Clay's hands dropped from his tired face as he studied her. Then he heaved a sigh and pushed back his chair to stand. The spindle legs scraped across the hardwood floor. “I guess you're right. We're not getting anywhere this way, and we could both do with some shut-eye.” He held a hand out to her. “Come on."

  It seemed more than ordinary to link her palm with his. Even after everything they'd been through tonight and how much she knew she'd hurt him.

  He led her through the house and up the stairs, guiding her to her room where he saw her inside, then pulled the door closed silently after her.

  He hadn't said goodnight, given her a wink, or even warned her to stay put until he came for her in the morning. He'd simply shut her in her room and walked away.

  Well, what did she expect? Regan asked herself silently. She'd betrayed him not only with the robberies she'd committed, but by not confiding in him when they'd begun to grow close. Earlier in the day, he'd implored her to meet him in the barn so they could make love again. Now, he barely wanted to sleep next door to her.

  Pain like she'd never felt before, not even when James died, lanced her heart. In a span of mere hours, she'd gone from just beginning to realize she was falling in love for the first time in her life to losing that love because of her own stupid, thoughtless actions.

  She yanked at the ties of her robe and pulled the restrictive fabric away from her wrists. Kicking her slippers aside, she proceeded to undo the row of hook and eye clasps running down the front of her red-and-black corset one by one. The tight, form-fitting bones fell away and she took a deep inhalation of relief.

  Ahh! She'd been wearing the less-than-comfortable thing all day. Her poor flesh itched at finally being able to move and stretch to its natural capacity.

  Suddenly, the door swung open behind her and she gave a shriek as she whirled around, corset pressed to her exposed bosom, to find Clay standing in the entranceway.

  "What are you doing?” she charged, her blood still racing from the shock of having him walk in on her.

  His dark gray eyes raked her form ... legs nude, mail-order scarlet drawers covering her lower body, and the rest of her bare but for the corset clutched upside down and backwards to her breasts. “Bedding down,” he said.

  That's when she noticed the saddlebags thrown over his shoulder and the linens from his bed bundled under his arm. He took another step into the room and kicked the door closed behind him with the heel of one boot.

  "You can't come in here,” she said, and then recognized the futility of that statement, as he was already in.

  He paid her no heed, moving forward to deposit his saddlebags on a chair in the corner and letting the pillow and blankets fall to the floor.

  When he didn't react to her assertion, but looked to be making himself at home in the small confines of her chamber, her anxiety increased tenfold. She decided to try another tack.

  "You can't stay here,” she told him. Her fingers clutched the stays pressed to her chest, attempting to make the rather diminutive garment cover more of her exposed torso. Still, tiny chill bumps broke out on her arms from standing in the middle of the room practically nude for so long.

  Clay cocked his head. “Why not?"

  "Why not? Why not?” she repeated, her voice rising shrilly. “Because it's not proper for you to, so much as knock on the door at this hour, let alone be in here with me. Because I'm naked, for pity's sake!"

  His gaze swept over her once again, causing her to shift nervously and nearly drop the corset. Then he met her eyes, his expression indifferent. “Don't worry, sweetheart, I've seen it all before."

  The slight, delivered with so little emotion on his part, bruised her already battered ego. “It doesn't matter. You need to go."

  Instead, he started spreading out the thick quilt from his own room on the floor of hers. “I told you I wouldn't let you out of my sight until this matter of Updike's murder is resolved. So you might as well pull your mouth closed and go ahead and change for bed, because I'm not leaving."

  "Surely you don't intend to spend the night here, in my room,” She heard Clay's words, saw the determination in his set, square-cut features, and yet she couldn't quite absorb his meaning. “It's after midnight. We're both tired. You can't think I plan to sneak off in the middle of the night."

  His hard, dark-as-slate glare bored into her. “Correct me if I'm wrong, green eyes, but don't you do your best skulking around in the middle of the night?"

  The accusation vibrated with more than a hint of truth, but still she stuck to her guns. “If I tried to go anywhere, I'm sure you would hear me from inside your own room."

  "Who's to say you'd pass my room?"

  Her brows knit in confusion. “Well, how else would I get out of the house?” she asked. “If I planned to run off, which I assure you, I don't."

  His retort was immediate. “There's always the window."

  She glanced over her shoulder, stunned by the very suggestion. She'd climbed in plenty of windows; that was how she breached all of those houses, after all. Not that she had any intention of sharing that little detail with Clay. But it had never occurred to her to climb out one of her own windows in order to perform the thefts without being spotted.

  "You might want to cover up there, darlin'."

  She swung back around only to note that when she'd turned toward the window on the other side of the room, she'd given him a prime view of her bare back.

  "This may be part of my job as a Ranger, but I am human."

  "Oh!” Well, now she was just plain mad. It was one thing for him to follow his duties as a lawman and step back from their personal relationship because of her deception. But even if he insisted on staying in her room to keep her from running off, he could have averted his gaze from her near-nakedness. He could have turned his back, or waited in the hall for a few short minutes while she threw on a nightdress and got under the covers.

  But he was punishing her with his arrogance, demonstrating the power he held over her and letting her know how much she'd hurt him without actually showing his true emotions.

  Her Irish temper flared. She felt badly about what she'd done and how her conduct had affected him, but she would not stand here fretting about her modesty while he did his best to intimidate her.

  Let him stay, then, she thought. But she'd be damned if she was going to make it easy on him.

  "I guess there's nothing I can do to change your mind,” she said simply. And then she took a deep breath, filling both her lungs and diaphragm with air, and her bones and spirit with courage.

  As casually as she could manage, she released her hold on the corset covering her exposed front and let it fall at her feet. She wasn't trying to seduce him, so she didn't cast him any sidelong glances. Instead, she went about the business of readying herself for bed as though he wasn't even there.

  Of course, if she just happened to swing her hips a bit more expansively as she moved across the room, or fling her hair over her shoulder a time or two more often than she ordinarily might ... well, he deserved it, the wretch.

  She sauntered to the bureau along the far wall, forcing herself to pretend that her bosom wasn't hanging out for all the world—or Clay Walker, at least—to see. She ignored the sensations of her nipples budding with involuntary excitement and sifted through the contents of one of the drawers for a particularly slinky shift.

  Normally, she would wear one of her ankle-length, rather concealing nightgowns to bed. Something comfortable and demure. For Clay's benefit, however, she chose a garment she usually wore beneath her dresses. A thigh-length, black satin shift with delicate lace making up the slender shoulder straps and filling the V-shaped front.

  It was the only expensive piece of frippery she owned in black. While ordering all of the other, more scandalously colored ones, a pang of guilt had persuaded her to order at least one black unmentionable to wear beneath her equally black gowns.

  Once she found what she was looking for, she laid it on the dressertop and shimmied out of her red drawers. She felt Clay's gaze on her the entire time and refused to look in the mirror—where she was sure to see his intense image reflected—for fear of losing her nerve.

  With the last of her covering pooled on the floor at her feet, she reached for the black shift, lifting it over her head and letting it slide over her arms and down the length of her body.

  The hem of the garment came only to mid-thigh and the bodice left much of her chest exposed. That was the idea, though, wasn't it? If Clay insisted on spending the night in her room, then she planned to make it the worst—or at least the most uncomfortable—night of his life.

  Christ almighty!

  Regan Doyle with her hair pulled into a bun and wrapped head to toe in mourning garb was pretty enough to make his insides sweat. Regan Doyle with her hair falling loose and walking around the room in nothing but what the good Lord gave her made his knees weak and his manhood hard as a hammer in his pants.

  What did she think she was doing, strutting around in all her naked glory? Bad enough he'd had to stand here fully aroused at just the sight of her in her fancy drawers, with that sexy red and black fantasy-inspiring contraption pressed to her breasts. But then she'd dropped the shields of those accouterments, and he thought he might explode.

  Right here, in the middle of one of the bedrooms of his aunt's home, he expected his blood to boil over, his eyes to cross, and the top of his head to shoot straight off into the ceiling.

  Was she insane? Or trying to tempt him? Either way, it had the same effect on his lower anatomy.

  He glanced at the pallet he'd put together on the floor, then at the bed Regan was swaying her hips toward and preparing to climb into. It didn't take a high-falutin’ university fellow with a diploma on his wall to figure out where he'd prefer to bunk down. Especially with the vision of her beautiful, rose-tipped breasts bobbing as she'd crossed the room, her firm, lush buttocks coming into view as she'd stripped completely, and the whole of that ravishing, mouth-watering image as she'd stood in front of her bureau mirror without a qualm for her nudity.

  If she'd raised her head a fraction to meet his gaze in that looking glass, she'd have seen a man nearly driven to his knees by sheer, unadulterated lust.

  And the way she'd slipped into that barely there satin nightdress didn't help matters much. Completely naked or decked out in a piece of whisper-thin cloth that wouldn't cover his left Colt, she was inexorably appealing. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder, toss her onto her back on that bed, and remind her of just how virile he could be.

  If she thought she could prance in front of him like this and not have him take action ... well, she was treading on very thin ice, indeed. He was about three short breaths from showing her that his feelings about the robberies she'd committed had nothing to do with his desire for her. Because that wasn't going anywhere. Not today, not tomorrow, not a hundred years from now.

  While he'd been standing stiff as a post, wondering how loud she'd scream if he took it upon himself to ravage her, Regan had climbed into bed. She sat on the high mattress, the covers folded down and a pillow propped behind her back, one leg crossed over the other, with both knees and most of her pale white thighs visible beneath the hem of her so-called nightdress. The scooped neckline bunched as she moved, giving him several quick, taunting glimpses of her supple breasts and the shadowed valley between them.

  He shifted his attention and met her sparkling emerald gaze. She seemed at ease with both her attire and his presence in her bedroom. A definite switch from her attitude when he'd first arrived and announced his intention of spending the night at the foot of her bed.

  "Well, you look like you'll be comfortable enough,” she said, sparing a glance for his makeshift bedroll on the floor. The hard, unyielding, not-nearly-as-soft-as-her-bed-would-be floor.

  He rolled his tongue around his mouth, trying to work up enough spit to speak. But before he got the chance, she continued.

  "Goodnight, then,” she almost sing-songed as she reached for the lamp on her bedside table and turned down the wick.

  In the total darkness that followed, he could see nothing more than the outline of the bed and a slight glow of wan moonlight on the other side of the single small window. Unfortunately, the lack of light didn't block out sound, and he could easily hear the squeak and moan of the mattress as she lay down and settled herself for the long night ahead.

  Clay plopped down on the quilt he'd arranged and began to remove his boots and gunbelt, then undo the buttons of his shirt. It was probably a smart idea to keep his trousers on. If he took off many more layers, the temptation to get up in the middle of the night and crawl into bed beside Regan might be too great to resist. Granted, if the notion really overtook him, a thin barrier of denim wasn't going to be much of an obstacle, but keeping his dungarees on would serve as a reminder to keep his hands—and the rest of his body—to himself.

  He heard Regan roll over and release a soft, slumberous sigh, which sent a sharp jab of longing through his bones in a beeline to his groin.

  Damn, but this was going to be one hell of a long night.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Clay lay awake for several hours that night listening to the tiny sounds Regan made in her sleep. The sighs and gurgles, even the occasional snort. And he imagined what she looked like, tucked up to her chin in the bedspread with the little yellow flowers. Of course, then his mind would shift to what she looked like underneath those covers—her hands curled at her cheek, her shoulders bare, that slip of a nightdress hitching up her thighs to bunch at her hips or waist.

  Thoughts along those lines kept him awake well into the night. And when he finally drifted off, he was still hard as a rock and suspected the chirping he heard in the distance was birds rising to greet the new day.

  "What seemed like only a moment later, he felt someone shaking his shoulder and calling his name. His eyes popped open and he saw a fully dressed, well-rested Regan hovering above him.

  Sitting up, he ran splayed fingers through his hair and blinked to clear his sleep-blurred vision. “What time is it?” The room was still fairly dark, only a sparse amount of morning light pouring in through the window.

  "A little after six. I thought you'd want to get an early start looking for Nolan's killer."

  Oh, right. The killer.

  He wasn't nearly alert enough to begin the day, but what choice did he have? Climbing to his feet, he reached for his saddlebags to get out a fresh shirt. While he dressed, Regan arranged her hair in front of the mirror lining the back of the low chest of drawers.

  And that's when he noticed.

  His mouth fell open and his not-yet-fastened gun-belt slipped from his fingers to the floor with a violent clunk.

  Startled by the loud noise, Regan spun around, her hands still raised to her fiery curls as she fastened a carved wooden comb at the back of her head. “What?” she asked, glancing around for what might have caused his outburst.

  "You ... you're ... you're not wearing black."

  Regan looked down at the bodice of her green gingham gown with thin white lace on either side of the row of pearl-like buttons. “Is it all right?” she asked. “I mean, does it look okay? It still fits, doesn't it?"

  She smoothed a hand over the soft fabric. It had been so long since she'd worn anything colorful—on the outside, at any rate—that she wasn't sure her old dresses would still fit properly. And even if they did, people were so used to seeing her only in widow's weeds, they might not take well to her finally putting an end to her period of mourning.

  "You look fine,” Clay told her, his eyes remaining wide as he goggled at her.

  "I don't look that different, do I?” His reaction was exactly what she was afraid of. Maybe it was too soon to start wearing regular clothes again. Not that two full years wasn't plenty long enough.

  "You look amazingly different,” he said. “Or maybe just plain amazing."

  That brought her head up.

  "What...” His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Why did you suddenly decide to stop wearing black?"

  Fingers bunching at the sides of her skirt, she took a deep breath and considered her answer. “I guess because I woke up this morning and realized it may be the last time I sleep in my own bed and have a choice of what to wear. If I'm going to be forced to wear prisoner gray for the rest of my life ... well, black is a little too close to gray for my tastes, and I wanted to dress in something bright and cheery for as long as I have left."

  She held Clay's gaze a second longer, then turned back to the looking glass to finish pulling the sides of her hair back with the comb.

  "Are you about ready to go downstairs? Mother

  Doyle will be expecting breakfast, then I suppose we should go into town and have that talk with Sheriff Graves."

  Was she that eager to go to jail? Clay wondered. No, she was that eager to catch a killer. While he wanted to just stand there, watching her.

  He'd never seen her in anything but black, and the change in her features was breathtaking. Her eyes looked brighter, the green squares on the pattern of her dress enhancing the natural green of her irises. Her hair shone more coppery than ever, the kinky red ringlets framing her face and falling about her shoulders in a cascade that begged for a man's touch. Even her skin seemed more robust, her milk cream coloring now touched with hints of rose.

  And he'd thought getting through the night would be tough. Getting through today might just be the death of him.

  He bent over to retrieve his six-shooters. “Why don't you ... um, go on down. I'll be right there."

  She turned from her spot at the mirror to face him, one brow raised with skepticism. “Are you sure?” she asked. “That would mean I'd be out of your sight for two, maybe three whole minutes."

  His glare narrowed. “Are you mocking me?"

  She let out an amused chuckle. “You're the one who's so worried about my whereabouts. Where you expect me to go, I haven't the faintest notion, but I wouldn't want to cause you undue concern. So if you want me to stay half an inch ahead of you at all times,” she tossed his words from last night back at him, “then that's what I'll do."