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“Not yet,” he admitted.
“Really, just a small cut . . .”
“That could get infected. This place isn’t exactly sterile, you know.”
“I’d noticed,” she said dryly, her gaze sweeping the long, hanging cobwebs, the dust collecting on the beams and the loose straw scattered in corners on the floor.
“Then you won’t argue about going into the house to clean it up. I’ll finish here.”
“I’m not a cripple,” she muttered, but saw the determined gleam in his gaze.
His fingers tightened over her wrist. “For once in your life, Tessa, just do as I say.”
“Yes, sir!” she shot back, offering a mock salute with her free hand.
His lips, despite the hard set of his jaw, twitched upward, and he released her arm.
Marching stiffly out of the barn, she tried to calm down—count to ten—do anything to cling to her fleeing patience. She’d never considered herself irrational or quick to anger, but with Denver around, her temper flared as instantly as a match struck against tinder-dry kindling. Every time she attempted to be reasonable, he said or did something that pushed her world out of kilter—like clamping his hand over her wrist and barking an order at her while her stupid pulse raced crazily. Or like tenderly swiping her hair from her eyes and telling her that when he made love to her again, there would be no regrets—
“He’s just a man,” she reminded herself when she turned on the water in the bathroom a few minutes later. But as the warm water dripped over her hand, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and saw the color in her cheeks, the still-pounding pulse at the base of her throat, the fire in her hazel eyes. “Why do you let him get to you?” she demanded of her silly reflection and knew the answer. Because, damn it, you’ve never stopped loving him!
Sick at the thought, she wrenched the faucet closed, rubbed her finger with an antibacterial cream and wrapped her wound quickly with a small Band-Aid.
Walking out of the bathroom, she found Denver sitting on the banister overlooking the entry far below. His hands beside him for balance, he hopped off the polished rail as she entered the hall.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently.
That stupid part of her heart warmed at the concern in his eyes. “I told you I was fine.”
“You don’t need stitches?”
“Nor neurosurgery either, thank you very much!” She heard the bite in her words the minute they passed her tongue and regretted speaking so harshly. “Look, I didn’t mean to snap, it’s just—”
“Just what?” he asked.
She felt her shoulders slump a bit, but she looked him squarely in the eye. “It just seems that I can’t do anything right when you’re around. You’re always trying to prove that you’re the boss or that you know more than I do, or that—” She thought back to the day by the creek and cringed inside. “Or that you have some sort of power over me.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I don’t think anyone has any power over you, Tessa.” His voice was tender, endearing. If she were to close her eyes, she could almost imagine that he was seven years younger and they were in love again. That same gentle tone she’d found so special still brought shivers to her skin.
When he touched her lightly on the shoulder, she wanted to lean against him, beg him to call back the hateful words he’d spoken when he first returned, plead with him to forgive her and her father for inadvertently causing him so great a tragedy.
“You were hard on Dad.”
Denver was standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “He can’t hide in a bottle forever.”
“It’s difficult for him, too.”
His fingers gently pulled her backward until her shoulders met the firm wall of his chest and his breath fanned across her crown. Closing her eyes, she willed the waves of tenderness forming in her heart to recede. Although she yearned to tell him she loved him still, that deep in her heart her feelings had never wavered, she couldn’t. He would only laugh at her confession, chide her for being the same silly romantic she’d been years before.
With all the effort she could muster, she tried to think clearly, to fight the magic of his nearness. Her fingers curled around the cool wood banister, her nails digging into the polished surface.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said softly. “We don’t have to keep lunging for each other’s throats.”
She could hear it then, the hard beat of his heart. Pounding in counterpoint to her own, it seemed to echo through the long, carpeted hall.
“Do you know you’ve been driving me crazy?”
“Is that what’s doing it? It’s my fault you’ve been acting like a madman from the minute you stepped onto the ranch?” she asked, wishing she could add some venom to her words, but her voice sounded breathless and hoarse—as if it belonged to a frightened young virgin.
