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been tugging at
her doll’s little cardinal locks as a child might, and suddenly she
felt small and powerless.
    The scene struck Drake as odd. Gone
was the confident, brazen beauty he’d met hours earlier,
transformed into this still lovely, yet somehow timid, creature
before him now. She seemed unsure of herself, like an innocent, he
realized.
    Drake considered the picture she now
presented, eyeing her from head to toe—dressed in little more than
a dressing robe, which did little to conceal her curves, he
struggled to comprehend the dichotomy.
    He let his gaze linger on Sierra’s
long agile legs, the ones spread over him at the bar, he recalled
vividly. She still possessed her feminine wiles. The thought of her
delicate body lying beneath his had made him eager. But now she
resembled a skittish little girl who made him reluctantly
apprehensive. He despairingly laughed at himself for not knowing
how to handle this woman.
    “ You find me amusing, Mr.
McCalister?” Sierra questioned, trying to sound like her normal
self. Drake made her feel quite jittery and she was annoyed with
the way he had suddenly laughed.
    “ I didn’t mean to
offend you. I’d do anything but bedevil you.” Drake’s eyes showed
his sincerity. “If you don’t mind me asking, why don’t you tell me
more about you? ”
    “ I do mind, Mr. McCalister,
however you paid so handsomely for me to talk, so I’ll tell you
whatever you wish to hear. What about the story of my life?” She
expertly tossed her hair behind her shoulders. Lifting it with her
hands, she began twirling it above her head into a bun, hoping that
the style would make her look less appealing. She slid to the
furthest corner of her bed while Drake cautiously moved to sit at
the other end.
    Every muscle in his body tensed while
he watched her at an angle. He barely could withstand the
smoothness of her arms above her head, and he wanted to trail
kisses along the soft contour of her neck. The glimpse he had of
her ample left breast while she looped her hair in circles, nearly
made him reach out and grab her. He was sure that she didn’t notice
this brief exposure.
    “ I’ve lived in this town
all my life. I barely recall my parents. My father left when I was
only three years old, just before my brother, Kyle, was born. My
mother died of yellow fever a few months after his birth.” Sierra’s
eyes never left his while she spoke.
    Her openness was unexpected, but
refreshing. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Drake exhaled.
    “ Don’t be. Like I said, I
didn’t know my parents well. In fact, I know very little of them.
Most of what I know I’ve heard from townsfolk.” Sierra examined
Drake intensely. Her green eyes darted flaming arrows.
    Anytime Sierra asked William about her
parents, he avoided her questions or changed the subject. And when
she turned to Adrienne for answers she found the madam equally
tight lipped, leaving her utterly frustrated.
    Sierra was so desperate for details
concerning her parents that she’d even asked the town midwife, whom
she learned had delivered her. The midwife claimed that she could
not remember anything of her mother or father, but Sierra believed
that she was not being completely forthcoming. And when William
found out that she had been asking questions about her parents of
the townsfolk, he told her in no uncertain terms, to leave the past
dead and buried. Sierra didn’t know what she hated most about
William, his government over her life or his expectation for her to
remain blissfully ignorant.
    “ Where is your brother,
now?” Drake inquired politely, interrupting Sierra’s
thoughts.
    “ My brother Kyle... oh he’s
around. He works as a bartender at Wil’s saloon. He would have been
there tonight mixing drinks with Leon, but he disappeared with that
married tart, Claudine, almost as soon as she stepped foot into the
place.”
    Drake caught a flash of anger in her
eyes and something more—melancholy perhaps, he thought, staring