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Feeling downright conspicuous lurking in the upstairs corridor, like a skulker, Holt glanced in one direction, then the other. Nobody in sight.

Lorelei hadn’t come down to supper with the rest of them. Thinking she was sick, he’d approached Melina and asked after her.

Melina had smiled, in that way women had when they wanted to let a man know they were smarter than he was, and said Lorelei was just fine.

Holt reached for the door handle, drew his hand back as quickly as if the thing had suddenly turned molten.

It would be locked.

He ought to walk away, while he could still lay claim to his pride. Just walk away.

He muttered a curse. Hooked his thumbs under his belt and pondered his situation. He’d had a bath before supper, down the street, in back of one of the saloons. He’d had himself barbered, too, and he was wearing his last set of clean clothes.

Frank and the Captain had given him no end of grief about it, downstairs. Frank had gone so far as to sniff the air when he passed, and ask if Holt was wearing cologne.

He reached for the knob again and brushed it with his fingertips.

It didn’t make sense to waste a bath, a haircut and a shave. That would be a poor use of time and money.

He swallowed, closed his hand around the knob and turned it.

His heart shot up into his throat and got stuck there. He heard it pounding in his ears, and for a moment he thought he would never draw another breath. He’d just turn up his toes and die, right there in the hallway, outside Lorelei’s room.

He gave the door a push.

It opened.

Glory be and God help him, it opened.

“Holt?” It was Lorelei’s voice, soft as a spring breeze and a little on the shaky side. “Is that you?”

He’d been struck dumb. He tried his damnedest to say something, but not a word came out. He could just make her out in the darkness, sitting up in bed, peering at him.

“Come in,” she said, very quietly, “before I lose my courage.”

He stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind him, lowered the latch.

“Suppose there’s a child?” he managed, after standing there, still as a statue, for what seemed like ten minutes. It wasn’t in him to go back, but he couldn’t seem to move forward, either.

Thin moonlight played on her perfect features. He thought she smiled a little, but that was probably wishful thinking, or his nerves.

“There won’t be,” she said, and she sounded sure.

“I won’t hurt you,” he heard himself say.

“You’d better not,” she replied, watching him.

He approached the bed. Started to unbutton his shirt. At least he’d had the good sense to leave his gun-belt down the hall, in his own room. Nothing romantic about a Colt .45.

He sat down on the edge of the mattress to pull off his boots, and she made room for him, a heartening thing given all the hard words that had passed between them. “Have you ever done this before?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

He closed his eyes, dealing with her answer. On the one hand, he was relieved. On the other—well—she’d been engaged twice, and she was nearly thirty. He’d considered the possibility that she had already been introduced to the experience and was just being coy. Now, he knew different. There would be pain, no matter how gentle he was, and that might scare her off for good.

“If you want me to leave,” he said, “now’s the time to say so.”

She touched his back, tentatively, and he felt the heat of her hand right through his clean shirt. “And have you call me a coward? Not a chance, Holt McKettrick.”

He turned to look at her. “I wouldn’t do that, Lorelei. I swear I wouldn’t.”

“I believe you,” she said, and stroked his hair. “You smell good.”

He relaxed a little, even smiled. “So do you,” he said. Then he stood and shrugged out of his shirt, hanging it on the bedpost.

Lorelei’s eyes widened, shining with moonlight. She was wearing a white flannel gown, buttoned clear to her chin.

“Take that off,” he said. “Let me look at you.”

She hesitated, then wriggled out of the nightgown.

Holt stared at her, stricken. She might have been