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No reason for her to feel uncomfortable. She'd worn skirts way above her knees in her own time. |
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But she wasn't in her own time, she reminded herself. Still, she kept her gaze defiant. "Notice anything different about me, Mr. Thorn?" she asked. |
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"Saucy, is she not?" asked their guest in a cultured bass voice that contrasted amazingly with his appearance, for he was a short, skinny trapper with a heard like a goat's. |
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Mariah saw Thorn stiffen. "That may he, Ambrose," he replied, glaring at her. |
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She shuffled her feet in indignation; he should he irritated with their rode visitor, not her. But then one comer of his mouth turned up in a smile that worded her. It was the first she'd seen in days, and she didn't know where it had come from. |
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She found out with his next words. "Perhaps, Miss Walker, you are cleaner than usual." |
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She drew in her breath, ready to throw something at him in her sudden embarrassment. Until that day, she'd taken only sponge baths, using water in the basin in her room. But hours earlier, she'd bathed, for the first time, in the cool, sparkling streamin the nude. |
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Holly had stood guard. No one could have come by without her warning Mariah. |
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But though Mariah had cautioned Holly, maybe she hadn't noticed Thorn creeping silently in his moccasins through the forest he knew so well. Had he seen Mariah there, with no clothes on, reveling in the cold, clean water of the stream? |
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A blush heated her from her toes up to her hairline. And he'd been staring at her ankles as though she were wanton just for showing them. Hypocrite! |
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Unless . . . maybe he'd only heard about her bath. With a sidelong smile of her own, she said, "I can't guess why I should be cleaner now than all the other times I've . . . well, you know." She lowered her eyes, then looked up at Thorn tauntingly from beneath her lashes. "Times when even Holly was busy with other things. Don't tell me you haven't known." |
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He stared at her, his thick chest rising and falling raggedly |
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