for the barn door, intent on getting more milk from the house.
“Mr. Black?”
He looked up to see Ivy walking toward him carrying a small chipped porcelain bowl. She still wore those infernal trousers. His gaze slid over her full breasts and nipped-in waist to her slender hips.
Lust punched him square in the gut, and his whole body went hot. With all he could see of her shape, it didn’t take much to imagine her naked. She must’ve read the expression on his face because her step faltered.
Trying to blank his face, he bit the inside of his cheek. He hoped she wasn’t going to wear those britches all the time. The last thing he needed was her coming around looking like...that. He wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel.
Ivy’s gaze skittered from his to the pup. “How’s Thunder doing?”
“Thunder?”
“We found her after that storm. The name seems appropriate.”
He frowned down at the animal. “She’s a girl.”
“What would you call her?” Ivy asked lightly. “Princess?”
Was she teasing him? “Pup sounds just fine to me.”
“She needs a real name.”
“All right.” He held the whelp up to eye level. “Thunder’s ready for her second feeding.”
Ivy gestured to the crockery she held. “I brought milk.”
“She doesn’t have the strength to lift her head so I had to hand-feed her before.” Gideon eased down onto his bunk and offered Ivy a square of red flannel. “I dipped a rag in the milk, and she sucked the liquid out.”
Ivy took the soft fabric, then moved between his legs. So close that the heat of her body teased him.
She rolled the cloth into a tube and dunked the end in the milk then held it to the pup’s mouth. The animal lay listless, eyes dazed. Ivy rubbed the wet fabric lightly against Thunder’s lips, but she didn’t suck.
Gideon tried, with the same result. He then stuck the tip of his pinkie finger in the liquid and put it to the pup’s mouth. A little tongue swiped against his skin.
“There ya go,” he murmured, glad to see the animal was holding her own.
He dipped his finger again and offered it to her. When she licked off the liquid, he continued to feed her slowly. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t concentrate fully on the young dog because Ivy was still standing between his legs.
She might be dressed like a man, but she sure didn’t look like one. Or smell like one, either. Her skin was dewy from their earlier exertion, and her sweat smelled clean. Beneath that, he caught a hint of magnolia.
Gideon wanted to close his thighs and draw her closer. If he leaned forward slightly, he could put his mouth on her velvety neck. Her delicate ear.
She looked up. “You’re really good with the pup. You must’ve had a pet before.”
“No.” He had tended wounded animals before—calves, horses, a crow with a broken wing at the prison.
Gideon continued to feed the whelp drop by drop, but he was completely taken by the woman in front of him. She put a hum in his blood by doing nothing more than standing there.
Ever since he had confessed to murder, Gideon had waited for revulsion to darken Ivy’s eyes. He searched her face for it now, but she seemed intent only on the dog.
“Earlier, you said you had no family.”
And that he’d killed a man. Was that where she was headed?
“When did you lose them? In the war?”
Because the question wasn’t what he expected, it took a second for him to answer. The war had taken so many, entire families in some cases, though not from Gideon. “Never had a family.”
“You’re an orphan?”
He nodded. Her brother was the closest thing to family Gideon had ever had.
“Smith didn’t tell me that.”
He figured there was a lot Smith hadn’t told his sister. As long as Ivy didn’t ask about their prison time, Gideon didn’t mind answering some questions. Although he wouldn’t talk about the man he’d killed, or that he’d done so because of Eleanor’s lies.
Ivy was quiet for a moment, her teeth worrying her lower lip. “Where did you grow up?”
“In Kansas.” His gaze traced her features, the ivory satin of her skin.
“Did you live with anyone?” At his frown, she clarified. “Did you have a home?”
“When I was ten, a widow lady, Ruby Whitten, took me in, but she passed away after about two years and I was on my own again.”
“Then what did you do?”
Though she appeared genuinely interested, the anxiety squeezing his chest didn’t ease. If she were going to ask more about his crime, he wished she would get on with it. “I hired on at a ranch.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve, but I looked older.”
“You were bigger than other boys your age.” Her gaze traced slowly over his shoulders and arms, making his body go tight.
Want tugged low in his belly, and he knew by her sudden flush that she felt it, too. He cleared his throat, wishing she would step out of the circle of his legs. “Yes.”
Damn, he wanted to touch her. He refocused his attention on the small animal in his hand. The poor thing weighed about as much as a baby bird.
“Did you fight in the war?”
“Didn’t everyone?” Even seven years gone, the thought made him tired.
“Sure seemed that way.” Sadness pulled at her features as she stroked the pup’s head. “Did you work at another ranch after the war?”
He nodded. Hiring on with Eleanor’s daddy had been the beginning of his journey to hell.
If she was going to ask so many questions, Gideon had some, too. “Did your husband fight?”
She stilled for a heartbeat. If he hadn’t been so close, he would’ve missed her reaction.
“Yes, he did.”
“Earlier, you said his family was from Chicago. How did the two of you meet?”
“Before the war, he came to Mimosa Springs looking for land,” she said stiffly. “He wanted a place that wasn’t settled, so he looked farther east and decided on this area.”
When her eyes hardened, Gideon knew it had to do with her past, not his. She
