"Mm, well, I guess, if you want to, whatever."

Christmas present! What did a man give a woman for a Christmas present? He did his best to ignore it, but the thought lurked in the back of his mind for days. When he used to go to the main ranch for Christmas with the family what had happened? Surely somebody must have mentioned what Frank gave Judith or Eph gave Martha?

He was out in the pastures checking on the stock when the sight of one of the older mares gave him an idea. Maybe there was a way to solve two problems at once.

Cord never knew what happened to him that Christmas. If anybody had told him what Anne would be up to, he would have sworn he'd ride away and stay away for a week or two, but instead he found himself drawn out of the cold and into the house every chance he got.

Anne had bought a dozen candle holders and candles for the tree and a few shining, mirrored ornaments at Miles' store. She hung those on the tree first. Then came long chains of popcorn. When she pinched him for nibbling popcorn, he ate more.

She rolled out huge sheets of cookie dough, and having no cookie cutters, drew shapes in the dough and cut them with a knife. Anne was not artistic. Soon he was drawing horses, soldiers, snowmen, and old-fashioned cottages in the dough and cutting them out for her. When she smacked him with a wooden spoon for eating dough, he ate more.

Anne glazed the cookies with colored icings, and they soon festooned the tree.

On Christmas Eve, Cord found himself standing in front of the bedroom mirror in his new trousers and a shirt made mysteriously from something else that was in what Anne called her "Chicago dresses." His sister, Hannah, who had told him from boyhood never to wear a white shirt because it emphasized his darkness would have a fit, but his own eyes told him how much better than anything he'd ever owned these clothes looked.

Cord let Anne talk him into leaving the clothes on for dinner when he realized it meant she was also going to dress up. He looked at her in the dark red dress and wondered how such a woman had ever gotten into his life. She belonged with a king, or at least a prince.

He was thinking the dress looked so good on her he wanted to rip it right off her when Foxface warned of company, and Eph and Martha drove into the yard. They were, of course, on their way to spend several days at the ranch for Christmas.

In minutes Anne had the tentative Martha and obviously reluctant Ephraim in the house, coats off. Cord watched cynically, figuring it served his brother right as he had to admire the tree, Cord's clothes, and was plied with choices of coffee, special spiced tea, or hot chocolate. The house was full of tantalizing smells of roasting beef and every special treat Anne could think of.

Martha finally relaxed and started to laugh. "I made Ephraim stop by thinking we might talk you into coming to the big house with us for Christmas dinner," she said, "but I see now that was foolish of me."

She turned to Cord then, studying him as if she had not seen him for a long time.

"You know, dear, you really do look nice tonight. I'd say this suit is going to be a very successful Christmas present."

"Thanks, Marty."

Ephraim said almost nothing and looked relieved as he and Martha left in a flurry of the women's chatter and Merry Christmas wishes at each other.

Dinner was so good he wanted to just stay at the table and think about it, but Anne had another surprise in store. She took his father's old Bible from its place on the shelf and sat on the settee.

"Let's sit here for once," she said.

Unsure what she was up to now, Cord joined her warily. She began to read the Christmas story from Chapter 2 of Luke. An easy contentment enveloped him, and he listened not to the words, but to the light pleasant sound of her voice.

When she handed him the Bible and said, "You do the rest," he almost refused. One glance at her serenely happy face made that impossible; he began to read. Afterwards, they lit the candles on the tree, blew out the lamps, and watched the candles burning in the darkness.

She sighed softly, "They're so beautiful."

He could smell the slightly spicy scent of her. "Mm." He wondered what would happen if he just put an arm around her here and now and tried holding her. If she made a face in the darkness, he'd never know.

What happened was she nestled in the curve of his arm, head on his shoulder and whispered, "This is the nicest Christmas I've ever had."

It sure as h.e.l.l was.

Christmas Day dawned cloudy and cold with an occasional snow crystal flying through the air. Cord could not talk Anne into staying in, and so it seemed as good a time as any to try to tell her when she saw the mare named Lady now in a stall.

"That mare wasn't here yesterday. Why is she in? Is she sick?"

"She's one of the horses I brought up from New Mexico. She never was much good as a broodmare, but she's pretty well broke."

"But why is she in?"

"Well, I thought...." Why was this so hard? "I thought if you still wanted to learn to ride, you could use her to learn on."

She spun from the horse to him, solemn and wide eyed. "Are you saying you'll teach me to ride as a Christmas present?"

He was probably going to get spit in the eye over this, and worse yet he probably deserved it. "Yeah, guess I am."

If she never learned to sit on the d.a.m.ned horse it would be worth it just to get hugged and kissed the way he did that Christmas morning.

THE VISIT TO CORD'S ACTUALLY caused quarreling at the main Bennett Ranch.

Martha could not get over how much different Cord looked than ever before - less hard, still lean, but not so drawn and gaunt. The clothes helped, of course. The dark brown trousers and shirt that was actually not true white but a pale cream enhanced his bronze skin, but clothes couldn't change those cold eyes to a warm gold.

Martha had married Ephraim before Cord was born. Her many memories included the bereft five-year-old boy she had held and tried to comfort when he first began to accept his mother was not gone just for a while but forever. Having loved and mothered the boy, it was impossible for Martha to believe the worst of the man, although she seldom argued with Ephraim or Frank. The evidence was all on their side.

Tonight Martha couldn't let it go. "We've got something wrong about them."

"What do you mean?" Ephraim asked her.

"That woman's no more afraid of him than I am of you. The first time we visited I expected a cowering creature I'd feel sorry for, and instead I felt we were all outmatched.

Why is she insisting they're married? Did you see the rings?"

"I understand what you're saying, but I can't believe he's really dragged her off to a preacher. More likely he decided to brand her, and no matter what it seems like, she's sitting there playing wife to a man who sure hurt her."

"He called me Marty."

No one but Martha saw anything in that.

"He used to call you that all the time."

" Used to. Years ago before everything went sour. Things just aren't the way we all thought. They look happy, both of them. She's not afraid of him."

Frank said, "I'm not afraid of him most of the time, just when he starts going over the edge."

"We've been wrong. You are wrong. If you could have seen him tonight.... I kept thinking there'd be as many women run towards him as away if they could see him like that."

Frank's answer to that was a derisive snort.

Ephraim had been against the visit to Cord's in the first place and was argumentative now. "The reason he looked so good was that poor silly woman is making him a suit that would cost a pretty penny right out of her father's shop, and what do you think she's going to get from our little brother in return? More grief, that's what. He shames me."

Martha said, "If he'd done what everyone says, she'd be afraid, and she's not. She's not the kind of woman to live with a man in terror anyway. And he looks different, more relaxed."

Frank's voice rose in exasperation. "I hate to be crude, but of course he's more relaxed. He's got the woman, doesn't he? And there's nothing for her to be afraid of as long as she gives him what he wants."

Bluntness had no effect on Martha. She'd been a Bennett too long for that. "If you'd rather let this thing fester like an infected wound I can't stop you, but you're wrong. I don't know what the explanation can be, but I know there is one. Whatever else he is or isn't, he wouldn't hurt a woman like that."

No one budged an inch on their position, and so Martha changed the subject rather than continue the argument.

CHAPTER 13.

CORD HAD THOUGHT THAT ONCE winter weather made work outside even harder, Anne would be content to stay inside. He was wrong. Yes, there were days when snow came down so hard they both did minimal ch.o.r.es and stayed in the house. On those days, Anne read the few of his father's books she had not seen before, and Cord tried some of her books that were not poetry. Mostly they both just bundled up and worked outside.

He had also thought spending half an hour a day teaching her to ride would make it harder to finish work that had to be done. In fact, the help she provided with feeding and milking morning and night, in loading the hay wagon and taking winter feed to the pastured herds meant everything got done more quickly.

Her riding lessons expanded to an hour or more, and he taught her not just to sit on a horse, but horsemanship. She absorbed knowledge eagerly, and as she learned applied her new skills to helping even more. He would finish riding one young horse to find the next one waiting, groomed, and ready to saddle.

Not only was she good help, but hard, tedious work began to be fun. Anne approached everything with zest, finding humor and beauty in the most ordinary things.

When the ground was covered with snow, they had to haul hay to the pastured horses by sleigh. One day he found the team harness hung with bells. Anne had gotten Riley to bring her an unused set of sleigh bells from the main ranch. The pastured herds began to come at a run when they heard the sound of the approaching sleigh, bells jingling merrily.

Or maybe, he thought, it was the sound of her laughter that brought them.

Other things didn't change. He touched her only in the darkness of the nights, as gently as possible. He dreaded ever seeing distaste or even resignation in the big gray eyes. It didn't occur to him that a woman who slept curled against him and used every excuse to throw her arms around his neck and kiss any part of his face she could reach did not find his physical demands burdensome.

A growing curiosity began to gnaw at Cord. He wanted to know more about his wife - what her life had been like before, what she thought and felt about things, and most particularly about the Chicago fiance that had not even had the good sense to seduce her.

She murmured and whispered endlessly to the animals. When Riley brought beef, the two of them would in no time be deeply immersed in conversation. He had seen her outgoing chatter with Martha at Christmas. It seemed that Anne talked to everyone and everything but him.

That was not really fair, he admitted to himself. She talked to him precisely as much as he talked to her, factual, necessary speech that enabled them to get the day's work done.

The experience with the story of Lathrum's colt had taught Cord that he could find out anything he wanted to know, but to get what he wanted he would have to give what he didn't want to give. So he struggled against his own curiosity for weeks before losing the battle one night in the darkness, her cheek as always against his shoulder.

"Tell me about that Richard in Chicago."

Anne stretched a little and put her head on the pillow level with his, leaving her fingers curled around his arm. "What do you want to know?"

"What was wrong with him."

"I told you there was nothing wrong with him."

"There had to be. Tell me about him."

And so she told him about Richard. The next night she asked him about where he had been and what he had done in the five years he had been gone from Mason. Somehow it wasn't as hard as he'd thought it would be, feeling her close beside him in the night, to tell her things he had never told anyone before.

So as the nights pa.s.sed, they found out about each other. Eventually the talk began to include the work they had done that day, what they would do tomorrow, and even what would happen on the ranch in the spring and summer.

He must be out of his mind, Cord thought, for she would be gone soon, leaving the nights as empty as the days. But then maybe she would stay at least through the spring, maybe even through the summer. Maybe.

CHAPTER 14.

"SOMETIMES I USED TO WONDER if I was just born into the wrong family," Anne told Cord, her voice soft in the night. "There'd be months and months when everything was all right, and then something would happen like that time at school with you and Marie, and everyone, not just my own family, but everyone, would be telling me what a disgrace I was. How could they all be wrong? But in my heart I thought they were wrong, and Mother was always saying, 'Don't tell your father,' or 'We can't let your father find out,' so I knew she didn't think I was wrong so much as she wanted to keep peace."

"She's afraid of your father," Cord said.

"Oh, no. Well, I never thought so. She's just better than I am at doing what she's supposed to. Father's always been very strict. I think he was happiest when he was in the Army, but he was badly wounded in '64 and sent home. Mother says he didn't like returning to civilian life and that's why we moved out here, to start over."

Cord listened without comment to Anne's description of a childhood filled with family secrets and hypocrisies. From the time Edward Wells had opened his tailor's shop, Leona helped at home when there were rush orders or too much work at once. Her work saved hiring a helper who would not always be busy, for money was a problem until Leona came into her inheritance when Anne was fifteen.

By the time Anne was five, she was sewing b.u.t.tons on men's clothing, getting her small hands rapped with a ruler if the work was below Wells' exacting standards. At ten she went without dessert for a week when she p.r.i.c.ked her finger with a needle and ruined the front of a fancy shirt with her blood. Nothing could have forced an admission from Edward Wells that his wife or daughter did any such work at all.

Anne also described some good times. She always loved school. In James Miles'

household she had seen a warm, loving family environment. She and Rachel Miles had been best friends from the first day they met, and they shared girlish games and confidences even after Rachel married.

When the Wells family first lived in Mason, Anne's mother had a horse named Mollie and a buggy and made deliveries for the shop, sometimes visiting her friend Maudie Winter outside of town. While his women folks' helping his business by sewing at home was Edward Wells' deep and closely guarded secret, Leona's making deliveries was not.

Anne and her mother had grand times right up until the old mare died. Two unsuccessful attempts to replace the horse had disgusted Edward, and he refused to hear of it again, depriving both Leona and Anne of a treasured recreation.

"I suppose I just had occasional lapses that scandalized everyone until I started seeing Elroy Turrell," Anne said. "After that there was probably never a day Father wasn't unhappy with me until he sent me to Chicago. He didn't think Elroy was good enough.

He didn't think the Turrells were good enough."

"He got that right anyway," Cord muttered.

"Do you want to hear this or not?" Anne said tartly. "Do you know Elroy?"

"Seen him around, but don't know him," Cord said. "Seems kind of spineless to me."

"He is not!" Anne said. "He's - sweet-natured, kind."

Cord, who didn't consider sweet nature a primary virtue in a man, just grunted.

Listening to Anne go on about the Turrells, people Edward Wells looked down on as unmannered and beneath him, Cord realized the friendly farm family had appealed to Anne as much as Elroy himself. She had liked their outgoing ways and even thought being a farmer's wife would be far more interesting than town life filled with ladies' teas and church sewing circles.

"I'm not sure Elroy felt strongly enough about me to risk Father's disapproval and really come courting," Anne admitted. "When I told him Father was sending me to Chicago, all he said was, 'Maybe it's for the best.' He married someone else that same year."

"Hurt?" Cord asked.