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She sat propped up amidst a billowing mirage of grayed pillows. Her straight blond hair was pulled deftly to one side, where it cascaded over her shoulder like a length of moon-spun silk and puddled on the red and white quilt.
She didn't look up immediately, which was normal enough. What wasn't normal was why she didn't look up. It wasn't the usual calculated snub.
She appeared, quite simply, to be too captivated by the baby in her arms to wrench her gaze away.
But that couldn't be. She'd never bothered to look twice at her other children. Why would she start now? He eyed her suspiciously, wondering what new game she was playing.
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She looked up all of a sudden and smiled at him. Smiled.
"God, he's so tiny, isn't he?"
Jack stared at her in mounting confusion. What the hell was going on here?
"Come see your son," she said in a quiet, almost hesitant voice.
The butter-soft tone of her voice hit him hard in the midsection. It had been years since he'd heard her voice without the brittle edge of contempt. For a moment he was flung back in time to the early years, when they'd been so desperately in love. God, how he'd loved her....
He forced the tired memory from his mind and shuffled across the room. Setting the tray down on the table beside the bed, he said, "I brought you something to eat."
She patted the bed beside her. "Sit."
He stared at the indentation left by her hand in the thick comforter. Before he could stop it, longing spiraled through his body. The desire to sit beside her was like a dull ache in his soul.
But he knew better. The years had given him an emotional armor. She was toying with him again; using his weakness and his need for love against him. She was stronger, so much stronger than he. Of that, there had never been a doubt. And these games of power amused her. They were her way to get back at him, still and again, for betraying her dreams of wealth and turning her into a poor, cowardly sheep rancher's wife.
He wouldn't let her humiliate him again. Never again. He'd resist her until they both dropped dead. "No." He cleared his throat. "No, thanks. I'll stand."
Disappointment flitted through her eyes, and she looked away. Jack knew he should feel proud that he'd beaten her at her vicious little game, but he couldn't quite manage it.
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"You'd better eat to keep up your strength," he said for lack of something better to say.
She didn't answer. Instead, she peeled the blue homespun blanket away from Caleb. The baby's soft, sleepy breaths fluttered upward.
As he stared down at the baby's wizened, old-man face, Jack felt a surge of emotion so strong and pure, he knew he had no right to feel it. At his sides, his hands fisted into useless blocks. There was a tightness in his chest that made his breathing speed up.
He had no right to feel these things, no right to feel a father's love.
He stepped backward, unsteady on his feet. "I'll go now."
Amarylis looked up at him then, and there was a softness in her gaze that almost brought him to his knees. "Is it her?" she whispered. "Has she done something to make you this way?"
It was a stupid, incomprehensible question, and Jack was relieved he didn't have to answer. With a curt nod, he turned his back on her and left the room.
Tess eyed the bedpost, wondering if she should start notching it. The way the days were blurring together, pretty soon she'd wonder how long she'd been here in solitary confinement. So far, it had been five days; five of the longest, most boring days of her life. Correction, she thought, of her lives.
She glanced down at the baby in her arms, and felt a now familiar rush of maternal love. The highlight of the last week had been the chance to bond with Caleb. She was actually beginning to feel like the baby's mother.
But as exciting and fulfilling as the budding emotion was, it didn't make up for the nagging sense of isolation which now surrounded her. Sometimes, especially when
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Caleb slept and she was left alone in her big bed and too-silent bedroom, she felt a lingering sadness.
