“Honey, don’t climb down a flight of stairs in a robe that short for anyone else, would you?”

He lowered his head. She scrambled down several more steps, even though she never for a minute believed he could see what he was claiming to see. “What the devil do you think you’re doing here? How did you get in?” The questions tried to tumble from her lips, but though her mouth moved, she had no voice at all.

For a moment, there was no sound at all in the cabin. Hart just looked at her, his eyes rambling with devilty over her wildly curling hair, the faint dampness on her cheeks, the vulnerable pallor of her face by candlelight. Bree flushed, for no reason, tucking the robe closer around her in a protective gesture that produced a desultory smile from Hart.

“Unfortunately, I finished the hooch when I came in. I checked around-thought you’d at least have a beer in the fridge, but no. Not even wine. God save us from teetotalers,” Hart said disgustedly. “I can hardly believe we’re stuck with milk.”

He disappeared through the open door of the lean-to, and Bree let out an impossibly huge sigh, combing her fingers hurriedly through her hair. He was such an exasperating man…yet in some murky corner of her head, she wasn’t totally miserable about his being here. The ache in her heart lessened, the post-nightmare trembling had stopped…Every time Hart was around she was too busy being furious to feel depressed.

“You left your window screens unlocked. Doesn’t do much good to bolt all the doors when a bear could push a paw through the screen and get in.” He returned from the lean-to and thrust a glass of milk in her hand. A lazy grin split his face; that teasing smile below intensely dark eyes still seared on hers from above. “Now, don’t throw it, honey-not that I’d really mind. Milk may be a bitch to clean up, but I’ll take that look in your eyes any day over the way you looked a few minutes ago. So you had another little nightmare, did you? More alligators under the bed? I would have been here last night if I hadn’t had so damn much to take care of. Just sit down, and we’ll have a little talk.”

She jabbed a furious forefinger at the sleeping bag.

He nodded. “You didn’t really think I was going to leave you alone here to scream your heart out all by yourself? Besides, it was hot up at my place.”

A blatant lie. His house had central air conditioning, and her nightmares were her business. Bree’s lips tightened as she motioned even more angrily to her cake.

“Terrific stuff. It was still warm when I came in. I could smell it when I was ten feet from the door. Now, I know I took a little piece, but that was hardly my fault. You shouldn’t bake like that if you don’t want it eaten. Incidentally, you’ve got quite a contraption there.” He motioned to the “bubbler” she had set up in the corner by the dry sink, where she’d played with a formula for perfume hours before.

“I had such high hopes when I first walked in here that you were making a little moonshine-it is a still, isn’t it? But that smell isn’t remotely related to liquor. In fact,” Hart drawled lazily, “the scent has distinctly aphrodisiac qualities. One of the first things I noticed about you on the plane was that scent you wear-nothing heavy, is it, honey, just whatever it takes to drive a man over the edge. Are you a witch in secret, Bree? Woops. I forgot the lady isn’t inclined to talk back.”

Hart twisted around, spotted her purse on the floor by the dry sink and bent over, rummaging around in it until he withdrew her notepad and pen. “Drink your milk,” he ordered. “And then-just this one time-we’ll do a little communicating your way. Against my better judgment. One way or another I’d like at least a hint as to why you get the screaming meemies at two in the morning. Unless you’ve got something better to talk about?”

He motioned her to the sleeping bag, as if he expected her to sit there. Bree stood rooted to her spot in the shadow of the stairs, one hand holding her robe closed and the other clutching the cold, sweating glass of milk.

“Ah. We get the feeling the lady doesn’t want to talk about it. Well, fine, Bree.” Hart sprawled in a kitchen chair and raised one bare foot to the opposite one with a lazy yawn. “I told you before that it’s terrific finding a woman who doesn’t constantly prattle on and on, demanding constant attention, interrupting my every sentence…” He yawned again, a flashy grin zipping across his face. In that crazy, flickering candlelight, he looked like a demented tawny bear.

“Believe me, honey, I can talk for two. You want to hear about the time I drove a car into a swimming pool? That’s a good story. It happened to be the principal’s car-in the suburb of Los Angeles where I grew up-and the principal’s daughter happened to be in it. Happened to be in the car, that is, not just the suburb. Problems sort of compounded on that one, since I was only fifteen and didn’t have a license-”

My God, he could talk. On and on…Bree stood motionless in the corner. She took a token sip of the milk, but never considered sitting down. Even to perch on the steps was tantamount to giving him permission to stay. And Bree couldn’t do that.

Tension crackled around the room like a resounding echo. It had nothing to do with Bree’s nightmare. It had nothing to do with Hart’s naturally lazy baritone, soughing on and on about a dozen irresponsible escapades he’d had in his youth. The tension was strictly sexual; it rippled disturbingly whenever her eyes met Hart’s-and his never once left her face.

“So they let me take over the business. Uncle Harvey was sick of the constant travel. Dad was still trying hard to believe I could turn into an upstanding human being if given a little responsibility.” Hart yawned and paused long enough to lift both feet onto the kitchen table, crossing his ankles. “Lord, you have beautiful eyes. Sometimes soft as water, sometimes full of fire…” He raked a lazy hand through his hair, staring at her. “Anyway, easiest way to make money I’ve ever seen. Don’t know why the hell I went to college-except maybe for the pleasure of getting kicked out, like I told you. All I really needed to make good was a peddler’s mentality, a little larceny in my character, the ability to butter a few palms…Getting a little tired, honey, or are you just swaying on your feet because you like music?”

Vaguely, it occurred to Bree that there was something sneaky about Hart. For one thing, he was always yawning when his eyes were most alert. He worked so hard to present his character as totally irredeemable, when no one could have packed all the irresponsible, selfish actions he claimed he had into one short life. He insulted her often, but suddenly he would say something kind…and he was here, and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to find a house close to her…

Maybe it was his personal hobby, driving women crazy. He was good at it. Her bare feet had grown roots. She’d stood still for the better part of an hour and just let him rant on, and cobwebs must have collected in her brain, because she knew darn well she’d been staring at him for most of that time. Nightmares faded when Hart was around-it was a trick he had. A terrible trick, that blue-eyed stare that held hers in a jail-like lock, as though he wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her mind wander to any subject but him.

“Well…” The kitchen chair tipped down; Hart’s feet dropped to the floor. “I think it’s time we both got some sleep, anyway. This time I think we’ll insure against nightmares, though. Do you want to sleep down here with me, or shall I take my sleeping bag upstairs?”

Her jaw sagged, just slightly.

Hart bent over and pushed one of his two pillows toward Bree, clearly making room for her on his double sleeping bag. “If the mosquitoes weren’t so bad, I’d suggest the porch, but without repellent or netting, this is probably the coolest place we can find. Snuff that second candle?”

He opened the tin lantern over the dry sink to blow out the first candle. The second one was on the table. Bree, rubbing one arm absently with the cold fingers of her other hand, didn’t move. His arrogant assumption that they were sleeping in the same room surpassed even his usual audacity, but she wasn’t certain how she’d fare in a fistfight.

His eyes leveled on hers over the flame of candle on the table. “Don’t be too foolish, Bree,” he said in a low voice. “We both know I’m not leaving. And that you’re not afraid of me.” He snuffed out the second candle himself.

In the sudden total blackness, she heard him shucking off his jeans, then lying down on the sleeping bag, then…silence. A lonely, frightening silence. All silences had been frightening to Bree for these past weeks.

One of her bare feet shifted forward, then the other. Moonlight bathed her profile in white mist for one moment before she crouched down, fingers blindly reaching for the spare pillow and quilted surface.

“Here.”

He tossed a cotton blanket over her, most impersonally. Tugging it to her chin, Bree felt…ashamed of herself. If it had come to a fistfight, she knew darn well she would have won by forfeit. Hart was without morals or character, but she just knew he wouldn’t lay a hand on an unwilling woman…There was no pretending she’d been forced, coerced or browbeaten into lying next to him.

Minutes ticked by. Her eyes gradually dilated until she could make out hazy, moonlit shapes and shadows. Lying on her side at the edge of the sleeping bag, she was conscious of her own tense, weary limbs. The cabin still smelled like fresh-baked cake, like the elusive flowery scent she’d made earlier, like wood and the sweet odor of the vanilla candle just snuffed, like…man.

Like Hart.

No sane woman would trust him. Like an abrasive, Hart had scratched the serenity she’d expected to find here-but she didn’t want him to go…not just yet. She wasn’t ready to face the darkness alone again-the night, the dreams, the terrible, vulnerable feeling of loneliness.