He walked over to the bed and lay down, folding his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Iris would come back, and then he would have a better idea of what to do next. Cole must have heard what was happening by now. Jamie, too. And once they had heard about Kristin, they would have started moving this way.

He and Shannon had to start moving again. They had to cease the battle and come to a truce and worry about their personal problems later.

It was the only logical move…the only reasonable one.

He gritted his teeth hard against the fever and tremor that seized him again. He steeled himself against thoughts of her. He wanted her so badly…he could see her. He could see her as she had been in his dream, rising from the water, glimmering drops sluicing down her full, full breasts… water running sleek down the slimness of her flanks, down her thighs…

He could see her eyes, dusky blue, beautiful as they met his in the mists of passion. He could almost feel her moving against him, sweetly rhythmic. He could hear her whispering to him…whimpering, crying out softly and stirring him to a greater flame, a greater hunger…

Logical, reasonable. This was insane.

He was a gentleman, he reminded himself. He had been raised to be a Southern gentleman; he had fought a war to preserve the Southern way of life, perhaps the great Southern myth. He didn't know. But he had been taught certain things. He loved his brother; he would always honor his brother's wife. He believed in the sanctity of honor, and that in the stark horror of defeat, a man could still find honor.

Logic…reason. When the morning came, he would defy the very fires within him. She would not be able to ask for a more perfect gentleman. As long as she didn't touch him, he would be all right.

The perfect gentleman.

If not quite her hero.


Someone was turning the knob of her door.

Shannon didn't understand at first just what was awakening her. Something had penetrated the wall of sleep that had come to her at last.

She lifted her head and she listened. At first, she heard nothing.

Then she heard it. The knob was twisting. Slowly. Some weight came against the door. Then the knob twisted and turned again and again. Someone was trying to be quiet; stealthy.

She rose, biting into her lower lip.

It was Malachi, at last.

She leaped out of bed and ran to the Haywoods' lovely little German porcelain clock. She brought it close to her eyes and looked at the time.

It was almost three in the morning.

She spun around. The knob was twisting…

Malachi. Damn him! He had finished with his whore, and now he wanted to come back to her to sleep! On her wedding day!

Oh, granted, it was no normal wedding day!

But still…

She hated him! She hated him with a vengeance! With everything inside her. How could he? How could he drag her—force her!—into this horrid mockery of marriage, and then spend the day with a harlot. After last night…

It was foolish to give in to him, ever.

She hadn't meant to give in to him.

Ever.

She had simply wanted him, and therefore, it had never been so much a matter of giving, it had been a matter of wanting. Of longing to touch, and to be touched in turn. Of needing his arms. Of needing his very height, and his strength. Of hearing his voice with the deep Southern drawl, of feeling his muscled nakedness close to her…

She had loved once.

And she loved now, again. Perhaps he could never understand. And if she valued not only her pride but her soul and her sanity, he could not know.

Not that it mattered. She could never let him in; she could never let him touch her again. He couldn't come straight from his whore to her. Whether emotion entered into it or not. He just couldn't do it, and that was the way that it was.

Her eyes narrowed; she was ready for battle.

But the doorknob twisted one last time, and then she heard footsteps—soft, soft footsteps!—moving away from her, down the hall and then down the stairs, fading away into the night.

"Malachi!" she murmured in misery.

So there would be no fight, and no words spoken. She could not go to battle, and she could not give of herself or take, for he was gone, leaving her again.

She lay down and cast her head against the pillow in misery. She stared straight ahead and ached for what seemed like hours and hours.

He had gone back to her. Back to his old friend. Back to the red-haired harlot.

She could not sleep. She could only lie there and hurt.


At three in the morning, the last of the locals threw down their cards, finished off their beers or their whiskeys and grunted out their good-nights to Matey and to Reba, the golden blonde who played the piano at the Haywood saloon.

Reba started collecting glasses. Matey washed them, telling Joe, his helper, to go on and clear out for the night. Joe had a wife and new baby, and was grateful to get out early for the evening.

Reba tucked a straying tendril of her one natural beauty, her hair, back into the French knot she wore twisted at her nape. She looked across the saloon to the dark shadows and paused.

They had both forgotten the stranger. It was peculiar; she had thought that he had left earlier.

But he had not. He was still there, watching her now. She could feel it.

He raised his face, tilting back his hat.

He was a decent-looking fellow, Reba thought. Sexy, in a way. He was tall and wiry and lean, with dark hair and strange, compelling light eyes. The way he looked at her made her shiver. There was something cold in that look. But it made her grow hot all over, too, and there weren't many men who could make her feel anything at all anymore.

This one made her skin crawl. He also made her want to get a little closer to him. There was something dangerous about him. It was exciting, too.

"Mister," she called to him. "We're closing up for the night. Can I get you anything else?"

He smiled. The smile was as chilling as his eyes.

"Sure, pretty thing. I'll take me a shot and a chaser…" His voice trailed away. "A shot and a chaser and a room— and you."

"You hear that, Matey?" Reba called.

"Got it," Matey replied with a shrug. The drinks were his responsibility. It was Reba's choice, if she wanted to take on the drifter this time of night.

Reba brought the shot and the beer over to his table. He grasped her wrist so hard that she almost cried out and pulled her down beside him. She rubbed her wrist, but thought little of the pain. Lots of men liked to play rough. She didn't care too much. Just as long as they didn't get carried away and mar the flesh. If he wanted to be a tough guy, though, he could pay a little more.

"You got a room?" he asked her.

"That depends," she said.

"On what?"

He was a blunt one, Reba decided. She flashed him a beautiful smile, draping one long leg over the other, and displaying a long length of black-stockinged thigh. She ran a finger over the planes of his face, and found herself shivering inside again. His eyes were strange. They were so cold they might have been dead. They calculated every second. They were filled with something. She didn't quite recognize what it was.

Cruelty, maybe…

She shook away the thought. A lot of men looked at women that way. It made them feel big and important. Still…

She started to pull away from him. She almost forgot that she made her living as a whore, and that she didn't mind it too much, and that the pay was much better than what she bad been making as a backwoods schoolteacher on the outskirts of Springfield.

Should she? She was tired; she wasn't in any desperate need for money. She should just tell him that it was too darned late for her to take a man in for the night.

"I got gold," he told her. "Is that what it depends on?"

Gold. He wasn't going to try to pawn off any of that worthless Southern currency, and he wasn't even going to try to pay her with Union paper. He had gold.

"All right," she told him at last.

And unknowingly sealed her fate.

He stroked her cheek softly, and looked toward the stairs. He smiled at her, and Reba silently determined that she had been mistaken—he was just a tough guy, not a cruel one. And he was handsome. Not nearly as handsome as Iris's friend Sloan, but he had all his teeth, all his hair and all his limbs. And that wasn't so common these days.

A working girl could always use a little extra cash.

"Where's your friend?" he asked her.

"Who?"

"The redhead."

Strange, he was talking about Iris. Reba started to answer, but then she paused, stroking his arm. "Iris is occupied for the evening." She smiled.

The stranger lifted his glass toward the saloon doors. "The husband, eh? That the blushing little bride was looking for."

Reba chuckled. "It's a good thing the groom is occupied. The maid over at the Haywoods' told Curly—Curly's the barber—that Mrs. Gabriel has bolted down for the night. Sloan Gabriel would need four horses to ram the door down."

"Is that a fact?"

"'Course, Iris says he'll do it. When he—when he's good and ready, he'll go over and break right in. Determined type. He doesn't take nothing off of her."

"Doesn't he, now?"

"Not Sloan Gabriel."

The stranger's lip curled. "Sloan Gabriel, eh?"

"That's right. That's the man's name. Why?"

"No matter. It's just a good story. I watched the woman earlier. She needs a lot of taming." He paused, sipping at his whiskey. "You think Mr. Gabriel will just break the door on down to get to her, eh?"