“Gritty? What is that?”
“Brave. You’d take on Snake Jackson and the whole Dolan gang if you had to. You know how to ride and shoot. And you’re pretty. Real pretty.”
She removed her hand from his and turned her shoulder. “I have gowns and jewels, but here I dress as a peasant.”
“You don’t need fancy gowns to be beautiful, Isobel.” He lifted a hand and brushed a lock of hair from her shoulder. “You’ve got those eyes—green, brown, gray—what color are they?”
“My brother used to say they matched the mud in a pig’s pond.”
“What do brothers know?” He placed one finger under her chin and tilted her face toward the candlelight. “There’s a wild cat that hangs around Chisum’s bunkhouse. We call her La Diabla, and she’s a devil, all right. Always in trouble, always getting into things she shouldn’t. If you can catch her long enough to get a good look, you’ll see the fire in her eyes—a green fire that makes them glow like emeralds. Your eyes are like that, Isobel.”
For a moment she didn’t speak, and Noah stood trans-fixed by the scent of her hair and skin. He could almost feel the velvet touch of her cheek against his fingertips. Trying to breathe, he knew if one of them didn’t talk soon, he would lose himself.
“You should write a book, Buchanan,” Isobel suggested, her voice husky. “Any man who sees emeralds in my mud-pond eyes has lost his senses.”
“I will write a book,” he told her. “And my senses never let me down.”
Noah’s finger now traced the line of her jaw. He knew she was unaware of how her full, damp lips entranced him. His throat tightened, and his breath went ragged with just one stroke of her skin. She was soft, silky, dangerous. Like the barnyard cat, she was elusive. He knew he shouldn’t try to catch her. One look in those eyes, and all of his careful plans could go up in smoke.
“I trust my senses, also,” she was saying. “And I sense you are not keeping our contract.”
“I’ll keep the contract, Isobel. I’m a man of my word. But your lips are telling me one thing, while your eyes are telling me something else.”
“No. You’re wrong.”
She tried to step aside, but he caught her shoulders and drew her close. His hands slipped up and cupped her head. His fingers weaving through her silky hair, he pressed his lips against hers.
Her breath was sweet, fragrant, coming in shallow gasps as she stood rigid in his arms. Puzzled, he studied her face. Surely this gun-toting, haughty, gutsy woman had been kissed many a time. But she trembled against him, her eyes deepening to pools as she gazed into his.
“Isobel,” he whispered, uncertain what to do next.
“Kiss me one more time,” she murmured, her eyelids drifting shut. “Just once, and never again.”
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