Pamela Morsi Read Online Free

temptation meant nothing.
    He remembered that afternoon at the falls with vivid clarity. He’d been out with his old hound running a fox to ground when he’d happened upon her. Sitting on the big rock, she was dangling one foot intothe water while she combed through her damp hair. Her unexpected appearance momentarily startled him. And the sight of her bare leg hastily covered by her skirt was equally disconcerting. All flushed and clean from bathing, her body was outlined with exquisite accuracy by her thin cotton clothes. His imagination had taunted him. What if he’d arrived only moments earlier? What if he had caught her wet and naked in the frothing water? The fantasy had him immediately aroused. The reality of the feminine charms within his reach was a lusty provocation.
    “Morning,” he’d said, politely doffing his hat.
    “A good morning to you, too, sir,” she’d answered. Her smile was broad and welcoming, all plump pink lips and pearly white teeth.
    The old hound quit his tracking and hurried, tail a-wagging, to her side. She immediately began to scratch him behind the ears.
    “What’s the dog’s name?” she asked.
    Moss shrugged “I just call him Old Hound.”
    She laughed at his words. It was a warm, enticing sound.
    “Well, hello there, Old Hound,” she said to the animal and commenced talking baby talk to him in a pouty-mouth fashion.
    As Moss watched her hugging and snuggling against the dog’s neck, prickles of excitement skittered upon his skin like lightning. If she had that much affection for an old hound, how much love might she have for a man?
    She spoke to him with words so soft they could not be heard over the rumble of water cascading down the river over great flat boulders.
    “What did you say?” he asked her.
    She raised her hand to him and he helped her off of her rocky perch. Stepping up within arm’s length of him, she smelled fresh and sweet. She gazed up at him with eyes of awed anticipation and innocence.
    “I’ll have to get closer to hear you,” she replied.
    Moss wondered if she could hear the pounding of his heart. It was certainly sounding loud enough in his own ears.
    “I hope you don’t mind me washing in your falls,” she said.
    He nodded mutely, unable to reply.
    “I guess I wasn’t really in your falls,” she continued. “I was sitting there on that rock next to the falls. It’s on the creek side. Nobody owns the creek.”
    “No … nobody owns the river, or the falls, neither,” he assured her. “It just is smack-dab in the middle of my acreage.”
    He didn’t want to talk about farmland. He didn’t want to talk about anything. She was there, so close to him. He didn’t want to talk at all.
    “You’re looking right pretty, and real welcome,” he said.
    She blushed and lowered her chin before glancing up at him beneath demure lashes. She seemed to be such a cheerful, happy person, it was difficult to look at her without smiling. It was like sunshine bubbled up inside her bursting to get out.
    “My name’s Eulie,” she said. “Miss Eulie Toby. Thank you for allowing me to wash in your water.”
    The reminder that she was so recently naked teased him, and Moss felt a near-irresistible desire to do likewise. He raised a questioning eyebrow.
    “Do you mean that you don’t intend to pay?”
    “Pay?”
    “Why yes, Miss Eulie,” he said. “Don’t tell me you are unaware of a tariff on the use of Flat Rock Falls for bathing.”
    “A tariff?” She looked genuinely concerned. “How much is the tariff?”
    Moss smiled at her.
    “Well, it depends,” he answered. “For somebody’s old stray milk cow, I usually charge a bucket of sweet cream skimmed from the top. For a noisy old goose, I might roast her offspring for Sunday dinner. Now a pretty little gal like you—well, I suspect a kiss might seem a fair enough trade.”
    He’d half expected her to huff up and give him what for. That’s what nice females had a tendency toward, he was