Once they reached the gravel road, the going was a little easier; the rocks were ice-coated and treacherous, but at least it wasn’t like walking on a sheet of polished steel. The gentle hills, however, seemed to be magnified by the coating of ice. Sharley was breathing hard by the time they reached the top of the first slope, and the frigid air made her lungs ache. “How much farther?”
Spence shook his head. “I’m not sure. I started counting hills, but it got too depressing so I gave it up.”
“How many did you count before you quit?”
“Four.”
“Thanks a lot,” Sharley said under her breath.
Spence grinned. “You asked.”
The farther they went, the more debris they saw scattered across the road. Sharley had heard a few branches give way outside the cabin, but for the first time she began to realize the extent of the damage the storm had done. The broken branches ranged in size from twigs to sapling-sized boughs to limbs as big around as her waist, wrenched from the trees by the sheer dead weight of the ice. Now and then, the crackle of their footsteps was echoed by the snap of yet another branch giving way.
Sharley crossed the road to take a closer look at one big limb, and Spence’s hand shot out and pulled her back. “Watch out for electrical wires,” he warned. “They could be tangled up anywhere.”
“But the power’s out.”
“That doesn’t mean a line couldn’t still be hot. I doubt it, but just in case...”
Sharley kept her distance from the fallen branches after that, watching each step and trying not to think about the warmth of Spence’s hand, still holding her arm, and how much she wished that he was holding her hand instead.
As walks went, it wasn’t an unpleasant one. The air was cold, but she was getting used to it. She was well wrapped up, and there was no wind to cut through her coat and jeans. And Spence had been right about the benefit of some exercise; she’d had a bit of a nagging headache earlier, so little that she had hardly realized it herself. It had come from sitting too close to the fire, she supposed, a combination of heat and eyestrain from looking directly at the flames as she dried her hair. But it was gone now.
She had lost track of distance by the time Spence stopped at the brink of a hill and groaned.
Halfway up the next hill was his car, nose-down in the ditch. Even from this distance Sharley could see that both front fenders were crumpled and one of the back wheels wasn’t even touching the ground.
So much for the idea of just backing it onto the road. That mess was going to take a wrecker to sort out.
Not that it couldn’t have been a whole lot worse. Another couple of feet, and the car would have broken through a line of brush and gone down into a ravine. Spence would have been lucky to get out at all, much less in good enough shape to walk half a mile or more to the cabin. He could have died right there, in a mass of twisted metal — or of the cold, if he had not been able to seek shelter.
She could feel the blood draining from her face as the shock sank in. He had been in terrible danger...
“Well, that’s about the way I remembered it,” Spence said. “Pretty impressive, I’d say.”
Sharley swallowed hard. The danger is past, she reminded herself. And besides, what happened to him wasn’t her personal business any more. “Great place to park a car, Greenfield. I’m glad I have a good excuse not to loan you mine.”
Spence gave her a crooked grin and turned back toward the cabin.
“Aren’t you going over to check on it, at least?”
He shrugged. “Who’s going to steal it? Besides, even if we could get it out, didn’t you see the tree at the top of—”
He stopped, and in the split-second of silence that followed, Sharley heard a crack like that of a high-powered rifle. She started to look around for its source.
That was why she never saw what hit her. She felt an abrupt sensation of flying, as if she was suddenly weightless, and the next thing she knew, she was lying flat on the gravel, yards from where she had been standing, with Spence crouched protectively on top of her.
She turned her head awkwardly and saw branches, instead of the gravel she had expected, within inches of her face. The branches seemed to be swaying, but she wasn’t certain if they were actually moving or if her head was swimming from the impact.
She tried to speak, but the breath had been knocked from her lungs and all she could do was wheeze.
“Sharley,” Spence said anxiously, and shook her. “Are you all right?”
His touch was gentle, but Sharley felt as if her teeth were rattling. It took another minute before she could speak. “I’m fine,” she managed. “I’ve just never been tackled before.”
“I didn’t have much choice, you know. You little fool, standing there watching the damned thing come straight at you...” He pushed himself up till he was kneeling beside her. “Lie still for a minute and let me check you over. I didn’t expect you to go down so hard. I guess I forgot about the ice underfoot.”
His hands felt warm, even through her thick coat. Sharley asked, more to distract herself than because she wanted to know, “Was that the tree you were talking about?”
He shook his head impatiently. “No. I meant the one at the top of the next hill over there — which had already done the same thing this one just did.”
“You mean, fall?” she said uncertainly.
“You finally noticed.” But the mocking note in his voice was a little shaky. “Sharley…”
“Oh, Spence.” She reached for him with an almost convulsive strength, locking her arms around his neck and pulling him down to her as if he were a blanket that could warm and comfort and heal her.
His cheek brushed hers. The stubble of his beard felt softer than she had expected, not much scratchier than the flutter of his eyelashes against her temple. And something else, too, something hot and damp.
A tear? Was Spence crying? Surely not. But still…
She started to shudder uncontrollably with the realization of how close that branch had come to knocking her out — or knocking her dead.
Spence’s mouth brushed her cheek. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’s all right.”
She didn’t let go. Her fingers laced together at the back of his neck, and she turned her face into the warm curve of his neck.
“Damn it,” he said unsteadily. “I thought if I got you outside I wouldn’t be so tempted to do this.”
Sharley didn’t ask; she didn’t need to. And there wasn’t time to wonder if this was right, or wise. She arched her back a little and tugged, and Spence allowed the weight of her hands against the nape of his neck pull him down to her.
His mouth was cold, but within moments the chill had gone, banished by a hungry heat that seemed to weld them together till nothing else had any reality at all.
Abruptly, Spence pulled away. He was breathing hard, and his eyes were cloudy. “There’s no sense in playing with fire,” he muttered.
Sharley sagged against the gravel.
After a moment, Spence soberly helped her to her feet. “Ready to go back?”
She nodded and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Spence.” He didn’t answer, and she thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard.
“Not your fault,” he said finally. “It’s a good thing you weren’t wearing shorts. You’d have been a mass of gravel burns.”
For some insane reason, the image of herself — wearing shorts in weather like this and being struck by a tree weighed down by ice — struck Sharley as comical, and she hugged herself and bent over and howled with laughter.
“Sharley, cut it out.” His voice was firm.
She could hardly talk. “But that’s hysterically funny! With sandals and sunglasses, no doubt, and a beach towel over my shoulder!”
“The operative word is hysterical, I agree with that much. Come on. I think the cold and the shock — and everything — have affected your brain.”
Sharley sobered abruptly and her ey
es filled with tears.
Spence retrieved her earmuffs from under a small branch at the side of the road. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
She shook her head vehemently. “Don’t be an idiot, Spence. I know you saved my life. Or kept me from getting a nasty bump on the head, at least.”
His hand brushed the nape of her neck and then slid up into her hair, his fingers spread to gently probe as much of the back of her skull as he could. Sharley held her breath.
“I’m not so sure about the bump,” he mused. “You don’t look concussed, but you’re acting that way.”
Sharley thought he might be right; the touch of his fingertips, gentle though it was, was like sandpaper on her scalp. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when his hand dropped back to his side.
“What made the tree fall, anyway?” she asked. “Right then, I mean. Or was it just my bad luck in choosing the wrong spot to stand?”
“It might have been like an avalanche, I suppose,” Spence mused. “The tree was weakened by the tremendous weight of all that ice, and sooner or later something had to give. But perhaps we caused a vibration that brought it all down right then.”
Sharley frowned. “Just by walking past, you mean?”
“Or talking.”
“Like singing a high note and breaking glass?”
“Something like that. It’s an interesting physics question, at least.”
She managed a giggle. “All those voice lessons Charlotte insisted I take finally had some effect!”
The walk back seemed infinitely longer, and when they reached the cabin Sharley heaved a gigantic sigh of relief. “I’m as sleepy as a baby after all that cold fresh air,” she announced. “I think I’ll—”
“Sorry, but no naps.”
“Why not?” She studied him closely while she unbuttoned her coat and hung it up. “Oh, I know. But you don’t really think I have a concussion, do you?”
“I hope not, but there’s no sense in taking a chance.”
“I don’t know what you’d do about it if I passed out, anyway,” she complained. “You couldn’t carry me all the way to the Baxters’ place.”
“I could drag you by the hair. You’d slide right along on the ice. How about some coffee to help keep you awake?”
Sharley shrugged and sat down by the fire, wincing a little as the most sensitive parts of her body protested. Until that moment, she had thought every muscle had been equally abused in her fall. “How do football players stand up to this? I can’t imagine volunteering for this kind of treatment, now that I know what to expect.” She curled up in an almost-fetal position and closed her eyes.
“Enough of that,” Spence called. “There’s a deck of cards in that cabinet if you’d like to play poker.”
Sharley sighed. “Do I have a choice?” She stayed exactly where she was until he set two cups of coffee down near her and rapped her gently on the head with his knuckles.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “Or shall I grab a handful of hair and start dragging?”
Sharley sat up. “Does it have to be poker?”
“I could be persuaded to make it something else instead.”
“Crazy eights.”
“Why that, for heaven’s sake?”
She gave him a gamin’s smile. “Because I’ve had so much practice with seven-year-olds on cold and snowy days that I can play it in my sleep.”
Spence laughed and pulled up a chair. “Unfortunately for you, I am not a seven-year-old.” He retrieved the cards and shuffled them expertly. “What keeps you enthusiastic in the classroom, anyway? After three years of teaching the same math lessons and the same vocabulary words, I’d think it would get dull.”
“Looking at it that way does make it sound boring. But as a matter of fact, I don’t teach lessons at all.” She gathered up her cards and began sorting them.
Spence looked stunned. “What does that mean? How can you not teach—”
“I teach kids. And even if the subject matter is the same, no two days are ever alike, because the kids are different.”
Spence set the remainder of the pack down between them. He did not rush to pick up his cards. “You never told me that before. I had no idea you felt that way about your job.”
Sharley didn’t look up from her cards. “You never asked,” she said, and put a king down on the discard pile.
How little we really knew about each other, she thought, when we committed our lives to each other forever! Perhaps it was just as well that things had turned out as they had...
But no matter how true it might be, that fact didn’t wash the sadness out of her heart.
CHAPTER SIX
Sharley rearranged her cards with unnecessary care until she could trust herself to smile brightly as she looked up. “Aren’t you going to play?”
Spence hadn’t even picked up his cards. He was leaning back in his chair, one long-fingered hand idly rubbing the dark stubble of beard as if it itched, studying her. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “There never seemed to be time. If you weren’t busy with school or with wedding plans, you were filling in for Charlotte in all her social commitments.”
“Oh?” Sharley said crisply. “And you never had anything on your own calendar, I suppose?”
Spence smiled a little. “Guilty. So I’m asking now. What makes you a teacher? And why such little kids, anyway?”
“Oh, you sound like Charlotte. What does it matter, anyway?” Then she thought better of it. Who knew how long they would still be stuck with each other’s company? At least talking would help fill the hours. “I’ve always wanted to teach,” she said slowly. “Before I could even read, I used to line up my teddy bears and give them lessons.”
There was a mischievous quirk at the corner of his mouth. “What did you do when they got out of line? Make them sit in a corner for a week?”
Sharley pretended not to hear. “And I always wanted to teach little kids. Second grade is just about perfect, I think. The kids have learned to get along with one another—”
Spence played a card. “As much as they’re ever going to, I suppose.”
“What a cynical attitude. They’ve learned the essentials — I’m not sure I’d be so good at teaching shoe-tying or colors or counting to ten.” But the fact was, she reminded herself, that she had looked forward to someday teaching one child — her child— to tie his shoes, and recognize his colors, and count to ten. One very special child...or maybe two. But there was no point in dreaming now of what might have been, if things had only turned out differently.
She took a deep breath and plunged on. “By the time they’re seven, their attention span has developed, and they’re ready to look out at the world. A second-grader is really just a big bump of curiosity with an appetite attached, you know.”
Spence laughed.
“It’s true,” Sharley protested. She wasn’t quite sure whether to be happy that he hadn’t noticed her hesitation, or annoyed because he obviously hadn’t even thought of the children they might have had, together. Be happy, she decided. It’s much less painful that way.
“And that’s what you find so fascinating?”
She nodded. “There’s a magic about opening a child’s window to life. It’s a thrill like nothing else on earth.”
“You almost make me want to try it myself,” he mused. “What did you mean about Charlotte?”
“Nothing, really. She’s just never understood my choice of careers.”
Spence nodded. “Silly job, teaching.” He almost caught the inflection of Charlotte’s voice.
Sharley smiled despite herself at the imitation. “Well, her objection isn’t quite that strong. At least teaching is a ladylike occupation — better than a lot of other things I could have chosen.”
“Steelworker,” Spence murmured. “Forensic pathologist. Barroom singer. Yes, she has a point.”
“But if I insist on teaching, she says, why must I waste my life with children? Why not
nice college-aged boys and girls, and a professorship that would have some status and a future?”
“Well,” Spence said reasonably, “why not?”
Sharley shot a look at him.
“Don’t glare at me as if I’ve just scuttled your lifeboat. I’m only asking. Are you certain you want to play that card?”
Sharley glanced at it. “Too late now.”
“I’ll let you take it back, but you owe me one.”
A Singular Honeymoon Page 9
