Whirlwind Groom. Debra Cowan

piece of nothing. Her sobs quieted, but she twisted on the bed, kicking off the sheet.

      He pulled up the cover and she moved it again. He couldn’t tell if her fever was coming down. High color still flushed her cheeks and chest. Her hairline was wet, her underwear and the sheets damp. He reached out and stroked a finger lightly against her temple.

      She turned into his touch, moaning, “William.”

      Who was William? Husband? Lover? Brother? She had never answered his questions about her family.

      She mumbled incoherently, her arm slanting across her face again.

      He murmured soothing words, lifted her arm to draw the wet cloth over her face and chest. She twitched beneath his hand, her head turning from side to side on her pillow. Her hair slid across her face and Davis Lee nudged the wet strands away.

      “Blood,” she whispered brokenly. “So much blood.”

      Another sob choked out of her and his heart caught at the deep-reaching agony of it. Blood? What was going on in her head? Just another question to add to the others he had about her.

      He wished her fever would cool, that Catherine would return. He took her hand and dipped it into the water up to her wrist, spreading the wet rag on her chest for a moment. The tiny mole he’d glimpsed before at the edge of her collarbone teased him. And so did that damn transparent undergarment.

      Davis Lee stared at her plump breasts and the dusky nipples that had drawn up like shy buds. Despite the fact that he knew she was lying about something, want pounded through him, low and fierce and hot. He moved his gaze from the flat of her stomach to the dark shadow between her legs. His breath hitched on the same sharp edge of desire he’d felt for another woman with lies in her eyes.

      Davis Lee dragged a hand down his face, wishing he could erase this picture of her from his mind. He had no doubt he would carry this image to his grave. What he needed was to focus on getting her fever down, helping her through this. Then finding out her connection to Ian McDougal and why she had really come to Whirlwind.