The man looked dangerous.

Dark, strong, unsmiling, he filled the hotel doorway. Leashed power radiated from his stillness. When he moved, the muscular coordination of his body was predatory rather than merely graceful.

Dear God, Willow Moran thought as she watched the man stride closer to her across the lobby of the newly built Denver Queenhotel. This can’et be Caleb Black, the God-fearing military scholar Mr. Edwards found to take me to my brother.

Willow’s dismay didn’t show in her hazel eyes or her posture. She didn’t back away so much as an inch despite the sudden frantic beating of her heart. The War Between the States had taught Willow that when a girl couldn’t run and couldn’t hide, she stood her ground with as much dignity as she could muster…and a two-shot derringer hidden in a special pocket of her skirt.

The knowledge of that cold steel weight lying between folds of silk comforted Willow now as it often had in the past. Gripping the small gun, she watched the dark stranger draw near. What she saw of him at close range didn’t comfort her at all. Beneath the shadow of his broad-brimmed, flat-crowned black hat, an icy intelligence watched the world from eyes the color of whiskey.

«Mrs. Moran?»

His voice was as intensely male as the thick mustache and black beard stubble that heightened rather than blurred the strong planes of his face. Yet the voice itself wasn’t harsh. It was deep, smooth, potent, like a midnight river flowing to an invisible sea. A woman could drown in that dark voice, in those tawny eyes, in the power that seethed beneath the man’s controlled surface.

«Yes, I’m Mi — er, Mrs. Moran,» Willow said, feeling heat stain her cheekbones as she spoke the lie. Willow Moran she was. Mrs. she was not. «Have you come to take me to Mr. Black?»

Willow’s voice was too husky, almost breathless, but she could do little about that. It was difficult enough just to force air past the sudden tightness in her throat as the stranger’s masculine impact flooded over her in a dark, compelling tide.