by Dianne Drake
“You did a good job here, Angela. Your responses are quick, your instincts perfect.”
“But it’s not enough,” she said wistfully.
“Not right now. But soon…” He kissed her gently on the forehead. “Now, I’m going to sit here with Scotty for a while. He’ll sleep, but I want to wake him up shortly and make sure he’s good. I’d suggest you go ice your eye, maybe take Fred for a quick walk for me, then see if you’ve got any foundation to cover Scotty’s handiwork, because this time tomorrow it’s going to be purple.”
She laughed. “A badge of honor. I lost that battle, but I’m not about to lose the war.” She bent over Scotty, pulled the blanket to his shoulders, brushed back a tuft of brown hair from his forehead. “You hear that, Scotty? I’m not going to lose this war.”
Outside Scotty’s room, standing in the hall, Angela watched Mark settle into a chair next to the boy. Mark, himself, was a war. The only thing was, she wasn’t sure how she felt about him. They were certainly getting closer and under other circumstances she would define that closeness as something more than a growing friendship. But under these circumstances? He was leaving after all. It was inevitable. So, if things between them were to somehow develop even more in the next months, would she consider going with him, if he asked? The answer was simple, and it hit her fast. Not with a man who didn’t want her as much as she wanted him. However, the real question was, did she truly want Mark? And if so, how much?
“Eventually, I’d like to be set up for ski lessons, but for this week sledding is the easiest way to go.” Twelve children, twice as many adults, all with sleds, all over the place. The program was growing. Just a few days into it and people were dropping by, looking for ways to help.
“I never expected the magnitude of this,” Mark commented. He was holding a round purple sled under his arm, ready to have his own go at the hill.
“That’s the way it is, here in White Elk. People just want to help. It’s why I stayed. When I came here it was to take a job. I like the alpine atmosphere, didn’t want to spend the rest of my life running all over the world chasing the ski circuit, so when I saw that Pine Lodge had an opening for executive chef, I applied. Then fell in love with everything about White Elk, almost at first sight.”
“And you’d never leave?”
She shook her head. “Sarah needs to be raised in a place like this. It’s tough enough out there in the world. I’ve been there, done most of it, and I know how hard it is to get along. But when you’re lucky enough to find a place that’s…that’s like family, why would you want to leave?” She looked up at him. “And I mean that literally, Mark. Why do you want to leave? You’ve been here since just before Christmas, and you’re probably more a part of the community here than you’ve ever been anywhere else. You fit in, and people like you. They respond to you.”
“But I’m still the same old person I always was. A doctor. Someone other people count on. And my whole point of leaving California was to not be me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being you, Mark.”
“There’s everything wrong with being me.” He visored his eyes with his hand, looked out over the hill. Drew in a deep breath. “Did you have that talk with Scotty’s mother?”
Changing the subject didn’t change the issues. But she wasn’t going to get into that with him right now. The snow was good, she was in the mood to sled. “She’s the one who gave him the food. Said she told him only to eat a little at a time, as a treat. That he knew he shouldn’t eat as much as he did.”
“She doesn’t get it, does she?”
“A little bit of you rubbed off on me, Mark.”
“Meaning?”
“I put on one of your scowls, told her that one of these days, when Scotty overindulges, someone might not be there to find him the way we did. That he could die if that happens. I also told her that I can’t have him putting my other children at risk, and I think that was something she’d never considered.”
“Do you think she’ll do what she needs to?”
“I hope so. There was a lot of denial. But that’s so often the case with those closest to the children. They want them to live a normal life like the other kids do, and somehow food gets all mixed up in that. Walt’s going to give them an eye-opener tomorrow—the dire consequences of diabetes out of control. It’s brutal, but they’ve got to know what they’re dealing with, and I’ve invited all the parents to that lecture, too. They need it as much as their children do.”
“Well, I’m going to have a little chat with Scotty in a few minutes. He’s the one, by the way, who’s not playing, like the rest of the children are doing.”
Angela looked over at the boy, who was sitting sullenly on a bench. “He won’t exercise,” she said. “He sits out every single time. Refuses. Tells me I can’t make him do it.”
“He’s seven, and sedentary. And to be honest, I’m worried about him because his blood-sugar averages are too high, his blood pressure is elevated and all that is wreaking havoc with his body.”
“Which is why I assigned him to you.” she said, smiling. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She took her own sled to the hill, laid down on it and rode the bumps all the way to the bottom. When she came to an inauspicious stop in a pile of snow, pretty much flat on her back, she looked back up to see if Mark was following her down. But he wasn’t in sight. Not at the top, not at the bottom.
He’d gone to get Scotty. Maybe to have that chat, maybe to convince Scotty to sail down the hill just once. Whatever it was, he’d gone to get Scotty, and that was a good thing. Because the boy needed him. And Mark needed Scotty. “You’ll find yourself,” she whispered. Truly, he really wasn’t as far away as he thought. Maybe buried at the moment, but not really lost.
“What are you doing with Sarah?” Angela asked. “Edith took the morning off to spend time with Fallon Galbraith, and Emoline was sitting with Sarah a little while ago.”
“Emoline was called to the hospital, and there was no one else available but me.” Mark shifted position, looking like a natural with a baby on his hip. Actually, he’d encouraged Emoline to go, promised her that he didn’t mind babysitting for a while. And he didn’t. Something about Sarah relaxed him, made him think about all those things he’d planned on for his own life so long ago, things that had made him happy for a little while, things that had all been a lie.
“You don’t have a class right now?”
“Walt and I traded. He wants a little time alone with Catie later on, and as I didn’t have any plans, I was glad to make the switch. Which worked out well because Sarah needed a play date now. And Sarah, Fred and I have been having a nice time, haven’t we?” He asked that last of Sarah.
“I’ll admit she looks happy.”
“She’s decided she loves sledding.”
“You took my daughter sledding?”
Mark laughed. “Let’s just call it a variation on a theme. But Sarah definitely has a preference for the great outdoors. We built a snowman, took a walk up to Hornaday Bluff…”
“No rock-climbing and skiing?” Angela asked, taking a very reluctant little girl back from Mark. So reluctant, in fact, that Sarah made her preference clear, holding onto Mark for dear life.
“I think she’s expressing an opinion,” he said over top of what was turning into some loud vocal protests. “Reminds me of you in a lot of ways.”
“Sarah, it’s OK,” Angela said, trying to calm down her screaming daughter. But Sarah wasn’t about to be consoled, not in Angela’s arms at the moment.
“Want me to take her back?” Mark asked.
“Did you hypnotize her?”
He chuckled. “I’d prefer to think that it’s just about my nice way with the ladies.” He held out his arms for Sarah, and the child practically leapt over to him. And was immediately happy again.
“Look, if you have plans…”
“I did promise Sarah I’d teach her how to make a snowball.” He tweaked Sarah’s nose and her res
ponse to was to reach out and tweak him back. Something he’d worked on for the better part of an hour with her. Just to impress Angela.
“Did she just…? Mark? What’s going on between you two, really?”
“We’re getting along,” he said, gesturing for Angela to follow him to the lodge’s front door. “Sarah’s teaching me what a one-year-old likes to do…”
“She doesn’t talk.”
“No, but she’s got definite opinions. Just like her mother does.” He pushed the door open and Angela preceded him outside. “What about her father?” he asked, once they were out on the front lawn.
“He’s never met her. Doesn’t want to be tied down to anything so permanent. He’d wanted me to…” She shook her head. “Let’s just say that the pregnancy wasn’t anything he wanted to invest himself in, and if I’d made other choices, he might have stayed for a while. At least, that’s what he said at the time. His family loves Sarah, though. They’ve been great to her…great to me. But he hasn’t even wanted to see a picture.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? He’s the luckiest man in the world, being father to this little spitfire, and he’s too stupid to know it. And stupid is a mild word for what I’m thinking!” At the clearing near the front of the entryway fountain, he sat Sarah down on an ornamental rock, where three copper frogs, frolicking on the edge of the fountain, caught her attention.
“She doesn’t need him, and I’m glad he’s not part of our lives. I only want good things and good people around her. And he’s not good. At least, not for my daughter.”
“But what if he comes back someday? Changes his mind, decides he wants the daddy experience?”
“He lost that privilege when he asked me to have an abortion. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t get it back. Besides, he doesn’t want it. He’s made that pretty clear in any number of ways. She’s mine, not his.”
“Stupid, like I said.”
“I guess I have to agree with that. But what does that make me, hanging onto him for so many years?”
“Strong. Naive. Misguided, maybe. Not stupid, though.”
“But I feel stupid now that I can finally see how he is.”
“He’s like my ex-wife. A mistake.”
“A stupid mistake,” she said, arching amused eyebrows.
“Different kind of stupid altogether.”
Angela sighed. “What we do for love.”
“In my case, not love. More like a delusional event.”
“You mean a stupid event?” she asked, grinning.
“OK, stupid. But I got over it.”
“So did I. And the good thing is I got Sarah. That makes up for everything.”
“It sure does.” Mark bent down, scooped up a little handful of snow. “Now, Sarah, the object here is to make it nice and round.” He dropped to one knee in front of her and showed her the steps to rounding out a nice, perfect snowball, even though she was still more interested in the copper frogs. “The reason you want it to be round is so that when you throw it at your mommy, it will travel far enough to hit her.”
Angela laughed. “You want her to hit me?”
“In years to come, when she’s a teenager, and you’re tearing out your hair over something’s she’s done, you’ll long for the days when it was only about a snowball.”
“Daaa…” Sarah responded.
“That’s right,” Angela said. “You can hit Daaa with a snowball, too.”
“Not what I had in mind,” Mark said, placing the snowball in Sarah’s tiny hand. “Now, what you need to do is rear back just a little before you throw…” He kept her hand in his for a moment, then moved it enough that the snowball flew out and landed on his knee.
“Good job!” Angela said, bending to give her daughter a kiss. “Very good job, Sarah. I couldn’t have aimed better myself.”
“You want to hit me with a snowball?” Mark asked.
“No. Not as long as I have Sarah to do my dirty work.” Angela scooped up another little handful of snow, rounded it into a ball then handed it to Sarah, who immediately threw it down on her own. “She’s a natural,” Angela boasted, turning to Mark.
His reply was a soft snowball right smack in Angela’s face. Which made Sarah laugh with delight.
“You know this is war, don’t you?” Angela said, scooping up more snow, rounding it and launching it at Mark, hitting him in the shoulder.
His reaction was to hide behind Sarah. “It’s just you and me, kid,” he said to her.
“Hiding behind the baby now, are you?” Angela said, threatening him with a snowball half the size of his head. “Step out from behind the child and I’ll go easy on you.”
“Should I believe her, Sarah?” he asked, placing a baby-sized snowball in her hand. But this time he didn’t let go of her hand, he guided it into a launch of the snowball and, amazingly, it launched a good two feet, before dropping and hitting Angela on top of her snow boot.
Angela’s response was to scoop that snowball up and assimilate it into her own. “Coward,” she accused, arching her eyebrows and keeping a poker face underneath them.
Damn, she was sexy. Even playing in the snow, she had such an effect on him. “I’m just staying loyal to the fairy princess here. Protecting her from the likes of the evil snowball queen.”
“But the evil snowball queen only has eyes for you.” She showed him the giant snowball in her hand. “And it has your name on it. So step out here. Take it like a man.”
“Should I surrender?” he whispered to Sarah.
Her response was to stretch out her hand and wiggle her fingers. Well, the assumption was a wiggle since her snowball fight was taking place in mittens.
“You saw her answer. She’s in this to the end. She wants a snowball…your snowball.”
“That’s what she said?” Angela laughed.
“As plain as the red nose on your face. The fairy princess has claimed her victory and the evil snowball queen must surrender her snowball. I’m sorry, but the decision is final.”
Angela knelt down to her daughter. “Then I surrender.” She laid her giant snowball down and bent to kiss Sarah’s chubby cheek. When she did so, Mark seized the opportunity, grabbed up the snowball, and…
“No,” Angela squealed, falling backwards.
That’s when Mark pounced right on top of her, his knees straddling her, his snowball poised right above her face. “It was her idea,” he said, nodding sideways at Sarah. “I’m just the minion here.”
“You wouldn’t,” Angela said, looking him straight in the eye.
“If it were up to me, I probably wouldn’t. But the choice clearly isn’t mine. So, Sarah…” He turned to look at her. “What will it be? The snowball, or not?”
“Daaa…”
“You heard her. It was her decision, not mine.” Mark pushed the snowball straight down into Angela’s face, and didn’t try one iota to resist her when she came back up at him, fighting. In fact, he rather enjoyed the fight as she struggled to flip over and pin him down. The skirmish lasted all of thirty seconds then when she was on top and he was the one flat in the snow, he looked up and smiled. “I win.”
“But I’m on top,” she protested.
He winked at her. “I know you are. Which is why I win.”
She bent down, dangerously close to his lips, then whispered, “You’re bad, Dr. Anderson,” then proceeded to smush a snowball in his face. “Good plan, Sarah,” she said rolling off Mark and grabbing Sarah into her arms. “He never saw it coming.”
The truth was, he had. But nothing in him had wanted to stop it. Lying here in the snow with Angela and Sarah, the three of them probably looking like idiots to passersby, this was the only place he wanted to be right now. The only place.
CHAPTER NINE
“SOUND asleep. Even before I got her into bed.” She crept out of the suite’s bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her, taking one last look back at Sarah before she did so.
Mark was seated on the sofa,
with Fred asleep in his lap, snoring gently. “She has a lot of energy. I wouldn’t have expected her to stay up and be so alert for as long as she did.”
Angela dropped down beside him, stretched out, relaxed. Appreciated the nice, cozy feeling. A feeling she didn’t have too often. “She was enjoying herself. And the one thing I’m going to make sure Sarah learns is that she has to enjoy her life. When something amazing comes around, grab it and hang on. There are so many other serious things happening, situations that will pull us down if we let them, and it’s those moments of pure pleasure that will make the difference, make life bearable. Kind of like a beacon, I suppose. Something you know is there, something shining out in the dark, waiting for you to latch onto it. She has to know that beacon is there for her.”
“But you don’t take that advice yourself. Someday, when she’s older, won’t she notice that? Won’t she realize that while you’re teaching her one thing, you’re doing something entirely different? Will she see any enjoyment, or fulfillment, in you, Angela? Will she see you reaching out for that beacon yourself, or turning your back on it because you have yet another goal to accomplish?”
“That’s not fair. My goals will ensure that Sarah does have those beacons in her life. But I do have fun, and I’m certainly fulfilled. I spend time with Dinah and her family, I cook. I deal with these amazing kids on a daily basis now, here and at the hospital. And I have Sarah. It might not be anything you’d enjoy, anything that would fulfill you, but from where I’m watching it all happen, it’s all good.” She paused for a moment. Closed her eyes, pictured all the good things in her life. Amazingly, Mark was one of them now.
