The Temptress by Jude Deveraux

frying in a skillet.
    â€œDid you go fishing?” she asked, smiling at him.
    He mumbled something but she couldn’t hear what it was before he stood and walked to the horses.
    All morning Tynan stayed away from her and the three of them rode in silence on the trail.
    When they stopped at noon to eat, Tynan quickly told Asher to take Chris with him to gather firewood.
    Asher took Chris’s elbow and half propelled her toward the path they’d just traveled.
    â€œI hear your father is in shipping, too,” Asher said for the second time before Chris heard him.
    â€œYes, he is,” she said distractedly. “Canning, shipping, cattle, a couple of saw mills, anything he can get his hands on.”
    â€œYet you left it all to run away to New York to become a newspaper reporter. But now you’re back.”
    â€œNot by choice. I plan to return to New York as soon as I get back to my father’s house.”
    â€œAh, I see. Somehow, I thought you had other plans.”
    â€œSuch as?” she asked, turning to look at him. “Did my father tell you that I had other plans?”
    â€œOnly that you were ready to settle down, that you were still young enough and he had hopes that you—”
    â€œYoung enough for what?” she interrupted.
    â€œWhy, to start a family I would imagine.”
    Chris bit her lower lip to keep from replying hastily. “No, I don’t think I’m over the hill yet, even at my advanced age. I assume women can still bear children at my age.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to give offense.”
    Quickly, Chris looked at him and a wave of guilt ran through her. Here she was walking in the forest with a handsome young man who was trying to be polite and she, because of some imagined infatuation with a man she barely knew, was being almost rude to him. She smiled at Asher. “I’m sure that you didn’t, Mr. Prescott. How did you meet my father?”
    Asher returned her smile. “He and my father were friends and did some business together. I saw you once when you were a little girl. You were with your mother. I thought she was the prettiest woman I’d ever seen.”
    â€œSo did I.”
    He began to gather firewood from the ground, making a stack of it at her feet.
    â€œAnd why did my father choose you to go on this rescue mission?” She also picked up a few pieces of wood and added them to the pile.
    â€œI think he took who he could get. There aren’t many men my age who have no business, and, after working for myself for so many years, I can’t seem to settle down to just being an employee.”
    â€œI know how you feel. My father continues to tell me what to do and how to do it, even sending men after me when I don’t obey him.”
    â€œYes, but you’re a—” Asher took one look at Chris’s sparkling eyes and stopped. “I almost put my foot in it that time, didn’t I?”
    She cocked her head to one side. “Would it matter if you alienated me?”
    Asher gave her a big grin. He really was quite pleasant-looking, not anything like Tynan, of course, but very handsome. “I’m alone in the woods with a beautiful woman and you ask if it would make any difference if she’s angry with me? Why, Miss Mathison, this time and place is a dream come true and I would as soon die as ruin it.”
    She laughed at his pretty speech as he picked a tiny purple flower from a bank of moss and gave it to her with a little bow. Chris stuck the flower behind her ear and smiled at him.
    â€œWell,” he said slowly, “I guess we’d better get back.” He picked up an enormous pile of wood. “Put the rest on top of this.”
    â€œNo, I’ll carry my share.”
    â€œMiss Mathison, while I am around, no woman shall ever carry firewood. Now do as I say and put the rest of that on this pile.”
    â€œYou sound just like my father,” she said with a