“Do you know how to please a woman tonight?”
Clara Whitmore had meant the question to sound bold.
Instead, the last word caught in her throat.
The iron latch clicked beneath her fingers as she finished locking the cabin door. Snow hissed softly against the outside wall, driven sideways by the wind sweeping down from Colorado’s high ridges. Behind her, orange firelight moved across the rough logs, the stone hearth, the narrow bed, and the enormous man standing beside the table.
Elias Mercer did not move.
For six hours he had been her husband.
For less than one day she had known the sound of his boots inside the same room as hers.
And now the trapper who had spent half his life facing blizzards, hungry wolves, falling timber, mountain lions, and men with knives looked as though Clara had just pointed a cannon at his chest.
“I…”
His voice failed.
Clara almost regretted asking.
Almost.
She kept one hand on the door latch because it gave her something solid to hold.
The robe over her cotton nightgown was burgundy, old but carefully mended. Her hair had come loose from its pins, heavy chestnut curls spilling around her cheeks and neck. She knew what she looked like.
A new bride standing in her husband’s cabin.
A widow who had traveled more than two thousand miles because Baltimore had finally become more frightening than the unknown.
A woman whose debts had been paid by the man staring at her.
The problem was that she did not know what that payment meant.
Not really.
“You don't have to look terrified,” she said.
Elias blinked.
“I don't?”
A laugh nearly escaped her.
That was not the answer she had expected from a man who stood nearly seven feet tall and had shoulders broad enough to block half the room.
“No.”
He rubbed one hand over his beard.
The gesture made him look even more uncomfortable.
“I don't know.”
Clara frowned.
“You don't know how to please me?”
“That too.”
“Too?”
His eyes closed briefly.
Then he opened them and seemed to make a decision.
“I've never been with a woman.”
Clara stared.
The fire snapped behind him.
Outside, wind pushed snow against the window.
She waited for him to smile.
He did not.
“You are thirty-two years old.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you've never…”
“No.”
“Not once?”
“No.”
“A woman in town?”
“No.”
“A widow?”
“No.”
“A dance-hall girl?”
His eyebrows rose.
“No.”
Clara’s hand slowly left the latch.
She had prepared herself for many possibilities during the weeks she traveled west.
A cruel husband.
A drunken one.
A man who expected obedience.
A man who considered the cost of her train ticket sufficient payment for whatever he wanted from her.
She had never prepared herself for Elias Mercer being shy.
“You're serious.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“Because you asked me a question and I apparently have the least impressive answer possible.”
This time she did laugh.
It slipped out before she could stop it.
Elias looked wounded.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Clara put a hand over her mouth.
“I’m not laughing at you.”
“You are absolutely laughing at me.”
“Only a little.”
“That is still at me.”
She laughed again.
Something changed in the room.
Not enough to make her forget why she had locked the door.
But enough to loosen the tightness in her chest.
Elias picked up the wooden chair between them.
For one sudden second Clara’s body went rigid.
He noticed.
Immediately.