A Dangerous Man by Connie Brockway

group when her words arrested him.
    “How so?” he heard Annabelle ask.
    “Well,” she explained, “one wouldn’t want to tarnish past glories with current defeats.”
    He froze. Impossible that she was baiting him. Impossible, but true.
    “Oh, I’m sure Hart could still manage some very nice shots, were he of a mind to,” Beryl insisted.
    “Yes. Of course he could,” Mercy said in a soothing, not entirely convincing manner.
    “Really, Miss Coltrane,” Beryl said. “He never misses.”
    “In his salad days he was undoubtedly peerless. I’m only sorry I’ve placed him in an untenable situation.”
    “What situation is that?” Beryl asked.
    “If he loses, well … it might be uncomfortable for him to be bested by a woman. If he wins”—her voice dripped with incredulity oversuch a likelihood—“why then he may appear to be less than a gentleman—”
    “Yes,” he bit out, rounding and glaring at her. If she had set her mind on making herself and him the subject of conversation, so be it. If he was an accomplice in her social downfall, it was because she’d insisted.
    “Yes?” How could lashes that long and thick flutter that fast? “Yes what, Lord Mr. Perth?”
    “Yes. I’ll compete. How could I refuse so gracious an invitation?”
    “Here, now, Perth. Miss Coltrane had the right of it. A gentleman competing against a lady? ’Tisn’t done,” Acton protested.
    “Oh, surely an exception can be made?” Annabelle asked sweetly. “I mean, if both participants are willing and it is a friendly sort of competition …?” Several of their audience raised concurring votes.
    “Allow me to act as your loader, Miss Coltrane,” Nathan Hillard offered. The man was unctuous, his presence at Mercy’s side ubiquitous, and his smile too warm by half. He’d invite comment if he continued to hound Mercy with his attention like this. Mercy, however, did not look hounded. She looked pleased.
    She dimpled at Hillard before blinking innocently at the rest of them. Her gold-flecked eyes grew large. “Oh, of course it’s friendly!”
    “I think I’ll just go talk to some of the other ladies,” Beryl said nervously, finally awakening tothe vulgar situation her words had embroiled them in. She hurried away, disappearing into the throng.
    “Well, if you really want to, Miss Coltrane …” Acton said dubiously.
    “Oh, I do!” she assured him. She held out her rifle. “Here, Mr. Perth. See if you can hit the horn too.”
    His eyes narrowing on Mercy’s innocent face, Hart shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it to one of the men. He rolled his sleeves back over his forearms and took the rifle from her.
    For just a second his fingers brushed the back of her smooth, pale hand. He felt her skin too acutely—soft and velvety, chill with autumn’s breath. It was just like when he had touched her in that damn kitchen. Too intense. Too much … attraction.
    “I will try not to disappoint, Miss Coltrane,” he said.

Chapter 8

    M ercy rubbed the back of her hand as she watched Hart check the action on the Winchester. The place his fingers had brushed still felt traced with electricity, a harmless fire of sensation. Harmless? There was nothing in the least harmless about Hart Moreland.
    He was scowling, sighting down the barrel. The hard sinews in his forearm, exposed by his turned shirtsleeves, flexed beneath tanned skin as he lifted the rifle. His wrists looked strong. His hands were beautiful, elegant … a blind sculptor should have such hands. Not a gunslinger.
    He glanced over at her and his sapphire-shot eyes glinted with rueful enjoyment. The light from overhead, rendered by a capricious wind dancing in the leaves, touched his soft brown hair with golden highlights and patterned his lean face with flickering shadows. She glanced at the other guests: well-tended, dutiful, safe gentlemen and women.They didn’t even realize there was a shape-shifter in their midst. Dark and light, illumination and