Free High Country Bride by Linda Lael Miller Page A

the covers.
    Emmeline struggled to sit up, but he placed a hand on each of her shoulders and held her down easily.
    She kicked, and he sidestepped the assault without releasing his hold. She lay still, biding her time, but he wasn’t fooled. He bent down, so his face was less than an inch from hers.
    “Behave yourself, you little wildcat,” he said moderately,“or I swear by all that’s holy, I’ll bare that lovely little bottom of yours and blister it.”
    “You wouldn’t dare,” she breathed.
    “Try me,” he said.
    “I will not,” she conceded haughtily. “It’s obvious that you’re nothing more than a ruffian. Perhaps you would stoop so low as to strike a defenseless woman.”
    “Defenseless, hell,” he scoffed, still holding her down. His eyes were very blue, almost indigo, she noticed, quite against her will, and his teeth appeared to be perfect. “I’d sooner wrestle a she-bear.”
    “Then go and find one and leave me alone!”
    He laughed.
    She jutted out her chin. “Go ahead,” she hissed. “Ravish me. I’ll tell the world what a scoundrel you are!”
    His eyes danced. “The world,” he drawled, “will not be at all surprised.”
    Incredibly, at that worst of all possible moments, he kissed her. Not roughly, as she would have expected, but very gently, and with exquisite thoroughness.
    A blaze roared through her blood, and her back arched slightly, of its own accord. A humiliating moan escaped her, and when Rafe drew back, she could only stare up at him with wide eyes, her lips still tingling from the contact. She had been kissed only once before in her life—by the man called Holt—but that experience had left her singularly unmoved. Rafe’s kiss, on the other hand, had changed her in some profound and utterly mysterious way.
    Rafe tasted her mouth again, at his damnable leisure, then straightened. Emmeline lay completely still, as though stricken by some strange, delectable paralysis.
    If he had undressed her then, and made love to her, she wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, made a move to stop him. Knowing that about herself was bad enough; seeing that he knew it as well was mortifying. Or at least it would be, once he released her from whatever spell he’d cast.
    He turned away from the bed.
    “Where are you going?” she asked very quietly. Only moments before, she’d wanted him to leave. Now, the mere prospect of his going weighed upon her as nothing had ever done before.
    He looked back at her over one shoulder. “Town,” he said.
    She turned her head, so he wouldn’t see the tears that came to her eyes. Waited to hear the bedroom door open, then close again. The sound didn’t come.
    “Emmeline?”
    She sniffled.“What?”
    The bed gave a little as he sat down. From the sounds, and the shifting of his body, she knew he was kicking off his boots. “I’ve never forced a woman to make love, and I don’t intend to start now.” He sighed.“All the same, this is my bed, and you are my wife, and I’m going to sleep right here, so you might as well move over.”
    She sidled toward the wall, keeping her eyes averted. “Very well,” she said stiffly.
    He chuckled, moving again, probably shedding his clothes. Then he crawled into bed beside her, settled himself, and sighed contentedly. “Good night, Mrs. McKettrick,” he said.
    She didn’t answer.

Chapter 4

 
     
    E MMELINE HAD NOT PLANNED to sleep, but exhaustion won out. When she awakened, many hours later, the sun was up and she was alone in her marriage bed. She heard voices drifting up through the floorboards, the words indistinguishable, the tones ordinary, companionable.
    Recalling the events of the night before, particularly her involuntary responses to Rafe’s kisses, Emmeline blushed and covered her face with both hands. Rafe had been right, as they’d sat beside the creek, when he’d touched upon her deepest and most private fear.
    She was no lady.
    She longed to pull the covers over her hea spend the whole