The pill remained in Nathan Drake’s palm.
Small.
White.
Ordinary.
Bella Carter stared at it as if it might explode.
Morning light had begun pushing through the enormous ranch-house windows, turning the Wyoming mountains beyond the glass pale gold. Horses moved slowly in the fenced pasture below. Somewhere downstairs, dishes clinked as the kitchen staff began breakfast.
Inside Nathan’s bedroom, nothing felt ordinary.
Bella still had one hand around his wrist.
She became aware of it only after several seconds.
Her fingers looked unusually large against his tattooed forearm, but at nearly four hundred and sixty pounds, nearly two hundred ten kilograms, everything about Bella was substantial. Her hands were broad. Her wrists thick. Her thighs heavy beneath the gathered ivory nightgown Mrs. Donnelly had found for her before dawn. Her face was large and softly rounded, framed by chestnut hair that had dried into loose waves during the night.
She released Nathan.
“What did you say?”
Nathan closed his fingers around the pill.
“It’s an antidote.”
Bella searched his face.
He did not look drunk now.
He looked exhausted.
Dangerously alert.
The kind of alertness that came when a man had not slept because sleep suddenly seemed like an invitation to die.
“An antidote for what?”
“Something in the whiskey.”
Her gaze moved toward the expensive bottle on the sideboard.
Half empty.
Crystal glass beside it.
Nathan followed her eyes.
“Don’t touch either.”
Bella swallowed.
“Someone poisoned you?”
“That appears to be the idea.”
“You said appears.”
“I don’t enjoy certainty without evidence.”
She almost laughed from nerves.
“You own half the valley and frighten the other half, but now you want evidence?”
Nathan’s mouth moved faintly.
“I frighten people because evidence is expensive.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does to cattlemen.”
Bella shook her head.
Then looked at the pill again.
“Where did you get it?”
Nathan did not answer immediately.
That frightened her more than the poison.
“Nathan.”
“My doctor.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Her eyebrows drew together.
“You knew someone might poison you three weeks ago?”
“I knew somebody had been trying.”
Bella stepped backward.
The thick burgundy shawl slipped farther down her arm.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you still drank the whiskey.”
His eyes hardened.
“I was angry.”
“That is the stupidest thing I have heard in my life.”
“Probably.”
“You are supposed to be terrifying.”
“I can be terrifying and stupid.”
“That is disappointingly human.”
His mouth twitched again.
Bella hated that she noticed.
She also hated that she was standing in his bedroom wearing a nightgown while discussing attempted murder with a man whose money had paid for her mother’s burial less than twelve hours earlier.
Everything about the situation felt impossible.
Nathan looked toward the glass.
“I should have taken this after the first drink.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I forgot.”
“You forgot the antidote to poison?”
“I did mention the whiskey.”
Bella stared.
“You are genuinely ridiculous.”
“And yet you came upstairs.”
“I came upstairs because I was sent here.”
“Then stayed.”
Her face warmed.
The memory of the night before settled heavily between them.
Not sex.
Not what gossip would eventually turn it into if anyone discovered where she had slept.
Bella had entered with towels.
Nathan had been drunk but coherent enough to ask questions.
Then he had seen the hospital invoice sticking from her bag.
He had demanded to know why she was carrying a funeral bill.
She had told him.
Everything.
Her mother.
The hospital.
The debt.
The morgue.
The impossible number.
Forty-nine thousand two hundred dollars.
Nathan had transferred the money without hesitation.
That was where the night should have ended.
Instead Bella had cried.
Not elegantly.
Not quietly.
She had cried until her body shook.
Nathan had given her water.
Then sat across the room and listened.
For nearly an hour.
No touching.
No proposition.
No demand.
When she finally stopped, exhaustion overwhelmed her.
Mrs. Donnelly found her half asleep in the upstairs sitting room and helped her change from wet work clothes into a thick nightgown.
Bella believed she had been placed in a guest room.
Apparently Mrs. Donnelly believed Nathan had already given permission for Bella to use his bedroom while he was away dealing with ranch trouble.
By the time Nathan returned after three in the morning, Bella was asleep in his bed.
That was the truth.
Still scandalous enough.
But not what the county would assume.
Nathan looked at her carefully.
“What are you thinking?”
“That I should go.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Bella stiffened.
Nathan noticed.