"Nevada," Eden whispered, reaching for him, wanting to comfort him. "Nevada, I-"

Her words ended with a startled sound when his hands flashed out and pinned her wrists against her sides.

"Don't touch me, Eden," Nevada said in a low voice, but even as he spoke he was leaning down, coming closer to her, so close that all that lay between their mouths was the mingled heat of their breath. "I want you too much. I want you until I can't sleep, can't take a deep breath, can't look at my hands without seeing them on your body, can't – my God, I can't even lick my lips without wondering what you would taste like."

"Find out," Eden whispered against his lips. "Taste me, Nevada."

With a sound that was almost anguished, Nevada lowered his head the final fraction of an inch.

Eden's lips were soft, warm, undefended. They opened for Nevada without hesitation, yielding the secrets of her mouth to him at the first gliding touch of his tongue. Hot, generous, sweet, clean – he could not get enough of her. The changing taste and texture of her mouth lured him deeper and deeper until he could go no farther and yet he still wanted more, so much more. He was straining against her, shaking, tormented by all that he would not allow himself to take.

Then he realized that Eden was trembling, too, and her tears were hot against his lips. He tore his mouth from hers and stepped back, releasing her wrists as though they had burned him. When he licked his lips he tasted the salt of her tears. Something deep within him ached with a surprising pain.

He had tried to stay away from Eden because he had known that all he had to give her was tears. What he hadn't known was that he could still feel pain himself. The realization shocked him.

"Do you understand now?" Nevada asked in a soft voice, but there was nothing of softness in his eyes, his body, his certainty, his memories.

Eden was too shaken by Nevada's passion and his pain to do more than nod her head. At that instant she knew how he felt beyond any doubt or wishful misunderstanding. Her instincts had been right. Nevada was a winter man, his emotions frozen, and he was that way by choice, not accident. He had been stretched to the breaking point in Afghanistan. He had not broken.

And the price of remaining sane had been to walk away from his emotions. They were a weakness in a time and place where only the strongest and most fierce survived. Nevada Blackthorn had survived.

Warrior.

Eden had spoken only in the silence of her mind, yet Nevada's expression changed. He knew her too well, had known her instantly and wanted her with a violence equaled only by his refusal to acknowledge the possibility of love.

Sex, not love, Eden reminded herself, understanding now why Nevada had insisted on making the distinction ruthlessly clear.

Fairy tales. Fairy-tale girl.

Eyes closed, Eden interlaced her fingers to keep from reaching for Nevada in an offer of comfort and healing that he neither wanted nor would permit. Yet somehow she had to free her beautiful trapped cougar without getting ripped to pieces in the process.

If she could free him at all.

There was no guarantee of success. There was just his need and her love and the battle yet to be fought.

Win, lose or draw, she told herself bracingly.

No. It's win or lose, period. Nevada doesn't know any other way.

No second place. No truce. No genteel neutral ground between victory or defeat where two people could meet and shake hands and talk politely about things that didn't matter. Either they both won or they both lost. Whatever the outcome, Nevada would discover that he wasn't the only one willing to fight for what he believed in.

And what Eden believed in was love.

"Coffee's ready. Want some?" Nevada asked.

"Please," Eden said absently, still caught in the instant she had first understood the risk and necessity of what she must do.

"Back to being polite, huh?" he asked. He crouched over the coffeepot and poured a fragrant stream of coffee into a mug.

Eden gave Nevada a sidelong glance from her place by the hearth and decided it was time to fire the opening shot of her undeclared war.

"Go to the devil, Nevada, but hand over my coffee first."

His mouth lifted at the left corner. Without looking at Eden he set the pot back on the burner and handed her the mug as he turned back to the fire.

"Guess I had that one coming," he said. "And a few more besides. But I'm feeling generous."

Nevada turned and looked at Eden over his shoulder. "That was the second thing I noticed about you in West Fork. Your smile. Not a bit of calculation in it. Generous."

"My smile was the second thing, huh? So what was the first thing you noticed?"

"I'm a man," Nevada said dryly. "What do you think I noticed?"

"That I was wearing a quilted down jacket?" Eden suggested, her voice as dry as his.

"Yeah, something like that. Then you started walking. You move like a woman."

"Nevada, I am a woman."

He shot Eden a glittering green look before he turned back to the fire. "You were the wrong woman in the wrong place at the wrong time – and you walked right up to me."

"You had a beard."

"So did the bartender."

"I liked yours better. It looked sleek and healthy, a wonderful male pelt. I wanted to rub my cheek against it to see if it felt as good as it looked." Eden set aside the coffee mug, stretched and smiled to herself as she fired the second shot. "Then I found out it felt even better than it looked. When you kissed me, your beard was like a thick silk brush on my skin. I liked that, Nevada. It made me wonder what your beard would feel like on my neck, on my bare shoulders, on the inside of my wrists, between my…"

"You just can't stop pushing, can you?" Nevada interrupted roughly.

Eden finished stretching, lowered her arms, and let her fingertips idly brush Nevada's hair. "When you don't leave me any room to move, it's hard not to push."

Nevada hesitated in the act of dropping another piece of wood on the already vigorous fire. When he let go of the wood, there was a shower of sparks. Without a word he rotated the buckets, bringing a cool side to meet the increasing heat of the flames. He stretched out a long arm, picked up the mug of coffee and handed it to Eden again.

"Nervous?" he asked dryly.

"What?"

"You're petting me. That's what you do when you're nervous, isn't it? Pet the nearest thing?"

Eden realized that her fingertips had returned to ruffling Nevada's hair as though he were Baby. "Like I said. It's hard not to push or touch when you're being crowded."

"I didn't know I was crowding you," Nevada said, pinning her with a pale green glance. "In fact, I would have sworn it was the other way around."

For a moment Eden sipped coffee, gathering her scattered thoughts. She had fired the first two shots, yet she felt as though she had just stumbled into an ambush. The combination of passion and calculation in Nevada's eyes was unnerving. Obviously there was more to this kind of skirmish than she had thought. Maybe she would be better off doing as Nevada did – using the kind of honesty that could rock a man back on his heels.

"I'm not used to being told when I can track cats," Eden said, "or when I can take a bath, what I can eat, where I can-"

"You're sick," Nevada interrupted.

"I was sick. I'm well now. I have a very good appreciation of my own physical limits. Being raised in the Yukon does that for you. I'm fine, Nevada. So if you keep me locked up any longer, you'd better be prepared to deal with a major case of the rips."

"The rips?"

"Yeah. I'm like Baby. If I can't tear around outside, I'll tear around inside."

"The rips," Nevada repeated, shaking his head. "Honey, I've never met anyone like you."

"That makes us even," Eden said, watching him over the rim of the mug. "I've never met anyone like you, either. And I've never been kissed like that, heaven and hell and the rainbow burning between…"

She saw the sudden expansion of Nevada's pupils, heard the intake of his breath, sensed the hot leap of his blood.

"Was it like that for you, Nevada?"

For an electric instant Eden thought Nevada was going to pull her down to the hearth and kiss her again. Instead, he came to his feet in a lithe rush, stalked across the cabin, grabbed his jacket and opened the front door.

"I'm going to look for that cougar's den."

"Too much honesty, huh?" asked Eden. "Want me to go back to being polite? Or would you rather I just work off my excess energy by petting you?"

The door closed very softly behind Nevada.

"If Baby gets in your way, send him back to me," Eden called through the door. "I'll frolic with him, instead."

Nevada didn't answer.

Eden went to the window and looked out. Nevada was heading across the clearing with long, determined strides. An ecstatic Baby was leaping around him.

"I think, in military terminology, Nevada just executed a strategic disengagement," Eden said aloud. "Ordinary folks would call it a retreat."

Smiling, she tested the water in the nearest bucket and nodded approvingly. By the time she finished breakfast, the water would be warm enough for a bath.

*

Two hours later Eden was humming softly, feeling as clean as the sunlight itself. When she went outside to check on the bedding she had draped over the woodpile to air, warm air surrounded her. She shook out Nevada's sleeping bag and flipped it over to soak up more sunshine. The sheet she used to line her own bag was hanging from a rope strung between the cabin and a nearby tree. She touched the sheet. Nearly dry, but not quite. The lacy beige bras were still damp. The pairs of panties were almost dry, but not quite. She decided she could live without underwear for another hour. She went to check on her own bag, which was thrown over a bush in the clearing beyond the cabin. Warm air was everywhere, breathing spring into the day.

With the season's typical capriciousness, a chinook had arrived, sending the temperature soaring into the seventies. Meltwater trickled and glittered and shone everywhere. The sunlight itself was hot. The shade was crisp. The warm wind was a transparent river of wine. The air was rich with the scent of newly revealed earth. Every breath, every instant of being alive, was a sensual feast.

When a hidden bird sang, Eden stopped in the act of reaching for her sleeping bag and closed her eyes, absorbing the piercing, unexpected song with the same intense awareness with which she absorbed the sunlight itself. The bird repeated its call, notes rippling and soaring, transforming the day with music.

There was a rush of air, the near-silent brushing of feet against the ground, and a certainty that she was no longer alone. Eden opened her eyes and turned around.

"Hello, Baby," she said, rubbing the animal's fur, but it was Nevada she was looking at. In the sunlight he looked both dark and fierce, the power of him apparent in even his smallest movement. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I narrowed the search area. I'll try again after lunch. With this chinook, the snow is melting fast, even in sheltered places." Nevada's eyes noted the sheen of Eden's pale hair, the delicate color of her cheeks, the subtle radiance of her skin that only health could give. He closed his eyes for an instant, trying to still the hard rush of his blood. It was impossible. "Did you enjoy your bath?"

"Yes. I heated more water for you, in case you were interested."

"I am. Thank you."

Nevada's formality made Eden blink. "You're welcome. Yell when you're finished and I'll make lunch."

Nevada nodded, turned away and walked into the cabin without looking back. Sighing, Eden pulled her sleeping bag off the bush, shook out the warm folds and draped the bag over the bush once more.

Nevada's right. Warfare shouldn't be polite. It's worse that way.

Warfare didn't get any better when conducted over a meal. The hard salami and zesty mustard sandwiches Eden made lost their savor when eaten in stilted silence. She tried conversational gambits that ranged from outrageous to abstruse. Polite, dead-end answers were Nevada's only response.

Finally Eden looked at Baby, who was begging shamelessly at Nevada's knee, and said, "Bite him."

Baby gave his mistress a look of lupine disbelief.

"You heard me," Eden said. "First Nevada complains when I'm polite. Then he walks out on me when I'm honest. Then he uses politeness as a weapon against me. So make lunch out of him. Lord knows the man isn't good for anything else."