Read Online The Temptress by Jude Deveraux - Free Book Online

there and sit down? Why are you always following me? Can’t you ever give a man a moment of peace?”
    Quick tears came to Chris’s eyes as she turned toward the fire. He called her name but she didn’t look back.
    Once, she felt that Ty was trying to catch her eye but she didn’t look up at him, and after a while she heard him leave the camp.
    â€œI’m going to take a walk and write in my journal,” Chris said to Asher, removing her notebook, pen and ink from her saddlebag. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.” She then went down the path in the opposite direction of Tynan.
    Chris walked for longer than she meant to. Tynan’s sharp, angry words had hurt her and she wanted to think about what she had been doing and what she wanted to do in the future.
    It was odd how this man attracted her. Never before had she made such a fool of herself over a man.
    After a while, the light began to fade and she moved just off the trail to sit on a log and write in her journal. Maybe if she put in all the facts of this odd trip, she could figure out what was going on. She wrote a good deal about the one man who was so kind to her as opposed to the man who seemed to hope that she’d fall into a deep hole.
    She was sheltered under the tree branches and a particularly heavy umbrella of moss and didn’t at first feel the cold drops of rain begin to fall. One minute she was warm and dry and the next she was sitting under what seemed to be a waterfall that began in the sky.
    Gathering her things with haste, she dropped her pen. She was leaning over the log to get it, searching in the plants, when the entire side of the trail suddenly gave way and Chris went tumbling down. The log rolled out from under her and she caught at a tree root as she went flying down the side of the forest wall.
    Hanging there, suspended, the icy rain coming down on top of her, her feet touching nothing and not being able to see anything below or above her, she prayed for help. “Tynan,” she whispered, not able to hear herself above the rain crashing down.
    â€œTynan!” she shouted.
    Her hands were beginning to slip. She tried to keep a cool head about where she was and how she could get out of this mess. If she could only see how far it was to the bottom of the drop. For all she knew, she could be six inches from the ground.
    Twisting, she tried to look below her, but the rising mist made it impossible to see anything. One of her hands slipped.
    After several long minutes of struggle, she got both hands back on the tree root. She could feel the skin begin to tear away. She tried to swing forward, hoping to get her foot into the mud and rocks of the bank.
    â€œCurse all the Montgomery women for being short,” she said when she couldn’t reach the bank.
    Suddenly, she stopped as she thought she heard a sound above her.
    â€œTynan,” she yelled with all her might. “Tynan. Tynan. Tynan.”
    She hadn’t finished her last scream before he was there beside her, his back sunk into the mud of the bank, his long arms reaching for her and pulling her to him.
    She clung to him like a monkey to a tree, wrapping her body around his, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.
    He began to go down the side of the bank, scooting along, pushing debris out of the way as he moved. Chris held to him, her face buried in his neck. Even when he started walking, she didn’t let go.
    â€œHere,” he said at last, peeling her off of him.
    When he stood her on the ground, she found that her legs were weak. Both their bodies were covered in mud.
    â€œSit there for a while and rest.” He pointed to an outcropping of rock behind her, and, gratefully, she sat down, out of the pelting rain.
    As she looked up at Ty, the misty, cold rain coming down behind his head, she knew she’d never seen anything as welcome in her life. Quite naturally, she put up her arms to him.
    He came to her,