Jolie sighed fretfully and set the mop in the corner, then lugged a brimming kettle across the room and dumped its contents straight into the water, never once looking at her target.

  Daniel gave a shout of angry protest and shot upright in a roaring splash. “Damn it, woman,” he bellowed, “I didn’t ask you to pour it on my middle and scald me like a hen in need of plucking!”

  Dropping the kettle, Jolie fled through the back door and into the night. Whenever her pa had yelled like that, he’d always ended up hitting her until she had bruises. She hid in the well house, never realizing that she was crying until she caught her skirt on that infernal board that was always sticking up. Her shoulders were quivering with silent sobs by the time she managed to work the calico free without tearing it.

  After a while, she heard Daniel calling her. Her fear had ebbed away to stubbornness, and she didn’t answer. She just sat in the corner of the well house, on top of a crock filled with water glass and eggs, and thought of how she’d like her life to be different.

  She imagined herself married to a rich, handsome, gentle man who loved her, who doted on her every wish. She pictured silk dresses, glowing jewelry, fine coaches, and houses with pillars in front, like the drawings of Greek buildings she’d seen in books. She would have a dozen children, and all of them would wear velvet and speak to her only in French …

  “Jolie!” Daniel was nearby, and it was plain that he was running out of patience.

  She gasped when he wrenched open the well house door, letting in a flood of moonlight that seemed to swirl up around her like silvery water. “Don’t,” she choked, trying in vain to cover both her head and her upper body with her hands. “Please … don’t strike me.”

  Daniel made a sound low in his throat, and his big hands closed on her waist, but he only pulled Jolie close against him and held her there, his chin resting on the crown of her head. “Nobody’s going to lay a hand on you, Jolie,” he vowed gruffly. “Not ever again.”

  Jolie sagged against him, this maddening, confusing man, her fingers clenching the fabric at the back of his shirt. She could no longer keep up the front of proud defiance she’d been struggling to maintain, and pressed her forehead into Daniel’s chest and gave a wail of mingled grief and despair.

  He lifted her easily into his arms and carried her out of her hiding place and along the path leading to the house.

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” Jolie sobbed wretchedly, desperate for one person, in all the vast scheme of things, to believe her. “Oh, Daniel, I swear I didn’t sh-shoot that poor old man, and I didn’t know Rowdy and Blake were going to rob the bank!”

  “Hush, now,” Daniel said, as they mounted the steps and crossed the threshold into the kitchen. There, he blew out the flame in the lamp on the table and found his way deftly in the dark, still holding Jolie in his arms.

  Her cries turned to sniffles when she realized he was taking her into his own room, instead of the one he’d consigned her to so brusquely the night before. He laid her gently on the bed, in a pool of moon glow, and stood looking down at her for what seemed like an eternity.

  Then, slowly, with surprisingly agile fingers for a man so large, he began unbuttoning her dress.

  For Jolie, the experience of being undressed by Daniel was achingly sensuous. It was not in her nature to submit, and yet she could find no shred of resistance within herself. Slowly, with unbelievably light fingers, he took away her shoes, unrolled the long stockings that reached up under her drawers to midthigh.

  Jolie gave a little whimper and rested the knuckle of her index finger against her mouth.

  The calico dress came off next, and Jolie saw a muscle tighten and then relax in Daniel’s jaw as he gazed upon her. And she felt rapturously beautiful, for once in her life, instead of too tall and too awkward and too poor. Later, perhaps, she would think of these moments and be afraid, but at the time she could only marvel at the unexpected sweetness of just being a woman.

  She tilted her head back as Daniel untied the ribbons that held her camisole closed and laid the thin cloth aside. He drew in his breath at the sight of her bare breasts, their points going hard and reaching, and Jolie felt as though her blood had turned to warm oil. She wanted to melt with the heat, and yet there was a driving urgency inside her too, a need she only partially understood.

  “Daniel,” she whispered, wanting him to explain, to tutor her, not with his voice, but with his body.

  He knelt on the floor beside the bed, taking one of Jolie’s breasts into his hand as though it were a creation of wonder, chafing the ready nipple with his calloused thumb. When he bent and touched the straining morsel with his tongue, such a jolt of passion arched through Jolie that she cried out and raised herself high on her shoulders and heels.

  Daniel both soothed and inflamed her, continuing to suck, making large, slow circles on her belly with his palm. When he moved to attend the other breast, Jolie began to toss her head from side to side on the pillow in the utter joy of surrender. Never, in her wildest imaginings, had she ever dreamed that the things a man did to a woman could feel so good.

  Her husband’s hand ranged farther, not just over her belly now, but touching the breast he’d enjoyed so thoroughly, teasing the nipple, sloping around to flatten against the small of her back and then sliding down inside her drawers to grasp her buttocks.

  Presently, he began stroking the insides of her thighs, letting her legs know that he would have them parted. Jolie’s hips lunged upward in some inexplicable eagerness, but Daniel simply cupped his hand over the moist, silken mound of her femininity, still shrouded in muslin, and pressed her back to the mattress.

  “Not yet,” he whispered, sounding as breathless as if he’d just come up from deep water. “God in heaven, not yet.”

  He touched her quivering stomach, first tentatively, with his lips, then with the tip of his tongue. Jolie grabbed frantically at his shirt, in a hopeless effort to drag him on top of her, but he only caught her hands together at the wrists and imprisoned them high above her head.

  By then, Jolie was wild to have him, even though she didn’t know exactly what he would do to her. Her flesh was damp with perspiration, and tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks and forehead and neck. And Daniel hooked his thumb under the waistband of her drawers, dragging them down and away.

  Still holding her hands above her head, he began to caress Jolie, eliciting a series of small, despairing whimpers from her throat. She was a creature caught, she would not escape, and it had never occurred to her that being conquered could be so glorious.

  Daniel nuzzled through the musky down guarding her most vulnerable place, and Jolie was unprepared for the sweet, tremulous shock of that. When he took her boldly, brazenly into his mouth, she gave a strangled shout of pleasure and writhed on the bed, brazen as a wild mare with her stallion.

  “I thought so,” she heard Daniel say, through a daze of sensation and need, and there was no rancor in his voice, only resignation and a touch of sadness.

  Clasping the underside of her right knee in one hand, he raised her leg high so that his access was complete. Jolie dragged a pillow over her face to muffle the keening cries of ecstasy Daniel was driving from her with his lips and his tongue.

  The terrible urgency inside her kept building and building. The muscles in her stomach and bottom were sore from clenching and unclenching in response to the flood of sensations that were washing over her, drowning her.

  And then something spun hard and hot in the core of her womanhood, like a new moon breaking free of the sun, and she gave repeated gasps of incredulous exaltation as the sparks reached into every part of her body and soul.

  When Daniel was through with Jolie, he lowered her, trembling, back to the hard sanctity of the mattress, comforting her with long, gentle strokes to her thighs and belly. Gradually bringing her back inside herself.

  When her breathing had slowed almost to its normal pace, he rose, pulled his shirt free of his trousers, unbuttoned it, hung it over the bedpost. His belt buckle made a quiet clinking sound as he unfastened it, and Jolie closed her eyes, afraid that if she looked too closely, she would lose her courage.

  The warmth and heat and granitelike hardness of his frame made her smile, though, as he stretched out above her, careful not to let his weight crush her. She had had her pleasures, and now Daniel would have his. She resolved to bear the pain in silence, if for no other reason than to repay him for the wonderful responses he’d coaxed, then demanded, from her.

  His voice was a low, hoarse rumble. “You’ve done this before, so you know … ”

  Jolie tilted her head far back, pretending Daniel hadn’t said that, offering no answer but the supple eagerness of her young body. He trailed kisses along the length of her throat, and she felt his immense masculinity against her thigh.

  Fear fluttered in the pit of her stomach, but she didn’t give in to it. After seeing a man die on the sidewalk outside the bank in Prosperity and being arrested, tried, and almost hanged for that same man’s murder, it took more than the prospect of losing her virginity to scare Jolie.

  Daniel muttered something Jolie could make no sense of and then, in one blindingly powerful thrust, he entered her.

  The pain was beyond comprehension, and yet there was pleasure mingled in with it. Even as a sob of shock and fear escaped Jolie, she clutched at Daniel’s bare back with both hands lest he leave her.

  “My God,” he whispered brokenly. “I thought … ”

  She entangled her fingers in his hair, which was just the color of the wheat at midday, and pressed his mouth to hers to silence him. His tongue swept her depths, as fiery an invader as his manhood, and Jolie was stunned to find her exhausted body beginning to buckle in a new, even wilder release than the one she’d had before. Daniel held her tightly while she caught fire in his arms, then he began slowly gliding in and out of her.

  The fever of it simmered under her skin and wrung ragged cries from her throat as she strived to wrest from Daniel that intangible thing she’d never guessed she needed. He continued to take her in long, even strokes, murmuring gentle words as he nibbled at her throat and collarbone.

  A red-hot shiver went through Jolie, and then, suddenly, with the fierce cry of a warrior’s woman, she convulsed wildly in Daniel’s arms … once, twice, three times. Finally, she was still.

  Through the haze of satisfaction that surrounded her, however, Jolie began to realize that Daniel was working toward some violent surcease of his own. Instinctively, she laid her hands on his muscle-corded, sweat-dampened back and urged him on with soft, meaningless words.

  He finally lunged deep and stiffened, and with a low groan, gave up what Jolie’s body had wrought from his. When he was finished, he fell to the mattress beside her, and the bedsprings creaked in protest. The fingers of his right hand delved deeply, gently into her hair, and his thumb traced the underside of her jawbone.

  After a long, long time, his breathing slowed almost to a normal meter. “You didn’t tell me you’d never been with a man,” he said, in hoarse accusation.

  Jolie’s head was resting on Daniel’s shoulder, and she sighed, still floating. “Yes, I did, Mr. Beckham,” she argued, smiling. “You just didn’t believe me.”

  Daniel was silent for several long, blissful minutes, but then he had to stir up the water again. Even without looking, Jolie knew he was frowning. “The way you carried on—nobody would have guessed you didn’t know what you were doing.”

  Insulted, Jolie tried to sit up, but Daniel held her close against him, one arm curved around her hips. And though she’d never have admitted it, she loved the feeling of that.

  “Most women don’t have much use for lovemaking, Jolie,” he said patiently. “It’s something they do to get children, and because their men demand it of them.”

  Jolie blushed in the darkness. Trust her to get even that wrong, she thought miserably. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be,” Daniel replied, kissing her forehead.

  Too sated and exhausted to try to follow the new twist the conversation had taken, Jolie settled herself against Daniel and went to sleep.

  She awakened before dawn, when he stirred and then rose from the bed, but she pretended to be asleep, listening as her husband moved easily around the darkened room. After he’d dressed, the bedsprings protested as he sat down to pull on his boots, and Jolie bit her lip, thinking what a ruckus the two of them must have made the night before.

  Hopefully, Deuter hadn’t heard the commotion from the barn; if he had, he would be certain to comment, and Jolie didn’t think she could bear that.

  Daniel reached out and touched her blanket-covered thigh very lightly, and then he left the room. Only when he’d gone did Jolie realize it was Sunday. Today, she would have to wear the brown dress and sit through a sermon.

  With a deep sigh, Jolie climbed out of bed and put on the white nightgown she’d made. Before church, there was breakfast to cook, and before that, she needed to wash.

  Light was streaming into the kitchen by the time Jolie reached it, and she blew out the lamp Daniel had left burning in the middle of the table. After building up the fire and taking tepid water from the stove reservoir, Jolie hurried upstairs to groom herself and don yesterday’s calico dress.

  When she returned to the kitchen, Daniel was standing at the stove pouring coffee he’d evidently put on to brew himself, soon after he got up. There was no sign of Deuter.

  Jolie was instantly possessed with shyness, even though she knew she would never have a more intimate experience with any human being than she’d had with this man.

  “Good morning, Mr. Beckham,” she said.

  Daniel didn’t look at her but instead went to stand before the sink, gazing grimly out the window. Jolie knew he was staring at Ilse’s grave, and she had a pretty good idea what he was thinking. His regret was apparent in the set of his broad, powerful shoulders. “Good morning,” he replied, at length and somewhat grudgingly.

  “I’ll have breakfast ready in a few minutes,” she said, snatching an apron—it had probably been Ilse’s first, like the man—and tied it around her waist.

  “Keep it simple,” Daniel instructed, without turning around. “It’s Sunday.”

  Jolie rolled her eyes. This would surely prove to be a long, tedious day. “I imagine the cows will still have to be milked and fed and the eggs will need gathering,” she pointed out crisply.

  “Deuter and I will leave for Spokane first thing in the morning,” Daniel said, in neutral tones, when Jolie came in minutes later from the well house.

  She set the slab of bacon and jar of cream down on the worktable near the stove. The thought of Daniel being away for any length of time filled her with gloom but, of course, she wasn’t fool enough to let him know that. Nor would she allow him to see how disappointed she was that their lovemaking hadn’t changed things between them.

  “I’ll expect you to look after the place while I’m gone,” Daniel announced, when Jolie offered no response to his statement.

  Jolie slammed a skillet down hard on the stove top, spooned in some lard, and cracked three eggs into it. “It isn’t as if I’m planning to burn off the wheat fields or pour poison down the well, Mr. Beckham,” she said haughtily. “I’m quite capable of looking after this farm for a few days.” This last was pure speculation, but Jolie had survived so many crises in her life that she was undaunted by the challenge.

  “If you have any trouble, ride over to the next place—it’s about two miles to the west—and fetch Joe Culley.”

  At last, Jolie turned to meet her husband’s gaze. He was sitting at the table, his hands curved around his coffee cup, and a heated tremor went through her as she remembered the exquisite pleasure those fingers had given her. “Verena Dailey is much closer,” she reasoned, hiking her chin up a degree in hopes that Daniel wouldn’t guess what she was feeling.

  “Verena is a woman,” Daniel reasoned, with a frown. In four words, he had dispensed with a generous ally who considered herself his friend.

  Jolie turned the bacon, which was sizzling in a heavy black pan, and then grudgingly carried the coffeepot to the table and refilled Daniel’s cup. “Are we just going to pretend that you didn’t make love to me last night?” she demanded.

  His neck glowed a dull red. “That’s no subject for the kitchen, woman,” he said sternly. “It’s talk for the bedroom.”

  Jolie was so amazed that she forgot to pour coffee for herself, even though she was yearning for a cup. “I know I owe you my life,” she marveled, setting the pot back on the stove and resting her hands on her hips, “and you’re my legal husband, which gives you certain rights. But I’ll be damned, Dan Beckham, damned, if I’ll let you decide what I can say and where I can say it!”

  Daniel’s gaze did not waver, nor did the arrogance in his manner. “The bacon is burning,” he said.

  With a soft, strangled sound of rage and frustration, Jolie whirled to remove the food from the heat and serve it up.

  Her husband ate in silence, then ran his eyes over the calico dress. “I trust you’ve got something suitable to wear to church?”

  Jolie waited until Daniel had turned his back and then made a face. When he went upstairs to change into Sunday clothes, she cleaned the kitchen, fed and watered the chickens, gathered the eggs. All during that time, she planned small rebellions, but when Daniel brought the team and wagon to the door, she was wearing the brown sateen dress, and her hair had been twisted into a sedate knot at her nape.

  Daniel looked surprisingly dapper in his black suit and starched white shirt with its stiff celluloid collar. Instead of his normal sweat-stained leather hat, he wore a dark one of more modish lines.

  Church was every bit the ordeal Jolie expected it to be, though for different reasons. Mr. Pribbenow, the undertaker, and Judge Chilver were in attendance, as was just about everyone else who had come to see Jolie’s near-hanging. Somehow, that fact didn’t mesh with the pretty words flowing from the pulpit.