“Briana, what’s wrong? Is it Nealie?”

“Oh, Josh, she’s sick. She might be—so sick.”

He had the sensation of falling toward a devouring darkness. “How sick? Is she in the hospital?”

“I don’t know how sick. It’s in the early stages. She doesn’t know yet. Nobody knows.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Damn, his hands were shaking. His hands never shook.

“It’s a—an anemia,” she stammered. “It’s very rare. And—and serious.”

“What can I do?” He sat on the edge of the bathtub, his head down. He felt as if he was going to pass out.

She seemed to pull herself together, but she still sounded shattered. “Can you come home? I mean come here?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll get on the first flight out. But what can we do for her?”

“Oh, Josh,” she said, despair naked in her voice, “I’ve thought and thought. I think there’s only one thing. One thing in the world.”

“What? I’ll do anything. You know that."

She was silent a long moment. He knew she was having trouble speaking. At last she whispered, “To save her, I think we have to have another baby.”

Dear Reader,

“Individuals in every generation must decide what they will preserve for those who follow.”

Those are the opening words of a fine book, The Heirloom Gardener by Carolyn Jabs. I bought two copies of this book, one for me and one for my dad.

My father taught me that to see a seed sprout, grow and change was a miracle. The Baby Gift is a story about miracles and how, in our time, miracles can get mixed up with science.

About the science, I tried to be accurate, but I have probably made errors, and for this I apologize. As for the art of growing things, I turned to the wonderful organization called Seed Savers. What I got right is due to them and the delightful Lyn Jabs. What I got wrong, I got wrong on my own, drat it.

Growing heirloom vegetables is a lovely and rewarding (and, okay, delicious) pastime. Anyone who would like more information about heirloom gardening can contact The Seed Savers Exchange, 3076 North Winn Road, Decorah, Iowa 52101. On the Internet, you can find information at www.seedsavers.org

Best wishes,

Bethany Campbell

The Baby Gift
Bethany Campbell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Howard Martinson Bostwick, with love and gratitude.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE LITTLE GIRL dreamed of her daddy.

He was the handsomest daddy in the world and the funniest and the smartest—he knew things that nobody else’s daddy knew.

He knew, for instance, how to escape from a giant octopus.

The little girl lived hundreds of miles from any ocean, she had never seen the ocean or an octopus, but still, she wondered about situations like this.

“The thing to do is not to panic,” her daddy said. “If an octopus grabs you and wants to eat you, just stay calm.”

“Calm?” she said dubiously.

“Between his eyes the octopus has a bump like a wart. Surprise him—bite his wart!”

“Yuck!” said the little girl.

“No,” her father said, tapping her temple. “It’s using your smarts. All the octopus’s nerves are centered in that bump. When it hurts, he drops you and swims off fast as he can. He’ll never want to see you again.”

“Well,” she said with a thoughtful frown, “what if a giant clam grabs my foot and won’t let go?”

“Ah,” said Daddy, “that’s why you always carry a knife when you dive. If a giant clam snaps shut on you, cut his hinge. Snip-snip, you’re free. And he’s learned his lesson.”

“Will it kill him?” she asked. She wanted only to escape the clam, not murder it.

Her father shook his head. “No. He’ll have to lie low and grow his hinge back. Of course, some sand may drift in his shell, so maybe he’ll make a giant pearl while he’s waiting.”

“Hmm,” said the little girl. “Well, what about crocodiles?”

“Easiest of all,” said her daddy. “The crocodile has all sorts of muscles to snap his mouth shut. But he’s got very weak muscles to open it up. Grab him by the snoot when his mouth is closed. Then he can’t open it.”

“Then what?”

“Then move him someplace where he won’t bite people and where the hunters won’t get him.”

“Why would hunters want him?”

“To make wallets and suitcases and watch straps out of him. It’s a sad fate, becoming a watch strap.”

“Mm,” said the little girl. Then, as dreams do, hers drifted off. She was on an imaginary seashore, warm with caressing breezes. There, she and her faithful partner, Zorro the cat, stalked crocodiles. She was not afraid, because her daddy had taught her how to escape all dangers.

She strode across the sand, as fearless and strong as her father was. The sky was blue, the sun shone down with tropic brightness, and she moved, safe and invincible, through a world of eternal summer.

WHILE THE CHILD SLEPT, snow fell. It had fallen all morning.

It glistened, silver and white, on the greenhouse roofs. Like ragged lace, it covered the cold frames still empty of seedlings. It eddied around the corners of the barn, dancing with the wind as if alive and bewitched.

But the inside of the little farmhouse was warm. Briana had been up and working for almost an hour. The scents of coffee and bacon and biscuits hung in the kitchen air like country ambrosia.

It was a scene of almost perfect peace.

Then Briana smashed her finger with the hammer. A swear word flew to her mouth, but she sucked it back in pain. This almost made her swallow the spare tack she held between her teeth.

Through sheer willpower, she recovered and bit on the tack more firmly. She had a job to do, and with all her Missouri stubbornness, she meant to get it done.

She settled herself more steadily on the top rung of the ladder and gripped the hammer. She tapped the last crepe-paper streamer into place on the ceiling beam. Now kitchen, living room and dining room were festooned with spirals of red and white.

Briana cocked her head and examined the effect. It looked fine, it looked festive, it looked—happy.

Happy, she thought numbly. Good. I want things to look happy.

She climbed down the ladder and plucked the unused tack from her mouth, then thrust it into the pocket of her carpenter’s apron. She stowed her hammer in its proper drawer and hung the apron on its peg inside the pantry.

She checked the food warming in the oven, then called her daughter to breakfast. She made sure her voice was firm, steady and, above all, cheerful.

“Nealie! Up and at ’em. Breakfast time.”

From the bedroom came a groan that was impressively loud for such a small girl. “Agh!”

“No dramatics,” Briana ordered. “They scare the cat.”

With even greater drama, Nealie shouted, “I hate mornings!” This time her groan ended with a horrible gurgle. “Aargh-gack-gack.”

The black cat, Zorro, streaked out of Nealie’s room, down the stairs and to his sanctuary behind the washing machine. Zorro was of a nervous disposition.

Briana looked at all that remained visible of the cat, the twitching tip of his black tail. She crooked an eyebrow. “Good morning, Zorro. I’d hide, too, if I were you. Some mice were around earlier asking for you. Big mice. One of them had a baseball bat.”

“Mom!” Nealie stood in the doorway looking sleepy and indignant. “You know Zorro’s scared of mice.”

“And he knows I’m kidding.”

Nealie gave her mother a rueful smile. She was a small child with big glasses that made her look like an impish owl. Her new plaid bathrobe was too large, and the sleeves hung to her fingertips. From under its hem peeped large brown fuzzy slippers made to look like bear paws. The slippers were ridiculous, but Nealie loved them.

The girl dropped to her knees beside the washer. “Poor Zorro,” she cooed, pulling him from his hiding place. Pieces of lint clung to his black whiskers and fur. She began to pick them off.

“Come on, Zorro,” Nealie said comfortingly. “You can sit on my lap. I’ll pet you.”

She plunked down cross-legged on the floor and laid the cat on his back. She stroked his fat stomach, scratched his ears and babbled affectionate nonsense to him. He purred his almost noiseless Zorro purr.

Briana bit her lip and put the oatmeal into the microwave. All business, she opened a container of yogurt, then poured orange juice into a glass.

“I didn’t want to wake up.” Nealie yawned, stroking the cat. “I was wrestling a crocodile. I was winning, too.”

“Of course, you were,” Briana said loyally.

“I’m going to hunt crocodiles when I get big,” said Nealie. “To help them, not to hurt them. Zorro and I’ll build them a safe place so people can’t make them into watch straps. Won’t we, Zorro?”

Zorro’s green eyes rolled unhappily, as if the thought of crocodiles made him queasy.

Briana stood by the counter, one hand on her hip, watching the timid cat and her fearless child.

Nealie was such a little girl. She was smart and imaginative, but much too small for her age, and delicate, as well. It was as if nature had not given her a body sturdy enough to contain so much spirit.

Nealie yawned again, then looked up, noticing the red and white streamers for the first time. Behind her big glasses, her eyes squinted.

“Hey! What’s this? When’d you do all this?”

“This morning. I can’t believe you didn’t hear me,” Briana said, setting out Nealie’s vitamins.

“What’s it for?” Then the child’s face brightened like a sunrise. “Is it for Daddy? Is he coming home? Is he? Is it a surprise for him?”

Briana fought not to wince. “No. You know he won’t be back for a while.”

The sunshine in Nealie’s expression clouded over. “Oh,” she said. “Then what’s all this for?”

“Your uncle Larry’s birthday,” Briana said. “We’ll have fun. There’ll be cake and ice cream and—”

“—and Rupert and Neville and Marsh,” Nealie said in disgust. “Blech.”

Rupert and Neville and Marsh were her cousins. They were all boys, all younger than Nealie, but bigger. Their idea of fun was running, shouting, scuffling and tormenting cats and girls.

“Why can’t Aunt Glenda have the party?” Nealie asked. “Then the boys can break their own stuff.”

“She wanted to have it,” Briana said, defending her sister-in-law. “She’s not feeling so good lately. So last night I said I’d do it.”

“I know why she doesn’t feel good.” Nealie pouted. “She’s going to have another baby. I hope it’s not another boy—ugh.”

Briana knew the baby would be a boy, so she made no reply. Instead she said, “Wash your hands and come eat.”

“Zorro’s not dirty,” Nealie protested, kissing him on the nose. “He’s sterile. I heard you telling Mrs. Feeney.”

Caught by surprise, Briana laughed. “That’s a different kind of sterile. It means he can’t make kittens. But germs he can make—and does. Wash.”

“I love Zorro’s germs,” Nealie said, straightening her glasses. “They’re wonderful, beautiful germs because they’re his.”

She kissed him again, then rose and washed her hands, then plunked herself down at the table. After the first few bites, she only picked at her food.

“Try a little more,” Briana said as gently as she could.

“I’m not hungry,” Nealie said. “My stomach feels kind of funny. You know.”

A chill pierced Briana, but she allowed herself only an understanding smile, a mild nod. “Okay. Take your vitamins and go change. Your clothes are laid out on the dresser. Wear your new shoes. I’ll drive you to school today.”

“Aw, Mommy,” Nealie grumbled, “you haven’t let me ride the bus for weeks.”

Briana’s answer was ready. “All those Tandrup children have colds. Mrs. Feeney said so. They sneeze all over everybody.”

Nealie didn’t look convinced. Briana added, “Besides, I have to go to town anyway. I’ve got to mail the seed catalogs.”

Briana gestured at the stacks of catalogs on the entryway table. The covers showed jewel-colored fruits and vegetables—tomatoes red as rubies, snow peas green as jade, pears the deep golden of amber.

Hanlon’s Heritage Farm, proud letters announced. Your Source of Heirloom Seeds and Rare Fruits and Vegetables. Only the Best and Strongest. A Quarter Century of Quality.

“Why does Grandpa have to grow seeds?” Nealie asked. “Why can’t he grow jellyfish or woolly worms or something interesting?”

“Seeds are what he knows,” Briana said.

“He could learn something else,” Nealie complained. “I think I’ll tell him so tonight.”

“Not tonight,” Briana said firmly. “We’re having a celebration. Remember?”

Nealie’s eyes shot to the Heritage Farm calendar on the kitchen wall, then widened in alarm. “But Mama. It’s the first of the month. Daddy might call. What if he calls when everybody’s here? We won’t be able to talk. Rupert will hit and yell and pull the phone plug out. He’s done it before.”

“I won’t let Rupert near the phone. Besides, Daddy’s so far away he might not be able to get through tonight.”

“He will if he can,” Nealie objected. “You know he will.” She paused, her expression saddening. “How much longer has he got to be in Khanty—Khanty…”

“Khanty-Mansiysk,” Briana said. “He stays until he gets enough pictures. Then he’ll be back to see you.”

Josh Morris was in Siberia, just south of the Arctic Circle, shooting photographs for Smithsonian magazine. Before that he had been in Oaxaca, Mexico, taking pictures of Olmec ruins. Before that he’d been photographing moths in Belize and a live volcano in Java.

Briana had married Josh seven years ago, when he’d come to Missouri for a piece on farmers specializing in saving endangered fruits and vegetables. It should have been a tame assignment for him, mere routine, but when he and Briana met, routine flew away, and all tameness vanished.

Theirs was a heedless, passionate affair that swept them into a marriage barely three weeks after they’d met. Everyone who knew Briana had warned her. She’d ignored them.

Everybody who knew Josh had warned him, too, and he, too, had paid no attention. He was crazy in love, so was she, and nothing could stop them.

The marriage could not last, and everyone but them had seemed to know it. Josh was a man born with a hunger to roam. She was a woman tied strongly to one place. They stayed together only long enough to produce Nealie.

Josh had already been gone by the time Nealie was born—Albania, where he’d nearly gotten himself killed more than once. But he’d flown to Missouri as soon as he’d heard that the child was premature and fighting to survive.

Josh Morris loved his daughter. Nobody, not even Briana’s disapproving brother, could deny that. Josh kept in touch with Nealie as much as possible, he sent funny cards and silly presents, he came to see her whenever he could. But he was always on the move, often far away, and his schedule was erratic.

“I wish he’d come home to stay,” Nealie said with a wistfulness she seldom showed.

Briana stroked the child’s brown hair. “He has to make a living.”

Nealie wasn’t consoled. “He could do something else.”

Briana touch softened. “No. He’s like Grandpa. This is what he does. He educates people. He helps tell important stories. A picture is worth a thousand words.

“It isn’t worth one daddy.”

For this Briana had no answer. She turned away and said, “I’m sorry.”

“I wish you’d marry him again and he’d stay here, and we’d all be together,” Nealie said in a burst of emotion. “Why won’t he stay with us? Is there something wrong with us? With me?”

Coldness gripped Briana. She wheeled to face her daughter. “Don’t talk like that. He loves you. He thinks you’re the most wonderful daughter in the world.”

“But why—” Nealie began.

“It’s time for school. Go change your clothes.”

Nealie tossed her head defiantly, but she turned and stalked to her room. Her big robe trailed behind her, and her bear paws made clumsy thumps on the floor.

Briana tried not to notice the limp in the child’s determined step. She turned and began to clear the breakfast dishes.

I won’t cry. I won’t, she told herself fiercely. Nobody’s going to know how I feel. Nobody.

But she knew this could not remain true. She could no longer keep things to herself.

The time had come. She must act.

FRANKLIN HINKS was the postmaster of Illyria, Missouri. His father had been postmaster before him, and Franklin could clearly remember Victory Mail, the three-cent letter stamp and the penny postcard.

He had vivid recollections of many things—including Briana Morris as a child, back when she’d been little Briana Hanlon. He’d seen her every day she’d gone to Illyria Elementary School, right across the street from the post office.

This morning he’d seen her stop her aging pickup truck in front of that same red brick schoolhouse. He’d seen her kiss her daughter goodbye and the child run up the snowy walk to the building.

He had watched Briana signal for a turn, then pull into his parking lot. She got out of the truck and came up the walk, her arms full of seed catalogs and her breath feathering behind her, a silver plume on the gray air.

She had been a pretty child, Briana had, and now she was a pretty woman—tall but not too tall, slim but not too slim. She had long dark hair with the hint of a wave and dark eyes that had something exotic in them.

She looked nothing at all like her father or brother, big Scottish-Irishmen with pale eyes and square faces. No, Briana looked like her mother, a quiet brunette with a slightly Mediterranean air.

Briana came in the door of the post office. She wore an old plaid jacket and a black knit hat and gloves. The wind had tossed her hair and burnished her cheeks to the color of fiery gold.

She smiled at him. She had a good smile, but lately—for the past two months or so—he’d discerned something troubled in it, deeply troubled. But he could tell she didn’t want people to know. Franklin was discreet. He pretended he noticed nothing.

“Morning, Franklin,” she said with a fine imitation of blitheness.

“Morning, Briana,” he said and nodded at her stack of catalogs. “Folks must be dreaming of spring.”

“They must be,” she said. “We got thirty-two orders by the Internet this weekend.”

Franklin made a tsking noise. “That Internet’s going to put me out of business.”

She set the catalogs on the counter. “Nope—look at all this. It’s bringing you business. And next week, I’ll start sending seeds out. I’ve got a huge pile of orders to fill.”

“Hmm,” Franklin said, stamping the catalogs. “Well, don’t send every seed away. Save me some for those tomatoes I like. What are the kinds I like?”

“Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter,” Briana said with a grin. “You’ll have ’em. I’ll even start them for you.”

He knew she’d keep her word and that she wouldn’t take any money from him, either. That was Briana.

“You’d save yourself some postage if you’d bulk mail,” Franklin advised, “Keep a mailing list and send out two hundred or more at a time.”

“Someday,” she said. “I have to talk Poppa into it. Getting the farm into the computer age was tough enough.”

Franklin nodded but said nothing. Leo Hanlon was a good man, a kindly man, but set in his ways. Didn’t he realize the greatest asset he had on his farm was his pretty, brainy daughter, a woman who wasn’t afraid of new ideas?

“Well, guess I’ll check the mail and be out of here,” Briana said. “It’s Larry’s birthday. Got lots to do to get ready.”

“Oh, you got mail, all right,” Franklin said. “One package too big to fit into the box. For Nealie. Maybe from the neighborhood of—oh, from the stamps, I’d say Russia.”

Briana was always careful to guard her expression, but a light came into her eyes. He thought what he’d thought so many times in the last years—she still had strong feelings for Josh Morris, more than she’d ever admit.

“I’ll get it for you,” he said. “It’s in the back.”

The glow faded from her face, and the trouble crept into her dark gaze. “I’ll check our box.”

He moved toward the back room, knowing, of course, what was in her post office box. It included a letter for Nealie, also from Russia.

Franklin had got a card from Josh in the morning’s mail. Josh knew the older man saved stamps, and he always remembered to send him colorful ones from his travels. Such a man could not be bad, Franklin thought, no matter what some people liked to say.

When he returned to the counter, Briana was there, her mail tucked under her arm. She made no comment about Nealie’s letter from Josh. She showed no emotion when Franklin set down the tattered package.

“It looks like it had a rough journey,” she said.

“It’s come a long way,” he said. “Across half the world.”

“Yes,” she said in almost a whisper. “A long way.”

She picked up the bulky package gingerly, as if it might have some magical power she didn’t want brushing off on her. Then she flashed Franklin a smile and set off, her gait sprightly.

A man less observant than Franklin might have been fooled by that sprightliness. She had a problem, and from the kind of mail she’d been getting—support groups, medical foundations—he thought he could guess what.

He prayed to heaven he was wrong.

JUST AS BRIANA was stowing Nealie’s package in her truck’s cab, a sleek Cadillac swept in and parked beside her.

Briana suppressed a groan and forced herself to smile, even though the cold hurt her face. The car’s driver, Wendell Semple, heaved himself out of the driver’s seat.

“Briana,” he said heartily. “Just the woman I want to see. Come over to the café. Have a cup of coffee with me. I need to talk to you.”

Briana’s smile felt as if it were freezing into place. “Sorry. My limit’s two cups a day, and I’ve already had it. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Wendell was vice president of the bank. He was heavy with what Briana thought of as a prosperous man’s solid weight. He had a prosperous man’s confidence, as well, the booming voice, the air that all his opinions were important and all his decisions were right.

“I said I need to talk to you, little lady.”

She didn’t like his tone and she feared what he wanted to talk about. “Sorry. I’m on a tight schedule.”

Wendell’s smile didn’t fade, but it hardened. “Briana, this is about money. Tell me. Aren’t you happy with the way I do business?”

Her heart plunged, and she felt caught out.

“I’d really like to know,” he said. “Why’d you take all your own money out of my bank? Weren’t you satisfied?”

Stay out of my affairs, she wanted to snap, but instead she made an airy gesture. “Nothing like that. It’s no big deal.”

He leaned closer. “It is to me. When I lose a customer, it’s always a big deal. Your family’s done business with my bank for what? Almost fifty years.”

She said nothing.

He went on. “We’ve not only done business together, we’ve been neighbors all this time. But now you’ve taken away your personal business. I’d like an explanation. I think I deserve one.”

“It’s simple,” she lied. “I wanted to try Internet banking—”

“But why?” he prodded. “Are you thinking of changing the farm account, too? That farm’s an important business in this county. I don’t want to lose it.”

She turned her collar up against the cold wind. “You won’t lose it. I did it as an experiment, that’s all. To streamline things. I thought I could give more time to the family business if my own’s handled automatically.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Now that sounds good. But is it the truth?”

“Of course, it is,” she said, lying with spirit. “I’ve got to run, Wendell. We’ll have coffee another time. Tell your wife hello. And that I’m starting her some begonia cuttings.”

She edged away from him, smiled again and got into her truck. Her heart banged in her chest.

Wendell stood in the snowy lot, looking like a man who didn’t intend to be thwarted. She gunned the motor and escaped.

He was prying into her money matters, but money was his business. She didn’t want him to know what she’d been doing. Not him or anyone else.

She’d changed her finances so all her bills were sent electronically to a St. Louis bank. No one in town saw them and no one in town knew what she was paying or to whom.

She had things to hide. She had fought hard to keep them hidden. But once again she had a frightening sense of urgency, that time was running out. Now, she thought. I’ve got to do something now.

HE HAD SPENT five weeks living in a flat, featureless wasteland of ice, taking pictures of nomads and reindeer and a way of life that was probably doomed.

He had slept in his clothes on pine boughs, bark and reindeer skins in a tent made of felt and hides. He’d kept from freezing at night with a portable stove that burned peat and pine branches. He stank of smoke and he hadn’t bathed or shaved for over a month.

Now he was in Moscow, with what felt like a permanent chill in his bones. He stood in the lobby of one of the city’s finest hotels, looking like a cross between the abominable snowman, an escaped prisoner and a bag of rags.

Other patrons looked at him as if he exquisitely pained their senses of sight and smell. From across the lobby, the pretty desk clerk shot him furtive glances of positive alarm. Josh Morris didn’t care.

He’d picked the Hotel Kampinski because after five weeks in Siberia, he wanted every luxury in the world, and the Kampinski had them all. It lavished its guests with saunas and masseuses, a gourmet restaurant and fine rooms. It had phones and computers, fax machines and color television.

He wanted to get in his room, unlock the private bar and open a bottle of real American whiskey. Then he’d climb into the marble bathtub and stay there all night, soaking and sipping and feeling his blood start to circulate.

Tomorrow he’d put on the Turkish robe the hotel provided, send his clothes out with orders to burn them and have new ones brought from the American store on Arbat Street.

And then, as the grand finale, he would call his delightful daughter and talk to her for an hour, maybe more. To hell with the long-distance rates.

Josh wanted to phone her tonight—he hadn’t even stopped over in the village of Kazym to clean up and rest. He’d promised Nealie he’d get through tonight if it was possible, but it was ten o’clock in Missouri now—past her bedtime.

After he talked to her tomorrow, he’d go shopping and stock up on Russian souvenirs for her. The nesting Matryoshka dolls, a set of Mishka bears, a small—but real— Fabergé pendant. Nothing but the best for his kid.

Briana wouldn’t let Nealie wear the pendant yet—she’d say the girl was too young and make her put it away. But Nealie would have it and plenty else, besides.

He thought of buying Briana something—Baltic amber or Siberian cashmere—but she didn’t like him to give her gifts. Still, she would look beautiful in white cashmere with her dark, dark hair and eyes….

A pang of bitter yearning struck him. He’d lost Briana. But he still had Nealie, and Nealie he would spoil to his heart’s content.

He reached the registration desk, set down his camera bags and gave the clerk his name and affiliation. “Josh I. Morris. Smithsonian magazine, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.”

“Ooh, Mr. Morris,” said the desk clerk in her lovely accent. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

He probably wouldn’t recognize himself, he thought.

“I made reservations for two nights,” he said. He usually booked himself into the more downscale Mezhudunarodnaya, but he needed serious de-Siberiazation.

“Your magazine extend it to four nights,” she told him. “They send message that you are to stay and rest a few days.”

He shrugged. It was a bonus, like battle pay. Besides, they probably expected him to pick up some file shots of Moscow while he was here.

She frowned slightly. “You have many messages—many, many.”

He frowned. From the Smithsonian? Did they have another assignment for him already? Was that why he was getting the royal treatment? Good Lord, he thought, were they plotting to send him somewhere even worse? What was worse in winter? The South Pole?

Visions of emperor penguins danced unpleasantly in his head. He didn’t want another cold-weather assignment. He wanted to get back to the States and see Nealie.

He shoved the faxed messages unread into his camera case, took his key and headed for the bank of elevators. His room was on the fourth floor, overlooking the Raushskaya Embankment and the Moscow River. Beyond the river were the lights of the Kremlin.

He took the faxes from the case and laid them on the gilt and glass table next to the phone. The parka, his hat, gloves and boots he put into the laundry bag he found in the closet.

He stripped down to his skivvies and began running his bath. His underwear would soon join his other clothes in the trash. He unlatched the bar, opened a bottle of whiskey and filled a crystal tumbler.

Then he carried his messages and his glass into the bathroom. While he ran the bath, he yanked off his underwear and kicked it under the sink. At last he settled naked and belly deep in the hot water.

He read the first fax. It was from his agent.

“Morris, Adventure magazine says the Pitcairn Island assignment may be shaping up. Be prepared to move fast if it does. Remember you’re contractually obligated. You’ve owed them an article since hell was a pup. Best, Carson.”

Josh snorted, crumpled the fax paper and flung it into the gilt wastebasket beside the sink. Adventure had been trying to put that freakish assignment together for years. It was never going to happen. He wished he’d never signed the damned contract. Adventure’s editors were crazy, and their assignments bizarre.

He settled more luxuriantly into the water and read the next message. It was also from his agent.

“Morris, Know you’re coming off a tough assignment, but would you consider shooting a piece on Greater Abaco for Islands? Would not take more than a few days. Writer is Stacy Leverett. Would start in two weeks—Feb. 15. Short notice, but Gullickson caught bad bug in Dominica. Best, Carson.”

For Josh, this was a no-brainer. Abaco with Stacy Leverett? Go to a Caribbean island with a statuesque blonde who looked great in cargo shorts and had a taste for short-term relationships? Just what the doctor ordered for a poor frostbitten man.

The third fax was yet another from the agent. Carson curtly reminded Josh that he was still on call for another Adventure assignment, Burma. His permission from the Ministry of Tourism might come through within four weeks, and he needed to be ready. But, cautioned the message, remember that if the Pitcairn assignment jelled, it was the magazine’s top priority.

Josh gritted his teeth. Burma would be a rough assignment and dangerous—typical for Adventure. At the moment, he would rather think of the Bahamas and getting Stacy Leverett out of her cargo shorts.

He’d go to Missouri for a week and see his daughter, then the Bahamas, then, if need be, Burma. At least Burma would cancel out Pitcairn.

He sipped his whiskey and looked at the next fax. It, too, was from his agent. Good Lord, didn’t anyone else in the world write to him?

“Morris, Your ex-wife called from Missouri at ten o’clock this morning, New York time. She says please get in touch immediately. It’s crucial. Best, Carson.”

Briana? Briana wanted him to call? It was crucial?

She did not use words like crucial lightly. She hardly ever contacted him when he was in the field.

Unless something was wrong. Very wrong.

Visions of the Bahamas and statuesque blondes fled. Instead his mind was taken total hostage by a slim brunette woman—and a very small girl with very big glasses.

Troubled, haunted by images of his ex-wife and his daughter, he went on to the next fax. Again it was from Carson.

“Morris, Your wife called again at one. She says she needs to talk to you as soon as possible. Please phone her, no matter what the hour. She says it’s an emergency. Yours, Carson.”

The last fax was from Carson.

“Morris, Your wife phoned again at four, Eastern Time. She says please call as soon as possible. It’s urgent. Yours, C.”

Josh swore under his breath, not from anger but from a deep and instinctive terror. He rose out of the tub, knocking the glass of whiskey to the floor. It shattered, and he stepped on it, cutting his heel. He hardly felt it.

He wrapped a towel around his middle and grabbed the bathroom phone.

Getting connected to Missouri from Moscow was approximately as difficult as arranging a rocket launch to the moon. Josh’s imagination ran to places that were haunted and dangerous.

He bled on the marble floor. While the transatlantic connections buzzed and hummed, he had time to pull the shards of glass from his heel and pack the wound with tissues.

Briana, Briana, Briana, he thought, his pulses skipping What’s wrong?

From across the ocean, he heard her phone ringing. He pictured the little farmhouse—tight and cozy. He pictured Briana with her dark hair and mysterious dark eyes, her mouth that was at once stubborn and vulnerable. He imagined his daughter, who resembled Briana far more than him. His bright, funny, unique, fragile little daughter.

Then he heard Briana’s voice, and his heart seemed to stumble upward and lodge in his throat.

“Briana?” he said.

“Josh?” she said in return. She didn’t sound like herself. Her tone was strained, taut with control.

He heard voices in the background, those of adults, those of children.

“Are people there?” he asked.

“It’s Larry’s birthday,” she said. “Just a minute. Let me take the phone into the bedroom so we can talk.”

He heard the background noise growing dimmer. “There,” she quavered. “I shut the door. They can’t hear.”

“Briana, what’s wrong?” he said desperately, but he already knew. “Is it Nealie?”

“Oh, Josh, she’s sick. She might be—so sick.”

He had the sensation of falling toward a devouring darkness. “How sick? Is she in the hospital?”

“I don’t know how sick. It’s—it’s in the early stages. She doesn’t know yet. Nobody in the family knows. You’re the first one I’ve told.”

“Briana, what is it? What’s wrong with her?” Damn, he thought, his hands were shaking. His hands never shook, no matter what.

“It’s a—an anemia,” she stammered. “It’s very rare. And—and serious.”

“How serious?” He sat on the edge of the bathtub, his head down. He felt as if he was going to pass out.

“She could—she could…”

Briana started to cry. Josh put his hand over his eyes. “Okay,” he told her raggedly. “You don’t have to say it. What can be done? What can I do?”

She seemed to pull herself together, but she still sounded shattered. “Can you come home? I mean come here?”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll book a flight as soon as I can. But what can we do for her?”

“Oh, Josh,” she said, despair naked in her voice, “I’ve thought and thought. I think there’s only one thing. One thing in the world.”

“What? I’d do anything. You know that.”

She was silent a long moment. He knew she was having trouble speaking.

At last she whispered, “To save her, I think we have to have another baby.”

CHAPTER TWO

JOSH WAS STUNNED, stupefied.

“What?” he said.

“I—I said,” she stammered, “I—I think we have to have another baby. To save her.”

“Another baby.” He repeated the words, but they made no sense. They fell like great, meaningless stones on his consciousness.

Briana began to talk, low and swiftly. She said Nealie had something called Yates’s Anemia.

Josh had never so much as heard of such a disease. Now she was telling him his child—their child—might die of it.

“It’ll lead to aplastic anemia,” Briana said. “Her blood count’s unstable. Her system can’t fight infection. She gets tired too easily. She bruises too easily. When she’s cut, she doesn’t heal right. She could have complete bone marrow failure. Or other diseases. Even—stroke.”

Stroke? How could so young a child have a stroke?

He shook his head to clear it. Briana sounded as if she were on automatic pilot now, as if she’d rehearsed saying this to him a hundred times. Her words tumbled out in a breathless rush.

“Wait,” he begged her. “You’re sure of all this?”

“Yes. Yes. I took her to a doctor in St. Louis. She had a complete blood count and a—a chromosome test. It had to be sent away to a special lab. She has what they call chromosome breakage. It’s Yates’s anemia and it’s life-threatening. It’s one of the hereditary anemias.”

He put his hand on his bare stomach because he was starting to feel physically ill. “She inherited it?”

My God, he thought, was it from me? Did I somehow give my own child a death sentence?

Briana seemed to read his thoughts. “Yes. But, listen, Josh. She had to inherit it from both of us. We—we both carry a recessive gene.”

“Briana—I don’t get it. This runs in both our families? I never heard of it.”

“Neither did I. It’s recessive—and rare. Very rare. We couldn’t have known.”

We couldn’t have known. He knew she meant to comfort him, but he felt no comfort, only a growing desperation.

Briana went on as if possessed. “Her bone marrow isn’t at failure stage—yet. It might not fail for years. Or it might start tomorrow. There’s no predicting it. But she hasn’t been well, Josh. Not well at all…”

She talked about strange drugs he’d never heard of. She used terms that sounded as mysterious as witchcraft. But everything she said boiled down to one fact—for Nealie’s illness there was no simple cure and no sure one.

The best chance was a transplant involving either marrow or umbilical cord blood. By far the best donor of either would be a healthy sibling.

Nealie had no sibling.

Briana paused, then plunged on again. “If she has a crisis, she’ll need a donor immediately. But finding a match can take months, years. We need to find a donor before a crisis occurs.”

“I understand that,” he said. “But how much time are we talking here? It’s inevitable this disease gets worse?”

“Yes. It’s inevitable.” In her voice resignation warred with determination to fight.

Josh swallowed. “So…how long could she live?”

He heard her take a deep breath. “Without a perfect donor? The average life expectancy is—she’d live to be fifteen. Maybe longer. Maybe not. She’s—already outlived some children who’ve had it.”

A shifting blackness wavered before his eyes. He shut his eyes and began to think, God, God, God. He didn’t know if he was cursing or praying.

He said, “With a perfect donor?”

“She might get well.”

Might, he thought, pressing his eyes shut harder.

Briana said, “So I’ve thought about it, Josh. I’ve thought about all of it. The best chance for her—is for us to have another baby.”

He fought to think. “But we both carry this gene. We could have another child who’s sick.”

“No. There are ways to make sure we have one who’s healthy.”

He frowned, eyes still shut. “What do you mean?”

“Josh, I’ve talked to the doctors about it. I mean, it can be done. It’s complicated to explain. It’ll be easier to talk about it face-to-face.”

“Just tell me.”

She was silent a moment. “We don’t even have to touch each other. We can have my eggs artificially inseminated.”

His eyes snapped open in shock. “What?”

“There are tests,” she said. “The doctors can tell if there’s a healthy embryo that’s a match for Nealie. If there is, they can implant it in me—”

This was crazy, Josh thought. This was mad-scientist stuff, fantasies out of a future world.

Was she really saying they’d have a child but they wouldn’t touch? That under the cold lights of a lab, strangers would quicken the eggs into life without either of them being there? And that then tests—not nature—would decide which of these tiny entities would survive and which would not?

Something deep within him rebelled.

“You want us to play God, Briana?”

“Josh, it’s for Nealie.” Her voice broke, and with it so did his heart. There was no answering her argument.

Still, he tried. “Look, I love her, too. You know that. But have you thought about—”

“I’ve thought of nothing else.”

“Briana, let’s talk this over—”

“I can’t talk much longer right now or people will get suspicious. Rupert’s already banging on the door.”

Josh could hear him. Larry’s boys were little louts, and they were the plague of Nealie’s life.

Oh, God. Nealie’s life. Nealie’s life.

“Aunt Briana, come out!” It was Rupert’s voice. “Neville made the cat throw up!”

Josh furrowed his brow in concentration, as he tried to block out the kid. He said, “Briana, tell me one thing. Does Nealie know how sick she is? Does she suspect?”

“No. I told her all the testing was for allergies. I told everyone that. I’ve lied to the whole world. Only you know the truth. Oh, Josh, please come home. Together maybe we can save her.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Rupert was banging louder. Josh heard Briana shush him. “Nealie’s asleep,” she told the boy. “Be quiet. You’ll wake her.”

“Nealie’s a wimp,” Rupert shouted. “I didn’t mean to give her a nosebleed. I said I was sorry.”

Alarm and anger rose in Josh. “A nosebleed?”

“She gets them all the time,” Briana said wearily. “I made her lie on the couch with a cold cloth on her face. She fell asleep. I put her to bed. She has no energy lately.” To Rupert, she said, “Rupert, stop that. If you wake Nealie, you’ll be in real trouble.” To Josh she said, “I’ve got to go. And I’ve got to pull myself together before I face them. I’ve been dreading telling you this. I’m sorry, Josh. So sorry.”

“Tell Nealie I love her and that I’m coming home. I’ll let you know when as soon as I get a flight.”

“Thank you. Josh. Goodbye.”

She sounded almost humble—his proud, cheerful, independent Briana.

The line went dead. He sat for a moment, then hung up the phone on its gold-colored hook.

His head swam with sorrow and shock. He did something he had not done since he was eleven years old. He put his face into his hands and wept.

RUPERT WAS JOINED at the door by his brother Neville, who began to kick. “Aunt Bri, Aunt Bri,” Neville called. “You’ve gotta come. The cat threw up. Mama tried to clean it up, but she started to get sick. And Marsh spilled root beer on Grandpa’s pants.”

Briana was torn between laughter and weeping in despair. It was all surreal—the downstairs decked with balloons and streamers, her rambunctious nephews, the tormented cat, the nauseated sister-in-law, her father with his pants full of root beer.

She fought the hysteria and dashed the tears from her eyes. She forced her mouth to stop quivering and by sheer willpower composed herself.

Josh was coming home. That’s what was important. He would help her face the tumultuous emotions, the terrifying decisions about Nealie. As for her feelings about Josh, she could not worry about that now.

She swung open the door and looked at her two oldest nephews. “Rupert,” she said calmly, “you are never to batter this door again. Or any door in this house. Or anything else.”

Rupert looked hangdog. He often disobeyed his mother, but Briana had a steely moral force that could wither him when she got him eye to eye.

“I thought you’d want to know about the cat,” he said sulkily.

“I got the message the first time you said it.” She swung to face the other boy. “The same goes for you, Neville. In my house, no kicking.”

“Daddy sent me to get you,” Neville said righteously. “He said he wasn’t going to clean up after that old cat. And Grandpa needs—needs soda pop for his pants.”

Briana deciphered this. “You mean club soda. Let’s go downstairs.”

“Can Nealie get up and play?” Neville asked.

“No. She needs her rest.”

“Why’s she always gotta rest?” Neville asked, hopping heavily down the stairs. “I don’t have to rest. I’m not even tired. I could go all night.”

“I wasn’t trying to hit Nealie,” Rupert whined. “Her nose got in front of my fist, that’s all. I was showing her how to box.”

“Well, don’t,” Briana ordered and herded both boys into the living room.

“There you are,” her brother, Larry, said almost accusingly. “Help me with Dad’s pants.” He stood by the sink tearing off great swaths of paper towel and handing them to Leo Hanlon, who looked bewildered.

The scene was as chaotic as Briana had feared. Glenda, her sister-in-law, was three months pregnant and lying on the couch, her feet up on a cushion. Her face had a greenish cast.

She smiled weakly. “Hi, Briana. Have you got a cracker or something? To settle my stomach?”

Little Marsh toddled toward Briana with an empty plastic mug. “More root beer,” he said. “More root beer.”

“No more root beer,” Larry said. “You ruined these pants. These are your good pants, aren’t they, Dad? Your Sunday pants?

“I just had ’em cleaned,” said Leo and did his best to glower at Marsh. Marsh glowered far more fearsomely.

Briana marched into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of club soda. She thrust it into her father’s hands. “There. Go into the bathroom and scrub those pants.”

“How do I get them dry?” Leo asked with a helpless air.

“Use the hair dryer,” Briana said. “It’s under the sink.”

“I’ll get scorched,” Leo complained.

“Take off your pants and then dry them,” Briana said.

“Oh. Well. I would have thought of that. Of course.” He took the club soda and went into the bathroom.

Larry leaned against the closed door and looked at Briana. He waggled his brows. “I bet Harve Oldman would love it if you told him to take off his pants. He’d probably pass out with happiness.”

Briana said nothing. Harve Oldman was a neighboring farmer, a bachelor and a would-be suitor. She had cut off all contact with him as soon as she knew Nealie was sick.

“Where is good old Harve, anyhow?” Larry asked. “He hasn’t been around lately.”

Briana still said nothing. She reached into the cupboard and pulled out the box of soda crackers. As she arranged half a dozen on a plate, Larry gave her a friendly leer. “I mean Harve’s well off. And he’s got the hots for you.”

“Please,” Briana said. “The cat is nauseated, your wife is nauseated. Don’t make it three of us.”

Larry shrugged. “Easy to love a rich man as a poor man.”

She didn’t answer. She carried the crackers to Glenda, who forced herself into a sitting position and began to nibble.

Briana put her hands on her hips and surveyed the living room. “Where’s the cat?”

“Hiding from Neville,” Rupert said. “Neville dragged Zorro out from behind the washer and held him upside down and shook him.”

Glenda gave an apologetic smile over the cracker. “I told him not to.”

“Boys will be boys.” Larry shrugged. Then he squinted at Briana. “Who you talking to for so long on the phone?” he asked. “The whole family’s here.”

“It was personal,” said Briana, getting disinfectant and cleaning cloths from the pantry.

Larry shrugged again and said, “Poppa figured it was Josh. He said he knows that look you get on your face when the phone rings and it’s Josh.”

“I said it was personal.” Briana set about cleaning up the mess the cat had made. The boys were chasing each other around the dining room table.

“You boys be quiet,” Glenda said from the couch.

“Ah, let ’em alone,” Larry told her.

The boys chased on.

“Don’t those sons of guns got energy?” Larry said with a proud laugh.

I can last until they’ve all gone home, Briana told herself. It became her mantra for surviving the rest of the night. Till they’ve all gone home.

AT LAST, the little house was empty of its guests. Her father returned to the main farmhouse, where he had lived all his life. Her brother and his family went home to the neighboring house Larry had built when he’d married.

Briana lived in the house that years ago had belonged to Uncle Collin, her father’s bachelor brother. It was far smaller than the others, only two bedrooms, but it was set nicely apart from the main house, and its simplicity suited her.

Now it was quiet, blessedly so. She washed the last of the dishes and put them away. Still restless, she got out the ladder and took down all the balloons and the crepe-paper streamers.

There. It was her normal, peaceful little house again. She made herself a cup of hot chocolate and sat down on the couch to savor the hush that had at last settled.

Zorro came padding soundlessly from behind the washer. He leaped to the couch and settled heavily into her lap, thrumming with his almost silent purr.

“Poor Zorro,” Briana whispered. “Neville got you, hmm? Poor kitty.” She scratched him between his black ears.

Briana loved her family, but she was glad they were gone.

She could not tell them of Nealie’s illness. She could not. She knew some of this was simple, cowardly denial. Every person who knew Nealie was sick made her sickness seem more real.

Nobody would treat Nealie the same, or Briana, either. The boys would not understand, and they might say wounding things to Nealie. Glenda would be too sympathetic, and Larry wouldn’t want to talk about it at all. He wouldn’t know how to deal with it.

And her father—her father’s heart would break. He was a sentimental man, especially when it came to his family, and he worried incessantly over his loved ones. Larry was big and strong and a hard worker but, unlike Briana, he’d never done well in school. Neither was he skilled with people. He talked too loudly, made inappropriate jokes, and he could be chauvinistic.

Glenda, his wife, was sweet and docile. This was her fourth pregnancy in six years, and she was always exhausted. Leo Hanlon wanted his son to hire a woman to come in and help Glenda, but Larry said it was her job, she should do it.

And although Leo was proud of his big, sturdy, handsome grandsons, he fretted about their rowdiness. He could by God control them. So could Briana. Why wouldn’t their parents? Leo fumed and grumbled at Larry, but nothing changed.

Leo’s favorite grandchild was Nealie. Larry couldn’t understand this. After all, Nealie wasn’t big, strong or good-looking. Worse than that, she was only a girl.

But Leo had never been able to resist his granddaughter’s spirit or smile. He fondly nicknamed her Funnyface. He was proud of her intelligence and imagination—he adored her. To know how ill she was would destroy him.

No, Briana wouldn’t tell them. How could she? She wouldn’t say anything until another child was clearly on the way.

For two months her daughter’s sickness had been her secret. Soon Josh would be here. She would no longer be alone with it.

She lifted Zorro from her lap and set him on the floor. She shut off the lights and went upstairs to bed, Zorro waddling silently behind her.

She opened the door to Nealie’s room and peered inside. The child stirred and rose on her elbow. “Mama?”

“Hi, sweetie. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“My clothes woke me up,” Nealie said. “I want my jammies.”

Briana switched on the bedside lamp.

“How come I still have my clothes on?” Nealie squinted at the sudden brightness. Her big glasses lay beside the lamp.

“You fell asleep on the couch,” Briana said, going to the dresser. “I brought you up to bed. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Nealie rose on both elbows, frowning. “I remember. Rupert gave me a nosebleed.”

“Yes, well, he likes to roughhouse. I scolded him for it.”

“Ha!” crowed Nealie. She knew how Rupert hated Briana’s scolding.

Briana rummaged in the drawer for pajamas. “Do you want the ones with cows or the ones with flowers?”

“Cows,” said Nealie with a yawn. Then she fell back against the pillow. “Why do I have so many nosebleeds?”

Briana’s hand tightened convulsively around the flannel. “Your allergies, I guess,” she lied.

“Rupert woke me up, too,” Nealie said in a sulky voice. “I heard him kicking on a door and yelling.”

“Those are rude things to do,” Briana said. “I don’t want you ever to do them. Here, sit up, let me get that shirt off you.”

She got the child into her pajamas and then made her settle back against the pillow. Briana pulled the quilt to Nealie’s chin and bent to kiss her.

Nealie blinked, as if truly awake for the first time. “Daddy—did he call tonight? He always tries to call on the first of the month. Did he?”

Briana hesitated. If she told Nealie the truth, it would take at least half an hour to get her back to sleep.

But she had told the child lie after lie, and this time the truth would make her happy. She kissed the soft cheek. “He called. He says he’s coming home soon.”

Nealie sat up with a start, hazel eyes widening. “Really? Honest?”

“Honest. He’s finished his assignment in Khanty-Mansiysk. He’s in Moscow, ready to start back.”

“And he’s coming here?” Nealie’s body seemed so charged with energy she looked ready to bounce. “Here? To see us?”

“Yes. To see you.”

Nealie bounced in a sitting position. “When? When?”

“As soon as he can catch a plane. He should be here by the end of the week.”

“For how long?” Nealie asked, bouncing harder.

Briana’s heart wrenched. “I don’t know. We’ll see. Don’t bounce, sweetie. You’ll make your nose bleed again.”

“Maybe he’ll stay,” Nealie said. She stopped bouncing, but she wriggled. “Stay and never go away again.”

“No. We’ve talked about that. Daddy can’t stay in one place. But this time, maybe he can stay—a longer time.”

“Till my birthday?”

Nealie’s birthday was in April, more than two months away. God willing when spring returned, the child’s strength would return with it, and she would be better, not worse.

“Could he?” Nealie asked. “Still be here for my birthday?”

“I don’t know. He’ll tell us when he gets here. Now lay down and close your eyes and go to sleep. When you wake up, it’ll be morning, and he’ll be one day closer.”

She slipped her arm around her daughter, leaned back with her against the pillow. Nealie’s little body, warm and lithe, snuggled against hers.

“Why didn’t you wake me up when he called?” Nealie demanded. She was tired. She tried to hide her yawn as she said it.

“Shh. It was late. It’s a different time in Moscow. He would have called earlier if he could. You know that.”

Nealie nestled closer. “What time is it in Moscow?”

“Moscow time,” Briana said, and they both giggled. She smoothed the child’s hair and kissed her cheek again. She stayed until Nealie was asleep.

Then, because Briana couldn’t bear to let her go, she switched off the light and slipped under the quilt with her. But she could not sleep. She lay in the darkness, holding on to her child.

ON SATURDAY, Josh watched the airport loom beneath the plane as his flight descended into St. Louis. A light snow fell, dusting the runways, but after Russia, he saw such a snow as insignificant. It was like a season of buds and bluebirds, practically springtime in Paris.

His head, however, felt nothing like the merry month of May. It felt like hurricane season in hell.

For three days he’d lived in a nightmare of bad airline connections and endless delays. He’d spent too many hours crouched in cramped plane cabins, missed too much sleep, been able to stomach too little food.

Truth be told, he’d also nursed too many Scotches and vodkas to dull the pain. The pain came not from his physical discomfort, but out of fear for his daughter.

Along his jerking, twisted journey, he’d kept in touch with Briana as best he could. He told her he’d rent a car in St. Louis and drive to Illyria, for her not to drag Nealie out into the cold.

But when he got to the gate, his heavy camera bags slung over his shoulder, he saw them both, his ex-wife and his child. It was as if the rest of the sea of waiting people parted and vanished.

They stood at the edge of the walkway. Briana looked beautiful but pale and tense. Nealie, his little, bespectacled elfin Nealie, looked radiant.

His daughter grinned at him. She had lost a tooth. For some reason, this nearly undid him. He ran toward her, and she ran to him, her arms out wide.

Then he had her in his embrace, and she seemed to be both clinging to him and climbing him like a little monkey. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” she cried, her arms tightening around his neck.

He kissed her all over her face, knocking her glasses askew. She laughed and kissed him back.

“Daddy,” she said again with such deep contentment that the words tore his heart.

She tried to wrap her skinny legs around his waist, but she was too small, and his parka made him too big. He let his camera bags fall to the floor and held her as tightly as he could. She buried her face in the harsh fur of his new parka, giggling.

He stared over the top of her head into Briana’s dark eyes. She was holding back tears, he could tell.

For a few seconds, everything that had ever gone wrong between them disappeared. For those few beats of his jittery pulse, once again he loved her, and she loved him.

But he knew it was an illusion and he knew that it couldn’t and wouldn’t last. There were some things in life so broken they could never be fixed. His marriage was one of them.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR A MOMENT Briana’s gaze locked with Josh’s. There was a wildness in his hazel eyes, a desperation she’d never before seen. In that look she read the depths of his love and fear for Nealie.

She understood his feelings, shared them. She had an impulse to join him and Nealie in their crazy embrace. But she did not. Instead she turned away and let them have their moment.

She bit her lower lip and wished her heart wouldn’t beat so hard that its every stroke felt like a stab wound. The airport looked blurry through her unshed tears, and she gave all her will to blinking them back.

But then she felt Josh’s touch and, helpless, she turned to him. Nealie clung to his neck, and he carried her in his left arm. His right hand gripped Briana’s shoulder.

He said nothing, only stared. His looks had always been a paradox to her, his face both boyish and rough-hewn. The jaw was pugnacious. The nose had a thin scar across the bridge from having been cut in a street fight when he was twelve.

But the eyes under the dark brows were alert and sensitive, and she had never seen such vulnerability in them. Still, his mouth had a crooked, slapdash grin that she knew he put there for Nealie’s sake.

His brown hair was long and not quite even. He had a close-trimmed beard, and the harsh winter had burnished his cheekbones and etched fine lines at the corners of his eyes.

He put his free arm around her. “Briana,” he said. He bent and kissed her on the mouth. His beard tickled and scratched. He smelled of Scotch and airline peanuts. His lips were chapped.

None of it mattered. Something turned cartwheels inside her, and to steady herself, she put her hand on the thick gray fur of his parka.

He drew back too soon, or maybe not soon enough.

He shook his head in mock disapproval. “You weren’t supposed to come for me.”

“She insisted,” Briana said, giving Nealie a shaky smile. “You think I could keep her away?”

Nealie’s arms tightened around his neck. “You came all the way from Russia. We just came from Illyria.”

He shifted her to hold her closer. “It doesn’t matter where we started out, does it, shrimp? We ended up together.”

She smiled and buried her face in his shoulder. He hugged the child and pressed his cheek against her hair. “I love you,” he said. “I’ve missed you. Every day, every night, I’ve missed you.”

NEALIE CHATTERED on the way home, bombarding Josh with volleys of questions. “The people really have reindeer that pull their sleds?”

“Indeed they do.”

“Just like Santa Claus?”

“Pretty much. Except Santa lives in one place. And these people move around.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re nomads.”

“What are nomads?”

“People who move around,” Josh said. “They have to hunt. They have to have fresh grazing for the reindeer. They change places when the seasons change.”

“Why do the seasons change?”

“Because the earth goes round the sun.”

“Why?”

“Because of gravity.”

“What’s gravity?”

“It keeps things fastened down.”

“Why doesn’t it keep the nomads fastened down?” Josh darted a helpless glance at Briana’s profile. She had a strange, sad little smile, but she kept her eyes on the road.

“That’s a good question,” Josh hedged. “I’ll have to think about that one. Ask me again tomorrow.”

Nealie settled more comfortably into her booster seat. She was growing tired, he could tell. He held her hand, and her head lolled against his shoulder.

“Daddy?”

“What, Panda Girl?”

“Why do you always call me Panda Girl?’

She knew the answer to that. It was a game they played. “Because when you were born, you had an extra thumb on one hand. Pandas have extra thumbs.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re special. Everybody loves pandas.”

“Then why’d the doctor cut off my panda thumb?”

“So you’d match on both sides.”

She held out her left hand, staring at it. A small white scar marked the operation. “Why didn’t the doctor put another one on my other hand?”

“He couldn’t find one. Panda Girl thumbs are very rare.”

“I wish I kept the one I had.”

“Naw,” he said and kissed her ear. “Then everybody would have been jealous.”

“Rupert says I was born a freak. That I had too many thumbs and a hole in my heart.”

He resisted to the urge to say what he thought of Rupert. “See,” he said. “Rupert’s clearly jealous. Too bad. Poor old Rupert.”

“Too bad,” she echoed. “Poor old Rupert.”

She dozed off. For a time neither Josh nor Briana spoke. The only sound was the soft stroking of the windshield wipers.

Josh shifted so the child leaned more comfortably against his arm. He took off her glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his travel vest. His parka lay in the back seat, flung atop his bags.

“Does your family know I’m coming?” he asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Of course,” Briana said, eyes on the road. “I had to tell them as soon as Nealie knew. She couldn’t keep it secret. Not possibly.”

“Do they know why I’ve come?”

Briana shook her head. Her dark hair swung about the shoulders of her white sweater. “No. I told everybody your assignment was done and you wanted to come back to the States to see Nealie. That’s all.”

He cocked his head, examining her. Oh, she was still something, all right, with her golden skin and exotic eyes. When she was serious, like now, she was a pretty girl. But when she smiled, he remembered, she was dazzling. She had the best smile he’d ever seen. He wondered how long it had been since she’d really used it.

“So,” he drawled, “how’d your family take the news I’d be here? Great wailing and gnashing of teeth?”

“Poppa was polite,” Briana said. “He said you could stay in his guest room if you want.”

“No, thanks,” Josh said and looked out the window on the passenger’s side. Leo Hanlon was a deceptively amiable man, but his true feelings for Josh were as cold as the ice that glittered in the trees.

Josh had almost succeeded at the unthinkable—he had almost taken Briana away from Leo. But the old man had won. He’d won with one of the oldest plays in the game—just when Briana had to choose between the two men, Leo had gotten sick.

“How’s his health?” Josh asked. This time he couldn’t keep the edge out of his tone.

She stared straight ahead. “He’s doing well. He went to the cardiologist last week. His heart’s good. He hasn’t had any episodes lately.”

Episodes, Josh thought sourly, are what you have on soap operas. “But,” he said, “I suppose he can’t work much.”

“No,” she said.

“So Larry oversees the farm.”

“Larry’s a physical guy. He likes it.”

He turned to Briana. “And what about Larry? Did he offer to let me use his guest room?”

“No.” She cast him a cool look. “He hasn’t got one. All his rooms are full of kids.”

“He still thinks of me as the guy who deserted his big sister?”

“He doesn’t change his mind easily.”

No. He’s like a Rottweiler or a water buffalo that way. Once an idea worked its way into his thick skull, it seldom found its way out again.

Josh didn’t really care about Larry’s opinions. But he knew down the line he’d have to grapple with them. As well as the far more complex ones of Leo Hanlon.

“Just when do you plan to tell them?” Josh asked. “About her?” He nodded toward Nealie, who was sleeping with her head on his shoulder. “And about—us?”

Every visible muscle in Briana’s body seemed to tighten. “I don’t want to discuss it now.”

“Have you thought about it? How you’re going to tell them? When?”

Her chin was stubborn. It was a look he knew well. “I said not now. She might wake up.”

As if to prove Briana right, Nealie stirred, rubbed her eyes, murmured something incomprehensible, then nestled against him.

She’s so small, Josh thought, so thin. She wasn’t this thin last time I saw her. She was light as a bird, like a creature with air in its bones.

“You and I,” he told Briana, his voice hard, “have to talk soon. And for a long time. I didn’t come all this way to be stonewalled.”

She nodded without looking at him. “Tonight. When she’s in bed.”

He frowned. “This thing you want to do—another baby—it’s going to cause all kinds of—”

“Shh. Tonight.”

“Fine,” he countered. “Tonight. And where am I supposed to stay? Am I invited to use your guest room?”

She shot him a look. “I don’t have one, either.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No. People would talk.”

He sighed in exasperation. She was worried what people thought? She wanted him to father another child for her—like that wasn’t going to make people talk?

She said, “If you don’t want to stay with Poppa, you can stay at the motel. I’ll loan you my truck to get back and forth.”

He groaned. He remembered Illyria’s motel from the photo shoot when he’d met Briana. It was a far cry from the five-star Kempinski in Moscow. Instead of private bars in every suite and a view of the Kremlin, it had a soda machine at the end of the hall and a view of a cornfield.

But that wasn’t what bothered him. What bothered him was that he and Briana had spent their wedding night there. They’d married in a kind of ecstatic haste, too hungry for each other to go anywhere else. They’d made love, then dozed, woke, made love again, and when the sun came up, they made love again.

If Briana remembered, she didn’t show it.

He tried to steer the conversation to neutral ground, not sure they had any.

“The farm’s a success?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, businesslike. “These days people are careful about what they eat. The more particular they get, the more they like us.”

“No preservatives,” he quoted from memory. “No additives. No artificial fertilizers. Only natural pesticides. No hybrid or patented seeds. The heritage of pure, old-fashioned food.”

“You’ve got it,” she said with a hint of the smile that used to make him crazy with wanting her.

“As George Washington said, ‘agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man.’”

“Wow,” Briana said. “You really do remember.”

I remember much more. Too much.

“Yeah. I remember,” he said.

“In growing season, we do well at the farmers’ market,” she said. “We always sell out. We have buyers from restaurants as far away as St. Louis.”

He thought about this past growing season. During it he had traveled over half the earth. She’d stayed home and tended her garden. And their child.

She said, “Was it a problem, getting time to come here?”

He shook his head. “No. Gave up a couple of short assignments. Nothing major.”

“Where do you go next?”

He tried to sound casual. “I’m not sure.”

“Are you still tied up with that crazy Adventure magazine?” she asked, an edge in her voice.

“I’ve got one more assignment,” he said. “That’s all.”

She tossed him a displeased glance. “Where?”

“Don’t know. Maybe Burma. An outside chance of Pitcairn Island.”

“Burma?” she asked with alarm. “Pitcairn Island? Josh, those are dangerous places. When would you have to go?”

He shrugged. “Burma? Probably not for a month, maybe more.”

“Burma has terrorists,” she said. “It has land mines.”

“I’ll be careful. Besides, a few weeks in Burma beats months on Pitcairn.”

Briana had said he needed to be in Missouri for at least three weeks. He’d told Carson he wasn’t touching anything for three weeks, and Carson had been bitter because there was money at stake, a lot of it.

From the unhappy look on Briana’s face, he decided the subject needed changing. “So how’s the seed business?”

She seemed relieved to talk of something else. “It keeps me busy. We’ve got a Web site now. And I computerized as much of the business as I could.”

One corner of his mouth pulled down. “Computerized? Didn’t Poppa object to that?”

The ghost of her smile flickered again. “Until he saw the results. He liked the profits.”

“So it’s the same as just after his heart attack. Larry’s the brawn, you’re the brains. In fact, it’s the same as before his heart attack.”

Her mouth went grim. “That’s not fair. He’s never been the same since my mother died. I told you that when we met.”

“Sorry,” he said, but he felt little true sympathy.

Briana’s mother had died two years before Josh came to Missouri. She had been the one with the business mind. She kept the books, made the payments, studied new directions to take the business.

Leo Hanlon had neither the patience nor the sort of mind to take over the job his wife had done. It fell to Briana to do, and she did it brilliantly.

Leo’s bachelor brother, Collin, a true workhorse of a man, died shortly after Leo’s wife did. He had done all the farm’s heavy work.

Without his wife and brother, Leo was nearly helpless. His back bothered him, his joints ached, and he was lonely. He wore his depression like a badge that exempted him from responsibility. He hired out more and more of the physical work. He was a genial man, sweet-natured, but he seemed to Josh to have drifted into a sort of privileged laziness.

“So what exactly is your father doing these days?” he asked, trying to quash the sarcasm in his tone.

She detected it anyway. He could tell by the way her jaw tightened. “He’s owner and president, same as always. This whole business started with his vision.”

His vision, his brother’s sweat and his wife’s smarts, Josh thought. Leo Hanlon’s shaping dream had been a simple but good one. Most important, it came at exactly the right time.

Twenty-five years ago, the time of the small farmer in America was nearly over. People were not merely migrating to the cities, they were swarming there. Big farms gobbled up the small ones, and corporations bought out the big farms.

But America had begun as a country of farmers and settlers. Many who had gone to the cities missed the cycles of planting, growing and harvesting. They missed the feel of dirt between their fingers and the taste of tomatoes fresh-picked and still warm from the sun.

Leo Hanlon might not have succeeded as a farmer, but he prospered as a nurseryman. He supplied seeds and seedlings and potting mixtures to those city-dwellers who still yearned to garden.

But Leo’s true stroke of genius was not to sell just any seeds and plants. He specialized in the old-fashioned varieties with old-fashioned flavor. He was in short, one of the pioneers in heirloom gardening.

The big seed companies often didn’t offer the older classic breeds. Instead, they came up with new, improved, scientifically developed strains. They grew fast, uniformly and well. They just didn’t seem to taste as good.

Heirloom varieties were in vogue again, and across the country a few dozen places like Hanlon Heritage Farms kept gardeners in supply. Leo Hanlon’s mission was good. It was even noble. Josh sincerely admired it.

But Leo himself was a different matter.

When they first met, Josh had thought Hanlon likable, well-intentioned and slightly comic. But Josh had underestimated him.

Leo Hanlon had proved to be the strongest adversary he’d ever met.

The two of them waged a stubborn war, and Hanlon won, hands down. What he had won was Briana.

THE TRUCK PASSED between the gates of Hanlon’s Heritage Farms. We’re home again, Briana thought.

At least she and Nealie were home. She wondered how the farm looked to Josh’s worldly eyes.

The main farmhouse, where Leon lived alone, stood on the hill, a stark shape against the gray sky. Set in the valley was the ranch house Larry had built for his family. There were the old greenhouses as well as two new ones, modern and utilitarian.

Her house was on the next rise, clearly visible through the winter-bare trees. Her brother would be in one of the sheds, tinkering with the tractors. It was that time of year.

Her father would be in the room that served as his office, pottering with his endless notes. Was he watching? Did he suspect anything?

She glanced at Josh, who peered at the landscape, frowning.

“It looks pretty boring to you, eh?” she said. “It’s not exactly Moscow or Paris.”

“That’s not what I was thinking.”

“Oh?”

“I was thinking of the fields. They’d make a nice shot. A black and white abstract.”

Briana looked at the familiar fields. Snow filled the furrows but hadn’t stuck to the black ridges of dirt that ran between. The effect was like a painting, a great, complex design of sensuously rolling stripes.

How wonderfully he sees things, she thought. I think Nealie sees things that way, too.

Nealie stirred. “Are we home yet?” She rubbed her eyes with her fists. Josh took her glasses from his pocket and helped her settle them on her nose. “We’re home, Panda.”

The girl looked out the window, then settled against him with an air of contentment. “You’re really here,” she said to him. “I thought maybe I only dreamed it.”

“No dream, kid.” His voice was gruff. He kissed her tousled hair.

Briana’s emotions made a hard, painful knot in her throat.

“How long can you stay?” It was the third time Nealie had asked him the same question.

“I don’t know. As long as I can. A while, I guess.” For the third time he gave her the same answer.

“Then you have to go back to work,” Nealie said with unhappy resignation.

“But for now, I’m here,” he said. “With you.”

Briana pulled into her driveway, pushed the button to open the garage door and drove in. “I guess we can leave your things in the back,” she said to Josh. “There’s no sense unloading them. You’ll be going to the motel.”

He said nothing. He gave her a look that clearly said, We’ll see about that.

THE MOMENT CAME that Briana had dreaded.

Josh came down the narrow stairs. “She’s asleep.”

Briana stood by the couch, nervously folding the afghan. Josh had been upstairs for almost an hour. He had promised to read Nealie to sleep.

He crossed the room and stopped, looking at Briana. She felt threatened in a dozen conflicting ways. She was glad they had the couch between them, like a barrier.

“It’s time,” he said. “Now we talk.”

She paused, biting the inside of her cheek. At last she said, “Let me pour us some wine. I think I’m going to need a drink for this.”

She moved toward the kitchen, and he moved with her. He said, “Now what’s all this about artificial insemination and healthy embryos?”

Why do you have to start with the hardest question?

She tried to keep her hands from shaking as she took the wine from the cabinet and poured two glasses. But she knew what she had to say. She’d rehearsed it enough. The words came to her lips almost as if someone else were saying them, and she was only mouthing them, a ventriloquist’s doll.

She explained about the Center for Reproductive Health in St. Louis. There specialists could fertilize a group of eggs in vitro, a test tube union. The fertilized eggs would grow and divide until they produced what was called a blastocyst or pre-embryo.

When the pre-embryos were three days old, geneticists would test to see whether they showed signs of Yates’s anemia. If a fertilized egg was healthy, it could be placed in the mother’s womb before the end of the week.

“So that’s it,” Briana finished. “It’s pretty simple, really.”

“It’s anything but simple,” Josh said.

She shrugged and moved to the living room, wineglass in hand. She sat in the easy chair so he would be forced to sit on the couch. She crossed her legs. “Should I explain it again? I—I have some brochures and magazine articles and things if you want—”

He cut her off with a sharp gesture of his free hand. “The science I understand. At least well enough. It’s the ethics that bother me.”

“What do you want? Your ethics or your daughter’s life?”

The coldness of her voice surprised her. But he didn’t flinch, and his eyes didn’t waver from hers.

“What about the baby?” he demanded. “We bring a child into the world for one reason. To save another child who’s sick. Not because we want him, but because we don’t want to lose the one we’ve got.”

She raised her chin. “I’d love him. You know I would. I love children. I always wanted a big family.”

Josh shook his head. “And what am I supposed to feel for him? I mean, we’re talking about a child who’s mine, too, you know.”

She wished he’d sit down, but he stood in front of her as if rooted in place. She was ready for his argument. She’d anticipated it.

“Your feelings are your own business. But I know you. You’d care for him. You know you would.”

He studied her as if she were a being from another planet. “But suppose, Briana, it doesn’t work.”

She turned her face away so she wouldn’t have to look at him, but he went on, his voice relentless. “Suppose we have this child, but the transplant doesn’t work, and we still lose Nealie. What then? Is it the baby’s fault? Would you still want him? Or every time you looked at him, would you wonder why he was there but Nealie was gone?”

“Don’t talk about her being gone, dammit!”

“And how would he feel? Knowing that he was born not because we wanted a child but we wanted a donor? And, unfortunately, he just didn’t work out.”

She clenched her fist on the arm of the chair until she felt her nails cutting into her palm. “I said I would love this child. That love is without condition. I would love him no matter what happened.”

“Would you love him if he had Yates’s anemia?”

Her head jerked up, and she glared at him. “I’m trying to make sure neither of them has it. That’s the point.”

He turned from her with a sound that was part sadness, part disgust. He walked to the mantel and struck it with the flat of his hand. He swore. “What if none of these hypothetical embryos is healthy? What if they all carry the disease? What do you do then? Flush them away and start over?”

“You can freeze them,” she said, setting her jaw.

“Freeze them,” he mocked. “That’s nice. Do you have any other children? Yes, but they’re in the freezer. They would have been flawed, so we didn’t let them get born.”

“Someday there may be another way to cure this disease.” She shot the words back. “A sure way. Then they could be born and grow up safe.”

“There may not be another cure for years. Decades. What then? We just keep the little nippers on ice for eternity?”

“Someone else could bring them into the world,” she argued. “Someone who couldn’t conceive on their own. It happens all the time.”

“You’ve got all the pie-in-the-sky answers, don’t you?” he said. “I’m not asking for just myself, you know. Other people are going to be raising the same questions.”

“I don’t care about other people,” she said with passion. “I care about my daughter.”

“And your other child, too, of course. The one you want for spare parts.”

She could have slapped his face. Instead she took a long drink of wine. It tasted bitter as gall.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a cheap shot.”

“Yes. It was.”

“But people will say worse things. About us. To us. And to our children.”

“I said I don’t care about other people. And what’s more, they don’t have to know. It’s none of their business.”

He blinked. He set his untasted wine on the mantel. He stared at her in disbelief. “They wouldn’t have to know?”

Her chin shot up. “I mean it. Why would they have to know?”

“Sweetheart, if you’re pregnant and you have a baby, somebody’s going to notice, I’ll guarantee you.”

“They don’t have to know how we did it. The center has a confidentiality agreement. Nobody else ever has to know.”

“And how do you explain this baby? Say we had a wild fling? And then we decided it wouldn’t work, but there’s a baby on the way, so what the hell, you’ll just go ahead and have it?”

“Why not?” she challenged. “People try to reconcile all the time, and it doesn’t work out. One of us got careless, I got pregnant. I wanted another child, so I had it.”

“Good Lord,” he said from between his teeth. “You’re something, you know that?”

“Isn’t it better?” she asked. “It’s a white lie, it’s not meant for an evil purpose. It’s just to protect us—all of us, the whole family.”

He picked up his glass and took a deep drink. “You should have been a lawyer. Your powers of equivocation are wasted on tomatoes.”

She ignored the gibe. “If the truth got out, it’d be a media circus. Other people have done this. They ended up being national news stories. Do you want that? Do you want it for Nealie? Or the baby?”

Suddenly he looked older, and more tired than she’d ever seen him. He rubbed his forehead. “The baby. You talk about this kid like he’s real.”

“He could be a she,” she said.

“Don’t change the subject.” He turned his back to her. He put his elbow on the mantel and leaned his forehead on his hand. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know if I can go through with this.”

Panic flooded her. “But you said—”

“I was in shock. I’m still in shock. None of this seems real.”

“Oh, Josh,” she said, her throat tight. “It’s too real. You’ve seen her. How little she is. How frail.”

He made no answer.

She said, “We have two choices. We can do nothing for her. Or we can do—this.”

He swore.

Desperate, she said, “It’s hard to accept, I know. It’s taken me two months to come to terms with it.”

She knew immediately she’d said the wrong thing. She saw the tension seize his body. For a moment he was as immobile as if turned to stone.

Then he dropped his hand from his eyes, straightened and turned to face her. “You’ve known about this for two months?”

“I—I guess I was—in denial.”

“Oh, please,” he said with contempt, “spare me the psychobabble.”

“If that’s the wrong word, I don’t know the right one.”

“My child’s seriously ill and you waited two months to tell me?”

“I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t believe it. I had to think about what to do.”

He glared at her. She knew she deserved it. Tears welled in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. Be as angry as you want. But take it out on me. Not her.”

He put his hand to his forehead again. “Look, I’m still on Moscow time. I’ve got jet lag. Denial’s a lousy word. But I understand what you mean. Maybe I can’t forgive, yet. But I understand.”

She knew what he felt—grief, fright, anger and a terrible sense of isolation. He was full of the same roiling welter of emotions that had overwhelmed her when she’d first learned. And he was clearly exhausted, as well.

“Oh, Josh,” she said. “you need rest. Let me give you the keys to the truck.”

He said nothing, just stood there with his eyes covered.

She rose from the chair, then stood behind it, clasping its back, unsure what to do. “I’d drive you, but I can’t leave Nealie alone. I—I could call Poppa. It’s still early. You could just walk over there.”

He shook his head no. “I don’t want the keys. I certainly don’t want Poppa.”

“Then…”

He dropped his hand and met her gaze. He moved to her with a quickness that belied his fatigue. His hands gripped her shoulders. “What I want,” he said, “is you.”

Then his arms were around her, and hers were around him.

They clung to each other so desperately it was as if they were trying to forge their two bodies into one. She wanted to be as close to him as possible.

“Briana,” he said, “oh, Briana.”

Then his mouth was on hers, as hungry and seeking as her own, and she was lost in her need for him.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE WANTED HER. He had always wanted her. But never this much and never this badly.

She was the only one who understood—who could begin to understand—what he felt for his child, the depth of it, the complexity, the pain, the fear. To hold Briana meant he was not alone, that there was one person who shared the unspeakable emotions that tore him.

Yet it was more. She was not just a person, she was Briana, and he loved her. Together they had created a child, and together, God willing, they might save her.

But it was all tangled together in his head, the looming terror of loss, the wild desire to fight for his daughter’s life and his sheer, aching physical need for not any woman, but this woman.

She felt the same for him. He knew she did. He could sense the need and yearning coursing through her body.

He took her face between his hands. Her skin felt soft and flawless as the finest silk. He kissed her so deeply it dizzied him. Behind his closed eyes, lights danced and exploded, dying into darkness, then exploding again.

“Don’t—” she whispered against his mouth.

“Yes,” he said, and when she turned her face away, he kissed the smooth spot beneath her ear.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t—please. Please.”

“I need you,” he said, his lips against the throbbing vein in her throat. “I need to hold you. Hold me. Be with me.”

She struggled to pull away. The movement seemed tinged with both reluctance and determination.

“Don’t,” she said for the third time, and to his despair, she seemed to mean it.

He gripped her shoulders. “We need each other. You know it. I know it. Let it happen.”

He tried to kiss her again, but she drew back, shaking her head. “We can’t. That’s not why I asked you here.”

His clasp tightened. “You said you’d tell people we had an affair. It doesn’t have to be a lie. Let that part be true.”

She refused to meet his eyes. He could feel her body turning more rigid. “It can’t be true,” she said. “We can’t do anything. For lots of reasons. For one, you—you’re supposed to—to refrain from ejaculation for now.”

She’d done it to him again. He was stunned. He could only stare at her, uncomprehending. “I’m what?”

She raised her face to his, her face defensive but stubborn. “Refrain. At the lab they’ll need to test your semen. They’ll want a good sample. And I’ll be taking fertility drugs. I have to. I have to—to give them multiple eggs.”

“Multiple eggs? You make yourself sound like the Easter rabbit.”

“Don’t laugh,” she warned. “I’m serious. We can’t make love. It’s what the lab ordered. We go Monday.”

His groin ached, and his head was beginning to hurt. “What about afterward?”

“No. I told you. I’ll be taking hormones. Something might go wrong. I won’t chance an accidental pregnancy.”

“I thought the point of me being here was that we have another child.”

Her chin quivered. “The point is that we have a healthy child.”

A slow resentment was rising in him. “You must have been damn sure I’d go along with doing it your way.”

“No. I wasn’t sure. I just prayed you would.”

“And what if I said let’s not do the bit with the lab and the mad scientists. Let’s have a kid the old-fashioned way.”

To his consternation, her eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t stand to take the chance. I couldn’t stand to have another child at risk the way she is. I’d rather die. You can call me a coward, but I c-couldn’t.”

She began to cry, and she was a woman who cried so rarely that the sight half-killed him. He understood her torment and hated himself for fueling it. “You’re not a coward,” he said. “Not you. Never you.”

He folded her into his arms, gently this time, making no erotic demand, only holding her and letting her weep. “We’ll do it your way,” he said. “You’re right. The baby will be safe. Shh. Our baby will be strong and healthy and fine.”

Our baby, he thought with a conflict of emotion that half-dazed him. We won’t make love. But we’ll have a baby.

At last her tears slowed, then stopped. She stepped back from him, shamefaced, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Maybe you needed to do it.”

“I’ll try not to do it again.”

He looked at her streaked face. “In all my life I’ve only seen two woman who could cry and still be beautiful. Ingrid Bergman—and you.”

She gave him a weak smile that made his heart twist in his chest. His desire for her hadn’t vanished. It intensified so keenly that it hurt.

“I should go.” He said it abruptly, but she didn’t look surprised.

She seemed to understand and nodded. “I’ll get you the keys.” She went to the kitchen counter, where her handbag lay.

To have something to say, he asked, “Did my package for Nealie come?”

She opened her bag, took out the keys. “Yes. I put it away for Valentine’s Day, like you asked. She doesn’t know it’s here.”

“Maybe I should give it to her tomorrow,” he said. “I didn’t have time to buy her much in Moscow. I’ll get her something else for Valentine’s.”

She came to him, dropped the keys into his outstretched hand. “Whatever you want,” she said.

He knew he needed to leave before the urge to take her in his arms again grew irresistible. He fingered the keys. “I’ll leave. For now.”

“Yes,” she said. “There’s more to talk about, of course.”

“Of course. What we tell Nealie about this. About the baby.”

“Yes. That’s the hardest part. But it’s late. And you’ve had a long trip.”

“Yeah.” At this point it seemed a thousand years long.

She walked him to the door. He wanted to kiss her goodbye. He confined himself to the lightest brushing of his lips against her cheek. She did not return the caress. She only gave him a small, pensive smile.

“So I guess it’s good-night,” he said.

“I guess it is.”

She opened the door for him. He paused halfway through it and turned to her again. “Call me as soon as Nealie wakes up.”

“I will,” she said. “Get rested. Do you remember the way to the motel?”

“I think so,” he said. He remembered. He had been back to it in his memory too many times to forget.

He closed the door and walked alone into the night.

BRIANA HEARD HIM drive off. Then she sat in the silence, rotating the stem of her wineglass and staring at the dancing flames in the fireplace.

She had not been surprised by the fervor of Josh’s embrace or the hunger of his kiss. Her eager response didn’t shock her. Perhaps it should have shamed her, but it did not.

In spite of everything, they still desired each other. And they both loved Nealie. Those two things would never change. Perhaps loving Nealie made them want each other more—pain sometimes needed the narcotic of touch, fear needed the consolation of nearness.

Briana put her hand to her temple, for it ached. She considered herself a simple woman whose life had become too complex. Josh was a wonderful man and a devoted father. She loved him, and he loved her in return, but they could not live together.

She loved this place, this farm, this work, and she could not leave it. It was her home, and her father needed her. The business could not survive without her. Her father could not survive without her. He was an unhealthy, absentminded man who, left to his own devices, forgot to take his pills or eat right or do his exercises.

No, Briana belonged to this place as surely as if she were one of the plants rooted here.

But Josh belonged nowhere, or else he belonged everywhere. The far places on the map called him, the siren stories chanted out for him come and help tell their tales, and he always went.

For five months he’d tried to stay on the farm, pretending to be a steady man committed to a steady place. He worked to learn a business foreign in every way to his nature. What he learned was to hate compost and pruning and predatory insects.

Then his agent had phoned with the irresistible offer to cover the trouble in Albania, and Josh had wanted to go. He wanted Briana to go and wait for him in Italy. Briana thought it all sounded too unsafe, especially with a baby on the way.

With horror, she realized her husband liked danger, that it tempted him with a lure just as strong as that of distant lands and exotic sights. Then her father had his heart attack. She could not leave him.

After that, the marriage swiftly unraveled. But their love for their daughter never changed. And the old undercurrent of desire that had drawn them together, that, too, stayed strong as ever. Briana had found that although pride was a cold bedmate, it was a safe one.

She rose to empty the wineglass and tidy the kitchen before she went to bed. She was emotionally exhausted, and Nealie would be up early, wanting her daddy.

Halfway to the kitchen, she heard a knock at her door. She turned and went to answer it. Her father stood on the little cement porch, a knitted cap pulled over his ears, a matching muffler wound around his neck.

“Poppa,” she said in surprise. “It’s cold. Why are you out?”

“I came to see if you were all right,” Leo said, stepping inside. He looked at her living room suspiciously, as if were somehow contaminated. Then he gazed studiously at the wineglass in her hand. “Does he have you drinking alone? I hope it’s not come to that already.”

Briana gave him a rueful smile. “I was about to throw it out. Do you want a glass for yourself? A cup of cocoa?”

He waved away the suggestion, then sat down heavily on the couch. He unbuttoned his jacket but didn’t take it off. He watched her go into the kitchen, pour the wine down the drain, then rinse the glass.

She turned to face him. “Make yourself comfortable, Poppa. Can I take your hat and coat?”

He shook his head, but took off his cap and held it scrunched in his fist. “I won’t stay. Like I say, I just came to see if you’re all right.”

“Of course, I am,” she fibbed.

“He stayed a long time.” Leo said, his tone unhappy.

“Not so long. He read Nealie to sleep. Then we talked a little.”

“He made you cry,” Leo said. “I can see the streaks on your face.”

She felt shamefully caught. She put her hand up to her cheek. “It’s nothing,” she said.

“What did he do to make you cry?” Leo demanded.

“Nothing. He did nothing.”

“Then what did he say?” Her father’s face was grim.

Briana sat in the armchair, trying to look as composed as possible. “He didn’t say anything. Really, Poppa, it’s—private. It’s not easy having a broken marriage. I’m sorry for Nealie, that’s all.”

Leo didn’t look as if he believed her. “He wants you back, doesn’t he?”

“No.” She bit off the word. “He doesn’t.”

“It would never work,” Leo warned her. “He’s not a man who’ll settle down. The roaming—it’s in his blood.”

“Poppa, you don’t need to tell me that.”

“He’ll certainly never make a farmer. Not him. Not that one.”

“He doesn’t want to be a farmer,” she retorted. “He’s a photographer, a world-class one. He’s got a gift, and it’s his duty to use it.”

Leo’s face turned sad. “He’s got a family. It’s his duty to stand by them.” He paused. “He doesn’t want you to come with him, does he? That wouldn’t be good for Nealie. All that moving around. She’s a delicate child. And this is the only world she’s ever known.”

Briana clutched the arms of the chair so tightly her fingertips were numb. “He hasn’t asked us to come with him.”

“That’s good,” Leo said, nodding. “This is the only family Nealie has. Josh has none to speak of.”

“No. He doesn’t.”

Josh had no one. He had grown up in a series of foster homes in Detroit. His mother had abandoned him when he was four, saying she was too sick to keep him. She died a year later of hepatitis. He did not know who his father was.

A difficult child, he was moved from home to home. He didn’t begin to find his way until he was fourteen, when he’d traded a stolen fifth of rum for a used camera.

No, Briana thought bitterly, Josh had no family, and why shouldn’t such a rootless boy grow up into a rootless man? The camera was his real soul mate, the great love of his life.

“I don’t know what I’d do if you and Nealie left us,” Leo said. “I guess I’d have to curl up my toes and die.”

An infinite weariness sank into Briana’s bones. “We’re not leaving. And he’s not staying. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Please.”

“Well, it bothers me,” Leo said, crushing his cap into a ball. “Every time he shows up here—every time he even phones, you moon around as if your heart’s half broke.”

“I do not.”

“And Nealie.” Leo rolled his eyes. “He goes away, and you’d think the sun had fallen out of the sky forever. It takes her days to get over it. The longer he stays, the worse she gets. So how long is he staying this time?”

“I don’t know.” That, at least, was the truth.

“Sometimes I think it’d be better if he never came at all.”

“That’s wrong. He loves her. And she loves him.”

“Indeed he does, and indeed she does. But it’s a painful thing to watch, that’s all I’m telling you,” Leo said.

“Poppa,” she said, “I understand how you feel. I really do. Just be civil to him, that’s all I ask.”

“Have I ever been less than civil?” he asked, his tone pained. “Have I ever so much as raised my voice to him? No. I even asked him to stop and stay with me. Well, he’d have none of it, and maybe it’s better.”

“Maybe it is,” she said.

He rose unsteadily to his feet. His arthritis must be bad tonight, she thought. “I’ll go,” he said, buttoning his jacket. “You’ll think me an interfering old man. It was only that I was worried. He stayed so late.”

“Not so late,” she said, coming to her father and adjusting his muffler.

He pulled on his cap. She walked him to the door. He put his hand on the knob, then leaned and kissed her brusquely on the cheek.

“Maybe this time you’ll get him out of your system,” he said. “Find a different man, a real family man. Have more children. You were never meant to have only one child, you know. That’s been my prayer many a time. To see you with another baby in your arms.”

He kissed her again and left. For a moment, she leaned against the closed door, hearing his last words echo in her head.

She put her hands over her eyes, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

THE BEDSIDE PHONE rang, and Josh picked it up immediately.

“Hi, Daddy,” said Nealie. “I just got up. Can you come for breakfast?”

He’d been awake since dawn, waiting for this call. He was showered, shaved, dressed, had been ready for an hour to go to her. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Panda.”

“Maybe you could take me to church.”

He set his jaw. He had never been the churchgoing sort. But he had expected this. “Sure, Panda. I’ll take you.”

“Hurry. Mama’s making something special.”

“I’ll be there in two shakes.”

“Bye, Daddy. I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby.”

He hung up the phone, stood and went to the bathroom mirror. He’d tried this morning to shave off the rest of his beard. The job hadn’t been a complete success.

The upper part of his face was burned and blasted brown by the Siberian snow glare and wind. The lower part seemed city pale in contrast, and he had nicked his chin in two places and his throat in one.

He tried to adjust the collar of his white shirt to cover the scrape on his throat. He wore a black tie, as well. How long since he had worn a tie? Months. Maybe a year. Maybe more.

He put on his parka and picked up his camera case and left the spartan little room.

BRIANA’S BROTHER, Larry, was sitting in his van in the motel lot, parked next to Briana’s empty truck.

Josh swore under his breath. He knew Larry was not there by accident or coincidence. He was waiting to talk, and from his face the conversation would be grim.

Larry got out of the van slowly and deliberately. He was a big man, four inches taller than Josh’s five eleven, at least sixty pounds heavier. He wore a down jacket that made his shoulders look as wide as an ox yoke.

“Hello, Larry,” Josh said. He did not bother pretending to smile.

Neither did Larry. He wore no hat, and his curling hair was like a dull gold flame under the gray sky. “I want to have a few words with you.”

“Fine,” said Josh.

“First,” Larry said, narrowing his eyes to a squint, “I want to know what you’re doing back in Illyria.”

“I came to see my daughter.”

“If you’d stayed here, you could see her all the time,” Larry said.

That’s none of your business, you moron. But Josh tried to quench the flare of his anger. Larry was Briana’s brother, and although she knew his shortcomings, she was protective of him and loved him. He was family.

“I wish things had worked out differently,” Josh said, and this he meant.

“We all do.” Larry’s words came out in a plume like a dragon’s breath.

Josh said, “I hear your family’s growing. There’s going to be another addition. Congratulations.”

“Yeah. And my kids know one thing for sure. I’ll always be there for them. I won’t never go gallivanting off and leave them.”

You’ve got your job, bullyboy. I’ve got mine. Step aside before I want to break your self-satisfied face. Josh kept his expression impassive. “I’m due to meet Nealie. She’s expecting me. Have you had your say?”

Larry stepped more squarely in front of him. “I hear you made my sister cry last night.”

Oh, hell, Josh thought in exasperation. “She didn’t tell you that.”

“No.” Larry crossed his big arms. “My pop went over there last night to make sure she was all right. He said she’d been crying. You’ve got no right to make her do that.”

The blood banged in Josh’s temples. What could he say to this man that wouldn’t widen the breach between them, make everything harder than it already was? Once again, he tried to push anger aside. “I would never willingly hurt your sister. I would cut off my right arm before I’d knowingly cause her pain.”

“You wouldn’t have to cut it off,” Larry said. “Because I’d tear it off. I mean that. You ever hurt that girl again and you’ll answer to me.”

He put out his ungloved hand and pushed Josh’s chest. It was a slight touch, but full of warning. He brought his face closer. “Understand?”

When Josh was growing up in Detroit, if anybody had been foolish enough to push him, the guy would have gotten a mouthful of shattered teeth. Josh was smaller than Larry, but he knew he could flatten him.

What he did was harder. He held up his hands as in a sign of peace. “I understand,” he said. “And I don’t want trouble with you. You’re Briana’s brother and Nealie’s uncle.”

“You remember that,” Larry said. But he stepped aside.

LARRY’S VAN was faster than Briana’s old truck. He beat Josh to the farm by five minutes. When he walked in the door of his house, his wife gave him a disapproving look.

“Well,” she said. “Did you find him?”

“Yeah,” Larry said. “I found him, all right.”

Larry had gone hunting for Josh Morris with a sense of righteousness. He had convinced himself the man was a threat to his sister’s happiness, his father’s health and his family honor.

His father had phoned last night, upset that Briana had been crying. Leo had fretted and dithered and worked himself into a state.

Larry loved his father, but he knew Leo was not a confrontational man. He would never be able to face down somebody like Josh Morris. Larry considered himself the real man of the family, and it was his duty to protect his father and his sister. If he didn’t, it was a blot on his manhood and a blow to his tender self-esteem.

This morning he had risen early. He had watched Briana’s house, waiting for the lights to go on. When Nealie was awake, she would want her father to come, so as soon as Larry saw her bedroom light flicker into life, he’d gone to meet Morris one-on-one.

Glenda crossed her arms over her softly swelling stomach. She was a lovely blond woman, but lately she looked worn. He supposed it was just her pregnancy, some woman thing like that.

“Well?” She said it with a peculiar edge of aggression in her voice.

“Well what?” Larry asked, hanging his jacket on its hall peg.

“What did you say to him?”

Larry turned to face her, feeling smug, the top dog. “I told him never to make my sister cry again. That if he hurt her again, I’d rip his arm off.”

She looked pained. “You didn’t really say that.”

“Yes, I did,” said Larry. “Where are the boys? I’m ready for breakfast.”

“I let them sleep late. I wanted to talk to you.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “So? Talk.”

“I told you last night what I thought. You didn’t pay any attention. I laid awake a long time thinking about it. You should stay out of your sister’s business. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

Larry bristled. “It’s got everything to do with me. It’s family, dammit. He made her cry.”

“You don’t know why she cried,” Glenda argued.

“Because he hurts her feelings,” Larry said. “He gets her all upset.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s what Pop thinks. And you know Briana. She’s not the crybaby type. She fell out of a tree once when we were kids and broke her arm. She didn’t even sniffle.”

Glenda thrust out her delicate little jaw. “Maybe she’s crying because she still loves him. She still cares for him, you know. You can see it—if you’d look.”

“She shouldn’t care. He’s no good. He went off and left her once.”

“He’s not a bad man, Larry. He loves his child, and I think he still loves Briana.”

“He’s not one of us,” Larry returned.

“That means he’s different. It doesn’t mean he’s bad.”

“She’s my sister. I’ll decide what I think is good or bad for her.”

Glenda crossed her arms more tightly. “Let them make their own decisions. In short, Larry, you should butt out.”

He blinked. This was unlike Glenda, who was usually so adoring, so compliant. “Hey,” he said. “Whose side are you on, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m starting to think it isn’t yours.”

She turned her back and walked away.

“Hey!” he said again. “What is this? And where’s breakfast? Haven’t you even got coffee made?”

“Make it yourself,” she said and walked out of the room.

He stared at her, his mouth open in stupefaction.

NEALIE FINISHED her breakfast because her daddy told her to. Briana sat at the table across from Josh, her chin resting in her hand. He was good with the child, so good.

He looked weary but, to her, still handsome. He had shaved off his beard, and it made him look younger, but his sideburns were tipped with silver that hadn’t been there when he’d visited last.

“And now,” Josh said, “if you’ll promise to eat a breakfast like that every day, I’ll give you a present.”

Nealie’s expression was excited, yet tinged with conflict. “But, Daddy, sometimes my tummy feels funny. And I’m not hungry.”

“I know,” he said. “But you could try. You could remember your promise and try, couldn’t you?”

Nealie’s brow puckered. “Yes. But if I couldn’t eat everything…”

“The important thing is you try, okay?”

“Okay,” she said solemnly.

Josh turned to Briana. “You know where that present is, don’t you?”

She smiled and nodded, rose and went to the pantry. From the top shelf she took the tattered package with its Russian stamps. She carried it to the table and set it beside Nealie’s empty plate. “Daddy sent this. It came a few days ago.”

“Wow,” Nealie said, staring at the exotic stamps. “What is it?”

“Open it and see,” Josh said.

Nealie’s small fingers struggled with the taped box, and finally Briana helped her. She had no idea what the package held.

At last Nealie lifted the flaps of the box. She stared inside at something beautifully white and furry. “What is it?” she repeated.

Josh gave her a cryptic smile. Nealie opened the box. Inside was a pair of boots like none Briana had ever seen. They were white as cream, with dark leather soles and ornamental insets of brown fur at their tops.

“They’re from the Khanty-Mansiysk district in Russia,” Josh told Nealie. “They’re made of reindeer hide, sewn with deer sinew. A white hide like that is special. It’s for someone specially loved.”

Nealie held the boots and looked at them with pleasure and awe. But then a shadow crossed her face. “This was a reindeer?”

“That’s how the Khanty people live,” Josh said. “They herd reindeer. For over five thousand years they’ve taken care of the deer, and the deer take care of them. The deer are grateful so they give them food and clothing and hides to make shelter. A woman named Vika made these for you. She said they’d keep you warm all winter long. That the spirit of the forest would protect you from the cold.”

“They’re beautiful,” Nealie said, stroking the thick white hair. She kicked off her slippers and pulled on the boots. “Can I wear them to church?” she asked Briana. “Please? Can I?”

“Yes,” Briana said, smiling at how the girl wriggled her feet and stared at them in admiration. “But run and change your clothes. Wear your brown pantsuit. They’ll look good with that.”

“Wow,” Nealie said, sliding out of her chair. “Nobody I know has boots clear from Russia. Thank you, Daddy.”

She gave Josh a smacking kiss on the cheek then clomped happily up the stairs, enjoying the sound of each boot step.

Together they watched as she disappeared into her room. Josh gave a sigh of mock relief. “For a minute, I thought I’d goofed. I’d become a purveyor of murdered reindeer.”

“She has leather shoes,” Briana said. “So do I. I thought you explained it nicely.”

“Spend a few months in Siberia, you forget about political correctness.”

She rested her chin on her hand again and studied him. “You never were a great one for political correctness, as I recall.”

“I don’t want to make her unhappy.”

The only way you make her unhappy is when you go away, Briana thought, but she said nothing. Instead she rose and said, “I’d better clear this off and get ready for church.”

She reached for his empty plate, but he clasped her wrist gently and held it. “Briana?”

She looked into his eyes, which were serious. “Yes?”

“Larry came to see me this morning. He doesn’t want me to make you unhappy, either.”

She made a sound of exasperation. “Oh, why does he have to put in his two cents? This is none of his business. Not at all.”

“No. It’s ours.”

“That’s right,” she said, feeling a surge of defiance. “And it’s only ours.”

“Other people won’t feel that way,” he said, stroking her wrist with his thumb. “Not when they find out there’s a baby on the way.”

“I don’t care what people think.” She believed this. She had convinced herself of it.

“You’ll stand against them all if you have to?”

“Yes.” She spoke without hesitation.

“And you’ll do it alone?”

“I can handle it. I know I can,” she said. She prayed that this was the truth and that she had the strength.

He stood, sliding his hand down to lock with hers. He took a step nearer. “You don’t have to,” he said. “I’ve thought about it.”

Her flesh tingled at his nearness, but she did not move away. She felt she must stand her ground. “I’ve thought about it, too. I can do it.”

“You don’t have to face it alone,” he said, his voice quiet. “Briana—marry me. Marry me again.”

CHAPTER FIVE

HIS WORDS struck her like numbing blows, and his nearness overwhelmed her.

“No,” she said, her throat constricted. “I’d never ask you here for that. Never.”

“I know that,” he said. “But think about it. It’s best for everyone.”

She shook her head to clear it. “No. We didn’t get it right before. We—we just can’t live together.”

He bent so close she felt the warmth of his breath on her lips. “We don’t have to. Who says it has to be a conventional marriage?”

She stared at him, bewildered. “You mean it wouldn’t be real?”

Something flashed deep within his eyes—something he immediately shuttered. “Sham? If that’s how you want it.”

“I can’t—” she began.

But Nealie came stamping importantly down the stairs in her new boots. “I love these,” she declared. “I feel like I’ve got big furry rabbit feet. Like Bugs Bunny.”

Briana wrenched her hand from Josh, and he took a step backward.

But Nealie had seen. She stopped halfway down the stairs. Behind her big glasses, her eyes widened, and her face looked both hopeful and perplexed. “You were holding hands. Do you like each other again?”

“I’ll always like your mother,” Josh said. “I hold her hand once in a while. Like she was—my sister.”

“Oh, Nealie,” Briana said, desperate to change the subject, “you’re sweater’s buttoned all crooked. Let me fix it.”

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