Page 2 of Moonstone Landing
She stepped back from the cliff face and hurried back inside the house, shutting the door behind her and latching it securely. Then she realized the stranger might have crept inside the house while she was outside chasing him.
“Calm yourself, Hen,” she whispered, clutching the rifle a little tighter as she hurried upstairs to her bedchamber and latched that door behind her as well.
She glanced around, realizing she might now have locked herself in with the stranger. “I have a loaded rifle,” she warned, kneeling down to peer under her bed. It was a big, masculine-looking thing with a dark wood headboard and footboard etched with what looked like sea serpents on them and a square canopy over the top draped in a heavy, ocean blue damask.
All the furniture and furnishings in this bedchamber and throughout the cottage had a masculine, nautical feel. The outside did, too. The stone had been painted white, and the shutters were all of a nautical blue, but the cottage’s appearance was softened by the abundance of red roses in front and the beautiful sweep of roses and colorful wildflowers around back.
She had fallen in love with the place at first sight and knew she had to have it when shown through the captain’s bedchamber to the balcony and its overlook onto the garden and beyond to the sea.
“Dust balls,” she muttered, squinting as she peered under the bed and spotted a few. She would ask Marjorie to sweep under there as soon as she arrived for work, but that would not be for a few hours yet.
With rifle still firmly in hand, she yanked open the door to her wardrobe. Her clothes were just as she had left them, her gowns neatly arranged by color and her delicate unmentionables undisturbed. She breathed a sigh of relief, for there was no place else within the room where the bounder could hide.
Unless he is hiding on the balcony.
She cautiously poked her head out and saw no one. “Oh, thank goodness.”
Her nerves had gotten the better of her, causing her to imagine this stranger leaping out at her in places he was not.
She set her rifle back in its spot beside her bed and walked over to one of the plump chairs set beside the fireplace. She sank down on it, for her hands were trembling, and her heart was racing so that she could hardly catch her breath.
She closed her eyes a moment to steady herself. “No one here. You are safe, Hen.”
“What sort of name is Hen?” A man’s deep voice came from behind her, his words coming out in a soft growl.
She gasped and shot to her feet, immediately wanting to grab for her rifle and realizing she had left it by her bed.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Why did she ever let it out of her hands?
However, she put on a brave face for this stranger, unwilling to show him how frightened she truly was. “Who are you and…what…are you…doing…”
Drat!
Her heart was now in a fast flutter, and she could not catch her breath. How did he get in? Her door was latched. She had checked every possible hiding spot. “This is…my…chamber…”
He growled softly again. “You dare to call it yours?”
The prior owner had been a sea captain. “Indeed, I do. I simply have not started redecorating it yet. That project will start next month.”
“Over my dead—” The very stranger she had seen outside earlier was now standing before her with his shirt still off, and glowering at her. His massive chest blocked her view of the rifle.
Lord, he was big.
His arms bulged with muscles as he crossed them over his chest, but his body was taut, lean, and finely rippled.
His eyes were the deepest blue she had ever seen.
He was handsome, even for a man who was about to kill her. However, he made no attempt to reach for her, just stood angrily staring at her.
Was he going to kill her?
She foolishly asked him the question, too late realizing she might have put the idea in his head when he likely only meant to frighten her or steal from her.
Yes, perhaps he was a thief.
