"There's a stretch of difference between warmin' your hinder with my strap and knockin' the shit out of you."

Her hinder? Laura clenched her teeth and nearly hissed through them. Her hinder? She preferred sassy little butt. At least that phrase hinted that he saw her as something more than a mindless half-person he now considered to be his property. Next he would pat her on the head. Or maybe check her bite.

"There won't be any try to it if I run off," she cried. "Rest assured, if I should ever initiate an escape, and do not take that as an admission that I intend to, it will be well planned. I will also take every precaution to be in the presence of others so my 'sassy little butt' is protected until I am well away from you."

There was a deadly edge to his voice when he replied, "Have a shovel handy then, 'cause you'll have to bury anybody who makes the mistake of gettin' in my way."

An icy coldness washed over Laura, dousing her anger so quickly, she was rendered speechless. He meant it. Dear God, he truly did.

As if that said it all, Deke returned his attention to the sky again. "Hot damn, but ain't it a pretty night?" All trace of menace was gone from his voice, his tone mellow and almost lazy. "A man could sit out here marvelin' for hours over all them sparkles."

Laura was shaking. Shaking horribly. She wouldn't have to lie now about having a violently upset stomach. What kind of man had she tied up with? A killer. A man whose reputation as a fast gun was almost legend in this territory. Dear Lord, she would never be able to flee. He would come after herwith the same skill at tracking that he had demonstrated while following the comancheros. No matter where she went or who she was with, she would never be free of him, and no one would dare intervene when he found her. "Your eyes sparkle just like them stars do. Did you know that?" he asked gently.

Laura jerked her gaze back to him and saw that he was smiling at her again. Smiling, blast him, as if he hadn't just threatened to peel the hide off her derriere and murder anyone who fried to stop him.

"So pretty. They make me feel the same way them stars do, like I could look at 'em forever." His teeth flashed in a heart-stopping grin. "And maybe get a little loop-legged while I was at it. Yep, them whiskey eyes of yours do pack a powerful wallop."

"Afterafter saying something so utterly vile, you're trying to woo me, Mr. Sheridan?"

He dropped his foot to the ground, braced his hands on the log between them, and leaned perilously close. "I reckon that is what I'm about. How am I doin'?"

"I can't believe you'd threaten to warm mymy hinder with your strap in one breath, as if I were a child to be punished, and then dare to make flowery speeches about my eyes in the next. Do you truly expect a favorable response from me? Am I to gush and fall into your arms?"

"You don't gotta gush."

Laura doubled her hands. Oh, how she longed to smack him sometimes.

"How do you figure me warmin' your fanny a month or two down the road has anything to do with how pretty I think your eyes is tonight?"

"My 'fanny' and my eyes are connected, sirrah."

He chuckled at that. "Now, there's a point. And as long as I can admire them eyes, I reckon your butt'll be where it belongs, too. Don't try runnin' off, and you ain't gonna have a problem with me, Laura. It ain't like I said I'd lay my strap across your backside once a day to keep my lickin' arm in shape, now is it?"

His licking arm? Laura pushed up from the log. "You are, without a single doubt, the most arrogant, brutish boor I have ever had the dubious pleasure of knowing."

With that, she struck off for the village without him, determined to ignore the wobbly, horribly weak feeling in her legs.

"Where you goin'?"

"Leaving you to marvel at the stars by your despicable self."

"The village ain't that way."

Laura spun to an unsteady stop. Finding her way back would be simplicity in itself. She sniffed for the smell of campfires.

"The wind's blowin' wrong," he said with a chuckle.

She was going to murder the man the first chance she got. She truly was. Laura peered through the brush, searching for flickering firelight. Not a glimmer. Then she heard a horse whinny. Hah! He thought he was so smart. She'd show him. With a lift of her skirt, she struck off again.

"Wrong again. Unless you wanna sleep in the horse pasture, of course. I wonder, honey ... could you find your way out of an upended gunnysack?"

Laura planted her feet and pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead. In a thin, sheerly miserable voice, she said, "You bastard."

He gave a low laugh. "I'll be hornswoggled. Did you say bastard? Whew-ee! Talk about a quick learner. Before you know it, sugar, we'll be communicatin' to a fare-thee-well."

He swung his leg over the log and stood up. As he walked toward her, he said, "You gotta get more feelin' into it, though. Cursin' takes a knack and lotsa practice to get it right. If I was you, I'd start off with 'son of a bitch.' Now, there's a dirty name to call me that you can really warm up to.

"It ain't so bad a cussword that a lady couldn't use it, and once you get it down to a gnat's ass, you probably won't need no others. I say it all different ways, and about the time you start thinkin' you got 'em all memorized, I'll probably surprise you with a new one. Like..." He frowned slightly. "Say you was just sorta put out with me, you could say it in a plain talkin' voice, like you just did 'bastard.' But when you was a little madder? Oh, hey, the word is a beaut."

Laura stared up at him in speechless amazement. Tristan would have knocked her flat for cursing at him. Deke Sheridan thought it was all a great joke. "I believe I've heard a few of your versions of it, yes."

"Grand, ain't it? You can say it 'son of a bitch!' or 'son of a bitch!' orwhen you're so mad you can't see straightyou can really get some satisfaction by draggin' it all out and kickin' things around in between words." His twinkling eyes rested warmly on hers. "Just have a heart and don't kick me."

Perilously close to laughing and wondering if she hadn't taken leave of her senses because she was, Laura looked up at him, a little incredulous at how handsome he was when he grinned like that. She never would have thought it, but Deke Sheridan could, in his own way, literally ooze charm when the mood struck him, and for some reason, she had become a target.

"I think 'son of a bitch' is my favorite cussword even now," he admitted, "and I got me a whole list I use pretty regular like."

Her pride still stinging from the things he had said earlier, Laura was determined not to be disarmed and strove to keep her face carefully blank. "I'm sure I'll hear all of them sooner or later. If you don't enlighten me, poor Star probably will."

Folding his arms, he said nothing for a long moment. "Me teachin' her that word she saidthat was kinda on accident. At the time, I didn't know how filthy a word it was."

Laura also believed in elves and unicorns.

"Truly! You ain't never heard me use it, have you? You gotta understand that in the Cheyenne language, we ain't got bad words folks ain't s'posed to say. So I never thought when I started talkin' English that there was some words I shouldn't oughta learn or teach to my family. Bear in mind, darlin', that I left the Cheyenne and went straight to punchin' cows. The men who taught me English was crude-talkin' cowboys."

He hadn't realized cusswords were bad? A likely story. Not that she blamed him for trying to lie his way out. Teaching Star that horrible word had been absolutely inexcusable.

Laura hugged her waist, pursed her lips, and tried to tap her toe, but her legs were too rubbery to manage it. "Oh, really?" she said sweetly. "Pray tell, Mr. Sheridan, when did you finally become enlightened about the meaning of that word?" Since she seriously doubted he could read, she prodded, "Did someone just up and volunteer the definition one day? Or did you look it up in the dictionary?"

"They got a word like that in the dictionary?"

Now that Laura thought about it, she doubted it. "Well, how did you learn what it meant then?"

For just an instant, he looked uneasy. Laura watched him, feeling smug, which helped to ease the sting of their last verbal clash, definitely his win. She hoped he got mixed up in his own lies and choked on them. A second later, she had reason to question her vision. If he had felt momentarily uneasy, he certainly recovered quickly.

"Now, there's a story," he said, snapping his fingers as his eyes lit up with amusement. "I got my first inklin' of what that word meant at a three-fork supper party."

That was the last thing Laura had expected him to say. "A three what?"

"A three-fork supper party." He graced her with another grin that made her pulse skip and flutter. "You know, one for eatin', one for salad, and one of them itty-bitty, funny-lookin' ones for fishin' around in bowls of red gravy?"

Laura's eyes widened. He had to have seen those tiny forks to be able to tell her about them. "You have attended a formal dinner party?"

"Do you think I left the Cheyenne yesterday? It's been fourteen years, darlin'."

Laura was gaping at him again; she couldn't help it. "Please, tell me you didn't say that word at a formal dinner table!"

He chuckled and leveled a finger at her nose. "That's almost exactly what my mother-in-law said."

"Your mother-in-law?"

"You sure you wanna hear this story? To tell it right, it gets a little colorful in spots."

Laura was becoming more interested by the second. By this time she had totally forgotten her original reason for asking the question. "Please, Mr. Sheridan, do continue. I'm captivated."

He planted his hands on his hips and took a breath between deep chuckles. "Well, like I said, I was at this three-fork supper party. On top of the fact that I'd never been to one before and found the whole shindig pretty much amazin', I was sittin' next to a great big lady"he held his hands wide apart"who was axe-handle-broad across the ass and kept bumpin' my leg with her butt. To make it worse, she was so busty"he cupped his palms a goodly distance in front of his chest"that her ... well, you know them dresses that ain't got no top to speak of? All of us had soup, and it was pipin' hot, and I was real alarmed every time she leaned forward that she was gonna come out of that dress. It ended up I had my eye on her bowl more'n I did my own."

A suffocating sensation rose up the back of Laura's throat.

He put his hands back on his hips. "Anyhow, watchin' her so constant like I was, I couldn't fail to note that she kept fishin' around in that dish of red gravy with her funny-lookin' little fork and bringin' up pink, curly things, which she was eatin' like there wasn't no tomorrow."

"Shrimp?" Laura asked.

He snapped his fingers again. "There you go. Nobody never did get around to tellin' me what they was. That's what started it all, you see, me askin'."

Laura couldn't breathe.

"Anyhow, curiosity plum got the better of me finally, and I said, 'What the'"he waved a hand to fill in for the missing word"'is them things?' Well, it went dead quiet. My mother-in-law, she was sittin' to hell and gone down at the end of that long table, but the woman had ears that stretched a mile. And she said"he raised his voice to a gravelly but feminine-sounding squeak"'Please tell me you did not say that filthy word at my supper table!'"

Almost strangling on swallowed laughter, Laura closed her eyes for an instant. "What happened then?"

He rubbed his nose and sniffed. "Well, I didn't have a clue what filthy word she meant, so I went back over all I'd said, and there was only one word I figured it could be. So I said, real politelike, 'Fuck, you mean?' And the poor woman fainted."

"Your mother-in-law?" Laura peeped. "Or the fat lady?"

"They was both fat. It was my mother-in-law who fainted, though. Not one of them pretend faints, either, like ladies is so fond of? But a real, flat-out faint. Her head plopped facedown in her soup bowl, and by the time the ruckus was over, she damned near drowned."

Still fighting laughter and losing the battle, Laura clutched Deke's sleeve to stay on her feet. "R-Ruckus? Wh-What kind of ruckus?"

Chuckling himself, he grabbed her arm to hold her up. "It really wasn't funny, you know. There was some real fine-feathered gentlemen there at that table who didn't shine up real good to my language."

"Oh, Deke, wh-what did they do?"

He grinned down at her. "Let's just say it was a night when the red gravy went flyin' and so did I, straight back here to Colorado so's I could ask somebody what the hell 'fuck' meant without gettin' my teeth knocked down my throat."

Laura clamped her free hand over her waist, so weak with the giggles, she could scarcely stand. When her mirth finally began to subside, she moaned. "Oh ... Mr. Sheridan. What I wouldn't give to turn you loose on my father."

"You don't like him very good, or what?"

That set her to giggling again. "It's just that he's so unbearably pompous. It would do my heart good to see you upset his applecartjust once."

His silvery gaze cut through the shadows to hold hers. "Send him an invite, darlin', and I'll give it my best shot. I gotta tell you, though. I seem to do my best work when I don't set out to."

Still clinging to his sleeve, Laura inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled. The fit of laughter had drained what little remaining strength she had.

"Anyhow, now that I explained how I found out what that word means, do you believe I didn't teach it to Black Stone on purpose? It was him who taught it to Star, not me. Not sayin' I ain't to blame, 'cause I taught it to him first."

"Yes," Laura conceded, "I do believe you." With another weak laugh, she added, "No one could make up a story like that. It has to he the truth. I do have one other question, though."

"What's that?"

"You mentioned a mother-in-law. I would presume that means you must have had, and may still have, another wife?"

"God, no. I don't got the energy for two. Deloresthat was her nameshe sent me dee-vorce papers by pony express."

"When did that occur?"

"Shortly after we come back here to Colorado." His mouth twitched slightly at the corners. "Things wasn't never quite the same between us after I almost drowned her mama in the soup. I think it started to dawn on her that maybe we wasn't what you'd call a matched set."

Laura giggled again, and he grinned.

"She stayed here till the shine wore offabout three weeks, if I recollect it rightthen hitched up her fancy skirts and skedaddled back home to San Francisco." He broke off and looked away. "It all happened so long ago, I don't know why I'm talkin' about it."

Before he turned his head, Laura thought she glimpsed shadows in his eyes that hadn't been there a moment earlier. With a sinking sensation, she realized that he had poked fun at himself and made her laugh at his own expense. Those memories still hurt him, deep down inside.

"You met Delores in San Francisco then? What on earth were you doing there?"

"A cattle-buyin' trip," he replied. "But that's a whole 'nother story."

At a loss for anything else to say, Laura hugged herself against the chill and said, "Well..."

He turned his dark head to look at her.

"I really am very weary," she reminded him. "Shall we head back now?"

Apparently Deke Sheridan was nothing if not resilient. A purely mischievous gleam had already replaced the sadness she had glimpsed in his eyes. "You lit out to leave first, honey. So I'll just follow you."

She made an exasperated sound. "You know very well I don't know which way to go."

"Why?"

The thought of kicking him was becoming more tempting by the moment. "Please, Mr. Sheridan, I truly am feeling unaccountably weary. I obviously wasn't paying attention when we walked out here, and it happens to be dark. Aren't those reasons enough?"

"Nope to the last, and as for the first, honey, figurin' out where you are and where you're goin' ain't exactly taxin'." He jabbed a thumb upward. "Get a fix on the sky."

Laura looked up. "I've got a fix," she said, biting back another smile. The man was absolutely impossible. By all rights, she should be furious with him, but somehow he had niggled his way right through her anger. "I suppose you're going to show me how to get my bearings by the moon?"

"The moon? Christ Almighty, darlin', if that's how you try to find your way at night, no wonder you can't find your ass with both hands. What if there ain't a moon? Or what if it came up in the afternoon instead of evenin', and it's sittin' straight overhead or in the west instead of the east?"

"I knew the darned thing wasn't reliable."

He chuckled. "You truly don't know nothin', do you?"

"I know when I'm lost."

"Which is all the time. Find me the North Star."

With her legs still so trembly, Laura had difficulty keeping her balance as she leaned her head back to gaze up at the sky. As he had commented earlier, there were a lot of stars twinkling above them, all of them brilliant. "The North Star is one of the brightest, isn't it?"