"Tonight," he said. "I thought the window glass had cut you." The worst thing he could imagine.

"I'm fine."

"I must have scared you, yankin' you out of bed and touchin' you all over like that." Touching her-talking of touching her gave his heart a jolt.

She shook her head. "Quite the opposite. I was never so glad to see someone."

He let that statement settle in his mind. He didn't think anyone had ever been glad to see him before. But

she hadn't meant it literally. She'd meant she'd been glad to have someone come to her rescue. No one could be glad to see him.

Katherine lay back down and pulled the covers to her chin, nestling into his bed. "Thank you for telling

me."

Sometime later, she slept. Noah got up quietly to check the room at the far end of the hall. Harper and Lucky had covered the exterior with tarps to prevent rain from pouring in, but the bed was already wet

and leaves and glass covered the floor and mattress. It would take extensive work to fix this mess.

But Katherine was safe, and that was all that mattered.

Kate woke to the sounds of breaking glass and hammering. She discovered herself in Noah's bed and

sat up in the rays of sunlight that streamed through his window. A pail of water had been set at the foot of the washstand, and her wrapper along with her clothing wasstrewn across the foot of the bed. Noah had gathered all her things and brought them in here, and she had slept right through it.

She washed and dressed and pinned up her hair before realizing he'd forgotten her shoes.

She made her way down the hall toward the noise that emanated from her room. The tree was gone

from the opening, but the gash in the wall where the window had been broken and the frame torn loose

let in sun and a bee or two.

Wearing a pair of gloves, Tipper had all the glass swept into a pile and was using a flat tin dustpan to scoop it into a bucket.

The bed frame sat empty, the mattress and bedding gone.

"Marjorie's been waiting for you to wake up," Tipper said. "Noah wants you to go to town with her today."

Kate soon learned that Noah wanted her to finish her fittings and clothing selections, as well as go to the

mercantile and search the catalogs for new wallpaper and furnishings for her room.

"Noah, I don't need new furniture," she argued as they stood in the shade beside the porch.

"Baby needs a crib. A bureau for his things. Might as well do a room for him and fix up your own, as

well." His eyes were shaded from her by the brim of his hat as usual, and she wished she could see them. It was frustrating to not be able to see his expressions. "If you won't pick 'em, I'll have to let Estelle. You may as well have what you like, rather than what she thinks you should have."

She absorbed his words. "When you say it like that, I guess I don't have any choice. I don't think I'd

want anything Estelle chose. But it's not necessary. My room is fine just the way it is." "No. Wallpaper got wet last night and needs replaced. I'm done arguing. Get what you want." She glanced up to where one of the hands stood on a ladder hammering the window frame into place. "I didn't come here to change things." He followed her gaze. "Some things need changin'." She looked at him, at the puckered skin near his eye. He ducked his head. Impulsively, Kate stood on tiptoe and reached up for his hat. She pulled it to the side and away, baring his head.

He was so surprised, he only stared at her, but by then the corner of his eye was covered by his dark hair. "It's purely irritating not to see your eyes when we're speaking. Half of what a body's saying is in his expression and his eyes." Beneath his sun-darkened skin, she thought she detected reddening. She hadn't meant to embarrass him. Before she could say more, he grabbed his hat from her grasp and jammed it back on his head. "Buy the paper. Buy the furniture and order whatever you need for the baby that the mercantile doesn't have in stock. Buy fabric for baby things. You said you could learn to sew, so have Annie show you how to do that."

Taken aback by his gruffness, Kate merely shrugged.

He turned and stalked away.

"I didn't mean to make you mad," she called after him.

He kept going.

She spent the day in Copper Creek as he'd ordered. Estelle showed up at Annie's and added to the

orders for clothing. Using the excuse of needing to give Rebecca a nap, Annie invited Kate home, and it

gave the two young women time alone. While the little girl slept, Annie showed Kate how to make gowns and nappies and blankets. Besides her services and her knowledge, Annie offered friendship, and Kate gladly accepted it. She'd never known this privileged life and all that it offered, but she was quick to embrace it.

She was making a new life for herself and making sure her child had all he'd need. It wasn't the life she'd imagined with Levi, but it was better than she'd known until now. Her temporary room was across from Noah's and was the bedroom that had been Levi's. She lay in bed that night and tried to capture something of her husband. But it was just a room, and one he hadn't spent much time in for years. Sometimes it was hard to believe she'd been married to him. Sometimes it was hard to remember him.

The next day Annie and her mother, Mildred, met Kate at the mercantile and helped her choose wallpaper and pieces for the two rooms. As she told Noah about her selections that evening, she noted that he listened to her without lowering his head or looking away. One hard-won day at a time, he was letting go of years of inhibition. He seemed to sense that his hands and face made no difference to her. She liked him for his kindness and quiet strength, and if they were to be a family, she wanted him to be comfortable with her.

By the end of the week, Kate's window had been repaired and the floor refinished, though Kate hadn't seen much wrong with it to start with. She chose not to attend church that Sunday, because she didn't want to spend another afternoon with Estelle.

Obviously offended, Estelle drove out to the ranch that afternoon.

Kate made tea and served it in the parlor.

The woman sipped primly from the cup. "I was quite disappointed not to see you in church this morning." "I made the ride to town several times over the past week and wasn't up to another one." It wasn't a lie really. She hated to lie and wasn't very good at it.

"Citizens of our standing need to keep up appearances."

Appearances. Apparently, Estelle set store by what people saw and thought of her and her family. The fact that she was ashamed of Noah didn't set right in Kate's yaw.

Kate endured her company until finally the woman must have felt she'd accomplished what she'd come to do by plying guilt tactics and said, "I'm going to speak with Noah before I leave."

Kate watched Estelle march across the dooryard without finding her stepson. She came back and rang the dinner bell. Several hands ran to answer the emergency call, and she sent Jump to fetch Noah.

Noah strode from the barn to stand beside her buggy. The driver was sitting on a tree stump petting Noah's hound dog.

"I understand you're furnishing a room to her taste," Estelle said.

"Yup."

"That's probably a wise idea. You should have her do the entire house."

"Can if she wants."

"Do you think that's enough to keep her here?"

He cocked his head at the question.

"What is going to keep her here? She loved Levi. Levi's gone. What if she meets a man? Someone in town."

Noah had been staring across the pasture, but he turned to glare at her.

Estelle's cold blue gaze bore into his. "She could remarry and take Levi's child away."

He hadn't thought that far ahead, hadn't wanted to. Hadn't had the courage to. Noah would never have children of his own. Levi's child would be the one to inherit all of Rock Ridge and the ranch. It made him sick to think of Katherine finding a new husband.

She was young and beautiful and any man would want her.

"It's too soon for her to think like that."

"For now. But what about next year? Or two years from now? She'll grow to hate this place."

"She won't," he denied.

"You don't know that. You don't know what will happen or how she'll change or who she'll meet."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Think about marrying her yourself."

"What?"

"Don't look so surprised. She needs you right now. She needs what you have to offer her and the baby.

You won't get anyone else to marry you. I'm not saying she'll jump at the chance to marry a crude man, but she is unrefined herself. The security you can provide should be enough."

Noah's ears rang as he tried to absorb Estelle's notion.

"She's not worthy of the Cutter name," she said with a disdainful sniff, "But she is having Levi's baby.

Make her see that keeping Levi's child here is important."

Estelle hadn't spoken this many words to his face in twenty years. Yet the words she chose still had the ability to inflict wounds. Her speech and the fact that she wanted to manipulate him and Katherine to suit her own selfish desires angered him. "What do you care?"

"That is Levi's child she's carrying. I will not lose the last of my family."

"I can't work up any pity for you," he said. "You left two boys out here to be raised by our father while

you went to live in town."

"I had only one son." Her cruelty never wavered.

"And look how he turned out."

"Don't you dare speak ill of Levi."

"Oh hell, no. The man was a saint."

In a huff, she gathered her skirts and called to her driver. "You're obstinate and ugly as always, but you

know I'm right. Changing the subject to make it look as though I'm in the wrong doesn't change the situation or what needs to be done. You know what you need to do."

"I need to wash my ears out with lye after listening to you."

The driver helped her into the buggy where she adjusted her skirts. The horse pulled the rig away.

Noah watched the plume of dust in its wake and tamped down the anger and resentment she always dredged up. The woman reminded him of the serpent in the Bible stories where personified evil spoke to man and put doubt in his head. She had always made him feel ashamed and unlovable, and though he was a grown man, her disdain still wounded.