Chapter 8

It took Drew a week to make up his mind about hiring Cassie—seven miserable days of riding patrol in raging blizzards, of relieving half-frozen sentries, of struggling with balky horses, cantankerous men, and surly officers. It was a full seven nights of smoking cigars in the howling wind, of painting until the lamps burned low, of standing and watching his daughter sleep.

McGarrity's idea made perfect sense—if Drew took Cassie on, Meggie would have someone to care for her, and Cassandra could make a living for herself. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why committing to that was proving to be so difficult.

He finally arrived at the major's quarters late in the afternoon of the seventh day. Sally McGarrity fluttered like a schoolgirl when she found him at her door.

"How lovely to see you, Captain Reynolds!" she exclaimed and ushered him in.

Drew stepped gingerly onto the worn rag rug before the door, stomping the snow off his boots before he moved beyond it.

"Goodness me! Hasn't this weather been terrible?" Sally chattered as she went about hanging up his hat and overcoat. "Cassandra and I have been all but housebound. But then, there are piles of mending to do. I'm convinced that every soldier in the fort dropped off something that needs a button or a patch."

"The laundresses or the tailors should be taking care of that, ma'am," Drew offered earnestly.

"Oh, yes, Captain Reynolds, I know. This all belongs to Ben, but I swear he's the most careless man—" She glanced up at Drew and colored prettily. "But then, I don't suppose you came by to talk to me about needlework, now did you, sir?"

Drew smiled and inclined his head. "It's always a pleasure to pass the time with you, ma'am. But I admit I was hoping to have a word with Cassie Morgan."

Sally led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house. Cassie glanced up from her sewing as they came in. At the sight of him, a bloom of pink rose in her cheeks.

She was beautiful sitting there by the fire. She wore a princess-style gown of deep wine red, and the sleek knot of her honey-brown hair shone in the lamplight. With the shadows hiding the tattoo, she might have been some proper young matron from back in the States who had never so much as seen an Indian.

"Good afternoon, Cassie," Drew greeted her.

"Good afternoon, Captain Reynolds."

"How have you been?"

"Mrs. McGarrity and I have been keeping busy."

Drew turned his most charming smile on his hostess. "I wonder, Mrs. McGarrity, if I might have a word with Cassandra in private."

Sally's face immediately brightened. "Why of course you may! I have some letters I've been meaning to write. If you need me, just sing out."

As the older woman disappeared in a flurry of rustling skirts, Drew settled himself in the chair Sally had vacated. Now that the moment to make the proposition was upon him, Drew felt a sharp, inexplicable kick of nervousness.

"I—I was wondering," he began, "if Major McGarrity showed you the answer to the telegram he sent to Kentucky inquiring after your relatives."

"He showed me," Cassie replied, never glancing up from her stitches. "He showed me the one from Philadelphia, too."

So the major had tried to track down Cassie's mother's kin. By the sound of it, he'd had as little luck locating them as he had her Morgan relations.

"I was wondering if you'd made any plans."

"For my future?"

The discussion was starting out the way their previous one had, only this time Drew didn't intend to get sidetracked. "I know that as accommodating as the McGarritys have been, you'll eventually want to move on from here. I thought if you were ready to make that decision—"

Cassie's fingers stilled over the cloth on her lap, and she slowly looked up. "You made it quite clear the other evening, Drew, that beyond a certain friendly concern, you didn't much care about my future."

He felt the color come up in his face. "I didn't mean to imply that what you do doesn't matter. We've known each other all our lives, and I can't help feeling responsible..."

She let out her breath in a hiss. "You don't need to feel responsible for anything where I'm concerned."

Having her absolve him didn't help. "What I mean to say, Cassie, is that I want you to come and work for me."

She blinked twice in what appeared to be genuine surprise. "Work for you?" she echoed warily. "Just what is it you want me to do for you?"

"I need someone to look after Meggie," he told her. "The officers' wives were wonderful to her when we first arrived, and Lila Wilcox has done her best since then. But I need someone permanent, someone I can count on to care for Meggie for a year or two, until she's old enough to go to school back East."

Cassie looked at him long and hard, then deliberately turned her head so he could see the star-burst tattoo. "And you're willing to entrust your daughter to me?"

Drew stared at her a moment, then averted his eyes. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"

Cassie hesitated and flushed. Her chin came up in a gesture of challenge that any fool would recognize. "Well, I did once steal from the sutler's store."

Drew had been appalled when he heard what she had done. He'd been ashamed for her, outraged at how morally corrupt Cass had become after her years with the savages. He'd said as much, and Jalbert had taken him aside to explain how Indian traders put things out for their customers to steal, that what Cassie had done was a natural mistake.

"You don't intend to steal from him again, do you?" Drew finally asked.

She shook her head with such vehemence that her earrings danced.

"I'm not making this offer lightly, Cassie," he went on. "What I want is someone kind and caring to look after Meggie. After all that's happened, she needs security, someone she can count on to be there to feed her and wash her and put her to bed. She needs to have someone to hold her when she cries, someone to play with her and teach her things. I can't be a soldier and do that, too."

"Does soldiering mean so much to you?"

Drew didn't even hesitate. "It means everything."

"More than Meggie?"

"Yes."

"More than anything else in your life?"

"There isn't anything else in my life. There isn't room for it," he answered honestly. "And you know why I feel the way I do."

Her expression darkened.

Drew took a breath and began to lay out his requirements. "I'll be needing you to keep house—do the cleaning and the wash, see to securing our rations, and cook the meals.

"I can't afford to pay you much, but I'll give you room and board. You'll have to stay in my quarters once I leave on maneuvers, anyway, so it seems silly for you to pay rent somewhere else. We can curtain off the kitchen the way the McGarritys have, so you'll have a little privacy."

Drew felt better now that he had it all laid out. "You've always liked children, Cassie. You'd be good at this. Will you accept the position I'm offering?"

Cassie hesitated so long Drew wasn't sure what to think.

"No," she finally answered.

Drew stared at her, heat creeping up his neck. "What do you mean, 'no'? I'm offering you a place to live and a way to earn your keep. It's a hard, cold world out there, Cassie, and jobs are scarce." He didn't say that jobs would be especially scarce for a woman like her.

"I don't want to be your housekeeper."

Drew scowled in exasperation. "Then what in hell do you want?"

She focused those cool, clear eyes on him. "I want to be your wife."

Drew couldn't have been more stunned if she had pulled out a pistol and shot him. "You want to marry me?"

She nodded. "You're willing to hire me to do the things wives do. Wives cook and clean. Wives take care of a man's children—"

"Wives share a man's bed," he countered, and pushed to his feet. "I'm not asking you to do that!"

He filled the silence with his pacing, his bootheels rumbling on the wooden floor.

"If I live in your house," Cassie told him softly, "I think it will end up like that."

"The hell it will!" he thundered.

Yet even while the denial was on his lips, Drew found himself imagining what it would be like to have her warm and willing in his bed. To share deep, sultry kisses and caress her. To thrust himself inside her and feel those long, slim legs around him. To know that every time they did that, he was taking some Indian's leavings.

"I swear to you, Cassie, if you agree to live in my house, I won't so much as touch your hand."

She looked at him, looked into him, looked through him. "After last week, I don't believe that's something either of us can promise. And besides, it's not the only reason I want to marry you."

He eyed her uncertainly, trying to imagine what was going on inside her head. Was she going to tell him she loved him?

"What's the other reason?" he demanded.

"I need somewhere to belong." There was a starkness to the declaration, an obdurate insistence that booked no doubt. "When I realized no one was going to rescue Julia and me from the Kiowa," she tried to explain, "I did my best to make a place for myself. I did the same when I was traded to the Cheyenne. It's how I survived.

"Now that I've been returned to the whites, I have to make a place for myself again. I know that won't be easy because of the way I'm marked." Cassie drew a shaky breath, as if what she intended to say were hard for her. "If I lived with you—even if we never touched, never so much as kissed—everyone would believe I was your whore. They would mark me in a different way, in a way that would be even harder to overcome. I would never be able to make a place for myself when Meggie left and you had no further need of me."

Drew opened his mouth to speak, but Cassie went on. "If you married me, I would be a part of something, part of your and Meggie's lives, part of a family."

What Cassie wanted was really amazingly simple—a home where she could feel safe and people to love her. Wasn't that what everyone wanted?

Everyone but army captains bent on revenge.

Drew dropped into the chair beside her and rubbed at his eyes. What would it be like coming home to her, sitting across the table from her as they ate their meals, watching her holding Meggie? What would it be like to have Cassie in his bed?

Once when they were young, Drew had been able to envision scenes like those, to imagine how sweet marriage between them could be. Now Cassie wanted him to pick up the shards of those broken dreams and make a new reality.

As if he could go back.

As if she could.

There was no question what marrying Cassie would cost him. He would forfeit the respect of other army officers, perhaps even their trust, and advancement through the ranks. But then, he'd never had the hankering for stars on his collar. All he'd ever wanted was blood and glory—and vengeance.

"Please, Drew," Cassie offered softly. "I know it can't be the way it was between us when we were young, but please don't ask me to settle for less than I deserve."

Dear God, what did she deserve?

More than she had. More than she was likely to have if he turned her away.

Sitting there in Sally McGarrity's cozy kitchen, Drew found himself wishing Cassie had never come back. He had convinced himself that she was dead. He had grieved for her. Why wasn't that enough?

She made him remember what it was like to lie helpless when she and Julia needed him, to see that their hands were bound and stained with blood, to know that two shots from his revolver could set them free. If he had been able to reach the pistol, if he had been able to aim the gun and pull the trigger, Cass wouldn't be here now, bringing back memories to torment him.

For a long, desperate moment Drew stared into Cassie's pale, marked face and wondered which was stronger, his guilt or his fear. But then, he had always known the answer.

Drew was trembling inside when he reached across and took her hand. "Would you, Cassandra Morgan, do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

* * *

Hunter stopped just outside the big double doors of the cavalry stable to watch Cass plow toward him through the snow. She was like some bright angel, some fancy he'd dreamed up while riding alone across the vast, wintry prairie. The hood of her faded cloak framed a mass of honey hair he wanted to rub between his fingertips and a face that was all the more arresting for its blatant imperfection.

He grinned in greeting and wondered if she'd missed him.

"Well," Cassandra Morgan said, huffing a little with the exertion of stomping through the drifts of snow, "you took your damned time getting back from Fort Laramie, Alain Jalbert!"

Hunter blinked at her in astonishment. "My God, Cass, you're speaking English! And cussing, too. How did you make so much progress while I was gone?"

"I didn't have much choice," she admonished him.

"No, I suppose you didn't," Hunter murmured, sorry all over again that he'd been ordered away.

"I did fine while you were gone," she said with a touch of pride. "If you'd been here to help, I might not have remembered so many English words so quickly."

That was probably true, and he was unduly pleased she had managed by herself. He was pleased with Cassandra Morgan for a good deal more than that, everything from the way she'd stood up to Ben McGarrity that first day to the deep, sweet curve of her lips. The fatigue of his long, cold ride melted away just seeing her smile.

"So why were you looking for me?" he asked, hitching his saddlebags and his war club over one shoulder and turning toward the friendly camp and the tepee that was his home.

Cass fell into step beside him. "I've come to ask for your help."

"My help?" he asked, teasing her. "It seems you've gotten on extremely well without my help. What do you need?"

"I want you to teach me how to be a soldier's wife."

Hunter stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her. "A soldier's wife?"

"I'm marrying Drew Reynolds at the end of the week."

Hunter's knees wobbled as if someone had landed a sucker punch. "You're marrying Captain Reynolds? Captain Drew Reynolds?" The man who hates Indians? The man who could barely touch you the day you were exchanged?

"Yes, I am," she answered, a hint of defiance in her tone.

He told himself he shouldn't be surprised. He'd watched Cassie and Drew that day at headquarters. He'd seen how they looked at each other. He'd sensed the intensity of the bond between them. This news that they'd picked up where they left off years before shouldn't leave him feeling so hollow inside. It shouldn't make him want to grab Cassie by the shoulders and shake her hard. Make him want to rip off Reynold's head.

He curled his lips in what would have to pass for a smile. "Well then, I suppose congratulations are in order."

If Cass had heard the contradiction in his tone, she ignored it. "Thank you," she said.

"Isn't this marriage a little—sudden?"

"I suppose it is. But Drew and I were promised years ago."

How old could either of them have been back then? Sixteen? Seventeen? Even if they'd loved each other with all their hearts, a world of things had happened. Monumental things. Life-changing things.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" It's none of your goddamned business what she wants. "You aren't just marrying Captain Reynolds because—" Hunter hesitated, "well, because you don't know what else to do?"

He saw a dull red stain creep into Cassie's cheeks. "Drew needs someone to care for his daughter," she told him a little too carefully. "I need to secure my place if I'm to live among the whites."

Hunter stared at her, wondering if it was possible to "secure a place" anywhere. He never had. He'd been an outcast among his half brothers and half sisters in the big house in St. Louis, a stranger among the Arikara when he'd gone back to his tribe, and a misfit in the Confederate Army. Being a respected scout came as close as anything to belonging somewhere. Still, he understood how needing acceptance could push her into this.

"Have you thought—" he began and stopped himself, wondering what he was about to ask. Had she thought about how driven Reynolds was, how much he hated Indians? How difficult life with him was bound to be?

Had she thought about marrying him instead?

That idea shook Hunter even more than the announcement of Cassie's nuptials. He had never once considered taking a wife.

"Thought what?" She turned those wide, pale eyes on him.

In spite of standing out in the snow, Hunter went hot all over. Flushed and feverish and panicky.

"Have you thought," he fumbled, "that marrying Drew Reynolds might not be everything you expect it to be?"

"Few things are what we expect," she answered coolly. "And a marriage between us serves both our purposes. Still, I want to be a good wife to him, the kind an officer needs."'

The kind of wife Drew Reynolds needed and Cassandra would make were miles apart.

Hunter did his best to squirm out of the obligation. "Why haven't you asked Sally McGarrity to teach you what you need to know?"

Cass ducked her head. "Not everyone on the post approves of Drew marrying me, and because they think Sally brought us together, some of the women—"

"Alma Parker," Hunter guessed.

Cass flushed and nodded. "She's gone out of her way to make things..."

"Difficult?" So Alma Parker opposed the match. It was the first time he and Alma Parker had agreed about anything.

"Will you help me learn what I need to know?" Cass looked up at him, her eyes wide and soft with trust.

Trust he'd wanted so much to win. Trust that damned him as surely as stealing from the poor box.

The anger came again, so strong he couldn't see.

"Let me get this straight," he drawled around the hot, bitter knot twisting in his throat. "You want me to teach you things an officer's wife needs to know—things like how not to get caught stealing from the sutler's store?"

He saw the pain flare up in her eyes and had never felt more like a bastard.

In spite of his gibe, Cassie Morgan held her ground. "You understand the differences between my life with the Cheyenne and the one I'll be living with Drew," she insisted. "You know how these women behave, and the mistakes I might make. You could teach me the things I've forgotten about living among the whites."

Hunter stood, his muscles taut, his fingers clamped tight around the saddlebags. "You can't just slip back into the life you left nine years ago."

"Because I'm marked."

"Damn the mark!" he thundered at her. "You can't go back because you've changed. You've changed not so much in the ways that show, but in the ways that don't. The way you are, the way you think, the things you believe."

"What do you mean?"

Hunter tried to breathe more deeply, to still the tremors racking his insides. He didn't want to be part of this. He didn't want to help Cass Morgan be a better wife to someone else. Still, he didn't seem able to deny her.

He nudged the hem of her skirt with the toe of his boot. "What are you wearing under there, Cass? Are you wearing those bright, shiny lace-up boots Sally gave you, or are you wearing moccasins?"

The color in her cheeks deepened. "The shiny boots hurt."

Hunter gave her a stiff-lipped smile. "I imagine they do. I'll warrant Sally McGarrity's boots hurt, too. And Alma Parker's boots and Sylvie Noonan's boots, but they wear them anyway. It's what ladies do. They suffer to be fashionable, even out here, because they believe that maintaining certain standards of gentility is important. They wear corsets that constrict their breathing and skirts that drag in the fire..."

"I'll get used to the boots," she promised him.

Hunter shook his head. "Will you? Well, perhaps you will. But you miss my point. Because you spent nine years with the Indians, you won't ever again see the world as a white woman sees it. You've learned to deal in practicalities. You'll always see what is, when your white friends will see what ought to be."

"But I'm white," Cass insisted blindly. "I lived among the whites a whole lot longer than I lived among the Indians! I'll learn to think like a white again."

Hunter looked into her pale, determined face. If by sheer resolve a person could make a place for herself, Hunter would have bet money on Cass. But succeeding wasn't up to her.

This was a world where authority ruled and rank had its privileges, where being different was held in the gravest contempt, and sense and sensibility were held in low esteem. It was a world where men with Reynolds's prejudices used Indian women for their pleasure and expected their wives to be inviolate. It was a world where Cassandra didn't stand a chance.

"Oh, Cass," Hunter sighed, unbearably weary all at once. "If you're determined to marry the captain, I can't stop you—"

"But you will not help. You're not going to teach me what I need to know to succeed as an officer's lady."

Hunter knew that if he denied her help, he would be severing the bond between them. It was a connection he was loath to break—a fine, sweet, profoundly uncomfortable connection that meant more to him than almost anything else.

"It's been my observation," he said, measuring out his words, "that success in marriage depends a good deal more on who you are and what you believe than on what you know. But if you're determined to rush headlong into wedded bliss with Captain Reynolds, then I wish you every happiness."

She must have known he lied.

As he turned toward his tepee, his bed, and the solitude that seemed suddenly so appealing, she stood and shouted after him. "I will make Drew a proper wife. I will be an officer's lady. I will make a place for myself here at the fort!"

"Not in a hundred lifetimes, Cassandra," Hunter murmured, and hoped he was wrong.

* * *

Only a fool would be afraid of a four-year-old, Cassie chided herself as she made her way along Officers' Row through the falling snow. After what she'd survived these last nine years, the prospect of spending the afternoon with Meggie Reynolds shouldn't turn her all quivery inside.

Drew had made it clear that they would be married regardless of how his daughter responded to her, but Cassie knew things would be better for everyone if she could win Meggie's trust.

Cassie had come fully armed to do that. A drawstring bag full of surprises dangled from her wrist, and Sally had helped her make a plate of fried cakes dusted with sugar. Cassie figured no child could hold out long against a plate of sweets.

Cassandra knocked for a good long while before the door to Drew's cabin creaked open. Lila Wilcox peered out at her.

"What do you want?" The woman's hostility wafted toward Cassie on the smell of bleach, naphtha, and strong lye soap.

"Drew told you I was coming to pay a call on Meggie this afternoon, didn't he?"

Lila hesitated and scowled. "I suppose he might have mentioned that."

"Then do you think I can come in?"

Lila opened the door in grudging acquiescence, and Cassie stepped inside. Meggie stood peeking at her from behind the blind of Lila's ample hip.

Cassandra hunkered down to greet the little girl. "Hello there, Meggie. It's good to see you again. I hope you like surprises. I have several in my sack, and they're just for you."

Having set the bait, Cassie rose and shifted the plate of fried cakes from hand to hand as she removed her cloak. Lila huffed, hung it on a peg to the right of the door, and led the procession into the kitchen.

In spite of Lila's presence in the cabin, there were no woman's touches here. The table was bare except for a slate and piece of chalk. A pitiful collection of tin plates and mugs, a pitcher and a few chipped crockery bowls sat on open shelves. The rough wood floors were unadorned.

Cassie remembered the thick furs she had spread over the ground cloth in Gray Falcon's tepee. There had been bright blankets on the cots, paint and embroidery decorating the inner lining of the tent, parfleches and other colorful objects stacked here and there. How much cozier that had been than this.

Still, there was an ornate rocker pulled up before the fire, with a colorful quilt draped over one arm. Cassie walked to the trestle table and set down the towel-draped plate of fried cakes.

"Whad's in 'ere?" With one fist jammed in her mouth, Meggie's words were all but unintelligible.

"I made some good things for us to eat," Cassie said, hoping to coax Meggie closer. "I thought you and Lila and I could have a party."

The little girl eased out from behind the older woman's skirts and looked up at her for permission. Still radiating disapproval, Lila nodded that having a party would be all right.

"Ca' we hab tea?" Meggie asked around her hand.

"I'll put the kettle on," Lila said, and went to do it.

While Lila puttered at the fire, Drew's daughter looked Cassie up and down. Cass settled on one of the benches beside the table and let her. She'd always thought that making friends with a child was a lot like taming a wild animal. You had to wait for them to make the first move.

Eventually Meggie did, taking the fingers from her mouth and coming closer. "What's that on your face?"

Cassandra might have known it would be the first thing Meggie would ask about. "It's a tattoo."

"Can I touch it?"

Cassie nodded and sat stone still while small, spit-wet fingers traced first the circle and then the star burst that radiated from it.

"How'd you get it?" Meggie asked.

"The Indians put it there."

"Does it rub off?" the little girl asked, stroking experimentally. Meggie's fingers left dampness in their wake.

"No."

"Did it hurt when they put it there?"

"It hurt a lot."

"How did they do it?"

"Meggie!" Lila admonished from where she stood spooning tea into the pot.

As if Meggie suddenly realized how close she'd come, she took two steps back. "You must have been bad for them to do that," she said. "You must have been very bad for them to want to make you so ugly."

Though it was hardly the first time Cassie had heard that sentiment expressed, the words lodged like arrows in her heart. She told herself that they were the defensive words of a frightened child, that Meggie hadn't meant to hurt her, but excuses never helped.

"I tried to run away," Cassandra admitted after a moment. "That's why the Kiowa marked me."

She didn't tell the wide-eyed child that it had hurt far more to be considered Little Otter's property, to know that once the women had tattooed her, she would carry the mark of her servitude for the rest of her days. With the tattoo marring her face, she could never truly belong to herself again. That realization sliced more deeply now than ever before because she wanted so much to make a new life with Meggie and Drew.

"It's not good to run away," Meggie pronounced solemnly.

"Sometimes it is," Lila corrected her, breaking into the conversation from across the room. "Sometimes a body needs to run—when there's danger or something's hurting too bad to do anything else."

Cass looked up, surprised by the woman's defense. But before Cassie could thank her, Lila had turned back to the fire.

"Looks to me like this here tea is ready. Does that mean we can find out what kind of treat Miss Cassandra brought you?"

With a smile and a flourish, Cassie flipped back the towel she'd put around the fried cakes to protect them from the snow.

"Oh, I do like fried cakes!" Meggie exclaimed, settling herself at the table and waiting for the women to do the same. "Don't I, Lila?"

Though there wasn't all that much conversation as they ate, a good deal of the constraint Cassie had sensed when she arrived had evaporated. Lila was gentle and firm with her young charge, correcting her when she tried to dunk a piece of fried cake into her milk and tea. She encouraged Meggie to talk about the snowman all the laundresses' children had built earlier in the week, about how she was learning to write her name, and about how her father sometimes let her ride up in front of him on his big bay horse.

While Lila was clearing the plates away, Cassie dug into her bag of tricks. She bypassed the top the major had whittled, the paraphernalia she'd brought to play the moccasin game, and pushed aside the ball of string and the big black buttons for making "hummers."

At the bottom of the bag was the doll she'd been working on all week. She had fashioned it from doeskin—stuffed the body with batting, embroidered eyes, a tiny nose, and a rosebud mouth. She had attached thick, pale skeins of horsehair clipped from the tail of the major's palomino and dressed the doll in a blouse, a jacket, and a skirt made from scraps she'd found in Sally's rag bag.

With a pleasant feeling of pride and anticipation, Cassie took out the doll. The little girl didn't seem to have many toys, so surely she would welcome—

"No-o-o-o!" Meggie howled when she saw the doll. "No! No! No-o-o-o!"

Cassie's bright hopes turned to ashes in her chest.

"Meggie, look," Cassandra said as calmly as she could. "She's a nice dolly."

The little girl slapped at her, nearly knocking the doll out of Cassie's hands.

"No-o-o!" she screamed.

"Meggie," Lila interceded. "Meggie, all Miss Cassandra wants is to give you the doll. Won't you take it?"

"No!" she howled again, tears spilling from those big gray eyes. "I don't want it!"

Lila hitched Meggie up onto her hip. The child clung to her like bindweed. "What's the matter, dumpling? Why don't you want the doll?"

"Mama," she sobbed.

"You want your mama, sweetheart?" Lila asked, trying to interpret the child's distress. "You know that your mother has gone away to live with God in Heaven. Your papa has explained all that."

"Mama," Meggie wailed.

"What about Mama?" Cassie asked.

"Mama's not in heaven. You shrinked her!" she accused before burying her face in Lila's neck.

Lila and Cass exchanged startled glances.

"Of course I didn't shrink her!" Cassie began. But then, seeing the color of Meggie's hair, Cass could well imagine that Laura Reynolds's might have been this same pale, white-gold. It was because of Meggie's fairness that Cassie had asked to clip the strands from the tail of the major's horse.

"The doll wasn't meant to look like your mother," Cassie went on. "It was supposed to look like you."

"Then—" Meggie snuffled, glaring at Cassie from one red-rimmed eye, "then why is she—she wearing Mama's dress?"

Her mother's dress? Cassie thought back to the fabric she'd used. It had come from a pretty but well-worn gown. One, now that she stopped to consider it, that would have been far too small to fit Sally McGarrity's more generous curves. Was it possible that she had inadvertently used a length of cloth that had once belonged to Laura Reynolds?

"I'm sorry," Cassandra said, feeling her own throat tighten. "I—I didn't dress the doll like your mother on purpose."

"How do you suppose that happened, then?" Lila challenged, speaking loudly to make herself heard above Meggie's wailing.

Cassandra told her.

"Good Lord! Do you really think that's it?" Lila's big, rough-skinned hands were rubbing circles on Meggie's back.

"I can't imagine anything else. Drew must have given Sally his wife's old things."

"And to think Captain Reynolds told this poor little tyke that once he married you, you'd be taking her mother's place."

"Is that what he told her?" Cassie gasped. "Then what must Meggie be thinking?"

Going around behind Lila, Cassie tried to look into Meggie's face, tried to take her hand. Meggie mewed at her and curled up tighter in Lila's arms.

"Meggie," she began, trying to think what was most important to say, "I want you to know I didn't do anything to make your mother go away. I haven't come to take your mother's place. I will be marrying your father. I will be coming to live in this house. But all I want is to be your friend.

"I'm going now, and I'm taking the dolly with me. I'll keep her safe for you. If you decide you want her, all you have to do is ask. All right?"

If she expected any sign that Meggie had understood, Cassie was destined to be disappointed. She tucked the doll into her bag and quickly gathered up her things.

Lila waited as Cassie flung on her cloak. "I'm sorry about this," she said, her voice gruff and deep.

"No sorrier than I am," Cassie answered.

"Meggie's a good child, really," the laundress continued. "Coming all this way, losing her mother, not having anyone to count on has been hard on her."

"I imagine it has."

"I think you marrying the captain will be good for her—for her and the captain both. They're two lost souls."

Cassie had sensed that somehow Drew had lost his way. She just wasn't sure she was the one to guide him back.

"You have a good heart," the laundress continued, surprising both of them with her candor. "Just keep in mind it takes time to make a difference in someone's life."

Cass looked into Lila Wilcox's eyes and saw unexpected acceptance there, understanding, and what might be the beginning of a friendship.

Cassie gave Lila one of her rare smiles. "That sounds like good advice," she said. "I'll do my best to take it. And, Lila, thank you."

"I just want to see them happy," Lila said, opening the cabin door for her to leave.

"So do I," Cassandra assured her. "So do I."