Definitely not with Leila.

He straightened abruptly and lightened the heaviness inside him with a breath while his eyes searched for her in the crowd.

She wasn't easy to find. Naturally, with that black hair of hers she'd blend right in with this Flores bunch as if she belonged there. When he finally did spot her, in the thickest part of the crowd around the food table, it was because he'd heard somebody call out her name.

"Hey Leila-you ever eat chili?"

"Chilly?" Her voice was unmistakable and instantly recognizable to him-another surprise-and musical as a flute. "I do not think so. This means cold, no?"

There was laughter, and someone yelled, "I don't think so!"

Then there was a clamor of voices explaining, urging Leila to try some chili…some warning her not to. Cade had moved unconsciously closer, alert as a bird dog on point as he tried to see what was happening in the center of the knot of people gathered around the chili pot. He was a little apprehensive, too-Rueben's chili was notorious. After eating a bowlful Cade didn't stop sweating for hours. And he was used to the stuff.

An expectant silence had fallen around the food table. Cade found that his heart was beating faster. He really did wish he could have seen Leila's face when she tasted that chili.

And then the knot of people seemed to loosen and shift, as if everyone had decided to give her a little more breathing room. And suddenly he could see her face-perfect oval, breathtakingly lovely, smooth and fresh as a child's-as she lifted a spoonful of the rich, red-brown chili to her mouth. Cade's heart gave a kick, then seemed to stick at the bottom of his throat, thumping away to beat the band while Leila chewed and the suspense grew. Cade held his breath along with everyone else while a tiny frown etched itself between her eyebrows. Then she tilted her head, and her lilting, slightly husky voice carried even to where he stood.

"It is very good…" she said, still with that uncertain little frown, and now she was turning her head, as if she were looking for something, there on the table "…but I think I would like-yes, there-what are those little yellow peppers called? Jalapenos-yes. I think I would like some more jalapenos in mine, please."

There were shouts of amazement and laughter from everyone, and smatterings of applause which Leila acknowledged with a winsome display of dimples. Cade let out the breath he'd been holding. He was smiling in spite of himself. The suspense had broken, so why was his heart still beating so hard and so fast? And why this growling in his stomach when he wasn't hungry?

"Hey, Cade-hey, Ma, look who's here! Come on over, Cade, grab yourself a plate."

His cover blown, he grinned, shrugged and pushed away from the tree trunk. But while the grin, shrug and a little deprecating wave of his hand were for the assembled crowd, his gaze stayed where it had been, on Leila. So he knew exactly the moment her body stiffened and the dimpled smile froze on her face, when the liveliness drained out of her so that she seemed to become a flat black-and-white photograph of herself.

So, he thought dismally, she isn't exactly happy to see me. Did that surprise him? Why would he expect her to be? But his heartbeat now was a slow, dirge-like pulse, and his breath tasted bitter in his throat.

The knot of Flores' family loosened and Leila came toward him, carrying her plastic plate in both hands, carefully, like a child. And it seemed to Cade that she carried herself the same way. With constraint. Yes, that was the word he was thinking of-as if she held her natural exuberance under a tight rein. But a moment ago with the Flores bunch she'd been lighthearted and free as a bird, so it was pretty obvious she felt that constraint only because of him.

He felt heavy, suddenly. And his heart hurt, as if the heaviness was right there, pressing in all around it.

"I did not expect you until later." Her voice sounded breathless, although her face remained pale and calm.

He shrugged that aside. "Hunting was lousy and the power went out at the ranch, so we decided to leave early." He nodded his head toward her. "Looks like you've been having fun."

It had just occurred to him that she was wet, under the loose oversized T-shirt she was wearing. Her hair hung in a thick, sodden braid down her back, except for tiny spikes and tendrils around her face and neck that had begun to dry. The T-shirt clung to the dark wetness of the bathing suit, outlining her breasts in bold relief, and it came to him with a small sense of shock that until that moment he'd had no idea what her body was actually shaped like. That one glimpse made him feel the way he did when he was good and hungry and smelled Betsy's bread baking in the oven.

"I have been, yes." Leila said, responding to something he barely remembered saying, and she was nodding earnestly, obviously completely unaware of the direction his gaze-and his thoughts-had been taking. "Betsy and Rueben have such a nice family, have they not? They have been very kind to me, all of them. Even though," she added, showing him a brief glimpse of dimples, "I do not think I will remember any of their names."

"I see you've been swimming," Cade said bluntly.

Her eyes flicked downward toward her own chest, then jumped quickly back to his. Her lips parted in dismay. Letting go of her plate with one hand, she plucked the shirt away from herself as color blossomed slowly in her cheeks, going almost imperceptibly from delicate to sublime, like a sunrise.

"Yes-with the children. In the creek. Was this all right?"

"What? Sure, it's all right."

"You do not mind?" Again her voice sounded breathless.

"Why should I mind?" His voice sounded angry, though he wasn't. And damned if his heart wasn't beating too fast again. As if they were having an argument. Which they weren't, not as far as he was concerned. He wasn't so sure about her.

"I am very glad you do not." Her head was high and her eyes seemed to flare and blaze like coals, with something that looked like defiance-though he couldn' t think what she might be in defiance of. He'd never told her she couldn't go swimming-or anything else, for that matter. And he had no intention of ever doing so. He was her husband, dammit, not her father, even if she was ten years younger than he was.

"Because I liked being with the children," Leila went on. "Very much. I like children. I would like-" She broke off and looked away, and her throat moved with a swallow. He knew she'd meant to say more, but had no idea what it might be.

I want to have children. A lot of children-like Betsy and Rueben. I want to have your children, Cade Gallagher.

A little shudder quivered through Leila as she realized that she had almost said such a thing out loud. Perhaps, she thought, it is wrong for a wife to be too proud with her husband. But she was not only a wife, she was a princess, and she could not-she would not say such a thing to a man, husband or not, who did not seem to want to make babies with her at all.

"Have you been to this place where the children swim?"she asked after a moment, watching him from under her lashes. "Did you swim there also, when you were a child?"

"What?" Cade was staring at her with that fierce, rather puzzled frown. "Oh-no. I only bought this place about six years ago. Rueben and Betsy came with it-Rueben had worked for the previous owner forever. Most of their kids grew up in this house. But no, I never swam there when I was a kid."

In spite of the photograph she had seen in his study, Leila could not imagine Cade as a little boy, with knobby arms and legs and a lean brown body, golden hair dark and slick as a seal's, leaping and splashing and squealing with pleasure, like Betsy's grandchildren. Not this man, with a face so rugged and shoulders so broad, in his cowboy hat and blue jeans, and whiskers beginning to show on his chin. What was it Samira had called him? Oh yes. Imposing. It would be hard, she had said, not to be intimidated by such a man.

But Leila Kamal would not be intimidated, not by any man.

"You do not have to be a child to enjoy this swimming place," she said with a lift of her chin. "I am not a child."

He did not answer. For a long moment he just looked at her, and she realized suddenly that her mouth and throat felt dry. She saw Cade's throat move as if he had swallowed, and then she wanted to swallow, too. She felt hot in spite of the wet bathing suit she wore under her clothes, a peculiar heat that filled all her insides in ways that even Rueben's famous Texas chili had not.

"Hey, Cade, come on, man-better get yourself a plate, before it's all gone."

Leila jerked as if she'd been roused from a daydream. Rueben was coming toward them across the grass, carrying a long fork with two prongs and leather strips hanging from the handle. He looked younger today, she thought, less shy than he usually did.

Cade put out his hand and shook the older man's. "Ah, thanks, Rueben, but I better take a raincheck."

Rueben looked at him as though Cade had gone insane. "What, are you kidding me? We got plenty- steaks, chili…come on, you gotta eat something."

Cade was laughing, but also shaking his head. "No, really-I had a sandwich at the airport. I just came to collect my…wife." Leila glanced at him curiously. His smile seemed as though it had been carved from wood.

Rueben nodded toward Leila. "Hey-she tell you already?"

"No…tell me what?" Then Cade caught a breath and snapped his fingers. "Suki had her foal."

"Yup," said Rueben. "Nice little filly. Think she's gonna look just like her mama."

"How is she? Everything go okay?" This was man-talk, and Leila saw that Cade had already turned toward Rueben, automatically excluding her.