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the mood for conversation. And actually I was just leaving. I wanted to head back to my cabin. It’s getting a little chilly. Maybe time for a jacket.”
    “Yeah, there’s a chill, all right.” He stopped directly in front of her, still holding a rein from the closest bridle in one hand. “And I’m sure it’s hard to chitchat when you’re working on keeping your story straight.”
    The look in his eyes wasn’t just anger, it was betrayal, and that could only mean one thing. “You had a chitchat with Lamar?”
    Logan smiled, but not in a nice way. She tried to smile back but failed, because she felt too sick to manage. Eyeing the tack room door wistfully, she wondered whether she had a chance at making a break for it, literally running away from her problems. Getting into her car and disappearing into the night.
    “An enlightening talk, one might say.” He took one of her hands in his and, before she could protest, wrapped her wrist snugly with the end of the rein and tucked in the tail to secure the loops against her skin. The well-used leather tied well enough to hold her, and the bridle was on a high hook. She couldn’t reach it, and couldn’t jerk it down without damaging it. The disconnect between this setting and the one where she was usually tied up was beyond unsettling. Her heart pounded, and instead of the outrage she knew she ought to feel, she felt a delicious slide of arousal low in her belly.
    “Hey. Um, okay. Wh—whatcha doing?”
    Logan caught her other wrist up in a halter lead he’d snatched from one of the nearby hooks. It didn’t hold quite as tight as the rein on the other side, but once he’d looped it around the shelf bracket by her shoulder, it did well enough. He’d roped and tied her as quickly and efficiently as an errant calf he needed to brand, albeit with leather and nylon instead of a lasso. His shirtsleeves were rolled back, revealing muscular forearms that flexed as he secured her. Mindy’s mind, primed for kink, offered an image of Logan hog-tying her. Not helpful .
    “You had a look in your eye like you were fixing to bolt. I’m just making sure you stay put,” he explained, placing his hands on the wall just over her shoulders and leaning in until he was talking right next to her ear. “While we chitchat . Wouldn’t want you running off to your cabin for a jacket, or suddenly remembering a work phone call you had to make, or anything like that. Lamar is up at the house helping Robert out with cleanup, and everybody else has headed back to their cabins. Gives us some nice, uninterrupted private time.”
    “Oh.” Her voice was a tiny, pathetic thing, which was about right considering how she felt. Miserable, mortified . . . weirdly and inappropriately turned on by Logan’s sudden shift from cowboy-next-door to dangerous outlaw. Every puff of his breath against her neck sent shivers down her spine. He could tie her to the railroad tracks and— no, no, stop all that, Mindy, pull yourself together .
    “I’ll untie you if you tell me to, because otherwise I’d be breaking the law. But somehow I don’t think you’ll tell me to. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time, one last time. What brings you here, Miss Valek?”
    She exhaled with an unintended whimper. “A sincere desire to get back in touch with my roots?”
    “You’ll forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”
    He pulled back just far enough to stare directly at her, his glare uncompromising. Mindy wasn’t physically intimidated. In fact, she was sure if she asked, he would untie her just as he’d said he would, and let her leave immediately. She was also sure if that happened, she would never see Logan again. That prospect already seemed unimaginable to her.
    “I came here for work, because I knew my boss wanted your mineral rights. I was trying to prove myself to him. If I could bring back a deal, I’d have a shot at avoiding the next firing round, and maybe even doing some real work for the