The Vow by Lindsay Chase

said softly.
    Reiver scoffed at that. “Those that weren’t killed are probably too shocked to spin.”
    “Let’s try, anyway.”
    So James and Reiver got to work, Hannah and the baby forgotten.

    Her ordeal was over, and she had survived.
    Hannah looked down at her infant son feeding greedily at her breast, and the long hours of agonizing pain that had racked her body vanished from her memory as though they had never occurred. She felt a surge of love so powerful that it jolted her physically. He was so tiny, with ten perfectly formed, miniature fingers and toes.
    “Giving birth is hell, isn’t it?” Mrs. Hardy said. “But now you’ve earned a rest. When you wake up, Reiver will be here.”
    But when Hannah finally did awaken, she saw Samuel sitting beside her bed, his eyes bleary and jaw shadowed with stubble.
    He squeezed her hand. “How are you feeling?”
    She smiled wanly. “Much better, now that it’s over.”
    He looked down at the baby lying in the wooden cradle that James had built for him just two weeks ago. “Thank you for giving me such a handsome nephew.
    What are you going to name him?”
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    The Vow
    “Reiver and I have agreed on Benjamin,” she replied. She frowned. “What time is it?”
    “It’s almost morning.”
    She looked past him at the door. “Where is Reiver?”
    “He and James are still in the rearing shed,” he said. “A cat got in and—”
    “You needn’t make excuses for him, Samuel,” Hannah said bitterly. “Those worms mean more to him than me or his son.”
    “Not that I want to defend my brother, but this accident was a calamity. He and James have been working all night trying to salvage what’s left of the worms.” He managed a reassuring smile. “He’ll be here soon. And he’ll be delighted with his son, I promise.”
    After Samuel left, Hannah looked down at her peacefully sleeping son.
    Suddenly she realized that her husband no longer mattered to her as much as her child. She was bound to her husband legally, but she was bound to her son by blood. She would give all her love to Benjamin, and he would return that love a hundredfold.
    Her son was her future, her family, her power.
    There came a knock on the door, and it opened to reveal Reiver, looking both haggard and sheepish.
    “I’m sorry your worms were destroyed,” Hannah said, thinking those were the words he wanted to hear above all others.
    But his eyes were on the cradle as he crossed the room.
    Hannah reached down and picked up the sleeping bundle, holding him as if he were made of glass. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
    Reiver ran one finger down the baby’s soft cheek and stared down at him as if he had never seen one before. “My son.”
    No, Hannah thought. Mine.

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    Chapter Four
    “Benjamin Shaw, you are the smartest little boy in the whole world,”
    Hannah said, beaming down at her fourteen-month-old son as he sat on the nursery floor and carefully piled the little wooden blocks atop each other.
    “You’ve just built a house, yes, you have.”
    Benjamin’s cherubic face split into a wide grin at his mother’s effusive praise just before he swung his hand and demolished his creation with one quick swipe, sending the blocks clattering and scattering all over the floor. Then he giggled and clapped his hands.
    “Oh, we’re so pleased with ourselves, aren’t we?” With an indulgent sigh, Hannah knelt to retrieve the blocks and set them before her son to pile up and knock down again.
    She rose and the dizziness hit her like an unexpected slap in the face.
    Groping for support, she found the back of a chair and clung to it, waiting for the nausea to pass.
    When the room stopped spinning, she smiled at her son, who was eyeing her strange behavior solemnly. “Well, Benjamin, soon you will have a little baby brother or sister to play with.”
    She knew it wasn’t the stifling July heat that was making her light-headed.
    She had