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scenarios racing through his mind. Combined with the way she caught her lower lip between her teeth when she didn't know he was looking, he'd be lucky to manage not to shoot his foot off.
    Ray passed him a Styrofoam cup filled with muddy looking sludge that might or might not be coffee. A horse kicked at its stall down the alley and the old man frowned. "Miss Kate, will you come look at the bay with me?"
    "The bay? What's wrong with him?" Her genuine surprise made Jakob take a closer look at the old man, but the wizened face gave nothing away.
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    Kate hurried down the alley, anxious to see about the horse even if it did hate her. She needed to get the hunt talk out of the way and make her own intentions clear, but that would wait for a sick horse any day.
    A glance in the stall door showed the horse contentedly munching his hay. "Ray, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong."
    The old foreman sighed. "No, there isn't, Miss Kate. Leastways not with the horse. That boy there has a look in his eye I don't like. I don't want you going. Send one of the boys instead."
    Kate drew a deep slow breath through her nostrils to keep from cursing. Of all the people she might expect something like that from, Ray was probably the last. "What do you mean, a look in his eye?"
    "You going to make me say it? Dammit, Kate, the boy is a tom cat on the prowl. You don't need to be around that kind of thing."
    Shock froze her for an instant. "What?"
    Ray shook his head. "I wish your daddy was here, but since he ain't, I have to look out for you. That boy is the kind good girls cry over. He wants nothing but to take advantage of a girl like you, Kate. You can't go on this hunt."
    It was only when the tang of blood registered that Kate realized how hard she'd bitten her lip in an effort to stay quiet through her fury. "Ray, I'm going to pretend this conversation never happened. But for your information, I might just want to be taken advantage of for a change." Spinning on her heel wasn't a great idea, ever, but nearly ended with her in a pile on the ground in that moment.
    Recovered, she stomped back to the cross alley and flung herself onto the seat at Jakob's side again. Nosy old bastard. As if the state of her virtue was any of his business.
    "Problem?" The firm line of Jakob's mouth commanded all her attention for a moment and left her glad to be sitting. Otherwise, her knees would have dropped her right at his feet.
    Kate forced a rueful smile. "Just a misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about." If only it were that simple. Ray, and likely the rest of the crew, considered her one of those girls, unmarriageable, unworthy, unable, un-fucking-anything. And no doubt Jakob put her in that category too, and his seeming interest was only fleeting, and only because she happened to be female. Every ounce of her willpower focused on pushing back the heartrending despair that threatened to envelope her. She had no time for that shit.
    At least Ray was smart enough not to follow her directly back to the cross-alley. He would have regretted it, for sure.
    "Hey," the gentle pressure of Jakob's finger on her jaw insisted she look at him, "You okay?"
    Of course, he would catch her in a moment of weakness. It simply confirmed Ray's suspicion he was a 'tom cat', a man who wanted nothing more than lots of sex with lots of different women. That sort always knew when and how to be sweet and get past a woman's guard.
    He trailed that soft touch along her jaw and down her neck, raising the temperature to all sorts of illegal heights. "Tell me. I'm betting it involves me, and some of those interesting things I'd like to show you."
    The truth bolted from her throat and blew through the gates of her lips to prove her foolishness. "He thinks I can't handle myself."
    He tilted his head a little. "And can you?" The finger continued to stroke the column of her neck.
    Again, the truth ran away from her, while her mind was occupied with the various