Two Alone

“Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?”

She didn’t take offense. Instead she laughed. “I guess I do. Lovers often babble nonsensically, don’t they?”

“This is no laughing matter, Rusty. If you do this, it’s an irreversible decision. Once you give up your position here, that’s it.”

“I don’t think so, Father,” she said, calling his bluff. “Think how bad it would be for business if you fired your most effective employee.” She produced a key from the pocket of her nylon windbreaker. “To my office.” She slid the key across his desk. “I’ll be taking an indefinite leave of absence.”

“You’re making a fool of yourself.”

“I made a fool of myself at Great Bear Lake. I did that for love, too.” She turned on her heels and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Bill Carlson barked. He wasn’t accustomed to someone walking out on him.

“To Rogers Gap.”

“And do what?”

Rusty faced her father. She loved him. Very much. But she could no longer sacrifice her own happiness for his. With staunch conviction she said, “I’m going to do something that Jeff could never do: I’m going to have a baby.”

Chapter Fourteen

Rusty stood on the cliff and breathed deeply of the cool, crisp air. She never tired of the scenery. It was constant, and yet ever changing. Today the sky was like a blue china bowl turned upside down over the earth. Snow still capped the mountain peaks against the horizon. The trees ranged in color from the blue-green of the evergreens to the delicate green of trees on the verge of spring budding.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Her husband came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled against him. “Not now. How’s the foal?”

“He’s having breakfast—to his and his mother’s mutual contentment.”

She smiled and tilted her head to one side. He inched down the turtleneck of her sweater and kissed her beneath her ear. “How’s the other

new mother on the place?”

“I’m not a new mother yet.” She glowed with pleasure as he ran his large hands over her swollen abdomen.

“Looks that way to me.”

“You think this new figure of mine is amusing, don’t you?” She frowned at him over her shoulder, but it was hard to maintain that expression when he was gazing at her with such evident love.

“I love it.”

“I love you.”

They kissed. “I love you, too,” he whispered when he lifted his mouth off hers. Words he had found impossible to say before, now came easily to his lips. She had taught him how to love again.

“You had no choice.”

“Yeah, I remember that night you showed up on my threshold looking as bedraggled as a homeless kitten in a rainstorm.”

“Considering what I’d just come through I thought I looked pretty good.”

“I didn’t know whether to kiss you or paddle you.”

“You did both.”

“Yeah, but the paddling didn’t come until much later.”

They laughed together, but he was serious when he said, “No fooling, I couldn’t believe you drove all that way alone through that kind of weather. Didn’t you listen to your car radio? Didn’t you hear the storm reports? You escorted in the first heavy snowstorm of the season. Every time I think about it, I shudder.” He pulled her closer, crossing his hands over her breasts and nuzzling his face in her hair.