"Um," Cash said tactfully.

"Ten's wife?"

"Um."

"Whew. No wonder he smiles a lot."

"Ask Diana and she'll tell you that she'd trade it all for four more inches of height."

"She can have four of mine if I can have four of hers," Mariah said instantly.

Cash came out of the rocking chair in a fluid motion and pulled Mariah close. His hands slid from her hips to her waist and on up her body, stopping at the top of her rib cage. Watching her, he eased his hands underneath her breasts, taking their warm weight into his palms, teasing her responsive nipples with his thumbs, smiling lazily.

"You're too damn sexy just the way you are," Cash said, his voice gritty, intimate, as hot as the pulse suddenly speeding in Mariah's throat. "I've never seen anything as beautiful as you were this morning in that pool wearing nothing but steam. You watched me take you. The sweet sounds you made then almost pushed me over the edge. Just thinking about it now makes me want to-"

"Hi, Nevada. Is that another box of shards? Good. Put them in Diana's car. Here, Logan, chew on this instead of Nosy's tail. Even if the cat doesn't mind it, I do."

The voice from the front porch froze Cash. He closed his eyes, swore softly, and released Mariah. He turned toward the front door, blocking Mariah's flushed face with his body.

"Where's my favorite nephew?" Cash called out.

"Your only nephew," Carla said, smiling as she walked into the living room. "He's a one hundred percent terror again. How's my favorite brother?"

"Your only brother, right?" Cash bent down and scooped up Logan in one arm. "Lord, boy. What have you been eating – lead? You must have gained ten pounds."

As a toddler, Logan wasn't exactly a fountain of conversation. Action was more his line. Laughing, he grabbed Cash's nose and tried to pull it off.

"That's not the way to do it," Cash said, grabbing Logan's nose gently. Very carefully Cash pulled and made a sucking, popping noise. Moments later he triumphantly held up his hand. The end of his thumb was pushed up between his index and second finger to imitate Logan's snub nose. "See? Got it! Want me to put it back on?"

With an expression of affection and amusement, Carla watched her brother and her son. Then she realized that someone was standing behind Cash. She looked around his broad shoulders and saw a woman about her own age and height hastily tucking in her blouse.

"Hello?"

Mariah bit her lip and gave up trying to straighten her clothes. "Hi, I'm-"

"Mariah!" Carla said, smiling with delight. She stepped around Cash and gave Mariah a hug. "I'm so glad you came home at last. When the lawyer told Luke his mother was dead, there was no mention of you at all. We had no way to contact you. Luke wanted so much to share Logan with you. And most of all he wanted to know that you were happy."

Mariah looked into Carla's transparent, blue-green eyes and saw only welcome. With a stifled sound, Mariah hugged Carla in return, feeling a relief so great it made her dizzy.

"Thank you," Mariah said huskily. "I was so afraid you would resent having me around."

"Don't be ridiculous. Why would anyone resent you?" Carla stared Into Mariah's huge, golden-brown eyes. "You mean it. You really were worried, weren't you?"

Mariah tried to smile, but it turned upside down. "Families don't like outsiders coming to live with them."

Cash spoke without looking up from screwing Logan's nose back into place. "As you might guess from that statement, Mariah's mother didn't pick a winner for her second husband. In fact, he sounds like a real, um, prince. Kept her in boarding schools all year round."

"Why didn't he just send you back to the Rocking M?" Carla asked Mariah.

"Mother refused. She said the Rocking M was malevolent. It hated women. She could feel it devouring her. Just talking about it upset her so much I stopped asking." Mariah looked past Carla to the window that framed MacKenzie Ridge's rugged lines. "I never felt that way about the ranch. I love this land. But as long as Mother was alive, I couldn't come back. She simply couldn't have coped with it."

"You're back now," Carla said quietly, "and you're staying as long as you want."

Mariah tried to speak, couldn't, and hugged her sister-in-law instead.

Cash watched the two women and told himself that no matter why Mariah had originally come to the Rocking M, she was genuinely grateful to be accepted into Luke's family. And, Cash admitted, he couldn't really blame Mariah for wanting a place she could call home. He felt the same way. The Rocking M, more than his apartment in Boulder, was his home. Only on the Rocking M were there people who gave a damn whether he came back from his field trips or died on some godforsaken granite slope.

Almost broodingly Cash watched Mariah and his sister fix dinner. With mo fuss at all they went about the business of cooking a huge meal and getting to know one another. As he looked at them moving around the kitchen, Cash realized that the two women were similar in many ways. They were within a year of each other in age, within an inch in height, graceful, supremely at home with the myriad tools used to prepare food, willing to do more than half of any job they shared; and their laughter was so beautiful it made him ache.

Linda never wanted to share anything or do any work. I thought it was just because she was young, but I can see that wasn't it. She was the same age then as Mariah is now. Linda was just spoiled. Mariah may have come here looking for room and board – and a crack at Mad Jack's mine – but at least she's not afraid to work for it.

Best of all, Mariah doesn't whine.

No. Not best of all. What was best about Mariah, Cash conceded, was her incandescent sensuality. After Linda, he had never found it difficult to control himself where women were concerned. Mariah was different. He wanted her more, not less, each time. It was just as well that he was going to Boulder. He needed distance from Mariah's fire, distance and the coolness of mind to remember that a woman didn't have to be spoiled in order to manipulate a man. She simply had to be clever enough to allow him to deceive himself.

Cash was still reminding himself of how it had been with Linda when he let himself into the old house in the hour before dawn. He knew he should be on the road, driving away, putting miles between himself and Mariah. Yet he couldn't bring himself to leave without saying goodbye to her.

The front door of the old house closed softly behind Cash. An instant later he heard a whispering, rushing sound and felt Mariah's soft warmth wrapping around him, holding him with a woman's surprising strength. His arms came around her in a hard hug that lifted her feet off the floor.

Her tears were hot against his neck.

"Mariah?"

She shuddered and held on to Cash until she could trust her voice. "I couldn't sleep. I heard you loading the Jeep. I thought you weren't even going to say goodbye to me. Please don't be angry with me over Nevada. I like him but it's nothing to what I feel about you. I-"

But Cash's mouth was over hers, sealing off her words. The taste of him swept through her, making her tremble. His arms shifted subtly, both molding and supporting her body, stroking her over his hard length, telling her without a word how perfectly they fit together, hard against soft, key against lock, male and female, hunger and fulfillment.

It took an immense amount of willpower for Cash to end the kiss short of taking Mariah down to the floor and burying himself in her, ending the torment that raked him with claws of fire.

"Don't leave me," Mariah whispered when Cash lowered her feet back to the floor. "Not yet. Hold me for just a little longer. Please? I – oh, Cash, it's so cold without you."

She felt the tremor that went through Cash, heard his faint groan, and then the world tilted as he picked her up once more. Moments later he put her on the bed, grabbed the covers and pulled them up beneath her chin. She struggled against the confining sheet and comforter, trying to get her arms free, but it was impossible.