by Cora Seton
Where was her anger?
Hope touched her lips with her mittened fingers, and the dusting of snow on their tips sparked cold against her skin, bringing her back to herself.
“That was just for thanks,” she said, needing distance from what had just happened.
He nodded but didn’t answer, still watching her.
Someone snorted behind him. Blake. “Get a room,” he said derisively.
“No, do it again—I didn’t get that,” Byron said, scrambling toward them with his video camera.
A handful of snow down the neck of her jacket couldn’t have woken her more abruptly. Hope surged to a stand, the tight boot on her left foot pinching her even before she took a step.
Curtis stood, too. “Thanks for what?” he asked as if neither of the men had even spoken.
It took her a moment to remember what she’d said. “For… for the way you handle things.” She gestured inclusively. “You just take whatever happens and work with it. You don’t get pissed.”
It was Raina who snorted this time. “That’s not entirely true.”
Hope and Curtis both ignored her.
“Does no good to get pissed.”
“Right.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever met a man who understood that. At her job, it always seemed like it was the men in the office who made consensus difficult.
“Thank you,” Curtis said.
“Why?”
“For the same thing. No matter what happens, you just adjust, make a new plan and move on. I like that.”
“Oh.” Hope busied herself adjusting the new boot. Why was she misty-eyed all of a sudden?
She wasn’t sure.
She’d kissed him back again.
Curtis kept replaying it over in his mind as he got the fire going and they ate lunch. He’d leaned forward, kissed her—and she’d kissed him back.
What did it mean?
He’d done it without thinking—out of relief that she was okay. That something worse than a wet foot hadn’t happened.
He’d done it because he’d wanted to.
The more he learned about Hope, the more he wanted to learn. The thought that he might not ever have met her at all made his gut tighten. He wished he had more time to woo her, but he wasn’t questioning what he wanted anymore. If Fate was on his side, he’d marry Hope on Monday.
He wasn’t sure he could face the alternative.
“All right; we need to get moving again,” he announced less than an hour after they’d stopped. “Hope, Raina, get your skis on.”
As he set about dousing the fire and repacking the few items he’d taken from the sled, Raina passed out the kittens again, and everyone tucked theirs in their jackets. They’d spent lunchtime in the basket Curtis had lashed to the top of the pile of supplies on the sled, but Raina had decided that for the travel stretches, they were better riding in people’s jackets.
“Are you going to take them on your honeymoon?” Curtis teased her.
“No. You and Hope are going to take them back to Base Camp.”
He opened his mouth to answer that, but couldn’t come up with anything. Was she giving him a hint? Did she think he might succeed with Hope?
“Go get ready,” he finally managed.
She grinned at him and gave a cocky little salute. “Yes, sir.”
The snow had lightened a little, and Curtis’s spirits were high when he set out with the women, leaving the men to follow in their tracks. Surely they’d reach the highway again soon where the plows must be out by now.
He almost wished they wouldn’t be. It gave him a pang to think of reaching Bozeman. Despite what Raina had said, he didn’t see Hope giving up all her plans to stay in Montana with a man she’d only known a day or so.
“Haven’t seen you check your planner recently,” Curtis said. “What if we’re off-track?”
“We’re so off-track we won’t catch up for years,” Hope said glumly.
“Do you really have every day lined up in there?” Mostly he was talking for the sake of talking. He liked the sound of Hope’s voice. Strong, but feminine. Serious, but able to laugh, too.
“Her day, her week, her year, her life,” Raina said. She’d fallen behind a bit, and Curtis slowed to let her catch up.
“Your life? Where does this Yellowstone gig fit in?” He tried to sound casual.
“I’ll make contact with Scott at Raina’s wedding. After that it depends on him, but I’ll do my best to make the transition quickly,” she said without hesitation.
“Huh.” The woman definitely had a plan. He tried to think of other milestones. “When will you buy your first home?”
“Two years from now.”
“When will you upgrade to a bigger one?”
She shot him a look. “Eight years later.”
“Why eight years?”
She shrugged and increased her pace. Curtis realized Raina was lagging again.
“Because that’s when she’s getting married,” Raina supplied, out of breath, trying to catch up.
“Hey, slow down a little,” Curtis told Hope. “That’s when you’re getting married, huh? In ten years?” Inconvenient for him.
“We’ll see. I have to redo my plans if I get the job in Yellowstone.” Hope kept her gaze forward, but she did slow a little.
So she was able to change her plans if pressed. That was encouraging. “What about kids?”
“Two years later.”
“No kids for twelve years? You’ll be what? Forty? You sure you want to wait that long?”
“Thirty-seven. And it’s none of your business, is it?”
“It is if I’m supposed to marry you on Monday.”
“I’m not marrying you on Monday!” Hope snapped at him and redoubled her pace.
Hell, now he’d pissed her off. He went after her, realized Raina had really fallen behind, and slowed up again.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“I’m fine. I’m just no athlete,” she said. “Hope! Hold up, you’re going too fast.”
Hope slowed down again, too, but she didn’t look at Curtis, and she didn’t seem in the mood for conversation anymore. When he glanced at Raina, she shrugged.
He’d have to change Hope’s mind, Curtis decided.
He just didn’t know how.
Thirty-seven, not forty.
She’d be thirty-seven when she had her first child. If she stuck to her plan—which she would, she hastily reassured herself.
She had a lot to do in the next twelve years. She was determined not just to be a ranger at Yellowstone, but a ranger at the top of the food chain, where she could influence what happened at the park. After all, there was no use doing something unless you were doing it right.
She wanted to work to maintain the pristine beauty of the park. To keep its ecological systems in balance. To help the magnificent animals that lived there. To teach people about the wonders of nature.
She couldn’t think of a better place in the world to do so than Yellowstone. It had captured her imagination since the first time she’d traveled there as a child.
But if she had her first baby at thirty-seven, she’d be in her forties before her child was old enough to learn about nature from her. Somehow she’d never realized that before. What would she be like in her forties?
She simply couldn’t picture it.
A glance at Curtis showed him to be lost in his own thoughts. He moved with the controlled energy of a mountain lion. She knew he could do this all day, and while she was in good shape, too, she had to admit she was tiring already.
And Raina kept falling behind.
They weren’t making as much progress as they should be, and Hope was beginning to wonder if it was a sign. Was her plan all wrong? Is that why they’d been stopped in their tracks?
Could she possibly be on the wrong road?
No. Hope found her strides lengthening, and she shot ahead of Curtis and Raina on her skis before getting under control again.
She’d spent so many hours toiling over that planner. Days and days poring over books about life and careers and retirement—even old age and dying. She’d thought it all out meticulously. Brilliantly.
There were reasons for putting off marriage and children.
Why were they so hard to remember when she looked at Curtis?
He’d be a good father.
The thought popped into her head without warning, and the heat of a blush stole up her cheeks. Thank goodness for the falling snow—which, now that she thought about it, was falling much harder again. A few minutes ago, she’d thought it was tapering off.
Hope sighed. As if they weren’t going slowly enough, already.
“Hope’s going to have two children. A boy and a girl,” Raina announced.
“Raina—”
“How are you going to manage that?” Curtis asked curiously.
“Of course I can’t predict that,” Hope began.
“In twelve years, things will have progressed far enough so that we’ll be able to choose the sex of our children. That’s what Hope thinks.”
“Raina!”
Curtis stopped abruptly. “You’d do that? Choose the sex of your child?”
“It’s not wrong to want one of each,” Hope spluttered, thoroughly embarrassed. Why was Raina telling Curtis all this?
“Don’t you think Mother Nature knows what she’s doing?” he asked.
Hope lifted her hands to the sky. “Right now Mother Nature’s doing everything she can to stop me from getting the job of my dreams!”
“Don’t you mean she’s stopping me from marrying the man of my dreams?” Raina asked softly. “I’m missing my wedding rehearsal right now.”
Hope stiffened, the wind sucked from her lungs. “Oh, Raina—you know I didn’t mean it that way. You know I’m trying to get you to your wedding.”
“So you can get your interview.” Raina skied away, and Hope watched her go, regret making her throat ache.
“I didn’t—” she tried again, but Curtis skied off after Raina.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said softly to the falling snow, but it wasn’t regret for what she’d said to Raina that kept her rooted there. It was the flash of a vision that filled her mind suddenly, a feeling so strong she felt she must have lived it before. She sat in a rocking chair, a newborn baby in her arms, and the love she felt for her child—because it was her child—
She shook the thought from her mind. Banishing the baby, and the sense of Curtis close behind her, loving both of them—
There’d be no children with Curtis.
There’d be no children, period. Not for twelve years.
Which suddenly seemed like a long, long time.
The snow was falling faster and faster, but Raina was skiing more and more slowly. The last time Curtis had gone back to get the men, they hadn’t been very far behind. Halfway through the afternoon, when the dim light began to fail, he made a decision. They’d keep moving but stick together.
Raina was moving so slowly on her skis she might as well have been walking. Byron plodded along, only filming every now and then, conserving the backup batteries he’d stuffed in his pockets when he’d collected his gear from the truck. Hope had been quiet since her argument with Raina. Only Blake talked—incessantly. A series of whining, griping complaints that had them all on edge.
“You know, for someone who’s so rich and wonderful, you’re pretty miserable, aren’t you?” Hope snapped at him mid-afternoon.
“I’ve got everything a man could dream of. I’m not miserable,” he said scornfully.
“Really? Everything? You’ve talked about your job, your condo, your cars, your summer houses and a couple of your clients, but you haven’t mentioned parents, or siblings, or friends, or any kind of partner. Do you ever spend time with people? Or are your social skills so bad because you’re on your own all the time?”
Maybe it was time to take a break, Curtis thought.
“I’ve got… family,” Blake said.
“When’s the last time you called your mom?”
Everyone waited for Blake’s answer. He shrugged. “I don’t know. We talk once in a while.”
“What about your dad?”
“I talk to him every few months. He’s CEO at Barton, Finch and Wheatley. Still works seventy hours a week.”
“Do you play softball in your spare time?”
“No.”
“Build houses for the homeless?”
“Not my thing.”
“Go hiking? Surfing? Snorkeling? Bowling?”
“I have a boat.”
“Ah. Sailing,” Raina said. “That’s something. Do you know how to do all the rigging?”
“It’s a yacht. I have a driver and a personal chef on board.”
“Does your girlfriend like your boat?” Raina pressed.
Blake didn’t answer that. “Don’t have one,” he said finally.
“Boyfriend?” Byron ventured.
“Don’t have one of those, either,” Blake snapped. “My life is fine. It’s a hell of a lot better than any of yours,” he said. “Look at you Base Camp people—working for nothing.”
“They’re changing the world,” Hope said. “What are you doing for the world?”
“I’ll tell you what—I’m not—”
“My dress,” Raina exclaimed, stopping as suddenly as she could while still on her skis. “Where’s my dress?” She pointed to the sled, and Curtis’s heart sank. She was right; the duffel bag wasn’t visible anymore.
Raina hurried to the sled and went over its contents, as if the oversized bag could be hiding among the other items. “Curtis, where is it?”
She was edging on hysteria, and Curtis knew what happened next could affect them all. They were cold, tired, unsure of their location or how far they had to go to reach the highway. Blake was furious at the women. Hope and Raina were estranged. He wasn’t dealing with a highly trained group of professionals, like he would have been in the service—this was a group of civilians who’d probably never done a trek like this before.
He spun out possibilities in his mind, a tactic he’d learned early on in his military training. He could force them forward, and Raina’s morale, already low, would bottom out and bring them all down.
He could go back, fetch the dress—
And raise all their spirits.
“I’ll go get it,” he said quickly.
“That’s crazy,” Blake said. “We don’t know how long it’s been gone.”
“Yes, we do—it was there the last time we stopped. I saw it,” Raina insisted.
That was good. They’d been moving so slowly they hadn’t gone that far. Skiing alone, he could cover the ground easily.
“All right. Byron, take the sled. Blake, you trade off pulling it with him. Keep going until I get back. Don’t go off the road. Got it?”
“Got it,” Byron said.
“Got it,” Raina echoed. She held out her hand. “Better give me Reggie.”
He handed over the kitten and watched as Raina went to collect the basket and gather the rest of the critters from everyone else. “They can stick together for a while,” she said.
Hope took the basket from her. Blake muttered grimly and trudged off.
“Stay together,” Curtis shouted after him.
“Whatever.”
At least he slowed down. Curtis handed the sled’s lines to Byron and turned around. “Be back as soon as I can.” He’d already struck off and gone a few paces before a feminine voice carried after him.
“Be careful!”
It was Hope. Curtis waved and kept going, but his spirits strengthened. Another sign that she cared what happened to him.
As he walked, he thought about Blake’s answers to the women’s questions. Although the man had protested that he was happy, he hadn’t done a very good job at defending his quality of life. He wondered if Blake had spent more time with normal people in the past day than he did most mon
ths. Maybe it was good for him.
Exercise—even forced exercise—could lift people’s spirits, too. Being out in nature and fresh air was good for all of them—as long as they didn’t freeze to death.
He nearly passed right by the place where they’d edged off the road the last time they stopped. Their tracks were barely visible under the blanket of new fallen snow. He scouted around a bit until he found the green duffel bag protruding from the white powder. It must have fallen when he began to pull the sled again.
Funny he hadn’t noticed.
Too busy ogling Hope, he figured as he picked it up, turned around and headed back toward the others as fast as he could.
Too busy wondering if he could persuade her to marry him in the little time he had left.
“We’re not going to make it to Bozeman tonight, are we?” Raina asked.
Not at this pace, Hope wanted to say but didn’t. They’d switched off again, and now Byron and Blake wore the skis. Raina was limping. Badly. She wasn’t doing much better. Her tight boots pinched so much every step was excruciating. “I don’t think so. Unless someone comes along with a vehicle.”
“I can’t believe no one has passed us on the road yet,” Raina said dispiritedly.
Hope eyed her with concern. “Maybe you should ride on the sled.”
“There isn’t room for me on the sled.”
She was right about the lack of traffic, Hope thought. It was downright eerie up here in the woods. So was the lack of houses. Hadn’t Curtis said this road led to hunting cabins and summer cottages? She hadn’t seen anything like that so far.
“We probably should have turned back and headed home when we got to that detour,” Blake said.
“I know.” Raina sounded remorseful. “If anything bad happens to us, it’ll all be my fault.”
To Hope’s surprise, Blake reached for the basket of kittens. “It looks heavy,” he explained when Raina looked like she’d stop him. “I’ll take it for a while. And I’ll be careful,” he added before Raina could say anything.
“It’s no one’s fault things haven’t gone according to plan,” Byron said. Hope hadn’t realized the young man had caught up to them. He was filming again. Of course.