He inclined his head. He knew when to go with responsibility and where and when to silently draw the line. "Yeah."

She wanted to take umbrage, but there was almost something genial in his response, so she let it ride. For now.

"I suppose I did want it." Ambivalent feelings ricocheted right and left like a handball with nowhere to land. "Maybe I even flattered myself that I could do a d.a.m.n good job of it."

"And could you? Do you?" He figured he already had the answer to that, but it might do her some good to hear herself say it out loud.

Denise's eyes narrowed at what she perceived was a challenge. If she'd momentarily let the situation get the best of her, it was gone now. Her spirit was back and intact.

"Yes, I could and I do." She thought of the most recent turn of events, Harry quitting the crew. "Of course, with members of the crew dropping out on me, I don't know how much longer I can keep all this going."

A rueful smile slipped along her lips, tempting Will to kiss her. He didn't think she'd appreciate it right now. Probably take it to mean that he was belittling her problems in some fashion. So he worked at ignoring the very real, very urgent pull he felt. He wasn't quite sure if he was rooting for victory or defeat in this case.

Denise stared up at the sky, idly wondering who else was gazing up at it at this very moment and how much more orderly their lives were than hers.

"n.o.body runs away to the circus anymore and they certainly don't run away to work for someone who provides the rides for a carnival." She shoved her hands into her pockets. "I keep hiring people to replace the ones who've left, but they never last very long." Right now, they were the most shorthanded they'd ever been.

"Their itchy feet take them in other directions?" he guessed. Moonlight was gliding along her skin, the way he longed to.

"Something like that." Without thinking, she rotated her shoulders and stretched. There were tight kinks running the length of her back and the breadth of her shoulders. She felt as if she were a recent refugee from the rack.

The next moment, she felt Will's hands on her shoulders. Denise jumped, but managed to bite back the squeal of surprise.

"Easy." The tone Will used was the same one he'd once used on the pony he'd eventually won over and tamed. "I'm just trying to help you work out these knots." He gave a short laugh more from wonder than amus.e.m.e.nt. "I've come across boulders that were less tense."

She shifted self-consciously. He already knew more about her than she wanted him to. "How many boulders have you ma.s.saged?"

If his goal was to help her relax, he wasn't going to achieve it, Denise thought. There was absolutely no way she could relax around him, not when his hands were sending shock waves through her system like this.

"None," he said cheerfully. "Until now."

"Well, don't waste your time." Denise tried to turn away, but found that she wasn't going anywhere. He wouldn't let her. Instead he continued methodically working on her shoulders. Despite herself, Denise could feel some of the knots loosening. And it felt wonderful.

"I'll decide if my time's being wasted or not," he informed her mildly. "Just stay put. Maybe you'd rather sit down."

She didn't trust her knees to work again once she sat down. "Standing is fine."

What wasn't fine was what was happening. Will was turning her into liquid, she realized in alarm. Pure liquid.

Heated liquid.

Self-preservation kicked in. This time when she shrugged Will off, she stepped away from him as well. For safety's sake, she fortified herself with a deep breath before saying anything.

"I think that's enough."

Will grinned. If he didn't miss his guess, the lady was as affected by his touching her as he was. "If you say so."

"I say so," she reiterated emphatically. Not that it wasn't pleasurable, but she knew the danger in letting herself absorb that kind of pleasure. And where it would lead.

He looked toward the house. It was late. "Want to turn in?"

Denise shook her head, not wanting to be confined just yet. She knew she'd probably only spend the night tossing and turning. And worrying. "I won't be able to sleep."

"All right, care to go for a walk?"

The suggestion struck her as odd. Denise was accustomed to parking her trailer on the outskirts of a town or a city. There was usually at least one place to go. Here there was nothing but land and sky.

"Where's there to walk?"

He grinned, putting out his hand to her. "Everywhere."

She hesitated, then after a beat, she placed her hand in his.

And fervently hoped she wouldn't regret it.

Will took her to the clearing that was just behind what Morgan liked to refer to as the backyard. When he was a lot younger, he used to enjoy coming out here to think and clear his mind.

With no external distractions to capture her attention, Denise found the darkness that wrapped around her soothing. When she sighed, it felt as if she'd been holding her breath all evening.

"Seems to me that you've shouldered a great deal."

There were times she felt as if it was too much, but she always managed. Giving up was the alternative and she hated quitters.

"I can handle it. I have so far." And she prayed that Time wouldn't prove her a liar.

She had a young daughter to raise, an ailing father to care for and a business to run single-handedly, Will mentally listed. He knew people who would be overwhelmed by less. "Maybe you could take on a partner."

Denise laughed softly. "No one in his right mind would buy into the business."

Not that she could do anything by committee. She didn't have the patience for that. As long as she could remember, she'd always just forged ahead and done things. And her father had let her.

"The market for the independent provider is shrinking at a breathtaking speed." She set her mouth hard as she thought of the last dealing she'd had with the head of Zenith Rides. "There are organizations that do this sort of thing now, lease rides to country fairs and carnivals. I have to hustle for every contract, every deal." She couldn't help the bitter edge in her voice. There were times she did feel bitter. "It doesn't matter that we've always provided the rides. Someone comes along with a lower price, a better deal-" she shrugged helplessly "-they have us beat."

She glanced toward him and saw that he actually looked interested. Denise knew she was talking too much, but right now, it seemed to help steady her nerves.

"And then there's the cost of maintaining these rides, making sure they're safe. An organization can readily afford any problem it might run into, say, replacing a ride, putting out for an expensive repair. I can't." She shook her head, thinking of what the last premium had cost her. "An organization doesn't blink at the insurance costs that are involved. I not only blink, I shudder."

"So, what's the alternative?"

The question rubbed on a sore spot. "I don't have one." At least, not one she wanted to think about. "So I just go on."

She struck him as far too intelligent not to be taking all contingencies into consideration. "You've got to have an alternate plan."

"No, I don't," she insisted. Who was he to b.u.t.t in, anyway? This was her problem, her life, not his. Why was he making noises as if he cared? If she started believing that, once he was out of her life, she'd have a hard time coping. "That way, I don't waste any necessary time or energy on it." She read his expression and could guess what he thought of her philosophy. "Maybe that's narrow of me, but like I said, we get by."

She deserved to do more than just get by. "How about your father's operation?"

Annoyance burrowed out a little further. "You let me worry about that."

The woman was incredible. "You're determined to bite every hand that's held out to you in friendship, aren't you?"

He was smiling at her, but he was judging her, nonetheless, Denise thought, and she didn't like it Not one bit.

"Never knew an open hand yet that wasn't ready to close around something, take something from you when you weren't looking."

He stopped walking and looked at her. "And what do you think I'll take from you?"

"Nothing, because you won't get the chance." Her eyes dared him to even try.

Will studied her face for a long moment. "He hurt you that much?"

Denise tossed her head, pretending indifference. "Who?"

The hour was late and he didn't want to play any games. "You know who. Audra's father."

She blocked out the memory and the pain. That was in her past and she refused to revisit it. The only thing she wanted to do was learn from it. "He didn't hurt me at all. I hurt him."

It was a lie she didn't believe, Will thought, but if it helped her pride to think that he did, there was no harm in it. "I can believe it."

It gave Denise a certain sense of triumph to realize that she could read him like a book. But she didn't care for what she saw on the page. "You're making fun of me."

There was no way to approach this woman without getting her hackles up, Will thought. "Why? Because I said I believed you?"

She hated having her intelligence insulted this way. "Because you don't believe me."

Will looked past his own annoyance. If ever there was a soul in need of comforting, that was hurting, it was hers. He put his arms around her and refused to let her shrug him away, or break out of his hold. He looked down into her face.

"I can understand a man hurting inside when you left him. Hurting so bad that it feels like a knife being stuck into him and twisted slowly. I can understand a man falling so in love with you that he can't think of anything else except wanting you, wanting to make love with you over and over again until nothing else makes sense except having you."

Denise could feel his words, his breath, along her skin. Penetrating her heart. She fought desperately against the feeling. "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

She pressed her lips together, suddenly feeling as if she was going to cry. She did best under adversity, not kindness. Kindness only undermined her and made her melt. "Stop confusing me."

He touched her cheek, cupping it. "How am I confusing you, Denny? Tell me."

One by one, the words seemed to slowly float out of her mouth. "You make me want..."

When she stopped, he coaxed, "What, Denny, what do I make you want?"

It was hard to talk. The words were all sticking to the roof of her mouth. "That's just it, you make me want...and I know I can't..." She looked away. When she looked back at him, her eyes were blazing. "d.a.m.n you, Will Cutler, you're messing with my mind."

Will was relieved to hear that. He was beginning to entertain the suspicion that he was dealing with a complete robot.

"And a lovely mind it is, too." He gathered her more closely into his arms until there was very little room between them. "Almost as lovely as your eyes." Lightly he brushed his lips over each lid as they fluttered shut before him. "Almost as lovely as your throat" He pressed a kiss to the slender, long column, noting with pleasure that the pulse there all but danced before him. "But not nearly as lovely as your lips," he whispered just before he kissed her.

Flares. This time, there were definite flares, Denise realized. Flares going off when he kissed her. She was sure of it. Flares that signaled she was in desperate need of help. Help to withstand this onslaught by a man who had no business being in her life. A man who would only complicate things for her.

A man who already had complicated things for her.

Unable to help herself, she rose on her toes, her tired body coming alive as she melted against his.

She felt like a nomad in the desert, finally finding the elusive oasis just minutes before she was about to expire.

Denise drank deeply and let it sustain her, all the while knowing that, at best, it was all just a mirage.

7.

He drew back and Denise immediately felt as if she was in the middle of parachuting out of a plane when someone had s.n.a.t.c.hed the chute away from her. Suddenly she was plummeting to earth alone and unaided. Unprotected.

Shaken to the bottom of his toes, Will held her face in his hands, gazing at it and desperately trying to get his bearings.

If he wasn't careful...

That was it, he was always careful. Of all the Cutlers, he was the most careful, the most practical. The most clearheaded. And yet, this was still happening. He still felt as if he was being turned on his head. Or maybe he was standing upright and the rest of the world had been turned upside down.

Being practical didn't seem to guarantee any sort of immunity against this woman and what she was doing to him. He'd never felt so out of touch with his own sense of control before, as if he had no say in what was happening to him. He'd begun to think that he was never going to have any pa.s.sionate feelings about a woman, that there would never be one who would leave him wanting.

To discover that he'd been wrong was gratifying. It was also more than a little unsettling to suddenly find himself feeling like an adolescent at the age of thirty-three.

"You are one lethal woman, Denise Cavanaugh. You leave me shaken and stirred."

She hadn't seen many movies in her life, but the line was common enough for even her to recognize. It attested to a preference James Bond had. "Like a martini?"

Will smiled, nodding. Wanting to caress her. Wanting to take her right here beneath the stars. Naturally. Like breathing.

But there was nothing natural or soothing about the way he felt. The song about holding onto a tiger by the tail drifted through his mind.

"That would be you," he agreed. "Very heady stuff." He toyed with her hair, slowly sifting a lock of it between his thumb and forefinger. "I'd better take you back before I lose what little sense you've left me."

Inadvertently he'd used almost the exact words that David had once said to her. The sweetness that was reaching out to her was swept away by the bristles of a hard-learned lesson.

Denise stiffened when Will tried to touch her face again.

"And I've got no say in what's happening? You'll just sweep me off my feet and expect me to be blown away by you like some curled up little leaf in the middle of autumn?"

He hadn't a clue where this was coming from, or why. He could only guess that he'd unwittingly triggered a bad memory. He was beginning to hate Andra's father, sight unseen.

"I'm not expecting anything," he retorted, losing his battle with patience before he'd even realized he was engaged in the conflict. "Least of all to have you jump on me when I'm trying to pay you a compliment."

Trying. He was forcing himself to sweet-talk her, Denise realized. Just like David had. And the worst part of it was that it was working. She knew it was because she felt so alone right now, so worried, but that didn't help her block her attraction to Will or stop the feeling from taking possession of her.