Free Tender Is the Storm by Johanna Lindsey Page B

brews she had tasted at the stage stops. She was contemplating the way Lucas’s mood had improved while he ate. By the time he left, he had seemed ready to laugh. Well, her mood dimmed considerably when Charley jumped up on the counter by the stove to investigate the spilled flour and she suddenly realized that she was supposed to clean up all the mess!
    “Oh, I could just scream!” she said aloud before she caught herself. She groaned as Charley jumped down, tracking flour across the floor.
    She didn’t have to clean it up, she thought rebelliously. Yes, she did. If only she had known there would be no servants, that she would have to work like one herself.
    It was a good while before the last dish was put away and Sharisse felt she could seek the sanctuary of her room. She turned in that direction, then screamed at the sight of the half-naked man standing inside the back door. Long black hair flowed to his shoulders, and a faded scarf of some sort was wrapped around his forehead. His bare chest was more visible than covered under a shortleather vest. His knee-length soft boots hid more of his legs than the rectangular square of cloth managed to hide.
    At the moment it was impossible to say who was more startled, Sharisse, facing a savage, or Billy, who found himself speechless for the first time in his life. Expecting a tiny little blonde who would run screaming to Luke, he faced an Amazon who was taller than he was, for God’s sake. Granted, she had screamed, but she hadn’t moved a foot.
    Lucas rushed in the front door, having heard the scream. “What the—?” He looked between them, taking in the situation, then gave Billy a disgusted frown. “You could at least have put some pants on, Billy, until she got used to you.”
    Billy relaxed a little. “It was too hot,” he said, as if that was enough explanation. “What happened to the yellow-haired one?”
    “She wasn’t the one,” Lucas answered shortly.
    “But you showed me the picture, and you said—”
    “It was a mistake,” Lucas ground out warningly. “Now did you two meet, or were you just standing there staring at each other?”
    They were both embarrassed, Sharisse doubly so for being reminded of the deception she was playing and for thinking Billy was a savage when he was obviously a friend of Lucas’s.
    “I’m Billy Wolf, ma’am, a good friend of Slade Holt’s—and now Lucas’s,” he said with a cocky grin.
    “Sharisse Hammond,” she responded, her voice a little stilted.
    “Didn’t mean to scare you none,” he added for Lucas’s benefit. “I came in to see if you want anything from town, since I’m heading that way.”
    “After you put some clothes on, I hope,” Lucas grunted.
    Sharisse spoke up. “As a matter of fact, I have a letter to be posted, if it won’t be too much of a bother. I’ll just get it.”
    The moment she stepped into her bedroom, Billy whispered to Lucas, “When you saw how tall she was, why didn’t you send her back?”
    Lucas grinned. “She’s not too tall.”
    Billy looked him up and down. “Yeah, I guess her height don’t matter much to you. But, Jeez, Luke, she’s so skinny!”
    Lucas raised a brow. “You think so?”
    “Well, I just didn’t want you disappointed in her, seeing as how she was my idea.”
    Sharisse came back into the room and handed the letter to Billy. But Lucas snatched it out of her hand, and she blanched at his arrogance, never having dreamed he might read it before it was safely on its way.
    “Trudi Baker?” Lucas read the name aloud, then looked up at her questioningly.
    Sharisse imagined his thoughts. When she had said there was no one she could turn to in New York, he must have assumed she had only her father and sister.
    “Trudi is a friend of my sister, Mr. Holt. My sister, Stephanie, is only seventeen and still livesat home with my father, so, you see, she was in no position to help me.” She grew uncomfortable speaking of this in front of the curious Billy.