"Have you said you love him?"

"No, and I don't intend to."

"Why not?"

Lacey considered that question-and decided against answering it. Tess didn't seem to mind. She got to

work threading her needle, rolling a knot into the end of the thread. She took her first st.i.tch.

Her head still bent over her mending, Tess spoke again. "Whatever Dr. Severance feels for your sister, it's obvious he cares for you. And he also feels ... what a man feels when he looks at a certain woman." Lacey sat a little straighter on the railing. "s.e.x, you mean?" "Yes. I mean s.e.x." "Oh, come on. He did ... want me. Nine months ago. But now..." "He wants you," said Tess patiently. "And I am not talking about nine months ago. I am talking about what I saw on his face last night." "You imagined it." "No, I didn't." Tess glanced up in mid-st.i.tch. "And youdo lovehim ." Lacey considered a lie of denial and rejected the idea. Tess would know a lie when she heard one.

Lacey looked out, over the yard, past the silvery foliage of the Russian olive tree growing in the center of the driveway, to the rolling green land that would soon parch to gold beneath the summer sun. "I'm not going to marry him." She said it very softly.

"Excuse me?"

Lacey turned back to the shade of the porch. A fly buzzed near her ear. She waved it away. "I said, I'm not going to marry him."

Tess kept her gaze on her mending, but a smile curved her mouth. "He's a fine man. And he cares for you. He wants you as a man wants a woman. And you love him. It's enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Enough for a start. Enough to build on. That's all that's really needed at the first in a marriage, if the two

people are honorable. If they're willing to persist." Lacey peered more closely at her cousin's wife. "You sound as though you're talking from experience." "I am. Zach and I started out with a strictly practical arrangement. He needed a wife. And I needed ... a place like this ranch. Somewhere to call home." Lacey let out a short laugh of pure disbelief. "You and Zach? You're kidding. I can see when he looks at you how he feels. And when you look at him..." A sweet pink blush crept upward over Tess's soft cheeks. "Yes. But it wasn't always that way."

Bracing her hand more firmly beneath her heavy stomach, Lacey lowered her feet to the porch boards.

"Well. Call me a fool. Call me a romantic. But I want to have my husband's love when I marry him."

"Ah, but not justany husband. You want Logan Severance's love." Right then, as if the forces of nature had some vested interest in proving Tess's point, a gust of wind blewdown the porch. It ruffled back the cover on Lacey's sketch pad. The drawing Lacey had just beenworking on-ofLogannapping in the cabin-was right there for Tess to see. She glanced at it.

"Very nice," she said.

Lacey stepped forward, flipped the cover in place and turned the pad over so the cardboard backing

would hold it shut. "All right. So it'sLogan's love I want. So what? Sometimes people can't have what they want." "That's true. And they certainly will never get what they want if they don't even try." "And just how do you suggest that I 'try'?" Tess took a few more perfect st.i.tches, her head tipped thoughtfully to the side. When she pulled the thread through for the third time, she spoke. "Marry him. Build a life with him. Raise that baby together. Givelove a place to grow."

Give love a place to grow. What a captivating idea.

Too captivating. "That might work for some couples. But not for Logan and me. There are just a hundred ways we don't mesh."

"And those ways are?"

"Well, for starters, at least with me, he can be unbelievably overbearing."

"And you're a born rebel. Your lives will never be dull."

"You don't understand, Tess. You don't know. He is a fine man, just as you said. But I'm not ... wife

material. Not the kind of wife Logan's always wanted, anyway."

"You will be an excellent wife. You're strong and good-hearted and full of life. Logan Severance is a

lucky man to have your love."

Lacey shook her head. "Tess, you're not listening. It simply can't work."

"Shall I tell you what my wise old Aunt Matilda used to say?"

"I'll pa.s.s."

Tess chuckled. "Listen up."

"Oh, all right. Go ahead."

"Whether you think you can or you think youcan't -you're right."

Logan, Zach andJobeth returned about half an hour later. Tess went in and brought out a pitcher of lemonade and five tall iced gla.s.ses. For a while, they all sat together on the porch.Loganasked questions about what he'd seen on his afternoon tour and Zach answered him in that low, pleasant drawl of his.

Lacey sat in the rocker, sipping lemonade and sometimes sketching, listening to the others talk. Now and thenLoganwould glance her way. Their eyes would meet and she'd find herself thinking about what Tess had said.

Marry him. Raise that baby together. Give love a place to grow...

Somehow, right then, in the shade of her cousin's porch on a hot summer afternoon, Tess's lovely, impossible words sounded like excellent advice. Lacey felt good, lazy and content and happy with the world and her own rather insecure place in it.

Even the ache in her back wasn't that bad, though sometimes it did seem to reach around, feeling like thin yet powerful fingers, and squeeze at her distended abdomen. She wondered, as she sat there idly rocking, if she might be having contractions-and then decided that if she was, there was nothing urgent about them. They came irregularly and were never less than ten or fifteen minutes apart.

Edna strolled across the yard with the baby at a little after five and Starrcame spinning down the driveway in a dusty sports car a few minutes later.

Tess picked up her mending and her cloth-covered sewing box and stood. "I think it's time I started thinking about getting some food on the table. Lacey?Logan? I hope you'll join us."

"Yes," said Edna. "Please stay. There is plenty."

So they stayed. They walked back to the cabin together at twilight.Loganinsisted on carrying her big shoulder tote, which Lacey took everywhere so she'd always have her sketchpads and pencils with her if she needed them.

He reached for her hand halfway down the dirt road and she gave it to him. In fact, she wrapped the fingers of her other hand around his arm and leaned in close. He felt so solid and good, someone she could always lean against and know that he could take the weight.

She chuckled to herself.

He turned, smiled. "What?"

"I was just thinking that you're great for leaning on."

She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, certain that he would consider them nothing short of an invitation to start in about marriage again.

But he surprised her. He only squeezed her hand, murmured, "Lean all you want," and kept walking.

When they got to the cabin, he made the same suggestion he had the nightbefore, that they sit outside for a while. And this time she accepted his invitation.

They sat on the step and listened to the coyotes howl at the risen moon and hardly talked at all. Talking didn't seem necessary, somehow.

When they went in, Lacey showered first, standing under the arching shower pipe that had been added on to the claw-footed tub. As the water cascaded over her swollen body, it occurred to her that never once since breakfast had he used the dreaded "M" word.

Was that progress?

She didn't know. And she didn't really even care. The day had been a good one, all in all. And she was a born gra.s.shopper, someone who knew how to take each day as it came. She was in bed by ten, listening toLogan's movements in the main part of the cabin, practicing her pregnant-lady exercises, and wishing that the pain in her back would go away. She felt a little keyed up, and her legs were cramping just a bit. She expected another mostly sleepless night.

But surprisingly, she dropped off around eleven.

She woke at one in the morning. She sat straight up in bed as a powerful contraction gripped her. She groaned, a loud, animal sound, one she couldn't have held back if she'd tried.

The light went on in the main room.

Lacey hardly noticed. The contraction lasted forever, a vise of pressure, gripping, holding, not letting go.

She went on groaning and tried to breathe, to relax,to go with the pain.

"Lace?"

A strong hand pushed back the curtain to the main room. Lacey found herself staring intoLogan's midnighteyes.

He didn't speak. She was grateful for that. She closed her eyes and moaned some more until the contraction finally loosed its grip on her.

Then she realized that the bed was wet. She pushed back the covers. The sweet smell of amniotic fluid drifted up to her nostrils.

She metLogan's eyes again. "The baby's coming," she said. "The baby's coming right now."

Chapter 5.

Loganwas so calm. He led her out to the bathroom and gently took away her sodden sleep shirt. She had another contraction right then, standing there naked on the bathroom rug. She sank to her knees.

Loganknelt beside her and gave her his hand. She gripped it as hard as she could while he whispered to her, "Relax, now. Breathe ... and relax..."

She let out another of those animal groans. "I have to push,Logan. I have to-"

"No. Don't push. We need to see what's really going on first. Don't push yet. Pant. Come on, short, fast breaths."

She panted. "It was only..." Another groan escaped. "Only two or three minutes, since the last one..."

"It's all right. Everything's fine. Everything's all right."

She panted. She groaned. Great, deep, rumbling, animal groans. When finally the huge invisible hands on

her belly relaxed a little,Logansaid very gently, "Come on. Let's rinse you off. You'll feel better..." There were two sets of taps in the old claw-footed tub, one to the tub itself and another for the shower. He turned on the lower ones and helped her climb in over the tub's high, curved sides. She shot him a look of alarm as she noted the red streaks on the inside of her thighs. "There's some blood..." "It's only b.l.o.o.d.y show. Perfectly normal. I saw it in the bed, too. But nomeconium staining that I can see." He tested the water. "d.a.m.n. Still cold. Wait just a minute, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. Even now, naked and huge in front of the man she loved, sweating and confused and expecting the next unbearable contraction to descend any second now,sweetheart sounded so good. "Meconium?" Her befuddled mind tried to place the word. "Greenish-brown fluid. From the baby's digestive tract. It can sometimes indicate fetal distress." "But there isn't any, right?" "No. Nomeconium .And that's good." He tested the water again. "Okay. The water's running warm enough. Come on." They cupped water in their hands and splashed it over her, together rinsing the sticky fluid from her belly and her thighs.

ThenLogansaid, "I think we should use soap, just in case..."

She stared at him and it hit her all over again. Her baby was coming and it was coming fast.

She picked up the soap and washed herself thoroughly.Logansoaped his hands as well. Then together, they splashed on more water, rinsing her clean-and it happened again. Another contraction. She squatted right there in the tub, threw back her head and howled.

It lasted a lifetime, but when it finally eased a little and she came back to herself,Loganhad found the rubbing alcohol and was dousing his hands with it. He rinsed again and gave her a rea.s.suring smile. "Lie back. Let's have a look..."

He examined her, right there in the tub. And when he was done, he asked, "How far is the hospital?" "Uh ... I don't know. Twenty miles or so."

He swore, but very gently.

"What?"