"More remarkable planning, I see," Annabel said with a glance around. Of course another carriage was in the barn, as was another horse. He had left no stone unturned.

"You are as clever as always," he replied. Braxton's spirits seemed high. He stepped out of the carriage, as did Louie, the smaller man immediately going to their tired gelding and unhitching him from the traces. Braxton looked up at her and held out his hand.

Surprised, yet ridiculously pleased, Annabel was about to accept it when she saw the twinkle in his eye. She was dressed like a stable boy, with dirt on her face. She was not a beautiful woman now. She withdrew her hand and leapt down from the carriage exactly as he had done. He laughed and walked away.

Miffed, she watched him removing a satchel from the second carriage, this one large enough to contain quite a few clothes. "Is the house occupied?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," an unfamiliar female voice said from the bam doorway.

Annabel turned to glimpse a tall honey-blond woman in a navy skirt and shirtwaist standing on the threshold, smiling slightly-not at them, but at Braxton. An instant later he had crossed the barn and taken her hands in his. "Hello, Mary Anne," he said, and he kissed her cheek.

Annabel stared, her pulse drumming, thinking the worst and jealous about it, too. But the woman, who was perhaps forty and quite attractive, merely smiled at Braxton briefly then turned to look at Annabel. Anxiety filled her gray eyes. "Pierce, I did not know you were coming with a third person." Her tone was husky.

Braxton gave her a look. "I do hope you have some coffee brewing?" His meaning was clear-he did not wish to discuss this now.

Mary Anne looked from him to Annabel again. Annabel decided to take matters into her own hands. She strode forward, holding out her hand, aware of acting very outrageous and mannish. She was angry. Any fool would know that there was something-or had been something-between these two. "Hello. I am Annabel. And actually, Pierce did not quite know himself until the. very last minute that I would be coming along." She managed a smile. At least she now knew his first name.

Mary Anne stared for a moment longer, then smiled quickly. "Hello. I'm Mrs. Winston. Well, do come in. I know you must all be very tired." Her eyes remained anxious.

They followed their hostess from the barn, both men closing the doors behind them, and headed across the lawn and into the house. Inside it was as cheery as it had been outside. Doilies covered the tables in the parlor, slipcovers the couch. The walls were flocked with red roses and pale stripes. Annabel was left in the parlor with Louie. Braxton followed Mary Anne into the kitchen, just down the hall.

Annabel folded her arms, frowning, wanting very much to know what was going on in the kitchen. Were i hey in a warm and affectionate embrace? Or a passion-are one? She faced Louie, who had flopped down on the worn sofa and was browsing through a catalog from Sears. "Is she an old flame?"

Louie looked up and grinned. "Yer jealous, girlie, an' it shows."

"I am hardly jealous," Annabel said hotly. "Well, it's obvious that they care for one another."

" 'E's got lots of flames." Louie continued to grin.

Annabel turned and stared down the hall, toward the kitchen. She could not hear a sound. "I'm sure he does. Who is he?"

"I think you 'ad better ask the guvnor 'imself." Louie returned to the catalog.

Annabel did not hesitate. She left the parlor, but tried to move as soundlessly as possible, shamelessly hoping to catch the two of them in a torrid embrace. She pressed against the wall when she heard their voices in quiet conversation.

"Pierce, how could you bring her here!" Mary Anne cried, setting a kettle down with a loud clang.

"We will leave at dawn, you have nothing to worry about." His tone was very gentle.

"Nothing to worry about?" Mary Anne was incredulous.

Annabel peeked around the open doorway and saw Mary Anne putting muffins on a plate, her hands moving swiftly and angrily, her back to Braxton. He stood in the center of the kitchen, as relaxed and composed as she was not. He placed both hands on her shoulders Irom behind. "You are not in danger. I appreciate what you are doing for me, Mary Anne."

Annabel crept forward, staring at them.

Mary Anne turned to face him. "You know I had no choice but to help you, but dear Lord, I wish you would give up these mad escapades of yours-before you wind up in prison or dead!" Tears filled her eyes.

He tilted up her chin. "No one is going to die. What happened to Harry was an accident. A terrible mistake."

"That will not bring him back, now will it?" She used the corner of her apron to dab her eyes. "Annabel Boothe. Oh, God. Why didn't you throw her out somewhere in Manhattan? The countryside must be swarming with federal agents by now!"

He shrugged. "Poor judgment on my part, in that I agree." He turned and looked directly at Annabel. "Enjoying yourself yet again?"

Annabel flushed. "I was not eavesdropping. I was thirsty."

He made an expression of disbelief.

"Please, do come in," Mary Anne said, pulling out a kitchen chair. She looked worried. "You must be exhausted and frightened, too. I am so sorry you had to get caught up in this, my dear."

Annabel did not want to like her, but her sympathy and concern were clearly genuine. "Actually," Annabel said, walking into the brightly lit room, "I am neither tired nor frightened. But I am dirty. Could I bathe and change clothes? These are Louie's things and I am afraid they do have an odor."

Braxton stared.

Annabel avoided his gaze. She smiled at their hostess. "If it would not be an inconvenience."

There was only one guest room and it had been given to Annabel. It was on the second floor, across the hall from the master bedroom. Louie and Braxton were sleeping in the parlor, or so they claimed. Annabel wondered if Braxton was downstairs where she had left him and his henchman after supper, or across the hall with the too kind Mrs. Winston.

She sat on the edge of the narrow bed, clad in a nightgown that belonged to Mary Anne. Her temples throbbed. She should be relieved that she remained alone in the bedroom, more so if Braxton were comforting the pretty widow. This was what she wanted. To be ruined in name only-not in fact.

But she knew she would not sleep all night long thinking about it-about them.

Annabel finally stood and walked over to her closed bedroom door in her bare feet. Her heart pounded. She pressed her ear against the wood and strained to hear. But there was not a sound in the house-as if everyone were truly asleep.

Very carefully, she began to open the door. It creaked loudly.

She froze, then tried again. The door groaned now as she opened it.

She was breathless, her pulse continuing to drum and deafen her. But her door was wide open. The hall was pitch-black; not a single light had been left on. The door across from her was closed. It was a shadowy shape. Annabel glanced toward the stairs, but could not make them out in the darkness.

Annabel took one step into the hall and winced as the wood beneath her feet squeaked. Grimacing, she hurried across the short distance separating her door from Mary Anne's, and finally she pressed her ear against it. Once again, silence greeted her. Of course, the way her heart was beating, it was terribly hard to hear anything else.

Wood groaned.

Annabel stiffened, wondering if she had imagined the sound, which came from the end of the hall. She stared into the shadows, but saw nothing. After a few seconds, she decided it had been her imagination, or old wood settling. She leaned against Mary Anne's door again, pressing her ear to the stained wood. Her efforts were rewarded by absolute silence.

And then an arm clamped around her waist from behind, a hand clapped over her mouth. Annabel would have screamed in fright, but the hand covering her mouth was so firm and uncompromising that she was prevented from making a sound. She was pulled from behind against a man's solid body. His grip upon her was as immovable as steel.

"Jesus, it's you," Braxton said in her ear. His hand left her mouth, sliding across her jaw to her neck and shoulder, and he did not release her for another moment.

And in that endless moment Annabel was overwhelmed by the warmth and strength of him, by his sheer masculinity.

He dropped his hands from her person.

Annabel turned. Her back pressed against Mary Anne's door as she faced him, and because he did not move, there was not an inch between their bodies. His thighs pressed hers. His chest flattened hers. She was a tall woman, and her eyes were level with his mouth.

It was an exceedingly attractive mouth.

And his teeth flashed white in the darkness. "Might I ask what you were doing?" he asked, but in a whisper.

"I could ask you the same thing," Annabel said, whispering as well. It was very hard to think-her body was acutely aware of him, and she did not know what to do with her hands, which remained balled up at her sides. "I thought you were the police, or a federal agent," she breathed.

His gaze appeared silver in the darkness of the night. It searched hers. "I thought the same of you." Suddenly, he stepped away from her, putting a safer distance between them. "Did anyone ever tell you, Miss Boothe, that curiosity killed the cat?"

She inhaled. She was trembling, her legs were weak. Air now caressed her where his warmth had a scant instant ago. She did not want him to leave and go back downstairs. There was no time to think. "I am not a cat. Curiosity has not killed me yet-I doubt it ever will."

He laughed softly. "You know," he said, and their gazes locked, "I like you. It is a shame that you are who you are. For you and I could have gotten on quite famously, I do think."

She stared. His voice had been low and sensual and intimate. "I like you, too, Braxton."

His smile disappeared.

Annabel wet her lips, images she knew she should not, must not, entertain dancing in her head. Of him leading her across the hall into her bedroom, of him removing her clothing, his large, capable, elegant hands smoothing over her skin.

"Go back to bed," he said harshly. "I will see you in the morning."

"Wait," she whispered, a desperate cry.

But he had not moved.

"Wait," she said again, as intensely. But she could not think of a single excuse to detain him, or a single way to seduce him.

He now wet his lips. "Do not offer," he said with anger, "what will turn out to be a vast mistake. For you certainly, and maybe for us both."

"I am not like other women," Annabel said hoarsely.

He stared.

She clenched her fists. "I don't ever want to marry. I only want to be free." He remained motionless.

"Free like the wind," she said, tears suddenly coming to her eyes. "Not shackled to an idiot like Harold, not shackled to anyone."

His jaw flexed. His brilliant eyes never left her face.

"But you would not understand. Because you are free, you are a man." She was bitter. She felt defeated. He would go. And in the morning, their paths would diverge, never to twine again.

"I understand," he finally said. "Better than you think."

Braxton bent and kissed each shoulder where the straps lay, then he slid them over her shoulders and pushed her gown down over her breasts, her hips, her thighs. It pooled in a puddle of cotton at her feet. His gaze was admiring.

He stroked the pads of two fingers down her neck and chest, over her nipples. Annabel bit back a cry of need and pleasure. He looked into her eyes, his expert hands skimming down her sides and abdomen.

"You are very, very beautiful, and far too much of a woman for most men."

She could not speak. He was touching her thighs. "But not… for you?"

His gaze jerked up to hers. "You are probably too much of a woman for myself as well," he said, as if he had just thought of it and as if he meant it. And then he pulled her close for another devastating, tongue-to-tongue kiss.

And when, a long time later, their lips parted, she gasped, "This is not fair."

He was pushing her down on the bed. "Life is not fair."

She laughed as she found herself on her back, but shakily. "I have no clothes on. You are fully dressed."

His eyes widened and brightened at the same time. He stood, smiling. "That," he said, "shall be remedied momentarily."

Annabel sat up to watch him disrobe. He was exactly as she had thought, broad-shouldered, narrow of hip, all rippling sinew and lean muscle. She had never seen a man completely naked before. She stared.