I’ve seen her before, he realized. But where?

With the next breath, realization went through Whip like lightning through a storm.

My dream. She’s the girl in the cabin door, waiting, always waiting…

For me.

Motionless, Whip stared at the girl. A lock of hair had just escaped from beneath the girl’s battered Stetson. The hair gleamed like silk against her pale cheek.

Without thinking, Whip walked closer and lifted his hand to tuck the strand back into place above her ear. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped, stepped back and touched his hat instead.

«Morning, ma’am,» Whip said, nodding to her.

The girl blinked and looked at his big hand. Whip knew why. He had moved so quickly that she couldn’t be certain he had ever intended to touch her instead of tipping his hat politely.

Her glance went from his long fingers to the bullwhip coiled over his right shoulder. Her eyes widened.

Teamsters with bullwhips weren’t particularly unusual in Colorado Territory, certainly not enough so that the presence of a bullwhip should startle anyone. The girl’s involuntary response told Whip that she probably knew him.

Or, to be precise, knewofhim.

With a tight motion of her head, the girl acknowledged Whip’s polite greeting. Then she turned away from him with cool finality.

«Mr. Murphy?» she called huskily.

Whip felt his body tighten as though the girl had stroked him from forehead to heels. Her voice, like her walk, was pure summer honey.

I’ve been too long without a woman.

No sooner had the thought come to Whip than he knew it wasn’t true. He had never been a man to be controlled by his sexuality. He had spent too many years in too many cultures where women were prohibited to foreigners; even to a polite, soft-spoken foreigner with strong shoulders and smoke-gray eyes and hair the color of the sun.