Surrender to the Fury Read Free Page B

unforgettable passion aboard the
Delta Belle
. His gaze rested on her, steady, unflinching, unfathomable.
    Aimee Fortune.
    He had taken her in a moment of splendid madness in payment for a gambling debt.
    And he had never been able to forget her. The first time he had seen her, he’d felt lust, pure and simple, and he had satisfied it, handily, unforgettably.He regretted the haste with which he had left her the next morning, but she was sleeping so soundly, he didn’t have the heart to awaken her. He had slipped ashore at Natchez and immediately boarded a train for Chicago. But he had thought of Aimee Fortune often since then, and made an effort to travel aboard riverboats several times in the ensuing years, hoping to encounter once again the enchanting lady gambler who portrayed innocence so effectively. She was either a very talented actress or so experienced, she knew all the right moves.
    There were so many questions he wanted to ask her. Yet no one in New Orleans or Natchez seemed to know a lady gambler named Aimee Fortune or what had happened to her. She had virtually disappeared from the face of the earth, and Nick was forced to relegate the memory to a part of his past that somehow refused to die.
    The gun pointing at his middle wavered slightly.
    “What do you want here? Haven’t you and your kind taken enough from me? I’ve nothing more to give.” Her voice was ripe with bitterness, raw with hatred, and Nick couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her.
    “We mean you no harm, Mrs. Trevor,” Nick said softly. He stepped into a patch of sunlight streaming through a dingy window in the dim foyer and removed his hat.
    Aimee drew in a ragged breath. Thick, black hair emphasized the coppery tone of his complexion, his bronzed skin dark against the stark blue of his uniform. He was much more deeply tanned and his face more rugged than when she had lastseen him. Her heart hammered against her breast when his startling green eyes gazed upon her face. They had a hypnotic power that left her paralyzed and unaware of the peculiar way she was staring at his sensual mouth, at the cleft in his square chin, at the frown that drew his brows together and shadowed those incredible eyes. Eyes saturated with a secret knowledge that brought a rush of color to Aimee’s pale face. Devil’s eyes.
    Nick Drummond.
    He looked older, hardened by the war, his jaw more firmly set than she remembered. His expression was determined, the lines somewhat tempered by the cleft in his chin.
    Numb terror held Aimee speechless. She knew by his words that he had recognized her, though she had changed greatly during the past five years. Does he know about Brand? she wondered, desperately searching his face for a hint of his thoughts. His eyes remained carefully hooded. It took very little effort for her to hate Nick Drummond—even less for her to recall the way his loving had made her feel so long ago and the precious gift he had given her in the form of her son. Brand was the only person left in the world besides Savannah whom she truly loved and who loved her in return. She was seized by an obsessive fear that Nick Drummond had come to take her son from her. She had lived with that fear for five years and wanted desperately for Nick to leave before he saw Brand.
    “You’re trespassing on my land. State your business,” she said.
    “The widow Trevor,” Nick mused, still stunned at having finally found the woman who hadhaunted his dreams for the past five years. He had never recovered from the guilt of leaving her so abruptly aboard the
Delta Belle
. It was unlike his usual behavior with women, but he had had a train to catch. “Perhaps you don’t remember me, Mrs. Trevor, but I recall every moment of our last meeting. Five years ago, aboard the
Delta Belle
. I knew you as Aimee Fortune. Does that jog your memory?”
    Jog her memory? Dear sweet Lord, how could she forget when she had living proof of their brief encounter? On the heels of