He knew he must be mad, because he had that urge to kiss her again. Mad, angry. Mad, crazy, too.

“So,” she said, tapping her foot, “talk.”

She had a watch on and she glanced at it pointedly, to let him know her middle-of-the-night time was doled out thriftily. The cascading hair had not changed her tone of voice, nor her snippy attitude.

He said, with deliberate slowness, enunciating each word, “You didn’t come here checking out your sister’s lost loves.” It was a statement, not a question, and she knew it.

Whatever sleepiness was left her in face was replaced by wariness. “And your theory is?” she asked tartly.

“She had a baby.” That wasn’t a question, either. “My baby.”

He saw the answer written in her face. The color drained from it so rapidly he thought she might faint. She stood frozen, her eyes huge and frightened.

In delayed reaction to his earlier decibel level, the light blinked on in the motel office. Some instinct for self-preservation made him take her shoulders. He guided her backward, inside the cabin. Then he closed the door and leaned on it.

“Boy or girl?” he asked, ice-cold.

“Boy,” she whispered.

“I want to see my son. Get dressed. Because we are leaving right now.”

“We are not going anywhere,” Tally said, finding her voice, and trying desperately to insert a note of steel into it. If this man ever got the upper hand, there would be no going back.

Though it must have been a mark of the lateness of the night, and the shock of his springing his newfound knowledge on her, that she could not think of what was so attractive about her life that she would need to go back to it.

J.D. glared at her, his eyes dark and challenging in the dim light of her room. She could see the strength and resolve in those eyes, and it occurred to her that there would be no winning a battle of wills with this man.

When she lost the staring contest, she dropped her eyes. Unfortunately, his shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open, revealing the broad and magnificent landscape of his chest. It occurred to her that she had seen more of J.D.’s chest than Herbert’s, which was unseemly, given that she was planning an intimate lifelong relationship with Herbert. She shivered.

J.D. was a magnificent specimen of a man, and the anger that sizzled in the air around him did nothing to reduce his attraction. She could feel the power of him, vital and exciting, but that was exactly the type of thing that turned a woman’s head, clouded her thinking. Being drawn to the unknown mysteries of a man was precisely the type of impulse that had gotten Elana into trouble again and again and again.

“Get dressed,” he snapped, obviously mistaking her befuddlement for weakness. “And get packed.”

She folded her arms over her chest. She could feel how rapidly her heart was beating, as if her very survival was being threatened by him taking control of her. But she wasn’t going to let him know that she was thrilled and frightened in turn by this extraordinary twist in her plan.

“No,” she said, giving herself a mental pat on the back for her calm tone. “You will have to haul me out of here, kicking and screaming.” He seemed unmoved by that threat, and so she tacked on, “And won’t that make a fine front page for the Dancer Daily News.”

He leaned very close to her. She could feel his breath on her cheek, and it was warm and sensuous and dangerous. His eyes had a steely glint in them that did not bode well for her.

“I’ll take that as a challenge, if you like,” he said, his voice deceptively soft. “It wouldn’t bother me one little bit to toss you over my shoulder and carry you out of here. You don’t look like you’d weigh more than a sack of spuds. And I’m not worried about the Dancer Daily.”

“That is not what you said earlier,” she reminded him pertly.

“I was a different man then. My whole world has changed since then.”

It felt like her whole world was shifting dangerously, too. She had to hold on to reason! She was always the one who made the plans, who knew what to do, who took charge. Surrendering was not an option.

Still, she tried a less aggressive stance. She softened her tone, touched his arm. “Could we be reasonable adults, here? There is no reason this can’t wait until morning.”

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