"How's your arm?" she asked, to hide the fact that she was feeling suddenly and inexplicably shy. It was as though she hadn't given her body to this man beside a creek only a short time before, or relieved herself within his hearing. "It hurts like hell," he answered, but there was suppressed amusement in his voice. He drew her close, his uninjured arm beneath her, and gave her bottom a brazen squeeze. "Oh, for a bath and a bed, Miss Emma. If I could have those things, I'd keep you busy comforting me until the sun came up." Emma arranged the blankets with one arm, her head resting on his chest. She could hear his heart beating strong and steady beneath her ear, and she didn't let herself think that it would ever be stilled by a hangman's rope. "You've had about all the comforting you can stand for one day," she answered. He chuckled, and it was a homey, cozy sound. Emma could almost imagine that they were lying in a featherbed at Fairhaven, with their children sleeping down the hall and all their worries behind them. She laid splayed fingers on his chest, letting his heart thump against her palm. If You must take a life, she told God in silence, let it be mine and not his. It's selfish and weak of me, I know, but I couldn't bear to live without him. "I love you, Steven," she said. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. "And I love you, tigress. Good night." Emma"