“That’s what the Aborigines call the period before recorded history.”

“Tell me about the legend,” Maggie pleaded, for she loved such stories. Samuel’s tale about the kangaroos, told to her that day at the menagerie, had delighted her.

They were nearing the house, and Reeve’s expression was suddenly sober. Maggie followed his gaze and saw Duncan Kirk standing on the porch with Eleanor. “Another time,” her husband told her. He brought the wagon to a stop in front and leapt agilely from the box to walk around and lift Maggie down.

Perhaps because he had a bent for the traditional—or maybe because he wanted to remind the lookers-on, most notably Duncan, that Maggie was his wife—Reeve suddenly swept her up into his arms and carried her up the porch steps, Elisabeth scrambling happily at his heels. He paused at the door to give Maggie a quick kiss, and then he carried her over the threshold.

“Welcome home, Mrs. McKenna,” he said gruffly. Happy tears filled Maggie’s eyes, for there had been so many times when she’d thought this occasion would never come. Her hand lingered on the nape of Reeve’s neck even after he’d set her carefully on her feet. “There were moments,” she confessed, “when I thought that if anybody carried anybody over a threshold, it would be me toting you.”

Reeve laughed and gave her a surreptitious swat on the bottom, and then Maggie took her first look around her. The house was spacious and rustic, lacking the marbled elegance of the place in Sydney, and Maggie loved it on sight. There was an enormous fieldstone fireplace, and from the dining room she could see the ocean. The kitchen was in a building separate from the main house, reached by a footpath. There were, of course, no gaslights and certainly no indoor plumbing fixtures.

Seven Sisters was an outpost of sorts, but that didn’t dull its appeal to its new mistress. Maggie had a real home for the first time in her life, and that made her throat tighten with emotion.

In the master bedroom upstairs she knelt on a window seat, looking out over the sugar cane and the sparkling sea. She felt Reeve’s hands on her shoulders and his breath on the nape of her neck as he bent to kiss that sensitive place.

Sighing with contentment, Maggie lifted her hands to cover Reeve’s. “I feel as though all my life has been a road, leading here, to Seven Sisters,” she said softly.

“I feel the same way,” Reeve reflected, nibbling gently at the side of her neck. “But just since I carried you over the threshold, Mrs. McKenna.”

Maggie turned, looking up into Reeve’s face with tear-bright eyes. “I want our child to be born right here, in this room.”

“Aye.” Reeve chuckled, lifting her chin for his kiss. “And is there a better place to conceive a dozen more?”