"I-I'll come tomorrow morn', M'am," Ned answered eagerly.

"Me, too?! I can split wood like a fork o'lightnin'!" lanky Albert declared, searching her with an expression of raw hope. And when Aunt Sarah sighed and nodded acceptance, a bolt of excitement went through the rest.

"I reckon I could use a bit o' help..." May Donner inserted into the rumble and instantly had a dozen volunteers. Everyone was more than willing to split curvy May Donner's wood. She finally selected two soldiers who looked up to the task, the biggest and strongest among them, and the others muttered and growled disappointment.

"Ain't there anybody else who could use a bit o' work done?" came a frustrated voice from the back.

"I been plowin' since I wus knee high, an' done butcherin' too," came another.

A storm of useful skills assailed them and Aunt Sarah finally managed to raise a trembling hand to gain quiet enough to say, "I can ask around. With some o' the men gone, most o' us need th' help."

And so it was that, come the next morning at sunrise, various residents of Rapture settlement and the valley beyond appeared at the edge of the major's camp to take home with them soldiers who were willing to work for their food. The soldiers pushed back from their big, hearty breakfasts, satisfied, not knowing they had Whitney Daniels to thank for their opportunity. And the residents of Rapture viewed their mounting woodpiles and reshingled sheds and new-harvested corn with equal satisfaction, breathing prayers of thanks for that uncanny Daniels "trader instinct" for creating a need in folks... then making them pay well to satisfy it.

The major and the lieutenant, of course, knew nothing of the burgeoning arrangement between their men and the local folk. The soldiers, exhibiting the innate craftiness of hungry men, saw to it that word of such opportunities was passed quietly. With the major and the lieutenant frequently on patrol and dropping from hunger and exhaustion into sleep the minute they returned, it was relatively easy to carry on undetected. And when the rigors of their bartered work made them tired, and interfered with the thoroughness on patrol, the major and his lieutenant were apt to put it down to hunger and deprivation... and overlook it.

"Shore hope we don' haveta move agin soon," Uncle Julius said, sitting on a log in a tiny clearing in the forest, scowling into his cup in the gloomy dampness of the before-dawn hours.

Across the smoldering remains of fire grizzled Uncle Ballard was nodding off periodically, and beside him, Whitney Daniels was staring similarly into her tin cup. They'd spent a good part of the night sealing and transporting their last batch of whiskey to safe storage and were all perfectly exhausted. The cup of fine Daniels whiskey they'd shared was for soothing their aching muscles as much as for providing warmth in the misty night air.

"Well, we outwitted them this far, we can outwit them a bit longer. The major's men are fast loosing their enthusiasm for arresting distillers," Whitney observed thoughtfully. "Now if we could only find some way to dim the major's enthusiasm..."

They sat in silence awhile longer, then Uncle Julius slapped his bony knee and declared, "We'd best git ye home, gal. I'll see ye partway."

"I'm not going home; I'm staying with Aunt Sarah tonight. Aunt Kate's getting suspicious. You don't have to go Uncle Julius... your knees..."

"Don't be yawpin' about m'knees, gal. Everbody knows I wus bred part mule."

Whitney smiled tiredly, and shortly they were moving through the forest, their night-adjusted eyes fighting the rising mist for familiar landmarks and sure footing on the descending slopes. When they neared the Dunbar's farmstead, Uncle Julius left her, and she proceeded through the graying woods toward the main road on her own. Her hands were shoved into her coat pockets, her shoulders were slouched as she lifted her head and glimpsed the road just ahead. She was bone-weary, and concentrating wholly on her direction and on the bed she would soon share with Charlie's little sister.

A branch snapped and there was shouting and a charging rush all around her. Rough hands seized her from every direction and she struggled mightily as she recognized their owners.

Soldiers!

A harsh voice rang out above the snarls and grunts around her and above her own virulent protests. The frenzied motion and counter-motion slowed and paused in a heaving silence.

"Well, well," the major's voice had a nasty ring of triumph as he stared down at the rigid, defiant form of his prisoner, "what have we..."

"You let me go-how dare you lay hands on me!" she demanded recklessly. The sight of him, looming big and fierce out of the foggy gloom, was daunting in the extreme. Fatigue and the last traces of the whiskey's effects left her few words to battle with. "This is... an outrage! Assaulting a young woman in plain sight!"

When she raised an angry chin and flashed her eyes in the graying light, recognition rained through the major like an exploding can of shot. Distillers, whiskey rebels, tax evaders and sneak-thieves he would have expected, even welcomed, this ungodly hour of the morning. But Whiskey Daniels, tousled, flushed, and defiant, was something he wasn't quite prepared for.

"Young, perhaps," he managed a healthy sneer, leaning back in his saddle to distance himself. Every numbed and aching muscle, every strained sinew in his exhausted body was coming to life at the mere fact of her presence. It was mildly alarming. "But not much of a woman. What in hell are you doing out in the woods in the dead of night, witch?"

"I was... checking traps," she answered with all the convincing half-truth she could muster. Checking the soldiers' traps... and avoiding them, she told herself.

"Is that so?" his eyes raked her coat, her wet boots, her rumpled hair, and he felt an unreasoning twinge of relief that burly Charlie Dunbar was still in chains. Acting on raw impulse, he turned to his sergeant. "Sergeant Laxault, take the men on into camp. I'll question the little witch myself, as I take her home."

Soon, Whitney found herself standing alone with the Iron Major at the side of the narrow wagon-road, and her heart began to thud. His grip on her arm was fierce, and his eyes on her were cool and silvery as he towered above her in the predawn mists. Garner Townsend found himself holding Whiskey Daniels while his blood churned faster, and knew he'd taken complete leave of his senses. It was sheer folly to set hands to the little witch; every time he touched her, she wreaked some, form of mayhem on him. His grip on his mount's reins and on her arm both tightened.

"Come on, wench." He turned her down the road toward the Daniels farmstead.

"No." She dug her boot heels in to resist him and wrested her arm back and forth. "I'm not going home- I'm staying the night at Aunt Sarah's-"

"The hell you are." He reeled her close enough to feel the warmth of her, to smell the whiskey on her breath. "You've spent the night with someone else already, witch. Who? Who the hell were you out in the woods with?" He gave her an insistent shake.

"I told you," she snapped, realizing he thought she'd been out with some buck in the woods. But indignation gave way to a strange mixture of anger and relief. If he thought that, then he still didn't suspect her connection to Rapture Valley's major distilling operation. "I was out checking traps... alone."

"I don't believe that for an instant," he growled, feeling the steam in his blood seeping into other parts of his chilled anatomy. His hands on her tightened, his pulse quickened. Beneath his fingers, she felt soft, so damnably soft and warm in the cold morning.

"I don't care what you believe, Major," she swallowed, finding it hard to speak against the squeezing in her throat. The warmth radiating from his wide shoulders was seductive, melting her defiance. Her head was beginning to waffle strangely as his eyes became patches of dawn sky with morning stars rising in them.

"You've been drinking... whiskey." Even as he said it, he was breathing it in, absorbing it into his blood. It was a smell he associated with the rough company of men, with fighting and bold revelry, with camaraderie and challenge. It was a scent that brought his blood up and started his muscles coiling with expectation. Somehow it was fitting that Whiskey Daniels smelled that way, for in every sense she was his adversary. She boldly challenged both his duty and skill as a soldier and his personal control as a man. And with the warning of that last, beleaguered bit of logic resounding in his head, he still drew her closer to his stirring body.

"It was a cold night, Major." She fought for control of her senses, trying to resist the sensual effects of his touch, knowing she was unable to counter his superior physical strength. But her eyes sought the bold curve of his exquisitely carved mouth, her body craved the feel of his corded strength through her very clothes, and her fingertips itched to touch the dark curl that lapped his temple. Unintentionally, her voice softened to a pulsing murmur. "A nip of good whiskey warms the blood . . "

"Your blood is already warm enough, wench," he uttered hoarsely, losing to the urge to drag his fingertips across her cold-blushed cheek and down her straight, pert-tipped nose with the tiny dent in the end. Lord, she was soft... every bit as smooth and satiny as he remembered. Dunbar was right. What else would a man be doing out in the woods with wild, sensual little Whiskey Daniels?

"Who is he?" he demanded, his voice deep and resonant with need. He burned to know and yet dreaded to learn. "He's a distiller, isn't he?"

"Who?" The feel of his fingertips sliding onto her lips disrupted her logical processes momentarily.

"Your man."

"Now Major," she swallowed against the squeezing in her throat and tried valiantly to summon that old Daniels flippancy, "what would I want with a man?"

It was as provocative a challenge as a woman had ever laid at a man's feet and Garner Townsend was not a man to walk away from a challenge, however fraught with peril.

"This..."He cradled her face in his hand, tilting it up as his other hand slipped around her waist, drawing her fully against his hardening frame. Her hands came up against his chest, but could summon no force to resist him. He was going to kiss her again, she realized; his head was bending, his bold, expressive lips were parting. And she was going to let him, he realized, watching the way her velvety lips parted and her head tilted instinctively to receive him.

This was what each of them had recalled during those seething encounters at the inn and in the camp. This was what both had felt echoing through them every time they faced each other. Every steamy look, every crackling silence, every angry charge and countercharge challenged them to test the memory of the startling pleasures they had stumbled upon in the steamy aftermath of a wild, heated chase.

She tingled, with anticipation, then the hard-soft wonder of his mouth on hers poured warmth through her again. His lips caressed and coaxed hers wider and his tongue traced the pliant opening with slow, hypnotizing strokes. A noise that was part pleasure, part distress escaped her throat when his tongue found the tip of hers and traced luscious circles around it. Her arms slid weakly down his chest and seemed to catch at his waist. It took so little effort to send them curling around his lean middle.

Her movement drew a moan from deep in his throat and his arms flexed powerfully, crushing her against his chest as he probed the sweet, steamy recesses of her mouth. She opened to him, savoring the sleek contours of his tongue with hers, exploring the sensation of the slow, intimate dueling. He was so big and so warm and so tantalizingly hard against her softness. He engulfed her senses, lifting her into a slow-swirling haze of warmth and undreamt-of pleasure.

The trembling of his braced legs finally registered in Garner Townsend's senses and he opened his eyes to find himself standing in the middle of that weedy road, clasping Whiskey Daniels to him as though he intended to take her on the very spot -standing up! He managed just enough sensibility to be appalled by their location, though not enough to be shocked by their activity. In his dangerously hot and molten state, he wouldn't release her, not when her curves were pressing against him, filling the aching hollows that memory and desire had carved into his body. He began to move, carrying her back into the trees with the force of his body against hers.

Wrapped in his strong arms and immersed in a steamy sea of sensation, Whitney didn't protest as she was swept backward before his determined strength. She came to rest against a raspy tree trunk, and he came to rest against her, pinning her there with his hard weight. Her arms wriggled uncertainly between them and he pulled them up, directing them around his neck as his head lowered to join their mouths again. Her fingers slid wonderingly up the side of his muscular neck, above the sinuous gold braid, to invade the tangle of his loosely curled hair. It felt curiously like a child's, wrapping silkily around her fingers, returning her caresses.

The splendor of his kisses deepened, then lowered to her throat and the side of her neck, sending a wanton need for more radiating under her skin in all directions. Her nipples were tightening against her shirtfront, and a familiar burning tingle congregated in the sensitive tips of her breasts. Recent experience had taught her there was only one way to assuage that divine torture. She wriggled closer to him, pressing her hardening breasts against him through her coat. As if he understood and shared her desire, he traced her shape with his hands, working his way around her shoulders and waist to her front. His lean fingers slipped between them and he quickly released the bone buttons to invade the light wool felt of her coat.

His whole body trembled with eagerness as he claimed the generous, hard-tipped mounds of her breasts with sure, caressing motion. She moaned and arched to meet him, imploring a firmer touch, seeking a deeper pleasure. The barrier of her shirt was freed from her belt and the cool hardness of his fingers slid beneath it and over her warm, tingling nipples; their velvety peaks were soon pebble-hard from the gentle, rhythmic friction of his thumbs. Frissons of excitement raced along her nerves and she felt his body quiver against hers, resonant with pleasure.

Whitney couldn't breathe, couldn't think. All her senses were engulfed in the new currents of desire swirling through her. His caresses seemed to reach inside her with a physical presence, stirring the potent liquid of her womanly response. Nothing mattered but the hard feel of him around her and the curiously sweet communion of his mouth on hers. When his knee slipped between her thighs, she yielded, allowing him to nudge her legs apart. His arms moved to clasp her bottom and lift her against the bulging hardness of his arousal. Smooth, arching thrusts of his hips rubbed his hardened shaft against her womanly center, sending jagged flashes of pleasure radiating upward through her. The brilliance of sensation momentarily overwhelmed both her perception and her response.

Through the fiery turmoil in his own blood, Garner Townsend felt her sharp intake of breath and the rigid tremors of her body against his. It registered in him as surprise; and it somehow startled him. Awareness of his body's position and intensity began to surface through the dense steam in his head.

His legs were bent and braced to support them both, his body was coiled, his arms were flexed, and his hands were splayed, clasping her bottom possessively. Blood drummed frantically in his head and its dangerous cadence echoed like thunder in his loins. He had to lose himself, spend himself in Whiskey Daniels's lush little body. It was so close, that softness, that moist, beckoning heat... just a snatch of fabric between them... He could take her here, now...

His passion-glazed eyes focused slowly on the wet, fallen leaves at their feet and that cold riot of color, made brilliant by the morning dew, registered in more than just his gaze.

A creeping paralysis of reality gripped him. He must be mad, roused to such a state that he was ready to take her on the cold, wet ground... as if he were some damned heaving animal!

Whitney felt the confusion in his response; easing and tightening somehow at the same time. She opened her eyes to marvel at the shadowed planes of his cheeks, the feathery grace of his arched brows, and the spare, geometric sweep of his muscular jaw. Wrapped in the web of sensation he'd spun about her, she caught his hands as they released her and guided them beneath her shirt again, rippling as they closed on her warm flesh.

He quivered as if stung and the change in him telegraphed a warning through her. His glowing eyes changed even as she watched, chilling to a cold shimmer as he recoiled from the impact of his complete abandonment of self, and from knowledge of the one who'd caused it.

"God."

The raw power in that single syllable rumbled through her with devastating effect. His face drained and his hands withdrew from her shirt, falling into burning fists at his sides. He stalked backward, looking gray and granitelike, a monolith of aristocratic horror. He'd let it happen again!

"You!" he finally summoned the power of speech, jabbing an impotent finger at her as raw frustration choked off the rest of his verbal capacity. Something about the little witch seemed to dry-lock his speech mechanisms. When he did finally manage another word it turned out to be the very eloquent, "Dammit!"

Whitney stood there, watching his gentlemanly disgust, his horror at finding himself entangled bodily with her again. Her flesh was throbbing, her eyes were big and luminous with shock, her lips were lightly bruised from the hungry force of his kisses. She made no move to right her dangling shirt front or straighten the coat he'd peeled back off of her shoulders in his eagerness to savor her womanly shape. She honestly couldn't move; the sweet languor of her muscles was turning to shame-filled weakness. Disbelief robbed her of proper indignation and of the angry energy it would have generated.

How could he kiss her like that, touch her like that,then just back away... and curse at her?

How could she just stand there, looking so sensual and appealing, he groaned... seeming so damned defenseless? Hot complaints tore through his aching loins, spurring him toward all manner of wild, irrational behavior... like taking her back into his arms and kissing that bewildered frown from her brow, and filling his hands with her silky breasts and filling her womanly frame with the full measure of his inflamed passion for her.

"Dammit-" he ground out again, gesturing furiously to her disarranged clothing. "Will you-" He stopped, shuddered, then lurched at her, intent on remedying her disheveled state himself, to remove both reminder and temptation.

But when his hands lifted her shirt to stuff it back into her belt, the sensation was too keen, too much like his actions of minutes ago and too lacking in those same tender motives. She stumbled aside, finally stung to life by his calloused treatment.

"Don't you-" she choked, finding her voice too thick to continue. She had to battle a squeezing in her throat and a frightening prickle at the backs of her eyes as she wadded her shirt quickly into her belt. Everything was blurring and it was suddenly hard to get her breath. Lord!-she couldn't let him get the best of her like this! What was happening to her?! She swallowed desperately. "Don't touch me again-I swear- you-'ll regret it!"

"I already regret it," he growled, twitching under the sting of that awful truth.

Her jaw dropped. But just as quickly, she clamped it tight and bolted for the road... with her eyes and her heart on fire. He'd stripped her of every Daniels defense she could claim, leaving only the tender, painful responses of a newly exposed and very vulnerable young woman.

"Dammit!" he gritted through clenched Townsend jaws, lurching after her. His long legs overtook her at the edge of the trees and he snagged her wrist as she dodged to escape him. She snapped back toward him, wheeled, and dug her heels in.

But he bested her wriggling protests to pull her closer, despite the searing flashes of warning in his head. They wrestled briefly then, as abruptly as it came, the force drained from her resistance and they both slowed. His grip eased, shifting to her shoulders, and she turned her face as far from him as possible. He could see delicate muscles working in her clamped jaw and knew she was trying to control her feelings. He had to swallow and clear his throat to speak, and when he did he found his gentlemanly vocabulary had utterly deserted him once again.

"What do you want from me?" Whitney demanded quietly, without unlocking her jaw or looking at him. She didn't understand why her heart was quivering and twisting painfully in her chest.

The question drove into his gut like one of Laxault's meaty fists. He'd just participated in a humiliating demonstration of exactly what he wanted from her. And he could still taste the strange, potent spiciness of her mouth, could still feel the provocative press of her breasts against his ribs...

"I... need answers."

"I don't like the way you ask questions... with your hands," she said softly. That muscle in her jaw flexed again as she clamped it against waves of new, womanly-feeling hurt.

It was the most potent indictment possible of his lack of self-control. He'd known she was suspect in this whiskey business and instead of quizzing her properly, he'd violated every precept of an officer's code of honor to set hands to her every time he'd seen her. He'd asked his questions with his hands.

Dunbar was right. She did have a way with words.

He released her wrists as he reached for her chin, turning her flushed face to him with much gentler fingers. "Who were you with, Whiskey?"

"Whiskey?" She paused, glancing up through the filter of her long lashes, stunned by his taunt. She didn't even hear the part about the stills. He hated whiskey, considered it low and crude. And Whiskey was his name for her, now. A cruel little jest on her name that clearly spoke his contempt for her, even after he'd... Maybe he really was made of iron all the way through.

But she certainly wasn't. Just now her newly vulnerable body was aching all over and something big and heavy was sitting on her heart, making each beat more painful than the last. Darting around him, she started down for Aunt Sarah's with her hands balled into whitened fists at her sides.

He caught up again, facing her and slowing so that she had to slow as well. This time there was no question, only a tight, troubled look in his striking gray-blue eyes. That look tugged at her chin the way his hands couldn't. And finally her burning eyes lifted.

"You kissed me," she charged softly. The huskiness of her voice masked a wealth of turmoil.

"I... didn't mean to..." It sounded awful in his own ears, too. Didn't want to, it said, and didn't value it, either. He shuddered through the outraged flailing of his conscience. He didn't try to stop her when she struck off around him again, but he did match her surprisingly brisk stride.

God, he was in chaos inside... he couldn't think straight! Desperately, he retreated into the cool, conquering dignity of the "Townsend" persona that straightened his spine and stiffened his face. As a Townsend, he could deal with anything, face any challenge, command any situation.

"It was... a deplorable lapse... unbefitting an officer or a Townsend." He stopped when she stopped and when she looked up at him with that bruised look to the jewel-like green of her eyes, he felt his insides going molten again.

"Then you cursed at me." Her chin trembled ever so slightly and the dark centers of her eyes pulsed with ill-concealed hurt.

"I... apologize..."

'"I don't want your apology." She held her shoulders very straight and tried not to blink so that the moisture in her eyes wouldn't run down her cheeks. "I just want you to go away. Take your men and go back to Boston. My people have never done anything to you." Her voice cracked and she stopped. Her gaze dropped to his rich blue coat front that was missing one elegant gold button, and her throat closed entirely.

His hand came up, drawn by the quivering pulse at the base of her throat, and he drew the backs of his knuckles gently across her cheek. Whitney felt that tender stroke like a lash across her opened heart and quivered, closing her eyes. She could feel his stormy gaze on her, could feel the heat of him flooding into her again. Please... not again .'. .

Just as suddenly the unbearable caress stopped; that steely gentleness withdrew and she braced instinctively for what she knew must follow.

" Dammit'"

Suddenly his broad shoulder was ramming into her middle and she was being hoisted bodily! She jerked and flailed, gasped for breath as he carried her to his horse and wrestled her from his shoulder across the pommel of his saddle. Face down, she dangled and flapped humiliatingly, snarling biblically inspired threats connecting Job's boils and certain sensitive parts of his anatomy.

"Don't you move!" he thundered, mounting in an instant and resettling her vulnerable bottom over his hard knees as he gave his horse the spur.

Blood pooled in her head and everything careened and roared around her as the hard saddle and his hard knees pounded against her ribs from below. And just when she thought she would burst, the motion came to a thudding halt and he peeled her from his legs and slid her off into the dirt... like a bag of turnips. She staggered, scarcely able to breathe or to walk, fighting the humiliating tangle of her hair to see where she was.

His tall boots with their gentlemanly spurs, a flash of roan flank, an expensive stirrup; they came into focus briefly as the blood drained from her vision. Then they shot into motion and were gone.

She blinked and gasped in the billowing dust, unable to expel her breath. Wheeling, she recognized the nearby cabin, the barn, and the sheds that nestled on the creek bank. He'd dumped her square in the Dunbar's dusty yard.

She ducked into their small barn, holding her abused middle in her hands and praying no one had witnessed her ignominious arrival. Every step up the pole ladder was sheer torture to her pummeled ribs and abdominal muscles. But when she climbed onto the planking loft in the rafters and collapsed onto the fragrant hay, her misery actually seemed to worsen.

Every bone in her body had been jarred loose. But she felt disconnected in more than just her joints; her actions and responses were confused and frighteningly unreliable. As she wiped a stray lock of hair back from her face she felt the gentleness of his touch again in the brush of her own hand. A second later she felt a cold burning trickle down her cheeks. An awful, hurtful swelling began in her chest, crowding her lungs, making it hard to breathe again.

Crying. Lord Above, she hadn't cried since she was ten years old. Now he'd kissed her and cursed at her and made her cry. The wretch. He was doing things to her, making her feel things that disrupted her easy Daniels flow through the world around her. It was a little frightening, and a lot humiliating.

When he had moved close to her, her lips began to tingle and her skin came alive beneath her softly molded deerskin and raspy homespun. Ohhhh-there it was again -the torturous, quivery feeling beneath her skin and in her womanly, parts. Suddenly she could feel the lingering press of his body against hers and the gentle rubbing of his fingers over her nipples. The tactile memory of his warm hands smoldered in her bare breasts, and his tortured, chest-deep moans rumbled through her body again.

His hands... his moans... the thought captured her imagination. The arrogant, self-righteous major had behaved just as badly as she had; wriggling and touching and invading her very clothes to do shocking things to her! He'd kissed her and touched her bare...

Oh, no. She closed her eyes, but the realization wouldn't go away. That dusky heat in his face, that hot gleam in his eyes... the way he invaded her mouth and rubbed his swollen self against her. All this time she'd had her people watching him, trying to learn what he wanted.

And all along, the one thing the Iron Major wanted in Rapture Valley was her.

Garner Townsend was halfway to the settlement before he slowed his horse to a walk and wrenched his thoughts from the vision of her curvy bottom, her lush lower lip, her crystal green eyes. A battle raged inside him; "Garner" versus "Townsend." And the cause of the conflict was excruciatingly clear. Whiskey Daniels.