His expression was cautious, wary, distant. Heather was the first to look away. It hurt to see that remote, impersonal look in his eyes, as if their explosive joining had never happened. As if she’d never lain beneath his body and cried out with the wonder of it. She was still desperately fighting the emotions he’d unleashed in her last night.

She had been a stranger to herself. No one had ever told her about the madness, the fever, the blindness of desire. She never expected to feel sensations so sweet, so powerful, that she would shatter in a million pieces. She never expected, either, to feel such conflicting sentiments for this hard man, one part of her wanting to burrow into his arms and reclaim the tenderness he’d given so unwillingly last night; another wanting to rail at him for shutting her out so coldly; another yearning to understand the deep sorrow she sensed in him, the complex forces that had made him the uncompromising stranger he was.

Taking her bag, Sloan led her to the buckboard and handed her up. When he considerately tucked a blanket over her skirts, she thought of those hands touching her last night.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her face flushing from the vivid recollection.

“It’ll be cold,” he replied matter-of-factly. Climbing up beside her, he gave her a single glance before the brim of his hat shaded his face. “Jake and Cat will be expecting us. I sent them a telegram.”

She nodded, trying to forget the memory of his hard fingers and soft mouth, of his heated lips on her skin.

Sloan slapped the reins and the team moved forward. Leaving the crowded depot behind, they traveled along streets lined with ornate false-fronted buildings and bustling stores and less refined saloons.

As they left the city, they maintained a mutual silence, Sloan concentrating on driving over roads patched with ice and mud, while Heather studied the scenery. The land surrounding Denver was flat prairie dotted with shrub, yet the snow-covered mountains seemed quite close, shining in the distance.

Eventually the level grassland gave way to rugged hills flecked with cattle and the occasional ranch. The cold air had a cleaner, sweeter smell here, it seemed, while the view from the ridgetops was utterly spectacular. Beyond the foothills the main range of the Rockies rose up in jagged splendor, their snowy peaks glistening in the sunlight, their slopes covered with frosted ponderosa pine and tall spruce and bare, white-trunked aspen.

Heather found herself staring in awe. It was an unbelievably beautiful country, splendorous and wild, with a sheer vastness that was breathtaking.

Once toward sunset, Sloan drew the team to a halt and sat for a moment in silence, regarding the panorama. Heather could understand his reverence for the untamed grandeur. The mountains had turned purple and gold as the sun slid down their massive shoulders.