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What are you going to do? Hiroko asked quietly. She knew only too well how much Crystal loved Spencer, and that she had sent him away for his own good, not because she didn't love him.

Crystal looked at her sadly, but there was no doubt in her mind, about the baby or what she wanted. I'm going to have the baby. It was all she had left of him, and she had a home for the child. It was due in late November. She knew she must have gotten pregnant the first time they made love in San Francisco.

Boyd was stunned when Hiroko told him the news, and Crystal swore him to secrecy, much to his chagrin. He thought she should tell Spencer. But Crystal was adamant. Spencer was well on his way now. And she was going to see that he stayed there. You mean you're not going to tell him? She shook her head. It was the last thing she would do. She had already cost him one job, and what was happening to him now was much too important. I'm not going to tell anyone, except you two. She wasn't even going to tell Harry and Pearl. They were part of another life. And she was going to stay in the valley until she had the baby. And as she grew slowly over the summer months, all she could think of was Spencer's child. It was the one great joy in her life ' her final memory of Spencer.

Crystal had been right. Spencer loved his job. Working for the young senator was exactly what he had wanted. He worked long hours, and the responsibilities on him were enormous. He was suddenly at the hub of the political world, and his legal background stood him in good stead there. He was even thinking about running for Congress himself eventually. But he liked the senator too much to leave him for the moment.

Even Elizabeth was pleased, and it was the only reason why, once again, she had refused to divorce him. In spite of his performance at the trial, and the affair she assumed he'd had, she finally had what she wanted. She was married to someone important. She'd been furious when he'd come home, and for the first week he'd been back, he scarcely saw her. He was getting ready to move out. With or without Crystal, he knew he could no longer stay married. Being with her had shown him all the more what had been missing with Elizabeth, and he was no longer willing to live without it. He would have preferred being alone, as he told her, when they finally talked about it. And he offered her no lies, no excuses, no explanations.

It's not good for either of us. You deserve better and so do I. It was the week after he'd taken the job, and after her threats before the trial, and the length of time he'd stayed away afterward, he couldn't believe that she wouldn't divorce him. They had nothing left, and it was an open secret between them that he had spent the last several weeks with Crystal. I think it's time to call it off. But she was intrigued by his job. It was the first thing he'd done that she thought really had merit. And people were talking about the brilliant job he'd done defending the movie star. Instead of being angry, she was proud, and he realized how little he knew her. It was fame, at any price, that mattered to her, even at the expense of their marriage.

Why don't we wait awhile, Spencer? We've waited this long, we might as well stick it out a little longer. She had looked prim, and she was certainly not feeling romantic. But nor was he. He knew that his days of pretending to himself he loved Elizabeth were long since over. But now he didn't want to play the game. He wanted out, and that was exactly what he told her.

Why in God's name do you want to continue this, Elizabeth? We're not even friends anymore. Don't you care? But the truth was, she didn't.

I like what you're doing these days, Spencer. Being the wife of a senator's aide intrigued her.

Are you serious? He was shocked.

Yes, I am. I'm willing to keep this going, if you are. In fact, I'm not going to let you out. As usual, she was blunt with him. You owe me this. He was livid.

For what?

You made a fool of me with that girl, and if you think I'm going to divorce you so you can marry her, you're crazy. He didn't tell her that Crystal had sent him back and advised him, for the sake of his career, to stay married.

I'd like to marry her. He wasn't going to lie to her. But the truth is, she doesn't want to.

She's either a fool, or very wise. I'm not sure which.

She wants to be alone, she says, and she thinks that she would hurt my career.

She's right. And she's smarter than I thought. She didn't tell him that that told her how much Crystal loved him. Elizabeth wasn't going to champion Crystal's cause to him and she wanted to stay married to Spencer. Is she going back to Hollywood?

He shook his head. No, she went home. That's all over for her.

And where's home? She was curious. It seemed wise to know as much as possible about her opponent.

That's not important.

Are you going to see her again? She knew from the look in his eyes that he would if Crystal would let him. But she sensed that something had happened before he came home, and she suspected correctly that Crystal had sent him back. He wouldn't have come otherwise. But now that Elizabeth had him back, she was going to do everything in her power to keep him. You're a damn fool if you stay involved with her. And I don't think your senator would like it.

That's my problem, not yours. He didn't want to discuss Crystal with his wife. He was thinking about her night and day. But when he called her, she was still adamant about being alone. She told him their lives were too different, and nothing he said seemed to sway her.

But he was so busy at work that the weeks seemed to fly by, and in the end he never moved out and Elizabeth didn't ask him. He even saw her parents less than he had in the past, although her father congratulated him on his new job. And he was pleased for Elizabeth too. She had been groomed to be the wife of an important man, and now Spencer could give her what she wanted.

Spencer never understood why, but he went on living in the house in Georgetown. He was always too busy to move, and Elizabeth left him alone. She went to parties with him, and helped him entertain, and she had a busy life of her own, with social activities and friends and law school. She never complained about the status quo, and within months, he realized that being married to her was useful. He felt guilty for seeing it that way, but Washington was a strange town, and politics even more so. And it did him no harm to be married to Justice Barclay's daughter.

By the fall, he'd been working for the senator for six months, and he was so busy, it didn't matter who he was married to. Except for social functions when she was in the room with him somewhere, he never saw her.

He hardly had time to call Crystal anymore and she was always cool when he spoke to her. She said she was fine, and told him about the ranch, but she made it clear that she didn't want to see him. She had sent him home to Elizabeth and Washington and now once again, he was trapped there. It was exactly what she had wanted for him, and what she had instinctively known that he needed.

It was Thanksgiving before he saw his family again. Elizabeth put on a very pretty dinner. His parents came down from New York and stayed with them, and once again his father congratulated himself for urging Spencer to stay married to her during his early days of unrest after Korea. The Barclays were pleased too, and no one asked when they were going to have children, it was obvious how busy they were, and in June Elizabeth would finish law school.

Imagine that, Spencer's father joked, two lawyers under one roof. You can start your own law firm. If so, Spencer thought to himself, it would be the only thing they had in common. But Elizabeth gave nothing away, she was as charming and poised as she had ever been, and everyone who met Spencer's wife loved her. There was a bright future ahead of them, and Justice Barclay had suggested that after a reasonable term with the young senator, Spencer look to his own career and run for office. Like Elizabeth, he thought Spencer should run for Congress. But it was too soon for that. Spencer was wrapped up in his job, and he buried himself in his work in order to flee the loneliness of his marriage. At thirty-six, he had gone far. But in the process he had lost what he wanted most ' not his wife ' but the girl he had met on the ranch nine years before. He had lost Crystal.

Crystal gave her own Thanksgiving dinner too. She stuffed a turkey, and made homemade cranberries and yams, and tiny ears of corn in the freshly painted kitchen. Hiroko and Boyd came to dinner with Jane, and Boyd smiled at how enormous she was as she sat down with them and Jane said grace. The baby was due any minute. And Boyd knew without asking her again that Spencer knew nothing about his baby. It broke his heart to see the loneliness on her face, but she had been adamant from the first and she stuck by her decision, no matter what it cost her. Boyd thought she still heard from him from time to time. She told them about his rising star in Washington, as the senator's aide, but most of the time she was very quiet.

The ranch house seemed very different now, everything was clean and new and freshly painted. He hardly recognized it as they sat down to dinner at the big oak table in the cozy yellow kitchen. He couldn't even imagine her mother there anymore, and mercifully neither could Crystal. She still thought of her father as she went for long walks. She couldn't ride anymore until after the baby, but she seemed to have enough to do, and she had turned Jared's room into a nursery. It was painted pale blue, with white eyelet curtains.

What if it's a girl? Boyd teased that night before they left.

She smiled peacefully at him. It won't be.

And the next morning when Hiroko came by to check on her, she found her sitting quietly in her room with a look of intense concentration. It stirred a chord of memory, and as she watched, she saw Crystal's face crease with pain.

The baby is coming, no?

Yes. Crystal smiled through her pain, and a moment later she was gripping the arms of her chair. She was unable to speak, and Hiroko ran to get Boyd and told him to call the doctor. They had urged her to go to the hospital months before, but Crystal had said she wanted to have the baby at home. People still knew her face, the movies she had made were still being shown, and more than once people had noticed her in town and stared, wondering if she was the same woman. She wanted no one to know about the baby, no newspapers, no press. The word could not get out. If it did, there would be fresh scandal, and Spencer would know too. She wanted to avoid that at any price. But the price, Boyd and Hiroko knew only too well, could be the baby. They had lost their second child that way, and they would have lost Jane if Crystal hadn't been there. But Dr. Goode said she was healthy and young. There was no reason for a twenty-four-year-old girl not to give birth at home if that was what she wanted.

Boyd called Dr. Goode, and an hour later he came, and by then Crystal could hardly catch her breath between the pains. Her face was drenched with sweat and Hiroko was sitting beside her, holding her hands as Crystal had once done for her. Boyd took Jane outside and let her play in the garden, as Dr. Goode and Hiroko worked, and Crystal labored.

Hiroko came out for a few minutes in the late afternoon, she looked worried and strained, and she told her husband to go home with their daughter. Dr. Goode had said it might still be hours.

Nothing yet? He was worried about their friend. She'd been in labor for a long time and it was hard to imagine that the baby wasn't there yet.

The doctor say the baby very big. Boyd searched her eyes, remembering their own experience with Jane, but his wife smiled before going back inside again. Maybe soon. They were the same words she told Crystal a few minutes later as she fought to push the baby out, with Dr. Goode's experienced old hands to help her. He was the same doctor who had refused to come to Hiroko seven and a half years before, or to care for her during her pregnancy because he had lost his own son to the Japanese. But he watched her now, and was touched by her gentleness and compassion and wisdom. She seemed to be lit from within by something deeply warm and kind and religious, and for the briefest of moments he wanted to tell her he was sorry. He knew their second child had died, and wondered if he could have helped them. Hiroko said nothing to him as he watched her, she only encouraged Crystal quietly, letting her squeeze her hands, and crying as the pains came now, longer and harder, but still there was no baby.

We may have to take her in. He was beginning to consider a cesarean, but Crystal roused herself from her ravaged state and looked at him with such violence he was startled.

No! I'm staying here! A year before she had been accused of murder. And all she needed now to complete the picture to end Spencer's career was an illegitimate baby. If anyone even thought it was his, it would be all over the papers by morning. No! I'll do it myself ' oh God ' Another pain tore through her before she could speak again, and knowing what the doctor wanted to do, she pushed harder. It moved down farther that time, and then she pushed again, and the doctor nodded.

If you can do a few more of those for me, we might just have a baby here before much longer. She smiled weakly at Hiroko between the pains, and without explaining where he had gone, the doctor went to call his nurse. He warned her that they might need an ambulance at the Wyatt ranch. There was a chance that they might have to take Crystal into the hospital at Napa. He wasn't going to risk her life if it went on for much longer. The nurse promised to stand by, and let the ambulance driver know just in case. And when he went back to her, he saw that she had made a little progress. Again! ' that's it ' push harder now! ' harder! She couldn't push any harder, her eyes were almost popping out and her face was red and she strained so hard she almost felt her body explode as there was an enormous pressure, like an express train, tearing through her. She couldn't stop it now, she had to push all the time, as Hiroko watched with eyes filled with wonder. A small red face popped out from between Crystal's legs, with a head full of silky black hair, and he gave an angry cry as Dr. Goode gently turned his shoulders and delivered the rest of him and laid him on his mother's stomach. She was so tired she could barely speak, but she smiled down at him through her tears and then she laughed as she looked at him.