Hunter looked like he wanted to laugh. Taylor was leaning against his side while she pointed out all the clever little changes in the gun Hunter held.

His friend kept giving him glances. Lucas walked forward. He decided to find out what his friend found so amusing.

"The gun is registered with its own special number," Taylor was explaining. "But did you know that each piece, before it's fitted, is also etched with the same number? If only a part of the gun is found, the number could still be read."

Hunter nodded. "How many times did you say you fired?"

"Three times," she answered. "There wasn't a kick, Hunter. I didn't have to adjust my aim at all. It's a vast improvement over the older models. You must try it sometime."

Hunter handed the weapon to Lucas. "It's lighter," he remarked.

"Is it loaded?" Lucas asked.

Hunter grinned. "After yesterday's adventure, I would imagine it is."

"I cleaned it last night and reloaded this morning," she told her husband. She wanted him to know she took good care of her possessions.

Then she tried to take her gun back. Lucas wouldn't give it to her. "You don't need this," he remarked.

Hunter was smiling again. Something was up all right, but Lucas was too weary to figure it out. Only one fact was registering in his mind. His friend hadn't smiled this much in all the time he'd known him.

"Weren't you listening?" Hunter asked.

"Guess not," Lucas replied.

"She needs the gun."

"This isn't the gun you had in Boston," Lucas remarked, for he'd only just realized the subtle differences in the weapons. "This is brand-new. Where'd you get it?"

"Weren't you paying attention to what I was telling Hunter?"

"No."

She let out a sigh. Her poor husband was so tired, he was having trouble concentrating. "You need to get some sleep, Mr. Ross. Give me my gun back. I got it at a gun shop, of course. Heavens, I'm going to be late for the train's arrival if I don't hurry."

"You still have plenty of time," Lucas told her. It suddenly occurred to him that she was back to calling him Mr. Ross again. He scowled and turned his attention back to the shiny Colt he held in his hand.

"It's nice," he remarked. "Why'd you buy it?"

"It was a gift."

"Why?" Lucas asked.

"Why what?" Taylor replied.

He held onto his patience. "Why was it a gift?"

She didn't care for his tone of voice. It was snappish. She didn't care for the way he was scrutinizing her either. He reminded her of a barrister trying to prove a hidden motive. Taylor's spine stiffened in reaction.

She was his wife, not a defendant. The flash of irritation was short-lived however. Then she felt guilty because she was certain she was overreacting. Lucas looked dead on his feet. She should be giving him her sympathy.

Because he didn't appear to be in a very amiable mood, she decided not to go into detail about the near robbery. It might upset him. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. "It isn't important," she announced.

"My, you look tuckered out. Why don't I go and turn the bed down for you?"

He might have been exhausted, but he was still as quick as ever. He grabbed hold of her arm before she could take a single step away from him.

"Why was it a gift?" he asked again.

She let out a sigh. "The owner was... appreciative."

"Why?"

The set of his jaw told her he wasn't going to give up until he had all his answers.

"There was a small, inconsequential altercation in the store and just a hint of a possibility of a robbery,"

she said with a shrug. "That's all."

"Elwin and Wilburn."

Hunter interjected the names. He was grinning like a naked bandit bathing in gold coins.

"Couldn't you tell I wasn't going to go into detail with Mr. Ross?" she asked Hunter. She added a frown so he'd know she was displeased with him.

He didn't seem to mind. He winked at her. "Are you going to make me sorry I told you what happened?"

she asked. She didn't give him time to answer. She shook her head at him and said, "You're supposed to be loyal to me, sir."

"I am?" Hunter asked.

She nodded. She waved her hand in Lucas's direction. "I'm his wife, after all."

"Who in thunder are Wellen and Elburn?" Lucas asked the question in a surly, someone-better-answer-me voice.

"They're Elwin and Wilburn." Hunter took great delight in correcting his friend's pronunciation.

"Start explaining, Taylor."

"You might become irritated."

She was a little late with that concern. Lucas was already looking angry.

"They're the men who followed Taylor from the train station yesterday. She told me she prayed for a miracle. God gave her one."

"Oh?" Lucas asked, his voice suspiciously soft.

Hunter couldn't wait to explain. "A gun shop."

Lucas nodded. "I see."

"Your eyelid's twitching," Hunter said.

Lucas ignored his friend. He turned his attention to his wife. She was giving him a sweet smile and trying to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"And?" he prodded.

"There really isn't anything more to tell," she replied.

Hunter didn't agree. He ended up telling Lucas the entire story.

Just as Taylor suspected, Lucas didn't take it all in stride. His grip on her arm started stinging. She pinched him to make him let up on his hold. By the time his had-to-tell-it-all friend finished giving him every last detail, Lucas's jaw was clenched tight, and there was a noticeable tick in his left eyelid.

It mesmerized her.

"Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?"

She knew that question was coming. "If you weren't so tired, you would realize I used my wits to get out of a worrisome situation. You would be praising me, sir."

The tick intensified. Yes, he should have complimented her. He didn't though. He dragged her over to the settee, forced her to sit down, and then towered over her while he tried to scare the hell out of her.

He didn't raise his voice, and that made his lecture all the worse in her opinion. In great, vivid detail he told her what could have happened to her. He painted a godawful picture. Her face turned as white as snow by the time he was finished listing all the horrors she might have had to endure... before they killed her. Lucas had her dead and buried on a remote country road, and when he at last finished with his ungentle-manly terror tactics, he made her admit she'd done several foolish things. "You never should have gone alone."

"No, I shouldn't have," she readily agreed. Her head was bowed low.

He thought she was being contrite and maybe even a little submissive. He was immediately suspicious. In all their time together, he'd noticed how headstrong she was and how stubborn. But submissive? Never.

Fatigue made his anger over her foolishness more intense. He knew he was overreacting. He didn't care.

The thought of Taylor in such danger made him furious and all because it scared the hell out of him. If anything ever happened to her, he didn't know what he would do.

"I made a promise to your grandmother to keep you safe until you got settled... where in thunder are you going to get settled? Are you going to take your nieces to their father's relatives? You weren't thinking of taking them back to England, were you? No, of course you weren't. What about Boston?"

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. The action made him want to throttle her. And then kiss her. He shook his head.

"I'm not a saint," he muttered.

Taylor didn't look at him when she agreed. "No, you certainly aren't a saint, sir."

"How long am I..."

He didn't finish his question.

"Stuck with me?" she asked, her voice as whisper soft as his had been when he started the question.

No, that wasn't what he was going to ask her, but thankfully he'd stopped himself before he blurted out the rest. He'd wanted to know exactly how long he was supposed to keep his hands off her. Pretending to be a eunuch around her was taking its toll. He wasn't made of stone. Didn't she understand that?

Lucas let out a sigh. Of course she didn't understand. She was quite astute about most things, but when it came to the marriage bed, she was as innocent as a... virgin, just like she was supposed to be.

What was the matter with him? He was trying to make her understand she couldn't just run here and there without protection, and right smack in the middle of his speech on the merits of using caution, his mind turned to thoughts of what it would be like to bed her. Lucas was thoroughly disgusted with himself.

The tension inside the room grew until it was almost unbearable. Hunter had already gone into the second bedroom so Taylor and Lucas could have the privacy they needed. Lucas suddenly wished there was a crowd of people in the suite with them. The questions rambling around in his head, one on top of another and another and another, kept demanding answers. He suddenly felt like a barracuda he'd watched once, fighting against the hook. He'd stood next to a fisherman on the pier and seen how the weathered old man had patiently worked the fish. He'd given him plenty of line, let the barracuda fight until exhaustion finally overtook him, and then the old man had calmly reeled him in.

Lucas pushed the memory away. He kept his gaze firmly directed on his wife. He couldn't see her face, for her head was bowed so low he thought her chin must be touching her chest. God, she looked dejected. He assumed he'd injured her feelings, and hell, what was he going to do about that?

She suddenly straightened her spine and looked up at him. One glance told him he'd been wrong in concluding he'd hurt her feelings. There weren't any tears in her eyes. There was fire. She didn't look like she wanted to weep. Quite the opposite. She looked like she wanted to kill him.

He was at first startled by the notice, then incredibly relieved. Oh, how she pleased him. He felt like laughing and couldn't give a reason why. The woman was making him crazy. Those wonderful, beguiling blue eyes of hers captured his full attention. And his heart.

They stared at each other a long, silent moment. She was trying to collect her thoughts so that she would sound reasonable when she spoke to him.

He was using the time to come to grips with the truth. He expected to be hit by lightning. He wasn't. He didn't blanch or stagger to his knees, and all because the realization wasn't gruesome or horrifying after all. It was in fact quite liberating.

He could feel himself being reeled in. The questions were gone, the answer had been there all along. He realized that now. He'd just been too stubborn and mule headed to recognize all the signs.

He was a man in love with his wife.

Taylor had succeeded in getting her anger under control until her insensitive clod of a husband smiled at her. He'd just asked her the most appalling question and then had the gall to grin over it.

"I'll be happy to answer your question," she announced in a voice that shook with anger. "You're stuck with me until you find my babies. It's that simple. Find them, and then you can leave."

She suddenly bounded to her feet. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Go where the wind blows you, Mr. Ross, if that is your inclination."

Hunter stood in the doorway watching Taylor. Since she wasn't paying any attention to him, he thought it safe to smile. He wanted to laugh. Lord, she was in a lather and she was about the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. He wondered if Lucas knew how fortunate he was to have married her. She wasn't just beautiful, she was also spirited. Hunter found it an appealing combination.

He didn't want to interrupt, but he'd noticed the lateness in the hour and thought he'd offer to go to the train station to collect her friend. He guessed he'd have to wait until Mrs. Ross was finished giving Mr.

Ross hell before he could find out if she wanted him to go on the errand or not.

Taylor kept her attention on her husband. She was determined to make him understand how she felt and why. Her mind raced from one argument to another.

"What either one of us wants isn't the least important," she began. "Both of us must put the children first.

Every adult should," she added in a whisper.

Then she remembered an incident from her past she thought would best explain her position.

"I saw a woman strike a boy across his face. It was at the annual fair held on my grandmother's estates.

The woman used her fist and the blow lifted the lad off the ground. He landed in the mud. It was a miracle his neck wasn't broken."

Lucas didn't show any reaction to the remembrance. He waited to hear the rest of the story.

"Quite a few people witnessed the act of cruelty, but none of them did anything about it. He was just twelve years old. Someone should have come to his rescue. She was cruel and malicious."

"You did something though, didn't you?"

"I certainly did. The woman was employed by my grandmother. I made her promise not to strike the boy again. I threatened to ask Madam to fire her if she ever raised her hand against him again."