Free Against the Wind by Anne Stuart Page A

the fragrant stillness, but Jake was clearly unmoved.
    He looked down at her, and his eyes were opaque in the afternoon silence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said wearily. He gestured to the tiny courtyard ahead of them. “After you, Allison.”
    Maddy could see the familiar profusion of flowers, hear the faint buzz of bees, and she was uncertain whether to believe him or not. She held her ground, glaring up at him mutinously. She had made him call her by her name once before; she could do it again. She had to reserve that small triumph in the face of a total rout.
    He cocked his head to one side, and his eyes were enigmatic. “You’re waiting for me to call you Maddy?”
    She nodded, controlling the urge to meet his gaze. She wasn’t entirely sure she was capable of keeping that beseeching look from her own expressive eyes, and she was through with pleading.
    “It’ll be a cold day in hell,” Jake said, clamping his large hand around her elbow. A moment later she was shoved out into the garden, half dragged, half pulled, as he slammed the door behind them.
    Did he know his own strength? Probably. Did he know those long, steely fingers were digging into the tender flesh of her arm, making her forget about the throbbingof her rib, giving her nothing but sheer rage to focus on? Probably. She tried to pull away, and the fingers only tightened. A tiny gasp of pain escaped her before she clamped her jaw down on it.
    He pulled to a stop a few feet into the garden, and to her surprise he released her. “You don’t have to make this harder on yourself,” he said, but his face was remorseless.
    “Why won’t you believe me?” It didn’t come out as she had planned. She’d hoped it would be a strong demand, instead it was wistful, showing more vulnerability than she ever wanted to show to the man in front of her. “If you’d just listen to me I can give you all the proof you need. I don’t understand why you won’t trust me.”
    She didn’t really expect an answer, and when it came it surprised her. “Because I can’t afford to,” he said finally. “And neither can you.”
    “Neither can I what?” she demanded. “Trust you? Or afford to have you trust me?”
    Jake shrugged. “However you choose to look at it.”
    “But—”
    The hand clamped around her wrist this time, albeit a great deal more gently, and he began pulling her into the garden. “I didn’t bring you out here to argue, Allison-Madelyn,” he rasped, and Maddy allowed herself to accept the tiny sop to her defenses.
    “Then why did you bring me out here?” she demanded, stumbling to keep up with him, her thin leather sandals tripping over the weed-choked path.
    He grinned down at her then, the smile a lightning slash of white teeth in his dark, dangerous face. “For your peaceful company,” he replied. “Oblige me by being more peaceful, or we’ll continue this walk with you wearing my bandanna as a gag.”
    The protest that was forming on Maddy’s lips was quickly swallowed. She contented herself with a glare that spoke volumes, a glare that left Jake completely unmoved.
    She had no choice but to follow him, like a dutiful dog, she thought resentfully. His hand on her wrist was not ungentle, and the pace around the weed-choked garden was leisurely. Surprisingly so—through the few square of inches that their bodies touched she could feel the tension in him like a palpable thing.
    She should have fought him, she berated herself. She should have thrown his words back in his face, yanked her wrist away from him, maybe even slapped him in that cool, distant, unemotional face. At least she should have told him no.
    Girls say yes to boys who say no. The line came back to haunt her with sudden force, and she flinched with the memory. It was one of those smug little catch-alls of the sixties and early seventies, along with If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. Maddy had used the phrases