She dipped into the cool water again, this time letting it run in rivulets down between her breasts and over her stomach. Her muscles clenched in sensual delight. God, she missed the simple pleasures of life on her gramma’s Virginia farm. Swimming in the pond, clean feather beds, riding old Dancer, eating anything but biscuits and beans.

Gregory.

The memory of the boy from the farm next door made her smile. She’d let him kiss her once. That had felt glorious, too.

Slowly, the stream water dripped down through her fingers and over her body. She let out a gasp when a cold drop landed on her sensitive nipple. The impertinent bud beaded up and begged for more.

Mmmm. Yes, like that. It had felt exactly like that when Gregory had pressed his lips to hers. She’d quickened then, too, and would have begged for more. But the polecat had just chucked her under the chin and gone looking for her sister, Alyssa.

Not that she blamed him, she thought with a sigh. Alyssa had always been the pretty one. The feminine one. Sally was the tomboy. What they called ‘sassy,’ for lack of a more flattering term.

She closed her eyes and grinned. Well, that was just fine by her. She was the clean one now, and Alyssa was cowering back at the wagon, safely ensconced in two weeks’ worth of dirt and grime, scared witless by Ernie Tompkins’ campfire stories about a war party of Arapaho renegades which he claimed roamed this part of the Territory.

She snorted. Like Ernie Tompkins would know anything about wild Indians.

The water lapped peacefully against the granite softly echoing through the forest, and she pushed out a breath. How would she ever make herself quit this green, tranquil Eden to go back to the clouds of dust, the ever-present smell of ox manure, and the eternal squeaking of ungreased wagon wheels?

But go she must. The wagon train waited for no one, and she didn’t want to have to kill herself running back to the Tompkins’ covered wagon before it got too far ahead of her.

She sat up and raked her fingers through her hair to comb out the worst tangles the breeze had woven into it as it dried. Suddenly there was a sharp snap of a twig behind her.  She spun around.

And froze in terror.  Holy mother of God!

An Indian! On a horse, holding a rifle on his buckskin-clad knee, feathers flying from his long, black hair, and red war paint slashed across his face. A warrior, who was staring at her naked body in a way that told her men were men, regardless of the clothes they wore or the color of their skin.

Her heart slammed into her throat. She tried to cover herself with her hands, biting down hard to keep from screaming. Screeching like a ninny would accomplish nothing. She had to use her wits to get herself out of this.

Fingering a thin rope slung bandoleer-style around one of his shoulders, the warrior urged his horse a step toward her.

She scrambled to the back edge of her stony perch. “Don’t come any closer!” She held up a hand to show what she meant.

Again, the warrior’s dark eyes raked over her body, paused at her upheld hand, then drilled into hers. Her blood thundered in her ears as they regarded each other silently.

He sat tall and proud on the colorfully woven blanket that served as his saddle. His broad chest gleamed smooth and bronze under a peculiar covering designed of pipe-beads and quills. The thighs that hugged his painted horse’s sides were powerful, every corded muscle emphasized by the supple leather leggings covering them. A long knife was sheathed at his hip. She shivered, instinctively reacting to the man’s raw virility—and her own vulnerability.

Maybe she could reason with him. “There’s a wagon train just over there,” she said, trying to quell the shakes in her voice. “They’ll hear me scream. And they’ll kill you if they find you this close. Go away and I won’t say a thing about seeing you here.”

He didn’t even blink. It occurred to her that, even if he understood what she was saying, he no doubt knew exactly where the wagon train was, and that there was no way in hell anyone would hear her if she screamed. The little courage she had scattered completely when he holstered his rifle, slid lithely from the horse and started moving toward her.