Long minutes had passed before he withdrew from her and crossed the room to take a robe from the closet and pull it on. The wrenching motions of his arms were angry, and the glorious inertia that had possessed Shay until that moment fled instantly.

Mitch left the room without speaking and Shay was too proud to call him back. She sat upright on the sleeping bag and covered herself with his shirt, chilled now that the contact had been broken not only physically, but emotionally. She waited in a small hell of confusion and shame, willing herself to put on her clothes and leave but unable to do so.

Finally, Mitch returned. He flipped on the lights, revealing the starkness of the room, the scattering of Shay’s clothes and his own, the reality of the situation. Shay closed her eyes and let her forehead fall to her upraised knees.

He nudged her shoulder with something cold and she looked up to see that he was offering a glass of chilled wine. Blushing, Shay took it in both hands, but she could not meet his eyes.

“You’re angry,” she said miserably.

“Shocked would be a more appropriate word,” he answered, sitting down nearby and clinking his own glass against hers.

Now, Shay’s eyes darted to his face. She was stung to an anger that made her forget the one she had sensed in Mitch. “Shocked? You? The adventurer, the sophisticate?”

His expression had softened; in his eyes Shay saw some lingering annoyance, but this was overshadowed by a certain perplexity. “I wasn’t casting aspersions on your moral character, Shay, so settle down.”

“Then what were you doing?”

He only smiled at the snap in her voice, setting his wineglass aside with a slow, lazy motion of one hand. “From the moment I met you, you’ve been trying to keep me at a distance. You might as well have worn a sign saying Look, but Don’t Touch. Yet tonight, you—”

She couldn’t bear for him to say that she’d seduced him, though it was true, in a manner of speaking. “I’m a modern woman,” she broke in, shrugging nonchalantly and lifting her wineglass in an insolent salute, though in truth she felt like sliding down inside the sleeping bag and hiding there.

“No,” Mitch replied wryly. “You aren’t.”

“I resent that!”

He took her wineglass and set it aside. “Strange. That’s one of the most interesting things about you, you know. Despite what we just did, you’re an innocent.”

“Is that bad or good?”

He took the shirt she’d been clutching and flung it away, giving her bare breasts a wicked assessment with those quick, bold eyes of his. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said, and then they made love again, this time in the light.

Chapter Six

The box containing what remained of the Rosamond Dallas legend was a silent reprimand to Mitch. He rolled his head and worked the taut muscles in his neck with one hand. You’ll be safe with me, he’d told Shay. No heavy scenes, he’d said.