“I’m afraid she’s ready again.” She laid the baby on the changing pad and started unsnapping her sleeper. “Besides, I’m dying to find out how you—” She paused and began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” He realized he sounded a little defensive, but he couldn’t help it. He was new at this, and besides, he’d run into a supply problem. “I thought it was a pretty good job.”
“It’s a wonderful job.” She sounded as if she were trying to control herself, but her efforts weren’t very successful. She kept bursting out with new giggles. “I just never would have thought of—” she tried to disguise another fit of laughter by clearing her throat elaborately “—of duct tape.”
“I couldn’t find any pins, and I didn’t think paper clips would hold.”
“Well, this duct tape holds like crazy. She may be welded into this yellow plaid diaper for life.”
Zeke was quite certain he could manage his invention a whole lot better than Katherine was doing. “Here, you stir the oatmeal and I’ll change her.” He leaned the spoon against the side of the pot and crossed to the table. “And you’d better put the sling back on your arm, too.”
“All right.” Katherine’s hazel eyes sparkled with merriment as he approached. “Maybe next time you might want to use a teensy bit less of that tape, though.”
He looked into her eyes and forgot all about diapers. “How come you always look so damn kissable?” He realized he sounded downright cross, and maybe he was.
She matched his irritated tone. “It’s not like I’m trying to be attractive, Zeke. I mean, look at me—no makeup and clothes six sizes too big, for heaven’s sake.” She moved aside but kept her hand on the baby’s tummy until he put his next to hers. Then she stepped back.
He started working at the duct tape. Maybe he had been a little overzealous in his application of it. “You know, when I made love to you a year ago, you weren’t trying to be attractive, either.” He glanced over at her. “Maybe pure, unadulterated Katherine is what turns me on.”
She rolled her eyes. “Men are forever saying things like that. Then some beauty queen strolls by and their tongues hang out.”
He went back to his task, made more difficult because Amanda had decided to start kicking and waving her arms. “I can’t speak for the guys you know in New York, but I go in for earthy, not flashy. When you stroll by in that flannel shirt, my tongue’s dragging the ground.”
She didn’t answer right away. When she spoke, her voice was subdued. “You’re forgetting that’s not the real me. Ninety percent of the time I look nothing like this, even though it’s pretty much all you’ve seen. After all, my job involves putting out a fashion magazine.”
“Good point.” Depressing point.
Her voice gentled even more. “But it’s good for a girl’s ego to have a man say he likes her just the way she is. Thank you for that.”
“Don’t mention it.” He struggled with the tape. “You’d better put on your sling and then go stir the oatmeal. It’s no fun when it starts sticking to the pan.”
“Right.”
Feeling in need of a mood elevator, he leaned down and kissed the baby on the nose. “Hey, sunshine. Looks like somebody thought you needed industrial-strength diapering this morning.”
Amanda gurgled at him and patted his face.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of this sooner or later.” He wondered if he could talk Katherine into strapping duct tape over her sweats. The stuff would make a terrific chastity belt. Finally he got the diaper off and turned to Katherine, who was vigorously stirring the oatmeal. “Would you please get me another dish towel? They’re on the top shelf of the left-hand cupboard.”
She leaned the spoon against the lip of the kettle and went over to handle his request. She had to stand on tiptoe and strain to reach the towels, even though she was a fairly tall woman. If she lived here, Zeke thought, he’d move the cupboards down a foot. But of course she’d never live here, so they could stay where they were.
“You don’t have a whole lot of these,” Katherine said as she handed him the red-striped towel. “It won’t matter if we can get back to the lodge today, but if we can’t for some reason, then—”
He took the towel. “If I can’t take you back today, we’ll have bigger problems than a shortage of diapers.” He glanced at her. “The longer we stay in this cabin together, the tougher it’ll be when you leave.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. We’ll make it out.”
Zeke gazed at her standing there, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright as a mountain meadow. “We’ll see.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TWO HOURS LATER, KATHERINE stood with Zeke on the banks of the turbulent creek. If anything it looked more impassable than it had the day before. Little of Zeke’s bridge remained, so repairing it had only been a pipe dream.
Katherine glanced over at Zeke. He had insisted on carrying Amanda in the baby sling, arguing that he was more sure-footed in his hiking boots than she was in her city shoes. He’d been right about that. She’d slipped twice but hadn’t fallen down...yet.
“What do you think?” she asked, although his frown pretty much said it all.
“Let’s follow the path downstream a ways. There’s one wide spot where it’s always more shallow. Before I built the bridge I used to take the truck across there.”
“But the creek wasn’t running this high, I’ll bet.”
“No.” Zeke glanced up. Heavy clouds had begun to gather in the west. A hawk glided on the steady wind blowing the clouds in their direction.
“You think it’s going to rain again, don’t you?”
He nodded. “How are your feet holding up?”
“Fine,” she lied. She’d crammed her shoes on over his heavy socks, which made them too tight, and she was afraid she’d rubbed more than one blister on each foot. But she’d been determined to come with him, both for the comfort his presence brought and for the chance to assess the situation firsthand. If he decided to bring the truck through, she wanted to have some idea of whether they’d get stuck in the process.
“Then let’s go.” He started down the trail winding beside the creek.
If she’d had hiking boots she would have thoroughly enjoyed herself, but her hiking boots were back at the hotel and her feet hurt. Still, she drew pleasure from the Christmas scent of the pines and the merry chatter of birds, squirrels and chipmunks. A red fox with a spectacular plume of a tail ran across their path, and three deer disappeared through the trees like tawny shadows.
She wished she could relax into the peaceful scene as she’d been able to do so often as a child in the Adirondacks. Instead she couldn’t help worrying about how Zeke would get them back to the lodge today. In fact, she wondered when she’d ever get back to the lodge, and New York seemed a million miles away.
Naomi had booked her to return Monday so she’d be at her desk bright and early Tuesday morning to approve the next issue’s layout and make assignments for the Milan show. Besides that, a feature on a new designer was due by— In her preoccupation she tripped over a tree root and barely missed falling.
Zeke turned quickly. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She managed a smile.
“Your feet hurt.”
“Not much.”
“You’re limping.”
After making such a fuss about coming and insisting that her shoes were fine for the trip, Katherine wasn’t about to admit to her problem. “Yes, because I just stubbed my toe on that tree root. Go on. I’m right behind you.”
“We’re almost there.” He turned and continued along the muddy path.
Katherine took a deep breath and followed him. That’s what she got for ignoring the beauty around her and worrying about some future problem. That was a lesson she’d thought she’d le
arned during her solo hike last summer, but apparently she needed more teaching. Good thing Zeke was carrying Amanda, who seemed totally happy with the arrangement, too.
“Here’s the place,” Zeke called out.
Katherine came up beside him and surveyed the rushing creek. “It doesn’t look a lot better, to be honest. And how would you get the truck here?”
“There’s a wider path that cuts through the trees. We can take that back to the cabin, now that we’re here.” He adjusted Amanda’s weight against his chest as he gazed out over the creek. “The water’s gone down some since early this morning. See where that debris is hanging from that low branch?”
Katherine looked where he was pointing. “Yes.”
“That’s where it was a few hours ago. If it doesn’t rain again, it’ll go down some more by this afternoon. We could probably make it.”
“If it doesn’t rain.”
“It might not.”
Katherine wouldn’t have wanted to bet on it. Yet Zeke seemed to think they had a chance of driving out of here this afternoon. And that’s what she wanted, of course. The woods were beautiful, and Zeke...well, Zeke was indescribable. But she had to get back to New York.
“I guess we might as well start home,” he said. “I—oh, God, look at that.” He stared upstream.
“What?” Katherine strained to see what he was looking at with such a worried expression, but she couldn’t figure it out.
“There. On the branch coming toward us. A mother raccoon with her babies.”
Finally Katherine saw a cluster of brown fur clinging to a flimsy branch. Eventually she differentiated a nose and tail and gradually made out the babies, perhaps four of them, riding precariously on the mother’s back. “Will they be okay?”
“Maybe not.” Zeke started unfastening Amanda’s sling. “Downstream there’s a waterfall. I don’t think the babies could survive that. Hold Amanda for me.”
Katherine took a sleeping Amanda and put on the sling, but she didn’t like the looks of this. “What are you going to do?”
“Wade in and see if I can pull the branch over next to the shore, so the mother can climb off.”
“Zeke, that water’s really moving.” Katherine didn’t want the baby raccoons to drown, either, but she was more concerned about keeping Zeke in one piece.
“I’ll be fine.” He started down the embankment, hanging on to the trunks of saplings as he went.
Katherine tried to tell herself that Zeke did this sort of thing for a living and he would be fine, but when he put his foot into the water and slipped, she cried out.
“Don’t worry!” he called over his shoulder as he righted himself and started wading into the stream.
She worried, anyway. Rushing water had nearly killed her once, and she didn’t trust it. As Zeke got in over his knees, she held her breath. He might be a big man, but the current was powerful.
Amanda stirred and started to fuss.
“Not now, baby,” Katherine said, jiggling her. “Mommy has to watch out for your daddy, who is doing something brave and foolish, I’m afraid.”
Zeke staggered in the swift water, and Katherine’s stomach churned. Finally he reached a point that must have satisfied him, because he stopped and looked downstream, waiting for the branch to come by.
“What if they bite you?” she called.
“They don’t usually carry rabies,” he called back.
Rabies. She hadn’t even thought of that. She’d only been concerned that he’d be wounded, not that he’d contract a potentially fatal disease. “Maybe you should just come on back, Zeke.”
“They’re almost here.”
Amanda started crying in earnest.
“I can’t feed you now, sweetheart,” Katherine said, her attention glued to the drama in the middle of the stream. “Daddy’s trying to save some baby raccoons, and I’m hoping I don’t have to try and save Daddy.”
The branch drifted slightly out of reach as it was about to pass Zeke, and he moved toward it, nearly going down and causing Katherine’s stomach to flip-flop again. But he stayed upright and grabbed the very tip of the branch. Katherine was barely breathing as the mother raccoon stared at Zeke and hissed. Katherine half expected the animal to lunge for his throat. After all, she didn’t know this tall creature holding the branch was trying to save her babies.
The rush of water and Amanda’s crying made it difficult for Katherine to hear, but once in a while she thought she heard the low murmur of Zeke’s voice. She edged to the right for a better view, and sure enough, she could see that his lips were moving. He was talking to the raccoon.
Her heart pounded as he slowly edged back toward shore, dragging the branch with the raccoons on it toward safety. All the while he kept up his steady, soft monologue. When he was ankle-deep in the water, Katherine began to breathe easier. She spoke soothingly to Amanda and the baby settled down a little.
Finally he dragged the branch through the shallow water and anchored it against the embankment with some large rocks. The mother crouched on the branch and followed every movement he made. At last Zeke stood back. “Okay, the gangplank’s down whenever you’re ready.”
“Good job,” Katherine said, feeling proud and immensely relieved. But when he turned to climb the embankment, Katherine noticed him wince and saw that his jaw was clenched. Fresh fear shot through her.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
He glanced up at her. “When I slipped out there I turned my ankle wrong. But I’ll be okay.”
“You sprained your ankle?” If it hadn’t been such a horrible possibility, she would have laughed. First her wrist and now his ankle. A couple of gimps.
He climbed to the path beside her, his breath coming in jerky gasps and his face pale. “I think so. But I’ll be okay.” He turned, breathing heavily, and stood with his hands on his hips while he watched the mother raccoon. “She’s going. Okay, there, take it easy. That’s it.”
Katherine was glad to see the raccoon scramble safely to shore and disappear into the underbrush. But she was afraid Zeke had paid a hefty price.
He sighed and turned back to her with a wan smile. “Mission accomplished.”
“I’m glad, but I don’t like the fact you hurt your ankle.”
“I’ll just walk it out on the way back.” His eyes reflected pain, yet he managed a grin. “Unless you want to carry me.”
“I wish I could. But I’ll at least take Amanda.” She expected him to argue with her.
“Okay, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, no problem.” She glanced away so he wouldn’t see the concern she knew must be shining in her eyes. It was just a slight sprain, she told herself. Nothing to be worried about. He’d probably be able to walk it off, like he said.
But she didn’t really think so, not from the way he was favoring it as he started down the path. They’d taken no more than ten steps when the first drop of rain fell on Katherine’s nose.
* * *
ZEKE KNEW HE HAD A BAD sprain, had known from the minute it happened. But there was no use saying that to Katherine when there wasn’t a damn thing to be done except limp home. He’d considered trying to fashion a makeshift crutch before they started the hike back, but then he’d taken a look at the clouds and decided against it. Besides, Amanda was fussing and needed to be fed soon.
He wondered if he’d still be able to drive with his sprained ankle. Well, he’d just have to. That was assuming it didn’t rain any more today and raise the creek again. Then the first few raindrops fell, and he began to accept the inevitable.
How ironic. It looked as if he’d be closed in the cabin with Katherine for at least another night, but judging from the pain in his ankle, he’d be in no condition to make passionate love to her. Just when he thought this situation couldn’t g
et any worse, it did.
As the rain came faster, he stopped and turned back to Katherine. “If I thought this would blow over, I’d say we could wait it out under a tree. But I think we’d better keep going.”
“Me, too.” As she pulled the lapels of her jacket closer around Amanda, the baby started squirming and crying. “And Amanda’s quieter when I keep moving.”
“I’m going to feel like a jerk if either one of you comes down with a cold because of this.”
“Hey, I begged you to come along, so it’s my fault, not yours. And breast-fed babies are pretty resistant to colds.” She licked away a raindrop that had landed on her upper lip. “I’ve been rained on before. How’s your ankle?”
He wondered how he could possibly think about sex at a time like this, but the motion of her tongue when she’d licked away the raindrop had caused a reaction in his groin. “I’ll live.”
Katherine jiggled Amanda as she gazed up at him. “I’d better warn you I’m a complete dunce when it comes to first aid. I never can remember when you’re supposed to heat something or when you’re supposed to ice it down.”
He had a momentary image of her tending to his injury, her gentle hands on his skin. Nope. Bad idea. “Don’t worry. I’ll be able to handle it myself. How are your feet?”
“Probably in better shape than your ankle. Let’s go.”
Gritting his teeth against his increasing pain, he set out again. He must have torn something in there for it to hurt so damned bad. At least the raccoon family had made it, though. He’d think about that while he was walking, to take his mind off his ankle.
He remembered the day the ranch had inherited some baby raccoons when a mother was killed out on the main road. He and four other lucky kids had been allowed to raise a baby raccoon as a pet. Saving that little family today had been sort of a tribute to Stinky’s memory, and the warm feeling that gave him took away some of the pain.
Not enough, though. By the time the cabin came in sight he was feeling dizzy from it. He stopped to catch his breath as the world wobbled a little.
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