Cold Ridge

Twenty-Two

Carine wrapped herself up in a quilt she'd made one summer and sat on the floor in front of her woodstove. By unspoken agreement, she and Ty had decided to spend the night at her cabin. Gus had left, after a long discussion about defunct dairy farms and how, between farming and logging, much of New Hampshire had been denuded of its forests in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, before so much of it turned into national forest. He'd searched his memory for Sanborns he'd known over the years. But Carine could tell he wasn't that taken with her discovery.

In any case, what did it prove? The man who'd called himself Louis Sanborn was dead. Whether or not he was one of the shooters from last fall, it didn't say who his murderer was.

Ty checked the cabin for various critters-bats, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, God knew what else-and emerged from the cellar, picking cobwebs off his shirt. She had a feeling he'd found a snakeskin down there, but he wouldn't tell her.

"Don't protect me," she said. "Just give it to me straight."

"It was a grizzly bear with cubs."

She laughed, but only for a moment. The fire popped behind the screen, startling her, reminding her of how on edge she still was. "When I think back to Wednesday, finding Louis, it's like my senses were heightened," she said. "I can see myself standing in the hall when I realized something was wrong. I can see the blood oozing toward me-his hand was in it. I can hear myself yelling for help, feel the sun on my neck when I ran outside and Manny was there. I can see the pigeons on the mall. Every detail is etched in my mind in a way it wouldn't have been if I'd just gone back and taken pictures, and it was a normal afternoon."

Ty sat on the floor next to her, not taking any of her quilt. He put one knee up, his other leg stretched out, his toes almost against the stove. He'd pulled off his boots, and she noticed he had on the kind of expensive socks Gus sold. "That can happen when you're under a high level of stress."

"Is it that way for you when you're on a mission?"

"I focus on the job I'm there to do."

"But afterward-"

"Afterward there's another job."

"I didn't have a job to do in the library. I wasn't sent in to rescue Louis or treat him, investigate his murder- I'm a photographer. I'm not a doctor like Antonia, a U.S. marshal like Nate, a military guy like you. I didn't have any protocol or orders to follow. I had no professional responsibility."

"If any of us came unexpectedly upon the murder of someone we knew, I doubt we'd react all that differently than you did."

"Me? I screamed my head off and got the hell out of there."

He smiled. "You see?"

"I remember the shooting last fall in excruciating detail, too. I never thought of my job as having inherent dangers, especially compared to what you do for a living. Dangling out of a helicopter-"

"I don't dangle. I'd be in a shitload of trouble if I dangled."

She looked over at him, picturing him decked out in a flight suit and all his gear, fast-roping out of a helicopter. "The idea would be for you to get people out of trouble, not get in any yourself."

"That would be the idea, yes. But things can go wrong."

"Well, I thought I'd be safe in the woods taking a picture of an owl. And you and Manny and Hank- you weren't on a mission. You were just there to steal my food."

"Share, not steal."

"My point is that anything can happen, anytime. I can't live my life worried about it. I do my job, I take sensible precautions."

He gave her a skeptical look. "You were out in the woods alone."

"I can't take someone with me every time I go out- that's part of my job. I suppose that's one of its inherent risks." She frowned at him and lifted a corner of her quilt. "You cold?"

"No, but I like the idea of being under a blanket with you."

She shook her head. "Only if you tell me what's in the cellar. Snake?"

"Dragon."

She let him under her quilt with her, anyway, and scooted next to him, her leg pressed up against his. "Do you suppose Louis Sanborn really was one of the shooters? He was always so nice to me in Boston." She didn't wait for Ty to answer. "I don't get what's going on. Maybe we're off base totally and Manny was on a secret military mission."

Ty kissed the top of her head. "Maybe you're so tired you're getting screwy."

"I can make us tea-"

But she stopped abruptly, seeing his expression. He didn't want tea.

"Suppose instead of tea," he said, "I carry you up to bed."

"You can't. There's just a ladder."

"Bet?"

She had no time even to scramble to her feet before she was over his shoulder, sack-of-grain style. She didn't ask him to put her down. She didn't kick or thrash. Without even the hint of a misstep, he had her up the ladder and into her loft, then flopped her onto her back on her bed.

She laughed and whacked him on the shoulder. "You're insane!"

He wasn't particularly out of breath. "Tell me this isn't better than tea."

She smiled, rising up off the bed to hook her hands around his neck and kiss him, bringing him back down with her. "Much better," she said against his mouth. "What if you'd tripped?"

"I didn't trip."

He settled on top of her, the weight of him firing her senses, burning up her ability to talk. She let her hands drift down his back to his hips, pulling him against her, knowing they wanted the same thing. They'd been dancing around it for two days, trying to be sensible and not repeat their body-clawing, mind-numbing madness at her apartment.

But he resisted her attempt to get on with it before she could think too much. He eased back, slipping one knee between her legs. "Not so fast."

There'd be no crazed lovemaking that she could attribute to stress and the moment in the morning-it would be slow and deliberate, and she might as well give herself up to it.

It was, and she did. At least for a time.

"We should have been making love like this for months now." His voice was a whisper as he lifted her sweater over her head, tugging it off, casting it onto the floor. "Maybe years."

He touched her breasts through her bra, a kind of erotic torture, then unclasped it, not fumbling even the slightest. Because his movements were unhurried, she had time to think, react, even feel a spurt of self-consciousness when she was exposed to him. In so many ways, they weren't the same people they'd been last winter, before he'd knocked on her door. He'd gone back to fight. She'd fled to Boston. The falling in love, the cutting and running, the pain and anger and embarrassment-they'd all had their effect, not just on her. On him, too. She could feel it in his tenderness, in his determination to give her the chance to make sure this was really what she wanted.

She could have dumped him back down the ladder, but she didn't, and she knew he didn't want her to.

It was warm in the loft, the heat of the woodstove rising, and it was dark in the loft, the only light from the fire's glow through the rail. She could see him outlined above her, feel him as his mouth lowered to her, taking first one nipple, then the other. She moaned, but he didn't pick up his pace. Her jeans came next, an even slower torture of hands, tongue and teeth, as if he was oblivious to her mounting urgency. She fought back, tearing at his clothes, and finally got her chance.

But he was ready for whatever tortures she had in mind.

When at last she straddled him and he lifted her hips, lowering her onto him, his hands smoothing up over her stomach and breasts, she gasped as if it was the first time.

Everythingchanged.Shecouldn'tholdbackandsaw thathecouldn't,either,notanylonger.Shewantedspeed and heat and ferocity, and he responded in kind, his strokes hard, fast, relentless. She ended up on her back, taking all of him she could get, and when she was filled up,spillingover,hecameatheralltheharder,againand again. Her release washed over her, endless, and her cries seemed to echo across the isolated meadow. She knew she was spinning out of control and didn't care.

But he didn't stop. He was slick with sweat, his heart beating rapidly against her, and when he came, she thought she would die.

Her vision blurred, and a treacherous mix of love and raw need ripped through her.

She'd promised herself never again. And here she was.

Later, Ty slipped down the ladder and tossed another log on the fire. He debated sleeping on the couch, but Carine would take it the wrong way. Or so went his rationalization as he climbed back up the ladder and into bed with her. She had a mountain of quilts and blankets. He thought he'd suffocate. He peeled one off and threw it on the floor with their clothes.

"Gus says we never returned the snowshoes he gave us for a wedding present," she said sleepily.

"Only Gus would give someone snowshoes for a wedding present, and we did return them. He tried to send them back to the manufacturer. He said they were tainted."

She rolled onto her side, pulling the covers up over her breasts. "I don't have to marry you, Ty, but I can't- I can't just be there whenever you decide you want me there."

"I know."

"And you-it's not right for you to be there whenever I want you."

"Right."

"Ty?"

He smothered her urge to talk with a kiss. It seemed like the right thing to do, and in a minute, she was the one kicking off blankets.