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to her? She tugged on her buckskin tunic over the wool shirt. Her shaky fingers cinched the ties.
    Ira had warned her about the violent intentions of randy men. He claimed she was his woman to those they encountered to keep her safe from such advances, but she hadn’t always traveled with Ira. She’d been chased more than once by men with such intentions to hold her down and hurt her—they’d never caught her.
    Keeping her gaze on Garret, she slid her foot into a tall moccasin. She should have left him in the snow! Shot him, and then left him in the snow!
    After lacing both boots she stuffed the bottom of her shirt into her pants. His coloring had returned. The light hair on his legs stood out against the darker skin beneath. Her gaze trailed across his bare backside.
    The heated swirls he’d conjured rose up, stealing her breath.
    She strapped her arms around her trembling middle and realized her belt and knife were missing.
    Her gaze landed on her belt hanging from the bedpost.
    Why hadn’t she reached for her blade?
    Boots stood up in the corner and stretched. The black shaggy dog trotted toward her and bumped her leg. Keeping her gaze on Garret, she reached down to pat the dog’s head.
    “What’s the matter with him?” she whispered. How could he still be sleeping when her pulse hammered erratically from the things he’d done to her?
    He hadn’t actually hurt her. He’d kissed her, in ways she’d never imagined a man would kiss a woman. Her teeth clamped down on her trembling lower lip. The memory of his mouth on her breast, his tongue moving against hers added to the violent stir of her pulse. His touch had been tender, his kisses…overwhelming. She recalled the time Morgan and his bride had invaded her old cabin some years back. She hadn’t meant to watch them; she’d been mesmerized by their gentle embraces and tender kisses as Morgan had convinced Cora to marry him.
    No wonder they seemed to enjoy themselves. Kissing Garret so intimately…She drew a deep, ragged breath and had to wonder if a man would have courted her with such tenderness, had she been allowed to grow into the proper lady her father always believed she’d become.
    Bitter sentiment squelched the thought.
    She wasn’t some gentile lady full of ignorant fanciful notions. She didn’t entertain suitors. At twenty-seven she was well into spinsterhood and had put such notions behind her. Garret Daines had no call to touch her in such a manner!
    He continued to lie there, his back rising slightly with his deep, even breaths. Could a man put his mouth on her one moment and be unconscious the next?
    She moved toward the bed. His dog stayed beside her.
    “Garret?”
    He didn’t stir. Her stomach dipped at the sight of his sleeping face and flushed lips. Far too handsome. She stepped closer. Heat radiated off his body. She touched his shoulder. His skin fairly scalded her hand. He moaned at her touch.
    He’s raging with fever.
    “Garret?”
    When he didn’t respond, she reached over him, grabbed her belt and quickly strapped it around her waist. She picked up one of the blankets he’d knocked to the floor and draped it over the firm slope of his bare backside. Fever or not, her sensibilities could only handle so much.
    “Thaw him out to cool him off,” she muttered on her way to the door. Outside she was stunned to discover nighttime encroaching on a stormy gray sky. She’d slept nearly the whole day.
    A short while later she was packing snow into the embroidered hand towels she’d intended to sell. Garret moaned in his sleep as she placed them over his superheated body but didn’t fully rouse. The snow melted quickly against his shoulders and the back of his neck. As she swabbed his flushed skin with the cool cloth a troubling thought increased the unease welling inside her.
    He’d been out of his mind with fever, and she’d nearly succumbed to his hallucinations. He’d called her beautiful and she’d lost her mind right along