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Page 75
knew that he had orchestrated this entire mess. But he'd fouled it up. In the screenplay, Thorn had been a willing hero.
But not the real Thorn.
He had, of course, come through in the end. But only after she'd tried to help herselfand had offered to pay him.
Matilda had intended to come to Thorn's inn to work. Mariah had no choice, not if she wanted to pay her Thorn for saving her.
Her Thorn? Hardly! Sure, he was as gorgeous a specimen of manhood as she had ever seen, with those flashing brown eyes, that physique that strained his clothes, screaming of the muscles that must be hidden beneath.
And now and then he'd even acted human. Sympathetic. Kind.
But mostly he turned his back on her whenever she needed help. Teased her in her neediness.
Refused to let her even think about relying on him.
No, he wasn't her anything. The only kind of man she could ever be attracted to would be one she could count onif there were such a male creature.
Which she doubted. She'd tried once to forgive the male species for including her father among them. She'd gone so far as to get engaged to a man she'd thought broke the mold, and look where that had led: more hurt, more distrust, more certainty that men were undependable.
Well, just in case there were a reliable man somewhere, sometime, he certainly wasn't this Thorn.
What next? she wondered. So far, her life here had paralleled the screenplay, though it hadn't followed exactly. In the screenplay, there'd been Indians and settlers and
That was it! She had to get organized. If she'd been in her time, she'd have grabbed her laptop computer and begun a new file. Now she needed a piece of paper and a pencil.
Had pencils even been invented yet? A pen, then; she'd seen pictures of colonials wielding quills.
She rose, lit the candle again, doused the betty lamp and hurried from her room.
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