He called her name and she woke with a start. Daniel took in her breasts under the damp cotton, paper white and perfectly round, the shadow between her legs, and then more movement in the shadows, just behind her.

One part of his mind recognized that movement for what it was before he could put a name to it. Martha hadn’t seen it, but from the expression on her face he knew she had heard the rattle. She froze, her eyes huge and round and fixed on him.

It all happened at once: Daniel’s hand found the knife’s hilt of its own accord, and his arm came up and over in an arc, even as the rattler’s sleek head rose; the flash of sunlight on the blade as it flew, rotating once, twice, three times before it met the sinuous neck and severed head from body.

Then he was running those last few steps. He grabbed her up and held her away from the carcass, felt the flow of her rasping breath on his face.

“It’s dead,” she said. Not a question, but an assurance. “It’s dead.”

Gently Daniel set her aside clear of the rock, and went forward to look more closely. It was a good-sized timber rattler, but its bite would probably not have killed her, though it could have cost her a foot or hand. Daniel flung the head into the brush, picked up the body and did the same.

He retrieved his knife and wiped it on the grass. Martha said, “I could have made a stew out of that.”

Daniel took in her loosened hair, the crown of flowers, and the brimming tears that she was holding back with such effort. She was trembling.

He pulled her up against him and put his mouth on her brow.

“You will joke at the strangest times.” His voice came hoarse, and he realized he was shaking himself.

She raised her face to his to say something and he kissed her.

Martha in his bed had been a revelation. It was a delight and a surprise to watch her take in the unexpected, to see how she argued with herself about letting go and how hard she fell when she did. Little by little she had been growing more confident and courageous, and then had come the interruption that meant he had not yet got a child on her.

He said, “I missed you.” She nodded and pulled his face to hers, answering a question he didn’t know how to ask. She wanted this; she had missed him too, and he wouldn’t have to start wooing her from the very beginning. Now she clung to him with such fierce purpose, her desire so unmistakeable that he might have laughed for satisfaction and joy.

He went down on his knees in the grass and she went with him. For the first time, she put one hand on the front of his breeks. The brush of her fingers was almost more than he could bear; he caught her hand and slipped it inside the flap.

Her fingers moved gently and then circled, taking his measure. He might have said something, but talk required breathing and there was very little air in the world at that moment.

She said, “The infamous cucumber,” and he found he could laugh, after all.

He pulled her chemise off over her head and tossed it aside. Face-to-face in the bright sunshine her whole body seemed to glow. Her nipples, as pale and firm as berries just starting to ripen; the sheen of sweat at the base of her throat; the cascade of hair that fell from the circlet of grass and flowers to the ground. He touched her as she had touched him and she put her head back and gasped. Then she righted herself and put her hands on his face.

She said, “Why are you still dressed?”

It was as if her hands had been tied, and were now, suddenly, free. She touched him everywhere as he peeled off his breeks. He began to undo his shirt but she struck his hand away and pushed him, both hands on his chest, until he was sitting in front of her in the high grass, heels on the ground and knees raised. She paused, uncertain.

He didn’t have the patience to talk her through what she clearly wanted to try, so Daniel pulled her onto his lap, levered her up, and then, with exquisite slowness, down. Flesh parted and gave way so that she caught him up, inch by inch, in wet heat that might have robbed him of his senses. That would have robbed him of his senses, if not for his need to watch her face as he opened her and filled her.

When he was fully seated, when they could be joined no further, he kissed her softly and pulled her tighter to him, his hand spread on the small of her back.

“I wondered,” she said, breathless, her hips moving in response to the pressure of his hand. “I wondered if this would work.”

“Of course it will, darlin’,” he said, his mouth at her ear. “And the next time you get to wondering, I hope you’ll just come on out and say so.”

Chapter LII

That evening Martha and Daniel ate a simple meal and went about the usual chores, talking easily about the week to come, the end of the school year, about Nicholas Wilde and Callie and what would come next. Callie was still determined to take the boy in.

“I don’t see how I can stop her,” Martha said.

Daniel was thoughtful, his gaze fixed in the distance. Then he turned to her, his expression grim.

“What are you worried about, exactly? What’s the worst that could happen?”

It was an excellent question, one she had asked herself repeatedly. She said, “If it turns out that the boy is some kind of imposter, I don’t know how Callie will react.”

“That’s the worst?”

Martha shook her head. “The worst is that Jemima is scheming to try to get the farm and orchard away from her, and using the boy to do it. But why? Why would Jemima with her fancy coach and rich husband want what’s left of the orchard?”

Daniel put back his head and drew in a deep breath. “You know the answer to that as well as I do. Jemima wants. That’s her nature. Doesn’t have to be any reason or logic to it.”