When it arrived, Will arched and stretched while Eleanor tucked her handiwork away. They made their trips outside, battened down the house for the night and retired to their room to undress, back to back, as had become their habit. When he had stripped to his underwear, Will turned to glance over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of her naked back and the side of one breast as she threw a white nightgown over her head.

Dear. The memory of the simple word gripped him with all its attendant possibilities. Had she meant it? Was he really dear to someone for the first time in his life?

He sat on the edge of the bed and wound the alarm clock, waiting for the feel of her weight dipping the mattress before he settled back and lowered the lantern wick.

They lay memorizing the ceiling while memories of the day returned-a birthday gift, an endearment, a handclasp, a parting kiss-none very remarkable on the surface. The remarkable was happening within.

They lay flat, quivering inside, disciplining themselves into motionlessness. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed his bare chest, the looming elbows, the hands folded behind his head. From the corner of his eye he saw her pregnant girth and her high-buttoned nightie with the quilts covering her to the ribs. Beneath her hands she felt her own heartbeat driving up through the quilt. On the back of his skull he felt the accelerated rhythm of his pulse.

The minutes dragged on. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Both worried.

One kiss-is that so hard?

Just a kiss-please.

But what if she pushes you away?

What is there for him in a woman so pregnant she can scarcely waddle?

What woman wants a man with so many tramps under his bridge?

What man wants to roll up against someone else’s baby?

But most of them were paid, Elly, all of them meaningless.

Yes, it’s Glendon’s baby, but he never made me feel like this.

I’m unworthy.

I’m undesirable.

I’m unlovable.

I’m lonely.

Turn to her, he thought.

Turn to him, she thought.

The lantern wick sputtered. The flame twisted, distorting the impression of the chimney rim on the ceiling. The mattress seemed to tremble with their uncertainties. And when it seemed the very air would sizzle with heat lightning, they spoke simultaneously.

"Will?"

"Elly?"

Their heads turned and their eyes met.

"What?"

A pause. Then, "I… I forgot what I was going to say."

Ten seconds of beating silence before she said softly, "Me too."

They stared at each other, feeling as if they were choking, each afraid… each desperate…

Then all of his past, all of her shortcomings, billowed up in a conflagration and exploded as might some distant star.

Her lips parted in unconscious invitation. His shoulder came off the bed and he rolled toward her, slowly enough to give her time to skitter if she would.

Instead her lips shaped his name. "Will…" But it escaped without a sound as he bent above her and touched her mouth with his own.

No passionate kiss, this, but a touch fraught with insecurities. Tentative. Uncertain. A mingling of breath more than of skin. A thousand questions encapsulated in the tremulous brushing of two timid mouths while their hearts thundered, their souls sought.

He lifted… looked… into eyes the color of acceptance, deep-sea green in the shadow of his head. She, too, studied his eyes at close range… brown, vulnerable eyes which he’d hidden so often beneath the brim of a battered hat. She saw the doubts that had accompanied him to this brink and marveled that someone so good, so inwardly and outwardly beautiful, should have harbored them when she was the one… she. Plain and pregnant Elly See, the brunt of laughter and pointed fingers. But in his eyes she saw no laughter, only a deep mystification to match her own.

He kissed her again… lightly… lightly… the brush of a jaconet wing upon a petal while her fingertips brushed his chest.

And at long, long last the loneliness of Will Parker’s life stopped hurting. He thought her name over and over-Elly… Elly-a benediction, as the kiss deepened, firmer, fuller, but still with a certain reserve-two people schooled to reject the possibility of miracles now forced to change their beliefs.

His hand closed over her arm and hers flattened on the silken hairs of his chest, but he remained a space apart as he urged her lips open with his own, bringing the first touch of tongues-warm, wet and still atremble. Hearts that had hammered with uncertainty did so now in exultation. They searched for and found a more intimate fit, enhanced by the sway and nod of heads that built the kiss into something more than either had expected. Sweet sweet commingling, bringing more than the rush of blood and the thrust of hearts, bringing too, the assurance that Will and Eleanor were to one another beings of great moment.

He hovered above her, bearing his weight on both elbows, afraid of hurting her. But she bade him come. Nearer… heavier… to the spot where her heart lifted toward his. And he rested upon her breasts, gingerly at first, until her acquiescence seemed unmistakable.

For long wondrous minutes they sated themselves with what both had known too little of before Will broke away, looked down into her face to find the same expression of wonder he himself was feeling. They stared-renewed-then wrapped each other tight and rocked because kissing hardly seemed an adequate expression of all they felt.

In time he hauled them safely to their sides, pressing his face to her throat, folding himself like a jackknife around her protruding stomach.

"Elly… Elly… I was so scared."

"So was I."

"I thought you’d turn me away."

"But that’s what I thought you’d do."

He pulled back to see her face. "Why would I do that?"

"Because I’m not very pretty. And I’m pregnant and awkward."

He cradled her cheek tenderly. "No… no. You’re a beautiful person. I saw that the first morning I was here."

She held the back of his hand and hid her eyes in its palm. These things were easier to admit behind closed eyes. "And I’m not very bright, and maybe I’m crazy. You knew all that."

He made her lift her chin and look at him. "But I killed a woman. And I’ve been in prison and in whorehouses. You knew that."

"That was a long time ago."

"Most people never forget."

"I thought because it was Glendon’s baby inside me you wouldn’t want to touch me."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Her heart seemed too small to contain such joy. "Oh, Will."

He asked, "Could I touch it once? Your stomach? I never touched a woman who was pregnant."

She felt warm and shy but nodded.

His hands molded the sides of her stomach as if it were a bouquet of crushable flowers. "It’s hard… you’re hard. I thought it’d be soft. Oh God, Elly, you feel so good."

"So do you." She touched his hair, thick and springy and smelling of his unmistakable individual scent. "I’ve missed this."

He closed his eyes and gave her license. If he lived to be a thousand he’d never get enough of the feeling of her hands in his hair.

In time he let his eyes drift open and they lay for minutes, gazing, taking their fill. She of his incredible eyes and jumbled hair. He of her softly swollen lips and green, green eyes. He found himself unreasonably jealous of her early years with Glendon Dinsmore. "Do you still think of him?"

"I haven’t for weeks."

"I thought you still loved him."

She drew courage and repeated his words. "What does that have to do with anything? Do you think I’ll love this baby any less, just because two others came before it?"

He braced up on an elbow, stared at her and swallowed. He felt as if a great fist had closed around his chest. When he spoke the words sounded pinched. "Elly, nobody ever-" Abashed, he couldn’t go on.

"Nobody ever loved you before?" She tenderly cupped his cheek. "Well, I do."

His eyes slid closed and he turned his mouth hard into her palm, clasping it to his face. "Nobody. Ever," he reiterated. "Not in my whole life. No mother, no woman, no man."

"Well, your life ain’t even half over yet, Will Parker. The second half’s gonna be much better’n the first, I promise."

"Oh, Elly…" Above all the things he’d missed, this had left the greatest void. Just once in his life he wanted to hear it, the way he’d dreamed of hearing it during five long years in a cell, and all the lonely years he had drifted, and all through childhood while he watched other children-the lucky ones-pass the orphanage and gawk from the security of their parents’ carriages and cars. "Could you say it once," he entreated, "like they say people do?"

Her heart beat like the wings of an eagle, taking her soaring as she spoke the words. "I love you, Will Parker."

The sting hit his eyelids and he hung his head because nobody had prepared him for this, nobody had said, When it happens you’ll be resurrected. All that you were you will not be. All that you weren’t, you are. He lunged against her, burying his face above her breasts, holding fast. "Oh, God,…" he groaned. "Oh, God."

She held his head as if he were a child awakening from a bad dream.

"I love you," she whispered against his hair, feeling her own tears build.

"Oh, Elly, I love you, too," he uttered in a broken voice, "but I was so afraid nobody could love me. I thought maybe I was unlovable."

"Oh no, Will… no… not you." His bittersweet words filled her with the deep wish to heal, left her throat aching as she curled around him, held his head protectively and felt him breathe against her breasts. She threaded her hands through his hair and felt him grow still with pleasure. She raked her nails over his skull in long, slow sweeps… time… and time… and time again, lifting his scent, memorizing it, impressing it forever in her senses. His hair was thick, coarse, the color of dry grass. It had grown since she’d cut it, became shaggy at the neck where she brushed it up from his nape, then smoothed it before beginning another long, sensuous stroke at the crown of his head. He shivered and made a sound of gratification, deep in his throat.