Jessica barely managed not to cry out.
«Are you going to be as hard-headed and decent as your daddy?» Wolfe asked the baby softly. «I hope so. The world needs more dark angels of justice to keep the devils in line.»
Wolfe looked up and smiled at Caleb. «All the same, I hope you have a daughter next time. The world needs more Western women, too.»
«Have one yourself,» Caleb said dryly.
Only Jessica saw the light leave Wolfe’s eyes. His black lashes swept down as though he were looking at the sleeping baby once more. She knew he must be thinking of their marriage, the trap he was caught in which insured he would never have daughters or sons.
Yet when Wolfe looked up again and handed the baby to Willow, there was a smile on his face. The smile was as real as the pain had been.
«You made a beautiful baby,» Wolfe said to Willow.
«I had some help.»
«Damn little. A man as ugly as Caleb can’t make a pretty baby.»
Willow smiled and looked at Caleb. «My husband is as handsome as a god.»
«To you, maybe,» Wolfe said dryly. «To me?
Well, I’ll just say I’ve seen better looking things left on the ground after a buffalo herd walked past.»
Caleb snickered. Wolfe turned around and gave the other man a swift, hard hug, brother to brother.
«Before this, you had the sun,» Wolfe said. «Now you have the moon and stars. Guard them well.»
After a moment, Jessica looked away, for she could no longer bear the sadness she sensed beneath Wolfe’s pleasure for his friend.
15
She wasnaked on a vast plain of ice. Nothing was alive. Nothing moved but the many-voiced wind. Far ahead of her grew a powerful, living tree that carried safety in its branches.
She must reach the tree’s shelter.
Yet the harder she tried to run, the more deeply encrusted she became in ice. She was a prisoner of cold and a plaything of the wind. Yet still she struggled toward the tree while the wind taunted her:
That woman is not Jessica.
Worst mistake of his life.
All wrong for each other.
Jessica sat bolt upright in bed just as the first light of dawn brought color to the empty sky.
«Jessi?» Wolfe’s hand touched her shoulder. «Are you having nightmares about the past again?»
«No. Not the past.»
«Get back under the covers,» Wolfe said gently. «It’s cold out there.»
«It’s freezing,» she whispered.
Jessica lay down and turned toward Wolfe, needing his warmth to chase the chill of her own dreams.
«What is it?» he asked, stroking her hair.
«A nightmare, that’s all. I was alone.»
«You’re not alone now. I’m here.»
But for how long?
Wolfe felt Jessica’s arms go around his neck. The softness of her breasts pressed against his naked chest. He had awakened from his own dreams already aroused. The feel of her against his skin brought his need to the point of pain. When she shifted, trying to come even closer, her hip brushed against his hardened flesh. He felt as much as heard her gasp.
«Don’t be frightened,» Wolfe said. «I’ve spent a lot of nights like this, and I haven’t forced you. I never will. All I have to do is remember how terrified you are by a man’s need, and why, and I have no problem at all controlling myself.»
«It’s not that. You just…startled me.»
Jessica took a slow, almost secret breath, trying to banish her dream. She rubbed her cheek against Wolfe’s reassuring warmth, letting it sink through the chill left by the voices of the wind repeating Wolfe’s words, telling her how little she was worth as a woman. When she felt Wolfe withdrawing from her, she made a broken sound and clung to him with a strength that surprised him.
«Don’t let go of me,» she whispered urgently.
«I thought I was frightening you.»
She shook her head. The motion sent a silky fall of hair over Wolfe’s chest.
«Are you certain?» he asked.
«Very.»
Slowly, Wolfe put his arms back around Jessica and pulled her close once more. She relaxed against him despite the stark evidence of his arousal. For a few minutes, there was silence but for the wind coiling through the spreading light of dawn.
«Wolfe?»
He made a questioning, rumbling sound.
«Seeing Willow…» Jessica hesitated, not knowing how to give words to what she was feeling. «The birth was…»
Wolfe kissed Jessica’s forehead. «It brought back the nightmares, didn’t it? Don’t worry. They’ll fade. Even under the best circumstances, birth is a messy process. With your memories of the past, it must have been horrifying.»
«That’s not what I meant. Yes, birth is messy, but so is spring. One doesn’t get an omelet without breaking shells and all that.»
Wolfe smiled as he nuzzled the hollow of Jessica’s cheek. «Did I remember to tell you how very brave you are, Jessi?»
«I’m a ruddy little coward and no one knows it better than you.»
The bleakness in Jessica’s voice surprised him. Wolfe tilted her face up so that he could see her eyes.
«That’s not true,» Wolfe said simply. «You’ve endured things that would have broken most adults, much less a child.»
Saying nothing, Jessica closed her eyes and shook her head.
«Jessi,» Wolfe whispered, kissing her eyelids. «You had every right to run and hide on the nights your father raped your mother, but you didn’t. You went to your mother and gave her what help you could.»
«So little.»
«So much,» he countered. «You must have been terrified beyond words, yet you gave comfort to the very woman who should have been comforting you.»
«There was no comfort in her. Toward the end, I think she was mad.»
Wolfe closed his eyes. «It would have been a blessing.»
«Yes. But it left me very much alone. I expected to die when cholera took her. I was so sick. Then he came and bathed me and fed me thin gruel and kept me warm until cholera took him, too.»
«He?»
«The lord. My father. Everyone else was dead or dying. I tried to help him, but finally the wind took him, too. I think…I think he welcomed it.»
Wolfe made a low sound. «You were so young. It tears my heart to think of you alone and frightened.»
«I’d always been that way,» Jessica said matter-of-factly, «until you came. I tried to keep you from seeing what a coward I was, but you knew anyway.»
«Hush,» he said, kissing her eyelashes. «A coward would have run from the house and left Willow to bear her child alone. You didn’t. Despite your horrible memories, you stayed by Willow’s side and kept your fear to yourself. Caleb said you were as calm as a doctor.»
«Fear would only have made it more difficult for Willow. I couldn’t do that to her.» A sound came from
