

“More or less.” A woman who’d been interviewed and questioned all her life knew how to evade and dodge. Lifting the bottle, she filled Cliff’s glass again. “The Bordeaux’s another present from my agent. Or another bribe,” she added.

“Bribe?”

“He wants me to give up this mad scheme of camping out in the wilderness and come back to civilization.”

“He thinks he can persuade you with puppies and French wine?”

With a bubbling laugh, Maggie sipped. “If I weren’t so attached to this place, either one might’ve worked.”

“Is that what you are?” Cliff asked thoughtfully. “Attached?”

At the question, her eyes stopped laughing, and her soft, wide mouth sobered. “In your business you should know that some things root quickly.”

“Some do,” he agreed. “And some that do can’t acclimate to the new territory.”

She tapped the side of her glass with a fingertip, wishing she understood why his doubts dug at her so deeply. “You don’t have much faith in me, do you?”

“Maybe not.” He shrugged as if to lighten a subject he wasn’t so certain of any longer. “In any case, I’m finding it interesting to watch you make the adjustments.”

She decided to go with his mood. “How’m I doing?”

“Better than I’d thought.” He lifted his glass in a half toast. “But it’s early yet.”

She laughed, because arguing seemed like a waste of time. “Were you born cynical, Cliff, or did you take lessons?”

“Were you born an optimist?”

Both brows lifted to disappear under the fringe of sable bangs. “Touché,” Maggie said. No longer interested in the meal, she studied him, finding that while his face was very much to her liking, she still couldn’t judge him by his eyes. Too much control, she thought. A person would only get inside his head if he or she was invited. “You know,” she began slowly, “after I’d stopped being annoyed, I decided I was glad you were coming by this evening.” Now she grinned. “I don’t know when I might’ve opened the wine otherwise.”

This time he grinned. “I annoy you?”

“I think you’re well aware of that,” Maggie returned dryly. “And that for your own personal reasons it pleases you to do so.”

Cliff tasted the wine again. It was warm and rich, reminding him of her mouth. “Actually, I do.”

He said it so easily that Maggie laughed again. “Is it just me, or is annoying people a hobby of yours?”

“Just you.” Over the rim of his glass, he studied her. She’d pinned her hair up in a loose Gibson style that accentuated her delicate, old-fashioned features. She wore some dark contouring shadow that made her eyes seem even larger, but her mouth was naked. This was a woman, Cliff thought, who knew how to accentuate her own looks to the best advantage, subtly, so that a man would be caught before he analysed what was Maggie and what was illusion. “I like your reactions,” Cliff continued after a moment. “You don’t like to lose your temper.”