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Swiping angrily at tears that would not stop, Melissa took off the silk stockings and new chemise she'd bought, then changed into her everyday clothes. She moved woodenly, feeling as if the world and all its trials had settled on her shoulders. She wished she could go to bed and wake up in the morning to discover that the today's events—Rafe's death and the scene with Dylan—had been nothing more than a horrible nightmare.

But too edgy and overwrought to sleep, she put her irons on the stove to heat, hoping that work would distract her. Dylan's hurtful words had reminded her of the importance of her original goal, to gain independence.

He'd been right, of course. She'd had no right to tell him what to do—her own bad memories had gotten in the way of her judgment. And regardless of what they had told the world, and despite the fact that she sometimes caught herself thinking otherwise, Dylan was not her husband. His commitment to her and Jenny was a temporary one, and no amount of wishful thinking on her part would change that.

How, then, had she let him kiss her, fondle her, as if she were a—a strumpet? Deep in her heart, though, Melissa didn't feel cheapened by his touch. Rather, she only longed for more. She had no explanation for the heat and wild yearning he'd evoked from her. The feel of his fingertips on her neck, his palm hot against her breast, his lips on her throat, gentle yet predatory and demanding, beckoning her in a way that she felt compelled to answer—she'd never known anything like it.

Dipping her hand in a pan of water, she sprinkled a shirt and smoothed it flat on the board. The twill sizzled beneath the hot, heavy iron, raising a cloud of steam. Maybe she wouldn't really make Dylan a good wife anyway, she thought, her tears running faster. She'd driven him out of his own home to deal with his loss by himself.

In the cradle Jenny's cranky wailing grew worse. Sighing, Melissa set the iron back on the stove and went to give the cradle a nudge to make it rock. It was so unlike the baby to be this cross, but everyone else here had had a hard day. Melissa supposed Jenny was entitled to one as well.

But when Melissa picked up Jenny, the baby felt hot with fever, and instead of quieting, her squalls grew louder. Melissa touched frantic hands to the little girl's head and face.

"Oh, God—oh, Jenny, honey. You're burning up!"

No wonder she had been so irritable all afternoon.

Melissa clutched the baby to her, uncertain of what to do. She had no experience in caring for a sick child—for all of her short life Jenny had been healthy. How she wished for a mother or grandmother or sister to consult, someone who could tell her what should be done. The baby in her arms was so hot—

With only maternal instinct to guide her, she laid the baby in the center of the small table and snatched a washcloth and an enamel pan from the shelf. Hardly taking her eyes from Jenny, she hurried to the tin sink and pumped water into the basin.

She charged back to the table, sloshing water on the floor. What was Jenny sick with? Melissa wondered as she wrung out the cloth to put on the baby's forehead. The town was full of illness and disease, and nowhere was it worse than in Lousetown across the river.

Over there, the lights did not shine brightly. The wealth and excess of Dawson's Klondike Kings were absent. Sewage oozed through the narrow, muddy streets, spreading sickness. People without money, or the hope of escape, crowded together in tents and in squalid, makeshift dwellings. These luckless stampeders lived in filth and poverty, and died from typhoid and cholera. Maybe some contagion had found its way to Jenny. It might have even been one of Melissa's customers who had carried some miasma to her as she lay sleeping in her little nook.

The cold compresses seemed to have no effect, and the baby's wails continued. Maybe she was hungry, Melissa thought. With shaking fingers she ripped at her bodice and sent buttons flying across the table. But again and again, Jenny turned her face from Melissa's breast, refusing to eat. She kept screaming, the likes of which Melissa had never heard from her before. She tried to soothe Jenny every way she could think of, but after nearly a half hour of more cold cloths and rocking, the little girl showed no improvement. If anything, she seemed worse.

With Jenny in her arms, Melissa went to the open window and looked out on the twilit street below. There crowds still elbowed each other on their way to the saloons, dance halls, and the opera house. Her child needed a doctor, but Melissa didn't want to take her out, possibly exposing her to the chill night air or something else that might aggravate her condition.

Perhaps she could hail someone on the street to send a doctor here. Scanning the passing faces for a likely rescuer, she saw a man with kind eyes.

"Excuse me! Please, I need help!"

she called down.

But he didn't hear her and soon passed from view.

"My little girl is sick—can someone bring a doctor?"

No one looked up at her window. Two more tries with a louder voice yielded nothing. Apparently her words couldn't carry over the clash of voices and music and tramping feet.

Whirling away from the window, she cursed herself for making Dylan leave. She'd never seen him drunk—so what if he'd stayed here and had a drink or two? It seemed so trivial now in the face of this calamity. Jenny's life was in danger.

Her only remaining choice was to go down to the street and stop someone. Melissa carried Jenny back to her cradle, then ran to the door and flew down the steps, nearly tripping on her cumbersome skirts.

Emerging from the side street, she almost collided with a young man pulling a tired-looking mule behind him. His face was familiar, and she recalled that she had done laundry for him once.

"Whoa, careful there, ma'am."

He shot out a hand to steady her, then his eyes dropped to her open bodice.

Too frantic for much modesty, with a trembling hand Melissa dragged the-edges of her dress together to cover her camisole.

"Oh please,"

she babbled.

"Please, I need help for my little girl. She's burning up with fever. Can you get a doctor?"

Apparently galvanized by her urgency, he tugged at the brim of his hat and nodded shortly.

"Yes, ma'am! I'll find Doc Garvin. He fixed me up when I caught my hand chopping wood."

He held up a hand that was missing its index finger.

"Come on, Susannah,"

he said and tugged on the mule's lead to get it started.

Melissa turned and ran back up the stairs to Jenny. When she flung open the door, the baby was still yelling, but Melissa thought she sounded weaker. She picked her up and pressed her hot, silky head to her own cheek.

"Help is coming, button. The doctor is coming."

Jenny was so small, so new—her life hadn't even begun yet. Melissa struggled to hold a demon of fear at bay, the one that whispered to her that babies died every day. Fevers, measles, influenza and more—they snatched away young lives to leave behind heartbroken mothers and gray-faced fathers.

No, not her child, God, she prayed fiercely. Not her Jenny. If she were taken, Melissa thought she might as well be dead too.

If she lost her baby, she would have no one.

***

Dylan sat with Seamus McGinty at the back table in the Yukon Girl Saloon. The place was as busy as any other night, and a dense layer of tobacco smoke hung over the crowd of gambling, drinking, dancing miners. Dylan couldn't decide if Rafe would have appreciated this atmosphere for his wake, but for his own part, he wished he had somewhere else to go.

After trying to remember the number of times Rafe Dubois had sat at this very table, Seamus had declared that no one would be allowed to sit at this shrine henceforth. Then the husky, blue-eyed Irishman had required Dylan to witness that oath with a shot from his cherished bottle of poteen. Angel's tears, Seamus called it, and had drunk nearly half of it lamenting the news of Rafe's passing.

Dylan thought he'd never seen a man who so enjoyed mourning.

"Angel's tears, Dylan,"

he repeated, and lifted his glass, "to send him off proper, and may God speed him on his way. Jaysus, they're crying in heaven tonight, they are."

"I think you're right, Seamus."

Dylan raised his glass too, but he still nursed his first drink. The Irish moonshine was powerful stuff that tasted as if it could blister a man's insides.

He really wished he could get foolishly, insensibly drunk, to forget about Rafe's death and Melissa's shrewish rejection that had driven him to sit here with McGinty when he'd have rather been with her. What the hell did she want from him, anyway? He'd done everything he could for her, given the circumstances, and still she had made him leave.

But mingled with the dull anger over being banished from his own home was the memory of Melissa in his arms—soft, warm, and so damned womanly he'd wanted to carry her to his bed right then and there. To show her how a man—a real man—made love to a woman, wild but tender, conquering her not with brute force, but with her own desire. Just the thought sent the blood coursing to his groin again.

"Dylan, man,"

Seamus said, interrupting his thoughts, "will ye be drinking that poteen or sipping at it like a kid with a sarsaparilla?"

Dylan looked at his glass and picked it up.

"What the hell,"

he muttered, "she's already mad at me."

He held the glass to his mouth, ready to pour the fiery liquor down his throat, when a miner elbowed his way through the crowd to the table.

"Hey, McGinty, have you seen Doc Garvin?"

he panted.

The Irishman looked him up and down, amusement mingling with his tragic expression of mourning.

"What's your hurry, son? You lose another finger?"

The miner shook his head, then pointed over his shoulder.

"I need to find him for that singing laundry lady. Her baby is ailing."

Dylan froze, his fingers locked around his glass.

"The singing laundry lady? The one next door?"

The miner nodded.

"Yeah, that's her. She flew down her stairs and stopped me on the street, looking as pale and wild-haired as a ghost. She said her little girl is sick with a fever."

Gripped by the greatest terror he'd ever known, Dylan jumped from his chair and knocked it over. His heart pounded in his chest, and adrenaline sent a prickly feeling shooting down his arms and legs. He whirled to face Seamus.

"Is Garvin in here?"

"Yeah, I think he's at a table by the window, eating his dinner,"

McGinty replied, looking stunned as well.

Dylan plowed back through the crowd with the miner on his heels. Several tables were lined up along the front windows, and all of them were occupied.

"Which one is he?"

Dylan demanded, dutching the miner's sleeve.

The other man peered at the faces of the diners.

"I-I'm not sure now. I haven't seen him for a while, and I was pretty shook up at the time, getting my finger chopped off and all."

Impatient, Dylan turned away.

"Doc Garvin,"

he thundered. His voice carried over the blur of all the other conversations, rising above the din of the piano amid shuffling feet and clinking glasses. The noisy saloon fell silent.

"Is Dr. Garvin here?"

At the farthest table, a customer with a weary youngster's face held up his hand.

"I'm Dr. Garvin."

Dylan didn't want to insult the man by voicing his first impression, but despite his formal suit Garvin appeared to be no older than sixteen. Dylan looked at the miner for confirmation.

"Yessir, that's him."

Dylan strode forward.

"There's a sick baby who needs your help."

Dr. Garvin nodded, then gestured at his barely touched chicken dinner.

"I'll be right with you as soon as I finish eating."

Dylan clamped his hand on the man's wrist.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your dinner, Doc, but I need you to come with me now. That little girl won't wait."

Dr. Garvin glanced at Dylan, then at the long knife tied to his thigh. Tossing his fork onto his plate, he wiped his hands on his napkin and picked up his bag from the opposite chair.

"Very well, then. Let's go."

***

When Dylan led Dr. Garvin up the dusk-shrouded stairs, the first thing he heard was a peculiar squalling sound coming from the other side of the door. It was a baby's cry, sort of, but so unlike anything he'd heard from Jenny, he wondered if there was a mountain lion cub inside.

Dylan opened the door, and he saw Melissa, pacing in a circle with the baby clutched to her. She looked ashen, and her hair hung in fine, pale strands around her face, just as the miner had said. The front of her dress gaped open, revealing her plain camisole beneath.

As soon as she saw him, she stopped. Her earlier anger was gone, and the terror he felt in his own heart was written on her face.

"Oh, Dylan, Jenny is sick with something—she has a fever and—"

He gripped her shoulders lightly.

"I know, honey, I heard about it. I brought Dr. Garvin."

She pulled away from his hands and lurched toward the young man following behind, apparently just now seeing him. The agony of fear and heartbreak was in her voice.

"Doctor, please—you must save my child. She won't eat and she's burning with fever. It just started today."

Putting down his bag, Dr. Garvin took off his coat and draped it over the back of one of the chairs.

"Bring her to the table, madam, and also a lamp if you have one."

Dylan grabbed the oil lamp from the small table near the window. Melissa hovered at the edge of its light, her trembling hands tightly interlaced at her mouth.

Dr. Garvin appeared calm, and he made comforting noises as he poked and prodded the screaming Jenny, who thrashed and kicked, but his grave expression gave Dylan another icy knot in his stomach. It was the same feeling he'd had this afternoon when he'd seen Rafe. Then the doctor unbuttoned the baby's dress to reveal an angry red rash on her chest.

"Oh, dear God,"

Melissa gasped. Dylan felt as if his heart had plummeted to his feet.

"Her temperature is one hundred and five,"

the doctor said. Melissa moaned and Dylan winced.

"But children her age routinely get and survive high fevers that would be much harder on an adult. Her pulse is very rapid, though."

"But what's wrong with her? Is it measles?"

Melissa asked.

The young doctor shook his head.

"No, I believe she has scarlet fever. Everything points to it—the sudden onset, her high fever and pulse. Her throat is inflamed, and now this rash— Some people call the fever scarlatina."

"Scarlatina,"

Melissa repeated parrotlike.

"Scarlatina."

For a moment she looked so dazed Dylan thought she might faint. He put his hand under her elbow, meaning to catch her if she did.

"How would she get this fever, Doc?"

Dylan asked.

"I haven't heard of anyone being sick with it around here."

Dr. Garvin wrapped up Jenny again and put her in Melissa's arms.

"It's hard to say. Obviously she came in contact with it somehow. The contagion can cling to rooms and clothing with great tenacity. It's more common in children than adults, and I can't say I've seen much of it in Dawson. But there are people from all over the world in this town, and there are a lot of other fevers here, too. I'm really not surprised by this."

"You say it's carried on clothes?"

Melissa asked, her voice high and tight.

"It can be."

Dylan saw her stricken look, and his heart clenched in his chest. She would blame herself for the baby's fever.

"B-but she'll get well?"

Melissa asked.

"You have medicine you can give her?"

The doctor sighed.

"Ma'am, I believe you'd rather I tell you the truth than a lie."

She nodded her head almost imperceptibly.

"Scarlatina often has a bad outcome. And the medications I'd give to a grown man would kill a baby."

What little color that remained in Melissa's face drained away.

Dr. Garvin looked apologetic.

"It's highly contagious, so both of you might get sick too if you haven't already had it. Some people though, especially adults, seem to be resistant to the disease. And I think your baby has a relatively mild case of the fever—with good nursing some children pull through just fine. The rash will spread, so sponge her with soda water once in the morning and once at night. In a day or two you'll also notice that her tongue has turned the color and texture of a strawberry. Try to get her to eat though—your milk will be just fine for her. Other than that—"

He sighed.

"I'm afraid this is a wait and hope situation."

After promising to check in the next day, Dr. Garvin put on his coat and picked up his bag. On his way to the door, he patted Melissa's arm.

"I won't tell you not to worry. But worrying won't get the job done. Put more energy into taking care of Jenny and yourselves. If you two should fall ill"—he looked from Melissa to Dylan—"there will be no one to tend your baby."

Melissa stared at the closed door, feeling as if the crack of doom had just sounded. Her baby, the dearest little soul she'd ever known, was close to death, and she was the cause. She turned to face Dylan. He stood with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, and his handsome face was wiped clean of all expression. She knew she'd been angry with him earlier, but for the life of her, she couldn't recall why now. Whatever the cause, it must have been trivial. She could think of nothing but the over-warm bundle in her arms, her own flesh and blood.

She looked down at Jenny's flushed face, at the rash that crept up to her tiny neck.

"I'm so sorry, button,"

she whispered, her breath coming in hitches.

"It's all my fault. I only meant to earn a better life for us. I never thought you'd get sick from someone's clothes."

"Melissa,"

Dylan murmured, "it's not your fault. Blaming yourself won't make Jenny well. Besides, you don't know if that's how she caught this fever."

"Of course she did!"

Melissa snapped back, unable to keep the emotion out of her voice. Didn't he understand how guilty she was? She began pacing again.

"Either she got it from the clothes or from the miners."

She let an angry, rueful tone slide into her words.

"Oh, I was going to prove to everyone how strong I was, that I could make it in the world on my own, and it didn't matter if Coy left me with just the dress on my back. Well, he's dead now and so is Rafe. And Jenny—"

"Don't say it!"

Dylan barked. Frowning, his eyes like hard green stones, he strode forward and took her shoulders again in a hard grip.

"Melissa, you've got to be strong to take care of her. You can't afford the luxury of self-pity right now."

Scared and swamped with contrition, Melissa stared up at him, at the planes of his face where his own worry and grief had etched lines, and his eyes that seemed haunted by events long past. Drawing courage from his warm touch and firm words, she struggled to bridle her runaway panic.

"Yes, of course, you're right,"

she admitted and took a deep, steadying breath. Then she added in a small voice, "It's just that she's so little, and I'm so scared for her."

He gave her shoulders a light squeeze, then released her.

"I know. But all you can do is your best. And I'll be right here if you need help."

Melissa took heart in that, and she felt like kissing him for it. In her whole life, she'd never had anyone to depend on. She'd heard a lot of empty promises, but Dylan—she knew his word was good. He'd stand by Jenny and her.

"Thank you, Dylan."

She shifted into action then, and followed the doctor's instructions about the soda bath and feeding Jenny. At first the baby wouldn't eat anything. After several tries, though, she finally took a little milk.

With full darkness upon the town, Dylan and Melissa sat in edgy silence, keeping watch over Jenny, who slept fitfully. Her fever did not abate, but the little girl hung on through the hours. Melissa was grateful for Dylan's company—she couldn't think of even one other man of her acquaintance who wouldn't have been asleep or gone by now. There was so much goodness in him, as intimidating as he could be, yet it seemed he was determined to spend his life alone.

Just after midnight and while Jenny was quiet, Melissa, who'd been sitting next to the cradle for hours, walked to the window, flexing her tense, aching shoulders as she went. Resting her forehead against the cool glass pane, she gazed dully at the laughing, free-spending carnival rolling along under the streetlights on Front. Above, a sliver of moon riding low on the horizon hid behind a mask of gauzy clouds, and a few stars twinkled around it. Now that August was waning, the chilly nights fell earlier and lasted longer.

With her focus so fixed on this room, she marveled at how precarious life was, and how heartless the world could be. It continued on, unaware and unconcerned about the fate of one child who lay in the cradle next to Dylan's bed.

She heard Dylan's chair legs scrape across the plank flooring, and then felt his warmth behind her as he laid his hand on her shoulder. His touch was firm but gentle, the contrast reminding her of the kind man who lurked beneath a threatening persona.

He worked at the tightness in her muscles, coaxing them to relax, but her thoughts were bitter.

"I'm beginning to see what you hate about this place,"

Melissa said without turning.

"It's all a gaudy spectacle on the surface, but I think there's a lot of suffering that we don't see. What good is making money if it costs you everything else that matters?"

She shook her head as she gazed down at the street.

"If I'd had the chance to refuse, I never would have come up here. Why did you? What made you choose this place?"

She heard him sigh behind her, not in exasperation, she thought, but as if pondering her question. His hand fell away.

"When I left The Dalles, I'd already lost all I had that mattered to me. I didn't know where to go. I just wanted to put some distance between me and them—the old man, my brother . . . Elizabeth."

Melissa turned to face him then. She wouldn't question him about her—he was the one to bring up the woman's name. Maybe this time he would tell her what he'd run away from so that she could understand why his eyes had their haunted look.

He went back to the table and sat down again, slouching low and crossing his ankle over his knee.

"Remember when I told you about the night I left home, that it was because of an argument I had with my father about the horses?"

She nodded, leaning against the windowsill behind her.

"Well, there was a little more to it than that."

He shifted his gaze to an empty coffee cup on the table before him, turning it idly as if looking for the grit to give voice to his story.

"I met Elizabeth Petitt four years ago at her homecoming party. She'd just gotten back from some fancy eastern school. Her father, William Petitt, was one of the bank's biggest customers. I agreed to go to keep peace with my own family—the old man told me to put on decent clothes and stop looking like a hired hand for one night."

He sent her a wry smile that stopped short of his eyes.

"How could I resist such a bighearted invitation? I'd planned to stay for just a half hour or so, make small talk, and then leave. I don't know why, but I'd supposed that the daughter was probably a homely bluestocking her family wanted to marry off. But when I was introduced to Elizabeth, it was like I lost everything, my sense of time, my heart, my mind—everything. From that moment I was doomed."

He shook his head, and his expression turned bittersweet.

"She was beautiful, with long black curls and dark eyes, and so different from the other women I'd known. On the surface she was ladylike and cultivated, almost girlish, I guess. But beneath all that I discovered a wanton, uninhibited, free-thinking woman. She had me tripping all over myself like a fifteen-year-old boy. I turned into the worst kind of blind, love-sick fool anyone ever saw. I couldn't eat, or sleep, or think of anything or anyone but her."

Melissa lowered her eyes. It was almost impossible to imagine Dylan as he described himself then. He was so serious and controlled, even in anger. The day she'd seen him pin that miner's sleeve with his meat cleaver crossed her memory. That was the Dylan Harper she knew—dangerous, swift-moving, and certainly unpredictable. As difficult as it was to picture him so besotted, she found it harder still to think of another woman bringing that out in him.

He plowed his hand through his hair.

"Elizabeth listened to everything I had to say, and there was a lot—I'd kept most of my thoughts and ideas to myself. Finally, I thought I had someone to talk to, someone who understood my love for the land and the horses. At least I thought she understood. I don't know why—there were never two people with less in common. But I didn't realize that at the time, and it wasn't until a lot later when I figured out that while I'd told her all about myself, I knew almost nothing about her. Before I knew what I was doing, I'd asked her to marry me."

"I suppose it isn't that we don't know people,"

Melissa put in softly.

"I think sometimes we make up our minds to ignore the things about a person that give us doubt, or make us worry. I know that's what I did with Coy."

He considered her for a moment, as if seeing a new side to her.

"You're smarter than you give yourself credit for. I think you knew from the beginning that you were taking a gamble on Logan. It was a bold risk, but the odds were so high you were bound to lose."

She walked to the cradle and looked at Jenny.

"Maybe you're right,"

she admitted, letting her eyes meet his.

"I wanted to leave home so badly, I was willing to take a chance on Coy. It was too much to hope that everything would work out, that somehow he would turn into the kind of man you—"

She looked away then, and felt her cheeks flushed as if she too suffered from fever. Reaching down, she swabbed Jenny's head with a cool cloth.

Her unfinished remark hung between them awkwardly.

"I'm probably not the man you think I am, either, Melissa."

She looked up again, the cloth wadded in her fist.

"But you've been kind to Jenny and me. You took us in when we had no one to turn to."

He shrugged and straightened in his chair.

"I didn't have much choice, considering the circumstances. But I'm no teetotaler, and I hate wearing a suit. I like being outdoors, I don't have much interest in front parlor politics, and I expect to get my hands dirty when I work. Elizabeth didn't care if I took a drink, but she didn't like anything else I did except—"

He glanced away.

"Well, she didn't like much else."

Adjusting the baby's dress, Melissa stroked Jenny's hot, downy hair with the back of her fingers. She thought again of Elizabeth's patrician features and wondered if the woman had been out of her mind. There was nothing about Dylan that she didn't like, except her helpless attraction to him.

"It sounds as if she could have had any man that suited her fancy. Why would she choose one she felt she had to change?"

"Why,"

he repeated. Then he looked up at Melissa and grinned. In this light she thought the smile looked almost malevolent.

"Over time, the reason made itself dear enough. It was money."

"Money? Didn't you say she came from a wealthy family?"

"Some people never get enough. I began to suspect that her father and mine had plotted the whole thing from the beginning, but . . .

"

Pushing himself from his chair, Dylan went to the stove and shook the coffeepot. His movements were restless, like those of an animal pacing in a cage. She knew the coffee in the pot must be only lukewarm, but apparently he didn't care—he filled his cup. But he left it on the stove and paced to the window, where he stared at the blue-black night sky.

"But?"

she prompted quietly.

Keeping his back to her, Dylan shoved his hands in his back pockets and sighed.

"Hell, I thought I was in love with her, and I figured it didn't much matter how we'd come together."

Shaking his head, he added, "I was truly bewitched by her."

With the benefit of hindsight, Dylan wondered why he hadn't seen Elizabeth for what she was. Being in love with her, that shouldn't have mattered. But, then, she had been very clever in her duplicity, cloaking it with a sizzling, teasing passion that had made him view her exactly as she must have wanted him to: helpless but so charming, so beautiful, so ornamental. He felt like a fool now.

He wasn't about to tell Melissa that the only time Elizabeth had not found fault with him was when she writhed beneath him in his bed over the stables. It had been a puzzle to him then, and even now he wasn't sure he grasped how a woman with such dainty, impeccable manners and dress could turn into a demanding, insatiable hellcat who'd left him sweating and exhausted, with his back on fire from the long red welts she'd raised with her nails.

Dylan glanced over his shoulder at Melissa's downturned head. Guileless, gentle, and modest, she was so unlike Elizabeth. Faint smudges beneath her lower lashes told of her fatigue, but she still looked beautiful to him.

"The harder I tried to please her, the more demanding she became until she had me by the b—Well, let's say she wanted her own way about everything. I knew something wasn't right between us, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Finally, the night I had that blow-up with the old man, I went to her place and asked her to come away with me, right then, that moment. I was practically on my knees, begging her to go, when her father came into the parlor and told me that our engagement was off."

He turned to face Melissa. It hurt to talk about it, but somehow, it hurt more to keep it to himself.

"She had decided to marry my brother, Scott, instead. Elizabeth confirmed it and said she'd been waiting for the right moment to tell me."

"Oh, Dylan,"

Melissa moaned.

He walked back to the table and flopped into the chair again.

"What a perfect ending it was—to everything. I guess they deserve each other. I hope I never care that much about anyone again."

He could tell her that, but he knew it was already too late.

Dylan cared about Melissa.