Free Natchez Flame by Kat Martin

know them; they can ease your way to sleep.”
    “You love it here,” Priscilla said with some wonder. “I saw it in your eyes when we first arrived.”
    He shoved his hands behind his head. “I fought it some at first, just like you. Believe it or not, I was born in England. My father was a minister to King George the Fourth.”
    “Now you’re teasing me.”
    Brendan chuckled softly. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? He died when I was eight, but I remember him well. My mother didn’t live long after. My brother Morgan raised me.” He sighed. “It was pretty tough on us for a while after they were gone, but they left us with some great memories. I’ll never forget them.”
    “I wish I could remember my parents. They died when I was six. I don’t remember them at all.”
    “Surely you remember something. I can recall lots of things—trips to the country, sailing with my father across the channel to France. I couldn’t have been more than four at the time.”
    Priscilla felt a prickling down her spine. It happenedwhenever she thought of her parents. Her heart set up an uncomfortable rhythm, and her palms felt damp. “You must have a far better memory than I,” she snapped, not really meaning to. “I don’t remember a thing.”
    He looked at her oddly. “Sorry I mentioned it.” He rested the hat back over his face and in minutes his breathing leveled out and sleep settled in. It took Priscilla far longer, her mind searching the emptiness where the memories of her family should have been. Was it unnatural not to remember? Brendan wasn’t the first to suggest it.
    Whenever she had mentioned her parents to her aunt, Aunt Maddie had quickly changed the subject. They’d been killed in a boating accident. That was all she knew. She carried a locket with tiny porcelain miniatures of them, but even the pictures couldn’t bring their images to mind.
    Then again, what did it matter? They were gone now, had been for years.
    Setting the problem aside as she always did, Priscilla turned on her side, trying to get comfortable and listening to the buzz of cicadas, the distant chirp of crickets. When the coyote set up his mournful howl this time, Priscilla only smiled. Eventually she fell asleep.
    Brendan stirred on his bedroll, dimly aware of the ache in his loins, the sheen of perspiration that covered his forehead. With gentle insistence, he kneaded the soft warm breast beneath his fingers, teasing the nipple at its peak into a pebble-hard bud.
    He was dreaming, he was sure, noting the strengthof his arousal. Dreaming of a woman with slender curves and gently rounded hips. Her breasts weren’t large, but the one he held filled his hand and pointed deliciously upward. He wanted to slide his fingers beneath the barrier of the nightgown she wore, wanted to stroke her smooth skin, and make her writhe with passion. He wanted to kiss her soft pink lips until they ripened with desire.
    Priscilla’s scream shattered his illusion, and Brendan bolted upright, jerking his gun from its holster in the same quick motion. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
    She scrambled from her bedroll, so close to his, to a place some distance away and stood staring at him as if he were a stranger, her gold-flecked brown eyes huge in the oval of her face.
    “You … you were sleeping?” she asked, with a hint of accusation.
    “Of course I was sleeping. What the hell did you think I was doing?”
    “I thought you were awake.”
    “What difference does it make?” He shoved the gun back into its holster and raked a hand through his hair.
    The sun wasn’t up yet, but the moon shone brightly, backlighting Priscilla’s body through her white cotton nightgown. He could see her slender curves, the rise and fall of her breasts. Against the buttons of his breeches, his shaft remained hard and throbbing. His hand tingled with the memory of the upturned breast he had held.
    “Jesus Christ, that was you.”
    Priscilla swallowed hard. “Please