At the house, Daniel went upstairs and changed into his work clothes, and Jolie packed more food—meats from the smokehouse, eggs, milk, butter and cheese from the coolness of the shed that protected the well, flour and sugar and other condiments from the pantry, vegetables from the now-neglected garden. While Daniel did the chores—either he or Deuter came back to the farm to tend to these duties twice a day—Jolie had the children put up their Sunday things and exchanged her brown sateen for a comfortable blue calico.

  The four of them ate a light supper around the kitchen table, then set out for the camp in Daniel’s buckboard. Even though a week of hard work lay ahead of her, Jolie was glad to be back. She liked the feeling of working close by her husband’s side.

  The evening air was cooler than usual, and the wind was picking up. Jolie noticed that Daniel kept taking uneasy glances at the sky, and the men built a bonfire close by the creek and roasted sweet potatoes in the embers.

  Nan and Joe came by, in Joe’s wagon, and while Nan looked a little peaked, Jolie was relieved to see her up and around.

  The two women sat in the doorway of the wagon, sipping the bracing tea Jolie had made for the occasion.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been here to help you,” Nan said, lowering her eyes.

  “I don’t need you underfoot anyhow,” Jolie teased, touching her friend’s arm.

  Nan gave her a surprised look, saw the twinkle in her eyes, and laughed. “In that case, maybe I’ll just lounge around the parlor with my feet up for the rest of the harvest, Jolie Beckham,” she replied.

  Jolie’s expression had turned solemn. “Maybe you should do exactly that,” she said. “After all, no harvest is as important as a baby.”

  But Nan shook her head. “Daniel and Joe have a bargain that goes way back—he helps bring in our crops, and we help with his.”

  After that, the women lapsed into a thoughtful silence, watching the flickering orange light of the bonfire and sipping their tea as night settled over the land. Jolie was filled with wonder at her wealth, however transient. She had a pair of beautiful children she could believe were hers, if not in her head, in her heart. She had a home, plenty of food, and decent clothes, for the first time since her father had dragged her away from her aunt Nissa’s side. And now, two genuine friends had entered her life … Nan and Verena.

  Jolie supposed a woman couldn’t rightly ask for more, but there was one thing she still wanted … for Daniel to love her with his whole soul, the way he’d surely loved Ilse.

  Soon, it was time to put Gemma and Hank to bed. Joe and Nan drove off toward home, their way lighted by a lantern swinging from the side of the wagon. The field hands spread their bedrolls on the ground around the fire and talked in muted tones of people and places that were far away.

  Jolie was sitting in the doorway of the wagon, reading a book of poetry she’d purloined from a shelf in Daniel’s parlor before they’d returned to the fields when her husband suddenly appeared. As always, to her chagrin, her breath caught in her throat and her heartbeat speeded up, just at the sight of him.

  “Hank and Gemma are asleep,” she said, because nothing else came to mind. She wondered what it was about this man that enabled him to shake her so thoroughly just by standing nearby.

  Daniel was gazing up at the sky, his expression troubled, and Jolie knew without asking that he was afraid it would rain before the harvest was in. Although she had very little practical knowledge where crops were concerned, she was aware that a storm would be a major catastrophe. He braced one hand against the corner of the cook wagon and just looked at her.

  Jolie was uncomfortable. “Was there something you wanted to say?”

  His voice was hoarse when he answered. “It was nice, having you and Gemma and Hank around today.”

  She lowered her head to hide the smile of pleasure she was certain was wavering on her mouth. He was referring to the church picnic, and Jolie was delighted to learn he’d paid attention to something besides the sermon and the subsequent horseshoe tournament. “They’re good children,” she said, hoping Daniel would consider that when he went to take Gemma and Hank back to Spokane.

  Daniel cleared his throat before speaking again. “I’ve been thinking about something you said,” he went on. “About how you can’t buy another human being.”

  Although Jolie certainly had no quarrel with this train of thought, she sensed some ominous undercurrent to his remark. “I was under the impression we’d resolved that, as a nation, during the Great Civil Conflict,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t notice that her hands were trembling as she smoothed her skirts.

  Her husband’s scowl reminded her, too late, that he’d been born and raised in North Carolina and had quite possibly been of the Confederate persuasion. After one thunderous moment, however, his manner became gentler. He even smiled, his teeth white in the gathering darkness, but his eyes looked sad. “So we did,” he agreed. “My family never had slaves anyway. We couldn’t have afforded to feed them.”

  Jolie still sensed the approach of something hurtful, and she wanted desperately to avoid it. “Did you fight in the war?” she asked softly.

  He sighed and gazed off into the starry distance, his arm still braced against the cook wagon. “Yes, Jolie,” he answered, after a long time. “I slept on the ground, like everybody else, and I ate biscuits filled with weevils. I must have walked half the length of Dixie in the same old worn-out pair of boots. And when the war was finally over, I was glad as hell to walk away whole—a lot of men on both sides weren’t so lucky.”

  Jolie was silent. Lots of people still had bitter feelings where the war was concerned, and it was apparent that Daniel numbered among them.

  He reached out and took her hand, pulling her from the doorway of the wagon. “You’re a very beautiful woman,” he said reluctantly.

  No one had ever told Jolie that before, and she was so moved that she couldn’t even manage a thank-you. Her throat worked, but no sound came out.

  He lifted his hand to her face and traced her jawline lightly with the calloused pad of his thumb. “I’ll miss you when you go,” he said.

  Jolie swallowed. “When I go?” she echoed plaintively.

  Daniel nodded. “You were right before—I don’t own you. And I think you deserve a chance to start over somewhere else.” The caress stopped, and his hand fell back to his side. “As soon as the harvest is over, I’ll send you to San Francisco. I have friends there who can help you get a divorce and make a new life for yourself.”

  The memory of Jolie’s stricken expression followed Daniel as he turned and walked resolutely away from the cook wagon. He wanted to take back everything he’d said about sending her to California, but he couldn’t let himself do that. It was bad enough that he’d raised false hopes by making love to Jolie, and by letting Hank and Gemma stay instead of taking them straight to Spokane the moment he’d discovered them hiding in the wagon.

  He walked along the banks of the creek, the wheat rustling in the darkness as he passed, until the dying fire and the camp were far behind him. Then, sitting on a rock, he reached down and picked up a pebble to toss into the water.

  The stream glistened like a ribbon of ebony marble in the thin light. Daniel drew in the subtle scent of the crops, ready to be harvested, threshed, bagged, and sold.

  Guilt chewed at him like an animal with small, needle-sharp teeth. He’d betrayed his gentle and delicate Ilse, who had lost her life trying to give him sons and daughters.

  Daniel tossed another pebble into the creek, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. More than remorse troubled him, however.

  Although the loss of his wife and two children had devastated Daniel, had hollowed out parts of him that would probably still be void when he reached the far side of forever, his suffering had left him with a certain invulnerability. The worst had already happened to him, he had lost what he valued most in all of creation. Anything else that might occur, a plague of mice or grasshoppers in the wheat, his own sickness or even death, would be minor by comparison.

  Now, he was faced with a new danger—caring about Jolie and those two skinny, unwanted little kids who’d stowed away in his wagon. To love them, to throw his whole soul into creating a new family, would be to lay himself open to unbearable pain all over again.

  He sighed and shoved one hand through his dusty hair. He guessed he hadn’t been thinking straight when he’d told Jolie he wanted children by her. Lord knew, he hadn’t had a truly logical thought from the moment he’d seen her standing there in Hobb’s hay wagon, looking pitiful as a wet kitten thrown to the dogs. He slapped his hands down on his muscled thighs, sighed again, and stood, rotating his shoulders in a vain attempt to relieve some of the lingering strain of a day’s work.

  He’d been walking a fine line with Jolie, giving in to the sweet temptation of that lush and supple body of hers, letting himself dream of a houseful of laughter and children and love. It was time he pulled in his horns and faced cold reality: He simply couldn’t allow himself to care about another woman. The price was too high.

  The grinding work went on, and on. The backs of Jolie’s hands were splattered with small burns from cooking, while her palms were blistered and sore from chopping wood for the insatiable stove. Her clothes hung loose on a form that was leaner and firmer than ever before, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been truly clean. Nan had taken to fainting in the heat of the day, so she no longer came to help with the work, but she had taken Gemma and Hank to stay with her until the harvest was over.

  Despite her fatigue, Jolie missed the children, begrudging every moment she could not be with them. Daniel had been avoiding her for days, barely speaking to her even when she handed him a plate at mealtime, and she had no doubt at all that he meant to relieve himself of one very troublesome family the moment he’d harvested, threshed, and sold the last of the wheat.

  There was always a lump in Jolie’s throat, and she was forever on the verge of tears, but she was too stubborn to let Daniel know she was grieving. She smiled at the men as she served them and, at night, she joined them around the campfire, singing and clapping her hands as one of the field hands played spritely tunes on his mouth harp. Ballads always sent her fleeing into the hot, empty cook wagon, though, for songs like “Shenandoah” and “Red River Valley” brought her unruly emotions too close to the surface.

  Work was her solace and her salvation, and occasional visits with Hank and Gemma, at Nan’s small, tidy farmhouse, sustained her. Still, the thrumming pain inside her, pulsing in time with her heartbeat, never subsided.

  When Sunday morning came, Jolie launched a minor rebellion and refused to attend church with Daniel. He drove off alone in the buckboard, probably planning to stop off at the Culleys to pick up Gemma and Hank for the services, and Jolie did her level best to go back to bed and sleep.

  But it was hot enough to smother a body, and there was a fly buzzing somewhere in the room. The world looked hellfire red through her eyelids.

  Jolie gave up and rose from the mattress she’d longed for so many nights when she’d slept under the cook wagon, or on the narrow, lonely cot inside it. She’d grown so used to working, she decided, that she couldn’t feel comfortable lying still. Too, laboring on a Sunday, with apologies to God, of course, seemed an excellent way to get back at Daniel for his stubborn and mean-spirited ways.

  She was in the garden hoeing, her skirts hiked up and her hair stuffed inside the old derby hat, when she heard the nicker of a horse. At first, Jolie wasn’t concerned—this was a farm, after all—but then she realized that Daniel had taken his gelding, and there were no animals about except for old Leviticus and the black-and-white milk cow, Daisy. All the mules, like the cumbersome equipment, had been left at camp.

  Jolie leaned on the handle of her hoe, eyes squinted against the relentless sunshine, and wiped one sleeve across her sweaty brow. A shift in the wheat to the west of the house drew her gaze, and Jolie nearly choked on her own indrawn breath when Rowdy and Blake rode over a low rise.

  Their grins seemed unusually white against the backdrop of their filthy faces.

  Silently berating herself for not keeping the shotgun close at hand, Jolie tightened her fingers around the heavy wooden hoe handle and tested its weight with an almost imperceptible upward motion of her elbows. If need be, she could do plenty of damage with that plain garden tool before it was wrested away from her.

  “You’ve got a lot of brass, coming here,” she said to Blake, as he dismounted and walked toward her. Rowdy got out of his saddle, too, but then he shed his dirty, sweat-stained canvas duster, hung it over his saddle horn, and walked off in the direction of the well house and the barn.

  Jolie kept her eyes on Blake, every muscle perfectly still, ready to use that hoe to dig a furrow in the side of his head if that was what she had to do.

  Blake stopped, a few feet away, one booted foot planted on either side of the wilted pea plants Jolie had been cutting down. He pushed his hat to the back of his head in a cocky motion and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. The six-gun strapped to his hip looked particularly ominous in such an ordinary, everyday setting.

  He ran his insolent gaze over her. “The sun’s turned you brown as a nut,” he said. “Don’t you know a lady’s supposed to keep her skin whiter than the keys on a new piano?”

  Jolie swallowed and tried not to let on just how tightly she was gripping the hoe. “What do you want?” In the near distance, she heard a door creak on rusty hinges, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Blake long enough to trace the sound. She longed for Daniel’s return and, at the very same time, prayed that the reverend’s sermon was running to the lengthy side that morning.

  She began to sweat again, between her breasts and shoulder blades and along her upper lip, but now it was fear that spawned the reaction, not the merciless August sun.

  Blake scratched the back of his head, making his hat wiggle on his crown. After that, he spread his hands wide of his torso in a gesture of astonishment. “What do I want?” he echoed. “Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do, when Rowdy and I have come all this way just to pay a Sunday call on you.”

  Jolie’s gaze strayed anxiously toward the road, even though she did her darnedest to stare straight at Blake the whole time. “You and Rowdy must want to get yourselves caught and hanged,” she observed, bravado lending a defiant lilt to her voice. “Otherwise, why would you still be hanging around Prosperity like a couple of flies on a cow-pie?”

  The man she’d once believed was her friend smiled indulgently and took another step toward her. “You’re making me feel unwelcome,” he scolded.

  She hoisted the hoe like a claymore and held it ready. “I’d rather see mice three deep in the wheat than you in my garden,” she breathed. “Get out of here, Blake, and don’t come bothering me again. There’s no point in your bedeviling me, because Daniel—Mr. Beckham—means to send me away as soon as the harvest is in.”

  Blake folded his arms across his chest and, although he didn’t seem daunted by Jolie’s words or her weapon, he maintained his distance. He sighed philosophically and tilted his head back for a moment to study the sky. When his gaze met Jolie’s again, though, the sweat dried instantly on her skin and a chill bit through to her very soul.

  “I reckon that just means we’ve got to see that you inherit this place real soon,” he drawled, after a long, deadly silence.

  “Do you think I’d let you do that? Do you actually believe I’d allow you to gun down another innocent man and ride out of here with the deed to this farm in your hand?” Jolie burst out, at the end of her patience. From the corner of her eye, she saw Rowdy approaching, pulling Hank’s cherished wagon along behind him like he thought he was doing something real clever, and her terror deepened. She summoned the last of her courage to hide the fact. “Daniel’ll know you’ve been here, even if I don’t tell him—which I will, I swear by God’s vest buttons. He’ll get the marshal and some of the men from town and they’ll track you down like they would a couple of mad dogs.”

  By that time, Rowdy had brought the red wagon to the edge of the overgrown, neglected garden. He and the toy made an incongruous picture.

  “Did you think we didn’t know about the kids, Jolie?” Blake asked, with ominous good will, waggling his index finger at her.

  Jolie felt a shiver spiral down her spine. “You just go near them, either of you, and I’ll kill you,” she said, in barely more than a whisper. Then, firmly grasping the handle of the hoe, she advanced on Blake.

  He scrambled backward, grinning the whole time, his hands raised, palms out, in a bid for peace. It was a morbidly ironic parody of the way the bank president had tried to back away from Rowdy’s bullet—or had it been Blake’s?—that dreadful day. “Easy, now, Jolie-girl,” he scolded. “I got no objection to raising up a couple of kids. We’ll start us a brand-new life someplace far from here, you and me, and they can go along. That way, we’ll look more like a real family.”

  Jolie’s stomach roiled at the comparison, and she gulped back the wash of acid that flooded her throat. In another sidelong glance, she saw that Rowdy was frowning, probably pondering the obvious gap in his friend’s plan.

  “I’m warning you both,” Jolie said, keeping her shoulders straight and her voice even. Blake’s suggestion didn’t deserve answering. “Get out of here, and don’t come back.”

  Rowdy fidgeted anxiously, his neck craned, his eyes fixed on the plume of dust billowing far up the road. “For chrissakes, Kingston, somebody’s coming!” With that, he sprang into the saddle and reined his tired, spindly horse back in the direction from which they’d first appeared.

  Blake mounted too, but his movements were damnably slow and methodical. He touched the brim of his hat in a mock-cordial gesture as he regarded Jolie’s upturned face. “You be sure and tell the big man we were here,” he said pleasantly. “But don’t get any crazy ideas about trying to trap me or something like that. Wouldn’t be smart, because even though I’d like for you and me and those kids to take up the honest life someplace far away from here, I’ll kill them both if you cross me.” He paused to glance calmly in the direction of the approaching rider or wagon. “And I know where to find them, Jolie-girl. They’re at the Culley place most times, and there’s no man around during the day.”