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Wichita where you belong!”
    His words snapped her out of the thrill that had gradually enveloped her emotions, and her temper got away from her. “They didn’t name me Cayenne for nothing!” she said, and before he realized what she was up to, she turned her head and sank her teeth in his thigh right at the knee.
    “By damn!” He jumped up, rubbing at his leg, looking down at her. “What’re you tryin’ to do? You bite like a coyote bitch!”
    Cayenne scrambled to her feet. “It’s all a damned Yankee sympathizer deserves,” she sniffed, pushing the tumble of hair out of her eyes.
    He attempted to pull his pants leg up to see the bite but the pants were too narrow.
    Had she really hurt him? She felt sudden concern. “Here, let me look.”
    He brushed her away. “No, you’ve done enough damage. I swear, I knew it was gonna be a rotten day when I first got out of my bedroll. If you were a man—”
    “I know, that saloon girl said you would have killed me already.” Her curiosity got the best of her. “Is that girl good at what she does?”
    “What?” He stopped and looked at her. “That’s no question for a lady.”
    Cayenne came over, looking up at him with frank interest. “I’d still like to hire you.”
    “Haven’t we been over this before just a couple of hours ago back in town?”
    She could tell by his expression that he was looking right down into the open neck of her shirt. She wore nothing beneath it. “I’ve offered eighteen dollars and twenty-five cents. That’s almost a month’s pay for a trail hand.”
    His expression changed to one of desire. His eyes turned smoky gray like campfire ashes shielding banked coals. She felt the color rise to her cheeks but she made no move to button her shirt.
    “Lady,” he murmured, “I’m the trail boss. I come higher than that.”
    Cayenne couldn’t stop looking at his lips, remembering the taste of them, remembering the embrace of his powerful arms. Behind him thunderheads built on the horizon, the pair of eagles whirling and screaming above them in a sky the color of faded denim.
    He looked up at them and his expression changed, as if he were remembering some other time, some other place. He whispered something she didn’t understand.
    “What?”
    “Eagle’s Flight,” he said softly in English, still watching the majestic birds wheeling in lazy circles overhead. Then he shook his head abruptly, as if chasing away some memory that hurt too much, and looked back at her. “Just what in the world am I supposed to do with you now, Cayenne?”
    Kiss me . The words came to her mind unbidden as she stood looking up at him. But she said, “I—I don’t know. We’re a long way from town. Maybe I could ride along with you and we’ll talk about it?”
    Kiss me , her heart said again, and he looked at her as if he’d heard it. The blood pounded so hard through her veins she wondered if she heard that, too. He moved close enough for her to feel the virile heat radiated by his muscular body.
    “Maverick,” she whispered, her hand going up to cover her heaving breasts. “Maverick, I—”
    She went into his arms then without realizing it, just because they opened for her, and her lips turned up to his as his mouth covered hers, demanding, dominating.
    His tongue probed hotly between her lips as her head tilted backward, and his big hands burned through the thin fabric of her clothes as he pulled her hard against him.
    Cayenne ran her hands around his neck into the open throat of his shirt. She couldn’t stop herself from pressing against him all the way down their bodies, and she felt his hard manhood pulsating against her. She was both afraid and excited, and suddenly she trembled violently.
    He held her out from him at arm’s length, breathing heavily. “I—I must be loco! To even think about tumbling you in the grass like some cheap whore!”
    She felt the blood rush to her face at her own unchecked, innocent passion. “Well, if we’re