What is the world coming to, with these modern women? A man can't tell them what to do.

What? You mean to travel almost five hundred miles alone? No. I can’t let you do that. I . . . I forbid you.” It was Colin’s first attempt at forbidding anyone to do anything, and it worked about as well as he’d expected it to. Which was to say, not at all.

Dedication: For all the girls who walk and read at the same time.

I’ll be damned,” he muttered.“Most likely.” She folded the blanket with efficient snaps. “And I may be joining you, after what we just did.

She would allow him to comfort her. And perhaps, someday, she would listen patiently if a dark, dreary night found him well in his cups and he drunkenly confessed to still feeling scores of wounds that weren’t his own, but those of men under his command.

I'm male. You rubbed your...femaleness all over me. I didn't think. I reacted.

Don’t. Don’t play that game.” His brow pressed to hers. “When I heard you cry out . . . it was like a saber to the gut. I wanted to die.