Her colour deepened further. The man was laughing!

‘Whoops,’ he said as he slung his towel around his waist to make himself respectable. Almost respectable. ‘I’m not used to visitors. Um…welcome to my bedroom.’

Which made Jenna’s flushing face turn to beetroot. She was in his bedroom. What else did she expect?

‘I…I’m sorry,’ she muttered. She motioned back to Karli who was thankfully still soundly asleep. ‘I needed… She needed…’

He followed her gaze and his face softened with understanding. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I should have thought of that before I showered.’

‘I’ll move her.’

‘There’s no need.’ He snagged his clothes from the bedside chair, then caught his towel as it started to slip. ‘I’ll dress in the wash house. Meet you in the kitchen in five minutes.’

He disappeared and she had a fleeting thought that suddenly he was as discomposed as she was.

Was that possible?

Five minutes later when they met again back in the kitchen, her colour still hadn’t subsided. The gathering dusk helped, but then Riley produced a kerosene lantern and turned the little kitchen’s darkness to light. Her colour rose all over again.

He was respectable now, but only just. He was wearing faded jeans and nothing else. When he’d been covered in grimed clothes and dust, Jenna had thought the man was seriously good-looking, but now he was naked from the waist up, his broad chest was tanned and rippled, and his strongly boned face was rid of its dusty coating. The whole package meant Jenna had to fight not to gasp.

That and the memory of what she’d just seen…

She wasn’t interested in men, she told herself desperately. She’d never been interested in men. She’d seen what so-called romance did to women’s lives and she wanted no part of it. She’d been independent for ever and she intended to stay that way.