Velvet Thunder by Teresa Howard Page A

pumped it up and down as one would work a reluctant well handle.
    He couldn’t bring himself to release her immediately. He cradled her hand in both his own. Dropping his gaze, he noticed that her delicate skin was as golden brown as his own. But hers was satiny smooth, not callused like his.
    She curled her fingers, making their contact more intimate. He was mesmerized, his eyes riveted to the small hand he held.
    She was inherently dark, due to her Indian ancestry. How could he have failed to detect her Comanche heritage at their first meeting? Easily. She was so lovely, she befuddled a man’s mind. Her distinctly Indian features softened by her platinum hair made her quite possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
    He wondered then if she craved a pale alabaster complexion like other women of his acquaintance. It would be a sacrilege if she did. The striking contrast of her caramel-colored flesh with that gorgeous hair of hers—as light and shiny as the silk of ripe corn—was breathtaking. It did things to a man’s insides that didn’t bear revealing, things that were physically hard to hide.
    His expression didn’t betray his lusty thoughts as he mentally shook himself and bowed formally over her outstretched hand, acting the perfect gentleman. When he smoothed her fist and kissed her palm lightly, he was gratified by her sharp intake of breath.
    Straightening, he released her. He produced a bowie knife and presented it to her with mocking gallantry. “I believe this is yours.” He elevated a single ebony brow.
    Stevie tried not to groan. She had forgotten about the knife. If she wanted this man’s help, she had to get control of the womanly urges his nearness provoked to have the presence of mind to succeed.
    She would also have to forget that he had dumped her into a tub of cold water. Actually, she didn’t blame him for that. She had accused him of murder. And that only after she had taken three shots at him and thrown a knife at a very valuable area on his person. If she wanted his help, she had some fence-mending to do, a powerful lot of fence-mending.
    â€œI want to apologize for the reception I gave you yesterday at Mustang Mesa. I thought you were one of Judge Jack’s gunmen.”
    He looked deep into her eyes and saw nothing but sincerity. She looked so incredibly innocent. But her pale hair was hanging loose, streaming down her back in seductive disarray. Incongruous with the sensuous image she presented, her face glowed as if she had scrubbed it for hours, giving her the clean, wholesome look of a child fresh from her Saturday night bath. He felt an uncomfortable—actually unprecedented—stirring around the region of his heart. It scared the hell out of him. His manner grew distant. “And I apologize for my ungentlemanly behavior . . . in the saloon and later.”
    Stevie cast a quick look in Pilar’s direction. She didn’t want the woman who was like a mother to her to know that she had gone after the judge in his own saloon. And for reasons she couldn’t name, she didn’t want her to know that Lucky had dumped her into a tub of water, like an overflowing basket of last week’s dirty laundry.
    â€œLet’s put the past in the past.” She tried for a sincere smile. “Since there was no harm done to either of us.”
    â€œCertainly. It’s forgotten.” He placed his hand beneath her elbow and led her over to the kitchen table.
    A frission of heat skittered up her arm from his touch. A bit unsteady, Stevie allowed Heath to seat her. She clutched the old reticule that contained five hundred dollars in her lap.
    Pilar poured coffee and joined Stevie and Heath at the table. Both women faced Heath, who sat silently across from them. Surreptitiously, Pilar nudged Stevie in the ribs.
    When Stevie raised her head and looked him full in the face, the thought that at the ripe old age of twenty she was ready