Chapter 9

The lantern light in the barn told Andrea that Jesse was still there, doing whatever it was he did out there 'til all hours of the evening. She let the faded gingham curtains slide back over the window.

What was it he did out there every night, anyway? Was he cleaning tack? Mucking stalls? Or was he simply avoiding her? The last seemed most likely. She was long in bed by the time she heard him come in from the barn most nights. Frankly, tonight she was lonely and wished for someone besides a three-week-old baby to talk to. Zachary was sound asleep in the drawer beside the fireplace where she let him sleep in the evenings.

She glanced at the half-eaten blueberry pie sitting on the shelf. Jesse hadn't gotten a piece of it tonight. He'd excused himself after wolfing down his food and gone to the barn. She'd baked it especially for him, though Silas had, at least enjoyed it.

On impulse, she cut a generous slice and slid it onto a plate. Checking her reflection in the darkened glass pane of the window, she lifted the lighted lantern that hung just outside the kitchen door, and made her way to the barn.

Awash with a million pinpricks of light, the velvet night sky domed over the land. Croakers chorused down by the banks of the creek with a steady hum. The familiar sound made Andrea's throat tighten as she made her way through the shadowy darkness. Willow Banks was home. Her home—as much a part of her as that baby sleeping inside. The thought of losing it was too awful to contemplate, and she thanked God for sending Jesse Winslow home to help her save it.

Slipping inside the double doors of the barn, she heard the sound of sandpaper rasping against wood and Jesse's voice. The mules shifted restively in their stalls, shuffling the straw at their feet. Jesse's appaloosa snorted over the cribbed door of his stall in welcome. Andrea moved silently to the door of the tackroom, listening for a moment.

"I know, I know," Jesse was saying. "You'd rather be off chasing females." The sound of rasping sandpaper again. Who was he talking to?

"It won't be long. Neither one of us was meant to be tied up to this place," he went on. "You'll have to put up with that rope for a while longer though. Andi just doesn't understand about you. Doesn't understand me either, for that matter," he muttered.

Andrea pressed her back against the wall and listened to Mahkwi's yawning whine of agreement. A smile crept to her mouth at the idea that Jesse spent his evenings in the barn talking to a wolf.

"What do you think about this tree?" Jesse asked after a few seconds. "Too big? Too small?" He sighed. "I guess it'll put her in mind of a willow, more or less."

Curiosity overcoming wisdom, she stepped into the tack room, the piece of pie clutched in front of her.

"Hi."

Jesse jumped along with Mahkwi, who had seen her a split second before his master. "God Almighty, Andi. You shouldn't sneak up on a man that way." He pulled a tarp up over whatever he was working on.

"I wasn't sneaking," she retorted, trying for a look at it anyway. "I just came to bring you a piece of pie."

He eyed the slab of blueberry pie hungrily as she handed it to him. "Thanks. You didn't have to do that."

She shrugged, circling around him, her feet crunching the fragrant straw-littered floor. "I wanted to."

Mahkwi, on her feet, wagged her tail as Andrea drew closer to her. She reached for the animal's ears and gave her a short scratch. Mahkwi leaned into her hand.

"So..." Andi observed, moving to the tarp covered object in the middle of the room and running a curious finger over it, "this is where you spend your evenings."

Jesse nodded, his mouth full of pie.

She glanced around the tack room, noticing how orderly he had made it. Reins, traces and whips all cleaned, polished and hung from spanking-new hooks in the wall; the broken saddle-trees had been repaired and sported freshly cleaned saddles; his own and her seldom-used sidesaddle. The room smelled of saddle soap and wood shavings.

And, of course, of Jesse.

"I must say, you've made good use of your time. The tack room hasn't looked this clean since... well, since Zach left."

Jesse cleared a box-full of tools off a pile of grain sacks. "Here, have a seat."

"Thanks."

He settled one hip against an empty saddle tree and took a bite of pie. "M-mmm. Oh... this is good."

A ripple of pleasure stole through her. "It used to be your favorite."

"Still is." He shoveled in another mouthful and moaned with pleasure. "You sure know how to bake a pie, Andi."

She smiled. "I suppose pies are few and far between in Montana."

"They opened up a mechanical bakery in Virginia City. But their pies don't compare with this." He looked up at her and shook his head. "What are you doing still up, Andi? I thought you'd be in bed by now."

She scrutinized her fingernail avoiding his eyes. "Oh, I don't know. I just felt like some company. You're always out here at night working on..." She frowned at the tarp-covered object. "What are you working on?"

He mumbled something with his mouth full of pie.

"Pardon?"

He swallowed, looking sheepish. "It's... uh, not finished."

She folded her arms across her chest. "What is it?"

"Well, it was going to be a surprise."

"A surprise? For whom?"

"For you. And for little Zachary."

Indeed, surprise skittered through her. Her eyes widened with excitement. "Oh, Jess, show me now."

With a grin, he slipped the tarp off.

Andrea sucked in a breath at the sight of the nearly completed cradle. Wide and perfectly formed, it had hand-carved slats of maple, each the gentle shape of a slender leaf. In the headboard he'd carved a tiny willow tree, its leafy branches gracefully brushing the ground. She was struck speechless.

With one finger, Jesse gave the cradle a push and set it to rocking. "Like it?"

"Oh, Jesse—" She moved closer, running two hands along the smooth grain. His gift moved her more than she could say. "It's... it's beautiful. No, it's more than beautiful. It's—it's a work of art."

He laughed and buried his fingers in the thick fur at Mahkwi's neck as the wolf brought her head up under Jesse's palm. "I don't know about that..."

"I do," Andrea said. "I've never seen anything so fine. And for a baby."

"Not just any baby," he reminded her. "My nephew."

"Is this what's kept you out here late nights? I thought... that you were just avoiding me."

He shot a guilty look at her that told her she hadn't been that far off the mark. She watched as he fitted the long strip in his hands against the slats on the right side. It seated perfectly against the wood.

He knelt down to inspect the fit from underneath. Andrea's mouth went dry as she watched his shirt pull across his back, defining his hard physique. The lantern light poured over his back, burnishing his dark blond hair and casting a golden glow over the deeply tanned skin on his arms. A rush of desire tore through her so unexpectedly she leaned instinctively against the door behind her.

Unaware of her perusal, he went on. "I've been working on it in my spare time. I found the old cradle, the one Ma used for me and Zach, hanging up in the loft. Dry rot had gotten to it." Standing, he shoved his hands in his pockets. "The baby's outgrowing that drawer fast. I figured he needed a proper bed."

She traced her fingertips over the carved willow tree. "You're talented, Jesse. I never knew you could work with wood."

"Neither did I until I left here. A friend of mine taught me, an old French-Canadian trapper, Antoine Devereaux. I lived with him and his son, Creed, for several years up on the Wolf Creek in Montana Territory." He shrugged. "Antoine taught me many things about myself I didn't know. Including how to wield a carving knife."

She realized then how little she knew about what had happened to Jesse since he'd left. "You haven't told me much about your life out there."

Jesse pulled a rag from his pocket and wiped his hands on it. "I didn't think you'd be interested."

Her lips parted in surprise. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I know how you feel about Montana."

"Oh? And how's that?" Andi rested her gaze on the wolf who had edged closer to Jesse, laying her head on her huge paws.

"You haven't made any secret about it, Andi."

She lowered her eyes and smoothed out a wrinkle in the blue calico of her dress. "I never said I hated Montana. How could I hate a place I've never seen?"

Jesse merely grunted in reply, but he could think of a reason or two. He tightened his fist around the rag. His reluctant gaze roamed over the dark braid that fell across her shoulder and molded to the shape of her breasts. It seemed lately that whenever he looked at her, something hot and tight coiled inside him. Some... longing that didn't exactly resemble what he'd ever felt for other women. It went deeper. Clawed at him in a way that called out for her touch.

He shook off the thought, turning them back to her question.

He'd been here just over a month and already his memories of Montana were dulling around the edges.

With an effort he called them back; the mountains, violet and red with lupines and wild paintbrush; the Pikuni maidens balancing water paunches on ropes around their shoulders, elkskin dresses clinging to their thighs. Nights of freedom around a Blackfoot campfire; the rush of his blood at the sale of his winter pack.

Other memories came up too: the lonely isolation of the endless winters living along his trap lines; his craving for the sound of a human voice or worse, a woman's touch in the frigid dead of night. All these things he'd felt and more. But they had passed, just as the feeling he got when he looked at Andi in the lantern light would pass.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, focusing on the pie plate in his hands.

She fingered the wood carving speculatively. "What was it about Montana that you loved? Was it the mountains? The wildness?"

"Yes," he said to all of it. "I loved the mountains. Summer, winter... they're like nothing you've ever seen, Andi. So high and craggy, full of shadows and light. Brimming with stories to tell. And every day, different. No two alike. I guess that's what I loved best."

"I'd like to see it someday."

"You would?" He had a hard time hiding his surprise.

"Why wouldn't I? I've never been anywhere farther than the Ohio River in my life."

The lantern light played across her features, reminding him of the girl he'd left behind. She wasn't that girl any more.

"It's not really a place for a woman. It's a hard life out there. Too hard, according to my friend Creed, for a woman."

"Creed?"

"Devereaux. He's a friend. A good friend."

She studied him thoughtfully. "I'm glad to hear you had a friend. I suppose I pictured you alone up in those mountains. A mountain man."

A smile curved his mouth. "A man can get lost up there. He can lose himself up there."

"Did you?"

"Maybe," he said. "For a time." He wiped his mouth with the napkin she'd brought for him and handed her the plate. "Thanks for the pie," he said. "It was good. Real good."

She took it. The look on her face said she knew she was being dismissed.

"I'll, uh, bring the cradle in as soon as it's done. Tomorrow probably."

Andrea nodded with a tentative smile. "Zachary will love it. So do I, Jesse."

His eyes clung to hers for a long beat and he fought down the urge to do more than just send her off to bed, alone.

"'Night, Andi. Don't wait up for me. I'll be out here late." He bent over the cradle again, drawing the sandpaper across the already smooth wood.

"'Night, Jesse."

He listened to her footsteps as she walked away from him, and he hardened his heart against the regret that welled deep inside him.

* * *

Jesse stood watching the sun melt below the horizon, casting the field of freshly shocked wheat in vermillion. Stacked four deep and each sheaf covered by a 'top hat' of two more sheaves, the shocks reminded him of golden mushrooms sprouting from the soil. Rain clouds scudded low across the sky, trumpeting a coming storm. They'd gotten the wheat shocked just in time. Jesse exhaled with a sigh of contentment.

Every muscle in his body ached. Not, he realized, with his usual resentful tension, but with the good ache of a hard day's work. He couldn't remember ever feeling such satisfaction in all the years he'd been farming. Perhaps it was because for the first time, he'd had no one standing over his shoulder telling him how to wrap the wheat twists around the shocks or break the heads back on the top hats. With instinct born of long experience, he knew how to shock a field of wheat. And for the first time, he'd done it his way.

He'd sent Silas in for supper over an hour ago, when Andi had rung the supper bell. Now Jesse's own stomach reminded him that he'd gone too long without food.

Picking up his tools, Jesse called Mahkwi and made his way toward the house. The wolf led the way, sniffing the ground as if she were going to find some new scent that had not been there before. From a distance came a sound that brought Mahkwi's head up with a snap. Wolves. A pack of them. Their haunting sound pricked at Jesse's skin and reminded him of nights around a Montana campfire. He glanced down at Mahkwi. She took three steps in the direction of the howls and stopped.

"What's the matter, girl?" Jesse asked, breaking the spell.

Mahkwi's fervent gaze darted back to Jesse. Not for the first time, Jesse realized how out of place a wolf-dog was on the farm, and how, like himself, she must long for the freedom of the mountains. Yet, the dog part of her remained loyal to him. She was a half-breed, belonging to neither side, fitting in like a square puzzle piece in a round hole.

Like him.

"You want to go with them, huh?" he murmured, sinking his fingers into her fur.

Mahkwi whined, and nudged his hand.

"I know... I know," he told her as they made their way across the field to the house.

The kitchen lamp spilled light onto the porch. Jesse stepped inside. A moment of disappointment filtered through him to find the kitchen empty. Supper warmed in a pot at the back of the stove. The fragrance of stew and warming coffee filled the spotless kitchen. One place setting awaited him on the table, complete with bowl and spoon and a towel-covered plate of freshly baked bread.

He took an extra bowl from the shelf, scooped some warm stew into it, then blew on it to cool it. He set it down on the floor and, with a look over his shoulder, let Mahkwi in the door. Grateful, the wolf trotted in, sniffed the air, and made a beeline, not for the stew but for the clothes basket parked near the stairwell.

"Now, where are you going, Mahkwi?"

Jesse followed her to find her nearly nose to nose with Zachary, Mahkwi's tail swishing eagerly from side to side.

"Whoa, whoa," Jesse said, his heart giving a little leap, knowing Andi's worries about the wolf.

Zachary cooed with complete unconcern.

"What's this?" Jesse asked, reaching into the basket for the baby. He lifted Zachary into his arms while Mahkwi sniffed at the baby's feet with a female's curiosity.

"Hi ya, Corncob. What are you doing in here all by your lonesome? Where's your ma?"

Zachary smiled broadly showing toothless gums and reached for Jesse's hair. The smile tugged at Jesse's heart. Gathering Zachary to him, he ducked his head into the parlor to find that empty, too.

"Andi?"

No response.

With a frown, he stood for a moment, confused. "Well, looks like it's you and me, kid."

Zachary curled his tiny fist around Jesse's ear. He laughed. "You got your daddy's grip, boy. No doubt about that." He took the child's hand in his and spread his fingers flat. "Your daddy's hands too. A farmer's hands."

The baby filled his arms with delicious weight. He'd never thought much of babies before Zachary.

Never given a thought to having one of his own. Having delivered Zachary himself, he couldn't imagine feeling more like a father to a child than he did this one.

A dangerous thought, he warned himself. But he allowed himself the luxury of soaking in Zachary's smiles while no one was watching and enjoying the soft pressure of his small body against his shoulder.

Andi came through the kitchen door and gasped. "Jesse Winslow!"

Mahkwi seemed to know she was the object of Andi's distress and her ears drooped guiltily.

" She's practically got one of his feet in her mouth!"

Jesse shook his head. "She's just curious about him. She's not going to eat him. She's gentle as a—"

"—wolf." Andrea sighed, then relented. She reached out for the wolf's fur and scratched her behind her ear. Then she reached for Zachary and cradled him against her shoulder. "All right then, sniff. But... gently."

The animal's ears shot up and she shuffled closer to the baby, sniffing and snuffling the baby's toes. Her pink tongue darted out slightly from her mouth and she gave the tiny toes a lick. Mahkwi gazed up at Andi and thumped her tail against the floor.

Jesse grinned. "There. See? That wasn't so bad."

Andrea shrugged, trying not to smile. "All right. So, she's growing on me."

Mahkwi thumped her tail again.

"She's been working hard at it," Jesse said. "Guess she's decided you're not too bad either."

"Truce?" Andi said, petting the wolf. "But only if one of us is with Zachary. Clear?"

"Clear. Where were you? I couldn't find you."

Andi gestured with a jerk of her head toward the privy out back and Jesse colored. There were a hundred things she needed to do every day, made all the more difficult by having a baby. Alone.

"I left a plate for you on the stove," she said, looking suddenly weary. "Did you eat?"

"Thanks. I will. You go on up to bed. You look bushed."

She nodded. "Did you finish the wheat?"

"It's all shocked. We got it in before the rain."

"Good." She looked like she might say something more, then changed her mind. "Well, then, goodnight, Jesse."

"See you in the morning."

She nodded and headed up the stairs, alone.

* * *

It rained the next day, and the next, but Andrea saw little of Jesse except when he came in for meals. The weather kept him out of the fields, but he spent his time in the barn, straightening out months of disorganization, cleaning rust off neglected plows, and setting things to right. But he made a habit of coming in before she rang the bell for meals to play with Zachary, leaving her hands free to get food on the table. She appreciated those moments, not only because she so desperately needed them, but because she enjoyed seeing the light shining between Jesse and her son.

Several nights later, Andrea jiggled a crying Zachary against her shoulder, desperately wishing she could find a way to comfort him. Nothing seemed to help; not food, not a clean napkin, not the lullaby she'd given up on after the tenth verse.

Her eyes blurred with tears of frustration in the dim lamplight. She couldn't make out the time on the bedside clock but by the absolute darkness outside her window, she knew she was still hours away from dawn. Exhaustion pulled at her like a heavy cloak and she wished more than anything to lie beneath the covers of her feather bed and sleep undisturbed for a day, or two, or three.

The colic that kept Zachary wakeful at night never seemed to bother him in the light of day. For that at least she was grateful. But after nights of experiments, she found that nothing short of time and her steady pacing around her small room would soothe him.

"Shhh-hh, darlin', Mama's right here," she crooned. Comforted for a brief moment, the baby snuffled tiredly against her shoulder, clutching her thin nightgown in his tiny fist. "Hush, now and go to sleep. You're so tired and so is Mama."

Did all new mothers have so much trouble comforting their children? A weepy breath hitched her chest. Whatever made her think she could do this alone? she wondered disconsolately. Maybe Jesse was right. Maybe she wasn't up to the task. Oh, how she wished Zach were there to hold her, tell her everything would be all right again as it had been once.

But it was Jesse's face that swirled in her mind.

She paced, trying to shut out his image. Her throat burned like she'd swallowed lye and an ache swelled in her chest. The War had stolen Zach from her. The damnable war with its flagrant disregard for the heartbreak it left behind. It had snatched from her the only true solace this world had ever given her, save those early years she'd had with Jesse.

But even they had been a lie. She'd been nothing more than a stop along the way for a man bound up in his dreams and his anger with his past.

She squeezed her eyes shut, allowing the breeze drifting in from the open window to caress the dampness on her cheeks. Still, she was afraid. Afraid of being completely alone; of managing the farm without a man... without Jesse. And worse, she feared the one who'd left the note hanging on her underthings when no one was watching.

She stopped at the window, staring down into the dark yard. The fact that she could see nothing gave her little comfort. Zachary's crying had descended into whuffling breaths and she felt him relaxing against her damp shoulder. Despite the compact warmth of him there, Andrea felt more alone than she'd ever felt in her life. She laid the baby down in the fine cradle Jesse had built, and blessedly Zachary snuggled into his bed without waking.

For a long time she stood rocking his cradle, watching her newborn son sleep. Tears, quiet and heartfelt, welled up spilled down her cheeks. She climbed into bed and buried her face in the pillow to muffle her sobs.

What she wanted more than anything was for someone to put his arms around her and hold her, tell her it would be all right, that she could do it.

She was dangerously close to believing she could not.

* * *

Jesse rolled over in the dark and looked at the clock on his bedside table—2:30 a.m. Upstairs, little Zach wailed inconsolably and Jesse heard the floorboards squeak under Andi's pacing feet.

He groaned and slid his calloused hands under his head. He was getting used to this. Though he was quiet as a lamb during the days, Zachary had yet to sleep through the night. In fact, Jesse often found himself awake automatically at feeding times listening for the baby's first stirrings. He often lay awake listening for Andi to stop pacing the floor above him with the baby, to climb back in that big bed of hers and fall asleep.

Sometimes, long after that, he would stare at the ceiling, listening to the sound of his own heart thudding in the darkness, and imagine her there in that pale muslin nightgown he'd seen her in once. Or worse, he'd imagine himself there beside her.

He stayed away from her at night. Some unspoken agreement between them had drawn that line between propriety and common sense. Days had fallen into a routine that mimicked family life, he mused. They moved around the place as if they belonged there together, the three of them. But it was only an illusion.

On top of totally caring for the baby, Andi cooked, cleaned and put up vegetables from the garden, and though she denied it, grew visibly more exhausted each day. He and Silas sweated out in the fields, repaired fence rails, and ate the food she cooked for them.

Etta still stopped by now and then; she baked pies and bread, more now out of friendship than necessity. At night Jesse worked out in the barn until dark. Then he and Andi went to their separate rooms and, wisely, stayed there.

He sighed. Yes, what they had resembled a family life, but they weren't a family. And all of them knew it.

Jesse turned an ear to the ceiling again. The baby had stopped crying. He heard Andi stop pacing, then the creak of the ropes as she climbed back into bed.

Slapping the pillow, he dug his cheek into the softness, intent on finding sleep again. He lay there for a few minutes with his eyes closed before he recognized the other sound he heard coming through the floorboards overhead: this time, the muted sobs weren't little Zach's, they were Andi's.

Jesse sat bolt upright in bed, straining to hear the sound. She was crying softly as if her heart would break. Anger rolled through him that he hadn't seen it coming. Exhaustion, loneliness, fear of losing her home, and no doubt grief over Zach's death, had caught up with her.

Without thinking it through logically, he got out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants. His only thought was to go to her, comfort her, make her hurting stop.

He walked barefoot through the kitchen and up the stairs, avoiding the squeak on the third step through old habit. At the top of the stairs he stopped to listen. Behind her closed door, he could still hear her crying, though the sound seemed even more quiet than it had in his room. It was more of a snuffling sound. Jesse's hand poised on the doorknob.

Should he knock? Should he call out to her? Should he just go in and gather her up in his arms? Tell her everything will be all right? That's what he wanted to do.

He felt the truth of that vibrate through him.

But he might as well tell her the moon was blue. What good was comfort from a man like him anyway, when his embrace might hurt her more than help?

Besides, he thought, slipping his hand off the doorknob, he wouldn't be doing her any favor exposing her now at her most vulnerable. That's why, you dolt, she chose to hide her tears from you.

Feeling a fool, he turned to go. The sound of her door opening behind him stopped him in his tracks.

"Jesse," she whispered. "I heard a noise and I—what are you doing? It's the middle of the night."

"I—" He fumbled for an excuse.

"Is something wrong?"

His eyes searched hers in the dark. "Are you all right?"

She sniffed and pulled the door shut silently behind her, staring at him through the darkness.

"I'm... fine."

"The walls in this house aren't very thick, Andi. I heard you crying."

In silhouette, he saw her reach up to run the back of one hand over her cheek, heard her hesitation. "I... I wasn't crying."

"Yes, you were. What's wrong?"

The velvety silence of night surrounded them, insulated them there in the dark hallway.

"Andi?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" She gave an annoyed sniff. "What if I was? If I feel like blubbering into my pillow in the dark I suppose I should be able to do it without an interrogation, shouldn't I?" She turned on her heel and reached for the doorknob. He stopped her with one hand.

"Andi, wait. Maybe it is none of my business, but I don't like to see you upset like this."

His touch sent heat spiraling up her arm and she tried to pull away. "You're right. It isn't any of your business. But if you must know," she lied, "Isabelle said it's quite normal for new mothers to have crying spells. That's all it is."

Jesse reached for the bowl of wooden matches on the hall table, struck one, and lit the oil sconce hanging on the wall. The golden light flared, illuminating the hallway. To his regret, her thin cotton gown became nearly translucent in the light. But Andi was looking at him wide eyed the same way he was looking at her. He became acutely aware that he'd forgotten to put a shirt on as her gaze flicked down the length of him. But his shirtless condition wasn't what really shocked her.

"Jesse," she said breathlessly. "You shaved."

Jesse ran a hand over his freshly shaven jaw. "Oh, that." He'd nicked the hell out of his face tonight, a direct result of his lack of practice with a straight razor. "Yeah, I decided you might be right about the beard. It served a purpose in Montana, with the cold nights and all, but here it's just a nuisance."

Her gaze roamed over him. A ragged breath hitched her chest. "It looks... good."

"Thanks." He was thinking the same thing about her hair, lying across her breast in an auburn plait. His blood stirred to the rhythm of his thudding heart. He thought of her only minutes ago, crying as if her heart was broken. Now, only a redness around her eyes and nose betrayed her. But that was enough to make him want to reach out and protect her from that kind of pain.

She eyed him critically from several angles, then gave him a small smile. "I see you still have dimples."

"I do not," Jesse denied with an adamant frown.

"Do so."

"Never. Dimples? Come on."

"Always did. Right here"—she reached out and traced a finger over the dent in his cheek to prove her point—"and... and here." Her teasing grin faltered at the sudden heat in his eyes.

"Ah..." he added, grabbing her hand away from his sensitive skin, "...and the nicks. Don't forget the nicks."

Their eyes locked for the space of two heartbeats. "Well, you'll have to be more careful next time, won't you?"

He nodded slowly, without taking his eyes from hers. "Much more careful." His gaze moved to her mouth. Dangerous, was his only thought. Damned dangerous to be looking at her this way.

Close enough to feel the heat of his body, Andrea's every instinct told her to pull away from him. But she didn't. No—couldn't. He held her there with those blue eyes as surely as did his hand. She ran a tongue across her suddenly dry lips, wondering if he was going to kiss her. Wishing he would, hoping he wouldn't.

Could he hear the wild beating of her heart? The sound of it in her own ears drowned out everything else. It had been a mistake to come out in the hallway. After she'd seen it was Jesse, she should have just closed the door. Now he was so close, she could feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric of her gown. So close she felt her nipples bead and harden in response.

Jesse watched the tip of her tongue dart out to wet her full lower lip and felt his control slipping. He reached up with the hand holding hers and ran a knuckle over the smoothness of her cheek. A tremor went through her, but he wondered if the reaction was his instead. Damnation.

"Andi," he said low, "if I kissed you now, I'd have to stay. You know that."

Through a fringe of dark lashes her amethyst eyes glittered. "Do I?" she whispered back. "It never stopped you before."

The truth stung. "That was then."

"And now?"

"Now, you're my little brother's widow. The mother of his child. And I've got a life waiting for me out in Montana."

She pulled her hand from his. An unexpected bitterness welled in her throat. "Oh, I see. I suppose you expected me to wait for you."

"No. No I didn't."

"But you didn't expect me to marry your brother."

"It doesn't matter." Turning away from her, he stared blindly down the stairs.

"No? What did you expect, Jesse? That I would pine for you for the rest of my days? End up an old spinster? Did you think I'd wait forever for a man who never even bothered to write to tell me he was still alive?"

He turned on her. "If I'd written I—" He faltered, then changed tacks. "I'm glad you married. Glad even that it was Zach. He was crazy about you, even back then."

"You're afraid to kiss me, aren't you?" she taunted.

"What?"

"You're plain scared."

He glared at her. "Of what?"

"Of what you're afraid is still between us."

Outside the hall window, the crickets filled the empty pause as Jesse's eyes skewered hers. "Friendship. That's all that's still between us, Andi."

She lifted her chin. "Maybe. But you'll never know will you?" She took a step toward him.

"Andi, this is not a good ide—"

"Afraid to know?" she asked, arching one dark brow. "Maybe there is nothing. Maybe all that's left is a memory."

Damn it to hell, Jesse thought, why didn't she leave well enough alone?

"You married my brother," he said in accusation.

"Yes, I did."

"And you loved him."

Her eyes didn't flicker. "Yes... I did."

He felt like the worst kind of bastard to be jealous of whatever happiness Zach and Andi had found together. Nevertheless, anger was the only emotion he could allow himself to feel right now. Anger that she would push him so far. Anger that he was, in fact, afraid to be pushed.

Reaching a hand out, he slid it into the hair at the damp nape of her neck and pulled her roughly closer, closer until her body was flush with his. Instinctively, she grasped his arms to keep herself from falling. There was no fear of that. His steely grip said he wouldn't let her go.

"And what if memory's all there is?" he asked.

"Then we'll know, won't we?"

He dropped his mouth an inch away from hers, but still didn't kiss her. Andi's eyes were wide with fear, or expectation, he didn't know which. Her heartbeat fluttered against the wall of his chest like a bird's. Her scent drifted up to him—a heady combination of lilac water and soap—testing his resolve.

Oh, hell. Whether it was her taunt or his own mixed-up emotions guiding him, he couldn't let her go. He'd prove to her once and for all there was nothing left between them. And then she'd let him go.

"You want me to kiss you, Andi Mae?" he asked, his mouth a whisper away from hers. She didn't answer, only stared up at him, her eyes filled with silent challenge.

He dropped his head down slowly, slowly, until his lips brushed hers with the most platonic of touches. Her mouth was unexpectedly soft and pliant, her lips warm and sweet as honey. His body tightened all over and he lingered there for a moment longer than wise. Lifting his head he glared down at her with a look that said, "There."

Her closed eyes fluttered open with an accusing gleam. "Coward."

He exhaled sharply at her taunt. He was a coward, damn him. "All right. You want a kiss?"

He crushed his mouth against hers then with all the pent-up emotion coiling inside him. He kissed her hard, grinding his lips down on hers to prove... hell... to prove himself wrong. To prove her wrong.

There was no gentleness to his kiss, Andrea thought, not even kindness. When his arms tightened around her, capturing her, she fought down a moment of panic. Another man, a darker one, rose up like specter in her mind. Fighting down the picture, she opened her eyes. No, this was Jesse, she reminded herself. Jesse. Not... him.

Andrea's mouth slanted under his, opening at the insistence of his. Their breaths mingled and she felt her insides dip and plunge like a cork on water. Her heartbeat raced along the edges of her nerves, awakening some long-dead desire from deep inside her.

Invading her mouth, his tongue sought hers, then lashed the smooth surface of her teeth. Andrea tightened her arms around him, seeking to draw him closer, closer to her. His skin was smooth and hot beneath her touch as she slid her hands up his shoulders and beyond, to the silky thickness of the hair at his nape. Her fingertips raked his scalp.

A ripple of surprise went through him as she met his tongue with her own, exploring the rough texture of it the way he had discovered hers. From somewhere in his throat came a sound of need. He deepened the kiss, the anger suddenly gone from his embrace. Pulling her closer, he spread one hand across her hip until her body was flush against him as flame on a burning ember. He was strong and hard and she could feel his wanting through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

Jesse's tongue danced with hers, the tune as familiar as the one on the old music box that sat in the corner of the parlor. She remembered the taste of him, the shape of his mouth, the way it fit with hers like no one else's ever had. His hand slid intimately up the curve of her ribs to cradle the fullness of her breast. Like a river current, his touch swayed her, stole the strength from her knees, and eddied inside the very depths of her.

Here in the darkness, her body answered his the way it always had, despite the years that had slipped away between them, despite the fact that only weeks ago she'd had Zach's child.

Oh, Jesse, Jesse, why did you ever leave me?

As if he'd heard her thought, Jesse pulled away from her, lifting his head only inches from hers. His breath, ragged and harsh, caressed her cheeks. His eyes, stunned and troubled, probed hers in the dim light. He swallowed hard as he set her away from him. His breath came as hard and fast as hers.

On a husky laugh, he raked one hand through his long hair. "Damn..."

"Yes," she agreed on a shaky breath.

He jammed his fingers into the tight back pockets of his Levi's. "So what does that prove?"

"For one, it proves you've haven't forgotten how to kiss since I last saw you." She saw in his eyes, he remembered only too well how good it had once been between them. Her thudding heart remembered it, too.

"I was hardly a monk."

"Nor was I," she replied pointedly.

"So, how do I compare?" Defensiveness edged his voice.

For an instant, she wondered if that could possibly be jealousy she glimpsed in his eyes. Zach and she had been husband and wife in every sense of the word of course, but never, in all the time they were together, had he made her tremble all over the way she was right now. She glanced down, unwilling to give him that admission with a look.

"That's hardly a fair question, Jesse."

"I suppose not. But I must admit I'm curious. After all he was my little brother."

"What difference could it possibly make now? Zach's dead."

He regarded her for a long moment. "No difference. Because what just happened between us was no more than just that. A kiss."

"A simple kiss," she affirmed.

He shifted in annoyance. "So, what's two?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said, for one, I've haven't been a monk. What's your second point?"

She shrugged. "That should be clear, even to you."

"What just happened between us only proves that I'm a healthy man and you're a healthy woman."

Her mouth tipped upward at one corner. "It proves that whatever else you feel for me," she said, turning the brass and porcelain knob on her door, and stepping into the shadows, "indifference has no part in it. Goodnight, Jesse."

She disappeared into her room, leaving him on the landing alone. He ground his teeth together, knowing she was right. Dammit! She was always right. He turned down the wick on the hall lamp and blew out the flame. He knew, too, that it was time to start putting his plan into action, before it was too damned late for either one of them.