Morning Light

by Catherine Anderson

  Loni turned on her side to watch his expressions. “So you decided never to risk hurting anyone again.”

  “Yeah, essentially. But more than that, I promised myself I’d never have sex outside of marriage again. Until I met you I had pretty much given up on ever getting married, so for me it was a lifetime commitment. If you can’t do something right, don’t do it at all. My dad’s told me that all my life. It just took me thirty-six years to figure out that the rule should also apply to sex. It’s not for sport. It’s not a game. The stakes are very high for some people.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face again. “I hope you’ll bear with me on this. I want to kiss you again, I swear to God, but I’m afraid I’ll lose control if I do. And I can’t do that. Especially not with you. When it happens between us, it has to be right, not just in our eyes, but also in God’s. I want to build a life with you—love you, raise a family, grow old together. Why risk starting out on the wrong foot when it requires only a little willpower to wait and do it right?”

  Loni sighed. He looked over at her, clearly eager for her answer. For a moment she couldn’t think what to say. Finally it came to her.

  “How do you feel about very short engagements?”

  He laughed. “It can’t be too short. Father Mike will insist on our taking marriage preparation classes.”

  “How do you feel about getting married in Reno and then taking marriage preparation classes?”

  His amusement faded. “We can’t do that, honey. We’re both Catholic.”

  She sighed again. “You’ve had your turn at confession. Now it’s mine. I haven’t ever.”

  “You haven’t ever what?”

  A hot, itchy feeling crawled up her neck. “Had sex.”

  He shot her an incredulous look. “Come again?”

  “I’ve never had sex.”

  A deathly quiet settled between them. When an ember popped behind her Loni almost jumped out of her skin. Clint just stared at her with a blank look on his face. When he finally spoke his voice sounded strained.

  “Well, hell.”

  Though they didn’t talk any more, they were both still awake at dawn and up in time for Loni to wash at the creek, a thoroughly chilling experience, which she tried to tell herself was invigorating. Yeah, right. She used a rag to freshen up, scrubbing her armpits without removing her shirt. Then she rinsed the rag to use again later and knelt on a rock to wash her hair. The water was so icy it made her teeth ache. Once in the tent she freshened her nether regions and put on a set of clean clothes. She felt halfway human by the time she joined Clint at the fire for morning coffee.

  “Wish we still had the eggs and bacon,” he informed her. “We can’t head out until full light because the horses can’t see that well. There’s plenty of time to cook.”

  “I think the wolves needed the food more than either of us does.”

  They settled for sharing a heated can of corned beef hash and the leftover corn bread. Even that tasted pretty darned good. Loni decided the mountain air and the smell of wood smoke increased her appetite somehow. Normally corned-beef hash ranked low on her list of favorites.

  Over their second mug of coffee, Clint asked about her romantic relationships to date.

  “I never had one, obviously.”

  He gave her that stunned, incredulous look again. “There must have been men, Loni. You’re beautiful.”

  “I was asked out. But it never went anywhere. I’m not exactly normal, you know. I felt it was only fair to be up-front with people, so on the second date I always told the men the truth about myself. When I did, I watched for their reactions, which covered a broad range. Most of them never called for a third date. Those who did…well, I could see no point in taking it any further because I knew they wouldn’t be able to handle my clairvoyance over the long haul.”

  “So you turned them down.”

  She nodded. “And, like you, I finally came to think I’d never meet someone. When I was twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight, I even started to dread meeting you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because I…” She couldn’t think how to explain. “When you’re young, being a virgin is okay. In this day and age, with a large percentage of girls becoming sexually active in their teens, it isn’t normal, but at least it’s not too weird. In your early twenties you start to feel sort of funny about it. ‘What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I find someone?’ That sort of thing. Then your late twenties roll around, and you’re embarrassed to even tell a girlfriend. I just couldn’t imagine finally meeting you and having to confess that I was still a virgin. It makes you feel like something icky hanging on a clothing rack that nobody ever wanted.”

  “Ah, honey. You’re a gorgeous lady. Any guy in his right mind would want you.”

  Loni felt tears burning at the backs of her eyes. How she felt was her problem. She didn’t want to share her emotions and make him feel pressured to break his promise to himself. But deep down she didn’t believe he wanted her—at least not in the way she needed him to want her.

  “We should probably start getting the horses ready to roll out,” she said, tossing the remainder of her coffee onto the fire. “Do you want me to smother the flames, or would you prefer to do it yourself?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  She hurried away to tidy her clothing bag and stuff her soiled garments into a plastic sack. As she worked, the morning breeze dried the wetness on her cheeks. She took a deep, cleansing breath. Madness. The most awful part was that she concurred completely with Clint on his reasons for not wanting to have sex outside of marriage. It was wrong. She’d been taught that all her life, and in her heart she believed it to be so. It was just…Oh, she didn’t know. A female fantasy, she supposed. When you fell in love with a man, he was supposed to want you beyond all reason. She wanted him to grab her, kiss her, and then mindlessly start tearing her clothes off. She wanted to be devoured. She wanted the sweaty, hot, primal sex that she saw in movies.

  Was that so much to ask?

  The third day on the trail was a blur of sameness for Loni. Once again she was at the back of the line, staring at Ezekiel’s golden rump and brown tail as they followed Trevor’s trail downstream. Without any sleep to fortify her she slumped her shoulders, barely noticed the birds and squirrels, and found herself occasionally nodding off in the saddle. Not a good situation. If she fell asleep she might fall off the horse.

  In an attempt to stay awake, she took Boo from her saddlebag and prayed for help in learning how to summon a vision. At first she found it difficult to concentrate. But then she came upon the trick of picturing Trevor’s sweet little face. Focus, focus. And suddenly, with surprising ease, she got the flash of light, and there Trevor was, lying beneath a tree with Nana curled around him. The child looked pale, but otherwise fine. He had a smear of chocolate at the corner of his mouth that Loni very badly wanted to touch. Only of course she couldn’t. He was such a sweet little fellow—and, oh, how very much he looked like his father. The resemblance was so striking, it was almost—

  Kerwhump! Loni blinked and grabbed for oxygen. The world spun in a dizzying circle around her, the trees leaning crazily at unnatural angles. And, oh, God, she couldn’t breathe.

  “Are you all right?”

  It was Clint’s voice, but he seemed to be calling to her through a tunnel. She blinked, her mouth working like that of a gaffed fish. Then Clint’s hands were on her shoulders. He sat her up and began whacking her on the back. Finally, finally she was able to drag in a lungful of air.

  “What happened? Did you pass out? Are you sick? One minute everything was fine, and the next, Uriah started raising hell. When I looked back you were sprawled on the ground, staring at the sky.”

  Loni couldn’t immediately talk. When she found her voice she squeaked, “I had a vision.”

  “A vision?” Clint saw Boo. Grabbing the stuffed bear, he shook it in front of her nose. “Damn it, Loni. How smart was that? You can’t let yourself have vision
s while you’re on a horse. What’re you trying to do, kill yourself?”

  She could breathe easier now. “I didn’t think it would work. I was just practicing.”

  “Practicing?” He grabbed her in a fierce hug. “You scared the daylights out of me. Don’t ever do that again. Do you hear me?”

  Loni could see his point and also why he might be upset, but when he released her from his embrace, she couldn’t help but smile. “I did it, Clint. Don’t you see? I concentrated on Trevor’s face, and I actually did it.”

  He sat back on his heels, his dark eyes still filled with concern. “That’s great, sweetheart. But have a care with your safety from now on. Try to have visions only when you’re sitting on solid ground. All right?”

  Loni nodded. But despite the slight glitch in her timing, she felt absolutely glorious. “Trevor’s fine. Perfectly fine, Clint. He and Nana are sleeping under a tree, and I know he’s eaten recently because he had chocolate on his mouth. And you know what else?”

  He smiled slightly and shook his head. “No, what?”

  “I know that’s where they are right this second. Always before I’ve never been sure if something I saw had already happened or might soon happen. Not this time. I know it was a right-now vision.”

  “That’s great, honey. And you’ve only been trying for a short time. With more prayer and practice you’ll soon be controlling your gift instead of allowing it to control you. Just don’t do any more practicing on a horse.”

  Loni dutifully returned Boo to her saddlebag before she mounted back up. But as soon as they stopped, she promised herself, she would try to see Trevor again.

  Clint felt like the world’s worst jerk. Here he was, falling Stetson over boot heels in love with a woman, it was her very first time, and he was half-afraid to touch her for fear he’d lose control. If that wasn’t a fine how-do-you-do, he didn’t know what was. Loni deserved a proper courtship—walks in the moonlight, holding hands, kissing and whispering sweet nothings, dates, candlelight dinners, dancing to romantic waltzes, and more kisses, all on her doorstep, of course, because he didn’t dare go in for a nightcap. And phone calls, of course—the kind where two lovers were happy just to hear each other breathe when they ran out of things to say.

  Spurred by sudden inspiration, Clint checked his cell phone reception status. To his surprise he had three solid bars, enough to get out. Only he didn’t want to call out and talk to his dad. That could come later. He turned on the saddle to shout to Loni, motioning for her to come to the head of the line. With six horses spaced a body length apart between them, it was impossible to converse otherwise. They were on a narrow trail in an area crisscrossed with deadfall, so it took her a few minutes to guide Uriah through the maze. When she reached Clint, she gave him a questioning look.

  “What’s your cell phone number?” he asked.

  As she gave him the number, he punched the digits into the phone’s memory. Then he grinned. “That’s all I needed, just your number.”

  “It couldn’t wait until lunch?”

  “Nope.”

  She rode Uriah back through the deadfall. The moment she’d resumed her place in line behind Ezekiel, Clint dialed her number. She gave him a startled look, then grinned and fished her cell phone out of her pocket. With a tinkling laugh, she said, “How may I help you, sir?”

  Clint nudged Malachi back into a walk. “You can talk to me. I’m lonesome up here all by myself.”

  She laughed again. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Anything, just so I can hear your voice.”

  “Okay. What’s for supper?”

  “I haven’t thought about it. We’ve got canned roast beef, chicken, tuna, some cream of mushroom soup, and rice, some instant mashed potatoes, cornmeal but no eggs—I guess we could make hardtack. I honestly don’t know. We’ll have to get creative.”

  “Maybe we could do a camper’s version of chicken-and-rice casserole.”

  “Sounds great to me, just so long as I get a kiss for dessert.”

  Long silence. “We’ll see what can be arranged.”

  They went on to discuss her first crush on a boy, which happened during her prematurely aborted first term at university. She’d been hugely attracted to a boy named Russ, with bright red hair and blue eyes, who never noticed she was alive. Clint told her about his first love—a girl named Melinda who wore her hair in braids, had braces, and hadn’t known he was alive, either. Next they talked about their favorite movies of all time, his Dances with Wolves, hers Casablanca. Then they went on to describe their favorite scenes. Clint discovered that his beautiful clairvoyant was a hopeless romantic. She discovered that he was an incurable animal lover because he was still upset over Two Socks, the wolf in his movie, being so heartlessly killed.

  During lunch Clint recharged his cell phone and then replaced the charger batteries, giving the unit to Loni so she would be able to use it as a power backup and talk with him most of the afternoon. Maybe he couldn’t provide her with all the dating rituals just yet, but at least they could have romantic, get-acquainted conversations over the phone. First, however, they both needed to call their parents.

  “Dad wishes us all the best of luck,” he told Loni when they’d both finished checking in.

  “My mother says for you to keep your pants zipped.”

  Clint barked with laughter. “I think I’m going to like your mother. We’re going to have to break her of spying on us, though.”

  “As soon as there’s a need, I’ll speak to her about it.”

  Clint felt pretty sure he detected a dispirited note in her voice. “I know you will.”

  They spent the next two hours discussing their most embarrassing moments—his being when he’d mistaken a steer for a bull at a rodeo event, something his brothers had yet to let him live down, hers being when she’d left a ladies’ restroom with a string of toilet paper trailing from the waistband of her slacks. Then they moved on to the topic of literature. His favorite book of all time was Where the Red Fern Grows, followed at a close second by The Yearling. She’d loved Gone with the Wind and Jane Eyre.

  When his cell phone battery began to run low, he said good-bye and thought for the remainder of the day’s ride. There had to be other ways, besides talking on the phone, to give Loni the romantic courtship she deserved. He only had to put his mind to it.

  Along toward dusk Clint began watching for a likely camp spot. Fortunately Trevor’s trail had continued to follow the downhill course of the stream. Having water nearby made caring for the horses a lot easier. It also made cooking less of a hassle, especially when it came time for cleanup.

  After setting up camp, a process that excluded erecting the tent because Loni was still worried about wolves, and didn’t care to sleep alone, Clint got the horses settled in for the night and then went down to the creek to shave. As he was washing up and dipping his razor into the water, he kept thinking that something wasn’t right. Finally, like a bullet between the eyes, it occurred to him what it was: The water felt oddly warm.

  Back at camp Loni was sitting on the sleeping bag with Boo clutched to her chest. Judging by her beatific smile, she’d just succeeded in summoning another vision. “This is so wonderful, Clint. Thank you for encouraging me to do it.”

  “Saw him again, did you?”

  Her smile broadened. “I did. He and Nana have a fire, too, and they’re cooking a rabbit and a squirrel for supper. That is the sweetest dog. She brought Trevor the game without eating any of it first. It’s share and share alike.”

  “Sounds to me like the boy has taught her that. He shares everything with her, doesn’t he?”

  “He does. You’re going to be so proud of him once you get to know him. He’s such a neat kid. Honestly, he is.” Her smile froze. Then she gulped. “I’m sorry. I forgot for a moment that you still don’t believe he’s yours.”

  Clint rubbed his freshly shaved jaw. “I’d love it if he were. Truly, I would. I’ve always wanted kids.�
�� He tidied his damp hair, then stuck the comb back into his hip pocket. “That’s something we’ve never really talked about—whether or not you want kids.”

  “Of course I want kids. I’d just given up hope of ever having any.” A troubled frown pleated her brow. “Um, there is one thing, Clint. Remember my telling you that in my family a clairvoyant female is born in every generation?”

  “I remember that, yes.”

  “Well, there’s only my sister, Deirdre, and me, and she’s got two boys. She’s very unlikely to have any more children. She had a tubular pregnancy and lost one fallopian duct. The other one is partially blocked.”

  “What are you saying, that it’ll be up to you to have a clairvoyant daughter?”

  She nodded. When he didn’t immediately speak, she asked, “Will that bother you?”

  Clint crouched by the fire to study her lovely face. It was damned near a perfect oval. “Not so long as she looks exactly like you and is half as sweet.”

  Her cheeks turned a pretty pink. “She may look like you. Yours is the more dominant complexion.”

  “Just so long as she gets your nose, we can keep her.”

  She laughed and rolled her eyes. “It won’t bother you, having a clairvoyant daughter? Chances are she won’t have as strong a gift as mine. Possibly, I suppose, but normally it happens only every few generations.”

  “Sweetheart, I’ll love her if she’s got a third eye in the middle of her forehead. Stop worrying. All right?”

  She nodded. “So what shall we fix for supper?”

  “The rice dish sounds great to me. But before we start cooking I’d like to meander up the hill for a way. Will you be all right here alone for a few minutes? I’ll leave you my rifle.”

  “I don’t know how to use a rifle.”

  Clint showed her how to release the safety. “Just point it and pull the trigger. All I ask is that you don’t shoot one of my horses.”