Winter''s Edge

  As Toby had predicted, the day had cleared off nicely, and the early spring sun was poking through the clouds with increasing frequency. Toby had provided her with one of his own horses, a sweet-tempered lady named Bess with seemingly not a bad habit in her gentle body. The moment Molly was on her back she felt at home, and she realized that at one time she must have been a decent rider.

  Toby confirmed this. "It's good to see you riding again. There was a time, a few years back, when you were scarcely out of the saddle from one day to the next."

  "Really?" She wasn't as surprised as she sounded.

  "You and Patrick used to go to all the horse shows around, winning half the prizes at the very least." There was a touch of envy in Toby's voice, and she thought she could understand why. He sat his horse a bit like a sack of potatoes, his body stiff and unyielding. He was in perfect control of his spirited roan, but there was an unnaturalness about it, an awkwardness that struck the eye immediately. Clearly Toby had never won any prizes in the show ring.

  Despite Molly's proficiency, it took a while to realize that she wasn't completely at ease on Bess's back. There seemed a tension about the horse that she hadn't noticed at first, just a small trace of nerves that communicated itself in the subtlest way. They followed the old road that encircled the farm at a leisurely pace, and Molly tried unsuccessfully to attune herself to the horse's odd mood.

  "Let's go into the woods," Toby suggested as they neared the farm again. "There's a spot near the old well that should have some daffodils this time of year."

  "We've been out rather a long time," Molly said uneasily, her hindquarters beginning to feel a little sore from the unaccustomed exercise. "Perhaps we should save it for another day."

  His face fell absurdly, and she felt a touch of guilt. "But daffodils were always your favorite flower, Molly," he said plaintively. "Please. It would mean a lot to me if I could give you your first daffodil of the year."

  She didn't want to encourage his odd crush. He always seemed to be watching her, covertly, his pale eyes strangely intense, and there was a peculiar undercurrent to his behavior that she hadn't been able to define. The thought filled her with such a gnawing discomfort that she failed to notice where they were heading as the trees closed around them.

  Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, Bess gave a shrill, frightened shriek, rearing up wildly, and Molly felt herself sliding. She clawed for the reins, but it was hopeless, and she began to fall, through the air, as the ground rushed up toward her. The baby, she thought in sudden desperation, determined to protect something she wasn't sure she believed in.

  But it was too late. She was falling, falling, and there was nothing but the winter-hard earth to catch her.

  Chapter Ten

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  She lay on the hard ground, the breath knocked out of her, stunned. She closed her eyes, struggling to breathe, waiting for the pain, the cramping to hit her. Her breath came back in a whoosh, and she held very still, listening to her body, listening to the sound of hooves as Bess took off into the forest. Just a few expected aches and twinges. If she was pregnant, it didn't seem as if she'd done anything to hurt it.

  Toby slid from his horse and knelt beside her. "Are you all right?"

  Molly shook herself, sitting up slowly. "Fine," she responded after a moment, feeling only slightly dazed. It hadn't been the worst fall, she knew that instinctively, but it had still been oddly unsettling. She struggled to her feet and brushed off the twigs and dirt from her jeans. "And there's Patrick," she said, seeing his tall, lean frame at the far edge of the clearing, unable to keep the relief out of her voice. He was accompanied by Ben, and she waved to show she was all right before turning back to her companion.

  Toby was standing there with a large rock in his hand, a troubled expression on his gentle face. "You could have hit your head on this and been killed," he said, dropping the rock back to the wet ground.

  She stared at him for a moment, unnerved, still shaken by the fall. "I wouldn't worry, Toby," she said finally in a determinedly light voice. "I seem to have an awfully hard head."

  His eyes met hers with a look of sorrow. "I have to tell you this before Patrick gets here, whether you like it or not."

  "What is it?" she asked with a trace of annoyance. Patrick was advancing swiftly, his long legs making short work of the distance between them. There was a look of thunderous rage on his face.

  "Molly, someone or something spooked that horse."

  "What?" she exclaimed, giving him her entire attention now.

  "I said that Bess was frightened deliberately. Someone tried to hurt you." He looked frightened, really frightened.

  "How could they?" she demanded. "You saddled her, didn't you?"

  He nodded. "But I left her in the stables alone when I came to fetch you. Anyone could have tampered with her during that time. A small burr under her blanket that would work its way into her skin after a while, a needle. Anyone who's familiar with horses could have done it."

  She didn't want to ask the question, but there was no avoiding it. "Who was in the stable when you left?"

  "Patrick," he said in a hushed voice.

  Panic swept over her, blind and unreasoning. She trusted Patrick—reasonable or not, she was certain he wasn't trying to kill her. But why would Toby lie?

  "I don't believe it," she said in a horrified voice. "He wouldn't do anything to hurt me. You must be mistaken."

  "It's no mistake, Molly," he said. "I've warned you before. You can't trust anyone, not even your own husband. Let me do the talking when Patrick gets here, all right? He's going to be mad enough that we were even out together without this happening."

  "Why should he be mad we went riding?" she asked, startled. "Surely there's no harm in that?"

  "You really don't remember him at all, do you?" He shook his head in amazement. "Patrick's always had a dog in the manger attitude about you. He didn't want you for himself, but he was always damned if he would let you go off alone with anyone. And that started years before you were married."

  She looked over at Patrick's advancing figure and found a curious lightness inside her, banishing her fear. "How very encouraging," she murmured, half to herself.

  "What the hell is going on here?" Patrick demanded when he reached them. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

  Are you trying to kill me? she almost retorted, but some long-submerged sense of tact kept her silent as Toby tried to explain the situation.

  "I thought you knew more about horses, Toby." Patrick's contempt was withering. "After all, you've been around them all your life. Molly hasn't ridden in over a year. You should have put her on one of our horses, not that nerve-racked Bess. And why the hell wasn't she wearing a hard hat?"

  "Bess isn't nerve-racked," Toby protested, stung. "She's a fine animal, and Molly always used to beg me to let her ride her."

  "That was years ago, when she was in better shape," he said coldly. "And back then I told you no."

  "Oh, for God's sake, she's not a child," Toby said in a tense voice, and Molly noticed a faint tremor in his hands. There was something else going on here, something besides the anger over a minor riding accident. Something between them, and it involved her.

  "No, but you're acting like one, doing a foolish and dangerous thing like that." Patrick's very calm made his stinging words all the more biting, and Toby's face took on a mottled hue.

  "Well, I'll leave you to escort your wife home." His accent on the word was bitter. "I'll talk to you later, Molly."

  "Not for a while, I'm afraid," Patrick told him firmly. "She's going to keep to the house for a few days—I don't like all these accidents that have been happening recently."

  "I don't either," Toby said angrily, and rode off.

  Patrick looked down at her from his six feet three inches of male irritation. "Are you satisfied now?" he demanded. "You've managed to come between me and one of my oldest friends." He started walking, and it was with difficulty that she
managed to keep up with his long strides.

  "I came between you?" she echoed angrily. "There was absolutely no call for you to speak that way to him. I think that whatever differences you two have are your own problem and none of my doing. And why aren't I allowed out riding with one of your oldest friends? Do you think he's going to throw me down and have his wicked way with me?"

  He stopped and gave her a look of withering contempt. "I would say, judging from your behavior over the past ten months, that he'd be in more danger from you than vice versa." And he walked on.

  Once more she had to run to keep up with him. "Then if you hate me so much why don't you let me go?" she demanded. "As long as I give the police my address I can go anywhere I please. I haven't been accused of any crime—I'm just a witness. If I happened to remember anything I saw, that is. So why don't you let me go somewhere and get a quickie divorce and finish this thing once and for all?"

  "No." He kept on walking. "You put me through hell for over ten months. I think I owe you six months of hell in return, and I mean to see that you get it."

  "Where's Toby?" Mrs. Morse asked cheerily as Molly entered the kitchen alone.

  "Gone home," she said morosely, sitting down by the fireplace. "Mrs. Morse, why does Patrick hate me?"

  "Oh, now, dearie, he doesn't hate you," she said earnestly, coming to sit beside her with one of her ever-present cups of coffee. "He just doesn't know his own mind, that's all."

  "He does hate me," she insisted. "And I can't remember what it is I've done to him to deserve it."

  "Well, I've always said what's past is over and done with and should be forgiven and forgotten. Unfortunately Patrick's always had a hard time with the forgiving and the forgetting."

  "But what makes him so full of hate all the time?" she demanded. "Isn't he ever happy?"

  "Well, now, of course he is. But life's never been easy for him. His mother ran off when he was just a kid—died in a car accident a few years later without ever writing or calling. It's not good for a child to feel abandoned, and his father, bless his heart, wasn't the most nurturing soul. He was just as strong-minded as his son, and the two of them fought like cats and dogs, Jared trying to make Patrick do what he wanted, Patrick refusing. It was a real battleground. Finally Patrick just took off in his early twenties, and no one heard from him for years."

  "What happened? What brought him back?"

  "He never did say, and I doubt he ever will. He went through some bad times, and when he came back he was a changed man. He and his father worked out a kind of truce, and then a couple of years later you showed up. It wasn't until then that he began to be more like his old self, and I thought…well, never mind." She sighed, taking a deep drink of her coffee.

  "Why did he marry me?" she asked, unable to keep the forlorn note out of her voice.

  "I don't know, sweetie. He treated you like a little sister—took you with him, teased you, talked with you. As for you, it was as clear as day that you were crazy in love with him. Had been since you first came here, sixteen years old and pretty as a picture."

  "He told me it was his father's idea."

  "It was. He left the estate all tied up to try to get his own way, but then, Jared was that kind of man. But there would have been ways around it. Patrick didn't have to marry you. And I never did figure out why he did."

  "It's pretty easy to guess why I did. I was willing to take him on any terms, wasn't I?" she said bitterly, and Mrs. Morse nodded.

  "I guess that was so. But it seemed like you changed your mind once the knot was tied. You weren't even friends with Patrick anymore. You became wild and spiteful and selfish, and it was just too much for Patrick to deal with. That, and all the other men."

  "Other men?" she repeated, numb.

  She shook her head sadly. "Just like his mother. You used to go out and stay all night long with anyone you could find."

  It didn't feel right. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on her part, but Molly couldn't rid herself of the notion that someone, somehow, was lying. "How do you know that?" she demanded.

  "Honey, you told us! It was no secret—you made darn sure everybody knew exactly what you were doing. And Patrick just shut himself up in that office of his or went off and met Lisa Canning somewhere. I tried to tell you that wasn't the way to win him but you wouldn't listen."

  Molly stared into the fireplace, trying to reconcile this image with what she had come to know about herself in the few short days since her…her rebirth. But it wouldn't come into focus, and she wondered what was the truth about her past. Her own instincts? Or other people's sharp memories?

  Or neither of them.

  Molly didn't have much appetite that night. She toyed with the fried chicken and creamed spinach Mrs. Morse brought up to her and barely touched the cheesecake. Uncle Willy brought up a small pitcherful of cranberry juice when he heard she was ill, and it took her most determined efforts to evict him and an oversolicitous Aunt Ermy.

  She looked about her in lonely gloom. Even her new surroundings seemed to have palled, and part of her longed to be downstairs, sparring with Patrick over the dinner table, while the rest of her was happy to hide out, away from everyone.

  There was something wrong, something very wrong, with this place, and the people, and the stories they were telling her. Something with their image of the past, but there was no way she could refute it.

  She could only hold on, one day at a time, and hope she'd have the answer to at least one of her questions by tomorrow.

  If she was pregnant there was no way she could leave. Not unless Patrick threw her out.

  But if she wasn't, then she'd stayed long enough. She had money, she wasn't charged with any crime. If she got a clean bill of health the next day she was out of here. The answers weren't coming, and whether anyone believed her or not, she was in danger. She was getting out. And she had no intention of looking back.

  Stupid bungler! Of course it had been miserable bad luck, Patrick showing up like that. Just a few minutes would have made all the difference. Ah, but that was too often the difference between triumph and disaster. A moment, a whim of fate, and life shifted, defeat beckoned.

  But a true visionary never accepted defeat. Not when so much had been accomplished. There was too much at stake, and a whey-faced little thing like Molly Winters wasn't going to get in the way.

  The subtle efforts weren't working; neither were the more flagrant attempts. It was time for more drastic measures. There was only a limited amount of time before she remembered.

  And when she did, it might be too late for all of them.

  Chapter Eleven

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  It took her over an hour to drag herself out of bed. She was so horribly sick the next morning her entire body felt numb with it, and she alternated between chills and fever, shivering and sweating, until she almost called out for help.

  But any cry for help would more likely bring her husband from next door than any one else. She shut her eyes, gritted her teeth, and suffered until the sickness decided to pass.

  When she finally got up it was with immense relief that she remembered the doctor's appointment. At least she could diagnose and stop this awful thing. Molly was almost afraid to go to sleep at night, thinking of the pain that awaited her upon waking. She'd have an answer today, even if it might not be the most convenient one.

  It all seemed so distant and unlikely. And worst of all, Patrick made it clear there was no way he'd take responsibility for the child. She should have guessed their relationship wouldn't have included sex for a long time. And yet, she could practically feel the heat when he looked at her.

  Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part. Maybe she was the tramp everyone said she was. If she was, then there'd be no way of telling what sort of person had fathered her baby. It didn't matter—she still wouldn't want to give it up, she thought stubbornly as she stepped into the shower.

  She stood there in the steaming blast of water until she could stan
d it no longer, then toweled herself off, staring at her body in the mirror. Still the same long legs and flat stomach. Her waist hadn't thickened, her smallish breasts hadn't become tender and swollen. As for missing her period, the surest way of knowing something's wrong, her memory had only been alive for five days. Her body was as mute to her questions as her mind.

  She dressed warmly and femininely, in one of the long rayon skirts she had bought and a thick knit sweater. She supposed it was some hidden maternal instinct that made her change from pants to dresses as she contemplated motherhood. She looked at the clock, and noticed with surprise that it was almost noon. She must have needed the extra sleep.

  "Well, well, aren't you charming-looking this morning," Lisa Canning's voice greeted Molly as she walked into the kitchen. Molly turned around without a word and headed out, but Patrick appeared out of nowhere, halting her escape.

  "Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.

  She deliberately misunderstood him. "To the doctor's," she said defiantly.

  He raised an eyebrow, and much as she didn't want to, she couldn't avoid noticing the beauty of the man, a beauty that had the power to move her just as his usual contempt pushed her away.

  "Well, you aren't going immediately, are you? Come in and have some lunch."

  She looked up at him with suspicion of this new affability. "I'm not hungry," she said mutinously.

  "Too bad." One strong hand went under her arm and she was brought back into the kitchen feeling like a fish caught on a hook.

  Lisa smiled at them both with that cool assurance she had in abundance. "There you are, Patrick. I wondered how long it would take you to tear yourself away from your books. And your little wife too. Did I tell you, Molly dear, how charmingly girlish that little outfit is? So country." She smiled sweetly, and Molly glowered at her in return, yanking her arm away from Patrick's viselike grip.