wondered exactly what size those four people were supposed to be, as it hardly looked big enough for
At least they’d have Emily with them, because being so close to Ben in nothing more than a sleeping bag sounded…damn tempting. In spite of her chill she started to warm up a little, from the inside out, just thinking about it.
“Mom, we’re going to go on a hike up that peak over there.” Emily was still bouncing around as she pointed to a rock formation a ways off, one that looked high and formidable. “Want to try to come?”
“Uh…” Now that she’d stopped thinking about Ben in a sleeping bag, and was looking at that mountain they wanted to scramble up, her warmth dissipated. Every single one of her injuries, healed or otherwise, had made itself known in the chill. “I don’t think so.”
Emily’s smile faded. “You okay?”
Other than feeling ancient? Other than the fact that just a few months ago she could have outenergized her own daughter? “I’m fine, hon. Just a little sore today.”
“I thought you were all better.”
Her own fault, as pride had made her hide any lingering problems from the accident. “Mostly.”
Ben started a fire, then came out of nowhere with her artist pad and pencils, which he set in her lap. “To help you pass the time.”
She stared down at her things and was shocked to find them blurring with her own tears.
“Just do it for fun,” he said softly, mistaking her emotion for distress. “Don’t think of it as work, just think of it as-”
She put her hands over his and squeezed, swallowing the lump in her throat. “It’s perfect, thank you.”
He smiled into her eyes, then leaned forward to give her a kiss that brought back some of the warmth. “Look for us, we’ll wave to you from the top.”
“Ben-” She grabbed his hand when he would have pulled away.
He touched her face. “You’re safe here, Rachel.”
“I know.” She felt safe. She always felt safe around him, she realized. “Be careful with our daughter, she’s a bouncing bubble of energy waiting for disaster.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the girl in question, who was already on the edge of their campsite, shifting impatiently back and forth with a camera around her neck. No laptop in sight. Ben turned back to her, his eyes lit with such heat it took her breath. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said ‘our’ daughter.” His voice was low and a little thick. “It’s always been your daughter or my daughter, never…ours.” He stroked a finger over the hand that held her pencils. “I’ve never really thanked you for her-”
“Ben-”
“So thank you,” he said, and kissed her again, just once, just softly, and by the time she opened her eyes Ben and Emily were nearly out of sight already. But for the longest time she could still feel him. Taste him.
To keep her mind off that, she opened her pad. Surprising how she could jump right in to sketching out here in the wilderness, when she was still a little cold, not so comfortable in the chair, and worried about her precocious daughter stepping off a mountain and falling to her death, but jump she did. Maybe it was the absence of telephone calls, doorbells, clocks to watch…but whatever the reason, without the day-to-day distractions, she worked as she hadn’t in months.
Thirty minutes later, she stared down in surprise. She’d drawn Gracie at the helm of a rowboat with her pencil high in the air pointing the way, towing her daughter and Patches, forging on against all odds. Out of nowhere, she’d pulled out a full
She leaned back and looked at the startlingly blue sky. A few white clouds. No sound except a light wind whistling through the canyon and a few scattered birds. And a distant cry of…
Emily!
Forgetting her aches and pains she leaped out of her chair, dropping her pad and pencils onto the ground as she scanned the horizon, heart in her throat. She knew it, Emily had gotten herself hurt or-
There. On top of the nearest rock outcropping, just where Ben had promised they’d stop and wave to her, stood her daughter and the man who’d changed her life forever with just one smile so long ago. Even from that distance she could sense he was giving her another of those smiles now, and she waved wildly, grinning in spite of herself, relief and something else crowding the heart that had stopped in fear only a second before.
They both waved back, Ben putting an arm on the exuberant Emily before she danced herself right off the cliff.
“Love you, Mom!” came Emily’s voice, and then they were gone from view.
“Love you, too,” Rachel whispered to no one, not even sure which of them she was talking to.
NIGHT FELL with shocking swiftness. No simple dusk for this place. One moment the sun slowly sank in golds and yellows and reds behind the rocks, and then the next, utter and still blackness.
Rachel crossed her arms in front of her, watching as Ben resurrected the fire she’d managed to kill. On his knees, he poked at the embers with a stick and the flames leaped to life for him. He glanced at her and she rolled her eyes.
At that, he laughed. The sound made her stomach tingle.
They’d met their neighboring campers-Joe, Matt, Liz and Shel, a group of four twenty-somethings claiming to be camping their way across the States before settling down to “real” life. The two couples had seemed a little wary of them until Ben had introduced himself, and within five minutes had made everyone feel quite at home.
Later, when Emily expressed worry at their new friends’ lack of a home, lack of things and family, Ben told her that he suspected they were happy with the life they’d chosen, and could always change it if they wanted. Not everyone had to have a home or things. Or even family.
Rachel had watched him explain this to Emily and had to swallow hard. He was like that, happy without a home, things. Family.
She might have brooded over that, but Emily pulled out a deck of cards and challenged them to a gin rummy tournament. They played next to the fire, surrounded by wide-open vast space and a blanket of stars, with only their own laughter for company.
It was perfect. Rachel looked at Ben. Oh, yes, so perfect. She knew she should be sad, regretful, even resentful, that this would be it, their only foray into the whole family dynamic, the three of them, but suddenly she felt something else as well. Grateful.
Ben looked up, caught her looking at him. His hair had been long when he came, but it was longer now, and fell across his forehead. He shoved his fingers through it, shoving it out of his way. He looked tall, lean…beautiful. When he looked at her, she had to close her eyes.
He was leaving. Tuesday. Couldn’t wait to leave.
“Let’s hit the sack,” he said abruptly, putting the cards aside, as if his thoughts had turned as troubled as hers.
“Dad-”
“Storm’s blowing in.” He pointed to the dark cloud mass coming in from the north, slowly blotting out the stars. “Let’s get warm and cozy inside before it hits.”
Five minutes later Rachel was kneeling in the center of the miniscule tent, staring at the three overlapping sleeping bags.
“I want the door,” Emily said, having a good time whipping the beam from her flashlight over everything.
“I got the door, sweetness,” Ben said.
Rachel waited for the inevitable argument, as Emily never accepted anything less than her own way, but at Ben’s no-nonsense tone, she simply grabbed her sleeping bag. “Well, then I get the far wall beneath the window.”
“Fine,” Ben said.
Fine? That wasn’t fine. Emily by the wall would put her in the middle, where Ben’s hard, warm strength would be against her all night long. She couldn’t handle it, she-
“Get in, Mom.” Emily pointed to the bag that overlapped Ben’s by a good third. “Tonight,
