She sat very still in front of him and didn't answer.

He cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s through the cloak. As always, she didn't struggle, but she didn't encourage him either. She had to be uncomfortable with his touch, maybe even afraid. He was a big man with a bad reputation, a virtual stranger, but she held her ground. Held to her bargain.She had such courage, his Jenna. Not the flashy kind, but the "stick it out" kind. The kind that helped her endure.

He gentled his touch, and pulled her back against him.

He wouldn't betray her trust, but he also wouldn't let her hide.

"Answer me, Jenna. Does it fell good when I rub this soft fur over your b.r.e.a.s.t.s?"

She swallowed hard. Her shoulder blades flexed against his chest. Then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

He kissed the top of her head and just held her against him, satisfied with that concession, enjoying the scent of woman and roses that drifted up from the warmth of her cloak, blending with the crisp evening air.

She was his. In time she'd come to accept him. Trust him.

Until then, he'd just work at convincing her he was worth the effort.

Chapter Six.

It was almost dark by the time they arrived at the barn. Clint slid off Ornery, and Jenna immediately panicked at being left alone up on the big buckskin. He put one hand on her thigh and one on the horse's shoulder, soothing both with his touch. When they were calmer, he held his hands up to her.

"Slide on down here, Jenna."

Jenna shoved the basket at him instead of dropping into his arms. He took it and put it on the ground. The whole move took about two seconds, but by the time he was upright, Jenna had managed to get herself tangled, hanging halfway off the horse. It was easy to see why she didn't complete the move. Her skirt was caught on the saddle horn, and she couldn't swing her leg over to fall the rest of the way off.

"Need a little help?" he asked, admiring the turn of her calf as it was exposed by her hiked up skirt.

She didn't answer and didn't move. He was getting used to her silences. He figured they either meant she was nervous or embarra.s.sed. Tonight, it was probably alittle of both.

Ornery sidestepped, uncomfortable with the placement of weight. Jenna abandoned her paralysis.

Ornery abandoned complacency. With a snort, he bucked. Just enough to let Clint know that he wasn't happy, but it was enough to send Jenna into a full panic.

She let go of the horn to grab her skirt. A mistake, but one Clint had antic.i.p.ated. He waited, a knife in his hands. On the next hop, she flopped back into his arms.

With one hand he held her against his chest, and with the other, he cut her skirt loose. As she lay gasping against him, he sheathed his knife.

"It would have been better if you'd let me help you."

"I just wanted to do it myself."

He set her feet on the ground.

"Independence is a good thing," he turned her and pushed her hair off her face, noting the faint sheen of tears in her eyes, "but it needs to be tempered by intelligence."

Her flinch was mostly internal, but it lingered in the flicker of her lashes and the slight tightening of her lips.

He tucked another strand of hair behind her ear. "And patience. Jenna, you've got to learn patience."

"I'm patient."

"Sometimes."She didn't say more, but he knew she wanted to. He wondered if there had been a time when she would have said more, before the fire inside her had been smothered by criticism and beatings.

She stepped back. He allowed her a foot before he hooked a hand behind her neck and stopped her. There was a sizable pile of manure one step back.

"I don't think you're stupid, Jenna, but I do think you're impulsive, and I'd appreciate it if you could curb that tendency."

She ducked her chin, "Or what?"

He tipped her chin up. She seemed to be staring at a point just south of meeting his gaze. With her lack of night vision, it was hard to tell if she was avoiding his gaze or just didn't know where it was.

"Are you asking me what will happen if you don't?"

"Yes."

"I'll be unhappy."

"Oh."

He caught her hand in his and guided her toward where Ornery stood by the barn door patiently waiting to be let in.

"You don't have to hold my hand."

"You can see where we're going?"

"No.""Then I'm holding your hand. And watch out for the rock there."

"Where?" Her toe hit it, and she stumbled. He steadied her.

"Right there."

"Oh." A pause and then, "Thank you." There was a certain note in that "thank you" that hit him wrong.

Her hand, so much smaller and softer rocked in his.

It took him a second to figure out why, and then he realized she was furtively feeling around with her toe, looking for more rocks. He slipped the rope latch off the iron hook that kept the barn door closed.

"Jenna?"

"What?"

"I won't let you fall." All movement stopped.

"Thank you." That off note in her voice was stronger now.

"You're welcome. Now let's get Ornery settled." He grabbed Ornery's reins just below the bridle. He slid his hand up her arm to her shoulder before sliding it down to her waist. He wouldn't say she tucked willingly into his side, but she went. He made his first step small, accommodating her stride, but it wasn't small enough to accommodate a dead stop.

"What are you doing?" she asked."Guiding you into the barn."

"I'm not helpless."

"Never said you were."

"I can walk by myself."

"Fine." He let go of her and guided Ornery along the familiar path to his stall. Behind him, he heard Jenna shuffling her feet. The stall door creaked as he opened it.

Jenna gasped and stopped.

Ornery pushed past him, eager to have his oats. Clint supposed he could light the lantern by the stall but he could still see, barely, and some perverse part of him didn't want to make things easy for Jenna. Not when she was so determined to make them hard for herself.

There was more shuffling as he undid the girth and pulled off the saddle and blanket. He swung the saddle onto the sawhorse with ease of long practice. He could make out her outline in the doorway. She'd made it just inside the barn, no doubt clinging to the faint light coming from outside. From the way she was bent, he figured she was checking out the damage his knife had done to her dress. He removed his rifle from the leather scabbard and propped it against the outside of the stall.

She was a stubborn little thing.

The lid to the oat box slammed open. Jenna jumped.

He scooped out a measure, pushed Ornery's eager nose out of the way as he reentered the stall, and dumped itinto the horse's bin. Grabbing the water bucket, he went to the pump just inside the door and started pumping up the water. Everything was quiet with that peculiar hush that comes with the first snow of winter, amplifying the other sounds-the grinding metal efforts of the pump, Ornery's munching, and Jenna's sudden shriek. A shriek that quickly turned into a panicked scream.

"Jenna?"

She didn't answer, just shrieked again and started spinning in circles, beating at her clothes. He dropped the bucket. It took him four strides to get to her side. He caught her by the shoulders, stopping her hysterical spinning. It took him a second to decipher what she was saying.

"Oh, not rats. Not rats, not rats, not rats."

"Not rats, Sunshine. Kittens." He plucked a kitten off the back of her skirt and pulled her into his arms.

Wrestling against him, she didn't seem to hear. He put the kitten on his shoulder, and grabbed at the bulge moving beneath her cloak in the vicinity of her stomach.

She grabbed, too, her short nails gouging into his hands.

The bulge howled and hissed. Jenna screamed and fought. He anch.o.r.ed her with a hand at the back of her neck, left her to contain the bulge, and made short work of the b.u.t.tons on the cloak. It fell to the floor, revealing the whiteness of her skin and the problem. The kittenwas stuck in the fold of her loosened top as it fell over her waist, trapped by her hands and the material.

"Let go, Jenna."

Her chant shortened to staccato "nos" as she wrestled to contain the little kitten, which was just as determined to get free.

He grabbed her hands and pulled them from her body. She lashed out with her feet. Her eyes flashed white in the darkness.

"Nononononononononononono."

Holding both her hands in one of his, he pulled the equally hysterical kitten from under the bodice, tugging hard when the sharp little claws clung to the material. As soon as the kitten was free, it spun in his grip. He winced as it clawed its way up his arm to the security of his shoulder.

"It was just kittens, Jenna." She shuddered under his hand. He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her. "Just two little pesky, more-trouble-than- they are-worth, kittens."

She burrowed against him as if wanting to get beneath his skin. He wrapped his arms tighter, holding her harder.

"Just kittens, Sunshine," he repeated.

She gave one last violent shake, and then releasedher pent-up breath. "Kittens?"

"Just kittens."

She went limp. He backed them up until he got to the side of the stall. He sat her on a bale of hay. She resisted, her soft hands sliding over his stomach, wrapping around his thighs as he pulled out his sulfurs and lit one.

Her eyes were huge in her pale face as the match flared.

He lit the lamp, sitting beside her as the glow intensified, unb.u.t.toning his coat and pulling her into the warmth of his body. What in h.e.l.l had made her so fearful of rats?

She was still trembling, tiny little shakes that he knew she was trying to contain from the way she tensed though each occurrence.

"I've got you, Sunshine. You're safe." He cupped her head in his hand and cradled her close.

She lay against him, her breath coming hot and moist against his chest through his shirt, the mounds of her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s pushing against his stomach, and her left hand resting against his erection, which stretched down his thigh, uncaring about the fear draining from her body.

Only aware of her womanly smell and the lush temptation just the thickness of the fabric away.

The kittens mewled in his ears. One draped itself into the curve of his neck, and started grooming his ear.

He'd kick them off if he didn't know they'd just cause a ruckus crawling back up."Are they yours?" The soft whisper drifted up from the level of his chest.

He shrugged the kitten away from his earlobe. "They certainly think so."

"Why?"

"I made the mistake of feeding them when their mother abandoned them." The kitten came back with a vengeance, determined to have its comfort. There was another silence.

"Jack used to bang their heads on rocks."

That did not surprise him. "A lot of folk feel that way."

He shrugged the kitten away again. The kitten dug its claws in and pushed back.

Jenna didn't say anything, just lay against him. The kitten took advantage of his distraction to latch onto his earlobe. In two seconds it was happily slurping away, sucking on his ear, like a baby with a sugar t.i.t. He knew from experience if he yanked it off he'd have to listen to ten minutes of yowling protest. It was easier to just wait until it went to sleep.

Jenna shifted against him. He looked down to find her looking up with something like amazement in her eyes. "You have a kitten sucking on your ear."

He winced. "She'll go to sleep soon.""It looks uncomfortable."

"It isn't my favorite experience."

"Do you want me to pull it off?"

"You want to hear her yowl for the next ten minutes?"