The Loner by Genell Dellin

soap?” she asked.
    And then she smiled at him in that same, slow, lazy way. She didn’t intend to, but she did.
    â€œI’m saying you look like the best thing that ever happened to that old nightshirt of mine,” he blurted.
    Shocked, she stared at him, the blush rising in her face again. He stared back, looking as startled as she felt. Yet his gaze lingered on her an instant longer, as if he were memorizing her face.
    â€œI’m going to the smokehouse,” he said, and without another word, he turned and left her.
    Cathleen tried to leave him, too, in her mind. She needed to start thinking about the best way to escape when she got strong enough, but she kept smiling to herself and remembering what had just passed between them. Black Fox had said more than he meant to say, which she was sure didn’toften happen to him. For an instant there, he had looked as astounded as a dismayed little boy.
    Because he was lonely, too, she thought. The insight struck her like a lightning bolt. He was no more accustomed to talking to women than she was to talking to men.
    Somehow, that touched her. And so did what he said.
    He didn’t mean to say it, but he thinks I’m pretty.
    A little thrill of happiness ran through her. She pushed it away.
    They needed to forget about this attraction between them and go back to acting like what they really were, which was enemies. Mortal enemies. At least on her side of it, the situation was mortal.
    She had to stop this smiling and teasing with him and hold onto her plan to irritate him so much that he would want to get away from her as often as he could. There was no question that she could do that if she set her mind to it.
    If she didn’t pay attention and keep her eye on what was reality instead of what her imagination could conjure up, she wouldn’t even live to regret it. Her mother had warned her that a handsome, sweet-talking man could lead a girl down the road to perdition.
    If she didn’t get a grip on her feelings right now, this handsome, diffident lawman with the rare and mysterious smile would lead her, not downthe road to perdition, but straight to the hangman’s noose.
    Â 
    Cathleen barely managed to keep that attitude all through breakfast, since Black Fox behaved in a totally un-enemy-like way. He did everything her best friend could’ve done—-if she’d ever had a best friend—-and he did it all without being asked.
    He brought her a twig toothbrush and water to clean her mouth both before and after the meal, he put honey on her hot, cooked oats (the only food he had to go with the smokehouse bacon) for her. She was glad that they ate mostly in silence, she in bed and he at the kitchen table.
    However, when he remembered about her bath and started preparations for it without her even reminding him, her resolve began to slip away. Never, since she’d been big enough to help herself, had anybody taken her desires to heart.
    It had been hard enough to think of him as her captor when he brought her food and smiled when she said how good it looked or when he came back to take away the empty dishes and remarked how glad he was that she’d been able to eat. But now, with him heating water and bringing her soap and towels, a clean shirt of his and the soap she told him was in her saddlebags, she lost her resolution completely.
    Her plan to annoy him was failing, since shedidn’t even have to ask him to do anything. And he wasn’t irritated in the least to help her, only solicitous of her needs. He even carried in a small table from the parlor and put it beside the bed to hold the pan of water.
    â€œThis is very near a dream,” she blurted. “I never had anybody wait on me hand and foot before. Much less a man.”
    â€œGotta get you well,” he said, “so then you can do the work and I can lay around in bed.”
    The light, easy way he said it sounded as if they’d been friends