...In the mansion, Brand opened his bedroom window to let the winter-chilled breeze cool his nude body. Hands on the snowy windowsill, he leaned out into the night.

Beyond the dark pines and firs of Hawk Mountain, Walkersville nestled in the valley carved by the Walker and Little Deer rivers. The town’s single traffic light blinked stop, go, stop, go. Like him and Sharon. He grimaced. Why did everything remind him of her?

Was she asleep? Did she dream of those moments in his bedroom, held in his embrace? He smiled grimly at his body’s heavy salute to the memory. Damn, cold showers were hell and grossly overrated.

He flung himself into bed and draped the goose down comforter up around his waist, but sleep eluded him. He opened his eyes to the glow of moonlight reflected from the snow. Stacking his hands behind his head, he studied the diamond shapes carved in the ceiling and embellished with fleurs-de-lis.

A tapestry hung on the wall where it caught the light. In rich detail it showed a maiden and a unicorn. In the first panel she coaxed the mythical beast to come to her. In the second, it knelt at her side. In the third, the obviously masculine unicorn had settled on the ground with its head in the young woman’s lap. Her hand gently stroked it while in the background hunters moved closer.

Why did he read a warning in that story of a unicorn trapped by the fragile bonds of love?

Love? Not for him, if there was such a thing.

He rolled onto his stomach and thumped the pillow with one fist. In the morning, he’d see Sharon again.