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name?"
    Ross was taken aback by her soft inquiry. "Uh . . . Lee. I named him Lee."
    She smiled down at the infant, hugging him close. Her hand smoothed over his head, which was fuzzy with dark hair. "Lee," she murmured lovingly. Looking up at the father with a bland expression, she said, "I'll take care of Leefor as long as he needs me, Mr. Coleman." She paused for a moment before adding loftily, "Even if it means putting up with the likes of you."

Chapter Three
    P utting up with the likes of you. Putting up with the likes of you.
    Ross tugged mercilessly on the harness as the words reverberated in his head. Who the hell did she think she was to talk to him that way? He patted the horses rump as if to say his anger wasn't directed toward the team that pulled the wagon.
    He went back to the fire he had rekindled minutes earlier at the first pinking of the eastern sky. The coffee wasn't boiling yet. It had been his habit to start the fire each morning, to make the coffee, even to get the bacon frying so Victoria could sleep a while longer. She hadn't been accustomed to rising early, much less getting her own breakfast, and the long, arduous days on the trail had taxed her strength.
    Ross stared into the crackling fire, asking himself for the hundredth time why she had lied to him. She had said she was only a few months pregnant and wouldn't be having the baby until long after they reached Texas. Because of her slight build, the lie had been believable. But after only a few weeks into their journey her burgeoning abdomen had given her away. Even when Ross remarked on how large she was getting so soon and she had meekly admitted that she was further along than she had first told him, he still hadn't realized how progressed her pregnancy had been Lee had been born several weeks prematurely. Still, the fact remained that Victoria had lied to him in order to get her way.
    He could understand why she hadn't wanted her father to know about the baby. Her father, Vance Gentry, had had a hard enough time accepting her marriage to a hired hand. But why the hell hadn't she been completely honest with him, her own husband?
    Ross reached for the enamel coffeepot and poured some of the strong brew into a tin cup. On the trail he preferred that kind of utensil to the china Victoria had insisted they bring along. Sipping the scalding coffee, he let his mind wander.
    No, Vance Gentry hadn't taken well to his daughter's falling in love with the man he had hired to manage his stables. Gentry had wanted a man with lineage as sterling as Victorias to be her husband. But men of marriageable age from established Southern families were hard to come by these days. The war had seen to that. Victoria was happy with her choice and, as the months passed, everyone at the farm adjusted to the idea of Ross Coleman's being her husband. Everyone except Vance. He was never openly hostile, but his resentment toward his son-in-law couldn't be disguised.
    Victoria had sensed that resentment. That's why she had waited until her father left on a horse-buying trip to Virginia to tell Ross about the baby. When he'd mentioned the land in Texas, it had been her idea that they leave before her father returned. Ross had been concerned about her pregnancy and the baby, but she had assured him they would have plenty of time to get settled before their baby was born. Well, the baby had been born. He had the baby, but no Victoria.
    No Victoria. He tried to imagine what his life would be like without her. She had come into it so unexpectedly and she had left it just as abruptly. She had been a gift that had been his temporarily, before being maliciously snatched away. In his life now there would be no light, laughter, love. He wouldn't ever see her face again, touch her hair, hear her singing. She was irrevocably lost to him, and he didn't know if he could cope with that.
    For Lee he would have to. Husbands lost wives to childbirth every day, and still survived. He would too. He