Leopard 03 - Burning Wild

to her. Her breasts felt full and heavy, aching with the need to be touched. She felt empty inside, her body flushed, almost feverish. The water actually hurt her skin.
    Emma stepped out of the tiled stall and wrapped herself in a towel, looking in the mirror and feeling a little dazed. The need to be touched was growing, not lessening, and it had come on slowly, so slowly she hadn’t realized what was happening until the last week. Everything seemed different to her, as if all her senses were heightened.
    A thump on the door had her whirling around with a small gasp.
    “Hey! Emma, look alive. The phone repairman is here.” Emma took a deep breath and let it out. She had to pull herself together and stop all the silly nonsense that could threaten their very comfortable world. She dressed briskly and once again quickly caught her hair in a barrette, pulling it back away from her face, making a mental note to have it cut soon. She wore it up far more often than down anyway. Running after the two small children made it impossible to style.
    Joshua waited on the stairs for her. “I’m supposed to stay with you.”
    “You’re supposed to stay in the house.” Emma pushed past him, her hand brushing his chest. She felt a shudder of awareness go through him and she turned her head to look at him. Joshua had always—
    always —acted like an older brother. Now he was looking at her with speculative eyes. She frowned at him. “Go away, Joshua.”
    “You smell good.”
    “You smell like horses. Where is our guest and why did you leave him alone?” Her voice was tinged with exasperation. Everyone was losing their minds lately, not just her. Joshua stared at her with hot eyes, making her uncomfortable.
    She ran lightly down the stairs into the entryway to find a young man standing awkwardly, staring around him with a slightly awed expression on his face. “Hello, I’m Emma Reynolds, the housekeeper.
    I’ll show you all the phones.”
    “Greg Patterson.”
    “The housekeeper?” Joshua snorted.
    Emma glared at him. “Thank you so much, Joshua. I’ll show him the phones. If you’d like, I made fresh bread. It’s in the bread basket on the counter.”
    Joshua frowned at her. “Emma . . .”
    She smiled serenely. “It’s your favorite. I know you’re on a break, so I made fresh coffee for you as well.” There. She’d given him a good reason to stay in the house and not make it look like they didn’t trust the phone man. She kept her smile, willing Joshua to follow her lead.
    “The kids?”
    “Taken care of,” she answered, grimly hanging on to her smile. Did he think she was an idiot? Of course she’d made certain Susan knew to keep Andraya and Kyle locked away in the nursery while they had company in the house. He was almost as bad as Jake. She’d lived with the security for two years, understood it and accepted it, but she didn’t need a babysitter. She was not going to be humiliated by having Joshua follow them from room to room. He could sit in the kitchen and listen for screams if he was as paranoid as Jake. Jake had said in the house, not necessarily in the room.
    The scent of fresh-baked bread permeated the house, and after a brief hesitation and quick warning glare at the telecommunications man, Joshua abruptly turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen.
    Emma turned her attention to the workman. He was short and stocky, with wavy brown hair and warm, smiling eyes. He looked so familiar Emma found herself frowning, trying to place him. “Do I know you?”
    “Sort of.” He followed her down the hall, staring, a little awed at the massive, beautiful rooms they passed. “We’ve bumped into each other in the grocery store, in the produce section. You helped me pick up my apples when I dropped them.”
    Emma laughed. “I remember, of course. You enjoy juggling.”
    His gaze flickered downward to her left hand, noted the absence of a ring as she waved him into a room. “Quite a house you’ve got here.”
    “Thank you.” Emma loved the house, and appreciated anyone who recognized its beauty. “It takes quite a bit of care, but I love working here.”
    “I always wanted to see this estate. No one can actually get on the property without an escort. The grounds are incredible and the house even more so.”
    “It is a working cattle ranch,” Emma explained.
    “Is Mr. Bannaconni here much?”
    Emma tossed a small smile over her shoulder, but didn’t answer the query. Her loyalty was