Sobbing in misery, Rose rolled to her side and struggled to her feet. She stood swaying for a moment, then glanced up the hill.

  "My horse is up there," she whined in a piteous voice.

  "Then I guess you better get moving," Tess said as she took a step toward the blood-smeared blonde.

  "I'm going!" Rose wobbled a few steps before she looked at her. "My... my rifle."

  "You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to give that gun back to you. Move!"

  "But my ranch... it's mine."

  "You should've thought of that when you started setting fires and poisoning waterholes. I don't suppose there's any legal way I can keep you from selling it, but you do it by mail. And you use any money you get to stay the hell away from Oklahoma territory and my two kids!"

  Rose started climbing the hillside, and Tess kept her gaze on the blonde. At one point she marched over and picked up her rifle.

  "If she's got another gun on her horse, she's going to get a surprise," she murmured.

  Finally Rose disappeared over the top of the hill. A few seconds later there was the sound of a horse galloping away. Tess waited for at least a minute after the hoof beats faded before she rounded on Stone.

  "Now you!"

  Thirty-Five

  "I'm sorry," Stone hurriedly said, raising his hands shoulder high. "I apologize. I've been acting like an ass, when I should've been proud of what you were doing. I was coming home today to tell you how sorry I was."

  "Sure," Tess sneered. "You can say that now, after I've spent all this time feeling like you'd stopped caring for me. Do you have any idea what I've gone through the last few days?"

  "Yeah," he said in a soft voice. "I've been going through it, too."

  "I don't much give a damn! Do you hear that? I couldn't care less how you've been feeling. I've spent three days in hell, and to top that off I've been shot at and ended up in a fight with a blond bimbo who thought she'd crawl into your bed as soon as I was dead. That same bed that you've been denying me because you think I'll get so lonely I'll crawl to you on my hands and knees and beg you to forgive me for something that I've got every right to do."

  "I agree," he began, but Tess waved around the rifle and continued to yell.

  "I pull my weight around that ranch. I cook your meals, wash your dirty clothes, and teach my kids. Do you know how many buckets of water it takes from that stupid well to wash a week's worth of laundry?"

  He did, but he wasn't about to try to tell her that—not with the rifle wavering in front of his face.

  "I counted them yesterday," she went on. "Twenty buckets of water. And I'll bet you that well's a hundred feet deep."

  "A hundred and twenty-five," he whispered to himself.

  "So if you think I'm going to tell Sid to cancel that pipe order, I'm not!"

  "All right." He could feel his patience starting to slip. "But anything you buy with that damned money you've got had better be to make things easier on you and Flower. I don't want one penny of it spent on me."

  "Fine," she agreed. "But I'm not going to come to you with my hat in my hand every time I want a few dollars to spend."

  Suddenly Tess blinked and stared at the rifle, then glanced down at her finger.

  "You either need to put down that gun or go ahead and shoot me," he said. "My arms are going to sleep."

  She inched her finger away from the trigger guard and shifted the rifle into her arms. She tilted her head a little, studying his face.

  "You can put your hands down now," she finally said.

  He dropped his arms and took a step forward. Tess shook her head and backed away.

  "We're not done talking yet," she insisted.

  "Is that what we've been doing?" he asked. "I thought you were issuing ultimatums and I was agreeing with them."

  "Was I?" she murmured. "Oh. Well, let's hear your side of it now."

  "My side of it's just this: I love you. Whether you believe me or not, I've thought of you every second the past few days. I finally realized that part of the reason I fell in love with you was because I admired and respected you. If I try to change you, you won't be the Tess I love." He chuckled wryly. "Not that I'd have any success at trying to do that anyway."

  "Yes, you will." She threw the rifle aside and ran into his arms. "I love you. All I need to know is that you love me, too, and we can work out anything. I promise we can."

  He buried his face in her hair and held her tightly. "God, I've been so miserable," he whispered. "And I was so scared when I found you out here. Not just because of Rose, either."

  She jerked away, her eyes starting to flash again. "What's that supposed to mean? It didn't bother you that that bitch was trying to kill me?"

  "Damn it! Of course it did. But you were taking care of that without any help from me. What really scared the daylights out of me was you being out here—like you were trying to find your way back to where you'd come from. Like you'd finally gotten fed up and wanted to leave me for good."

  "Oh."

  "Is that it? 'Oh'?"

  Tess shrugged and stared at the ground. "Well, even though I found the time warp, I didn't really want to go." She raised her head and laid her hand on his chest. "Let's go home, Stone. I want to go home."

  "In a minute," he whispered as he pulled her close and kissed her.

  But it was a lot longer than a minute. Michael had plenty of time to savor the success of his plan and explain to Angela just how he'd accomplished it as they flew well away from the hillside, where Stone was making love to Tess.

  "I put blanks in both their rifles," he told his angel partner. "I didn't want to be a part of either one of them getting killed or wounded. I knew Stone was just over the hill, and that the gunfire would bring him running. Not that Tess ended up needing him."

  "It worked out beautifully," Angela admitted. "But what about that fight between Tess and Rose?"

  "Hey, you can't blame that on me. That was all Tess's idea. She lost her temper and tore into Rose all on her own. Other than changing the bullets to blanks, all I did was help that slide out a little bit."

  "I still can't believe Tess let that... that blond bimbo go."

  "Angie," he said in mock horror. "Watch your language!"

  She blushed prettily. "Well, I can't. Stone heard Rose's confession, too. Wouldn't that have been enough to put her behind bars?"

  "Tess evidently didn't think so, and she's the lawyer. 'Course, Tess is thinking in terms of law back in 1994. But you've gotta remember that even though she chose to go into the corporate side, she had criminal training in law school. And sometimes even their corporate clients end up breaking other laws—or their kids do, and they come to the first lawyer they can think of when they need one."

  "Maybe she handled Rose the best way," Angela mused. "Can you imagine living the rest of your life looking over your shoulder—knowing someone's always out there watching you—waiting for her to show up at any minute?" Angela gave a delicate shiver.

  He guffawed. "Yeah, and what about looking in the mirror every morning and seeing that missing tooth? There are no dentists back here who know how to put a missing tooth back in. Anyway, Rose swallowed it. I don't imagine she'll..."

  "Oh, hush." Angela giggled. "You know," she continued when her chuckles subsided, "you've been doing so well on this assignment that you really don't need my tutoring any longer."

  "So what's that supposed to mean?" he asked in a worried voice.

  "I thought you understood. My job's just to teach you what you need to know about being a guardian angel, although I think I've learned a lot myself on this assignment. Anyway, when you're capable of carrying on alone, I'm supposed to go back and see who my next pupil is."

  "You mean, leave me? Angie, honey, you can't do that!"

  "But I—"

  "Look, they can get hold of you if they need to, can't they?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "Don't you want to see what's going to happen with Tess and Stone? And don't they ever let angels work in pairs?"

  "Of course I want to know if Tess stays here, but you can tell me later. And it's very rare for angels to work in pairs. I've only heard of one other case, and those two actually requested it."

  "You can't go yet, Angie," he said suddenly. "I'm still not comfortable navigating my wings. You haven't taught me how to concentrate on my guardianship duties and still fly at the same time."

  "Oh. If you're still uncomfortable doing that, then you're right. We'll have to take care of it, won't we?"

  "Darn right we will." He grinned to himself. "We'll have to practice those freewheeling flights we've been doing some more. I'm sure that sooner or later I'll get the hang of it."

  Or, he continued, forgetting to block his thoughts from Angela, when we get a break here I'll see if Angie wants to go with me and talk to Mr. G. Shoot, we've got a good team going here. He might let us stay together.

  He glanced at Angela and saw a brilliant smile on her face, immediately realizing she'd read his mind. Her smile must mean she agreed with him.

  "Well?" he asked.

  Angela sighed. "I think that's a wonderful idea."

  Thirty-Six

  Stone propped his head on his hand and watched Tess climb out of the creek bed. Water streamed down her shapely body as she paused to wring out her hair, and he eyed the tiny bathing suit she wore with appreciation. Who'd have ever thought a couple of scraps of material like that could tantalize him even more than her nakedness? Dressmakers in the future sure knew what they were doing when it came to stirring up a man's fantasies.

  The future. If he could only stop thinking about finding Tess on that hillside—her admitting that she'd been searching for the time warp. He'd been stupid to waste even one minute separated from Tess, let alone almost three entire days. He should have been securing his relationship with her, loving her day in and night out, as he had been the days since her fight with Rose. Maybe then the thought of leaving him never would have crossed her mind.

  Would she always feel she had that option when they disagreed, as they surely would from time to time? He couldn't live with that uncertainty—yet he couldn't bring himself to confront her, ask for her promise to never, ever go near that time warp again.

  The kids were due home today, the Sunday two weeks after they had left. He should have felt a little guilty about neglecting his work the past few days since he and Tess had arrived home, but he couldn't find even a speck of remorse in his conscience. He'd already decided to talk to Jasper about becoming a permanent hired hand.

  As soon as he discussed it with Tess, of course. After all, she'd be the one who would have to do extra cooking for another mouth, and extra washing, which Jasper would expect to be part of his wages.

  One thing he could do was order one of those wooden washing machines from Germany that he'd read about. Some of the money he'd got for those horses would buy that, especially since he didn't have to worry about the taxes. And who knew? Maybe someday someone would use this new electricity they claimed to have invented to make a few machines to lighten the workload for women. Harvesters, for both baling and threshing, and cotton gins were fairly common now, and a harvester was on his want list. He still couldn't quite figure out how that horseless carriage worked, though.

  "Whoohoo! Where is everybody?"

  Lonesome jumped up barking and Tess let out a gasp.

  "Stone, that's Tillie. What's she going to say when she sees me in this bikini? Oh, why didn't I bring my clothes with me?"

  He tossed his shirt to her with a laugh and stood up. "Let's just hope I've got time to get my jeans on before she gets here. My underwear floated away while we were... busy."

  "Busy getting into trouble." Tess giggled as she slipped into his shirt and worked on the buttons.

  "Huh-uh," he said with a wicked grin. "Trouble was busy getting into..."

  "Stone!" A blush stole over her cheeks. "Oh, no! Lonesome, come back here!"

  Tess took off after the dog, expecting any second to hear a wild screech from Tillie. But when she ran out from the trees lining the creek, she found Tillie standing with one hand on a slightly slimmer hip, shaking a finger at Lonesome.

  "Now, we're going to come to terms, dog," Tillie said. "I'm going to be a frequent visitor here, and I'm not about to have to worry about repairing my skirts every time I go home. Do you hear me?"

  Lonesome sat down on his haunches and lifted a paw.

  "That's much better." Tillie shook the paw, then looked up at Tess.

  "There you are. It's so hot, I thought maybe you'd be taking a swim when I found the house empty. I drove out to see why you weren't there for our meeting, and to tell you all the latest news."

  "Let's go on back to the house..." Tess began.

  Tillie glanced over Tess's shoulder and snickered. "Oh, my. Did I interrupt something?"

  "Would it bother you if you had?" Stone asked as he walked up to them, wearing his jeans and a towel draped around his neck. "Remember, we're married now. We can't be part of all the juicy gossip in town any longer."

  "Such a shame," Tillie replied with pursed lips. "I did so enjoy keeping you on your toes, Stone. But I guess I'll have to turn that job over to Tess now. She seems perfectly capable of handling it to me."

  Stone threw back his head and laughed. "That she is, Tillie."

  "Well, I did want to let you both know that I sponsored a change to the bylaws for our Guild. We're going to get involved in social issues, too, not just things that affect the town. After what you said, Tess, we decided to start a drive to integrate our school in Clover Valley—allow children of any race to attend, and get a teacher who can teach the different cultures to all the children."

  "Tillie, that's wonderful," Tess said. "Your Guild will be well ahead of its time in doing something like that."

  They started walking toward the house as Tillie explained, "Things will never get done if people don't start working on them. Uh... I wanted to talk to you about one other thing, too, Stone."

  "What's that, Tillie?"

  "Daddy's home. At my house, I mean."

  "He's done his time, Tillie. I've no quarrel with him, as long as he doesn't pick one with me."

  "Good," Tillie said.

  "Besides, I think you might need him around to shuffle through your suitors if you keep losing weight the way it looks as if you've been doing."

  "Can you tell already?" Tillie simpered.

  "Sure can. Good thing I'm safely married now."

  Tess swatted him on the arm. "And don't you forget it, either."

  "I won't, I won't." Stone raised his hands in mock alarm. "I'm outnumbered here. I'll get on with my work and let you ladies gossip."

  "Gossip!" Tess said. "Why is it that when men talk about each other, it's a discussion, but women gossip?" She shook a finger at him. "You'd better watch out, or your chauvinistic tongue will get you into more trouble."

  Stone groaned. "Not trouble. Oh, please, not trouble. Trouble's tired."

  Tillie smiled and shook her head as they broke up in laughter. When Stone walked away, Tillie and Tess started for the porch, and Tillie gave her a nudge and a teasing look.

  "I don't guess you're going to need any of Fredwina's lessons, are you?"

  "Not yet," she agreed as they climbed the steps. "Let me go get some clothes on, Tillie."

  "Please don't bother." Tillie sat in the rocking chair, smiling. "I can only stay for a moment. I just wanted to make sure you hadn't changed your mind about joining our Guild."

  Tess dropped down on the porch step and curled her legs beneath the hem of Stone's shirt. "No, I haven't. Something just... came up this week, and I couldn't attend."

  "Rose Brown wasn't there either. It's the most amazing thing. I heard she moved without even a word to anyone. I drove by her place on my way out here, and the place is deserted."

  Tillie tapped the floor and set the chair to rocking. "And you know what else is funny? Even though she didn't say a word to anyone, she left a note on the table saying she'd be in New Orleans. That's where she used to live, you know. Anyway, I've been thinking about maybe buying her place and building a newer house there. Daddy's so bored in town, and he could have a little garden—maybe raise some chickens or something."

  "I'd like to have you for a neighbor," Tess said. "But I thought your father was more of a professional man."

  "He took up gardening in prison," Tillie said without embarrassment. "He said he found out he had a green thumb, whatever that means. But he says he can grow beautiful flowers. I thought perhaps your Flower would sell him some seeds and bulbs."

  My Flower, Tess thought to herself with a smile. Flower was her daughter now, and Rain her son. She couldn't wait for them to come home and be part of her family. She and Stone—and Trouble—would still have their nights.

  "Uh... Tess, is something wrong?" Tillie asked. "You're not listening."

  She shook herself back to reality. "No, Tillie. Everything's fine. As I said, it will be nice having a neighbor I like. I never really cared for Rose."

  "I don't doubt that." Tillie giggled. "We all knew she had her eye on Stone. Maybe that's why she packed up and left—she knew with you in the picture Stone would never, ever give her a glance. Not that he ever did, but Rose couldn't see that—though I liked to tease Stone about her."

  Tillie stopped the chair and stood up. "I really should be going. I'm due at Edith's for lunch. Would you do me a favor, though, Tess?"