All that had prevented Ten from taking Diana right there was the fact that her first, unhappy experience with sex had been in the front seat of a vehicle. So he had put the truck back in gear and driven to the ranch with the weekend stretching like eternity in front of him. But it had been a near thing. He had never been like that with a woman, riding the eroding edge of his own self-control until he wanted to put his fist through a window in sheer frustration.

Two nights in the bunkhouse did nothing to make him feel better. No matter how hard Ten tried not to, he kept seeing Diana holding out her arms, opening herself to him. The memory made heat and heaviness pool thickly between his thighs, a reaction that had become uncomfortably familiar since he had first seen Diana.

Becoming her lover had meant only a temporary improvement in the condition, followed all too soon by an even more pronounced return of the problem. Knowing the passion that lay behind Diana's smile didn't help to cool Ten's response. He wanted to make love to her after an evening of conversation and laughter, and then again in the middle of the night, and then he wanted to kiss her slowly awake in the morning, bringing her from dreams to passion, watching the pleasure in her eyes when she woke up and found him inside her. But he couldn't do that on the weekends, when they returned to the ranch house.

Logan bunched up his little fists and cried.

Ten sighed. "I know how you feel, nubbin. I know how you feel."

He shifted the baby and stroked the tiny cheek with his fingertip. Logan's hands flailed with excitement until more by chance than anything else he connected with Ten's left index finger, bringing it to his mouth. Instantly the baby began sucking on Ten's callused fingertip.

"Uh, old man, I don't know how to break this to you, but…oh, the hell with it. You'll figure it out for yourself soon enough."

The controlled, throaty rumble of a powerful car engine distracted Ten. He looked out through the window into the last light of evening. The paint job on the car was a dirt-streaked, sun-faded black, but everything that affected the car's function was in top shape. The tires were new, the lights were bright and hard, and the engine purred like a well-fed cougar.

Even before the driver got out and stretched, Ten knew that Nevada Blackthorn had come back to the Rocking M.

Smiling with anticipation, Ten watched his younger brother climb the front steps with the lithe, coordinated motions of an athlete or a highly trained warrior. The knock on the door was distinct, staccato without being impatient. Ten's smile widened. There had been a time when his brother would have driven up in a cloud of dust and knocked on the door hard enough to rattle the hinges.

"Come on in, Nevada."

The door opened and shut without noise. Nevada crossed the room the same way. Without noise. Tall, wide-shouldered, his thick black hair two inches long and his dense beard half that length, Nevada looked as hard as he was. Even as his pale, ice-green eyes took in the room with its multiple doorways, his unnaturally acute hearing noted the near-silent approach of someone coming toward the living room through the kitchen.

Knowing that Ten was baby-sitting Logan, Diana had been all but tiptoeing across the kitchen as she headed for the living room. She didn't get that far. Two steps from the doorway she froze at the sight of the lean, long-boned, broad-shouldered stranger who moved like Ten when he was fighting.

Ten held Logan and watched Nevada cross the floor toward the rocking chair. Rain-colored eyes measured the changes in Nevada-the brackets of anger or pain around his flat, unsmiling mouth, the razor-fine physical edge, his muscular weight always poised on the balls of his feet because he had to be ready to throw himself into flight or battle at even instant. For Ten, looking at Nevada was like going back in time, seeing himself years ago, youthful dreams and emotions burned out by the timeless cruelty of war.

Silently Nevada stood in front of the rocking chair, staring down at his brother and the baby.

"I will be damned. Yours?"

Ten shook his head. "Not a chance. I know what kind of husband I make. I'm definitely a short-term man. Marriage should be a long-term affair."

Nevada grunted. "The bitch you married didn't make much of a wife, long or short."

The corner of Ten's mouth curled sardonically, "Wasn't all her fault. Women aren't interested in me for more than a few weeks."

"The way I remember it, you weren't real interested yourself after a few weeks. Two months was your limit. Then you were tugging at the bit, looking for new worlds to conquer."

"The curse of the Blackthorns," Ten agreed, his voice casual. "Warriors, not husbands."

Diana stood motionless, her throat clenched around a cry of protest and pain, realizing that she had lost a gamble she hadn't even understood she was taking. She had understood the risk of physical injury she took in trusting Ten, and she had been lucky; Ten had given her extraordinary physical pleasure and no pain at all.

But she hadn't understood that she was risking her emotions and unborn dreams. Now she felt as she had the instant the kiva ceiling had given way beneath her feet.

No wonder Ten has been so careful not to touch me when other people are around. He doesn't want them to know we're lovers. They might assume something more, something that has to do with shared lives, shared promises, shared love. But he doesn't see us that way.

I didn't know I saw us that way until now, just now, when a dream I didn't even know I had burst and I fell through to reality.

God, I hope the landing is easier than the fall.

Diana clenched her teeth and forced herself to let out the breath she had instinctively held at the first instant of tearing pain. Silently, gradually, she took in air and let it out again, bringing strength back to her body. After a few aching breaths, her ears stopped ringing. The words from the other room began to have meaning again, Nevada speaking in tones that were like Ten's but without the emotion.

"Heard anything from Utah?"

"He's tired of jungles," Ten said.

Nevada grunted. "Anytime he wants to swap sea-level tropics for Afghanistan's high passes, he can have at it."

"Thought the country calmed down after the Russians left." Ten gave Nevada a measuring, gray-eyed glance. "Thought that was why you decided to come home."

"The Afghani tribesmen have been killing each other for a thousand years. They'll be killing each other a thousand years from now. They're fighting men. They'd take on Satan for the pure hell of it."

"So would you."

Nevada's pale green eyes locked with Ten's. "I did. Lost."

Ten held out his right hand. "I don't know of any man who ever won. Welcome back, brother. You've been a long time coming home."

The deep affection in Ten's voice went through Diana, shaking her all over again, telling her that she was jealous of Ten's brother. The realization appalled her, and the pain.

All the old wives' tales are true: the landing is worse than the fall.

Diana looked around almost wildly. She had to leave, and leave quickly, before she was discovered. She couldn't face Ten with jealousy and despair and pain shaking her.

"Never thought I'd say it," Nevada said quietly, "but it's good to see your ugly face again. Now maybe you'll introduce me to the lady standing behind me."

Ten leaned sideways, looking around his brother's body toward the front door.

"Kitchen door," Nevada said, stepping aside.

Diana heard the words but took another step backward anyway, wondering bitterly how Nevada had known she was behind him. She hadn't made a sound. In fact, she had barely breathed, especially after hearing Ten's matter-of-fact summation of his lack of enduring appeal to women. And theirs to him.