Read Winter's Night for Free Online Page B

comments had set fire to his loins, but even so, she hadn’t appealed to him in the slightest. His heart belonged to Catherine. It always had.
    And he refused to sully Catherine’s memory by bedding down with any other woman. That was the one vow he’d never break.
    Hell, he’d given up everything he valued to see Catherine safe.
    And she had banished him from her thoughts?
    He saw red.
    In the last five years there hadn’t been an instant when he hadn’t been consumed by thoughts of her. Not a minute he hadn’t wondered what she was doing. How she was doing.
    And she felt nothing toward him.
    Nothing.
    He didn’t even warrant her hatred.
    â€œFine,” O’Connell muttered at the closed door as he shrugged his duster on, then settled his Stetson on his head. He grimaced at the front of the brim that had been partially burned away by the fire. “I don’t need you to feel anything for me, woman. I don’t need you at all. In fact, I can put you right out of my mind, too.”
    Spinning on his heel, he took a step for his horse. Pain exploded across his foot and he cursed out loud as he limped away.
    The woman had damned near maimed him. And all the while she felt nothing toward him.
    Nothing.…
    *   *   *
    â€œ What do you mean, you got over me?”
    Catherine turned around to see him standing in the doorway. His face awash with shadows, she could feel his angry glare more than see it.
    Go ahead and seethe, Mr. O’Callahan. Stew in your rage until your entire body becomes pruney from it.
    It was terrible to take such delight in a man’s misery, but delight in it she did. Catherine kept her face from betraying her glee. She’d known he couldn’t resist her words. That was why she’d left the door unlocked. The last thing she wanted was for him to break it down. And knowing him, he most certainly would have done it had she tried to bar him from her house.
    Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. He wouldn’t escape her clutches until she had exacted five years of rejection from his rotten hide.
    â€œDid you need something?” she asked coolly.
    O’Connell forced the emotions from his face as he swept his hat from his head. How could she stand there so all-fired calm and dismiss him like an old shoe?
    Well, he wasn’t some old shoe, to be cast aside and forgotten. They had been more than merely intimate. The woman had actually touched his unrepentant soul. And after all the years he had tortured himself with guilt over his actions, she had forgotten him?
    Oh, he wasn’t about to leave here until he made her remember what they’d shared. Stepping into her house, he closed the door behind him.
    â€œWhat do you mean, you got over me?” he asked again as he closed the short distance between them.
    She shrugged casually. “It’s been five years, Mr. O’Callahan.”
    As if he needed her reminder. It had been five long, gut-wrenching years of missing everything about her. Of feeling her presence, smelling her scent. Of longing to hear her voice, feel her tender caresses on his flesh.
    Like an arrogant fool, he had assumed she’d missed him as well. Obviously, he’d been wrong.
    Well, he wasn’t going to let her know how much it bothered him. If she wanted to play this with a cool hand, he was certainly one to give it right back to her. He could hide his emotions better than anyone else alive. Indeed, how many times had that trait made her loco?
    â€œYou’re right, Mrs. O’Callahan,” O’Connell said in a deceptively calm voice. “It has been five long years. For the sake of old times, could you at least tell me where I might find a doctor for my foot?”
    A becoming pink stained her cheeks as she glanced down to his injured member. “I’m afraid Dr. Watson died a few months back and as yet we have no replacement. But since I’m the one who