He unlaced his arms and took a step forward. "You hurt?""Not badly." She tried to smile, but her lips only curved on one side. "My main problem is that I'm stuck to a cactus."(...)"How'd you manage to get tangled up with a cactus?" J.T. crouched beside her and started extricating her from the prickly plant."Well, believe it or not, I was on my way to apologize to you when a prairie-dog hole jumped up and grabbed my shoe heel.

Are you sure I can't mend a shirt or darn a sock for you in trade? Anything?""You can quit your yammerin' and carry this table downstairs so I can get back to minding my own business instead of messing around in yours.

You need not treat me like a child, sir. I am perfectly capable of navigating this staircase on my own."He snorted.Her nostrils flared. "I promise not to ask you to catch me again, all right? Now stop scowling."Of course he did no such thing.

You got someone else courting you?""No." The fork she'd been scrubbing slid from her hand, returning to the murky depths. "But then, I wasn't sure I had you courting me, either. I seem to recall you expressing a number of objections to my suitability in the past.