Adam taught Shiloh how to swim in the deep pool of the creek and coaxed her back into the ocean on the condition that he didn’t let go of her. He had found a place just past the breakers where the water stayed fairly calm with the waves gently moving through just before they met land and curled over themselves. He had taken her out farther this time without telling her that he was no longer touching the bottom. When she turned to take a step away, she sank…and panicked.

Before he could calm her down, she had pushed him under several times until he finally turned her around and wrapped his arm around her shoulder and under the opposite arm. “Shiloh, before your drown us both, you have got to relax. You know how to swim. Just float.”

She stiffened and sank, and when he pulled her back up, she turned and wrapped herself around him, taking them both under. Swimming underwater, he got in close enough to touch the bottom and stood up, holding her as she coughed up the water she had swallowed.

“Please take me back to the beach,” she cried, clinging to him and shaking.

“No. I’m not taking you in until you get over your fear of the water.” He crouched down so that they were face to face. “Look at me. If you can get comfortable in the ocean, you can swim anywhere in the Sierra. There’s no reason for you to be afraid. All you have to do is relax, float, hold your breath and keep your mouth closed.”

“I’m cold. Please take me back,” she said, shivering and burying her face in his neck.

“If you can get back by yourself, you can stay.”

“I can’t touch the bottom here.”

The corner of Adam’s mouth turned up. “Then I guess you’ll have to swim.”

She growled at him, then pushed off of him toward the shore, knowing that she’d be able to touch bottom in only a few more feet. But that was where the breakers started, and when she got there, a wave took her in and deposited her on the beach in shallow water where she crawled out on her hands and knees and curled up in a ball, sobbing. “You hate me, don’t you?”

Walking out of the water, he sat beside her. “I love you.”

“Then why are you torturing me?”

“I’m not torturing you. I’m teaching you how to swim in the ocean. You don’t have to go back in today. We’ll try it again tomorrow.”

“No we won’t,” she whimpered, crawling away from him, and lying flat to warm up in the sun.

Once she was warm, she calmed down, and the two had another pleasant evening. Adam had gone into the cypress forest and came out with a rabbit that he used to make stew.

Their mornings were spent at the tide pool, early afternoons were spent in the water, though Shiloh never came to appreciate it, and intermingled were rides down the beach in from the direction they came, hikes up into the fern canyon, fishing, shell collecting, reading and discussing poetry, and generally being lazy, lying on the beach in the sun.

Their last night on the beach, Shiloh lamented over a dinner of rockfish that Adam had filleted and fried. “I wish we could stay. We could live off fish and rabbits, we have fresh water, and we could ride into Santa Cruz and sell shells to the travelers that go there. Then we could buy whatever we need. This fish is really good.”

“You don’t miss home? Just a little?”

She stopped eating and thought. “If you’d asked me that five days ago, I would have given you a definitive ‘yes’. But being away from all the responsibility and obligations…I’ve never been away from that.” She looked up at him with a wistful smile. “Adam, I love it here.”

“So, you admit you don’t have to be doing anything in particular to be happy.”

“You’re talking about the horses and the singing…and the ranch. We’re ranchers, Adam. That’s what we do. I sing. That’s what I do. But I have to admit, I don’t remember a time when I’ve been this…” she looked into his eyes, “…happy.”

He leaned toward her and kissed her tenderly. “I don’t either.”

They sat quietly finishing their dinner, and when Adam came back from rinsing the plates in the creek, he poured her a cup of coffee and sat down next to her. “Uh, Shiloh…we’ve been away for a month.” She looked at him expectantly. “You haven’t had your monthly, have you?”

She held her breath and looked away, saying quietly, “How do you know about that?”

“That you haven’t or that you do?” he asked, chuckling.

“Well, the fact that you know that I haven’t is obvious since you know that I do, so why don’t we talk about how you know…about women?”

He laughed loudly. “I could say I learned the same place you did…at college, but that wouldn’t be entirely true, although I learned much more about the biology of it there. You and I both have known since we were children. We grew up around animals. But Pa told me all about human babies when Hoss was born, and later Marie had to set me straight about girls…because of an accident.”

“An accident?”

“Let’s just say that I thought the girl was dying and leave it at that.”

Shiloh covered her mouth and giggled. “When I started having a monthly, my father sent me to Mrs. Beadle, the woman who came by twice a week to cook and clean. But Adam, it’s probably not what you’re thinking. I am often late for my monthly. Sometimes I don’t have one at all.”

Adam creased his brow and gently placed his hand on the back of her neck. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes. While I was in New York, Miss Anderson, the headmistress sent me to a doctor who said he could find nothing wrong, except that I had increased the energy required by my brain by attending college, and that was causing my reproductive system to lose energy. He suggested that I stop learning immediately, and things would correct themselves. Miss Anderson said, “Rubbish,” and told me many women are late for their monthly for no reason in particular, and that I was lucky that I didn’t have to put up with it on a regular basis. I just have to carry my…things…everywhere I go.”

Drawing her backward into him, he laid his chin on her shoulder. “So it could be either.”

She quickly glanced at him, and then looked forward, saying softly, “I suppose so. But it’s too soon to know.” Standing, she said, “We should pack up what we don’t need for the morning.”

Once she had finished packing what she could, she walked out on the beach and sat, listening to the waves, watching the birds sail right over the top of the water. Adam stayed back behind her, watching, squatting and moving shells around in the sand. He had seen something in her eyes…a sadness almost, and not the same sadness she felt in leaving. It had to do with the other possibility they had hinted at, but hadn’t really discussed.

When the sun sat low in the sky, he went to sit beside her and for awhile, they just sat, watching the sunset. After the last ribbon of color disappeared below the horizon, Adam moved in front of her. “Can you talk about it?”

Looking down at the sand next to her, she drew lines, turning up small shells that she set aside. “We already talked about it. There’s not much left to say.”

He understood what she was feeling, but he wanted her to understand it as well. “We didn’t talk about it. We talked around it.”

“If I am, I am. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me what you’re thinking.”

Raising her knees up in front of her, she wrapped her arms around them and clasped her hands. “I’m thinking that if I am, everything changes. I won’t be able to continue to train the horses, and I won’t be able to travel to sing.”

“Why not?”

“How can I take care of a baby and train horses? There will be a point when I’m too big to do anything, and after that, just feeding a baby will take up most of my time for at least a year. I won’t be able to travel when I’m big, and trying to take care of a child traveling or in a strange place…how would I ever be able to rehearse with an orchestra if I have to leave every two hours?”

“Shiloh, you must have thought about this when we…” He cleared his throat. “Did you think you were immune because we were on our honeymoon?”

She smirked at him. “Of course not.” Taking a deep breath, she went on, “I…I just didn’t think about it. That’s all.”

“Well, it’s time we did think about it. Why don’t we think about if you’re not? Because it’s obvious you don’t want to be…right now. What do you have to do to get to a point when you’re ready?”

“You’re ready now, aren’t you?” she asked hesitantly, glancing back up at him.

Adam smiled. “Yes, but we both should be ready.”

“I would need a trained partner for the horses…someone who could step in immediately and take over the training and the sales while I can’t.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?” She shook her head. “What about Billy or Johnny?”

“Johnny doesn’t have the patience, and Billy…Daddy tried to teach Billy, but he can only learn so much.”

“What about Hoss? He loves to work with animals.”

“Hoss has responsibilities on the Ponderosa. He’ll have more with you taking on the Flying W.”

“I think that can be managed. Now, what about your singing?”

“I’m about to have three performances scheduled this year. Those are the letters I sent out when we first came to San Francisco. I would have to take a break from singing for the last part…while I’m big…and I’d have to figure out a different schedule for rehearsals. I’d probably need some help…someone to take care of the baby while I’m rehearsing or singing. And speaking of help, if I wanted to go back to training horses, I’d need help with the baby anyway.”

“So we hire a nanny.”

“That’s no way for a child to be raised.”

“Shiloh,” he laughed, “just because we have a nanny doesn’t mean we will be absent from our children’s lives.” He moved closer to her and lifted her into his lap. “We don’t need to deal with any of this until we know there’s a child. And just from the little we’ve discussed, we both have an idea of how we can handle a baby and what we need to do. So I think,” he said, as he gently kissed her, “that we should enjoy what’s left of our honeymoon and wait and see. And if you’re not with child, then we’ll just have to be careful for awhile.” The simple act of lifting her chin lifted her eyes, their bright blue still muted in grays. He pressed his lips to hers, and waited until she responded, then drew her closer.

Her only thought at the moment was how easy it was for him to remove all worry from her mind as if he had swept her away to a place where fears weren’t allowed. Looking into his deep, hazel eyes, she asked, “Will things ever be easy for us?”

“They’ll be as easy or hard as we allow them to be? The first thing you need to learn is to take one day at a time. It’s alright to schedule performances and line up horses to be trained, but when it becomes a chore, maybe it’s time to quit.” As she lay in his arms across his lap, he twirled her hair around his fingers. “Maybe you should consider a manager just for your singing. He could arrange everything according to the contracts you already have, and you wouldn’t have to deal with that part.” He had no idea if anything he said made a difference. She still seem preoccupied as if she was already home and planning her next sale or performance.

“Maybe a manager would be a good idea once we have children. That would certainly give me more time with them. Adam, I’ve never even held a baby before. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“I think once we have one, that will come naturally,” he said laughing. “I have experience from when Hoss and Joe were babies.” Taking a deep breath and smiling warmly at her, he asked, “We have an early morning tomorrow. Are you ready to end the day?” She smiled back and nodded, and the two walked back to their camp, hand and hand.