bundled together with a ribbon from her hair.

He fell in behind her, walked right on her heels.

"No need for you to stay so snippy. It's not like I'm any threat to you any longer. Me and Daddy want to

make peace. We're neighbors now."

"You are and will always be my enemy, Tylor, and you'll never be welcome at Belle Jarod. Neither will your father." She bounded up the back steps and entered the house. The sounds of the hammering and sawing and the men's jovial laughter were like music to her ears- sweet enough to extinguish somewhat her outrage at finding Tylor Hollinsworth on Belle soil. Refocusing her thoughts, she imagined Chantz's face when he got home, tired and hot and aching from work to discover these friends reshaping his home. Already the pungent aroma of fresh lumber sweetened the air. Already many of the trees between the house and the river had been felled. Her heart beat double-time as she ran onto the front gallery and swept her gaze over the wide, long alley that had once been paved with crushed oyster shells.

With a snap and crack the final tree standing between her and the river slammed to the earth. Before her glistened the wide Mississippi. A pair of boats passing in that moment let out a whistle and a ring of their bells.

Odd that it wasn't her father she thought of in that moment, but her mother. How Maureen would have thrilled over this accomplishment- as meager as it seemed.

Tylor moved up beside her, stood at her shoulder, and looked down the shadowed alley.

"I'll be damned," he remarked softly, more to himself than to her. "As a betting man, I'd almost consider wagering on your success at rebuilding Belle Jarod." His mouth curled as he looked at her. "But regardless of what my father thinks, I'm not an idiot. You can fell trees for the next year and every man in Louisiana can line up to repay Chantz for past favors- rebuild that roof and those walls and shore up that old sugar mill with mortar and bricks- but unless you've got something to mill, that being sugarcane, of course, you're never going to make it, Juliette."

"We'll make it."

"Took your daddy nearly two hundred slaves to keep this place up. You expect to do it with a half-dozen?"

"We'll do it, if for no other reason than to spite you and your father."

"You never struck me as a spiritual woman, Juliette."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means only a miracle is gonna help you resurrect this place. The last time I checked, God didn't necessarily favor the lascivious."

Turning her head, she looked at him squarely and said in a soft, threatening tone, "You're welcome to leave any time, Tylor."

Reentering the house, Juliette paused to watch several men winch a rafter up high.

"I take it that Chantz isn't here," Tylor said.

"Obviously or you would have already been escorted off Belle by the scruff of your neck."

"I would think his priorities would be on his pretty new wife, at least for a few days. Then again, it's not like this is a love match, right? Chantz's priorities are, and always will be, sugarcane."

She exited the back again, her stride lengthening. A machete sat propped against a column. Sweeping it up as she descended the steps, she marched toward the copse of elderberry bushes that had overgrown what once had been an herb garden.

Little Clara and Simon were to have begun the task of clearing the plot. They were nowhere to be seen, alas, and Liza and Rosie and Tessa were down at the kitchen scrubbing the floors and walls and preparing the evening meal. The smell of boiling pork and onions made her mouth water, despite her mounting irritation at Tylor.

Where were Little Clara and Simon?

Surely Chantz and Andrew and Louis would be home directly. Suddenly she wanted them home- desperately. She wanted Tylor gone. His presence on Belle soil exhumed something dark and frightening deep inside her and she clutched at the arret hanging from her neck.

Liza's and Rosie's laughter brushed her ear and she looked toward the kitchen, thought of joining them, then saw Tylor from the corner of her eye- noted his smugness, as if he realized that his existence infuriated and disgusted her and took pleasure in it. Caution stiffened her spine. Instinct told her there was more to his motivations than simply offering neighborly well wishes.

"What do you want?" she demanded, fingers wrapping more tightly around the machete. "Tell me and leave, Tylor. You're not welcome here. Ever."

"You really should try to put the past behind you, sister. We're family now."

"What do you mean, we're family?" she fired back.

"You're no family of mine, Tylor Hollinsworth, and you never will be."

His eyebrows rose and his smile stretched. "So, he obviously hasn't broken the news to you yet."

Slowly, she turned to face him. There was something in his mien that sent dread through her chest.

"We're brothers," his lips said as his eyes- frigid as ice, yet mocking- bored into her, into her heart that felt in that instant as if it was being twisted from her chest.

She looked into his eyes- his blue eyes and the rich wave of hair spilling over his brow, not so dark as Chantz's but with the same wild lushness.

"Liar," she heard herself say, her reasoning arguing with bare-teeth fury at the horrifying truth that slowly materialized before her.

Dear God, how could she have missed it?

"You've married a Hollinsworth after all, Juliette. Were something to happen to Chantz..." His smiled flattened. "Or if something were to happen to you both... who do you think will inherit Belle Jarod?"

Chantz looked from face to face, Liza's pinched and her eyes red and Rosie with her brown lips pressed as she stirred the big pot of beans over the low embers. He should have known something was amiss the moment Rosie allowed him into her newly scrubbed kitchen without having washed the day's sweat and grime from his body. With the heat and steam of the hot corn bread oozing between his fingers, he felt the first wave of fury roll through him as the import and impact of Rosie's words sank in.

Tylor Hollinsworth. Here. At Belle Jarod.

As Chantz stepped from the kitchen, he flung the bread as hard as he could to the ground. Dusk hovered. Fireflies danced. He hardly glanced toward the scattering of lumber and tools around and in the house as he moved through the house to the stairs and paused.

"Juliette!" he yelled, and a flurry of grassets lifted off a new rafter overhead and rose in a dark cloud into the gray sky.

No response.

Slowly, he climbed.

She would feel betrayed, of course. She would believe that he had intentionally misled her.

Of course he should have told her even before they took their vows. Told her that he was Maxwell's bastard son. He should have assured her that there were no ulterior motives for his marrying her. That Max Hollinsworth had never acknowledged him and never would...

But he should have known Max would have the last laugh. He should have seen it coming. If for no other reason than pure revenge on Max's part.

Juliette was not in their bedroom. He found her in the nursery, sitting before the window overlooking the pond that glittered gold in the last rays of daylight.

"Juliette?" he called softly.

"Last night," she said, her back straight and her hair a copper curtain that pooled around her hips on the floor. There were strands of dying honeysuckle surrounding her, fallen from the old rafters. "While you were sleeping, I left our bed and came here, sat right here in the moonlight as I must have done as a child, and gazed out at the lake watching the fireflies dance. The water was so smooth and mirrorlike their bursts of light reflected from the water's surface. I imagined that one day our own son or daughter would sit here looking out at the pond and the swans you promised to buy me. I prayed very hard that you put a baby in me. I don't think I've ever prayed so hard for anything... until now.

"Now I'm praying that Tylor was just being mean again. I'm praying that Tylor was lying to me about you, Chantz. That you're not Maxwell's son."

He eased down to one knee beside her. Tears streaked her face.

"Don't touch me," she said calmly, without looking at him. "If you're Maxwell's son, you won't ever touch me again."

"Julie..." He lifted his hand to touch her hair- her glorious hair that had slid over his body last night like fragrant silken water, drowning his senses. But she moved away, just slightly, and he curled his hand into a fist. "What am I to say, chere? How do I acknowledge a father who won't acknowledge me?"

Her head turned and her big eyes were anguished and angry. "So this is your revenge? I am your revenge? That's all?"

"No. No." He shook his head. "No." Still, those eyes pierced him, to the hard core of him where those dark, turbulent emotions roiled, all the anger and hate that had festered over the years. He looked away, knowing she saw them, knowing it would do no good to deny them.

"How do I make you understand, Juliette? Maxwell is nothing to me."

"He's your father."

"Since when?" His voice cracked with anger. "Since I married you, that's when. I made the choice between you and Maxwell the day I made love to you." He raked one hand through his hair, hardly believing the torn words he could hear coming from his own mouth- so choked with emotion he could hardly speak.

Standing, he began to pace. Something monstrous tore at his insides, a rage that slashed at him like knives. And helplessness. Not just that, a need to murder. Maxwell, the son of a bitch, even now would not allow him the smallest thread of contentment.

He paced up and down the room, glancing toward Juliette, her silence growing deeper with every passing minute, the air colder, the night sounds a cacophony that became crucifyingly loud as his each raw nerve inflamed with his mounting fury.

Finally standing over her, glaring down on the top of her head, he said, "You want the truth, Juliette? Hell, yes, there is a part of me that wanted to shove this marriage down Max's throat. I wanted it to choke him. I needed him to feel it all the way to his gut. I wanted the reality to grow there like a goddamn cancer. His bastard son whom he would never acknowledge, his own flesh and blood whom he treated little better than dirt, had taken from him the only thing other than Maureen Jarod that he every truly loved."

Dropping to one knee again, he grabbed her shoulders in both his hard, soiled, and bleeding hands and shook her, said through his teeth, "Damn you, listen to me. More than I ever ached to make Maxwell suffer, I ached for you. More than I gave a damn about my dignity, I ached for you. Max Hollinsworth can burn in Hell, Juliette. Tell me you believe me, Julie." He shook her again. "Tell me you won't let him destroy us. Because if you do, darlin', he wins. The bastard will have stripped me of every dream I ever clung to."

Tears rose to her eyes again and her lower lip trembled. "If I thought you truly cared for me-"

"Care?" His fingers tightened so hard he felt her flinch. "I love you, Juliette. Don't you know that? More than I ever wanted my father's love and respect, more than I want to see Belle Jarod thrive, I want you to love me, too."

The pain and anger that had marred her brow softened as she looked into his eyes.

The shouts rose up, causing the night herons along the pond to lift with sharp wing beats that sounded like muffled gun shots. Before Chantz could stand and turn for the door, footsteps banged up the stairs and down the hallway. Tessa staggered into the room, gulped through sobs as she clutched at her skirts.

As Juliette scrambled to her feet, Chantz crossed the room and took Louis's wife by her shoulders. "What's happened?" he demanded.

She babbled incoherently and pointed toward the stairs. Without looking back at Juliette, Chantz struck off down the staircase, his mind scattering with reasons for the woman's hysteria, his thoughts coming back to the previous week's attack- where were Andrew and Louis? How would he fight off a mob were they to confront him?

A group of men stood in the foyer, their faces somber, their eyes turned up to Chantz as his step slowed. Andrew turned to look up at him. His face appeared colorless.

"What the hell-"

"It's official," Andrew said, and the words seemed to vibrate along the rafters like a death knell.

Juliette joined Chantz on the stairs. He reached for her, took her hand, and drew her close against him- unable to hold her close enough in that moment. Some gut deep and frightening instinct told him that the news was not good- what he and everyone else had feared had at long last come to fruition.

Andrew passed one hand over his eyes and appeared to sway. His voice thick, he said, "No doubt about it now, the fever has taken hold of New Orleans. But that's not the worst of it..." Turning his eyes back to Chantz's, he said, "There's been an outbreak just south of here."

Chantz moved slowly down the stairs, his gaze never leaving Drew's eyes. "How far, Drew?"

"Ten miles."

"Ten... Jesus, Drew, that's near your father's..." Chantz swallowed as he watched Andrew turn away. "Not your family," he finally said.

"My parents. Both of them. Phyllis is with them. She isn't sick. Yet. But I've got to go to them-"

"No!" Liza stepped out of the shadows, her eyes wild with fear. Chantz moved into her path, took her in his arms, though she struggled then buried her face against his shoulder. Her body shook in an effort to contain her emotions.

A man stepped from the group. "We're closing the roads just south of Baton Rouge. We need volunteers to stand them, make certain nobody comes or goes beyond those points. Chantz, we need your help. I know you're just married and all-" He glanced toward Juliette as she carefully moved down the stairs, her face pale as Andrew's. "But if we don't quarantine the area we'll all be in a world of hurt. That damn fever take hold here and there won't be a family left standing."

"How bad is it?" Chantz asked, fearing the answer.

"The last three days have seen over five hundred people die. It's gone out of the river district like a brush fire. Folks are scattering for their lives and we've been forced to send out posses to stop them before it's spread over all of Louisiana." The man released a bone-weary sigh and turned his sad eyes toward Juliette. "I won't lie to you. It's a bad one. Promises to be the worst in twenty years the way it's traveling. I suspect you'll be gone awhile..."

The words faded as Chantz looked into his wife's eyes, and for a moment he attempted to remain detached of emotion- of the dread that rose up in his chest in a horrible heat, that made his entire body wet and clammy, like that instant he had looked up through the water into Tylor's cold and calculating face- just the moment that the bull gator slammed his mouth down on Chantz's leg.

Damned fate.

The moon filled the bedroom with a radiance that painted their bodies with shadows and highlights. Juliette, her face turned toward the window to hide the fresh tears in her eyes, tried to breathe as evenly as possible, though her heart felt shattered and her body soulless. She had not experienced such despair since getting word of her father's death.

"It isn't fair," she whispered to the silence.

Liza's weeping floated through the night, a cry of loss. Andrew was gone, and though his leaving had been quiet and there had been promises that he would return as soon as possible, the fear rang as brightly as bells. If Andrew's family had been stricken by the fever, the chances of his returning to Belle Jarod were slim.

Finally, she rolled again to Chantz, who lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. She drew him to her with a kind of desperate urgency, melting her body against his as his arms slid around her and his body into her. Closing her eyes, she imagined him as he had been the day before, dressed in the suit that Andrew had given him, a nervous bridegroom stumbling over their vows and making her cry out of happiness. She imagined his surprise when she pulled out her father's ring to slide it on his finger. She recalled her own pleasure as he'd produced the tiny silver band he had purchased from Baxter that morning...

Then she thought of nothing but the beauteous glow of love he inspired in her body, in her soul, the mindless pleasure that lifted her up beyond the high rafters, beyond the soaring tree-tops where the night birds glided against the stars. And when he cried out her name, when the cataclysm shook him, quivering and groaning, she reached for his face and took it between her hands, looked into his eyes that shimmered with tears.

"I love you," she told him. "You believe me, don't you? That I love you? Tell me that you do, Chantz. Promise me that you know that I need you, and want you, and desire you more than all the cane fields in all the world. More than my father desired wealth, and my mother love. More than I desire to breathe..."

He said nothing, just looked into her eyes and reached for her.

"No!" she declared with an edge of raw anger. "You must swear it. Swear that you believe me. Promise me that you do. Promise me that you'll remember that while you're away from me. That I'm waiting for you, Chantz. And I'll wait forever, if I must."

"I believe you, Julie," he finally said, his voice deep and broken, his eyes burning with relief... and gratitude.

Stretching her body against his, she laid her head on the pillow beside his and stroked his cheek and searched his face. Yet, the desperation remained. She listened to Liza's soft weeping, knowing tomorrow that she, too, would pace and worry, knowing that those who came face-to-face with the horrible yellow plague rarely lived to tell about it. Even as they lay there in the night shadows, listening to the occasional hoot of the owls and the constant high-low trill of the whippoorwills, they felt the night compress as if the monster loomed. As if its foul fingers were sliding silently and malignantly around them.

At long last, her eyes drifted closed, and she allowed her mind to slip into the dark, to dream of the man who had saved her from the fire, the man who held her now, his arms once again her sanctuary.

But when she awoke in the morning, the bed beside her was empty, and, turning her face into his pillow, she sobbed.