Free Her Colorado Man by Cheryl St.john Page A

over Wes’s clothed form. “Good night, Papa.”
    He grabbed his bag, patted his thigh so Felix would follow and scurried from the room, Mariah close behind.
    The warmth seeping from the hot rice into his leg hadrelieved the ache. Wes hadn’t felt so relaxed in a long time. He missed Yuri’s company at night, but his own presence alone was enough imposition; he could hardly bring the dog in, as well. Besides, Yuri wasn’t used to sleeping in warm temperatures.
    Neither was he, Wes thought, but he was adjusting just fine.
    He closed his eyes to rest in comfort a moment longer.
     
    Felix settled down right beside John James, the dog’s chin resting on its paws. The animal gave Mariah a beseeching blue-eyed stare, and she petted its furry head. Between Wes and this dog, she’d never seen John James so animated or content.
    “It’s sad Papa didn’t have a family, isn’t it?” John James asked, his lips turned downward in sympathy. “I never knew anybody what din’t have a family.”
    Mariah had to agree that if that story was true, it was indeed sad that the man had grown up alone and unwanted. “A lot of people have to deal with things that aren’t perfect in their lives,” she told him. “He grew up just fine.”
    “But he doesn’t have to be alone any again,” he told her. “He has us now.”
    She smoothed his hair and kissed his forehead. “Indeed.”
    If his story had been intended to work on their sympathies, it had worked on John James. She would reserve her judgment about the sincerity of his youthful plight.
    A minute later, Mariah closed John James’s door. She slipped down the back stairs to dip a pitcher of water before returning to her own room. Or rather the room that should have been her own. How she’d ended up sharing it with a stranger was incomprehensible.
    Wes’s eyes were closed and his features relaxed in peaceful comfort. Setting down the pitcher on the washstand, she steeled herself against having sympathy for his pain. He shouldn’t have been here in the first place. He’d horned his way into this house and into her family—and even her room—without any rights whatsoever.
    His presence was a blackmail of sorts. He held her over a barrel because she couldn’t deny him or discredit him without exposing her life as a monumental lie.
    Looking at him lying in her bed, a quivering unease gripped her. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to fight off the panicky, trapped feeling.
    Her life was a monumental lie.
    As long as she never had to think about it—admit it—she scurried from day to day, handling the tasks that needed to be done, losing herself in caring for the son she loved beyond life itself, staying busy with work…
    But coming face-to-face with the harsh truth—having this stranger encroach upon her privacy—knowing that he had discovered a small part of her lie and was using that knowledge for his own purpose…this was unbearable.
    If it weren’t for her child lying in bed across the hall,she would pack a bag and run as far away as she could. Her hands were shaking and clammy when she raised them to her cheeks.
    Mariah opened her eyes and looked at her trembling hands. She would not give him the power to do this to her.
    She stomped behind the dressing screen and changed into her cotton nightdress, then washed and dried her face and hands. She unrolled the comforter and blanket he stored in the armoire each night and spread them on the floor. Her mother would heartily disapprove, but then her mother didn’t know Mariah had never seen this man before he’d arrived a little over a week ago.
    “Please move from my bed now,” she said from a safe distance.
    He didn’t flicker an eyelash.
    She took a step forward and poked his shoulder. “Please move from my bed now.”
    Still he remained unmoving.
    She grabbed one of the pillows from beneath his head and batted him with it. “Get out!”

Chapter Seven
    S he’d startled him, and Wes shot to a