Her resolve to react with calm maturity collapsed, and she leapt straight to an obvious conclusion. "That would relieve you of the burden of an unwanted wife, wouldn't it."

"I didn't suggest it for that reason."

"Didn't you?" she said scornfully.

"No." He shifted onto his side and touched her arm, sliding his hand caressingly over her skin.

Meredith's temper exploded. "Don't you dare try to make love to me again!" she burst out, jerking her arm away. "I may be young but I still have a right to know what's going on, and not be used all night like a—a— body with no mind! If you want out of this marriage, just say so!"

His reaction was nearly as volatile as hers. "Dammit, I'm not trying to get out of anything! I am drowning in guilt, Meredith. Guilt, not cowardice! I got you pregnant and you came to me in a panic, so I got you married too. As your father eloquently phrased it," he added with bitter self-contempt, "I have stolen your youth. I've stolen your dreams and sold you mine."

Overjoyed that guilt, not regret, was causing his mood, Meredith expelled her breath in a rush of relief and started to say something, but Matt was now intent on proving to her that he was truly guilty of stealing her youth and that her expectations for the future were probably unrealistic. "You said you didn't want to stay at the farm while I'm gone," he pointed out. "Has it occurred to you that the farm is one hell of a lot nicer than where you're going? Or are you under some infantile impression that you'll live like this in Venezuela, or after we come back? Because if you are, you're in for a shock. Even if things work out exactly like I think they should, it will be years before I can afford to support you in the manner to which you're accustomed. Hell, I may never be able to afford a house like this—"

"A house like this—" Meredith interrupted, gaping at him in laughing horror, then she flopped face down on the pillow and dissolved into gales of muffled mirth.

Above her, his voice was taut with angry bewilderment. "This is not a damned bit funny!"

"Yes it is," she said, laughing into the pillow. "Th-this is an awful house! It's unwelcoming and I've never liked it." When he didn't respond, Meredith got herself under partial control and shoved back up onto her forearms, then she pushed her hair aside and stole a laughing peek at his inscrutable face. "Want to know something else?" she teased, thinking of his confession that he'd stolen her youth.

Determined to make her understand the sacrifices he was causing her to make, Matt restrained the urge to run his hand over the shimmering mass of waving hair that spilled over her back, but he couldn't keep the answering smile from his voice. "What is it?" he whispered tenderly.

Meredith's shoulders trembled with fresh merriment. "I didn't like my youth, either!" She'd hoped for a favorable response to that announcement, and she got one. He seized her mouth in a hard kiss that robbed her of breath and the ability to think. While she was still trying to recover from the effects of it, he said harshly, "Promise me one thing, Meredith. If you change your mind about anything while I'm gone, promise me you won't get rid of the baby. No abortion. I'll arrange to raise it myself."

"I'm not going to change my—" "Promise me you won't get rid of the baby!" Realizing it was senseless to argue, she nodded, looking deeply into those ominous gray eyes. "I promise," she said with a soft smile.

Her reward for that promise was another hour of lovemaking, but this time he was the man she knew.

Meredith stood in the driveway and kissed Matt good-bye for the third time that morning. The day had not started off very well. At breakfast, her father had asked if anyone else knew about their marriage, and that reminded Meredith that she'd called Jonathan Sommers last week when no one answered the phone at the Edmunton house.

To save face, she'd told Jonathan she'd found a credit card of Matt's in her car after she gave him a ride home from Glenmoor, and that she didn't know where to send it. Jonathan had provided the information that Matt was still in Edmunton. As her father pointed out, it made the idea of announcing their marriage just two days after that phone call to Jonathan ridiculous. He suggested that Meredith go to Venezuela and let everyone think they'd gotten married there. Meredith knew he was right, but she wasn't good at deception, and she was angry because she'd inadvertently created the need for more of it.

Now Matt's departure was hanging over her like a cloud. "I'll call you from the airport," he promised. "Once I get to Venezuela and check out the facilities, I'll call you from there, but it won't be on a phone. We'll have radio communications with a base station that has an actual telephone. The connection won't be very good, and I'm not going to have access to it except in emergencies. I'll convince them this time that calling you to tell you I arrived safely constitutes an emergency," he added.

"I won't be able to pull off something like that again though."

"Write to me," she said, trying to smile.

"I will. The mail service will probably be lousy, so don't be surprised if days go by with no letters and then they arrive in a group."

She stayed there in the drive, watching him leave, then she walked slowly back into the house, concentrating on thinking of a few weeks from now when, with luck, they'd be together. Her father was standing in the hall, and he gave her a pitying look. "Farrell is the sort of man who needs new women, new places, new challenges all the time. He'll break your heart if you let yourself count on him."

"Stop it," Meredith warned, refusing not to let what he said bother her. "You're wrong. You'll see."

Matt kept his promise to call her from the airport, and Meredith spent the next two days finding things in the house to keep her occupied while she waited for him to call from Venezuela. The call came on the third day, but Meredith wasn't there; she was waiting nervously to see her obstetrician because she was afraid she was miscarrying.

"Spotting during the first three months isn't that unusual an occurrence," Dr. Arledge said when she was dressed and sitting in his office. "It may not mean anything. However, most miscarriages occur during the first three months." He said it as if he half expected her to be relieved. Dr. Arledge was a friend of her father's. She'd known him for years, and Meredith had no doubt that he'd already done what her father had—assumed she'd gotten married because she was pregnant. "At this point," he added, "there's no reason to presume you're in jeopardy of miscarrying."