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Savannah felt every eye in the room on her. Mumbling, "No thanks," she clutched the books to her chest and ran for the door. Barreling through, she thundered down the sagging steps and came to a shuddering, breathless stop by the fence. The books slid out of her hands and hit the dirt.

Behind her, the door banged shut again. "Hey, Savannah?wait up!"She wanted to run away and find a nice quiet place to be alone, but her feet wouldn't move.

"Why'dya run like that?" Jeffie said, coming up beside her.

Savannah pinned her gaze on the water pump. It took a wagonload of willpower not to twist her fingers together, but she remained perfectly still, her chin tilted high, her eyes straight ahead. "I was worried about Katie." "Yep. Seems she ain't the best reader." "No," she said stiffly, "she ain't." Savannah waited uneasily for him to say something else. He waited for the same thing. Then, in a rush of awkwardness, they both dropped to their knees and dove for the fallen books.

Their fingers brushed. Savannah jerked her hand back and buried it in her lap. Jeffie turned to look at her.

They were close, closer than they'd ever been. Savannah could see the smattering of freckles across his brow. Intelligent, caring brown eyes stared intently into her own. He leaned infinitesimally forward, as if he were about to say something.

Fear made her heart race. She warned herself to sit perfectly still. But then?somehow?she was leaning just the tiniest bit toward him.

"Savannah, I ..." His gaze slid away from hers. Color crept up from his collar and fanned along his jawline. "I . . ."She was suddenly afraid of what he was going to say. Of what she was going to feel when he said it. She snatched the books to her chest and vaulted to her feet.

She started to spin away from him, but her feet tangled in the heavy woolen folds of her skirt and she stumbled sideways. Jeffie was on his feet in an instant, holding her elbow, steadying her.

"Thanks." She pulled away from him without meeting his gaze. "I gotta go now. My ma?" "C'n I walk yah home?"For one terrifying moment Savannah thought she was going to throw up. Shaking her head "no," she clutched her books to her chest and whirled away from him, running down the hill as fast as she could.

She was out of breath and had a stitch in her side by the time she reached Katie, who was sitting forlornly beside the road. Still breathing hard, she came up beside her baby sister and dropped to her knees in the hard-packed dirt. The books and lunch pail landed beside her with a clanking thud.

"There's somethin' wrong with me," Katie said in a small, quavering voice. "I'm stupid."Anguish coiled around Savannah's heart and squeezed hard. "No, you ain't," she managed past the lump in her throat.

Katie plopped her trembling chin onto her bent knees and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears slipped past her thick black lashes and streaked down the puffy little-girl pinkness of her cheeks.

Savannah felt a surge of frustration and anger. Her hands curled into fists as she stared at the immense blue sky above. She wished she could tell Mama about Katie's problem, but there was no point. Mama would only laugh and confirm Katie's fears that she was stupid. Savannah didn't believe for a second that her mama had changed.

Daddy would help. The thought came as it always did, quickly, bringing with it a heartbeat of hope.

Then, just as quickly, it was gone, plunging Savannah back into the pit of hopelessness. Once, she'd almost told him. She'd been close, so close, at Katie's birthday party. Katie had been laughing about something?all three of them had, she remembered?and Savannah had looked across the table at her father and seen something almost magical in his eyes.

She'd thought then it was love. Her heart had skipped a beat. Anticipation and hope brought her awkwardly to her feet and drew her toward him. She'd said his name, softly. He'd looked up, met her gaze. The truth about Katie had hung on her lips, heavy and waiting. The truth about so many things ...

Suddenly the laughter ended, leaving in its wake a silence thick enough to make Savannah sick to her stomach.

He'd lurched to his feet and spun away from them, thundering across the kitchen and disappearing into the yard. Savannah had waited hours for his return, until finally, exhausted, she'd fallen asleep on the sofa.

She'd wakened in her own bed. The moment's connection with her father had been gone, leaving her to wonder if she'd imagined it. That had been about five months ago, when Katie's problem first became noticeable.

Savannah had never even been close to telling anyone again.

"Come on, Katie, let's go home," she said tiredly.

Katie looked at her. Tears magnified her eyes. "I don't want to," she whispered.

Savannah clasped her sister's small, cold hand. "I know. Neither do I."They sat there all through the long, hot spring day, waiting in heavy silence for the pealing clang of the school bell that indicated it was time to leave.

"It's time," Savannah said quietly as the last metallic clang faded away.

Katie nodded, dashing the moisture from her eyes. Together, hand in hand, they got to their feet and started walking toward home. The grass-studded dirt road stretched out before them, seeming to twist beyond forever in the miles between the farm and school. Neither of them wanted to continue, but they did.

It was simple. They had nowhere else to go.

Tess stood in front of the stove, staring at the huge black metal monstrosity with a mixture of dread and anticipation. She tried to tell herself this was a challenge, and she'd always loved a good challenge. Somehow this time it didn't work. There was no doubt in her mind that cooking was not one of the things she would be good at in this?or any other?life. In 1993 she hadn't had to worry about it. Between the takeout joints, delicatessens, restaurants, and frozen-food sections of her local grocery store, there'd been no reason to cook, but now, in 1873, she had no choice. She wanted to lift some of the burden from Savannah's shoulders, and she wanted to be a mother. Cooking achieved both her goals. And so, cook she would. She'd given herself plenty of time. It was just after midday. The girls wouldn't be home from school for hours. All she had to do was start.

She kneeled and stared through the heavy, soot-stained grate. Thin, twisted, black remains jutted from a pile of cold, gray ashes. The acrid scent of a long-dead fire seeped through the iron bars and stung her eyes.

Using two fingers, she started to ease the door open.

She realized her mistake immediately. The door weighed a ton. It crashed downward, whacked hard on her bent knees, and knocked her off balance. With a stuttered cry, she flailed forward and smacked her head against the warming oven.

When she woke up, she was sprawled on the kitchen floor with her blue gingham gown up around her middle.

She took one look at herself and burst out laughing. Ten seconds in the kitchen and she'd already knocked herself unconscious.

Rubbing the goose-egg-sized bump that was forming above her left eye, she got to her knees and stared into the cold dead ashes. A sinking feeling tugged at her empty stomach. Ignoring it, she got to her feet and stood confidently in front of the stove. She tried her best to feel cheflike.

It was like trying to squeeze into a size four with the saleslady watching.

"Okay," she said aloud, "I'm going to cook dinner." She paused, thinking. "The first thing to do is make a fire."She smiled, feeling better already. Yes, that seemed like a sensible plan of attack for someone hell-bent on cooking a meal. Make a fire.

There was a small, neatly piled stack of kindling alongside the stove. She opened the grate door and propped it open with her knee. Then, leaning sideways, she grabbed a few sticks and dropped them in the steel hole.

A quick search of the kitchen revealed no paper. So she set the kitchen towel on fire and dropped it on the pile of wood.

Thick, gray-black smoke spiraled up from the burning rag and crept along the ceiling. She waved it aside and peered into the hole. The smallest stick had caught on fire. Things were looking good.

Whistling at her success, she ambled around the cluttered kitchen, looking for a cookbook. She took this search considerably more seriously than she had her inspection for paper, and opened one cupboard after another. Next she tried the drawers. When she found herself lifting up the silverware to see what was underneath, she knew she was getting panicky.

There were no cookbooks.

How in the hell was she supposed to cook without instructions?

She flung the pantry door open and stared into the neatly aligned shelves. That sinking feeling immediately came back into her gut. The food was in industrial-sized sacks, stacked one after another and tied up with fraying rope. And jars. There were hundreds of glass jars brimming with colorful globs that reminded her of an eighth-grade science lab. Each jar proudly bore a date?as if people chose food by date rather than content.

Anxiety began to unravel Tess's self-confidence. She squeezed her eyes shut and sought divine help. Okay, I believe in reincarnation. So ESP must be real, too. Mom, give me a recipe. Or you, Carol. Come on, don't be shy. Jump on in.

Long minutes passed. No one answered.

Apparently deceased relatives and guardian angels were like cops. There was never one around when you needed them.

She opened her eyes. A thick sack of flour filled her vision.

Flour. Okay, what did a person make with flour?

Bread. She dismissed that idea immediately. She may not have been a great cook, but she'd been a world-class shopper. Bread makers sold for two hundred dollars? anything that expensive had to alleviate a ton of hard labor. She had to start small.

Small bread. Biscuits! She could do that.

Smiling broadly, she got out everything she thought she needed?flour, salt, eggs, and milk. She plopped the ingredients on the table and got to work.

Two hours later, she had five carefully cut out, pancake-sized circles of dough scattered amidst a mountain of flour. Grimacing, she pinched off a section from the biggest one and tasted it. The dough hit her stomach like a lead balloon.

"No more," she mumbled, feeling decidedly ill. She was through taste-testing. This was batch number six, and there was enough dough in her gut to make a large pizza.

She didn't care if the biscuits tasted like shoe leather. She was done. Period.

She backhanded the sheen of sweat from her brow and tucked a flour-coated lock of hair behind her ear. Straightening, she set down the rolling pin and clapped the excess flour from her hands. For the first time in two hours, she looked up from the table.

And winced. The kitchen was ... trashed. There was no other word for it. Dozens of pots and pans were strewn across the floor, their existence forgotten as she'd searched for a cookie sheet. Flour covered the table and lay like a dusting of new-fallen snow on the floorboards. Smoke clung to the ceiling.

Cooking, apparently, was a dirty business.

Oh, well, she thought. You didn't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Turning back to the now hot stove, she dragged a huge cast-iron pot toward her. It bumped and scraped and clanked atop the metal stovetop.

She lifted the lid and tossed in the potatoes, onions, and preserved carrots she'd cut up earlier. Setting the lid down carefully alongside the pot, she filled the pot to the top with water, added salt from the box alongside the stove, and dropped in the haunch of meat she'd found in the mesh container hanging above the dry sink.

She watched it simmer for a few moments, then shoved her hands in her apron pockets and slowly turned around. The magnitude of the mess struck her again, and she winced. It made her tired just looking at the chaos around her.

Sighing, she walked over to the table and slumped on the hard wooden seat. She knew that if she didn't do something?and fast?she'd fall asleep right there and then.

Tiredly she pushed to her feet, grabbed two buckets from beneath the dry sink, and headed outside.

Her breath caught at the beauty of the afternoon. Lush grass rolled out from the house and dropped gently toward the sea. Thousands of wildflowers peeked colorful faces up from the rolling, golden-green grass. Far below, the steel-blue water of Haro Strait sparkled. Sunlight gilded the softly rustling leaves of the oak tree.

She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of springtime. Birds chirped, wind whistled, leaves fluttered, bees buzzed. To Tess, so many years in silence, it was like the finest of symphonies. Nothing in Carnegie Hall could be so grand.

Humming, she ambled lazily toward the cistern and threw back the heavy wooden lid. Clear blue-green water caught the sunlight and sparkled up at her.

It took her forever to fill and heat sixteen buckets of water, but when she returned to the kitchen and poured the last bucketful into the full-length copper tub she'd found in the shed, she knew it had all been worth it.

She stripped out of her waistless nursing gown and tossed it over the nearest chair, eagerly climbing into the tub.

The water was barely more than lukewarm, but it felt heavenly just the same. She scrubbed her hair and body with lavender-scented soap until her skin tingled and glowed. Then she rested her head on the tub's copper rim and closed her eyes. She'd just relax for a few minutes before she had to clean the kitchen---- Before she knew it, she was asleep.

Chapter Seven

Jack was dead tired as he climbed the sagging steps to the house. At the closed door, he stopped, trying to find the icy numbness he would need to deal with Amarylis. It was difficult?he was so damn tired?but he kept trying, searching his soul for the shield of detachment he needed so desperately with his wife. Steeling himself, he yanked the door open and strode inside, running right into the copper bathing tub. An echoing clang echoed through the humid room.

Jack looked down. His blood immediately ran cold.

Amarylis was asleep in the tub, her arms draped casually on either side, her knuckles resting on the wooden floor. Moonlight-pale hair cascaded all around her, puddling on the floor in swirling, touchable pools. And her skin. Sweet Jesus, her skin ...

The pink outline of her nipples shimmered through the colorless water. Desire flashed hot and hard through his body. God, how he remembered the feel of her flesh, how pliable and warm and willing she'd once been.