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He watched her criticallyas she padded toward him. Her chin came up in automatic response. There was
a brooding tension about Cullen, an air of suppressed fury that she was at a loss to understand. Or
maybe it was just the short hair. He'd looked dangerous and untamed with long hair; now he looked even
harder, more remote.
Rachel didn't like the change. It emphasised his air of control. He wore the veneer of civilisation as
comfortably as he wore the primitive, muscular beauty of his body, deepening the distance between them
in a way that sent panic flaring through her.
He was no longer wearing his wedding ring.
The absence of the gold band shoved reality at her again. She hadn't known whether he would wear the
ring or not. Some men simply objected to wearing jewellery of any kind. But the ring had been important
to her; it had been a claiming of her own, a message that she hadn't given up on a real marriage.
She must have signalled her distress, made some kind of sound, because Cullen uttered a low, succinct
oath and covered the distance between them. His arms came around her as he eased her in close against
the hard, solid warmth of his body.
Time passed, and he continued to hold her. Rachel let her head sink against his shoulder and wrapped
her arms around his lean waist while she listened to the heavy, regular beat of his heart. Eventually he
drew away.
"I'm a damned fool," he said quietly. "You're pregnant, you've worked yourself into the ground
organising the wedding, and now you're dead on your feet. Why don't you lie down while I bring the rest
of your stuff in? Your room's down there." He nodded at the far end of the corridor. "Take a nap. I'll
make a start on dinner."
Dazed and still tingling with the warmth of Cullen's embrace, Rachel reached the doorway to her room.
And stopped.
The rest of the house was bare, but over the past few days Cullen must, have worked night and day in
this room. The wood floor was polished to a high sheen and partially covered by a large Turkish rug in
warm, muted colours. The walls were painted a similar tawny colour to the one she'd used in her flat, and
themultipaned sash windows were draped in filmy muslin. There was a bed. A romantic dream of a
four-poster constructed from black wrought iron and hung with delicate folds of mosquito netting. Her
suitcase sat on an antique chest at the foot of the bed. There was other furniture too: a dresser and
dressing table, bedside tables all with the glow of valuable antiques.
"How did you know?" she demanded.
"About the bed?" Cullen was directly behind her, his voice a velvety rumble just above her right ear.
"Helen gave me a decorating magazine. She said you'd wanted the four-poster for the flat but it wouldn't
fit."
"So you got it for me. Why?" she asked, weariness fading as she faced him.
Again the puzzling air of tightly condensed fury, of emotion locked beneath adamantine control. "I
wanted you to be & comfortable."
"This is more than just comfortable." It was sumptuous, expensive and, under the circumstances,
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impractically extravagant. "But then, you can afford it, can't you? You're a member of theLombard
family."
"My mother was a Lombard," he conceded.
Rachel inhaled sharply at his deliberate evasion. There was, she decided, no point in being subtle. If she
wanted information she would have to prise it out of him. "Okay, you'rerelatedto the Lombards. What I
want to know is why you're letting this town put you through hell when you could pay someone to take
care of everything for you?"
For a tense interval she thought Cullen wasn't going to answer, then he said bluntly, "It's my property, my
responsibility. I'll be damned if I'll back away from it because the people ofRiverbend are squeamish
about a Logan being back in residence. I could hire a manager. I've got access to funds, but I've never
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