"You're very quiet." Ryder stroked Mary's silky hair.

The red-gold ends of it curled around his fingertips. They brushed her shoulders and fell sleekly past her nape.

"Mmmm," she hummed softly, fitting herself more comfortably against him. They had declined Senator Stillwell's offer to stay in his home and had returned to the boarding house. Neither of them had spoken about the encounter. Indeed, neither had had much to say about any of the day's events. They undressed in silence, slipped into bed, and fell asleep wrapped in their own thoughts instead of each other's arms.

Sometime in the middle of the night that changed, though who reached for whom would never be established with any certainty.

The truth was, it didn't matter. The need was mutual, the desire was shared, and they woke completely simultaneously only moments before a shattering climax. Neither fell back into sleep, although both made a pretense of doing just that. For a long time Mary lay on her side, staring toward the French doors. Blue-white moonlight was filtered through the gauzy lace curtains.

Occasionally some raucous sound came from the street below: an outraged bellow as one drunk assailed another, the cacophonous clatter of milk cans being rushed for delivery. Mostly it was quiet enough to hear the soft tread of a boarder in the hallway or the plaintive mewling of a stray kitten.

"Talk to me, Mary."

Raising himself on one elbow, Ryder touched her bare shoulder.

Moonlight covered his hand.

"What are you thinking?"

"Only that it will be over tomorrow." She turned onto her side, toward him.

Their knees bumped.

"Or most of it will be. Have you thought of that? Of what it will mean to us?"

"It means we can stop hiding and running and wearing ridiculous disguises."

"I'm serious."

His smile was gentle.

"So am I," he whispered. He moved his hand a fraction and kissed the warm curve of her shoulder.

"I have some money put aside, not much, but enough to buy land around Flagstaff. I have a friend there, a retired general, who's encouraged me to settle near him. He'd be the one selling off a portion of his land. It's beautiful country, Mary. Mountains.

Clear, cold streams. Good grazing for cattle. We could have a ranch there. We'd never be rich, but we'd be self-sufficient."

"We'd be very rich," she said, but she wasn't talking about money.

He found her hand under the covers and threaded his fingers between hers.

"It's what I want," he said.

"But what about you?

Can you see yourself living like that?"

"I can't see myself living any other way," she said quietly. Her meaning was clear.

Sharing a life with him interested her more than any particular lifestyle. Still, she had her own dreams, and she knew they were no less important to Ryder than his.

"I'm going to teach someday," she said.

"If there's a school in Flagstaff." He laughed softly.

"If there isn't, there will be." He'd build her one, he thought, and they would fill it with their own children if no one else had any use for it. Ryder squeezed Mary's hand.

"It's going to work out," he said. The small vertical crease between her brows didn't disappear.

"Mary? What is it?"

"Your uncle seems almost eager to bring down Warren Hamilton." So it wasn't their distant future she was thinking about now, but their more immediate one.

"He explained that to you. He doesn't like being made a fool."

"None of us do," Mary said. She laid her free hand over his, absently stroking the back of it.

"I don't know .. .

It's just that..." Her fears were vague ones, difficult to put into words.

"How will he ever persuade Anna Leigh to come to his home?" Ryder shrugged.

"Is it important? He said he could do it, and I believed him. Did you?"

"Oh, I believed him. But does it make sense?"

"That you believe him?"

"No," she said a bit impatiently.

"That he should be able to do it." She removed her hand from his and lay on her back.

"If Warren Hamilton would think twice before he stepped foot in your uncle's home, why wouldn't his daughter?" The easy answer was that Anna Leigh was a flighty, cotton-between-the-ears young woman. It was also the wrong answer.

Anna Leigh Hamilton had already proved that she was sharp and deviously single-minded in pursuit of something she wanted.

Nothing good could ever come of underestimating her.

"My uncle must know something we don't," Ryder said at last. It was the same conclusion Mary had come to.

"I know," she said softly, almost distantly.

"But what?" It was agreed that Mary and Ryder would arrive at the senator's house just before dinner, at eight o'clock. Wilson Stillwell had promised that all other parties would arrive shortly thereafter.

Mary dressed with care, but with no enthusiasm, for their engagement.

Her dinner dress was ecru satin, with pearl buttons from the rounded neckline to the waist.

Three large satin rosettes enhanced the right side of the draped skirt.