“What about me?” Jonathan said. “I’m starving.”
“Then starve. I’m still mad!”
Kelly turned on the battery light and unfolded a thin nylon tarp which she spread over the wings of the plane.
“Scoop snow up on the ends and tramp it down,” she instructed, then covered the snow beneath the tarp with a ground cover before throwing in the blankets, sleeping bags, and her fur-lined parka. After turning the sled up onto its side, she crawled into the shelter. “It isn’t home, but it’ll have to do until it stops snowing and we can shoot off a flare.”
“A flare?” Jonathan asked, crawling in beside her. “What else do you have in that Girl Scout pack?”
“Chocolate, raisins, and whiskey.”
“No TV dinners?” he teased.
“What did you expect? I didn’t have time to pack a picnic lunch. I was scared out of ten years growth!” Her fingers were shaking as she tried to take the top off the whiskey flask. Jonathan laughed and she snapped, “You act as if you’re on a holiday! You fool! Didn’t you know you could have been killed out here?”
“I was almost at the point where I didn’t care. Now, I’m grateful to be alive! Take a drink of that whiskey, darling. You’re going to need it.” He moved closer to her but she leaned back.
“Stay away from me, Jonathan!” She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but she knew he was smiling. “Stay away, or I’ll make Charlie bite you!”
“Charlie wouldn’t do that.” The dog heard his name and tried to sneak into the shelter. Jonathan rubbed his nose. “Lie down, boy. See, he likes me,” he said arrogantly.
“He wouldn’t if he knew you like I do.”
“What do you mean by that?” All teasing was gone from his voice.
“Just what I said. I’ll be truthful and admit that when I thought you had crashed, my heart almost stopped beating. But that doesn’t mean I’ll live with you. Frankly, I don’t like you, Jonathan.”
“What have I done to deserve this dislike?” His voice came quietly out of the darkness.
“How can you even ask such a question?” she demanded wearily. Their body heat was warming the shelter and she took off her cap and mittens.
“We’ve got to have the truth before we can understand each other, Kelly.” She was silent. “Let’s start with . . . Boston. I was too possessive of you, wasn’t I?”
She gave a groan of despair. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“We must, darling. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. I realize now that I acted out of jealousy. I was eaten up with it.” The words came out reluctantly. “I wanted you to be so completely mine that I smothered you.”
“Jonathan . . .”
“Let me say this because I may never have the courage again. As soon as I took you to Boston I knew it was a mistake. I forced you into a new environment before you had even gotten used to me. But I wanted you with me so badly I didn’t care. I didn’t want to share you with Katherine, or Nancy, or any of my friends. I didn’t want you to have anyone in your life but me. I hated Mike and Marty because they had a piece of your love and I wanted it all. I was actually glad when you didn’t like Nancy or Katherine.”
“Your own sister?” She was aghast.
“It’s contemptible, isn’t it? Do you think I wanted to feel like that? I couldn’t help it,” he said harshly. “You’d fallen in love with me without knowing I was a Templeton of Boston. I was thrilled with the idea that you loved me and not the man with the name. I can’t remember when I felt loved, or even liked, because I was me.”
“How can you say that? Katherine loves you.”
“Katherine loves the Templeton name, the Templeton traditions. I’m merely the vehicle for carrying on those traditions. She doesn’t care about me as a man. It took me a while to figure that out, but now I know it’s true.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I have my pride,” he spit out. “I didn’t think you would understand. You had Mike and Marty. I had only you.”
“But when we went to Anchorage . . .”
“I was in heaven . . . then hell when you came back here without me. Why didn’t you wait for me at the apartment?”
“You set me up! Why did you send me there knowing Katherine and Nancy were there?”
“I didn’t know they were there until I got to the office. They’d only arrived the day before and Mark tried to tell me at the airport, but I was so anxious to be alone with you I wouldn’t listen.”
“Katherine implied they had been there for a long time. She said you found the apartment for them so they could make . . . social contacts for you.”
“She lied,” he said flatly. “When I went to the apartment and found her there, I told her to butt out of my life and take Nancy with her.”
“She said you were going to marry Nancy before Christmas.”
“Never!”
“She said you didn’t want me to come to Boston to get my things, that I had embarrassed you enough. She said . . . no implied . . . that you were making love to me in order to lower the settlement you feared you would have to pay to get a quick divorce. She offered to buy me off.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, darling. No wonder you left as you did! I thought you wanted to get back to be with Mike. I was so jealous . . .” He put his arms around her and drew her to him. “Forgive me, darling. Please forgive me and . . . love me.”
“I still love Mike and Marty, Jonathan. Not the way I love you, but you must understand I won’t exclude them from my life.” She rubbed his furry cheek with her fingertips.
“All right. Actually, lately I’ve had the feeling they like me, that they would accept me into the family, in spite of the Templeton name.”
He lowered his head to kiss her and Charlie let out a fierce growl. Startled, they broke apart. The dog stood in a taut stance, the hair on his back straight up. Guttural noises came from deep in his throat. Kelly reached for the light and shined the beam out into the darkness. Two red eyes gleamed back at them. Charlie lunged toward the animal and the red eyes disappeared. Kelly and Jonathan waited tensely and presently Charlie returned to stand in front of the shelter.
“What was it?” Jonathan whispered.
“A wolf.” Kelly laughed softly and switched off the light. “Wait until I tell that smart-aleck Mike that the dog he gave away is a great sled dog and a fighter, too! Charlie would have tackled that wolf! Good boy, Charlie. Remind me to buy you a new ball.”
“I bought him a new frisbee.”
“Playing up to my dog! I ought to give you a black eye!”
Jonathan laughed. “If you’re going to do it, get it over with so we can get into that sleeping bag. I’ve never slept in one before. Will it be warm enough without these suits?”
“We won’t know if we don’t try it, will we?”
They snuggled down in a single bedroll, the blankets and fur parka over them, their legs entwined as intimately as their arms.
“I feel as if we’re in a cocoon. I’m as warm as toast.”
Kelly giggled. “Why not? You’ve got all that whiskey inside you.”
“And you on the outside. Mmmm . . . your mouth tastes like chocolate.”
“There’s some left. It’s there beside the lamp.”
Jonathan lifted his head. “Charlie’s eating it. That’s okay, Charlie,” he called, “I’ve got all I need, right here.” Soft arms wrapped around his neck and she rubbed her cheek against his. “Do you mind the beard, sweetheart,” he asked against her lips.
“I love it. Kiss me, Jonathan.”
His lips hovered. “Not Jack?”
“I’ve got Jack out of my system. It’s Jonathan I love. For too long I loved two men. Now I’ve settled on one.”
“I love you, sweetheart. Stick with me and help me learn to share you. It won’t be easy for me. I never believed you cared for me the way I cared for you. From the day we met, I wanted to put you in my pocket and keep you all to myself. I know now that I was crushing you, killing that beautiful spirit that flows from you and touches everyone around you.” He stroked her lips with a tenderness he had never shown before. “I’ll make it up to you, darling.”
“It wasn’t all your fault, Jonathan. I had a dream of a prince sweeping me off my feet and our living happily ever after in his castle. I should have tried harder to understand you and convince you that I loved you. We’ll have to work hard to stay together. Love alone isn’t enough.”
“We’ll never go back to Boston, darling. I never want to see that sad, haunted look on your beautiful face again,” he muttered thickly, his lips nipping at the smooth line of her jaw.
“We have to go back,” she said firmly, her hand against his cheek. “Don’t you see, darling? We can’t solve a problem by not facing it.”
“I don’t want to go back. I’ve never been so content in my life as I have been here in your home, even though my jealousy was eating me alive. I love it here. I’ve already taken steps to move my headquarters to Anchorage. We may have to go back to Boston for a month or two, but that’s as long as I want to stay. We’ll build our life here.”
Kelly almost burst with joy at knowing how much he cared for her. She held him to her with all her strength and murmured soft words of love against his lips.
“I’ve missed you horribly, my only love. I never again want to spend a single minute away from you. Hold me and love me.”
His mouth closed fiercely over hers, parting her soft lips, urgent in his need. Her body felt boneless as he fitted every inch of her against him. She could feel his powerful body tremble with desire, and she moved her stocking foot up and down his muscular calf.
“Damn, damn . . . underclothes,” he muttered. “They should be banned.” His hand fought its way under her shirt.
“In Boston?” she giggled.
“Everywhere! Darling, I’ve got to have you!” His mouth devoured her softly parted lips and her senses soared under the slow, sweet arousal of his caress. “I don’t suppose you brought the . . .”
She pulled back. “Of course not!”
“Would you be terribly unhappy if we . . . if it happened?”
“No. Would you?”
“I’d love to have a baby with you. What better way to hold you to me than to keep you barefoot and pregnant?”
“Jonathan!”
“I’m kidding, sweetheart. Remember that boy we met in the doctor’s office? The one who wanted me to tell my kids not to ride on the handlebars of the bike? Well I want one like him . . . but I’ll take what I can get. A boy and four girls.”
“Four girls?”
“Well . . . three?”
“Two! And that’s my final offer!”
“I’ll take it!”
MARRIAGE TO A STRANGER
T
HE SILENCE IN
the cabin was deep indeed, deeper than the vast wilderness in which the cabin stood. The man’s voice was quiet for a few minutes and the silence pounded against her eardrums. Molly stared at him and vaguely knew he was trying to make it easy for her, but there is no easy way to tell a girl her father is dead. Jim Robinson, bush pilot, and his wife, friends to both Molly and her father, had come to tell her the news before she heard it on the wireless radio. Fortunately the news hadn’t reached the remote cabin thirty miles south of Fairbanks. Jim was thankful for that, but the girl was taking the news so calmly, he feared she was in shock.
“Molly?” he said anxiously. Then again, “Molly?”
She looked dully from Jim to his wife, her face blank, uncomprehending. She shifted her gaze, with anguished eyes, to the open doorway and to the lake beyond. Fragments of sunlight leaped and danced gracefully on the blue water and it seemed to Molly that she was suspended in time and space and if she closed her eyes, she could remain there, safe and secure in the life she and her father had made together. She hung in a nondescript void. The silence was as deep and as high as the blue of the sky and the depth of the lake. A memory floated through her mind. Suddenly she recalled her father telling her to be still and listen to the silence. She had not known what he was talking about. Now she knew.
Jim took her arms and tugged her toward him, forcing her head down onto his shoulder.
“We never know why these things happen, honey. Why it was Charlie and not one of the other members of the expedition.” He realized suddenly that her unnatural calm hid acute bewilderment as well as grief.
The girl’s stillness frightened him and he grasped her upper arms and forced her away from him so he could see her face.
“Let it go, Molly!” he said urgently. “Don’t hold it inside. It has happened and we can’t change it.”
“I know. I want to cry, Jim, but it won’t . . . come. I loved him so much. I . . . don’t know what I’ll do without him! No one knew that range like Da—d—Dad. I just can’t believe he could fall in a crevice!” The tears came. Big racking sobs shook the small body that Jim held against him. She cried tears of despair. Her voice, sobbing and tremulous in anguish, called to her father over and over again. The big man could do nothing but hold her while his wife stood by helplessly, her own eyes swimming in tears.
After a while the sobbing ceased and Molly raised her wet, swollen eyes to Jim.
“Evelyn will stay with you,” he said gently. “Her mother will take care of our boys.”
“Thank you.” Her voice held a queerly resigned note which Jim found far more pathetic than her tears. “I’ll be all right now, but if you will excuse me, I’d like to be alone for a while.” Her unwavering glance held his. “I’m sorry, Jim, for making it so hard for you to tell me.” He touched her head with clumsy tenderness.
They watched her leave the room; head bowed, shoulders slumped as though the weight of the world rested upon them. She had retreated once again into the deep recesses of her own reserve and Jim shook his head as he heard the door of her bedroom close softly.
Evelyn looked anxiously at her husband.
“What will she do, Jim?”
“I don’t know, but as much as Charlie loved that girl, I’m sure he must have considered the possibility that she could be left alone. He knew these expeditions were dangerous, although he never let Molly know. He cautioned me more than once not to mention it to her.”
He sighed and pulled his wife down beside him on the couch. They sat for a few minutes without speaking. Both turned their heads toward the bedroom door, but no sound came from beyond. If Molly insisted on wrapping herself away in that impenetrable reserve of hers, there was little they could do for her; they could only wait and hope that by staying near she was comforted.