“Yes…” The brunette shook her head, stared across the room at Margie and said, confusion ringing in her tone, “What the hell does she have that I don’t have?”

“For one thing,” Hunter spoke up and stepped out of the shadows, startling both women into gasping. “She’s got me.”

“Hunter-I-we-” The brunette threw her friend a desperate look, but that woman was already melting into the crowd, disassociating herself fast.

He looked down into the brunette’s eyes and finally placed her. Janice Franklin. Cheerleader. Homecoming queen. And still the town’s reigning bitch, apparently.

“Janice, right?”

She brightened, obviously pleased to be remembered. “Yes.”

Hunter just looked at her for a long minute or two. She was still pretty, in a hard, sharp way. And clearly, she thought highly of herself if she figured he’d just brush aside everything she’d said about his “wife” without a second thought. Well, she was wrong. He wasn’t going to stand there and let this woman-or anyone else for that matter-sharpen her claws on Margie’s hide. Why it mattered to him so much, he couldn’t have said. All he was sure of was that it did matter. He’d worry about the why of it later.

“Well, Janice,” he finally said softly, chucking her chin with his fingertips, “let me tell you something else about my wife. What she has someone like you will never understand.”

She blinked at him. “Well-I-”

“Do yourself a favor,” Hunter told her as he left her babbling to herself, “don’t say anything else.”

Riding a wave of righteous fury on Margie’s behalf, Hunter stalked through the crowd. His gaze locked on his wife, he was like a ballistic missile, focused solely on his target.

Who the hell did those women think they were, talking about Margie as if she were less than nothing? As if she wasn’t good enough for him? Good enough? Hell, if she was everything she claimed to be, she was too damn good for him. What right did they have to say a word about his wife?

The fact that he was inwardly defending the woman he’d been complaining about for days didn’t register with him. His only thought now was to get his hands on her. To make sure everyone here understood that they’d better treat her right.

Across the room, Margie looked up and saw Hunter headed right toward her. He was hard to miss, she thought, with an inward sigh. In his white dress uniform, with the rows of colorful ribbons and medals on his chest, he looked like every woman’s fantasy. He was tall and strong and fierce and…headed right for her with an expression on his face that was a mixture of fury and determination.

What was wrong? A woman beside her was talking, but Margie didn’t hear a word. Instead, she was caught up in the power of Hunter’s blue gaze locked on hers. The people separating them seemed to melt out of his way, propelled by some invisible force. Margie’s heart pounded and her breathing hitched as he came closer, never slowing down, never hesitating.

What was going on? She’d hardly seen him all evening, though she’d been aware of him. How could she not be, she wondered frantically. The man was inescapable. Just knowing he was in the room had kept her on edge all night-wondering what he was doing, what he was thinking-had had her own mind racing, questioning.

Now, he was only an arm’s reach away, and the only thing she read on his face was a strength of purpose she couldn’t identify.

“Hunter-” She spoke first as soon as he stopped in front of her. “Is everything all right? Are you-”

“Quiet.” It was a command no less authoritarian for its whispered delivery.

“What?”

Then Hunter shook his head as if not surprised at all she hadn’t been able to be quiet. His lips curved into a wicked smile that sent a jolt of something amazing staggering through her. And before she could recover, he grabbed her, swept her into a low dip, cradled her in his arms and kissed her, so long, so hard, so deep, that Margie forgot to breathe.

His mouth on hers was at first wild, aggressive, almost as if he didn’t want to be doing what he was doing. But she responded to that hint of darkness instantly, as if the shadows in this man had reached out and found every dark corner of her own soul. There was fire here, a ferociousness she hadn’t expected but thrilled to, in the deepest corners of her heart. In seconds, his kiss changed, shifted, became less brutal, more hot and hungry, more passionate. Margie sighed into his mouth and felt his body mold itself to hers as if he were trying to hold her so tightly she’d never be able to escape him.

She didn’t know what had prompted this, and she didn’t care. Since the first time he’d kissed her, days ago, she’d been dreaming about another one. And this kiss more than lived up to her fantasies. Her blood felt like champagne, bubbling into a froth that swam giddily through her veins. His tongue swept into her mouth, stealing her breath, filling her with a heat that felt overwhelming, mind boggling.

She gave herself up to it, and when her mind started whispering, she resented every taunting thought. What was he doing? Why was he kissing her? Was it all a show for the townspeople? And if it was, why now? Why tonight? He hadn’t seemed to care if anyone believed they were married or not. So what had changed?

And why do you care? that voice murmured at last. Did she really have to question this? Couldn’t she just, for once, enjoy the moment? Feel his arms around her and pretend, however briefly, that they were a real couple? Couldn’t she just convince her brain to take the night off and let her body lead the way?

Oh, yeah.

Lost in sensation, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him everything he was giving her. And while she surrendered to the heat, she was only dimly aware of the thunderous applause rising up from the people surrounding them.

Margie couldn’t sleep.

How could anyone be expected to sleep when the bodies were simmering at a high boil and sexual expectation was humming along at a gallop? Hmm. Mixed metaphors. Probably a bad sign.

Apparently her “husband” wasn’t feeling any lingering effects from that kiss. His deep, even breathing sighed into the silence, telling her that at least one of them was going to get some rest that night.

Jerk.

With the pillow wall at her back, Margie tried to ignore the fact that Hunter had been ignoring her for hours-ever since that spontaneous kiss had ended. As if he somehow was blaming her for him kissing her. And wasn’t that just like a man? Right back to Adam in the Garden. It was all that woman’s fault.

She punched her own pillow and shifted position, trying to find a spot where the sheets didn’t seem to be scraping sensitive skin raw. Where she could hear the sound of Hunter’s breathing and not imagine that breath dusting her face as he loomed over her.

Moonlight sifted into the bedroom through the French doors and lay in a silvery blanket across the bed. In the dim light, she stared up at the ceiling and told herself she’d never fall asleep if she didn’t close her eyes. But then every time she closed her eyes, she felt Hunter’s mouth on hers again, so no sleep that way, either.

She folded her arms over her chest, pinning the sheet and quilt to her body and tried silently repeating multiplication tables. Maybe she could bore herself to sleep.

That’s when Margie noticed Hunter’s breathing pattern had changed. She listened harder, noticed the quickened tempo of his breaths, as if he were running in his sleep, and she went up on one elbow to peer over the pillow wall.

He yanked a field dressing out of his pack and wrapped it around his side in an effort to stop the bleeding. Damn lucky shot, he told himself, fury at the situation spiking inside him.

Should have been a simple recon mission. But he’d been cut off from his team almost from the moment they entered the target area. They’d had to break for cover; then he’d been trapped, forced to hide while the others stealthily made a break for it.

The SEALs never left a man behind, and he knew his team would be waiting for him. They’d never evac the country without him, but it would be up to him to make it to the rendezvous point. Which would have been a hell of a lot easier if he hadn’t been bleeding.

With pain his only companion, Hunter inched his way across a desert barren of any life but the enemy. He hid during the day, traveled at night. He rationed his water and was finally forced to dig the bullet out of his side with his own fingers. Days crawled past and tension, along with a fever, mounted. There were so many dangers, so many easy ways for him to die and be lost in this damn desert forever.

But he wouldn’t go that way, he told himself. He’d find a way out. Get back to where things were green. Quiet. Where he didn’t have to constantly expect the muffled explosion of a gunshot coming out of nowhere.

He wanted…In his sleep, Hunter heard a whisper of something soft, something comforting, and he turned toward it, instinctively reaching. Warmth surrounded him. A gentle touch smoothed his hair back from his face and whispered words of comfort swam through his mind, his heart. He reached for the source of that calm, for the ease it promised, for the balm he so desperately needed.

Gentle hands stroked his skin, and Hunter groaned at the sensation. He was back, he was out of the desert. It hadn’t killed him, after all. And here he was, with a warm, willing woman sliding her hands over his back, tenderly across his face, and he wanted that touch more than he wanted his next breath.

Coming up completely out of the dreamscape he’d wandered through, Hunter heard that whisper again, and this time, he recognized the speaker.