Free Secrets by Brenda Joyce Page B

every heartbeat. She found it increasingly difficult to breathe and she was wondering, just wondering, what would happen if she dared to lean slightly forward.
    â€œDon’t.” He said the one word, but it held a volume of meanings, all warnings.
    Warnings she chose to ignore. Unable to tear her gaze from him, she swayed forward. It was not even an inch. But it was enough.
    â€œ Elizabeth .”
    She waited. Time was suspended. She knew he was going to kiss her. The desire was there in his eyes. She yearned uncontrollably for the touch of his lips. He dipped his head. She didn’t move, and finally, finally, it came—the merest brushing of his mouth upon hers. Almost immediately he jerked away from her.
    Her heart thundered in her ears. She gazed at him, wide-eyed. He was staring at her too, his expression aghast. Abruptly he unwound the reins, lifted the brake, and urged the mares on, all in one smooth, well-practiced movement. The team leaped forward instantly.
    Unsettled was too gentle a word to describe how Regina felt. She could still feel his lips on hers; her entire body was clamoring for more, for so much more. She could not take her eyes off him. Dear Lord, he was so handsome—more than handsome. She clenched her hands in her lap.
    â€œThat was a mistake,” he said harshly without looking at her.
    â€œWhat?”
    He refused to look at her. “One damn big mistake.”
    She straightened her spine. A wash of hot color crept up her cheeks as she realized that he was regretting the kiss, while she was cherishing it. Her pink flush deepened when she was struck with how brazen she had been in enticing him. “Oh, dear,” she whispered.
    â€œIt’s too late for ‘oh, dear.’”
    â€œOh, dear,” she said again, trying to imagine what he must think of her.
    â€œBut of course, it’s just what Rick wants.”
    She looked at him.
    â€œDon’t look at me with those big brown eyes!”
    â€œYou mean my coming here to Miramar, don’t you?” Or did he mean the intimacy they had just shared?
    â€œI mean everything. I’m no damn saint. And I never wished I was—until now.”
    â€œYou are a good person,” she said fervently. “A very good person.”
    He whipped around, staring at her. When he recovered, his voice was hoarse. “Lady, you have one hell of an imagination—either that, or you’re too good to be true. Don’t make me out to be something I’m not.”
    â€œI’m not.”
    â€œI won’t sit here and argue about my character with you.”
    â€œAll right,” Regina agreed, shaken now to the core of her being. She had made him very angry. It was the kiss, or her prying, perhaps even both. But she pondered his dark and complicated nature, unable to help herself, and she found herself berating the man who had raised him. And the memory of his kiss still lingered.
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    The road they traveled on wound steadily west and steadily upward, surrounded by the summer-burned hills. The hills seemed to become bigger and bigger, the swatches of bent oaks sparser. Cattle flecked the countryside. Rounding the corner of one slope, they emerged suddenly onto a bare ridge.
    Slade had not spoken to her since the kiss, but he urged the team to the cliff’s edge and halted them at the overlook. Regina gasped. Although she was very much struck by the view he had offered her, she was also well aware that he was watching her closely.
    The edge of the ridge, where the buggy stood, dropped precipitously to a valley below. Across thatvalley, a sea of bronze saddleback mountains rose up to face them, huge and bare and stark. Cattle grazed the lower elevations. Etched against their rippling rim was the steel-blue Pacific.
    Regina looked at Slade. “Miramar?”
    He nodded, unable to contain the flash of pride in his eyes.
    Regina had never been faced with such raw majesty. The land was