to avoid.”
And Kai said nothing. Because Regan Adler saw—and heard—a lot more than she wanted to admit.
Even to herself.
* * *
Regan rested the walking stick against the porch railing, breathing a sigh of relief to realize she’d regained her internal balance on the way home. She was here—she was safe. The encounter in the woods was already fading, tinged with the absurdity of it all, diminished by the physical memory of Kai’s touch still tingling at her mouth, at her nape, at every single spot he’d so much as breathed on.
“So,” she said, as if it had been a casual hike on an average day, “what’s with the breechclout anyway?”
She turned to look at Kai and discovered him no longer just behind her. Discovered him, in fact, at the edge of the woods—waiting in patience and silence, as seemed to be his norm.
Discovered, too, that Bob the Dog had risen to his feet, his hackles a stiff brush down his spine and over his rump. Since when did Bob have hackles on his rump? And though he stared at Kai as he might assess any intruder, she saw no true challenge there—just concern and puzzlement. “What’s up with you?”
His low tail wagged once in acknowledgment, but he didn’t look at her. He didn’t turn his massive head from Kai’s direction, his nostrils twitching as he lifted his head slightly, hunting scent.
“It’s fine,” Kai said. “He’s figuring me out.”
“What’s there to figure? Bob, he’s a guest. Deal with it.”
Kai shook his head. “He’s probably scented me around. He needs to put the pieces together.”
Suddenly Regan understood. “Good grief—Bob, you’re afraid of him!” The hackles weren’t a threat...they were a sign of fear.
“Cautious,” Kai said, by way of both agreement and correction. And he sat, cross-legged, in the straggly grass of the clearing.
Regan reached for the door. “You two figure things out. I’ll be back in a moment.” She headed inside—and though she hadn’t locked the door that morning anymore than they ever locked the door in this remote place, she wondered if that had been a mistake.
She found herself glancing around the cozy living area, checking that the shotgun leaned where she’d left it, that the papers on her father’s desk had gone undisturbed, that the catchall drawers in the little dresser hadn’t been left ajar. And she thought not of the morning as she did it, but of the Realtor from the day before.
Huh.
It didn’t stop her from moving briskly through the house to the bathroom, where she rummaged through the built-in cabinet for first-aid supplies. She pushed aside the earthy ceramic teapot and set bottles and bandages on the tiny, wooden kitchen table before she went to the sink, washing up while she peered out the biggest window in the back of the house to spot the horse in the paddock.
He heard her and called out a suggestion of carrots, completely unconcerned with the oddities this day had wrought so far. Regan toweled her hands dry with a smile and returned to the porch.
She found Bob half in Kai’s lap, leaning that big head against Kai’s bare chest and...
Crooning.
Kai rubbed the dog’s ear with an expert hand, eliciting a moan of canine delight. “Either they love me or they won’t get near me.”
“Well,” she muttered, “he loves that old cat, too.”
And Kai smiled and patted the dog. He pushed to his feet, replete in his breechclout and buckskins, and stood there looking more wild and more masculine than Regan would have thought possible.
Mine...
She started at that—the insidious murmur in her head, offering not just the intrusive, but the unexpected. How did that make sense?
No more sense than the way he’d kissed her—or the way she’d kissed him back, this man she barely knew. Or that she’d responded to his touch as if she’d been waiting for it.
“Regan?”
She spoke a little more abruptly than she’d meant to. “Come inside. Let’s get you cleaned up.” And led the way.
He entered more warily than she expected, hesitating at the door just long enough so she looked back with impatience—and then, once inside, looking as though he might just step out again. His gaze flicked around the room to absorb the homey space, the unpretentious and utilitarian nature of her father’s small desk, the little chest of drawers, the couch and the small television. His expression lit up at the sight of the bookshelves that held not only books, but her mother’s ceramics, and the stark, engaging nature of his features reminded her all over again that he’d reached for her in the woods.
She squirmed away from the thought. She wasn’t ready for that honesty. She still had too many things to hide. From him...from herself.
“In the kitchen,” she told him, and watched while he again hesitated in the doorway, his gaze skimming the appliances, lingering at the window and finally landing on the barely big-enough-for-one table. There’d been more activity here during her childhood—a busy kitchen, cozy with the scents of homemade bread and baking casseroles, freshly washed canning jars gleaming in neat rows on the table....
When her mother was still alive.
Regan pulled ice water from the refrigerator and poured them tall mugs—also from her mother’s pottery throwing wheel—without asking if he wanted it. This might be a high desert with melting snowpack and tall trees and even dew, but it was still the desert. One offered water; one drank it.
Kai took the mug without hesitation, his throat moving and water gleaming at the corner of his mouth. Regan sipped, her gaze drawn again to the play of muscle over his chest and arms, still amazed at the definition there, the casually loose rest of his belt over hips and obliques. Up close—and with the time to think about it—she could see that the breechclout was of a soft, woven cloth, darker brown than the leggings and carefully edged. Buckskin leggings tied off to the belt, leaving a generous portion of his thighs free to the air.
Right.
“Seriously,” she said, clearing her throat as she turned away to the sink. She ran water over a clean washcloth and wrung it out. “What’s with the getup?”
“I didn’t expect to see anyone today.” Kai set the mug aside on the table, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
She gestured at the old wooden chair, trying to decide if he’d been deliberately evasive or simply offered the best truth he had. He sat, unaccountably awkward for a moment, and rested his elbow on the table to offer her access to the arm.
“Right,” she said. “But, you know...why ever?”
He sat silent for a moment, while she smoothed the cloth over the dried blood, dribbling water over the deep gouge in his biceps to soften the clotted areas. Finally, he shrugged. “It suits me.”
Yes. Yes, it suits you very well indeed.
