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she
considered putting the baby in the middle of the mattress, then
decided against it. Using Jenny as a shield would be wrong.
    After the baby was glutted with milk and
sleeping soundly, Melissa put her back in her crate and began
undressing for bed. Pouring warm water into the bowl on the
washstand in the corner, she splashed her face and neck. She
released her hair from its knot and loosened it with her fingers,
then paused, her hands suspended in the strands. A small mirror
hung on the wall over the bowl, and she let one hand drop to the
bruise left by Coy's fist.
    Her own hand mirror had broken on the journey
up here, and now and then she had caught sight of herself in a
store window. But she'd not had a good look at her face for weeks,
long before the last time Coy hit her.
    She trailed her fingers over the mark.
Purple-brown in the middle, it had faded to greenish yellow at one
edge, like a rainbow of the ugliest colors. Coy had struck her
twice before. Usually he'd get drunk, or angry, and he would break
things, or kick something. As frightening as his violent behavior
had been, she had believed herself safe from his abuse because of
it, that he was satisfied to smash a bottle or put his fist through
a barrel lid.
    Then a month ago, when Jenny had been cranky
and colicky and wouldn't be soothed, Coy had turned his impatience
and anger on Melissa. Two weeks after that, he'd gotten mad because
his dinner was dried out. She'd known it would only make things
worse to point out that it had reached that state while he was
sitting in the saloon. It was best that he'd abandoned them, she
thought, straightening away from the mirror.
    But now she had Dylan Harper to worry
about.
    Since she had no nightgown, she would have to
sleep in her thin chemise and petticoat. With her pulse pounding
heavily in her throat, she climbed into the big bed.
    Maybe he wouldn't come back tonight, she
hoped wildly as she lay there trembling. She'd had the same wish
about Coy. Maybe he would never come back. He might fall in the
Klondike River and drown. Or maybe a wolf would come down from the
hills and—
    Suddenly, she heard a low, tuneless whistling
outside and the sound of a step on the bottom stair. He was coming.
He'd be here in seconds. Oh, please, God—
    Melissa lurched up and glanced around the
room desperately. Something, anything— Her gaze fell upon a big
sack of rice leaning against the wall. Springing from the bed, she
struggled with the sack, dragging its dead weight across the floor.
All the while the footsteps grew louder, closer. With strength she
didn't know she possessed, she flung the sack up to the bare,
blue-striped ticking, and rolled it to the center of the mattress.
It was dumb, it wouldn't stop him, but she had to try.
    Climbing in after it, she squeezed her eyes
shut and tried to slow her breathing. Around the edges of the
canvas curtains the sun blazed in the Arctic sky. She wished the
night was dark, as it would be back home, so that she could hide
her state of undress in its shadows.
    Dylan lifted the latch and walked in to find
Melissa lying in his bed. Something lay beside her, and it was way
too big to be the baby. It took up the full center of the bed,
leaving not much room on either side. He narrowed his eyes. Damn if
it wasn't the sack of rice. He drew closer to the mattress to study
her. Her eyes were clamped shut, and a slight frown drew her brows
as if she had put all of her concentration into her charade. She
clung to the edge of the mattress, but he knew she wasn't asleep.
She was panting, probably from lifting the rice, and a light dew of
perspiration shined her forehead. God, he knew that sack weighed
seventy-five pounds. He'd carried it up here himself.
    He would have laughed at the whole thing, but
she was afraid of him and that bothered him. Coy Logan and maybe
other men before him had made her fear Dylan, and all she had to
defend herself with was a bag of rice. And there was no humor in
that. Or in