The Hopechest Bride by Kasey Michaels Page B

to die alone. If there was, he needed to hear it.
    He especially needed to hear it now, now that he’d felt himself dangerously sliding into that same trap Toby had embraced so eagerly. A trap laid by a riot of chestnut curls, a pair of large, innocent blue eyes and a matched set of dimples in her sweetly beautiful face.
    She was no china doll, not the least bit fragile-looking. Her build was fairly athletic, with good shoulders and narrow hips. Dolly Parton wouldn’t have to worry about any competition in the bust-size department, and yet…and yet there was just something about the way she moved that was so entirely female, so enticing….
    Josh shook his head, shook himself back to reality.He was here because this woman had caused the death of his brother. Not deliberately, but caused it just the same. By the sin of omission, the sin of not being straight with Toby, not telling him who she was, why she was hiding in Keyhole—not telling him that she might be bringing danger to Keyhole.
    And she’d left him. She’d let him rescue her, take a bullet for her, and then she’d left him.
    Josh wasn’t about to forget that.
    Having run out of chores, and his resolve back in place, Josh returned to the campfire to see Emily trying to arrange the opened sleeping bag over the layered ground sheets.
    â€œHere, let me help you,” he said, grabbing onto the sleeping bag and spreading it carefully. “Nice material. Light, and yet probably warmer than it looks.”
    â€œIt’s new,” Emily said avoiding his eyes as she gave the material a two-handed pat, as if making sure it wouldn’t move, fly away. “Right or left?”
    Josh hadn’t been paying attention. “Pardon me?”
    â€œI said, right or left?” Emily repeated. “I sleep on my right side, so I’d like to be on the right, if that’s okay with you?”
    He also slept on his right side, and had a quick mental image of the two of them sleeping, spoon-like, his belly to her back, his arm snug around her waist, their legs entangled underneath the covers.
    â€œLeft,” he said, longing to clear his throat, which had suddenly gone tight—almost as tight as his jeans. He dropped his hands, clasped them together in frontof himself, hoping the dark of the cave would do the rest. “I’ll take the left side. But we’ll have to lose one of the saddles, share one, or else we’ll be too far apart. Body heat, remember?”
    â€œWe’ll try it first my way, which means you on your side, and me on mine,” Emily told him stiffly, even as she crawled across the sleeping bag, her bent head nearly colliding with his knees. She pulled back the cover, slid beneath it, her head resting on the seat of the saddle. “Man,” she said, moving about, clearly trying to get comfortable, “I haven’t done this in a long time.”
    â€œSlept with a man?” Josh winced, his mouth moving way too much faster than his brain.
    â€œI’ve never—” Emily covered her face with both hands for a moment, then angrily yanked the covers up and over her shoulders. “I haven’t slept here in the cave for a long time. Get your mind out of the gutter, please, Mr. Atkins. Your brother was a gentleman.”
    â€œYeah,” Josh grumbled, stepping over Emily’s body and sitting down on his saddle, ready to remove his boots. Damn, the woman was a virgin. How the hell had that happened? Was the whole male world blind? Doggedly, he kept insulting her. “He sure was a gentleman. And look where that got him.”
    Emily remained silent, which was probably a good thing, and Josh tossed his boots to one side, then slid his long body under the sleeping bag.
    He lay on his back, looking up at the dark roof ofthe cave, one arm bent behind his head as he wished himself anywhere but where he was at this moment. The dying fire cast strange, moving shadows against