Reeve nodded. “Jamie never knew there was a child until today, when I told him.”

“Why do you suppose a woman would abandon her own daughter that way, and let everyone believe that she was dead?”

“I don’t suppose we’ll ever know exactly,” Reeve answered quietly. “She obviously wasn’t the motherly sort. Maybe that’s all there was to it.”

“Jamie sent her away, didn’t he? Eleanor, I mean?” Reeve nodded. “Found her in a compromising situation, you might say.”

A horrible thought struck Maggie. Now that Jamie knew Elisabeth was his daughter, maybe he would want to take her back to New Zealand to live. Maggie would be devastated if he did that, for she’d come to cherish that child with her whole heart. “Is he going to—will he want to—”

Reeve looked down at Maggie and smiled despite the set of his jaw that plainly said he was in severe pain. “Elisabeth stays with us,” he assured her. “At least until she’s old enough to decide for herself. After all, I’m the only father she’s ever known, and she’s taken to calling you Mama, hasn’t she?”

Maggie nodded, her eyes brimming with tears of weariness and relief and a thousand other emotions. She remembered Reeve’s coldness that morning in the hotel room, and her feeling that he didn’t love her anymore. “Are you going to dismiss me from your life, Reeve McKenna,” she dared to ask, “the way you did Loretta?”

Reeve stopped there in the cane that rose all around them and turned to face Maggie. “I married you, Yank. For me, that means a lifetime of loving you. I’ll never send you away, and I’ll never leave you.”

Maggie stood on tiptoe to kiss her husband. “Promise?” she asked in a whisper.

Reeve kissed her passionately. “I promise,” he answered, and Maggie knew he meant it.

Seven Sisters—November 1887

“HE’S FUNNY-LOOKING,” SAID ELISABETH MCKENNA, peering into the face of the new baby Reeve held so carefully in his strong arms. “What’s his name?”

Maggie watched fondly as Reeve looked down at the tiny, wrinkled infant, his handsome face alight with joy and pride. “His name is James,” he said. “James Chamberlin McKenna.”

“Can I take him outside and show him my new pony?”

Maggie, still confined to her bed even though she felt strong and healthy, smiled and patted the comforter. Elisabeth came and sat beside her, gazing up into Maggie’s face with an expectant expression.

“James will have to be just a bit older before he can properly appreciate anything so wonderful as your pony,” Maggie confided.

“Oh,” replied Elisabeth with an air of importance. Satisfied, she scrambled down from the bed and dashed out of the room, bored with babies.