"Lower. I've got to take advantage of this baby bounty while it lasts." Elizabeth grinned, squared her shoulders, and thrust out her chest.

"Wonderful," Mara laughed, "there's hope for me yet. Just need to get a baby for me to feed, and I'll be one of the bountiful."

"Bountiful?" Millicent raised her eyebrows.

"No harm in dreaming big." Mara shrugged and took Bri from Elizabeth.

"As if that husband of yours isn't bounty enough,"

Pearl muttered around the pins. Jenna could only blink at the way the women talked, as if their husband'

opinions were not paramount.

"Asa will allow you to wear a dress like that?" she asked Elizabeth.

"He's not going to be happy, but by the time he finds out, we'll be at the social and it will be too late."

"What will he do?"

"He'll whisper threats in my ear about what he'll do when he gets me home and then he'll spend all night drooling over my new b.r.e.a.s.t.s and glaring at the men who'd like a peek." Elizabeth shrugged, unb.u.t.toning her jacket."And when you get home?"

"He'll take me upstairs to the bedroom and show me how much he appreciates my charms." Elizabeth smiled widely.

"Won't he be jealous?"

"I'm counting on it," Elizabeth laughed.

Her expression gave Jenna pause. Elizabeth was looking forward to her night with her husband, to tempting him and teasing him and reaping the results.

Jenna couldn't imagine teasing Clint like that, testing the edge of his patience while tempting his desire. But Mara obviously could. She held Bri above her head, laughing with the child as she kicked her feet and waved her hands.

"You know, Pearl. I'm thinking my dress is a bit too modest."

"And going to stay that way too," Pearl muttered.

"Cougar about tore the head off that boy he decided was dancing too close last summer."

"He didn't really hurt him."

"Scared him out of town, though, and my Evie was just getting around to settling on him."

"Wishful thinking on your part that Evie has plans on settling down. She reminds me too much of you,"

Millicent joked.Pearl pulled herself to her full height. "I am the soul of propriety."

"Which doesn't mean you didn't kick over a few traces in your day." Millie finished off her second gla.s.s of drink. "And it looks like Evie intends to follow in her mother's footsteps."

"Heaven forbid."

For all of her eye-rolling, Pearl didn't seem that upset with the situation.

"How old is Evie?" Jenna sucked in her breath when Pearl looked up. She didn't want to be stabbed.

"She's twenty." Pearl shook her head as she folded the loose bodice under and pinned it in place. "And not in any hurry to provide me with grandchildren."

Jenna was afraid to glance down but a kind of morbid fascination had her looking, and promptly had her hand flying up to cover her chest.

"I can't wear a dress like this!"

Pearl's answer was an arch of her brow. "Why not?"

"My bosom is showing."

"I prefer to think of it as being showcased."

"Clint would kill me."

Lorie choked on her drink. "I may be the only maiden here, but even I know the last thing on his mind if he saw you in that dress would be murder. You'rebeautiful, Jenna."

Beautiful? She took her hands away from her chest and turned to the mirror while murmuring, "He told me not to make it too low."

"It's low, but not too low," Elizabeth offered, coming up behind her and taking the gla.s.s from her hand.

When she faced the mirror fully, she looked up. It was beautiful. She'd never seen anything like it. Her whole life she'd worn baggy gray or brown high-necked dresses. Dresses designed to diminish a woman's looks, to lower her ability to tempt a man from the straight and narrow. But if Clint saw her in this dress...

Oh heavens, she wanted him to see her in this dress that seemed to capture the light and reflect it in flattering shimmers over her skin. This dress that fit her like a glove and made her look sensuously curved rather than fat. This dress that made her hair blonder, her eyes bluer.

This dress that made her look like a woman who should be on his arm.

"It's beautiful," she whispered. Pearl shook her head and handed Jenna back her gla.s.s.

"A dress can only enhance what's already there." She adjusted the seam under her left arm. "And you've always had a lot to work with."

"I'm not beautiful."

"Clint told Asa you were," Elizabeth pointed out."When?"

"The first time he saw you outside the mercantile."

"That was a long time ago. How would you know?"

"Because he's been watching you ever since, and Asa never lies."

You were always meant to be mine.

She tried to get used to the expanse of neckline, tracing it with her finger, imagining Clint's reaction if she did it in front of him. He would love it if it were in the privacy of their bedroom, but at a social?

"I can't wear this."

"You have to wear that," Dorothy countered. "You have to wear that dress to the social, and you have to smile and dance and have the time of your life with every man who asks you to dance."

"Why?"

"Because the only way to get a man to face what he's feeling is to give him a taste of what he might lose."

"You want me to trick Clint?"

"New brides," Millicent muttered.

"Think of it more as opening his eyes," Pearl suggested.

Jenna recalled the honesty and emotion in Clint's dark eyes as he held her through her fears. Thetenderness of his touch. The surety in his voice as he said, "I see you, Sunshine." And she saw him too. His pride. His honor. His need.

"No."

"It's the quickest means to an end," Elizabeth pointed out.

"That doesn't make it right." Hurting Clint would never be right.

"Doesn't make it wrong, either," Millicent put in.

"Just another path to where you want to go."

"It would upset him." Jenna had had a belly full of people taking her down paths that her instincts said were wrong.

"Won't be the first time he's been upset," Mara offered. "And it would only be for a minute."

"I won't do that to him." A minute would be too long to inflict that type of pain on someone.

"Well d.a.m.n," Millicent muttered. "Now we'll have to use the boring backup plan."

"What's that?"

"Just walk up and flat-out ask the man if he loves you."

Jenna took a sip of the foul whiskey, shuddering as the taste filled her mouth. Maybe wearing the dress wasn't such a bad idea.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Jenna blinked as she stepped out of the dress shop into the bright sunlight.

Bri turned her face into her neck and whimpered.

Jenna pulled the little one's bonnet down to shield her eyes even as she pulled the thick blanket up higher over her head against the biting cold.

"I think winter will be cold this year," Mara said, waiting by the edge of the wooden walk so they could head over to the bakery.

"It sure feels like it," Jenna hurried to catch up, "but no matter what, Clint's house will be a lot warmer than my previous ones."

"Clint had that place sealed six ways to Sunday after he bought it."

Jenna patted Bri's back. She was overdue for her nap and beginning to fuss.

"He's like that."

Mara cast her a sidelong glance. "I think it was more than that."

"Oh.""Said he didn't like the thought of his wife freezing."

"I forgot about the great wife hunt."

She'd deliberately put it as far from her mind as possible.

"I think he had someone specific in mind."

"Oh."

Mara gave her a shove on her arm. "You silly."

"I was married!"

"We were all painfully aware of that. Especially whenever Clint would see you shivering about town in that old cloak, and Hennesey would be in that saloon gambling and drinking. There were times when Cougar worried that Clint would lose it."

"Clint hates injustice."

"Clint hated not having the right to protect you,"

Mara said, pulling up short as the barber/dentist shop door swung opened. A man stumbled out, holding his jaw. He nodded to them both, winced, and stepped off the walkway.

"I'm so glad my teeth are good." Jenna followed his uneven walk as he crossed the frozen, rutted street.

"You and me both," Mara echoed her shudder. "But if that was an attempt to change the subject, it's not working."

"I wasn't trying to change the subject.""Uh-huh."

"Frankly," Mara continued down the walk, rubbing her hands together against the chill, "we were all surprised when Clint didn't start courting you the day after Hennesey died."

"That wouldn't have been proper."

"I've never known Clint to be overly concerned with propriety when he wanted something." Mara held her hair out of her face.

Neither had Jenna, truth be told.

Mara reached over and tucked the blanket under Bri's shoulder, making a face at the little girl as she did.