Her thoughts strayed to the memory of being held in Matt's arms and swaying against him as an unseen person in the background sang out all the yearning that had ever been in her heart.

Yes, that had been a sweet moment. And the kiss. That had been precious to her as well. But the risk here was so great and the chance of happiness so small. She had to be realistic about it. Matt was a good man, but there was no future in letting herself fall in love with him. She just had to accept that fact. If she still wanted an adventure, she could try something safer, like figuring out how to make brownies in the microwave oven. Plenty of challenge there, and the only risk was exploding brownie mix all over the kitchen. Or she could have another go at running the VCR. Now there was a real adventure. Every time she tried to put in one of the cartridges Ingrid had told her contained movies, the thing spat it right back out at her. She'd tried touching various buttons, but it only blinked and beeped at her and now the clock would do nothing but flash 12:00—12:00—12:00, and she was terrified she'd ruined it.

Yes, mastering electronic appliances was an adventure that was more her speed. Adventures of the heart were out of her league. Now if she could just get Matt to take the hint.

She wrote him a note telling him she was going into town and stuck it among the muffins. She was hoping he would still be asleep so she could just leave the tray inside his door and slip away from the house before he had a chance to interfere with her plan. There were errands that had to be run in preparation for the guests that would be arriving later in the day. She figured it would take her all morning at the very least to take care of them. That seemed like a good start on escaping the magnetic charm of Dr. Thorne.

She crept up the stairs, taking great care not to rattle the china or slosh the juice. The aroma of coffee wafted up into her face from the thermal carafe, and her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she hadn't taken any time to feed herself yet today. She shushed it and tiptoed down the hall, creeping along the wall to avoid the squeaky spot in the floor. Blossom shuffled along behind her making snuffling noises, trailing the scent of blueberry muffins.

Cradling the tray against her, Sarah managed to work one hand free to grasp the knob on the door to Matt s room. With excruciating patience she turned it a fraction of an inch at a time so as not to make any noise. She pushed the door open a bare inch, then two. Then Blossom butted it wide open with her nose and went bounding in, howling, long ears waving like flags. The basset hound hurled herself at the feet of Matt Thorne, who stood dead center in the room, naked as the day he was born.

“Oh, mein Gott!” Sarah exclaimed on a shocked gasp. Her fingers went instantly numb and the breakfast tray made a noisy trip to the floor. Orange juice spewed across the hardwood. Muffins went bouncing in all direc tions with Blossom chasing after them, trying to catch them in her mouth like balls.

Matt stayed where he was, too enchanted by the sight of a grown woman turning purple with embarrassment to worry about his unclothed state. Sarah dropped to her knees and glued her gaze to the floor as she fumbled with the scattered contents of the tray. Silver rattled against china. The tightly capped coffee thermos slipped out of her grasp and rolled across the floor like a bowling pin.

“I'm so sorry,” she mumbled. “I should have knocked. I thought you would still be asleep. I had no idea you'd be … be—”

“Naked,” Matt supplied, amusement twitching his lips.

“Oh, mein Gott?”

It didn't matter that she was no longer looking at him. She'd already gotten an eyeful and all of it was burned into her brain. She'd seen him with his shirt off and she'd seen him in his running shorts, but what she'd just seen certainly made a big impression on her overall view of the man. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the image from her mind and only succeeded in calling up every detail in startling clarity. Trim hips, muscular thighs. Flat belly with a line of dark hair leading down the center from the edge of his bandages to spread into a thicket of curls around that which made him male—extremely male. “Oh, mein Gott” she mumbled in despair.

“Gee, Sarah, I think that's enough praise. Ill get a big head … or something,” Matt said, barely able to contain his chuckles. He grabbed his bath towel off the end of the bed and slung it around his hips out of deference for her delicate sensibilities and to disguise the fact that he was enjoying having her see him just a little too much. 'Its okay, honey, really. I'm decent now.”

She chanced a peek up at him and went crimson all over again. Decent? Decadent was more like it. The man had no sense of propriety. He certainly had other fine attributes, she thought with a flash of heat in her face, but modesty was not among them.

Matt dropped another towel on the floor to sop up juice and knelt on a dry spot, bending over to look into Sarah's face.

“Sweetheart, its okay. Its no big deal. I don't mind you seeing my body. We've all got one under our clothes.”

She looked at him, utterly shocked, and sputtered, “I don't got one and you had ought to keep yours covered! It looks like a very big deal to me!”

She shoved her soggy note at him and fled, leaving the tray behind. Matt fell over on the floor, laughing and groaning, holding his aching ribs, finally howling in a combination of hysteria and pain. Blossom dropped the muffin she was devouring and howled along.

Sarah grabbed her cloak and bonnet and rushed out the back door of the house. Gravel scuffed her shoes as she ran across the driveway and down to the small barn where the Woods allowed her to keep her horse. Her breath fogged in the crisp fall air like steam. It probably was steam, she thought. Everything inside her felt hot and churning.

Why had she had to see Matt that way after making her big decision to end the adventure of getting to know him? Now everything female in her just wanted to get to know him better. Lust. Pure, sinful lust, that was what it was. And to her discredit, she didn't feel the least bit ashamed of it. What she felt was angry and frustrated.

She grabbed a section of harness and tossed it on Otis without taking the time to brush him first. She had kept the brown gelding for herself when she had sold the rest of the farm and equipment after Samuel's death. The horse looked at her now with his limpid brown eyes, blinking as if she had just awakened him from a deep, restful sleep.

“We're going to town,” she told him, buckling the bellyband with more force than usual, winning herself a fierce offended look from the old horse. She ignored him, too wrapped up in the whirlwind of her own emotions.

She would go to town and do her errands as slowly as she could, lingering over each task. And when they were all accomplished, she would think up some more. She would invent reasons to stay in town until she absolutely had to return to the inn in order to greet the weekend guests. She would be safe then, surrounded by nosy, demanding tourists. She would cocoon herself with their presence and shut out Matt Thorne as much as she could. Maybe by doing all that she would be able to forget about how wonderfully male he looked and how her body had never experienced any kind of sexual satisfaction.

She slipped the horses s bridle on and led him out into the yard where her buggy was parked. Otis demonstrated his lack of enthusiasm for his work by moving as slowly as he could, stretching out his long neck as he was pulled along, backing up between the shafts of the buggy one plodding step at a time. Sarah tried to rush him, but in a contest between a hundred-and-twenty-pound woman and a thousand-pound horse there was likely to be only one outcome. She hurried where she could, fastening the tugs and buckling the back bands with the speed acquired through hundreds of harnessings. The closer she came to finishing and the nearer she felt to freedom, the faster she moved. Just another two minutes and she would be on the road, alone with her confounded lust, leaving Matt Thorne behind to think what he would.

He probably thought she was a fool. A foolish, prudish, backward yokel. He was probably amused by her lack of sophistication. Heaven knew, he no doubt had a flock of slick, polished city women waiting for him back in Minneapolis, none of whom would run away from seeing him naked.

“I wouldn't have either,” she muttered. “Except that …”

Except what? She had a duty to her family and her faith? No, that wasn't what had made her run.

“Mind if I tag along?”

Sarah's hands stilled on the harness. She barely resisted the urge to close her eyes and fall against Otis in a swoon of despair. Another two minutes and she would have been gone. Just two more minutes.

“Does groaning between your teeth that way mean yes in Amish?”

She turned and scowled at Matt, half-expecting to see him standing there with a blush-pink towel swathing his hips. He was dressed. Actually, he looked more respectable than she'd ever seen him. He wore baggy tweed trousers, a blue shirt, and a black leather jacket to cut the chill of the October morning. His hair was combed and still damp from a washing. The gleam in his dark eyes was pure mischief.

“You ought to be in bed.”

Matt grinned and moved a step closer. “You certainly have a burning desire to see me between the sheets, Blue Eyes. I would have been more than willing to discuss the issue with you a while ago, but since I've gone to all the trouble of putting on clothes …”

“You're shameless,” Sarah grumbled, snapping a rein to her gelding's bit.

“I hate to be immodest,” Matt said, “but I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of. Do you?”

The pink crept back into her cheeks as the picture of him flashed again in her mind. He was a beautifully made man. He certainly didn't have anything to be ashamed of.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said cajolingly, stepping a little closer and gently taking hold of her arm. He turned her toward him, but she refused to look at him. “You were a married lady. You've seen a naked man before.”

“That was different.” Lord, please don't let him ask how different, she thought. As different as day and night. She had scarcely seen Samuel completely undressed and when she had, she hadn't been inspired to feel the wild emotions that had careened around inside her when she'd seen Matt. Guilt pressed down on her, but she shooed it away. It wasn't her fault Samuel had been slight of build and Matt Thorne was … not.

“I&m sorry I laughed,' Matt whispered, his breath fanning her ear, his voice an almosttangible caress to her senses. His fingers were gentle on her arm, stroking lightly through the fabric of her black cape. “You were just so cute all flabbergasted.”

Sarah wasn't sure how to respond, if she was expected to respond at all. Flattery was a foreign concept to her. She stepped back from the horse and out of Matt's grasp, deciding that to dismiss the topic was probably the smartest thing she could do. “Are you sure you are up to riding? It's three miles to town.”

Matt eyed the boxy black buggy and the old horse hitched to it. It wouldn't have been his transportation of choice, but if it meant getting to sit beside Sarah, looking at her and smelling the clean soap-scent of her, and possibly brushing up against her every now and again, he was willing to settle.

“I can handle it. Too bad Ingrid didn't arrange to have my car brought down,” he said, helping Sarah up into the buggy. “It's a Jag,” he added proudly.

“What's a Jag?”

He eased him self onto the thinly padded bench seat, staring at her incredulously. “What's a Jag? A Jaguar XJ6. Only one of the finest automobiles known to man. Leather interior, digital CD player, all-aluminum fuel-injected four-liter twenty-four valve inline-six. Two hundred and twenty-three horses under the hood,'

There. Let her scoff at that, Matt thought. Women never failed to be impressed by his car, even if they didn't know what he was talking about. They always had sense enough to know all that jargon meant great things.

Sarah gave him a crooked little smile that clearly said she thought he was one brick short of a full load. She slapped the reins against the geldings back and said, “Two hundred and twenty-three horses? One has always done just fine for me.”

“Very funny.” He reached into his hip pocket and pulled his wallet out. “I have a picture of it. Want to see?”