She wore the lavender dress again, and a lacy white shawl to cover her bare shoulders. She enjoyed the look that Travis gave her, right now she needed to know he still thought her beautiful.

"I have something for you," he said, handing her a red satin-covered box. She opened it up and saw a string of cultured pearls that must have been expensive.

She picked them up, dangling them from her fingers. "Oh, they're beautiful," she said as he lifted her hair to fasten it around her neck. "I love them."

"I couldn't decide what to give you, I wanted something special to celebrate our first child. And once she comes, there won't be much celebrating or going out, we're going to be too tired." He smiled as he held out his hand and she took it, squeezing his fingers.

Her lips curled up in a smile, "Does that mean," she asked, "That you're going to help with late-night feedings and diaper changes?"

"If you nurse, I won't be much use for midnight feedings." He gave her a wicked look.

"Oh, you think? I'll pump my breast milk put it in bottles and keep it in the fridge. All you'll have to do is heat the bottle." So there, her look told him.

He took her to the finest steak house in Fort Worth, but she barely touched her food. She'd look down at her steak, sigh, then take a drink of ice water. She nibbled at her salad and took an occasional bit of bread, but other than that showed no interest in eating.

He pointed to her steak, "Coralee, you aren't eating. You need to eat. You need it and the baby needs it. Come on, what's bothering you, tell me."

She set her fork down, "I'm sorry, Travis, I am but I just don't have an appetite. All this is too much. I'm going to spend, what, a month, six weeks without you? We haven't been separated since we got married. If I wasn't going to stay at the Yellowstone, I don't know what I'd do. I can't imagine being left alone on our ranch. Being pregnant has changed so much in my life, and not for the better. I want my old life back."

"I want to ride again," she went on, "I want to have the occasional drink if I feel like it. I'm carrying around a weight that gives me a constant backache and I can't even take anything to help it. It's hard to sleep, and the baby makes me so uncomfortable. No one tells you how much being pregnant changes your life, and not for the better. I feel like I've been pregnant forever." Tears were starting to form in her eyes, stop it, she told herself, crying isn't going to help.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I've been watching you go through this. You are not a complainer, Coralee, but I can see how frustrated you are." He took a deep breath, "Is this about having to leave you behind?"

She looked at him and nodded, "Maybe, I try not to think about it, and I understand why, but it hurts."

"We've been fortunate, we've been able to spend most of our time together," he told her, "I hate having to leave you, but this way I've got to make a living. I know you're more emotional right now, your hormones must feel out of control due to the changes your body is going through."

He felt helpless, but she felt the same and he knew it. Some women seemed to breeze through pregnancies, but this pregnancy had been hard on her. He didn't have the right to expect her to just deal with it, how would it be if it were happening to him?

He laid a gentle hand on hers. "I can't change what's happening, all I can do is encourage you to eat and take care of yourself. I can't promise to call you every day, but I'll call as often as I can. It's only a few more months, and then the baby will be here, and your body and mind can start to heal." He cut a piece of his steak and held it to her lips, "Would you please eat?"

She let him feed her, then began to eat, slowly. "Travis, there's something else I need to tell you. I don't want a home birth, what if something goes wrong—it's a three-hour drive to the nearest hospital. I want to labor in a hospital, not in transit to one. I want us to rent an apartment for a month so we can get me to a hospital when the baby starts to come."

"I don't want to suffer through natural childbirth, I want an epidural. Some women are okay with natural births and no anesthesia, my mother had six of us at home, but it scares me. If I'm in a hospital, then they're prepared if anything goes wrong and the NICU is right there."

She looked at him, her eyes sincere and nervous, "I know you want me to have the baby at the ranch, but I'm sorry. You're not the one who's going to have to deliver it, I am. I want to have it where I can feel safe, and I want an epidural to help kill the pain. And I don't want to deliver it along the side of a road."

"I can't take a month away from the ranch, you know that. And it would mean a six-hour round-trip commute, and I can't do that." He felt like he was being put on the spot, but at least she was being honest with him, and he appreciated that.

"I can rent an apartment on my own and Katie, or someone, can come and stay with me. I'm not comfortable with the idea of not being able to get to a hospital in time. I know I'm young, and I'm strong, but you have no idea how much this worries me. If I do go into labor, the baby won't come right away, you might have time to drive to the hospital." She wanted to drive the point home, "You tell me you love me, if you do, then please do this for me. Or at least think about it." Please, Travis, she thought, I don't want to have the baby at the ranch.

"We can talk about this later," he told her and managed to convince her to finish her steak, then they went back to the hotel. She was too tired to make love and fell asleep early, her back was hurting so it wasn't possible. Instead, he held her until they slept until it was time to get up and go to the airport.

What she said about not having the baby at the ranch bothered him, but he couldn't deny that she made a good argument. His mom had delivered four babies at home with no problems. Her mother had had six home births with no complications.

It wasn't fair to dismiss her concerns, he thought. Childbirth wasn't easy, and things did happen sometimes, women and babies died in childbirth. He wouldn't force her, he couldn't face the thought of losing her, but he wasn't looking forward to another separation.

When she woke, she felt better and they made love, it would be over a month before they would see each other again. They took a shower and got dressed, then went to the lobby and checked out. It was early, seven o'clock, and the security line at the airport wasn't long. They found a restaurant and ate breakfast, her appetite seemed to have magically returned.

"Is your uncle picking you up?" he asked her, and she nodded.

"Yes, thank god. Jamie is still persona non grata, which isn't fair, Kayce is working, and Uncle John knows better than to put Beth and me in a small, confined space like a car. I don't know how I'm going to deal with her, but better her than Mom, I guess. Gator will have lunch ready when we get there, I know he's going to try to feed me the entire time I'm there." She smiled at Travis, showing him she was joking. She was looking forward to Gator's cooking.

He saw her onto the plane, then turned and left. She'd been gone less than a minute and he already missed her, the next month or so would be unbearable without her. Everything he did was better when she was there. He might win buckles and prize money but without her at his side, it wouldn't be the same.

It was a short flight, so she hadn't booked first class. She had secured an aisle seat with extra leg room; she'd started having leg cramps and they could come on when she least expected it. The flight was only two and a half hours but somehow seemed longer. The seats weren't filled with businessmen, but families with children making the flight seem noisy and overlong.

She was glad when they landed, and she could escape into the terminal. She saw her uncle's tall frame and when she caught his eye he smiled. He came up to her and put his arms around her, hugging her as tightly as her pregnant belly would allow.

"Look at you," he said, "All pregnant and grown up. When are you due, sweetheart?" He put his arms around her and they went to the baggage terminal to fetch her luggage.

"About two and a half months now, I think," she answered, "If the baby was ready, I'd like to have it today, I'm not sure I want to go through this again."

"Wait until the baby comes," he laughed, "You'll fall in love, and everything will seem worth it. You'll even start planning when you want to do it again, trust me."

"I'm not so sure about that, I've been so sick and now that I'm not I'm noticing how hard it is on my body. I don't know how Mom could stand to do this six times."

Fortunately, her uncle was parked close to the terminal, she wanted nothing more than to get off her feet and rest. Her uncle's truck was roomy and she could stretch her legs. The hour-long drive didn't bother her, she was happy to see the familiar landscape of Montana again and thought again how much she missed it.

"Can I tell you something, Uncle John?" she asked, and he nodded, "I hate Texas."

"Does Travis know?" John replied.

"Oh, I think he does, but I try not to complain, what good would that do? I hate the heat, it gets unbearable sometimes, and the thunder and lightning storms scare me, even though we have them in Montana. And then there's the tornadoes. And we're a three-hour drive from civilization, we're going to have to figure out what to do because I don't want a home birth, I want to have this baby in a hospital."

"Maybe you should have thought about all this before you got married," he suggested.

"Maybe Travis should have thought about it, too. When we married—twice—we were so in love that we didn't think about these things. Maybe Travis thought I'd just get used to it. Maybe all I could think about was how much I wanted to be with him. At the time getting married was the only thing that did make sense."

"Coralee, Travis will try his best to make you happy, I know that crazy cowboy loves you and you love him. Maybe you're expecting things to happen too quickly, it's going to take you time to get used to Texas." John looked over at her, "Maybe you're not giving yourself a chance. You're pregnant with your first child and you're scared, it's natural. And it's not just childbirth you're facing, it's becoming a parent, believe me, that changes your life."

"Yeah, I know, at least I think I do. You know, sometimes I think I know him, then I realize I only know part of him. I feel like I'm lucky, I do, but sometimes I don't understand him, and I know he doesn't understand me."

"Welcome to marriage, sweetheart," he said, "It's never going to be perfect, but that's the way it should be. Travis will keep surprising you and you'll keep surprising him, that makes marriage interesting."

"I could do with a little less interesting now, Uncle John," she sighed and turned to look out the window.