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Page 212
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When Mariah and Thorn came back, Thorn acted like a bumblebee had gotten up his britches, grumbling and growling and stomping about as he unloaded the canoe. Holly admired the pretty fabrics Mariah had brought and nearly hugged her in happiness when she learned that Mariah planned to share them.
"For a price, of course," Mariah said. But it wasn't any too costly, far as Holly was concerned. All she had to do was help sew the dresses and skirts and blouses, to show Mariah how to do some for herself.
Nice lady she was. And as tolerant of Thorn and his grumbling ways as a too-fond mother with a sassy child.
No, not like a mother. Not with eyes that stared at him the way hers did, as though she could see right through his clothes. Lusty eyes, eyes that said come hither.
Maybe that was why Thorn was so out of sorts, even later, when he stomped to the smokehouse, saying he'd make sure the fire was still going, that there was food enough for a hundred, if they got so many guests. When he came out again, Mariah was dumping water from pails into a washbasin, she was. He stared at her as though every movement of hers needed to be watched, to make sure she did things right.
"Enjoying the view?" she snapped, like she didn't much take to being watched so closely, but still those eyes of hers kept undressing him.
Maybe he was resisting her . . . unlikely. Not when his look, too, was so sexy. But neither seemed to want the other to know, looking the way they did when each thought the other had turned away.
They didn't look like a pair who would resist each other much longer, Holly thought. Not much longer at all.
She'd have fun keeping track of them. She thought Frenchie saw it all, too, the way he made little frowns into his hands when he thought no one watched.
She'd ended up in a nice place to gather her thoughts, Holly thought. Till she left, people here would keep her busy just looking and speculating.

 
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