Nora’s brow lifted as he continued to labor over the back of her dress with delicate finesse. What did he know that she didn’t?
“I came in here on a mission,” he explained.
Nora waited until he’d finished whatever it was he was doing to her zipper, then spun around to confront him face-to-face. “That mission being?”
“To find out if you need help of some sort. Because if you do,” Sam vowed, setting both button hook and tweezers aside, “I’m here to give it.”
EVEN KNOWING what Nora did about the error of her ways, she was tempted to let herself be rescued. But letting a man jump in to save her from all life’s hard ships was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. It was high time she stood on her own two feet and said adios to all well-meaning, overbearing men. Her chin took on a challenging tilt. “And if I don’t need help?” she asserted calmly, her heart pounding.
Sam shrugged. “Then you don’t,” he retorted mildly, though it was clear he did not think that was the case.
Nora sighed. She could see Sam was not going to be an easy man to dissuade. No doubt he would shadow her as long as she remained in Clover Creek. “You know,” she said, stepping back to lean against the far wall, her hands pressed flat behind her, “since we’re alone, I have a bone to pick with you.”
Sam took up a post against the opposite wall, only a few feet away. He folded his arms in front of him and kept his eyes trained on her face. “That bone being?”
Nora tilted her face up to his and drew a deep breath. “So far, this has been one of the worst days of my life. And you are not making things any easier on me with all your prying questions.”
He nodded, accepting that. Then said, with a devilish gleam in his eyes, “It was never my intention to make it easy on you.”
Her heartbeating all the harder, Nora met his eyes.
“Why not?”
Sam dropped his hands to his sides and continued regarding her steadily. “’Cause my gut instinct tells me it’s the fact you’ve been way too sheltered in the past that has you running away now.”
Nora struggled to hold her rising temper in check. She hated it when a man presumed to know—via ESP or, worse, experience with other women!—what was on her mind. “How do you know I’m running away?” she demanded.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Sam straightened and pushed away from the wall. “You’ve been acting like you had something to hide since the first moment we met. Now, I don’t know what hurt you so. And don’t bother to deny it. You have been hurt. I can see it in your eyes whenever the subject of your wedding comes up. But I’d like to find out,” he told her as he slowly stepped toward her.
“So I’ve been hurt,” Nora retorted nervously, straightening as he neared. “Everyone has.”
“That’s true.” Sam planted a hand against the wall on either side of her. “But not everyone takes off in their wedding dress in the midst of what will soon be a blizzard—”
Nora interrupted hotly, in self-defense. “I didn’t know it was going to snow!”
Sam looked down at her as if he found that very hard to swallow. He shook his head wordlessly and leaned in even closer. “How could you not have known that?” he asked, very, very softly, the heat of his body emanating to hers.
Nora flushed and responded wryly, “Because, Mr. I-Gotta-Have-All-the-Answers, I wasn’t listening to the weather reports this morning, or last night, for that matter!”
“Why not?” His voice was hushed, seductive, his breath warm on her skin, as he placed his hands on the bare curves of her shoulders and forced her to look up at him.
Nora ignored the sensual feeling of his palms on her bare skin. They were slightly chapped and callused, as though he knew firsthand the value of hard physical work, but tender, too, as if he knew how to love. Irritated with herself—after all, she had no business thinking like that!—Nora shook off the sensual image of her body, in his hands.
“Because I had a ton of other important things to do!” she answered, with a regal toss of her head. “I had to get up early and shower and go to the hairdresser, and then over to the church, to dress and get my official wedding portrait done.” She stopped and bit her lip, aware that he was suddenly looking very much as though he wanted to do a whole lot more than simply hold her in front of him. He wanted to kiss her! Not just once, but probably again and again and again!
Sam grinned and lifted a skeptical golden-brown brow. “Are you saying the rest of your wedding party didn’t know it was going to snow, either?”
“Maybe not.” Nora swallowed around the sudden tightness of her throat. Looking deep into Sam’s eyes, she could almost believe he wanted only to help her. “After all, the snowstorm is not supposed to hit Pi—uh…” She made a strangled sound, as she realized she’d inadvertently said far too much, and cut herself off in midsentence.
“Pittsburgh?” Sam supplied, his hands following the curve of her shoulders and caressing her bare arms.
Nora glared at him defiantly and tried to ignore the enticing scent that was him. “What makes you think the wedding was supposed to take place in Pittsburgh?”
“The license plates on your car,” Sam replied, looking so abruptly earnest and helpful and forth right, it was all she could do not to melt into the warmth of his embrace.
“Also,” he said frankly, “the geography fits. If the wedding was supposed to take place sometime this morning, as I am guessing it was, you had time to drive from Pittsburgh down to West Virginia. You did not have time to drive from, say, New York City to West Virginia since this morning.”
She stared at him, the concern on his face unnerving her more than she wanted to admit. “You noticed the plates on my car?” she asked, feeling the color drain from her face. That meant he could trace her origins quicker than she could say “One-two-three.” And from there go directly to her father and Geoff!
Sam shrugged and, dropping his hands from her shoulders, stepped back slightly. “I’m a lawman,” he explained matter-of-factly. “I’m trained to notice everything.”
And that seemed to go triple where she was concerned, Nora thought, her insides in explicably heating all the more.
Nora sighed. Maybe this initial mix-up wasn’t as bad as she’d thought—especially if it kept her from being traced back to her father and Geoff. She studied Sam. “You don’t think I’m engaged to your brother,” she stated, rather than asked.
“You know I don’t,” Sam replied with a seductive half grin.
“Why not?” Nora demanded, shocked to find things suddenly going her way. Or were they? “Everyone else does.”
Sam shrugged his impossibly broad shoulders and kept his eyes on hers. “You’re not his type,” Sam said, in a very low, very definite tone of voice.
His confidence in his ability to analyze and understand her was supremely irritating, as was the way she melted at his slightest touch or look. Nora cautioned herself
