Lorraine Heath by Texas Destiny Page A

he’d taken cold baths before.
    “Mr. Leigh!”
    “All right!” Damn impatient woman. He tore his hat off his head and tossed it onto the rumpled covers of the bed where she’d been sleeping before he’d cried out like a baby. He was tempted to place his palm on the bed and see if it still carried her warmth, but she was watching him now, watching him as he’d watched her. Damn his eye for remaining open when it should have been closed.
    Rolling his shoulders, he worked his way out of his duster and laid it beside his hat. He sat on the edge of the cot and discreetly placed his hand near her pillow. His fingers lightly brushed the area, searching for her warmth and finding only the cold.
    She wouldn’t be giving off any warmth until he’d done what she asked.
Anything,
he’d said. In the future, he wouldn’t use
that
word around her.
    He jerked off his boots. Unbuttoning his shirt, he stood, pulled it over his head, and dropped it on his duster.
    He turned, presenting the silhouette of his backside to the front of the tent. Praying that she wasn’t circling the tent, he began to unbutton his trousers.
    Amelia watched, mesmerized. The shadows were distorted, not nearly as clear as she’d imagined, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d wronged her. Considering the slowness with which he was removing his clothing, she assumed he was beginning to understand that.
    With a quickness she wasn’t expecting, he dropped his trousers. She buried her face in her hands. Dallas would no doubt send her back to Georgia if he found out what she’d required of his brother. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t actually see his flesh or the rigid contours that probably ran along his body.
    He was standing inside her tent, buck naked. Whatever had she been thinking to require such a thing of him? She had wanted him to experience the humiliation that she’d felt when she’d discovered that he’d been watching her.
    Only now mortification swamped her. The warmth flamed her cheeks as her mind brought up images of Houston washing himself. She couldn’t bring herself to look, but in her mind’s eye, she could see the glistening drops of water trailing down his throat, over his chest, along his stomach, traveling down …
    She doubled over and pressed her face against her knees, but she couldn’t block out the images. She had always been a dreamer, but no decent woman would conjure up the fantasy swirling inside her head.
    Had he been content to stare at her silhouette or had he imagined the drops of water—
    “I learned my lesson.”
    Amelia screeched and shot off the log, but not before she caught sight of a knee resting above a hairy calf. She hadn’t heard him kneel beside her, but she was listening now, listening hard for his approach as she stood near the edge of the shadows, within the ring of light that the fire created. “I said you were to sleep in the tent,” she reminded the man behind her, grateful she couldn’t see him.
    “I don’t think you’re really interested in watching me sleep. I gave you your show. Now, get inside the tent and get some sleep. We’ll be leaving at dawn.”
    “That wasn’t the bargain.”
    She heard his knee pop and assumed he’d risen to his feet. She was tempted to step beyond the light, to disappear into the night, but she feared the darkness while she was only wary of the man.
    “I’m used to sleeping outside. I’m not sure you’ll know what to do if you wake up with a snake coiled on your chest.”
    “A snake?” Without thinking, she spun around and found the breath knocked out of her. He stood stiffly beside the fire, his clothes bunched before him offering him some protection from her wandering gaze.
    The firelight played over his flesh like a lover’s caress. He had additional scars on his left shoulder, healed flesh that trailed down his chest toward his stomach and finally blended into oblivion. Old wounds the water may have kissed on its journey.
    He