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anger. When his blue eyes opened again, they were as cold as the metal of the gun in her hands.
    “Either shoot me, woman, or put down the gun. I’m not planning on spending the rest of my life looking down a barrel.”
    Anna didn’t understand his reaction. Why wasn’t he afraid of being shot? Was the man she’d married completely out of his mind? Had the bump he’d suffered damaged his reasoning?
    “You’ll spend the rest of your life in the next minute if you don’t tell me what you’ve done to me.”
    “I didn’t do anything to you.” His voice was still cold, as his eyes bored into her.
    Fighting tears, Anna tried to steady the gun. “I told you I’d kill you if you ever touched me.” She gripped the weapon with both hands.
    “Then kill me now,” he shouted, “and stop torturing me!”
    It took a moment for Anna to follow his stare and look down. Her breasts were rising and falling with each breath and the ties of her camisole had become loosened, leaving the material curving softly to her body. She was revealing more of her flesh to this stranger than any man had ever seen. A blush warmed her cheeks as she looked up to see Chance move his eyes from her to the fire, and for a moment she thought the fire in his gaze equaled that of the flames.
    With forced slowness he knelt down and threw another log on the blaze as calmly as though they were talking about nothing more important than the weather. Anna watched him in confusion. Was he totally without remorse for what he’d done? Or were his crimes only in her mind?
    Outside a bolt of lightning flashed, lighting the entrance for a moment with a blinding white flash. The horse jerked against his ropes, fraying Anna’s nerves as she glanced toward the animal.
    In the second her eyes were turned, Chance skirted the fire and stepped up beside her. His fingers closed over the gun and twisted it from her grip with one mighty jerk. Then his arm pulled her against him so violently that Anna felt the air leave her lungs.
    As he held her against him, he hissed into her hair, “Don’t ever point a gun at a man again unless you’re planning to shoot him.”
    Anna felt the hot tears welling in her eyes. “I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to me.”
    His hands gripped her shoulders with bruising force, and he pushed her away from him and against the cave wall, preventing any attack she might plan. “I’ve done nothing to you. Nothing!” Anger twisted his features and his eyes turned the blue of an icy ocean bottom. “And if I ever do, it will not be when you’re ill, but when you’re out of your head with a fever I’ve stoked.”
    Twisting violently, Anna felt his body press harder against her, flattening her breasts against a wall of muscle. The pounding of his heart raged against her own chest. With a sudden jolt she realized it was the same pounding warmth she remembered clinging to when she was so cold.
    His warm breath came in gasps against her cheek. “If I ever touch you, it will be because you’ve come willingly to me.”
    “Never!” Anna turned her head away. Never would she go willingly to a man. She closed her eyes, fighting back the memory of that night on the ship when William had come to her bed. He’d whispered how sorry he was to have to rape her a second time, then he’d stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth to muffle her cries. The first time he’d been drunk, but on board the ship he’d known what he was doing and he hadn’t cared that he was breaking an oath he’d made to her. The first time, Anna hadn’t wanted to believe any man could be so truly evil, but the second time William had taken her, she’d let shatter any such childish thoughts. Never would a man touch her like that again.
    Chance ran his fingers through her hair and pulled her face within an inch of his own. “Never is a long time. Almost as long as a year.”
    Her emerald green eyes met his smoky gaze. “If you live that long.”
    Chance’s sudden