It was two years ago she'd decided there weren't going to be any. Even the fertility drugs hadn't helped. It had been then that she'd started her campaign to adopt a child but for two years now Cole had remained stubborn and refusing.

Their whole relationship had been affected. Kate walked back toward the house, past the willow and the fish pond. Lately even their lovemaking. Cole didn't want her as often and when he did it was as though he were only going through the motions. A few times when he was drunk he'd even wanted her to do awful things… lurid, debasing perverted things. She'd have done even that if it would have given her a baby… but those… well, "positions" couldn't possibly give her a baby. It was physically impossible.

Kate stopped at the fish pond and looked down at the glinting darts of gold flashing through the water. She popped a strawberry, warm from the sun into her mouth. There was mama goldfish and papa goldfish and three babies shooting through the clear green water. Stop it, she told herself. Everywhere she looked everything reminded her that Kate Sutherland had no child… and all her brooding through ten years of marriage had not brought her one… nor all the tears… nor all the begging.

The gate squeaked and Kate looked up to see the two boys coming through it toward the house. She smiled and waved. They lifted a hand halfheartedly. Poor things, they looked exhausted. City boys weren't used to hard ranch work.

Kate hummed to herself as she washed the vegetables in the sink. She could hear Eric Petersen and Angel Orellio in the office-family room a few steps down. They were sighing and slapping their knees and talking. It was almost like listening to horses or bulls snort when they were hot and tired. She rushed down to refill their beer glasses.

"How about another beer, boys?" They both nodded dumbly, sprawled in the leather director's chairs with their shirts off and their legs spraddled out in exhaustion. Kate took their beer mugs and held them in front of the spout on the old brown refrigerator door. The beer refrigerator was indispensable on a ranch and Cole liked it here in the office where he could get to it without having to go to the kitchen.