is that a habit?”
“What?”
“Assessing me as if I were one of the house’s girls?”
He smiled thinly. “Very perceptive, Miss Atwood. I’ll admit, I enjoyed the kiss, but you won’t admit it, I’ll bet.”
“Give the man a prize,” Grace tossed back. He was right. No decent woman in her right mind would admit to enjoying the kisses of a stranger.
“See? I was right. A woman like you would ratherdie than admit a man could make her feel good.”
Grace rolled her eyes. Men . “Mr. Blake, you know absolutely nothing about a woman like me.”
“I know that a woman like you isn’t likely married.”
The memory of Garth Leeds passed over her heart like a dark cloud and then slid away. “Why, because I have no ring on my finger?”
“No, because you career women don’t think you need men. We’re good for carrying packages or driving you places, but that’s all.”
His handsome face and potent touch notwithstanding, Grace found his views on women quite backward. “Can we limit this conversation to a subject you’re qualified to discuss, such as being a wagon master?”
“Bossy and lippy.”
“Thank you,” Grace responded frostily. Storming out of the room tempted Grace mightily, but she needed him to at least listen to her full proposal. The irritating Jackson Blake could possibly be her last and only hope of getting the wagon train on its way.
Determined to keep her temper under wraps, she said, “Mr. Blake, let’s start over. If you’ll let me explain why the women are going to Missouri, I’m sure you’ll agree to hear my full proposal.”
“I don’t listen to bossy, lippy women with rocks in their handbags,” he replied, wondering how he could make her leave.
Grace protested, “I am neither bossy nor lippy. I’m known to be quite agreeable under normal circumstances.”
His eyes were glowing. “Prove it.”
“How?”
“Leave.”
She stood there stunned. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Then he added innocently, “Unlessyou want to stay and take Lilah’s place for real?”
Grace puffed up with indignation. “You are a cad, Mr. Blake.”
“And you have a very lush mouth, Miss Atwood, even if you do have the temperament of a fire ant,” he replied, watching her with his arms folded across his chest.
The seductive tone of his voice and the dark power in his eyes stirred Grace in places decent women weren’t even supposed to think about. This man is dangerous , her inner woman declared, dangerous, dangerous, dangerous . Grace decided a hasty exit was in order. Remembering the handbag he’d tossed aside, she began a search for it.
“What’re you looking for?” he asked, chuckling at her flustered actions.
She snatched up her cloak. “My handbag. I lost it when you attacked me.”
“I didn’t attack you,” he pointed out. “You attacked me. Now who’s insinuating?”
When her search of the bed and the floor around it proved fruitless, Grace set aside her banker’s dignity and got down on all fours to search beneath the bed. She had a strong feeling that he was taking a good long look at her bustled backside, but she ignored him—or at least tried to. She eventually found her bag just underneath the edge of the bed, and as she stood, the light sparkling in his eyes told her she’d been right. “Good evening, Mr. Blake,” she said in parting.
“Yes, it has been a good evening. Sure you don’t want to stay?”
When she answered by exiting and slamming the door, he was still chuckling.
I guess that’s that, he said to himself. She was gone for good, and that had been his plan. The last thing he needed was to get involved with a wagon train full ofwomen, even if Grace Atwood did have a mouth sweet as a summer rain. Frankly, he’d been surprised by that sweetness. During that seconds-long kiss, he’d tasted a brief flowering of innocence and fire in her lips. Were she more his type, he might be tempted to determine just how fiery she