Wild About Harry

by Linda Lael Miller

  Later, much later, Amy lay with her head on Harry's shoulder, exhausted, nibbling at his heated skin.

  "We never made love in the tree house again," she said, as he entwined one finger in a lock of her hair.

  Harry drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. "If ever I've heard a good reason for going back to Australia, that's it. We'll leave as soon as Oliver and Ashley are out of school."

  Amy smiled in the cozy darkness and kissed Harry's shoulder. "And come back before classes start at my art school," she negotiated.

  "Deal," he said, after a lengthy and very philosophical sigh.

  Down on the sidewalk, beside the hotel, stood Tyler, unseen by the city dwellers hurrying past him, looking up at one certain window. He was about to return to a place where there was no darkness and no pain, but during those few precious moments, he was a living, breathing man again.

  He could hear the noise of passing cars, a plane overhead, people chattering as they rushed along. He felt the solid cement of the sidewalk beneath his feet and smelled the peculiar mix of salt water, pine and exhaust fumes that was Seattle. He also felt no small measure of satisfaction because he knew Harry and Amy had a long, rich life ahead of them.

  Tyler had accomplished his mission. Amy and Harry would live and love, laugh and cry. They would decorate Christmas trees together and balance checkbooks and shop for studded snow tires. They would fight sometimes, but they would have a glorious time making up.

  It was all written in the book.

  Tyler sighed and lifted one hand in farewell. "Goodbye," he whispered. And then he walked away, into the waiting light.

  One year later...

  The tree house was just as Amy remembered it, dusty and primitive and wonderful. Harry gave her a mischievous pinch on the bottom as she climbed the last rung and scrambled inside.

  It had taken them a little longer than they'd expected to reach this very special, very private place—Amy had completed her classes at the art school, and she worked on her painting for several hours every day.

  Sitting there, with her blue-jeaned legs drawn up, she made a mental note to draw a sketch of the tree house. She would frame the picture, and when she and Harry and the kids were far away in the States, she could look at the drawing and remember.

  "I think you're crazy, wanting to spend the night here," Harry remarked, dusting off his corduroy pants. "If the mosquitoes don't eat us alive, the rain will come through and give us our deaths."

  Amy laughed. "Me, Jane," she said. "You, Tarzan. And don't you forget it, buster!"

  Harry opened the canvas bag he'd brought along, taking out food, a blanket and a small sterno-powered stove. "Alas," he said, "all we need now is a monkey."

  Amy's smile was broad; she could feel it stretching her face. She waited for Harry to look up and see her kneeling there, beaming, and laid her hands to her flat stomach. "We already have three monkeys," she answered. "I guess one more won't hurt."

  Harry's befuddled expression made her shriek with laughter, scaring all the beautiful birds from their roosts in the tree.

  When the beating of wings finally died down, he said, "You mean, you're—?"

  "Again." Amy nodded. "I think it's a boy this time."

  Harry swallowed visibly, scrambled over to her and covered both her hands with one of his own, as though by doing that he could somehow make contact with this new child. His indigo eyes glistened with tears of wonder.

  Amy rose up on her haunches to kiss Harry's eyelids, first one and then the other. She tasted his tears.

  "Do you know how much I love you, Harry Griffith?" she asked, one hand on either side of his handsome face.

  His voice was gruff. "How much?" he asked.

  Her answer was a kiss, deep and fiery. "That much," she said, when it was over.

  Harry broke away to spread the blanket on the floor of the tree house. His motions were graceful and quick, and when he reached for Amy, she came to him willingly, with laughter and love and the purest joy.

  He kissed her, subjecting her to a tender invasion of his tongue, and then laid her on the blanket and began removing her clothes with deft, methodical hands.

  "I can't wait, Amy," he said, tossing her jeans aside and bending her knees and pushing her legs wide of each other. "I've got to be inside you, part of you, now."

  She opened his jeans, pushed them down, along with his briefs. "Come in, Mr. Griffith," she whispered.

  In the depths of the night, the rain came.

  Harry lay awake on the floor of the tree house, listening, holding a sleeping Amy close by his side. He supposed he should wake her and insist that they go back to the shelter and safety of their house on the other island, but he didn't have the heart to awaken his wife. She was tired and she'd given him everything and she looked like an angel, lying there.

  Idly, he caressed her. Soon, her beautiful body would ripen, her breasts would grow heavy with milk to nourish his child. He smiled, even though his vision was suspiciously blurred. He wondered if Amy would be as crabby this time around as she'd been while she was carrying Sara.

  He decided he didn't care.

  She moved against him, inadvertently setting him on fire again. Some men were put off by pregnancy, he knew, but knowing Amy was going to bear a child—his child—made him yearn for her in a way that went beyond the physical into a realm he didn't begin to understand.

  "Harry?"

  He kissed her temple. "Shhh, it's all right. Sleep."

  She played with his nipples and the hair on his stomach. "Harry?" Her tone was serious.

  "Mmm?"

  "Are you happy about the new baby? Really happy?"

  "Ecstatic," he answered.

  "Oliver says if he doesn't get a brother pretty soon, he's joining the Foreign 'Region.'"

  Harry laughed. Oliver was a miniature version of Ty, and Harry loved the boy as much as if he'd been his own, by blood. "Promises, promises," he said.

  "You've been so good to them, Harry—Ashley and Oliver, I mean. Anyone would think they were as much yours as Sara is."

  "They are as much mine. In a funny sort of way, I think Tyler gave them to me. He knew I could be trusted to love his children as deeply as he did."

  She sniffled against his shoulder. "I really saw him," Amy said half to herself after a long moment had passed.

  "So did I," admitted Harry, who had long since come to terms with the fact that Tyler had really been in his office that night, when Harry's and Amy's marriage had been in crisis.

  "Do you think Ty's happy, wherever he is?" Harry thought the question through, even though he'd done as much many, many times before.

  "Yes, rose petal," he said sincerely. "He's happy." Amy raised her head far enough to plant a row of tantalizing kisses along Harry's jawline. "I think I just felt a raindrop land on my backside," she said.

  Harry chuckled and gave said backside an affectionate squeeze. "I love a sophisticated woman," he replied. Amy nudged him with one elbow, pretending to be angry. "Oh, yeah?" she joked. "What's her name?"