Susan Phillips - Just Imagine aka Risen Glory

He scraped her wet cheek with his rough tongue. Another blast of lightning struck. He howled, and Kit jumped to her feet, fear igniting her determination. Risen Glory was hers! If she couldn't get into the house through a window, she'd get in through the door!

Half crazed from the storm and her own desperation, she raced toward the back door, fighting the wind and rain, too desperate to pay attention to the tiny voice that told her to give up and try again another day. She threw herself against the door, and when the lock didn't give, she began pounding it with her fists.

Tears of fury and frustration choked her. " Let me in ! Let me in, you Yankee son of a bitch!"

Nothing happened.

She continued to pound, cursing and kicking.

A jagged bolt of lightning shot from the sky and struck the maple that had so recently sheltered her. Kit screamed and threw herself inside.

Directly into the arms of Baron Cain.

"What in the hell…"

The heat from his naked, sleep-warmed chest seeped through her cold, wet shirt, and for a moment, all she wanted to do was stay where she was, right there against him, until she could stop shivering.

"Kit, what's wrong?" He grabbed her shoulders. "Has something happened?"

She jerked back. Unfortunately, Merlin was behind her. She stumbled over him and sprawled down on the hard kitchen floor.

Cain studied the tangled heap at his feet. His mouth quirked. "I take it this thunderstorm is a little too much for you."

She tried to tell him he could go straight to Hades, but her teeth were chattering so hard she couldn't talk. She'd also landed on the revolver tucked in her britches, and a sharp pain shot through her hip.

Cain stepped over them to shut the door. Unfortunately, Merlin chose that moment to shake himself off. "Ungrateful mutt." Cain grabbed a towel from a hook near the sink and began rubbing it over his chest.

Kit realized her revolver would be visible under her clothes as soon as she stood up. While Cain was preoccupied drying off, she slipped it out of her britches and hid it behind a basket of apples near the back door.

"I don't know which of you is more scared," Cain grumbled as he watched Merlin disappear down the hallway that led to Magnus's room. "But I wish you both could have waited till morning."

"I'm sure not scared of a little damn rain," Kit retorted.

Just then there was another crash, and she leaped to her feet, her face turning pale.

"My mistake," he drawled.

"Just because I-" She broke off and swallowed as she finally got a good look at him.

He was nearly naked, wearing only a pair of dun-colored trousers slung low on his hips, with the top two buttons left unfastened in his haste to get to the door. She'd been around her share of scantily clad men working in the fields or at the sawmill, but now it was as if she'd never seen a one of them.

His chest was broad and muscular,, lightly furred. A raised scar slashed one shoulder, and another jutted over his bare abdomen from the open waistband of his trousers. His hips were narrow and his stomach flat, bisected by a thin line of tawny hair. Her eyes inched lower to the point at which the legs of his trousers met. What she saw there fascinated her.

"Dry yourself off."

She lifted her head and saw him staring at her,, a towel extended in his hand, his expression puzzled. She grabbed the towel and reached under the collapsed brim of her hat to dab at her cheeks.

"It might be easier if you'd take your hat off."

"I don't want to take it off," she snapped, unsettled by her reaction. "I like my hat."

With a growl of exasperation, he headed into the hallway, only to reappear with a blanket. "Get rid of those wet clothes. You can wrap up in this."

She stared at the blanket and then at him. "I'm not takin' off my clothes!"

Cain frowned. "You're cold."

"I'm not cold!"

"Your teeth are chattering."

"Are not!"

"Damn it, boy, it's three o'clock in the morning, I lost two hundred dollars at poker tonight, and I'm tired as hell. Now get out of those damned clothes so we can both get some sleep. You can use Magnus's room tonight, and I'd better not hear another sound from you till noon."

"Are you deaf, Yankee? I said I wasn't takin' off any clothes!"

Cain wasn't used to anybody standing up to him, and the grim set of his jaw told her she should have killed him right away. As he took a step forward, she shot toward the basket of apples where she'd hidden her gun, only to jerk to a stop when he caught her arm.

"Oh, no, you don't!"

"Let me go, you son of a bitch!"

She started swinging, but Cain was holding her at arm's length. "I told you to take off those wet clothes, and you're going to do what I say so I can get some damn sleep!"

"You can rot in hell, Yankee!" She swung again, but her blow bounced off as harmlessly as thistledown.

"Stop it before you get hurt." He shook her once as a warning.

"Go fuck yourself!"

Her hat flew off as she felt herself being lifted off the floor. There was a clap of thunder, Cain sank down onto a kitchen chair, and she found herself upended over his outstretched knee.

"I'm going to do you a favor." His open palm slammed down on her bottom.

'"Hey!"

"I'm going to teach you a lesson your father should have taught you."

Once again his hand came down, and she cried out, more from indignation than from pain. "Stop it, you rotten Yankee bastard!"

"Never cuss at people who are bigger than you are…"

He gave her another hard, stinging smack.

"Or stronger than you are…"

Her bottom began to burn.

"And most of all…"

The next two smacks left her bottom on fire.

"… don't cuss at me !" He pushed her off his lap. "Now, do we understand each other or not?"

She sucked in her breath as she landed on the floor. Fury and pain swirled in a haze around her, clouding her vision, so she didn't see him reaching for her. "You're going to get out of these clothes."

His hand clamped her wet shirt. With a howl of rage, she leaped to her feet.

The old, worn fabric ripped in his hand.

After that, everything happened at once. Cool air touched her flesh. She heard the faint patter of buttons skittering across the wooden floor. She looked down and saw her small breasts exposed to his gaze.

"What in the-"

A sense of horror and humiliation suffocated her.

He released her slowly and took a step back. She grabbed for the torn edges of her shirt and tried to pull them together.

Eyes the color of frozen pewter stared down at her. "So. My stable boy isn't a boy after all."

She clutched the shirt and tried to hide her humiliation behind belligerence. "What difference does it make? I needed a job."

"And you got one by passing yourself off as a boy."

"You're the one who assumed I was a boy. I never said any such thing."

"You never said any different, either." He picked up the blanket and tossed it to her. "Dry yourself off while I get myself a drink." He moved toward the hallway door. "I'll expect some answers when I come back, and don't even think about running away, because that'd be your biggest mistake yet."

After he disappeared, she flung down the blanket and raced toward the basket of apples to retrieve the revolver. She sat at the table to hide it in her lap. Only then did she gather her tattered shirttails together and tie them in a clumsy knot at her waist.

Cain stalked back just as she realized how unsatisfactory the result was. He'd ripped her undershirt along with her shirt, and a deep V of exposed flesh extended down to the knot.

Cain took a sip of whiskey and stared at the girl. She was sitting at the wooden table, her hands folded out of sight in her lap, the soft fabric of her shirt clearly outlining a pair of small breasts. How could he have believed for a moment that she was a boy? Those delicate bones should have been a giveaway, along with her eyelashes, which were thick enough to sweep the floor.