"Be careful," he chided her.

"You almost complimented my character." She nudged his hard belly gently with her fist. When she would have drawn back he placed a hand over hers and held it there. Her fingers unfolded and lay flat against his skin. When his hand fell away hers remained. She traced the edge of his rib cage. There was still some faint bruising from his fall, but he appeared to be on the mend.

"There's no pain here?" she asked.

"Hardly any."

"And your leg?"

"Much better." He raised one brow when her eyes narrowed.

"Do you doubt it?" He was referring to the way he had taken her, of course. With her legs anchored around him Mary had felt the strength in his thighs.

"No," she said after a moment.

"I don't doubt it." Ryder liked the breathy, husky quality of her voice when she said that. He lowered his head and touched her mouth.

The kiss lingered sweetly. When he pulled back he adjusted his position to accommodate her. Mary rested her head in the crook of his shoulder and laid an arm across his chest. He wondered how often or how long she had slept during his illness. Jarret's presence had eased the physical tasks of taking care of him, but had not lightened the emotional burden.

"Thank you," he said quietly. When Mary didn't acknowledge him he thought she had fallen asleep. It was only when he glanced down and saw wet, spiky lashes and the tears on the curves of her cheeks that he knew otherwise.

"Mary?" She knuckled her damp eyes and gave him a tentative, watery smile.

"Relief," she said, explaining her tears.

"And gratitude."

He nodded, understanding. His fingers sifted through the curling ends of her soft hair.

"I hadn't imagined you would know so much about healing," he said. Mary remembered how often she had prayed for the skill that was her sister Maggie's. It didn't seem to her that she knew so very much.

"I've always worked in a hospital," she said.

"That's what the sisters of my order did."

"Tell me about it."

"The hospital?"

"If you want to start there." She shrugged.

"There's not much to tell."

"I don't believe that," he said.

"How did you choose your order?"

"I don't know that I did choose it," she said.

"At least not consciously. It was the place that called me. My mother used to make visits to the sick every Wednesday. When I was still very young she would take me to the hospital the Little Sisters operated.

Usually I would sit beside her while she read to the patients or wrote letters for them.

Sometimes I would get them water or help them with their pillows."

Mary turned a little in his arms.

"Jay Mac used to argue with Mama about going. He was afraid she would contract some disease. He thought giving her money for the charity would keep her away but she always delivered it in person and stayed to tend the sick anyway. It couldn't have been easy for Mama to cross Jay Mac, but she did it once a week for years."

"And took you with her."

Mary nodded.

"Every week."

"Until you entered the order. Then she stopped." Mary raised her head and looked at him.

"How did you know?"

"Just a guess." No, she thought, it was more than that. He had the uncanny ability to listen to her and hear more than she could hear herself.

It was like having an echo that was clearer and stronger than her own voice.

"I suppose" she said slowly, "that once I was there she didn't feel the need to go as often." Mary laid her head on Ryder's shoulder again.

"Mama was going to be a nun, you know.

That habit I was wearing when I visited you in the stockade wasn't mine. It was hers. She never told me that it had been something she had imagined for herself."

"Didn't she?"

"Not in so many words. She never seemed to regret her life with my father."

"Perhaps that's because she didn't." Mary was silent for a long time, thinking.

"No, you're right," she said at last.

"Mama didn't regret the choices she made, but she never quite gave up her dream either."

"She gave it to you."

"She forced it on me."

Even to her own ears her tone sounded harsh and unforgiving.

"You didn't want to go to the hospital with her?" he asked. It wasn't as simple as yes or no. Mary let her hand be taken by Ryder. His long fingers laced with hers as she stared off to the side, seeing nothing but the memories in her mind's eye.

"I was interested in the hospital," she said quietly, "but I was fascinated by the sisters. They moved with such poise and purpose and they were such a mystery to me. Kind. Gentle. Brisk. Reserved. I didn't understand their reservation then. I thought it was characteristic of the habit. It was years before I realized that they disapproved of my mother. She was a whore, you know. At least that's how they saw her. And I was the bastard daughter." Mary smiled a little crookedly as tears hovered, then were suppressed.

"My mother didn't go to mass after she became Jay Mac's mistress, but she endured the weekly censure of those nuns."