“Not before he’d had a good bit of vengeance, I suspect,” Jamie answered. He wasn’t afraid of Increase Pipher or of any other man—except possibly Reeve.

Peony shivered and squeezed her eyes shut in response to whatever pictures were looming in her fertile mind, then turned, placing one hand on Jamie’s back. Though the scars from Increase’s whip were hidden beneath his coat and shirt, Peony had never forgotten them. “Nothing and no one is worth the chance you’re taking, Jamie McKenna,” she whispered, and her bright green eyes brimmed with tears.

The brogue began to creep back into Jamie’s voice, as it often did when he was irritated or upset. “I’ll not ’ave the blighter dictatin’ where I can go and where I can’t, then!” he flared.

Peony subsided and turned her face resolutely toward the sea. The rocky shores of Queensland were now visible in the distance.

Once the sugar cane had been harvested from both Seven Sisters and Duncan’s neighboring plantation, Reeve began to brood. Often, Maggie found him standing at a dark window, in the middle of the night, gazing toward the sea. She knew he was thinking of Jamie, and she worried. It was only a matter of time, Maggie was certain, until he would decide to go to New Zealand in search of his brother. Because of her pregnancy, he would surely leave her behind.

On one such night, awakening to see Reeve standing at the bedroom windows, she got up, sliding her arms around his middle and letting her forehead rest against his back. He stiffened in her embrace, and Maggie wondered briefly if he’d started visiting Eleanor.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she forced them back. She was smiling cheerfully when Reeve turned to face her. “Thinking of faraway places?” she asked softly.

“And faraway people,” Reeve confirmed. His arms encircled Maggie, but he was not really with her. His mind and spirit were in New Zealand, with Jamie.

“When are you going?” Maggie hadn’t planned to ask the question; it had simply popped out.

Reeve tensed again, but this time his hands rose gently to the sides of Maggie’s upturned face, caressing her. He hesitated, then answered with a sigh of resignation, “Soon.”

“I want to go along,” Maggie said stoutly.

Reeve shook his head. “That’s out of the question, Yank,” he told her in a gentle voice. “And furthermore, you know it is.”

Maggie lowered her eyes, lest he see the tears that had gathered there again. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

Her husband held her, one hand stroking her back, moving the silken fabric rhythmically along her skin. “I won’t be away long, love, I promise. And you can pass the time in Sydney, shopping and the like. Wouldn’t you enjoy that?”