The Black Sheep’s Baby

He raised one eyebrow. “I thought you were cold.”

“Well, of course I’m cold.” And to prove it, her voice was bumpy with shivers. “Dammit, after what I went through to get into these layers, I want to make the most of it. This is probably the only chance I’m ever going to have to see an actual farm, you know-especially in snow.”

“An ‘actual’ farm? As opposed to…what? A virtual farm? A fictitious farm?” But he was grinning as he trudged back to join her. He gave her a mocking glance as he turned and threw his arms wide. “Okay, there you have it. Over there is the actual barn-you saw that yesterday. Next to it are the actual corrals, and down there are the hog shelters-where the lights are burning, see? That’s for warmth. Then there’s the farrowing house-”

“The what?”

“Where they have baby piggies.”

“Oh.”

“And those are the grain silos, and the equipment barns-”

“What’s that cute little cottage-looking thing, up there next to the house?” Devon asked, pointing.

“That? It used to be a bunkhouse-you know, for a hired hand? I had my darkroom in there when I was in high school, but I think it’s probably used for storage, now. That’s not the original-a tree fell on the old one during a thunderstorm. Happened the summer my dad first came here-long story.” He brushed that aside with a gesture.

They were walking together, now, past the silos and down a slope toward open fields, following dirty hard- packed tracks in the snow, twin ribbons laid down by a tractor’s tires. Far ahead, on a gently sloping hillside, the wind had scoured deeply enough to reveal the rough brown remnants of corn stubble. There, puffing out clouds of steam, grayish-white cattle were busily feeding on piles of hay the tractor had left in a long looping trail across the snowy landscape.

“Over there-see those trees?” Coming to a halt at a gate in a barbed wire fence, Eric pointed beyond the cattle and the hills and the stubbled field. “There’s a little creek there that runs into the river. That’s where the original homestead was-the one where my great-great-I don’t know how many greats-grandmother outwitted a Sioux raiding party.”

“The one who set fire to everything and tied her baby in her apron and climbed down the well?”

Eric threw her a grin. “You were paying attention.”

“I always do.”

In the next moment he’d caught his breath; his hand shot out to close on Devon’s arm. “Wait-don’t move.”

“What?” Her whisper was hushed, breathless. He already had his camera lifted and was holding his breath, too, finding the focus. And then, following the line of the telephoto lens, she saw the reason why. Not twenty yards from where they stood, a little brown rabbit moved in tentative hops through the snow, weaving in and out among the tips of corn stubble.

It happened so quickly. Devon had just uttered a delighted and reverent “Ohh…” when something plummeted out of the sky with a screeching cry, in a fury of dark wings and curved talons. The rabbit uttered a thin, high- pitched squeal, and then was still. Devon watched in horror as the hawk began to tear savagely at the limp body with his hooked beak, holding it down with his talons. Bits of fluff floated into the air and caught the sunlight.

She became aware, then, of another sound-the rapid click and whir of Eric’s camera. She whirled on him, trembling with shock. “How could you do that? How could you let that happen? Why didn’t you stop it? You…you could have…shouted, scared it away…something!” Eric slowly lowered his camera. Unperturbed by the disturbance so nearby, the hawk went on methodically feeding. “How can you just stand there, clicking away, as if…as if…” Furious with herself and with him, Devon jerked away and began to plunge through the snow, back the way they’d come, brushing an angry tear from her cold cheek.

She hadn’t gone far when she felt Eric beside her, but she pointedly ignored him. She was angrier than she’d had any idea she could be. He must have known that because he made no effort to talk to her then, just let her plow on up the hill until she ran out of breath and had to slow down.

They walked on together, then, plodding slowly in step, and after a while Eric surprised her by beginning to talk to her in a musing, reminiscent tone.

“Once, when I was just a kid, still in high school, my cousin Caitlyn and I were out exploring. There’s this pond- it’s over there, beyond the hill; you can’t see it from here. We saw this mother duck, and she was trying to defend her babies from the drake-a drake’ll try to kill baby ducklings, if he can. Anyway, I had my camera, as usual, and there I was, snapping away, and all of a sudden here comes Caitlyn just flyin’ past me, screaming, ‘Do something!’ She’s throwing rocks and sticks, and she manages to drive the drake off, and then she turns on me. I’d never seen her so mad. She said almost the same thing to me you just did-how could I stand there and snap pictures, and why didn’t I do something.”

He glanced over at Devon. She couldn’t help it-she lifted her head and looked back at him. Her heart gave that queer little bump again, when she saw the bleakness in his eyes. She’d almost forgotten that look-the one that made him seem older than eternity, the one that said those eyes had seen entirely too much.

“I never forgot that,” he went on quietly, looking away again, his gaze focused on something Devon couldn’t see. “It was years later, in Africa-that famine I told you about?-when I realized some things are just too big, there isn’t a damn thing you can do.” He paused. “It’s terrible, you know? To feel so powerless. I guess that’s why-”

He broke it off. “Why?” Devon prompted, almost against her will.

He threw her an angry glance. “Susan…I think it’s why I got so involved. I thought here was a situation I could do something about-just one person, right? Turns out I was wrong then, too.” Even in profile his smile was bitter.

He feels things… The thought had come to her, yesterday in the parlor, she remembered, the first time he’d told her about Africa. She’d felt the beginnings of a grudging respect for him, then. So why now did the same revelation make her feel bewildered, resentful and scared? Don’t tell me these things, she wanted to shout at him. Damn you, I don’t want to know what a great person you are. I don’t want to admire you. Most of all, I don’t want to like you.

Furious with himself, Eric trudged blindly ahead, not caring whether or not she kept up with him. Why do I keep telling her these things? he thought. Personal things, things he’d never told another soul. Things that had nothing to do with awakening her memories. Why did he find it so hard to remember who and what she was?

From the first moment he’d set eyes on Devon O’Rourke, he hadn’t known what to make of her; his feelings where she was concerned had been confused, ambiguous, at best. So, that initial fear and dislike, even revulsion, had given way to sympathy and an undeniable physical attraction-fine. He had no real problem with that. But what the hell was he supposed to do with this…this strange sort of tenderness that kept coming over him when he least expected it? The bumpy rush of silent laughter he’d had to hold in check so he could snap her picture while she was floundering like a clumsy puppy in the snowdrifts, the urge to warm her hands, and smile at her cherry-red nose, and to pull her into his arms and kiss away the tears she’d wept for a damned rabbit?

What was he to do with the sore spot that took over the space where his heart was supposed to be every time he thought about Devon O’Rourke and what she meant to do to him and Emily once the Christmas truce was over?

“Hey, no fair.” Something nudged him in the side. Looking down, he saw green eyes glistening at him from below the rolled-up brim of the knitted ski cap, which had slipped down almost over her eyes. “I thought we had a truce.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, you’re mad at me again.”

“Mad at you?” There it was again-he couldn’t help but smile. Did she know how childish that sounded? And how much she looked like one, shapeless in her layers, the cap low on her forehead… round, roly-poly and rosy-cheeked. And utterly adorable. “I’m not mad at you, for God’s sake.”

He stopped and looked up at the sky. Ah, hell. What did a man do with feelings like