His work-roughened hand did odd things to the soft skin of her own. “It’s still there, I see. I saw it the minute you came in.”

The slim gold band seemed to wink at both of them. For a moment she looked up at Kern, her eyes like two blue ink drops on snow. Her face had whitened, not because of the sudden rough contact, but because her senses were unexpectedly assaulted by the closeness of him. He was such a sexual man. The piratelike beard enclosing a mouth that was incredibly smooth-textured. The outdoor scent that was uniquely a part of him. The careless array of thick black hair around a face whose expression was never careless, always alert, always perceptive…

He released his hold. “I waited for you to apply for a divorce.”

“I thought you would, Kern. In the beginning I didn’t have the money for it, and…it never really mattered, not when we both knew it was over. I-” Her voice was barely audible. The longer she stared at him, the more she felt mesmerized by the gray light of his eyes, strangely soft for an instant and sad. Bitterly sad for what they both wanted from each other once, and Trisha ached to be closer suddenly, to reach out and just hold him, and be held.

There was a sharp rap on the door behind her, and Kern stepped around her to answer it.

“Sorry I’m late, honey. I-oh!”

The woman had her arms extended with the obvious intention of giving Kern a hug of greeting, until she caught sight of Trisha standing there. It did not take thirty seconds for the scene to gel in Trisha’s mind. If Kern had broken every limb there would still have been no need for Julia to come help. He was obviously being well taken care of.

The lady was a well-curved Amazon with the black eyes and black hair of their Cherokee neighbors. Tight jeans were molded over long legs. A red T-shirt, worn braless, hid nothing of her voluptuous figure, and an incredibly long swath of loose hair flowed to her waist. Her skin was the bronze of an outdoor woman…a mountain woman. A very sexy woman in a natural way, with probably a few years over Trisha. At that particular moment very little seemed to matter.