“Do not speak of her, Tamar.”
“Ah, the fierce growl.” She laughed softly. “Why should I not speak of her? The others do. They all love her, the little helpless one.” She drew her long nail down his cheek. “Do you love her, too? Do you dream of her useless legs coming to life and wrapping around you in the night? Do you imagine living in her big house in the city, with a fine lady’s golden collar about your neck, or do you think she will follow you to rut in the woods like a beast?”
He grasped her wrist and pulled it away. “No.”
“Men are children,” she said in that same calm, passionless voice. “They want only what they cannot have or what will make them sick in the belly. She will make you sick. And when you have need of the cure, come to me.”
She left him, gliding away without a single seductive glance. And a strange sensation washed through him, startling in its truth.
He was sorry for Tamar. He pitied her and her inexplicable obsession with him. He wondered what had made her what she was, and why she saw in him, of all men, a cure for her private pain.
Was this what humans called compassion? Had Athena taught him its meaning?
He wanted no part of it. He began to walk again, hardly knowing which direction he was headed. Tamar was just like the others, aiming to bend him to her desires.
He found himself at the end of the hall, where it opened up into the great parlor. The place echoed with emptiness, not quite as grand as the public rooms of Athena’s Denver home, but large enough to hold a pair of average cabins or an ordinary farmhouse within its high walls. The wooden floor and rustic embellishments did little to make it seem less palatial. Padded and polished furniture was grouped around sumptuous woven carpets and a thick bearskin rug. The hearth was immense, its perpetual blaze constantly fed with the trunks of small trees.
The parlor’s door stood open to the entrance hall. Snow blew in from the outer doors. Athena wheeled in, one of the ranch hands behind her with a pair of carpetbags.
Athena loosened the collar of her thick wool coat. “Please set the bags down anywhere, Sterling,” she said to the hand. “I would appreciate it if you will make sure that my driver is given a meal and a bed for the night.”
“I’ll do my best, Miss Athena,” Sterling said, dropping the bags onto the floor, “but it’s mighty crowded here what with the circus folk and all. The foreman ain’t none too happy with the tight quarters at the bunkhouse and them trick horses in the barn, and I hear Mr. Durant is thinking of quitting—begging your pardon, ma’am.”
Athena smiled, tugging at her gloves. “Poor Mr. Durant. For many years all he has done is keep the house in readiness for guests that seldom arrive. I will be certain to tell him and the foreman that they will be very well compensa—”
She saw Morgan and stopped. Morgan was vaguely aware that Sterling had vacated the room, leaving them alone. Athena continued to stare, her lips slightly parted, and Morgan felt as if he had been shot, skinned, and hung on the wall for a trophy.
He had told Caitlin that he could leave any time and never look back. He had lied. He could not make himself move a single step away from the woman across the room.
“Morgan,” she whispered.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, the old saw proclaimed. Now Athena understood exactly what it meant. One look at Morgan, standing so still by the hall, and she knew her coming had been inevitable. One breath of the air he breathed, and she wondered how her heart had continued to beat in the cold void of their separation.
A thrill of almost painful sensation shot up her legs from heel to hip. Morgan’s eyes burned, compelling her. Commanding.
Come. Come to me.
It was as if he had been calling every moment of the past five weeks, and only now did she truly hear him. Her fingers clutched at the arms of her chair. The muscles in her legs, so long dormant, began to quiver and twitch.