Anne had also noticed that Jake was enjoying himself. First with the brunette, and then with the redhead. And he was still having a good time, imprisoning her small hand neatly in his larger one. She could feel the grain of calluses on his palm, and she could also feel her control begin to slip, the control she always resented losing. The stalk had been going on for more than an hour. Her humor was beginning to give way to an attack of nerves. A delicious adrenaline was coursing through her bloodstream; she was well aware of the danger. She felt high, light-headed. He was a powerful sexual animal. She valued that in the same way that she respected any predator-as long as he understood that she wasn’t prey.

His hand slowly freed hers, his thumb gently rubbing against her slender wrist as he let her go. “You don’t mind if I take Anne away for a dance, do you, Link?”

“Of course not. You just show her a real good time, Jake. She’s one special lady to me.”

Anne smiled weakly. “Actually, I sort of left a friend all alone in the house. If you would mind just for a moment, Mr.-”

“Rivard,” he supplied.

“I’ll be right back to claim that dance,” she assured him.

“I’m sure you will.”

There would be a snowstorm in hell before her cool, calm flesh would come in direct contact with his lean, hungry body-and he knew it. She could feel his eyes on the open spaces in the back of her dress as she walked away.

It didn’t matter. Anne was leaving. Well, in a minute she was leaving. She wanted to see one last person before she left.

Angela Stone was a white-haired wisp of an aristocrat, dressed in a plain white gown with a blaze of sapphires at her throat. “How’s your grandmother, Anne? I spoke to her on the phone last week, but neither of us really had a chance to talk…”

Anne tried to relax, taking the straight chair next to the older woman. “I miss her when she goes south,” Anne admitted. “In fact, I’ve been worried about her lately.”