He stepped inside, bringing with him the fresh scent of rain and saltwater. He’d forsaken the garb of an English gentleman again, and was clad in dark corduroy pants, a blue shirt open at the neck and an oilskin that crackled as he shrugged out of it and hung it on a peg fastened to the back of the cabin door. Even with the oilskin, his shirt was damp, outlining smooth muscles in his arms and back. All he needed now was his hat and familiar gun belts to complete the familiar image of a gunslinger.

His mouth quirked in a smile. “Got your sea legs, I see. Does nothing ever faze you, green-eyes?”

“A few things.” She slid off the bunk and stood up, but the ship rose sharply, hung for an instant on the crest of a wave, then plunged into the trough like a bucking horse, knocking her off balance. Steve caught her easily, his arms hard around her waist, holding her against his chest. He laughed softly.

“If you want me, just say so, querida. You don’t have to throw yourself at me.”

With her hands against his chest, she looked up at him. His damp shirt smelled like wind and rain.

“If I wanted you, I know how to get you,” she replied with a teasing lift of her brow. “You’re easy enough.”

“Now you’ve hurt my masculine pride.” He released her and she curled one hand around the frame of the bunk to stay on her feet, watching as he crossed the small floor with an enviously easy grace.

“Steve—” She paused, suddenly feeling foolish as he turned to look at her. How did she say what was on her mind? How did she say to him that when they’d boarded this ship he had still been as much a stranger to her as he’d been the first time she met him?

Though she was as familiar with his body as she was her own, she knew nothing about Steve, who he was, what he wanted to be or perhaps had once intended to be. Nor had she ever told him about her own dreams….

Soon they would be in Mexico, and the time for talking, for the sharing of souls, would be lost in the inevitable duties and chaos of traveling. She may never have a better time to talk to him, to bare her own soul.

“Steve,” she said swiftly before she could change her mind. As he turned to look at her, she blurted, “I have some things I want to tell you, that I must tell you.”