"Heel," Eden said softly.

Baby condensed at her heel like a black shadow. The sun was almost hot in the ranch yard. Flowers bloomed vividly in the beds that ran along the porch. Their bright colors and soft petals spoke eloquently of winter's surrender to spring.

Eden knocked on the door. A feminine voice answered from the second story.

"Door's open. There's coffee in the kitchen. I'll be with you as soon as I get Logan dried off."

Eden hesitated, then opened the door and walked into the living room. Two playpens stood along the wall beneath a whimsical, hand-carved mobile featuring spurs and branding irons. One playpen was empty. The other held a child dressed in pink who looked about a year old. She was fussing in the manner of a baby who had been awakened too early.

"Sit," Eden said quietly to her wolf. "Stay."

The wolf obeyed, content as long as Eden was within his sight.

Drawn by the little girl's muted fussing, Eden went and stood by the playpen.

"Hello, little angel," she said gently. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

Carolina stopped grumping, looked at the stranger and held her arms out in the confident demand of a well-loved child. Eden bent over and lifted the little girl into her arms. The compact warmth and sleepy resilience of Carolina's body brought back an avalanche of memories of another small person, another compact bundle of warmth, and laughter like a field of poppies in the sun.

Holding Carolina, rocking slowly, humming softly, Eden closed her eyes and prayed that Nevada had given her his child to love.

"I'm Diana Blackthorn," a voice said from behind Eden. "From the looks of that great black beast watching you, you must be Eden Summers."

"His name is Baby," Eden said, turning around and looking at the small woman with the intense blue eyes. "He won't hurt you. But if you're worried, I'll-"

"No problem," Diana interrupted, looking curiously at the motionless wolf. "I've been dying to see Baby ever since Nevada mentioned him."

Eden looked from Carolina to Diana and back again. "She's yours, isn't she," Eden said quietly. "You both have eyes like slices of sapphire."

"Carolina's half mine," Diana agreed, smiling. "Thanks for soothing her. Once she gets going, she's hard to stop. She has the deep-running passion of a Blackthorn."

Eden couldn't conceal the bittersweet shaft of pain lancing through her at Diana's words, but all she said was "Is Luke MacKenzie here?"

"No. He and Carla won't be back until dinner. Mariah and Cash won't be here at all. They've moved into Cortez until the twins are born."

"Is your husband Tennessee Blackthorn, the Rocking M's ramrod?"

"Yes, but he's out working the lease lands on the other side of MacKenzie Ridge. He won't be back until well after sundown. But Nevada should be back within the hour. Perhaps he could help you?"

Eden closed her eyes for an instant, then shook her head very slowly and smoothed her cheek against Carolina's shiny black hair.

"Here," Diana said, looking at Eden's pale face and drawn mouth, "let me take Carolina. She's getting heavier every day. Pretty soon we'll need a crane to lift her."

Reluctantly Eden gave the sleeping child back, shifting Carolina's limp weight with an expertise that hadn't faded in the years since Aurora had died.

"You know how to handle babies," Diana said, bending over and tucking Carolina beneath a fluffy quilt in the playpen. "Do you have children of your own?"

"No, but years ago I had a younger sister. She was just Carolina's size…"

Something in Eden's voice caught at Diana's emotions. She turned and saw the sadness in Eden's eyes.

"Would you pass a message along to Luke MacKenzie?" Eden asked, looking away.

"Of course."

"I've finished the preliminary survey of the cougars in and around Wildfire Canyon. There are two full-time resident cats. One is a mother with three cubs. The other is a young male. I've found absolutely no indication that the cougars are feeding on anything but natural prey."

Diana let out a long sigh and smiled. "That's good news. The Rocking M women really didn't want our men to have to hunt down those cougars. The men weren't happy about the prospect, either, but they would have done it to protect the calves."

Eden felt cold at the thought of Nevada having to kill the mama cougar. Nevada had known too much of death and violence, not enough of love and life.

"I'm glad the mama cougar lives on Rocking M land," Eden said after a moment. "She'll be safe here."

"God, yes. Nevada watches over her like a mother hen. I've been trying to get him to take me to see the cubs, but he's worried about disturbing her before the cubs are old enough to leave the den."

"She's a good mother," Eden said. "All three of her cubs are lively and strong. When she calls to them, she makes the most beautiful fluting sounds…"

Eden closed her eyes and touched the golden chain and the tiny ring lying in the hollow of her throat.

"You look tired, and it's a long way from here to anywhere else," Diana said. "Why don't you stay for dinner and then overnight? Luke and Ten would love to talk to you about the Rocking M's cats."

"Nevada can answer their questions."

"Thanks," Diana said dryly, "but I'd just as soon Ten didn't take on his brother right now. Carla feels the same way about Luke. Nevada never was an outgoing kind of man, but in the past few weeks he's set new records. He's shut down, sealed up, and his eyes are enough to give your wolf pause. Frankly, Ten and I were kind of hoping you would show up here. Anyone else who tries to reach Nevada will get their head handed to them."

Slowly Eden shook her head.

"Don't misunderstand me," Diana said quickly, touching Eden's arm. "Nevada is a good man. A woman wouldn't have to worry about her safety with him. He would never hurt you physically. He's capable of great gentleness, too. You should see him with Carla's new baby. It's enough to make me cry."

"I know," Eden whispered.

"Then why won't you stay and talk to him?"

"Because he doesn't want to talk to me."

There was no mistaking the pain in Eden's voice, in her expression, in the fine trembling of her fingers as she reached up and unfastened the gold chain from around her neck. Carefully she looped the chain on the curve of the Rocking M brand. The gold glistened like sunlight caught in the mobile's changing lines."

"Eden?"

"Tell Luke that the university will send him a copy of my report, including photographs of the cougars' tracks and sketches of the boundaries of their territories," Eden said, her voice husky. "And tell him thank-you from the bottom of my heart. Too many ranchers simply would have killed the cats out of suspicion and mistrust and ignorance."

Eden turned and walked quickly to the door. At a single small movement of her hand, Baby rose. With the silence of smoke, the wolf followed Eden outdoors. Behind them the chain and its tiny braided gold ring shimmered and shone above the sleeping Blackthorn child.

*

When Nevada came in the front door of the ranch house, his first stop was always the playpens. They were empty, which meant that the "Rocking M Monsters" were getting their bedtime baths. Disappointed at having missed a chance to play with Carolina and Logan, Nevada took off his black Stetson, snapped it against his thigh, and tugged the hat back into place on his head.

"Need any help?" Nevada called up the stairs.

"So far, so good," Carla called back. "Coffee's ready in the kitchen."

Nevada poured himself a mug of coffee and went back to the living room, bothered by something he couldn't name. Eyes narrowed, he looked around while the squeals of a child splashing enthusiastically in the bath drifted down the stairs. Though nothing seemed obviously out of place in the living room, something kept nagging at Nevada just beneath the threshold of conscious thought, telling him that all was not as it seemed.

Stirred by the passage of Nevada's restless body, the mobiles moved. A shimmer of gold caught his eye. He turned and walked closer. An instant later he recognized the chain and the tiny braided ring he had last seen nestled in the hollow of Eden's throat. Nevada's breath stopped as his heart contracted in his chest.

I wear Aurora's ring to remind myself that love is never wasted, never futile.

Shards of past conversations sliced through him, making him bleed with a pain he had vowed never to feel.

I love you, Nevada.

That's what I was afraid you were telling yourself. Fairy tales. You can't accept that all there is between us is sex. Pure and simple and hot as hell.

With great care Nevada freed the delicate chain from the mobile.

I'm worlds too hard for you, but I want you until my hands shake.

Now I know what life tastes like.

Eden's fingertips brushing him, her husky voice whispering, words burning into his soul and the tiny ring gleaming as light caressed the intertwined strands of gold.

I'm not offering you love and happily ever after. I can't be what you want me to be.

Hazel eyes luminous, alive with all the colors of life, watching him, loving him.

Love is never wasted. Never. But it can hurt like nothing else on earth.

Heaven and hell and the rainbow burning between.

I would sell my soul not to want you.

Fairy-tale girl, all laughter and golden light.

But no longer.

He had stripped her of laughter as surely as he had stripped her of innocence. She had loved him; he had denied that love was possible. He had left her without a word of hope… and now she no longer wore the chain and its tiny gold ring.

She hadn't been able to teach him to believe in love, but he had been able to teach her to believe in despair.

Nevada made the low sound of a man who has just taken a body blow. He hadn't meant to destroy anything at all, much less something as rare and beautiful as Eden. Yet he had destroyed just the same. The proof was lying in his hand, a dead child's ring and a living woman's endless loss.

For a long time Nevada stood motionless, staring into space, seeing nothing, not even his own tears.

*

The long wind blew, sweeping down out of the distant mountains, bringing restlessness to the mixed evergreen forest. A river ran pale with glacial melt, brawling through the wide, flat valley down to the sea. Everywhere there was the subdued frenzy of life that has only a short growing season and a whole new generation to raise.

Eden sat in the small log cabin that had been her parents' first Alaskan home and now was hers. Although the early June day was vibrant with sunlight and wind, she wasn't out searching for lynx across the fertile green land. The changes in her body had made her sleepy, slightly nauseated, lacking any ambition other than to sit in the sun and remind herself that tears were wasted. If she could have gone back and lived again the weeks in Colorado, she would have changed nothing that was within her power to change. And if Eden were haunted by memories of a warrior's unsmiling green eyes and gentle, passionate hands, then so be it. She would not change that, either. Nevada had given her more of beauty and ecstasy than she had ever dreamed of having. The fact that the pain of her loss was greater, too, than she had imagined possible, was something she would just have to live through as she had lived through the loss of Aurora, enduring until the bitter and the sweet were inextricably mixed, each defining and refining the other until they became a seamless, beautiful whole.

Baby sat near Eden's feet, looking through the screen door toward the uninhabited land. His long black ears were erect, his narrow muzzle tipped into the cool rush of air, his yellow eyes gleaming.

Without warning he came to his feet in a lithe rush, drank the wind, and tipped back his head in a howl. The eerie, primal sound froze Eden. She heard that particular howl from Baby only when she returned to him after a long absence. But she hadn't been absent. Her body had been present all the time, if not her heart and mind.

Perhaps Mark had returned early from his stint in the oil fields.

Eden sighed and stood up. As she opened the screen door, a man stepped from the willows sheltering the path to the cabin. His shoulders were wide and his walk was as easy as that of a cougar prowling. The world tipped and spun dizzily, forcing Eden to hang on to the door frame or fall.