LITMIR.BIZ

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love to Jenny—had never before had anything, really, to do with what he considered work.

      Her chin quivered suddenly and that movement, quickly controlled, almost broke him. Jenny wasn’t a woman who cried. She had never used tears to get her own way. But her emotions had been on edge lately, and Mac certainly understood all the reasons why.

      Once they had decided it was time to add children to the wonder of their marriage, they had pursued that goal with a willingness that had little—on Mac’s part, at least—to do with making babies. Babies were just something he had always believed would happen naturally, given enough opportunities. And those, he had willingly supplied.

      Only, it hadn’t happened. Not for three long years, and despite the fact that in the past year they had finally sought professional help, it still hadn’t happened. Their lovemaking, once spontaneous and filled with joy, had taken on a clinical aspect that Mac was a little uncomfortable with. He hadn’t said anything, determinedly holding on to his patience and good humor in the face of his wife’s increasing tension.

      He’d walk through fire for Jenny, without any hesitation, and he figured he could survive performing on demand if that was what it took to make her happy.

      “And when they bring you home in a box, Mac, what am I supposed to do then?” she asked softly. “What happens to me?”

      Her question shocked him. A man didn’t last long in this job if he worried about reprisals or reacted to threats. The thought of him dead and Jenny alone wasn’t one he’d ever considered with any seriousness. If the thought had occasionally brushed through his consciousness, he’d rejected it. He couldn’t do this job constantly looking over his shoulder.

      “That’s not going to happen,” he said dismissively.

      “Is that a guarantee, Mac? Are you making me a promise?”

      “Jenny,” he began, and then his voice faltered. There was nothing he could say that would satisfy her fear or her anger—emotions she had a right to feel, he acknowledged. Whatever he did impacted on them both. He understood that.

      “It’s my job, Jenny,” he said again, stubbornly. It was his only defense and one that even he recognized wouldn’t be much comfort to a grieving widow.

      Jenny’s lips flattened and she shook her head once, the motion sharp and angry. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

      “I’ll never forgive you, Mac. I swear to God I’ll hate you through eternity if you let something happen to you.”

      “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he said softly.

      He lifted his hand, fitting the callused palm against the softness of her cheek. His thumb brushed across the tight-set line of her lips. When he felt the minute loosening of the muscle at the corner, encouraged by that response, he lowered his head.

      His mouth found the smooth expanse of her forehead under the disordered silk of her hair, and he pressed a small kiss there. His other hand moved to her back, between her shoulder blades. With the heel of his hand, he pushed into the tension he found there, kneading gently.

      “Want to make a baby?” he whispered.

      “It’s not the right time.” Jenny’s voice was as tight as the muscles in her back and shoulders.

      His lips skimmed down the slender line of her nose and settled with familiar expertise over her mouth. Despite her anger, she didn’t avoid their touch. She automatically tilted her head to allow the accustomed alignment of his mouth over hers.

      He wondered how many times he’d kissed her, how many times she’d stood on tiptoe, her small frame stretching to accommodate his height, how often her body had arched to match the uncontrollable thrusts of his. Suddenly he wished he’d written them all down. Kept a record somewhere. Today I made love to Jenny. Each time carefully recorded so these memories could never be lost, never destroyed.

      She put her hands on his shoulders. He loved Jenny’s hands. They weren’t manicured or particularly well cared for. They were working hands, a little rough and reddened from washing dishes and grubbing in the yard. Her nails were short and usually unpolished. The small, slender fingers were often scratched or stained with paint or the medicines she used in treating the animals.

      But to Mac they looked exactly as a woman’s hands should look. Felt as they should feel. Whether gentling an injured horse or moving seductively over his own body in the darkness. And it seemed to Mac he had always known how they would look cradling the rounded, darkly-fuzzed head of an infant. His son or daughter.

      That was all Jenny had ever asked him for. A baby. And not to get himself killed. And he couldn’t guarantee either, it seemed.

      No promises, Jenny-Wren. I can’t make you any promises. Except to love you. And even if I end up dead, while you’re hating me through eternity for dying and leaving you, I’ll still be loving you. To the grave and beyond.

      Mac bent slightly, slipping his left arm under Jenny’s knees. He gathered up his wife and carried her easily, cradled like a child against the solid strength of his chest, into the dark bedroom they had shared for the past five years.

      Usually when he did something like this, Jenny laughingly protested, pounding on his chest or pushing against his shoulder, demanding that he let her down to get back to whatever she had been doing. Tonight she did neither.

      He deposited her on the wide bed and stepped back to take off his shirt, not bothering to unbutton it, but simply tugging it out of his uniform pants and stripping it off over his head in one fluid motion, his undershirt along with it. He threw the garments toward the foot the bed. He stood balanced awkwardly on one foot and then on the other to tug off his boots. When he turned around, he realized Jenny hadn’t moved. She had simply been watching him, and whatever was in her face made him hesitate, his hand at the waistband of his uniform pants.

      Her eyes slid downward, moving over the broad, muscled expanse of his chest and then to the ridged stomach. She looked up finally, her eyes too dark and wide, straining to deny the tears that he knew were still close to the surface. Tears that were silently pleading for a promise he couldn’t give. Not with any honesty.

      “Don’t be mad, Jenny-Wren,” he said softly, lowering his big body onto the bed beside her. His lips nuzzled along the skin under her jawline. He could feel the lifeblood pumping steadily beneath its satin surface. He caressed that small, pulsing movement with his tongue, for the first time forced to think about the precious stability of their lives, to think about how lucky they were.

      He had never worried about anything happening to either of them. He supposed men didn’t think that way, never anticipating, as women apparently did, some terrible thing happening to the ones they loved. He had just accepted that this was their life and that they would go on this way forever, loving each other.

      Loving each other. Until finally they would be old and beyond these needs, beyond the endless desire that sometimes woke him, his body hard and achingly lonely for the feel of Jenny’s, even if he had made love to her only a few hours before.

      Jenny’s hand found his chin, and she pushed his head away from hers so she could look into his eyes. “Anything but that, Mac,” she whispered, and the truth of it was in her eyes. “I could bear anything but losing you.”

      He smiled at her, the slow movement of his lips an invitation, and reassurance, he hoped. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll ask Chase for advice. I’ll call in the feds, I swear. Will that make you happy?”

      “It would make me happy if you just got out. We could run cows again. Or sheep. Raise spinach if we have to.”

      He laughed, but he knew from the quick pain in her eyes that it had been a mistake. She hadn’t been joking. Jenny was scared, and he hated himself for making her afraid. This was why he hadn’t told her before. She didn’t need this to worry about.

      “At least it’s safe,” she argued.

      “This isn’t the movies, Jenny.

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