Blue Moon by Jill Marie Landis

the edge of the swamp. The other had nearly been cut clean in half when the sharp jaws of the trap slammed closed. He hated killing but he did it in order to survive, never taking more than he needed for food and trade. Today he was just thankful to have caught something. Now, having the beavers to skin and new pelts to cure would keep him busy. He could only hope that the work would help keep his mind off Olivia.
    She had been with him almost four days and he still knew next to nothing about her or how she came to be on Heron Pond. He was beginning to think he never would. There was a hunted wariness in her eyes, one he had seen often enough in the creatures he tracked and trapped. She seemed content to keep her silence, and he suspected it was most likely to protect herself from whoever or whatever had driven her into the swamp in the first place.
    He could not help wondering what she was running from or why she was headed to Shawneetown. Was she going home or running away? Would anyone welcome her? Was anyone searching for her?
    He had been to Shawneetown once, picked up a flatboat and piloted it down the Ohio to Cairo. Not much to the town then except the saline mines that were nearby.
    A water moccasin swam toward the boat, leaving a spiraling trail behind it through the duckweed before it veered off. Not enough to take his mind off Olivia.
    Could she sense the hunger she aroused in him? Was that why she was so cautious and kept so very quiet? Was that why the wary, haunted look never left her eyes? Or was it his face? Did the long scar and the eye patch keep her ill at ease?
    She was disrupting his life. He could not think of anything but her. Nor could he sleep or eat more than a few bites. She filled him up, his mind, his senses. Her smallest movement had him sitting bolt upright out of a deep sleep, listening to see if she was having another nightmare, waiting until she settled back down, wondering what he should do if she did not. Her softest sigh claimed his complete attention.
    He had to send her on her way before he went insane. It was past time. She was on the mend. Her color was better now. Her cheeks had flushed bright pink when he brought in the bath. The glow had made her green eyes sparkle. How much more beautiful would she be once she was clean and dressed?
    Noah took a deep breath, blew it out again and picked up the paddle. He had given her more than enough time to bathe. The storm had passed and the sun had broken through the remaining clouds. He bent at the waist and pulled the paddle through the water toward him. Poking the long paddle into the water to steer the light craft was second nature to him. The pirogue moved along, creating barely a ripple and hardly more than a soft splash. As he headed back home, Noah was sure the pounding of his heart was making more noise than his paddle.
    Noah drifted the last few yards to the base of the huge tree, slipped a rope around a knobby cypress knee that grew two feet out of the water and climbed out of the pirogue. He was reaching in for the beaver when he paused, arrested by the sound of Olivia humming a song. The tune drifted down through the leaves and branches of the tree, light and charming as a caress, teasing him, coaxing him to hurry back.
    He held onto his hat and leaned back far enough to look up, and then he saw her—sitting on a stool she had carried out to the porch, perched near the railing in a stream of sunlight, wearing his mother’s old dress and the shawl his father had brought from a place far, far away. She was bent over brushing her dark, heavy hair with her fingers, stroking it over and over, untangling the wet curls, letting the warm spring sun dry it. Noah’s breath caught. The sight held him, made him feel like a thief as he stood there stealing more than a glimpse of her private moment.
    The melody of the song teased his memory. His mind searched for remnants of the notes hidden somewhere in a corner of his mind where bits and