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to apologize, Charlie, there’s really no need. I realize this has to be unsettling to have a woman and child in your cabin on your first night home. And I didn’t figure that was really you kissing me, anyway,” she lied.
    His eyes narrowed on her face. “Who did you think it was?”
    One of her shoulders lifted and fell and she ducked her head as heat filled her cheeks. “That was just your frustration coming out,” she murmured.
    He leaned his hip against the porch railing and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re wrong, Violet. It was a little bit of me coming out.” He studied her down-bent head. She might have been married for six years and borne a child, but she still seemed terribly naive in some ways.
    “I get the idea you think I’m not like other men because I’m a Texas Ranger. That’s where you’re wrong. Men are men under any guise. And deep down all of us are selfish. That’s just the way we’re made. We can’t help it.”
    Her expression turned to comic disbelief. “Why are you saying such things to me? Are you afraid I’m going to let my imagination run away with me? That I’ll get to thinking you kissed me because you wanted to?” She let out a scoffing laugh. “Charlie, I might be young in years, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m not getting those sorts of ideas about you. Believe me, as soon as I can get out of your hair, I’ll be glad to go.”
    He was getting the urge to kiss her again, to reach over and pluck her from the chair, pull her into his arms and ravish her soft lips. Violet thought it was frustration and not really him that had compelled him to kiss her. But right this moment it felt like the urge was pure Charlie Pardee.
    “Violet,” he started to say, then stopped and heaved out a heavy breath. “I’m not telling you all this just to hear myself talk! When you leave here you can’t go around trusting the first man who comes along!”
    He was actually angry! She couldn’t believe him. “I have no intention of doing such a thing.”
    “But you might be tempted. Especially when things are going rough and you start to have doubts about making it on your own. You might be tempted to lean on a man... to let him take care of you. And he just might be the wrong man.
    Her head swung from side to side. “Do I look stupid or something? Or do you give this sort of lecture to all the women you know?”
    He made a little growling sound in his throat. “No. I don’t normally preach to the females I come in contact with. But I know...without you having to tell me...that you have problems.”
    She opened her mouth to deny his speculation, but he held up his hand and barged on without giving her the chance. “Maybe your trouble wasn’t over a man. But then, maybe it was.” His eyes flicked insolently over her. “From the looks of you, I’d bet everything I own that you left Texas because of a man.”
    What was he seeing when he looked at her, a jezebel, a siren, a lady of the night? Love or sex had nothing to do with her flight from Texas, and the very idea that he thought it did enraged her.
    “Then you’d lose,” Violet whispered fiercely. “Not that it’s any of your business!”
    She was about to rise from the chair when Charlie suddenly grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet.
    “What are you—” The rest of her question was lost as she landed with a thump against his chest, and the breath whooshed out of her.
    “I’m making it my business,” he muttered, his hand snatching a grip on her chin. “Somebody needs to shock some sense into you!”
    Sense? What sort of sense was this, she wanted to scream at him, but he didn’t give her the chance. His head bent, and before she could draw a breath his lips were hovering above hers, turning her heart into a frantic runaway.
    “I don’t think you realize the trouble you could get yourself into. With me...or any man,” he whispered roughly.
    Any man could never make her feel like this, she thought