The worst of it was being totally alone in the daytime. Her neighbors all worked, so there was no one she could call for help if she got into trouble.

She lost weight because of the strain and worry. There were still periods of spotting, when she had to call Dr. Boswick, and every episode meant days in bed until the bleeding stopped. She had to take extra iron tablets to compensate for the loss of blood. She was tired all the time.

Kit came to see her, bringing tasty things to tempt her appet.i.te.

Tess had sworn her to secrecy, and she stopped answering the phone so that n.o.body from Dane's office could reach her.

But if she thought those measures would discourage anyone from checking up on her sudden retirement from work, she was mistaken.

She woke to the sound of the doorbell being jabbed repeatedly early one rainy morning two weeks later. Morning sickness still plagued her. She'd just returned from the bathroom and another bout of nausea. She was bundled up in her thick red bathrobe over striped pajamas, her hair tousled and needing cutting badly. She looked terrible. When she opened the door, annoyed at the repeated buzzing.

129 she came face to face with Dane. He was more startled than she was.

"My G.o.d!" he swore slowly, his breath catching as he looked at her.

"Thanks, you look wonderful, too," she muttered weakly.

"You'll have to let yourself in. I have to get back to bed before I fall down."

"Wait. I'll carry you."

He closed the door and picked her up before she could protest, hefting her easily against his chest. He frowned as he carried her into the bedroom. His back protested for the first time in memory, but he didn't let on to the fact. "You've gained weight again, or is it swelling from the ulcer?" He laid her gently on the bed and started to remove the robe.

She couldn't risk having him see her body, so she caught his fingers. "I'm cold, leave it on," she said huskily.

"Okay." He pulled the covers over her and sat down beside her, his eyes dark with concern. "Short told me you'd quit. Are you getting treatment, for G.o.d's sake?"

She stared at him, feeling alone and frightened, a sense of hope- lessness in her eyes. He looked very successful in his charcoal gray suit, with a red-and-black striped tie and a matching handkerchief in his watch pocket. By comparison, she looked like something the cat had brought in.

"Treatment?" she asked absently. She grimaced and tears gath- ered hotly in her eyes. "There is no treatment," she whispered hus- kily. "The doctor's already done all he can do."

He scowled. "For a bleeding ulcer?"

"It isn't a bleeding ulcer," she said dully, closing her eyes.

He stilled. "Then what is it?"

"Nothing that can be cured with a pill, I'm afraid," she said tiredly. "Dane, I'm so tired...!"

"What do you have?" he asked with concern he couldn't hide.

He looked pale, she thought. Then she realized what he must be thinking.

"Oh," she said, her mind finally grasping what he thought. "No, 130.

it's not cancer. I'm not dying. Really I'm not. I don't have anything terminal."

He let out a heavy breath and fumbled in his pocket for a ciga- rette. "G.o.d, you scared me to death," he ground out. "If it's not that, and not a bleeding ulcer, what did you mean there's nothing they can do?"

She hesitated. Now that he was here, she wanted to tell him. She was afraid and alone, and she wanted to lean on him, to be taken care of, protected. She wanted him to know about the child. But would it be fair to tell him? Now, when she was so close to losing it?

He saw the tormented look in her eyes without understanding it.

He touched her dull hair curiously. "You look terrible," he said.

He studied her narrowly. "Are you going to tell me what's the matter with you, Tess?"

She nibbled on her lower lip. "I don't know if I should," she said honestly. "You may not believe me. Even if you do, I'm not sure it's fair."

He looked at her with quiet contentment. Even when she was half- dead with illness, he felt at home with her. At peace. He smoothed her hair away from her forehead. "All the color is gone, did you know?" he asked quietly. "I get up, I go to work, I go home and I lie awake at night. I don't care about the job, or much else. You took the joy out of living when you went away."

"You sent me away," she said softly.

He searched her pained eyes. "Yes. I didn't want anything per- manent...."

"I haven't asked for anything permanent," she interrupted. "You don't have to worry that I would. I'm not asking for anything now, although it might sound like it, I guess."

He scowled. "Explain that."

She took a deep breath and met his eyes reluctantly. "Dane...I'm pregnant."

The look on his face might, in other circ.u.mstances have been comical. He stopped with the cigarette an inch from his mouth and stared at her like a man who'd been bashed in the head with a shovel.

131 He lowered the cigarette very slowly and without thinking dropped it into a gla.s.s of water on the bedside table. "You're what?" he asked in a choked tone.

"I'm going to have a baby."

Something in his expression made her nervous. He looked ill. His eyes glittered in a countenance that seemed carved out of stone.

Slowly, slowly, his gaze moved down her body. He reached out, drawing the covers away. His hands found the tie of the robe and loosened it. He pulled the thick red fabric away from her body and unsnapped the catch of her pajama pants before she could protest.

Then he peeled them back from the slight, swollen softness of her stomach and sat staring at it like a demented man.

"You didn't tell me," he said roughly.

"I didn't know how," she groaned. Her anguished eyes searched his face.

Slowly, he stretched both his lean, warm hands toward her belly and touched it. There was something reverent about the way he did it, about the hushed rasp of his breathing. He lifted his dark eyes to hers and his cheekbones flushed with building temper.

"I thought I couldn't father a child. You knew that. G.o.d in heaven, how could you have kept it from me?"

She hesitated. "I'm sorry," she said, too shaken by his reaction to try to explain her reasoning.

"Sorry...!" He bit off what he was going to say as the enormity of her condition got through to him. "When is he due?" he asked, glaring at her. "How soon?"

She managed to meet his stormy eyes. "Five months." She hes- itated, indecision tearing her apart. His face was livid with his dis- covery, with the pleasure he couldn't hide of knowing that he'd fathered her child. How could she destroy his peace of mind, now?

But she had to give some excuse for staying home, for her inactivity.

She bit her lip. "Dane..." She swallowed. "I have to stay at home until I deliver. I can't work."

"Why?" he asked curtly.

She hesitated. Her eyes adored him involuntarily. She loved him far too much to tell him how dangerous the pregnancy was, how much risk was involved. Fear for the child would drive him mad.

132.

"I'm having a lot of morning sickness," she hedged.

"I see." Obviously relieved, he let out a sigh.

He got up from the bed and turned away, running a restless hand around the back of his neck as he stared blindly at the wall.

"You don't have to feel responsible," she said helplessly.

"Don't be absurd. It's my baby." He turned, his face slowly changing with dawning wonder as he looked down at her. "My baby," he repeated slowly, his eyes on her stomach. He smiled faintly. Then his dark eyes cut at her. "And you weren't even going to tell me, d.a.m.n you!"

She cringed at his tone. But it was either let him believe that, or force him to share her quiet terror. He'd been through so much in the past few years. His mother's death, his horrible injury in the shooting, the loss of his job. No, she thought with helpless com- pa.s.sion, no, not this, too. She lifted her face bravely. "You said you didn't want commitment, remember?" she asked coolly. "You wanted me out of your life. If I'd told you about the baby, you'd have thought I was trying to trap you," she said instead.

The accusation made him feel guilty. She didn't know how he really felt. She looked indifferent, and he wasn't confident about revealing his emotions right now. He'd told her he didn't want com- mitment, sure, but that was when he thought he couldn't give her a full marriage. Now he could, but she didn't seem to want him any- more.

He drew back into himself. It was the child he had to be con- cerned with now. Later, he and Tess could sort themselves out. First things first. "Things have changed," he said quietly.

"You mean you didn't want me, but the baby is another matter."

Her expression kindled his temper. "Of course," he said with a mocking smile, lashing out at her.

She stared at him with a breaking heart, but she didn't dare let him know how much that flat statement had hurt.

"Did you ever plan to tell me?" he persisted.

"Yes," she said. "Eventually."

"When?" he drawled, his black eyes accusing. "After he started school? Well, you don't need to tell me now. I know." He stuck a lean hand in his slacks pocket and stared at her, refusing to let his 133 emotions show. Her treachery in hiding her condition from him, when she knew he thought he was sterile, was going to take some forgiveness, but that might come in time. "I'll take you down to the ranch," he said, thinking out loud. "You'll have Beryl for com- pany."

"No," she murmured, averting her eyes. "I-can't go there."

He frowned. Then he remembered what he'd told her about Beryl.

They weren't married and she was pregnant.

Inside, he brightened. Now he had a concrete reason for marrying her, one that spared him from revealing his real feelings. Let her think it was only because of the child.

"We'll work out something." He flicked his cuff back and looked at his watch, his mind churning. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Dane, we have to talk," she began.

"Later."

He glanced at her again with quiet possessiveness, but he didn't speak. He left the apartment and Tess lay back, disturbed and sad- dened by the way he was acting. He'd admitted that the child was all he wanted. She'd hoped he might have missed her, wanted her back, but that was daydreaming.

If his appearance in her life had been a shock, what he came back with three hours later was devastating. He dragged a strange man into the room with him, handed her a pen and a sheet of paper and indicated where she was to sign it and how. He didn't even give her time to read it before he laid it on the table and sat down beside her, taking her hand in his.

"Go ahead," he told the man.

The man produced a small book, smiled, and proceeded to read a wedding service. Tess was so shocked that she was barely able to answer when called upon. Before she knew it, Dane was sliding a plain gold band-two sizes too big-on her finger, and she was married.

"Dane...!" she protested.

He got up and shook hands with the man, let him sign the paper, handed him a wad of bills and escorted him to the door with profuse thanks.

When he'd let him out, Dane moved back to the bed and looked 134.

down at Tess. She was his wife now. She belonged to him-she and the baby. His baby. His chest swelled with raging pride.

She looked at the ring on her finger dazedly, trying to equate it with the odd look on Dane's face, the glittery darkness of his eyes.

"It takes three...three days to get married...." she stammered.

"It takes one if you threaten to shoot a judge," he said pleasantly.

"Don't worry, it's perfectly legal." He frowned thoughtfully. "I don't know about the kidnapping charge, though."

"What kidnapping?"

"The probate judge who just married us didn't know he was going to," he explained. "I appropriated him at the courthouse and brought him with me."

She laughed. Then she cried. It was so unlike Dane to be impul- sive like that.

He cursed under his breath. "All right, I'm sorry I had to spring it on you without any warning," he said stiffly. "But we had to present Beryl with a fait accompli when I take you there tonight."

"It isn't fair that she has to be responsible for me," she whis- pered. "Or you, either, for that matter."

He lifted his head. "You have my baby inside you," he said, his eyes darkening as he searched hers. It took all his willpower to keep himself from lifting her into his arms and kissing those tears away.

"The baby is all that matters right now. My G.o.d, it's everything!"

he breathed huskily.

He certainly did want the child, she thought sadly. She stared at his tie, wondering how he was going to feel if she lost it, if he ended up married to her for no reason. It would be so much worse, because she hadn't told him the truth. But how could she?

"Stop brooding," he said. "I'll take care of you, Miss Meri- wether." He hesitated. "Mrs. La.s.siter," he corrected. The name had a new sound, a different sound from when it had been used for Jane.

"Mrs. Teresa La.s.siter," he murmured.

She lifted her sad eyes to his. "You really do want the baby, don't you?"

His face went hard. "You know that already. Hadn't you realized how I felt, thinking that I couldn't father a child? Didn't it matter to you?"