"To help others?"

"To make amends for the choices she made. In some way I was part of it, falling in with plans that were never quite my own. There was satisfaction in helping others and I was intrigued by the nuns, but the truth is, if my mother had been going to a racetrack once a week I would have liked that just as well." She felt Ryder's fingers tighten on hers.

"I wanted to be with her, that's all."

Mary's short laugh was humorless, and she shook her head.

"That I can be so selfish--"

"Mary," Ryder chided her.

"I don't think-"

"No," she said.

"It's true. I was the firstborn and for a while I had her to myself. I was the first Mary. Then the others came and I had to share her as well as my name." Mary felt as if poison was spilling from her heart.

"The time at the hospital was so special to me.

I knew it pleased her to have me there, and she never took any of my sisters. I think I might have threatened them if they had ever expressed an interest. It was just me and Mama, and if I had to share her with the patients it didn't seem so bad because she approved of me helping." Mary took a dry, aching breath and spoke so quietly that Ryder had to strain to hear her.

"And when I followed the sisters around I could see that she liked it even better." She took her hand out of Ryder's and raised herself up, drawing the blanket around her breasts.

"I'm not a very good person, Ryder. I think I've always been a fraud.

Certainly I've been a liar." Ryder reached up and touched Mary's cheek. A strand of hair clung damply to the curve, and he pushed it back.

"You're too hard on yourself, Mary." She shook her head.

"No, I'm-"

"No one has ever expected as much from you as you've expected from yourself. If you're a deceiver, then you're a completely decent one.

The years you spent in the service of your Lord weren't a pretense. You helped others. You were generous with your spirit. You championed those without a voice and ministered to those who had a need. That was no lie you lived.

Compassionate .. . fierce .. . confident .. .

serene--you are those things." She wanted to believe him. She wanted him to believe what he'd said. Ryder watched her struggle, saw the doubt surface in her eyes. He sat up, leaned against the stone shelf behind him, and drew Mary into his arms. She curled against him, hugging her knees to her chest. As she had on the night of their first meeting, she fit perfectly in his embrace.

"Our paths would never have crossed if you had made different choices in your life," he said "I'm selfish enough to admit I'm satisfied with the ones you made." He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her hair.

"I like to believe that God was saving you for me. God knows, you saved me." Mary's watery smile was imprinted against the knuckles she pressed to her mouth. Huddled in the security of his arms, she slept the deep untroubled sleep of a child.

"Tell me about Anna Leigh," Mary said. She gave up the pretense of reading and closed her book, dropping it back in the basket. Ryder was sitting on the edge of the stone bed. He had the rope handle of the bucket slipped over his foot, and he was raising and lowering the weighted wooden pail to strengthen his injured leg. There were beads of perspiration on his upper lip as he strained to lift it again.

"I think you're doing too much," she said.

"Stop that and tell me about Anna Leigh." He paused-the bucket up in the air-and completely ignored Mary's disapproving look.

"You're bossy."

"My sisters say the same thing. It's never bothered me." When it appeared that he wasn't going to pay her any more heed than her sisters, Mary took action. Jumping out of the chair before he guessed her intent, she removed the bucket from his foot and dumped the water back in the pool. She hugged the bucket to her to keep it out of his reach and returned to the wing chair.

"You'll thank me later." Ryder didn't doubt it. For as near as he could mark the passing time he had been working the leg back into shape for three days. This was his second session today, and he knew he had overdone it as soon as he got to his feet. Hobbling to the rocker was painful. Having to hobble in front of Mary only exacerbated the ache.

"Smugness does not necessarily become you," he said, easing himself into the rocker.

"As if I care this much for my looks." She snapped her fingers to punctuate her point. It was true, he thought. She was rarely troubled by how she looked. She had no practiced gestures or studied expressions. While an air of serenity marked her features most often, she also could be beautifully animated. Well, not always beautifully, he amended.

Right now her expression was downright sour.

"All right." He stretched his leg. He massaged the injury lightly through his trousers.

"What do you want to know?"

"Why was she with you in the first place?"

"You mean why was she accompanying the troop or why was she with me?"

if anything, Mary's mouth became a trifle more puckered. She sighed impatiently as if his question were unreasonable.

"Both," she said shortly.

"Well, as long as you're clear." His comment didn't provoke a smile, and he finally recognized how serious she was. He wondered what had been going on in that fine mind of hers. She must have been mulling over some part of the situation for more than a week.

"Anna Leigh accompanied the troop because her father insisted. I assumed at the time that she did it in part just to show me she could.

We had a disagreement the night before the wagons left, and she wanted to prove she had the upper hand."

"What sort of disagreement?"

"She wanted me, and I didn't want any part of her. I wasn't kind."

Mary didn't want to know the details.

"You humiliated her?" He nodded.

"And she told me she was coming along the next day. I thought it was a spur of the moment decision on her part, but I've wondered since then if it might have been planned all along."

"Why?"

"Well, her father was adamant about her accompanying the wagons. Even when General Gardner and I explained the dangers, he insisted."

"That seems odd, don't you think?"

"Anna Leigh was very used to getting what she wanted. I think that tradition started with her dear papa." He continued to rub his leg absently.

"I stayed away from her the next morning. When I reported that I sensed trouble to the lieutenant, he ordered me to take her with me. I was obliged to follow orders, but she knew I didn't want her along. She hampered my climb back up to the ridge, and at the top she insisted on stopping to drink. The trouble was, she wanted my canteen. Complained that her water was tainted. I thought it was another tactic to slow me down and make me pay attention to her. I traded canteens and drank some from hers to prove she was lying." Mary's eyes narrowed fractionally.

"She wasn't?"

"No," he said shortly.