I smiled at him, settling myself on top of him a little more, straddling his thigh. I ran my fingers through the wet burnished locks of hair on the back of his neck, pulling him up against me for another kiss. I didn't realise that I was holding him by the scruff of the neck like a mama cat holds her young until he drew a rather harsh, shaky breath and ended the kiss.

"I'm sorry. Am I too eager?"

He laughed. "No. I like you eager. Have you done this before?"

"Not with you."

He smiled. He ran a calloused finger down one of my breasts, stopping to touch my nipple. I bit my lip and ground my need against his hard thigh.

"I didn't love him," I sighed. "I love you."

He cursed softly. "Don't love me, Nick. I'll only hurt you."

I didn't say anything. I didn't want him to leave me or pull away. I moved my hips against him, there where he was hard and huge and throbbing, wanting me the way I wanted him. His groan was deep in his throat, smooth and soft like velvet. Smoky and dark as sin.

"I can't wait any more."

"Then don't," I whispered against his hair. With a groan he rolled me over and let me welcome him into the cradle of my body. My last thought before the pleasure took me and I shot into the midnight blue sky amid the stars was that I had done this before. I had known him forever.

Down.

I came down out of the deep, lush midnight sky and into myself with a plop. No one was there with me. Michael had gone somewhere. He had to rest, to eat.

I hate this place. The love I have found here in Michael is the only good thing about it, the only reason that I will try to come back.

I didn't know what it was I feared, coming back into Section or going back to Nick's world. I knew that something bad would happen. Something told me her story was coming to a close and if her life was my life in another time or another realm, I knew that things did not tie up nicely with a pink satin ribbon and leave her happy and contented.

But maybe that could be changed.

Michael didn't look at me much the morning after, just nodded his approval of the pink dress and the bonnet. I had managed to make myself look as pleasing as I could looking in his small shaving mirror. The hat didn't really suit my smallish face, especially my narrow chin, but I drew some wisps of hair out and it made me look prettier. Winsome, even. The button shoes he had bought me squeezed my feet, made me long for my comfortable down in the heel boots. And the corset. I shall not speak of that. To my horror Walter had to lace me into it while I held my breath and moaned in torment.

I wanted to say something to him about what we had done last night but he was intent on doing this thing he had planned, going to the milliner's where Elisabeth Fanning had an appointment. He was silent on the ride out there in the surrey he had rented. I sat beside him on the seat, unable to bend or move easily because of the bone stays digging into my flesh. I was looking down at his knee, my breath catching over how the pants stretched over well turned flesh and bone. If I had thought making love for hours in the water and on the mossy bank last night would change his mind about this, make him turn his back on his wicked ways I was wrong. Very wrong.

I thought of his warm, supple, sinful mouth on me, about the things we had done together there in the swimming hole under the stars. I loved him. How could he do this when I loved him? How could he just continue his plans like nothing at all important had happened.

I suppose it wasn't all that important to him.

I had watched him over by the stream that morning, brushing his teeth. He was wearing a remarkably unwrinkled black suit, his white shirt blinding against his tanned skin. I think his hand may have been a little unsteady on the toothbrush this morning after all we had done last night. He had looked up at me in my pink gown, his eyes narrowing in approval. So much approval I think he swallowed the tooth powder he had in his mouth.

"Well, Sugar," Walter had said. "Aren't you about the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. Look at her, Ben."

Ben had swallowed hard. "I'm lookin'. You're as pretty as a picture, Nick. Some man's gonna see you in town and ask you to run off with him."

Even my younger brother Jack had approved. It was totally unlike him to swing me up in his arms and twirl me around. I laughed down into his blue, blue eyes, so like mine, while Michael stared at us from the shadows, his lips drawn into a frown, his eyes unreadable.

We would stay in the town's hotel for a day and a night, establishing ourselves as a newly wed couple. It was a large room, reserved for important visitors. I wondered how he's pay for it. Gambling most likely.

A large bed with a white candlewick coverlet took up most of the room. There was a screen in one corner and a large copper tub. I imagined him naked right there in that beautiful bed, his arms above his head, his hair dark on the pillow, his lashes dark crests on his tanned cheeks, that sinful mouth parted slightly.

He set the valise on the bed. I flushed when he looked at me just knowing he had read my mind, knew my lascivious thoughts. He told me had business to take care of at the bank.

"You're not robbing it, I assume."

He laughed. As he passed me, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine. I firmly locked my lips against him, but he toyed with my mouth, brushing his lips back and forth until the friction unnerved me and I had to open my mouth to tell him to cease. He took the opportunity, snake that he was, to deepen the kiss, make it something both carnal and earth shattering, yet truly sweet and wondrous. When he pulled away his lips were upturned in a way that bespoke his many triumph over me, the so-called weaker sex. But when I looked into his eyes, there was no triumph, just a need that echoed mine and a sadness I later came to think I imagined.

I wanted to ask him again why he was on such a deadly and destructive path. There had to be other things that a man like him could do with his life.

"I do have to go. I'll be back before you know it. We'll have dinner in the dining room. I'll buy you French wine."

"Don't count on having your way with me, just because you're buying me dinner," I groused.

He just laughed. I could hear him laughing as he closed the door and went down the hall.

The wine made me feel a little tipsy, lightheaded. I wasn't drunk by any means, but I sure wasn't quite in my right mind either. I walked into the room and tore the stupid hat off my head first thing, smoothing down my shoulder length hair with one hand, wishing that he could have seen it when it was pretty and to my waist. I reached around to my neck loosening the top button of the dress so I could draw in some air. The corset was cutting off my air supply. I'd hardly been able to eat my dinner though I was starved.

"Need some help?"

"I think I will just sleep in my clothes."

"No, Nick. You won't be sleeping in your clothes. I plan for us to be quite gloriously naked."

That made my cheeks flame." I thought I was supposed to be your sister."

"I changed my mind about that plan. We are Mr. and Mrs. French."

I swallowed. Oh, God. Would that be, but true. "How convenient. Maybe I'm getting tired of your plans, French. Maybe I'll just walk right out that door and say to hell with all of them."

"Where would you go, Princess? Have you thought on that?"

I played with the ribbons of my ugly hat. "I'll find something to do. I'm not stupid. I can read and cypher. I can work like anyone else. Maybe you should try that sometime, French? An honest living?"

"After the end of this week you'll have all the money you'll need to start a new life, Nick." He took the hat from my hand and hung it on the bedpost.

Without you, Michael, I thought, there will be no life.

He set his hands on my shoulders, sliding them up the sides of my neck, tickling the wispy hairs there with his thumbs. His lips replaced his thumbs and I felt a glowing heat spread through my limbs, replacing the anxiety with a sweet, liquid rush that reminded me of warm honey. It flowed though my veins, made my breasts tighten, my heart pound. How does he do this to me, I wondered? He doesn't even have to try and I am weak and biddable as a lamb.

I felt his fingers undo the twenty tiny pearl buttons down the back of the form fitting bodice with a skill born of practice, I supposed. It took seconds for him to undo what had taken Walter ten minutes to do up with his gnarled fingers that morning.

I bit my lip as he slid the pink poplin day dress slowly down my shoulders over my arms.

"Beautiful," he said, his breath a warm puff on my shoulder. He pressed his lips down on my neck where the muscles were tense and tight. "Relax, Princess."

"Why do you call me that?" I turned to face him.

"Because that's what I thought of after you'd been hurt that day. My mother read me this story once about this princess who masqueraded as a boy. She was tall and strong and had blonde hair and blue, blue eyes and when the young prince saw her he was taken with her instantly." He smiled and pushed a lock of my hair back over my ear. "Just as I was taken with you. Instantly."

"I don't know that story."

"I think it was French. Stop talking. We have other things to do."

He took me into his arms. I could feel his raging heat, his arm and chest muscles clenching, tightening, his erection a hard ridge against his pants, pressing insistently against my softer flesh. There was nothing soft about his body, such a contrast to the sweet vulnerability of his dusky, pink lips, the beauty of his eyes beneath a tangle of lashes, his lovely, tousled curls lit red and gold in the lamplight.

He looked down that the crests of my breasts rising beneath my camisole and corset. My breathing was laboured and I imagined he could see the flutter of my heart the flow of my blood beneath my skin. " You are perfect, Dominique," he said softly, lowering his head to press kisses to my breasts, his mouth leaving an imprint on the straining fabric. " You are everything I've ever dreamed of." He pushed the dress the rest of the way down, letting it pool at our feet.

He quickly divested me of the rest of the garments and his own. He lowered me to the bed, kissing the places where the corset had dug into my flesh. His eyes were half-closed with passion, longing. His hand seemed to tremble a little as he touched me there where I ached for him

"I want this to last forever," he whispered, smiling, before he kissed my breasts, teasing, sucking, licking them into peaks with his ravishing mouth. I was crazy with wanting him and my release was thrashing upon me the moment he touched me with his wicked, clever fingers.

He stared down at me in wonder. I tried to turn my head away, embarrassed that my need for him was so strong, my love was so very obvious. He caught my chin in his hand, forced me to look at him. " Don't turn away from me, Nick. It amazes me that you can feel so much. For me. You're mine, Dominique. You belong to me." With those words he thrust himself into my pliant flesh. One hard, glorious thrust and he was home. I thought that I heard him whisper that I should trust him. Love him. No matter what.

Slowly he raised up onto his arms, his eyes smoldering, kneading my breast with one hand, the other braced at my side. I watched him, mesmerised . He was shaking. I drank in his handsome face, gasping as he filled me, filled my heart and my soul, knowing that he was seconds from his own orgasm. A few more wild deep, thrusts and he went still, his eyes locking with mine, before he fell like I had fallen.

"Oh, God... oh, God " he sighed, the words wrung out of his throat in breathless gasps. He dropped his mouth to mine, letting me take his weight, kissing me hungrily, thoroughly and so sweetly, whispering my name, a name I recognised as my own, but not my own. " Kita, I love you."

"You belong to me, Michael," I whispered. " Always. Forever."

"Yes, Kita," he whispered, his voice sounding far away. " Come back to me, my love. That's it. Come home."

After what we had done it irked me that he would still want to use me to set up Fanning. But he did. The next day, after a night of loving that turned the room into a den of debauchery, he told me to find my clothes and get dressed. Business as usual.

Michael was right. She was there trying on hats. Hats with birds and fruit and ribbons of satin, looking at her pretty self in the mirror and laughing. But her husband was there with her. I know Michael had not expected that. I could tell from his eyes.

His silvery green eyes were brimming with hate. Fury. It was far more emotion than I had expected. And it made me think. There was more to this than using a rich Yankee's wife and robbing his safe. Far more.

Fanning was his enemy. They had crossed paths before. Don't ask me how I knew this. I just did.

I knew it wouldn't be easy for a man to make some strange woman fall for him when the husband was right in the same room discussing hats and trimmings. No matter how wide his shoulders seemed in his blacked striped suit, no matter how beautiful his eyes or comely his face. And she didn't seem the least interested in any of Michael's finer points. She barely spared him a glance.

She kept peering out the window to where the tall, handsome bodyguard who was always with her stood near the fringed surrey they'd driven up in.

I looked at her face and then at Michael's and almost burst out laughing.

Lisa Fanning had a lover already. It was as clear as the nose on my face. Her husband probably didn't know, but I know how a woman looks in love. I know how she looks when her heart is full to brimming, when she is in the throes of excitement and hope. I'd seen one of those women staring back at me in the looking glass this morning.

I turned my head to meet Fanning's cold ice-blue eyes. He was looking at me like he wanted to eat me alive. And Michael was staring at him, with a cold, calculating look of his own.

No, Michael, I thought. Oh, never. Don't think to use me that way.

Not even you could be so mercenary.

"Are you new in town? " Fanning asked us.

"Yes." Michael stepped forward taking Fanning's hand. " I am Michael French and this is my new bride, Dominique." Fanning stepped forward and kissed the tops of my fingers. I was so taken aback with the shock of actually hearing that I was Michael French's new bride I almost swallowed my tongue. I think that Fanning, heartless swell-headed rogue that he was took my expression for desire. He gave my hand an extra squeeze.

He introduced us to Lisa to us. I was right. Her head was full of air. She talked like a breathless red squirrel.

As if you could even have a patch on Michael, I thought, looking at Fanning, his heavy face that would one day be jowly, his thinning hair. Even though I want to punch him in those fine looking teeth right then, I was thinking that Michael would only grow more beautiful with age, if I was lucky to know him that long.

"May I ask where you're from? You have a strong accent. Mr. French. A familiar one."

"I was born in Louisiana. My wife is from North Carolina."

"Ah, that would be it. I thought I recognised it. You're Creole. French by birth."

"Yes, sir. I am."

"I have a plantation there. La Belle Fleur. Have you heard of the place? "

"I may have, sir. There are many such places down that way. A lot of old family plantations have changed hands during the war of Northern Aggression."

Fanning grinned at that term. " Yes. Well that's how I acquired Belle Fleur. It was a very good deal, you might say." He looked over at me. "I hope you have put the war behind you like everyone else seems to have. My wife and I are having a musical soiree at our home tomorrow night. Perhaps, if you are still in town you might come and join us. There will be some cards in the salon if you're a gambling man. And I'm sure you'd like to show off your beautiful wife to everyone."

Belle Fleur. That was the name of Michael's childhood home. I stared at his face, his stiff smile, the rigid set of his jaw. I knew now. I knew why he had to get Fanning. Fanning had taken his home. That's what this was all about, a vendetta against Fanning.

"We'd be honoured," said Michael, his eyes glittering. " Wouldn't we, Dominique? "

I just smiled and nodded because that was what was expected.

I was floating somewhere between my real life and that of Dominique. I was watching them now instead of being one with her. I could see her in a sky blue satin dress in the midst of a party in a fancy home. She was pale as death. Michael was there playing cards. And then there was smoke and screaming and gunfire and my beautiful Michael lay dead on a red turkey carpet, shot through the forehead. Another man was holding a smoking gun. In the distance someone, another man, the same man, was calling my name. Telling me to come back.

Ni-ki-ta. Ni-ki-ta.

The pull of my own body was becoming far too strong. I did not want to go back until I could change something. I had to change it. I had to change it for her.

It was my dream. I could change it. I closed my eyes and imagined her. Dominique. She was sitting in a rocking chair nursing a beautiful baby. The vision was so strong I could feel the tug of the baby's mouth at my own breast a tiny hand kneading my flesh. On the rug beside the fire a little boy about six was playing with a row of tin soldiers.

Let me change it. Give me a little more time. Let it be the way it should be.

We went to the town dressmaker and ordered a dress for me to wear to Fanning's soiree. Michael chose the fabric. Sky blue satin. It would be completed by the next day, the woman promised us.

The dress was ready. Michael brought it to me, along with stockings and satin shoes. We had made love again that afternoon. I had tried to convince him to stay there with me in the hotel room.

"Lisa Fanning has a lover. This isn't going to work. Not the plans you had, at least."

He shrugged and moved away from me, rising from the rumpled bed, the beauty of his long, scarred back, his naked buttocks and smooth, muscled thighs taking my breath away. .

"I want to know what you've really planned for tonight, Michael. Does this have anything to do with Belle Fleur? "

He stiffened. " I have planned to get my property back. I will also expect you to dance with the bastard, entertain him while I slip upstairs and search his office."

"It's too dangerous."

"Not if we are careful."

"You don't have to concern yourself with it. All you have to do is go and dance and talk to the ladies while I play cards. Simple as that."

"And then? When you have searched his office, what then? "

"I'll come back later and clean it out. Simple as that."

"What if he tries to hurt me? What do I do?"

"I know you can handle yourself. It won't come to that. Make him a promise to meet you later. It will be perfect. He'll look on it as a challenge. Don't worry. Nothing will happen. He won't touch you. I won't let him. I want him to think he can have you."

I shuddered. " How can you do this to me, Michael? After everything. Is this what you mean when you say I belong to you? That you expect me to do your bidding? "

"Are you having second thoughts, Nick? You have only to say the word. You plead a sick headache and I go alone. No problem. I'll not force you into anything. You can wait for me at camp. I can get the lay of the place on my own and the boys and I will go back. You don't even have to go back to camp. I'll buy you a train ticket any where you want. What do you want? "

"I want you to stop lying to me. You are no outlaw, Michel La France. I'm not either. You are a man driven to get back what you've lost. Can't you see it's not important now? Now that we have found each other? "

He stared at me. " You are right about one thing. You are no outlaw, Princess." He brushed a lock of hair back from my cheek. " I don't know who sent you to me... You deserve someone better. A handsome prince who'll give you all you've ever wanted. Not me."

"God sent me to you for a reason. He sent me to love you, Michael French. You are all I want."

"I don't believe in God anymore," he said.

"Fanning has something you want. This goes deep. He took Belle Fleur from your father."

I saw his eyes slowly close, his back stiffen.

"It's true." The bones of the corset were pressing into my ribs. " It was yours Michael. That's why your face went so pale when he asked about it. It was yours. Your family home."

"Leave it, Nick. I won't talk about it."

"You'd kill him for it. Or die trying. You'll die. He'll either kill you or you'll hang."

"You can see the future, can you?"

"Yes, I can. I can see us with children and a home and love. I see us finding Adam and "

"You see none of that. And I don't care if I die."

Tears blurred my eyes. " Over a piece of land, Michael. A house? Cold stone and wood and earth. Before it may have made sense to you to do this. Before. I was sent to you for a reason, before you could do anything you'd regret."

"Sent to me? By whom? "

"Fate sent me. Why didn't you kill him in front of the shop? You could have, Michael. Something stopped you. Something stronger than you are. You could have killed him in the street like the dog he is."

"It would have given me immeasurable satisfaction."

"I love you, Michael."

"You are mistaken."

"You love me."

"I didn't ask .... I did not ask to love you. I should never have dragged you into this."

"But you did. It's too late now. What if I'm carrying a child."

"I took precautions to pull "

"Not every time."

"I doubt you are pregnant."

"Do you want to be a father to your child?"

"Don't think that is going to change my mind. I have one child I am no father to. I can easily have another."

"I won't let this happen. This is my dream. I won't let this happen."

"Dream? " He shook his head. " I thought you were sensible, Nick. Now I see you're as crazy weird as the next woman, but I like you, Princess. You are one hell of a woman. Tell Walter to pay you what I owe you, Nick. He'll see you safely to the next town. I have a job to do. I have to do this."

"I don't want your stupid money. I want you. It does not end this way. It doesn't. " I looked down at the red turkey carpet at my feet. " I will not say good-bye. I will not say good-bye now. It doesn't end this way."

"How does it end?"

I looked up at him. "It ends happily," I said resolutely.

"Really?"

"With marriage and a house. Children and a good long life. Oh, we'll fight. We're both rather headstrong, but you'll know after today never to push me too far because I am a little crazy sometimes. A little unpredictable."

He just smiled and then turned back to the window. " Go back to camp, Nick. Tell Walter to pay you double."

"I have decided to come with you. If I can find my hairpins. " I gave him a look that said that I'd not be swayed. If he was going to do this, I was going to protect him. Be his talisman, whatever I had been sent to do. I knew it would be over soon, some way or another.

The evening seemed to be going well. I was nervous but tried not to show it. I thought about how Michael looked at me, dressed in the satin gown, my hair up, two white roses tucked in the French roll I had managed. With the satin dress and the elbow length gloves I imagined myself as beautiful as any women he'd ever seen. When he looked at me he just widened his eyes and swallowed hard. It was enough of a compliment.

Fanning seemed interested in me. We danced several times, enough times that some of the other guests began to talk behind their fans. It sickened me. He had been squeezing my waist, telling me what a beauty I was. I breathed a sigh of relief when the dancing ended and we were called in to dinner. I was seated at Fanning's right. I did not eat a thing. I wondered if Michael had gotten the opportunity to check the upstairs yet.

After dinner the ladies were seated in the parlour for coffee. The men went off to play cards. I looked at Michael in his fine black suit and shuddered.

"Your husband is a fine looking man," said Lisa Fanning.

I flushed hotly.

"Who is he, really?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"Come. I have something to show you." She led me from the room to a sumptuous boudoir. She went to a highboy and searched amongst the drawers. She handed me a large gold locket on a chain. "Open it."

I did as she said, my fingers trembling. "I got this in Louisiana at Belle Fleur. I found it when we changed the carpets. It's him. The picture inside of it is your husband, is it not?"

I looked down at sepia photograph of a much younger, innocent looking Michael. In the other side was a girl, his sister, I assumed. I nodded, my throat thick.

"He'll never get it back, you know. David will kill him first. David doesn't part with his belongings." She had a secretive smile on her face. "Keep that. It should have been yours after all."

"I can't."

"Do keep it. David doesn't know about it." She led me downstairs, back to the party of rather lonely looking women. I sipped my tea and waited. It happened at midnight. Shouting, the crash of a table toppling over. Of course there was a rush to the cardroom, all the ladies wondering what the argument was about.

It seemed from the gossip that quickly filtered back to me and the stares that I had almost become the stakes in a card game.

Michael was minus his jacket, his face flushed. He looked at me and had the grace to blush. I just turned on my heel and left. I had had just about all I could take of this nonsense. I didn't even stop for my wrap. I just took the carriage and high-tailed it back to the hotel.

I was dressed in my pants and jacket when he came barging into the room I just looked at him as calmly and cooly as I could despite my quaking body. He was breathing hard from his ride. "I would never have done it," he told me. "Not even for Belle Fleur. You have to believe that."

"Did you get into the office?"

"Yes. I got what I needed. It's all over actually. Or it will be soon. I have demanded satisfaction. And now I will have it."

"You're crazy. You have demanded satisfaction? You would fight a duel in the street? For a woman you have been using. A woman who is not even your wife? A woman you told to pick up her pay and get on a train? You are right about one thing. It's all over."

He walked toward me.

"This is where we part company."

"No, it isn't. I I would never have bet you in a card game, Princess."

"Don't ever call me that again."

"I can explain." He walked toward the window, looking out toward the street. "Let me explain..."

I turned to look at him. He was not going to fight a duel with Fanning. He was not going to do anything of the sort. I would save him, even if he hated me to his dying day. I swallowed hard, reaching for my gun where it lay on the bed.

"I should have told you before, Nick. But I just got swept up and then I fell in love with you. I never meant any of this to happen, to get you involved. But I thank my lucky stars that I..."

"You'll thank your lucky stars that I'm a good shot."

Bang!

I could smell smoke. I could hear the awful sound of his groan of pain. His eyes were tearing up, questioning me. Asking why the hell I did it. Why the hell I shot him where I shot him.

I looked at him. Lying on the floor in his fine clothes, his face the same blanched tone as his shirt.

"To save you. I had to stop you, Michael. Now I have to get a doctor before you bleed to death. I don't think where I shot you will do any serious harm. I'll get you help and then I am gone. Out of your stupid life."

"You are a crazy woman!"

"I had to save you, French, you stupid, stubborn bastard."

"I am a Federal agent," he managed. "I have been investigating Fanning and a series of train and bank robberies he's been involved in since the war. I also investigate insurance frauds. He's involved in those, too. The outlaw thing is a cover. I thought I could kill few birds with one stone and get my home back. Oh, God. You shot me right in the ass. How am I going to"

An agent? He was a federal agent? Playing at being an outlaw? "Oh, my God. That is the satisfaction? Putting him in jail?"

"I got what I needed on him today, thanks to you, Nick. Some papers from his safe. I wasn't going to take you with me, but I saw how you looked in that dress. I love you... Jesus. You actually shot me."

"Are you going to put me in jail?"

"Maybe. If you don't let me bleed to death."

"Oh, Michael. I only wanted to save you."

"I know that, Princess. I know that."

"Save who, Kita?" he was saying. His hand was on my face, cupping my cheek. "From what?"

"From you. I love you so."

I opened my eyes. He was bending over me. His eyes are a strange mixture of silvery gray and green and blue. Like who ever made him couldn't decide and just spilled a myriad of colours onto the pallet and set to work. And then he just had to frame his masterpiece in the thickest, most beautiful lashes. I envy those lashes. I could see the laugh lines around them. He was smiling at me.

"Hello, Kita. You came back to me."

"Hello. Of course, I came back. I wouldn't miss this for the world, Michael. You usually call me Princess. I like it when you call me that." I touched his beautiful face. "Michael, you've cut your hair and shaved your sideburns off."

"My sideburns. Kita, do you know where you are?"

"I'm at my wedding now. I have the most beautiful lace dress. Do you think it's pretty?"

"Very pretty." He seemed a little worried. I closed my eyes. I was very tired again.

"I'm fine, Michael. I'm fine. They'll never be able to tell that I'm pregnant. You got Belle Fleur back, but I don't care about that. We can live in a shack for all I care."

"Kita? What are you?"

"I love you, Michael. Do you have your cane?"

Three weeks later:

I am back to about ninety percent now. I have been training again with Michael and though I get winded at times and have the odd headache things seem normal.

Walter laughed when I told him about my elaborate dream. That's what I am calling it, a dream, a fantasy, wishful thinking. He especially loved the part about Madeline being the brothel hostess and her son Seymour the piano player. I can still see Walter as Michael French's crotchety sidekick.

"And who was Operations?" he asked. "The Wizard of Oz?"

I think Walter laughed hardest when I told him how I stopped Michael from extracting his revenge on Fanning.

He was looking at me expectantly. "What did you do, Sugar?"

"I took his gun and I shot him in the ass with it."

"You shot Michael in the ass."

"Yes. He wasn't too badly hurt. He was laid up for a while, but when he found out I was pregnant he married me. I straightened his ways."

When he stopped laughing he said, "I think that dream had deep seeded Freudian connotations, Sugar. And I think he'd have known you weren't a boy from the first minute he laid eyes on you."

"Maybe he did know. Maybe he just didn't say cause he wanted me to stick around." I grinned thinking of the night in the swimming hole. If I ever get the chance I am going to find a swimming hole and take Michael there.

"It sounds like a pretty fine dream, though. I'm just glad you came out of it okay."

I smiled. "Was he very worried about me? Did he say anything to you?"

"He spent every free minute with you, Sugar. I think that ought to tell you something."

I nodded. Tears were threatening to engulf me again. "I know, Walter. I could feel him there. He's the reason I came home."

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