Maybe it was the way her hips moved beneath the denim, or the way the knit fabric outlined her breasts, or the way her hands curled slightly at her sides, as if in anticipation. Maybe it was the way she moved, a smooth, confident fusion of muscle and bone that did a good job of hiding the strength, the quickness, and the agility latent beneath.

He’d known other women who exuded sex. He’d known other women who had been able to slay men with a single smile.

Kate smiled at him now. “Hey, Jim,” she said, and the two words ran like a rasp right up his spine to the base of his skull.

He’d just never known one like this. Everything he had was at attention. He cleared his throat. Hormones. He was male, she was female. He’d react the same way to any woman. “Kate.”

He was helpless to stop the single syllable from sounding like a plea, and he watched her smile widen. Desperately, he sought for something to say. “I haven’t seen you around the Park lately.”

She laughed, a low, intimate sound in the increasing dusk. A strand of hair fell into her face and she tucked it behind an ear, holding his eyes all the while. “Is that what you came to tell me?” She took a step closer. “Have you been missing me?”

“No,” he said, “no, not at all. I’ve been too busy to miss anybody.”

“Really? What with?”

He tried to think of something noteworthy he’d accomplished over the summer. “Oh. Well. You know. Claim jumping. Fishing behind the markers. Hunting out of season. Rape, robbery, murder. The usual.”

She didn’t move. She didn’t look away from him, either. He started to sweat. It was getting harder and harder to remember why he’d walked away from her last May, why he’d announced an end to his ongoing pursuit, why he’d renounced his goal of getting her into his bed.