«What I need to know is very…personal.»

«That’s all right. The War Between the States made me pretty shockproof. Ask whatever you like.»

Jessica took a deep breath and said quickly, «You seem to enjoy your husband.»

«Oh, yes. Very much. He’s a wonderful man.» Willow’s hazel eyes kindled with delight and her smile became incandescent.

«No, I meanyouenjoy him. Physically. In the marriage bed.»

Willow blinked. «Yes. I do.»

«Do many women actually enjoy the marriage bed?»

For a moment, Willow looked thoughtful as she remembered her mother’s laughter and her father’s low voice murmuring through the house late at night. Willow also remembered the Widow Sorenson’s eyes lighting when she talked about the pleasure of sharing her life with a man.

«I think many women do,» Willow said slowly. Then she admitted, «I never truly understood it until I met Caleb. I was engaged to a boy who died in the war. When he kissed my cheek or held my hand, it was nice but it didn’t make me want to be his woman. Yet when Caleb looks at me or smiles or touches me…»

She hesitated, searching for words.

«There’s nothing else in the world for you,» Jessica finished quietly, remembering how it had felt when Wolfe smiled at her, filling her world.

But he no longer smiled at her, and her world was the empty wind.

«Yes. Everything else vanishes.» After a moment, Willow said simply, «I never knew babies were conceived in ecstasy, until Caleb.»

The embroidery thread knotted under Jessica’s tense fingers as memories spurted through her unwilling mind. «Not all babies are conceived that way. My mother’s certainly weren’t. She fought my father. Dear God, how she fought him.»

Unhappily, Willow watched Jessica, sensing the violent tension in the other girl’s slim body. She put her arm around Jessica in silent sympathy.

«Was there no love between them?» Willow asked softly.

«My father needed a male heir. His first wife was an aristocrat, who couldn’t conceive. When she died, he took my mother as his wife. She was a common lady’s maid. She was pregnant with me at the time. The earl had bedded her, you see.»

«Then there was affection between them.»

«Perhaps.» Jessica set aside the embroidery and rubbed her hands together as though chilled. «But I think not. Mother was a commoner whose family was desperately poor. The earl was an aristocrat who desperately needed a male heir. I think desperation makes for a very difficult marriage bed. I know mother very much preferred to sleep alone, but she wasn’t permitted to unless she was breeding.»

Jessica’s bleak eyes revealed much that her careful words did not.

«It isn’t that way in all marriage,» Willow said.

«It was in the marriages I saw. It was families and fortunes that married, not man and woman. It would have been that way in the marriage my guardian tried to arrange for me.» Jessica turned and faced Willow. «But it isn’t like that for you and Caleb. You come to his bed willingly. He doesn’t…hurt you. Does he?»

Laughter and memory combined to tint Willow’s cheeks a bright pink. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have spoken so frankly about the private side of marriage, but she sensed Jessica must have beenbeen ill-prepared for being a wife in more important ways than her lack of skill in the kitchen.

Willow also suspected that she had stumbled on the source of the tension between Wolfe and his wife.

«I’m more than willing to bed my husband, I fear. I’ve been known to seduce Caleb quite shamelessly.» Willow bent closer and whispered in Jessica’s ear. «In fact, as soon as possible after this babe is born, I’m looking forward to becoming Caleb’s woman in every way once more. I’ve missed it so much. I never feel so closely bound to him as I do when we share our love in that very special way.»

Jessica couldn’t help but smile in response to Willow’s sparkling eyes andpinkened cheeks. «Caleb is lucky to have you.»

«I’m the lucky one.» Willow smiled at Jessica. «Any more questions? Don’t be shy. Growing up as you did, I doubt you had many women with whom you could talk about such things.»

«I had only one friend.»

«You must miss her.»

«Him, not her. Yes, I miss him terribly. Our friendship didn’t survive our marriage.»

«Having seen how possessive Wolfe is, I can understand it,» Willow said. «Your friend must have decided that discretion is indeed the better part of valor.»

«You misunderstood me. Wolfe was my friend. Now he is my husband.» Jessica grimaced and changed the subject quickly. «There is another way in which you’re very different from my mother.»

Willow smiled encouragingly. «Yes?»

«Pregnancy was very difficult for her, yet you seem not to suffer.»

«Oh, I’ll be glad enough to carry the babe in my arms rather than in my womb,» Willow admitted. «Just as I’ll be glad not to wallow clumsily when I walk, not to visit the privy hourly, and not to require my husband’s strong arm to pull me out of my favorite chair.»

«But you’re healthy,» Jessica said seriously. «You can walk across the room without fainting, you can eat without vomiting, and you don’t…»

Jessica’s voice died as she shuddered beneath another unwanted eruption of memory.

«What?» coaxed Willow.

«You don’t weep and scream and curse your fate.»

«Dear Lord. Was that what your mother did?»

Another shudder wracked Jessica. Her hands became fists, as though that would prevent the gathering pressure of nightmares from erupting into memories she had forgotten long ago, because remembering was unbearable.

«And you don’t curse Caleb for making you pregnant,» Jessica continued urgently, determined to have it all said, all questions asked. «Do you?»

«Curse Caleb?» Willow sounded and looked appalled. Impulsively, she took Jessica’s cold fists, uncurled the fingers, and placed Jessica’s hands on the firm mound of her pregnancy. «Feel it. Feel the baby kick and turn and wriggle. Can you feel it?»

At first, Jessica tried to pull away, for the gesture called back more of her own childhood, when her mother had grabbed her daughter’s hands and pressed them against her womb, shouting at her daughter to feel the babe, to feel it moving, proof that this one would not be stillborn. But not once had Jessica felt a babe move. Not once had the pregnancies ended in a live birth.

Willow’s belly was warm and firm and resilient, and beneath the supple skin something drummed against Jessica’s hands.

«It’s moving,» Jessica breathed, shocked. «It’s alive!»

«Of course. The blessed little thing is as active as a flea.»

«No, you don’tunderstand.It’salive.»

Willow laughed softly, bemused by the wonder on Jessica’s face.

«Yes, it’s alive,» Willow agreed. «Another life is growing inside me. A beautiful miracle. How could I curse the man who created this new life with me?»

Jessica said nothing, for she was too transfixed by the vigorous life in Willow’s womb to think coherently.

«Here,» Willow said, shifting one of Jessica’s hands. «Can you feel the baby’s head, all round, just fitting in your palm?»

Breathlessly, Jessica nodded.

«Now give me your other hand,» Willow said. She moved it to the other side of her abdomen. «Feel it kick? A tiny little foot, but already so strong. Every week it gets bigger and stronger. Lately, it seems to grow an inch a day.» She laughed. «Soon it will be strong enough to be born, and then I’ll see Caleb hold his child and smile at me.»

«You aren’t afraid?»

«I’m strong. I’m healthy. My mother had babies without difficulty.» Willow hesitated, then admitted, «Caleb wanted me to go to the fort months ago, but the weather has been too bad. Besides, I wanted our child to be born here. I didn’t want to be in a strange place with strangers around me.»

«When the time comes, I’ll help you,» Jessica said. «If you wish it. Lady Victoria saw that I had some small training, though I’ve never used it. She wanted me to be prepared if my future husband owned a remote country estate.»

Willow said simply, «I’d like to have you nearby.»

«Then you shall.»

With a lifting of her heart, Jessica picked up her embroidery again and resumed working on the christening gown. For the first time, she allowed herself to hope that the gown wouldn’t serve as a tiny shroud for a stillborn babe.

«OH, do play, please,» Jessica coaxed Caleb. «Reno told me you play quite beautifully. It would be wonderful to hear music again.»

«That’s the thing about being a Western wife,» Wolfe said, giving Jessica a taunting look. «You’re deprived of all kinds of civilized things.»

«Not music,» Caleb said. «Not unless you want to be.» He put the harmonica to his lips. A beautiful chord floated through the room. «Of course, a harmonica isn’t some fancy chamber music done in four-part harmony.»

«Do that again,» Jessica said, startled. Then she heard the blunt command in her voice and flushed. «Please. It was very pretty.»

«It wasn’t Bach,» Wolfe said.

«Do hush up,» Jessica said sweetly. «If I had wanted Bach, I would have packed my violin over the Rockies and made all of you suffer through a nightly recital.»

Rafelaughed. «You tell him, Red.»

Despite himself, Wolfe smiled. «Actually, I like Bach.»

«You would,» Reno said. «You spent too long in civilization.»

Caleb lifted the harmonica and blew gently. All conversation stopped as the first, simple notes of «Amazing Grace» filled the room. Reno and Willow began singing, falling easily into the patterns of harmony they had learned as children. Jessica’s breath went out in a sigh of pleasure as brother and sister sang with voices perfectly blended.

After a moment another voice wove through the other two in a rhythmic echo that had no words. When Jessica looked atRafe, she realized that he was humming in flawless counterpoint.

Grimly Wolfe measured the pleasure and admiration in Jessica’s face as she listened to Reno’s voice andRafe’s haunting music. Even as Wolfe told himself that she was every bit as admiring of Caleb and Willow, Wolfe knew it didn’t matter. It was Jessica’s clear appreciation of the Moran brothers that flicked like a whip over Wolfe’s raw nerves.

Nor were Reno andRafe immune to Jessica’s effortless charm. Their eyes kindled with special warmth when she laughed, when she smiled, when she walked into the room. Though neither brother had given her so much as an improper look, the knowledge that Jessica took pleasure in their company — but not in her husband’s — was like an acid in Wolfe’s soul. The fact that he had worked relentlessly to make her uncomfortable in his presence only made the result more bitter.

I never should have brought her here. I should have guessed Reno would be wintering over with his sister. I should have known what effect Jessica’s fey blue eyes and laughter would have on a lonely man. God knows the effect they have on me.

Or rather, the Devil knows. I want Jessica like Hell burning. But I can survive that. What I can’t survive is watching her flit like a silken butterfly around those damned handsome Moran brothers.

I should grabJessi and leave.

But Wolfe couldn’t do that. He cared too much for Willow to deprive her of Jessica’s company, especially after Willow had refused to leave the ranch in order to give birth.

When Caleb began a ballad set in waltz time Jessica began humming and keeping time with her fingertips.

«Wolfe?» she asked hopefully, wanting to dance.

He shook his head. He was tempted, but didn’t trust himself. If he held her in his arms, his body would state its hunger in unmistakable terms.

«I need some water,» Wolfe said, heading for the kitchen.

Jessica’s eyes followed him every step of the way.

«Never let it be said that Matthew Moran sat on his hands when a beautiful woman wanted to dance,» Reno said.

He went to where Jessica was sitting, bowed, and held out his hand. She put her fingers on his and stood.

«Thank you, kind sir.»

Jessica smiled, curtsied, and stepped into Reno’s arms with a grace that had been learned from the finest tutors in the British Empire.

In the kitchen, Wolfe drank one cup of water, then another, cursing silently the whole time. He had wanted very much to hold Jessica, to feel her softness and warmth, to stand so close to her that he could smell her delicate rose perfume and see the intense clarity of her eyes.