"I do not slobber..."

Then something in the glow of his black-brown eyes caught her retort and stilled any further rebuttal. That mischievous twinkle told her she had missed some vital clue to the joke. "I take it the lady in question was not human."

His scent surrounded her. Even through David's shaving soap, she knew Ryan's unique scent. Would know it anywhere. "Frankly, I had a dismal night's sleep, sharing my pallet of straw with a bloodhound." He slid the boot back over her foot, leaving his hands to linger where they shouldn't. "At least I wasn't cold."

"Straw?" Rachel laughed before she slapped her hands over her mouth to smother the impulsive outburst. Her eyes on Ryan's, he watched her with a hint of amusement behind his languid expression, the perfection of his broad shoulders constrained by his shirt. "I know it must have been terribly dreadful for you." Her words sparkled with mirth. "I shouldn't laugh." She laughed harder.

"Please, don't control yourself on my account."

Another drop of rain disturbed a fern that pressed against the fallen log where they sat. She was delighted that his night had been as miserable as hers. "Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

"David took pity on me. He found me this morning."

The misty light of the surrounding forest had painted his face in dappled shadows. "I'm glad." Her hand lifted and brushed the hair from his brow before she could catch the action and stop herself.

A hush fell around them.

The tender gesture had been her downfall. His fingers gently wrapped around her wrist, the action freezing her gaze on his. Her treacherous senses had finally cornered her. "I'm glad that you slept alone," she quietly admitted, the words strange and out of place since he was preparing to marry another woman.

The scenario, familiar in too many ways, dampened her smile and forced reality back into the equation of the moment. "Considering your future with Snow White."

"A business arrangement, Rachel," the casual words didn't even break his verbal stride. "Nothing more."

She wanted to throw rocks and shatter his mercenary attitude. Ryan had literally embarked upon emotional castration. He had no emotions. Only a ruthless sense of purpose and retribution against a society he too often despised. He was as conflicted as she was. "How can you marry without love?" Her voice was barely a whisper, an accusation. "After knowing a real marriage?"

"How can you ask me that? Never having known marriage at all? Other than your childhood fantasy about my brother, have you ever been in love? Or do you stand the high ground on romantic principle alone, thinking a physical relationship is more than what it is?"

A surly objection to his comment formed. His grip tightened on her wrist, and suddenly she was watching him turn her hand over in his larger palm, examining the lines and crevices with the stroke of his thumb. She had callused, work-hardened hands. Her fingers curled inward. She was ashamed by the ugliness he must see.

The act, out of place in her character, brought Ryan's gaze from her hand to her eyes. No condemnation, only assessing. "Have you ever been with a man, Rache?" Constraint in his tone and something else made her face hot. "Have you ever lain in a man's arms?"

Rain pattered on the leaves overhead, falling like pebbles on the ground. A heavy bough protected them from the rain, but not from her heart, or from the sins of her past.

Heat rising into her scalp, she dropped her gaze to his hand, too shaken to look up. He had removed Kathleen's wedding band almost before the funeral had been over. Even then, he was running away from his life. From his memories.

Looking away, Rachel would tell him no more than her actions had already revealed. She didn't care what he thought of her, whether he considered her a whore or not. She owed him nothing. Certainly no explanation of her past.

"When, Rachel?" Ryan's restlessness was subtly territorial and lifted her chin.

He tilted her face. She tried to remain composed when his touch aroused her. He refused to allow her to turn away. "When I went away to the university. After you married. I met him while you were still on your honeymoon."

Ryan's presence made her want things she would never have. The very conflict inside her threatening her autonomy, the balance of power between them, and all she had worked to achieve. "Is Allan Marrow here to take over this project?"

For once, she caught Ryan off guard. Either because he was not prepared to answer-or didn't want to answer.

He dropped his hand from her chin.

And whatever camaraderie had briefly blossomed between them vanished in the face of war. "I knew it," Rachel whispered between her teeth. "You are doing exactly what I predicted that you'd do."

"The problem is more complicated than you know."

"It always is, Ryan." Bending over her knee, Rachel struggled to lace her boot as an unexpected desolation swept over her. He would never grant her fair equity in their partnership. "You're permanently removing me from this division, aren't you?"

Ryan caught her arm as she stood, pulling her around to face him. His eyes on hers were no longer compromising. "Listen to me-"

"Let go of my arm." She couldn't bear to be near him. "I mean it!"

Ryan released her and stepped back, as if by doing so he divorced himself from her.

"Rachel." He stopped her from turning away.

"I've been fighting years to keep this division afloat."

The rain had strengthened and fell in sheets outside the shelter of the trees, dripping on her face and hands, soaking Ryan's shirt against his shoulders. "When this project is completed, there will be no more Donally & Bailey left in Ireland."

The statement sent an icy rush down her spine, the implication far-reaching. He was killing her Irish division. With it, he would kill her future and take the jobs of hundreds of people. "You can't." Rachel glared at his handsome face through a relentless sheen of tears. "I won't allow it. I won't."

She hated him.

Hated that he'd come to Ireland and, with his magical touch, fixed her financial ills only to take away her division. She hated that she could still be in love with him after everything he was doing. But more than anything, she despised that he looked at her stomping around the glade with sympathy. As if he were innocent of his part in ruining her life. She knew now why he had come to Rathdrum. Not for her.

"I only have one thing to tell you, Mr. Ryan Donally. This-" she balled up her fist and would have hit him in the jaw had he not jerked his head sideways. "Traitor!"

"Jaysus, Rachel." He grabbed her wrist and spun her around against his chest, nearly lifting her off the ground in her fury.

"Let me go." He was suffocating her. "Or I swear I'll scream. They'll throw you in the river for all that I'l stop them. You can't do this to me!"

"Scream all you want. Bring your men down on me, Rachel." His mouth touched her ear. "But it won't change the facts. This division has been losing money for years."

His body warm against her back, she shook her head back and forth, frightened by the awful intensity of her emotions, hating the tremor that slid over her body. "You're a bastard. No wonder so many people hate and despise you and write terrible things about you. How could I ever have thought you decent? You've never been decent."

Her words had been cruel and struck him, as she'd wanted them to strike. To the core of his being, but once voiced, she wished only to take them back.

Ryan's hand moved over her stomach. "I don't know, Rache." Spooned as she was against him, she could not evade the heat of his enveloping body. "How could you have ever thought me remotely decent? What did I ever do to give you that bloody idea?"

"I'm sorry." She was barely able to breathe. "I should not have said-"

"Too late." He touched his mouth to her hair. "Words are like bullets. Once out, you cannot take them back. Or maybe you're just bloody lying to yourself. Like you lied to me in London."

Rachel felt the fight leave her body. "I didn't lie."

"And that, too, is a bloody lie!" His Irish brogue thickened with the suppressed violence in his voice. "I don't even know myself when I'm around ye, Rachel. I never have. So spare me your self-righteous resentment. I've not the want to listen. Nor the desire to play the villain. No more, Rachel. No more. I'm finished."

He dropped his arms. She stumbled forward before turning, stunned.

"My accountants are going over your books in Dublin as we speak. You'll be reimbursed every shilling you've personally invested in this project."

And just that fast, a shudder caught in her lungs and tightened her throat. "Don't take me off this job, Ryan."

"It should never have gone this far. But I understand why you did what ye did."

"How can you?"

"Because I would have done the same." He took a step toward her. "Have done the same on more occasions than you know."

But how could he truly understand when what he wanted to take was everything she had? His wealth protected him. His status shielded him from irrelevance. He had a daughter that he loved. A sterling future on the horizon.

Rain dripped from the branches above her. She heard voices near the river.

"As soon as I finish the site inspection, I'm returning to Dublin," he said. "I will arrange for my solicitors to meet yours. You will listen to my offer."

Her jaw opened in disbelief. "You want to buy me out of the company?"

"I'm asking you to take my offer. You will never lack for anything, Rachel." Ryan stepped out frombeneath the sweep of branches and stood in front of her. "And if you're thinking about going to David orJohnny, don't. Marrow works for me. As do O'Roarke and O'Reiley. They will not let you back on thesite without me."

Rachel crossed her arms against the chill. She hated her helplessness and the endangered feeling it gave her. He walked past her and out of the glade. "You'll need to inspect the west crossbeam beneath the railroad trestle," she called, and when he turned, added, "I found a problem yesterday."

He nodded.

He didn't tell her he would have found the problem anyway. His ease was an illusion, she realized, as she watched him stroll from the glade. Surely, he would not take this division from her.

"Mum," Elsie said as Rachel entered the tent a half hour later, Rachel's hat clutched in her hands. "I was bringing this to you."

"Thank you." Rachel took the proffered object and walked into her private quarters.

She stopped. Two worn trunks sat piled atop the other at the end of her bed. A man's frayed woolen coat lay atop her cot. "Mr. Donally ordered Mr. Marrow to be moved in here, mum."

Her jaw tight, she dropped her hat on a chair, reminding herself again that Marrow's post there was not

his fault.

"Mr. Donally said that we would not be sleeping here tonight," Elsie said. "Someone will be taking us to Glenealy. Father Donally has given us a cottage."

"At least you'll be warmer tonight." Rachel dropped on her cot."Is there anything wrong?" Elsie asked, from where she remained in the doorway.Rachel scraped a forearm across her brow. After leaving the glade, she'd returned to the bridge to find Marrow, only to learn that he had gone on ahead to the second site. Had Ryan gone there as well? "We'

re leaving for Dublin as soon as I'm finished here." She thought of all the loose ends she needed to tie

before leaving.

"But mum..." Else dipped. "All right, mum."

Rachel flinched as she slid to the floor, her back bracing the cot, her knees against her chest.

For just a moment, she laid her cheek against her knees and forced herself to take slow breaths. It wouldn't do to allow anyone to see her like this, she thought miserably, leaning on her elbow to pull out the small leather chest beneath her bed.

She couldn't manage one single portion of her life. Last night she'd considered doing things with Ryan that would send her to confession every day for the rest of her life.

Today she'd tried to punch him with her fist.

She found the scissors needed to repair the lace on her boot. Her vision blurred and watered with the frustrating task.

The Dublin division of D&B was a money-losing venture. Maybe Ryan had a right to discharge her from this job. And maybe he'd always done exactly as he damn well pleased without concern or apology to anyone. She needed to get back to Dublin to prepare her solicitors for the upcoming confrontation. She needed to know her legal options. Talk to Johnny.

Rachel needed to think. Yet, the last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts. She had no doubt that she possessed the will and stamina to fight, but at the moment, she wanted something else more personal. Something nearer to her heart.

Closer to her soul.

Something the saner part of her intellect told her she would be better off forgetting.

But Rachel didn't want to forget. There would be time enough in the years to come to forget to oblivion's content.

"Damn you, Ryan Donally."

Then she damned herself for traveling to London in the first place and awakening needs she had put to bed years ago. She was also frightened because of his connection to Lord Devonshire.

"You want that I should throw his fancy lordship in the river, Miss Bailey?" The voice came from the entrance that separated her private quarters from the main section of the tent.

Bent over one knee, she smiled. Ralph Blakely, longtime Glenealy resident, teamster, and David's answer to British toll collectors, stood in his blue denim overalls observing her on the floor. His shiny gold tooth flashed.

Blakely and his loyal twin, if anything, were protective of her. "You'd probably end up in the river yourself." Rachel finally repaired the lace on her shoe and tossed the scissors back in the trunk. "Do not mistake Mr. Donally for being soft. If you know what is good for you, hide when he is around."

"The supply wagons are outside." He handed her a slip of paper as she strode past.