The Adventurer

protest the idiotic assumption that she could be swayed by someone like Jake Savage, but something stopped her. She was getting a familiar, faint tingling sense of awareness. Her intuition was kicking in again. She stood there, hands on her hips and contemplated Gideon and his big cat.
    All this emphasis on Jake Savage's untrustworthiness was beginning to sound like overkill. Obviously Gideon was not physically afraid of the man. She couldn't imagine Gideon being afraid of anyone. Furthermore, she wasn't at all sure there was anything to Gideon's vague, farfetched theories about Jake having somehow set his partner up with the smugglers.
    But the one thing about Jake Savage that Gideon had genuine reason to worry about was the man's effect on women.
    It was true Gideon had said some terrible, hurtful things back there in the mountains, but for the first time Sarah was calm enough to realize he might have been lashing out from the depths of his own uncertainty. She remembered the look on his face when he'd walked into the kitchen that morning and seen Jake's flowers sitting in the pan of water.
    And Jake's hand covering her own on the table.
    And Jake looking intently into her eyes, telling her they'd make a great team.
    Maybe what Gideon had really seen in his mind's eye was his ex-wife, Leanna, falling so easily for Jake's good looks and easy charm. Gideon should know by now that she, Sarah, was not at all the same sort of woman Leanna had been. But men could be awfully thickheaded about things, especially men like him who had been savaged in the past by people they had trusted.
    "You have nothing to worry about," she told him finally.
    "Nevertheless, I will worry. You're staying here, Sarah."
    "Stop telling me what to do, damn you." Sarah whirled around and raced toward her car, fumbling in her bag for the keys.
    She wasn't even halfway there when Gideon's arm caught her around the waist and jerked her to an abrupt stop. The breath was driven out of her lungs.
    "I said, you're staying."
    Sarah gasped for air as he turned and hauled her back toward the porch. "Gideon, you can't do this."
    "Watch me." He took the keys from her hand and dropped them into his pocket. "We can do this hard or we can do it easy, Sarah, but one way or another, you're staying."
    He meant it. Sarah slanted him a speculative glance out of the corner of her eye and read the implacable determination in Gideon's face. In that moment he looked more than ever like one of her dangerous heroes.
    "If I do decide to stay," she said in her most imperious tones, just as if she had a choice, "it will be for only a few more days and it has to be understood that we're not going back to our old relationship. Is that very clear?"
    Gideon's brows rose as he cautiously released her. "Old relationship? It seems like a fairly new relationship to me. We've barely gotten started."
    "You know damn well what I mean." Sarah started toward the steps. "No sex."
    "You said that once before but you changed your mind."
    "That was different. This time I won't be changing my mind." Her chin was high as she swept past him into the gloomy old house. "I'll pick out my bedroom right now. You can leave my luggage in it."
    Gideon muttered something under his breath. Then he looked down at Machu Picchu. "How the mighty are fallen, huh, pal? Yesterday I was a legendary lover. This afternoon I've been demoted to bellhop."
    "I heard that," Sarah yelled from inside the house. "And you're absolutely right. Furthermore, if I were you, I wouldn't expect much of a tip. Where's the thermostat in this place? It's freezing in here."
    Gideon hoisted the luggage again and followed her into the living room. He glanced around at the familiar bleak, faded, excessively neat interior. It didn't seem all that chilly to him. But he knew that was because Sarah was already running around inside, opening the old drapes to let in the light, putting hot water on the stove for tea and generally warming things up with her effortless, effervescent vitality.
     
    S EVERAL HOURS LATER Gideon sat alone on the sofa, Machu draped in his usual position along the back. Ellora was nowhere in sight and Gideon suspected she had accompanied Sarah to bed.
    "Just us guys left out here," Gideon muttered to the big cat. "But at least she stayed without too much of a fight."
    He was damned lucky she had given in as easily as she had and he knew it. He'd thought for a while there that he'd ruined all his chances when he'd