by Ann Evans
“I’ll never forget it. I remember glancing down from the ladder and seeing your face as you listened to him. You were so still—enthralled, really—and I thought I’d never seen anyone so beautiful. Why?”
“Do you remember what your mother said? About how she was so frightened. But then your father told her to trust him, and she looked into his eyes, and she jumped across the distance to catch his hand. A leap of faith, she called it.”
“I remember.”
“That’s what it will be like, Nick. A leap of faith for both of us.” She pressed her hand against his heart. “But I believe that, as long as we’re together, we can handle anything life throws our way.”
He hugged her close. “I’ll do whatever I can to give us that chance, Kari. I can’t change who I am—”
“I don’t want you to!”
“—but I can change some of the ways I handle things. I can ease up on trying to control every aspect of my life. It hasn’t been working all that well lately, anyway.” He brought his hand to her chin, lifting her eyes to his. “I can’t ask you to give up what you love just to stay with me. Sooner or later you’ll want to take some assignment that will take you away from here. I can accept that.” His fingers coasted along her cheek, the most delicate of touches. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll even tag along, if you don’t mind the company.”
“You don’t understand. I would love for us to be able to travel together sometimes,” she responded readily. “But that’s not really what I want anymore. In fact, I was thinking that I want to try to write my father’s story. Not just a bare-bones biography. Something more personal. His editor has expressed an interest, and who would have a better chance of knowing the real Madison Churchill than me? I think I can do it, Nick.”
“Of course you can. I’ve seen you. You can do anything you set your mind to. And I’ll do whatever it takes to help make it happen. I’ll add on to the cabin, give you a real office to work in. What would you prefer? A view of the forest or the lake?”
“It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s here and you come with it.” She turned her face until her lips found the warm center of his palm. “Because this is where my heart is.”
“I know we can make it work,” he said huskily. She felt his lips on her hair. “Can I assume your answer is yes?”
She smiled up at him and nodded. He kissed her then, and for a little while the world dropped away. She felt tears of joy star her vision. She wiped them away and pulled back to look at him again.
“I’ll be such a good wife. You can teach me Italian, and I’ll help Sam with his physical therapy. Your mother can show me how to cook. Really cook. Maybe I could even learn to like calamari.”
He laughed. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“Will you make love to me at King’s Creek Falls? At sunset?”
He touched his lips to her temple. “And sunrise.” Then her cheek. “And noon.” Finally at the corner of her mouth. “And in the middle of the night.”
When she could think again, she gave him a earnest look. “I’ll try so hard to be a good mother to Tessa, Nick.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute. And maybe to a few of our own?”
“I hope so. I know I’m not Italian, but I’ll make your family glad you married me.”
“They already think of you as family,” he said, giving her one of his heart-stopping smiles. “You can’t imagine the hell I’ve been going through since you’ve been gone. I’d hate to see which way they’d vote if it ever came down to a choice between the two of us.”
She shook her head. “It never will,” she said solemnly.
“No, it won’t,” he said. His voice was thick and love-filled. “Oh, God, Kari…all the years ahead of us…all the moments in the rest of my life, I give them to you. I don’t know why you want the kind of love I have to offer. I don’t know what the future holds, but if there are adventures out there waiting, we’ll find them…”
“Together,” she told him, and he nodded.
The breeze rose gently, like the sweetest, purest song. It stirred through the aspens behind them, set them shimmering in a golden splendor that awed Kari every time she witnessed such magic. Farther out, Lightning Lake lay in iridescent blues and greens, as though it somehow, impossibly, contained within its chilly depths the essence of light.
Soon she would come to know it even better. She’d found her place here in these mountains. And among all this beauty she would create a world of her own adventures. With Nick.
He let go of her long enough to reestablish her at his side, one arm tucked around her waist. “Let’s go home,” he said.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3221-1
THE DAUGHTER DILEMMA
Copyright © 2004 by Ann Bair.
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