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face. “Something wrong?”
    “No. Nothing.” Rooke shifted in her chair. “I’m a stonemason.”
    “Really? That’s got to be tough work.”
    “No more than any other.”
    Adrian remembered how Melinda had deduced a person’s occupation from the appearance of her hands, and she looked at Rooke’s pressed flat on the table. Her hands were broad, her fingers long and sturdy. Even from a few feet away Adrian could see a few abrasions on her knuckles and a half-moon-shaped scar on the outer edge of her right hand. She had the hands of someone who did hard work, and although she didn’t appear all that muscular, her body seemed tight and fit. She was a few inches taller than her own 5'7", and a little broader in the shoulders and narrower in the hips. From the way her T-shirt molded to her chest, her breasts were probably a bit smaller too.
    Adrian flushed, realizing she was close to blatantly cruising a stranger sitting at her kitchen table in the middle of the night. What was wrong with her?
    “A stonemason,” she said, busying herself with the tea. “What do you do exactly? Build patios and sidewalks and things like that?”
    “No,” Rooke said slowly. “I carve gravestones.”
    Adrian spun around, her mouth curved into a faint smile. “And just when I thought the day couldn’t get any more interesting.”
    “I don’t know about that.” Rooke shrugged self-consciously. She wasn’t used to discussing anything about herself. “Most people don’t find it very interesting.”
    “You’re going to discover I’m not most people,” Adrian said softly.

Chapter Four

    Edgy and aggravated, Melinda paced in the parlor adjoining the hotel bar. She sipped her Remy Martin and took perfunctory stock of her surroundings. The room, while not showy, was opulently appointed. The rug was definitely Persian, and in very good condition. An original oil painting by one of the Hudson Valley’s more notable painters hung above the fireplace. The polished wainscoting, staircases, and floors were all original and scrupulously maintained. If the hotel was any indication of the village, there was money here. Melinda sighed. What there wasn’t, at the moment, was a woman.
    Her body still resonated with the connection she’d enjoyed for a brief while earlier with the woman on the train. The promise of something quite extraordinary had been there. Melinda swirled the cognac, then lifted the glass and drained it in one long swallow. The exquisite burn only reminded her of her unrequited hunger. Adrian Oakes fascinated her. She sensed power, and knew the feast of her flesh would be exquisite. I would drink you, taste you. I would satisfy you in ways you never dreamed.
    Melinda stalked to the window and glared out into the snow, as if the storm itself were her enemy. In a way, it was. The wind and precipitation had been the interloper, destroying the first tendrils of intimacy she’d established with her traveling companion. Adrian would have accepted the dinner invitation, because she too had been tempted by the energy that had flowed between them. Melinda had almost succeeded in enjoying her, if only in a dream, but even that small triumph had been denied her. She’d awakened just as she was about to ignite, dragged alert by a distant pounding—loose shutters or trees lashing against her window. Now her anger and frustration simmered close to the surface, her body still vibrating with the urgency to discharge that exquisite tension. She wanted Adrian, certain their joining would surpass that of mere flesh, but that was not to be tonight. Like so many other nights, she would have to settle for less than she desired.
    “Can I get you another?” the young woman cleaning up behind the bar asked.
    Turning, Melinda walked back into the bar. “I’m sorry to take you away from your desk duty”—she casually glanced at the small brass nametag pinned above the redhead’s left breast—“Becky. I know the bar is supposed to be