That was what Zeke had hated so much, she thought. He had never understood that laughter and love could not be bought or stolen. He had called her a traitor to the Southern cause, but she had never betrayed the South. She had merely learned to despise him, and so she had lost her father, and then Adam, too.

Today she could remember Adam all too clearly. He had loved books. He had always looked so handsome, leaning against the fireplace, his features animated as he spoke about the works of Hawthorne and Sir Walter Scott.

No one had told her that Adam was riding out after Zeke. She'd never had the chance to try to stop him.

And now she wondered painfully if she had ever really loved him. Oh, she had cared for him dearly. He had been a fine man, good and decent and caring, and he had often made her laugh.

But she had never, never thought of Adam in the way that she had Cole Slater, had never even imagined doing with Adam the things she had actually done with Cole Slater.

And she didn't love Cole Slater. She couldn't love him. No, she couldn't love him, not even now. How could a woman love a man who had treated her the way he had?

But how could she forget him? How could she forget all she had felt since she'd first seen the man? How could she forget all that had passed between them? Kristin realized that it was difficult just to be in the same room with him now. Her breath shortened instantly, and she couldn't keep her gaze steady, and she wanted to run away every time he looked her way. She couldn't look at him without remembering their night together, and when she did she wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground and hide. She was ashamed, not so much because of what she had done but because she had been so fascinated by it. Because she still felt the little trickles of excitement stir within her whenever he entered the room, whenever she felt his presence.

She knew instinctively when he came into the house for dinner.

Fall was coming on, and the evening was cool. She had dressed in a soft white velvet gown with black cord trim. The bodice was low, and the half-sleeves were trimmed in black cord, too. The skirt was sweeping, and she had chosen to wear a hoop and three petticoats.

She'd made Delilah tie her corset so tightly that she wasn't sure she'd be able to breathe all evening.

Her appearance had suddenly become very, very important to her. He hadn't been cruel to her, but he had been mocking, and he'd warned her again and again that this terribly intimate thing between them had nothing to do with involvement. Her pride was badly bruised, and all she had to cling to was her dream of leaving him panting in the dust. Someday. When she didn't need him anymore.

She'd braided her hair and curled it high atop her head, except for one long lock that swept around the column of her neck and the curve of her shoulder to rest on the mound of her cleavage.

She never used rouge — Pa hadn't allowed it in the house — but she pinched her cheeks and bit her lips, to bring some color to her features. Still, when she gazed at her reflection in the mirror over the dresser — she had refused to dress in the other room — she was terribly pale, and she looked more like a nervous girl than a sophisticated woman in charge of her life, owner of her property, mistress of her own destiny.

She tried to sweep elegantly down the stairs, but her knees were weak, so she gave up and came down as quickly as she could. Shannon was setting cups on the table. She stared at Kristin with wide blue eyes, but she didn't say anything. Nor did Kristin have to question her about Cole.

"He's in Pa's office," Shannon mouthed. Kristin nodded. Nervously, she started through the house. She passed through the parlor and came around, pausing in the doorway.

He was sitting at her father's desk, reading the newspaper, and his brows were drawn into such a dark and brooding frown that she nearly turned away. Then he looked up. She was certain that he started for a moment, but he hid it quickly and stood politely. His gaze never left her.

"Bad news?" she asked him, looking at the paper.

He shrugged. "Not much of anything today," he said.

"No great Southern victory? No wonderful Union rout?"

"You sound bitter."

"I am."

"You got kin in the army?"

"My brother."

"North or South?"

"North. He's with an Illinois troop." Kristin hesitated. She didn't want him to feel that they were traitors to the Southern cause. "Matthew was here when Pa was killed. He learned a whole lot about hatred."

"I understand."

She nodded. Then curiously she asked him, "And have you got kin in the army, Mr. Slater?"

"Yes."

"North or South?"

He hesitated. "Both."

"You were in the Union Army."

"Yes." Again he paused. Then he spoke softly. "Yes. And every time I see a list of the dead — either side — it hurts like hell. You've seen the worst of it, Kristin. There are men on both sides of this thing who are fine and gallant, the very best we've ever bred, no matter what state they've hailed from."

It was a curious moment. Kristin felt warm, almost felt cherished. She sensed depths to him that went very far beyond her understanding, and she was glad that he was here for her.

However briefly.

But then he turned, and she saw his profile. She saw its strengths, and she saw the marks that time had left upon it, and she remembered the woman in the picture, and that he didn't really love her at all. And she felt awkward, her nerves on edge again.

"Supper's about on the table," she said.

He nodded.

"Can I… can I get you a drink? Or something?"

Or something. She saw the slow smile seep into his lips at her words, and she blushed, feeling like a fool despite herself. He nodded again.

"Madeira?"

"A shot of whiskey would be fine."

Kristin nodded, wondering what had prompted her to say such a thing. He was closer to the whiskey than she was, and he knew it, but he didn't make a move to get it. He kept staring at her, his smile mocking again.

She swept into the room and took the whiskey from the drawer. They were very close to one another. He hadn't changed. He was still wearing tight breeches and a cotton shirt and his riding boots. She knew he had ridden out to meet with Pete, and she knew, too, that he seemed to know something about ranching. Well, he was from somewhere around here, according to Shannon.

She poured him out a double shot of the amber liquid, feeling him watching her every second. She started to hand him the glass, but he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were on hers, grown dark, like the sky before a tornado.

He reached out and touched the golden lock of hair that curled over the rise of her breasts. He curled it around his finger, his thumb grazing her bare flesh. She couldn't move. A soft sound came from her throat, and suddenly it was as if all the fires of hell had risen up to sweep through her, robbing her of all strength. She stared up at him, but his eyes were on her hair, and on her flesh where he touched her. She felt heat radiating from the length and breadth of his body, and yet she shivered, remembering the strength of his shoulders, the hardness of his belly, the power of his thighs.

And she remembered the speed of his draw. He was a gunslinger, she thought, bred to violence.

No. He had been to West Point. He had served as a captain in the U.S. Cavalry. That was what he had told Shannon, at least.

Did any of it matter? He was here, and as long as he was here she felt safe from the Zeke Moreaus of the world. And yet, she thought, theirs must surely be a bargain made in hell, for when he looked at her, when he touched her even as lightly as he did now, she felt the slow fires of sure damnation seize her.

"Do you always dress so for dinner?" he asked her, and the timbre of his voice sent new shivers skating down her spine.

"Always," she managed to murmur.

His knuckles hovered over her breasts. Then his eyes met hers, and he slowly relinquished the golden curl he held. Expectation swirled around them, and Kristin was afraid that her knees would give, that she would fall against him. The whiskey in the glass she held threatened to spill over. He took the glass from her and set it on the desk. She felt heat where his fingers had brushed hers, and it seemed that the air, the very space between them, hummed with a palpable tension.

"You are a very beautiful woman, Miss McCahy," he told her softly, and she felt his male voice, male and sensual, wash over her.

"Then, you're not… you're not too disappointed in our deal?"

He smiled again, and his silver-gray eyes brightened wickedly. "Did we need a deal?"

"I don't know what you mean," she told him, though she knew exactly what he meant.

The light went out of his eyes. He picked up the whiskey and swallowed it quickly. "I'm still damned if I know what the hell I'm doing here," he muttered.

"I thought —" she began, and her face flamed.

He touched her cheek. "You thought the payoff went well, is that it?"

She shoved his hand away. She didn't want him to touch her, not then. "You do have a talent for making a woman feel just like river slime," she said, as sweetly as she could. He arched a brow, and she saw fleeting amusement light his features. She could hold her own in any fight, she thought, but only for so long. She needed to escape him now.

"I didn't mean to make you feel like… river slime."

"Don't worry. You already did so. Last night." With a sweetly mocking smile, Kristin turned to leave.

Then she paused and turned toward him again, biting her lip. She kept forgetting how much she needed him. Her eyes must have widened with the realization, for he was smiling cynically again and pouring himself another shot of whiskey.

"Don't worry," he told her smoothly. "I'm not walking out on you. Not yet."

Kristin moistened her lips. "Not yet?" she whispered.

"Why, Miss McCahy! I really couldn't leave a lady in such distress, could I?"

"What do you mean by that?"

He raised the glass. "Take it as you will, ma'am."

Kristin swore under her breath and strode over to him again. She snatched the glass from his hand and thought seriously of pouring the contents over his head. His eyes narrowed, and she quickly reconsidered.

She swallowed the whiskey down so quickly that her head spun in an instant and her throat burned with the fury of a brush fire. A double shot, straight. But she steeled herself, and she still managed to smile sweetly. "You don't owe me anything."

"No, darlin'. You owe me." He smiled, took the glass from her and poured another double. "And I'm real anxious for the next installment."

Kristin snatched the glass again and swallowed the liquid down. She didn't know if she was alive with anger or with desire.

She slammed the glass down and tried to spin around. He caught her arm, pulling her back. She tossed her head back, staring into his eyes.

"Isn't it what you want?" he asked her.

"I want revenge, nothing more," she told him.

"Nothing more?"

"I want you to — I want you to stay. I want to hold on to the ranch. I just want to hold on to what is mine."

"The precious ranch," he muttered darkly.

Fear fluttered briefly in her heart. "Cole…Mr. Slater, you really wouldn't… you wouldn't go back on your word, would you?"

"Not so long as you follow the rules."

Her head was really spinning now. He had poured so much whiskey, and she'd swallowed it down so fast. He was so warm, and so damn vibrant, and so shockingly male. And she'd already been in bed with him.

Her mother would be spinning in her grave, Kristin thought.

He was using her. He was using her because he had loved another woman and now he just didn't give a damn.

"Your rules! Just don't forget that the place belongs to me!"

She wrenched free of him, and this time she walked out. She wasn't afraid of him leaving. He was having too fine a time torturing her to leave now.

When she reached the dining room, she was startled to discover that he was behind her. He had followed her, as silent as a wraith. It was disconcerting.

"Stop it!" she demanded.

Shannon came out of the kitchen. Delilah was behind her. Both women stopped, startled.

Cole ignored them both. "Stop what?" he demanded irritably.