She paused on her way to the door. She had meant only to say that he had no need to thank her, but something in his tired smile made her touch his arm. "I'm so glad you've come home," she said softly.

He stood still for a moment. Then abruptly he gripped her hand. "Oh God, I can't even think how to tell you—" He seemed to hear the desperation in his own voice, and let go of her with a rueful laugh. "Well. You'd better make your escape immediately, before you find me pressing kisses to your feet. Or somewhere equally improper."

Callie ducked her head. She lifted her skirts and hurried up the steps out of the kitchen.

The fog still lay heavy when she reached the pasture, softening and obscuring the trees and hedges. Hubert stood waiting at the gate, a dark shape in the mist. As she came to the fence, he broke off his placid chewing and lifted his huge pink nose, snuff ling loudly in expectation.

Callie pulled a loaf of stale bread from her basket. She stepped up on the rail. The bull nosed gently, tickling her fingers, and took the bread on his long tongue. He curled it into his mouth. Callie scratched his broad forehead while he chewed with an air of satisfied contemplation.

He had good reason to feel satisfied with himself. Hubert was an excellent specimen. He measured five feet six inches at the shoulder and eleven feet ten inches from nose to tail. He boasted a superbly mottled coat, red and black on a white ground. In addition to his size and beauty, he possessed all the highest perfec tions of a shorthorn bull: a clean throat, level back, impeccable big shoulders, ribs full and round, leading smoothly to long quarters. He had grown only one ring yet on his handsome horns, being just three years old, and his first crop of calves were on the ground this past spring, perfectly healthy and lively as larks.

She looked on him fondly as he blinked his generous lashes and turned his head to allow her better access to scratch behind his ear. She had been present at Hubert's birth, led him about at his mother's side when he was a baby calf, comforted him with treats when he was weaned, nursed the inevitable cuts and scrapes a young bullock inf licted upon himself by trying to reach that farthest blade of grass through the hedgerow, and brought him up to his impres sive prime. Hubert was the pride of the county, a fit successor to his celebrated grandsire, Rupert.