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height, but his body hadn’t filled out to the whipcord leanness of this man’s.
    A large circular pattern of scars danced low on his side, while a scar slashed across his upper arm. A smaller one ran a thin pale line across his dark chest.
    Adam considered her a moment and pointed to his side. “I tried to save the world for a time. A shark gave me this, off the coast of Australia.”
    He pointed to his arm and to his chest. “Rhino poachers in Africa and a harpoon from an illegal whaler…. I’ve got a few others. Some seen, some not. But you already know about those. What brings you here?”
    “Here,” she said, after pasting herself together and pushing on with her mission. “Sarah thought this was important and said it belonged to you. She was dying and said there would come a time when you were less troubled. She wanted you to have this. I said I’d see that you got it. I only did it for her—not you. Here,” she repeated, shoving the box at him.
    A muscle contracted on Adam’s jaw, and in the shadows, those cool gray eyes narrowed, almost sleepily. But the tension springing from him wrapped around her, tight and burning. His fingers brushed hers as he took the box, tossing it to the table behind him. “Afraid to come in and visit a while, Jilly-dear?” Adam asked in a low tone that challenged. “Or would you like a spot of tea and cookies?” he asked over-politely, reminding her that her earlier hospitality had been lacking.
    “I’m not at all afraid of a visit with you, Adam, but I didn’t come for tea—I came to tell you what I think of you. I wasn’t quite done while you were telling me off earlier,” she said airily, refusing to be intimidated. When Adam opened the door wider, bowed slightly and swept his hand in front of him in an enter-my-abode gesture, Jillian swept by him.
    “I expected you within an hour of our meeting. It took you long enough to work up the courage to come calling.”
    “I don’t need courage to face someone like you. I was working.”
    The old wood cookstove’s oven door was open, clearly a source of heat. In front of it, the soapy water in a round galvanized tub said he’d been taking his bath. Various odd pots and cooking utensils ranged across the shelves near the stove, a metal dishpan for washing dishes sat on a crude counter. The single room smelled of new lumber, a bubbling stew on the stove and freshly bathed male. The odd collection of furniture ranged from an old rocking chair, big enough to be comfortable for a man of Adam’s size, and a large, sturdy, simple oak bed with a patchwork quilt.
    Adam’s few clothes were neatly stacked on top of an antique dresser, his backpack hung from a peg on the wall. A braided rug made a circle in the center of the small room, and on the wooden table rested a thick file amid a triple-layer chocolate cake and two apple pies. A couple of pairs of socks, two T-shirts and a flannel shirt hung from a rope near the stove, and damp jeans had been tossed over the back of a chair.
    “You travel light, don’t you? There’s no more here than what you can stuff in a duffel bag. No attachments, no paycheck, no obligations.”
    “Lead on, Jilly. Slash right down to the bloody bone, why don’t you?” Adam crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked at her. “Well? From the expression on your face, you came to give me a piece of your mind. You can start anytime.”
    “I’m concerned,” she began after a pulsebeat of trying to dismiss how her heart was racing, how the sight of him, the scent of him, stirred her. “I was at the grocery store and the gossip is that the Tallchief family has taken you under its wing. That the whole clan came out here today to work on this place and to make you comfortable. Michelle called, and though she was disappointed that youwouldn’t be staying with Liam and her, she thought that you might be here awhile.”
    Jillian met his shielded gaze and crossed her arms. “You’re not, are