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especially fond of scent—any scent—but he suspected that lilac would haunt him almost as much as the memory of her nipples rising eagerly to his mouth.
    Reno wanted Eve more than he had any woman in a long, long time. But if she discovered his weakness, she would make his life a living hell.
    Reno dropped Eve’s hands and turned away to the fire.
    “Tell me more about my mine,” he said curtly.
    Eve took a deep breath and banished the Lyons from her mind as Donna had taught her to banish all things she couldn’t control.
    “Your half of the mine,” Eve said, and waited for the explosion.
    It wasn’t long in coming.
    “What?” Reno asked, spinning around to face her.
    “Without me deciphering the symbols along the trail, you won’t be able to find the mine.”
    “Don’t bet on it.”
    “I have no choice but to bet on my skill,” she said. “And neither do you. Without me, you’ll never find the mine. You can have all of nothing or half of the gold mine that rightfully belongs to me.”
    There was the kind of silence that precedes thunder after the arc of lightning from sky to ground. Then Reno smiled, but there was no humor in the thin curve of his mouth.
    “All right,” he said. “Half of the mine.”
    She let out a soft rush of air in relief.
    “And all of the girl,” Reno added flatly.
    Relief congealed into a lump in Eve’s throat.
    “What?” she asked.
    “You heard me. Until we find the mine, you’ll be my woman whenever I want you, however I want you.”
    “But I thought if I told you about the mine, you would—”
    “No buts,” Reno said coldly. “I’m getting damned tired of bargaining for what is already mine. Besides, you need me as much as I need you. You wouldn’t last two days out in that desert alone. You need me to—”
    “But I’m not what you think I am, I’m—”
    “Sure you are,” he interrupted. “Right now you’re wriggling like a worm on a hook, trying to find a way out of keeping your word. Only a cheat would do that.”
    Eve closed her eyes.
    It was a mistake. The tears she had been trying to hide slid from beneath her lashes.
    Reno watched, savagely shoving down all feeling of sympathy, telling himself her tears were just one more in the arsenal of female weapons. Yet it was nearly impossible for him not to soften. The longer he was with Eve, the more difficult he found it to remember what a conniving little tart she really was.
    For the first time in his life, Reno was grateful for the past’s cruel lessons in the ways a woman managed a man. There had been a time in his life when he would have believed Eve’s silver tears and pale, trembling lips.
    “Well?” he said roughly. “Is it a deal?”
    Eve looked at the dark, oversize gunfighter who was watching her with eyes as hard as jade.
    “I—” Her voice cracked.
    Reno waited, watching her.
    “I was wrong about you,” Eve said after a moment. “I’m not strong enough to fight you and win, so you’ll take what you want from me, just like Slater or Raleigh.”
    “I’ve never taken a woman by force in my life,” Reno said flatly. “I never will.”
    Eve let out a long breath. “Truly?”
    Despite himself, Reno felt a wave of compassion for Eve. Cheat or not, saloon girl or not, no girl deserved the kind of rough usage she got from men like Slater and Raleigh King.
    “You have my word on it.”
    Reno saw the relief in Eve’s golden eyes and smiled thinly.
    “That doesn’t mean I won’t touch you,” he continued. “It just means that when I take you—and I will—you’ll be screaming with pleasure, not pain.”
    A tide of crimson replaced the pallor of Eve’s face.
    “Do we have a deal?” Reno asked.
    “You won’t touch me unless I—”
    “I won’t take you,” he corrected instantly. “There’s a difference, saloon girl. If you don’t like that bargain, we can go back to the first one—I get all of the mine and all of the girl. Take your pick.”
    “You’re too kind,”