“Who said that?”
“Me.”
“Oh.”
“Well?”
“Let’s strike my ill-advised remark from the record, shall we? We’ll pretend I didn’t say it.”
“I don’t think I should pretend that.”
“Please?”
“Stop sounding pitiful.”
“Didn’t work, huh?”
“I know you better than that.”
“Ah. Well, then—why don’t I just apologize?”
“You can try.”
“My darling Brooke, I’m desperately sorry I made that stupid, sexist remark. Forgive me?”
“I’ll think it over.”
“Hell.”
“You don’t get nothin’ for free, pal.”
“I’ll have to remember those deathless words,” he said thoughtfully.
Brooke punched him weakly in the ribs.
Cody retaliated by patting her gently on the fanny.
She giggled in spite of herself. “Such a gentleman.”
“Always.”
Brooke snuggled closer to him, the love so near to the surface now washing over her in a tidal wave. “I love you,” she told him fiercely.
His arms tightened around her. “I love you too, darling,” he said softly, intensely.
“Forever?” Her voice was unconsciously wistful.
“Forever,” he vowed deeply.
Brooke saw the last dragon rear its head before her, and slammed the door against it before it could destroy her newfound happiness. Later, she told herself. She’d deal with that dragon later. It wasn’t a very big dragon compared to those that had been faced and fought. Not a very big dragon with Cody’s love wrapped around her in warmth and ecstasy.
But it was there, it existed. Its name was loss and it haunted her.
“Don’t leave me,” Cody said suddenly.
“I won’t,” she whispered.
“You did. For a minute you did.” He turned her chin up, gazing deeply into her eyes. “You weren’t there.”
Brooke smiled at him slowly. “I love you.”
Cody looked into her eyes, those eyes that were greener than any green he’d ever seen, and the touch of coldness left him. He kissed her tenderly, held her close as sleep crept over them.
And he dreamed of fighting a dragon in the dark.
EIGHT
IT WAS THE sun that woke her, the sun and a niggling sensation of something being different, something being strange. She kept her eyes closed for a moment, trying to figure out what it was.
What was it?
Then she remembered; it all came back to her in a warm rush of memory. Her eyes opened slowly, and she turned her head to gaze at the face so close to her own. He was lying on his stomach beside her, his arm securely across her middle, and the sunlight striking across his face made him truly the golden man of her imagery.
Brooke looked at him as if she’d never seen him before, studied the classical planes and angles of his face with the total absorption of a brand-new lover. In the sane light of day she could hardly believe the turbulent emotions of last night; at the same time she didn’t doubt them. Her love for Cody welled up inside her, threatening to spill over, filling all the places in her that had been dark and empty before he came.
As she watched him Cody stirred slightly and tightened his arm across her, smiling. “Brooke,” he murmured in a satisfied tone without opening his eyes.
“At least you remember who I am,” she said solemnly.
“First rule in the book of gentlemanly manners,” he told her, golden eyes opening and glowing brightly at her. “Always remember in the morning whom you took to bed with you the night before.”
“Oh, is that all?” she mourned. “I thought I might have stood out in your mind for some reason.”
He chuckled softly, raising up on an elbow and gazing down at her. “You do, love. You certainly do,” he murmured. And proved it.
When Brooke got her breath back, she discovered that her arms were around his neck. “Good morning,” she said huskily.
“Good morning, darling.” He was smiling.
She reached to push back a lock of golden hair falling over his forehead, feeling a sudden surge of possessiveness that surprised her. Twentieth-century woman or not, liberated or not, independent or not, a cavewoman deep inside of her thrilled to the certainty of touching her man.
“You have a very odd look in your eyes,” Cody observed, watching her.
Brooke pushed the surprising thoughts aside and smiled up at him. “What would you like for breakfast?” she asked.
“You,” he answered promptly.
“Great minds…” Her smile slowly widened. “I was thinking along those lines myself….”
It was Cody who first noticed, sometime later, that nature seemed to have gotten over her stormy mood. The early-morning sun didn’t duck behind lowering clouds by lunchtime, as it had for weeks, but continued to shine brightly in a sky that shocked with its blueness. And, though neither Cody nor Brooke regretted the weather that had kept them indoors all this time, both were ready for fresh air and sunshine.
There was a foot of snow covered with a thick layer of ice and several more inches of snow on top of that outside, along with drifts of snow up to several feet that could easily catch the unwary by surprise. But the sunshine made of it a glittering white wonderland, and it beckoned to them.
So they bundled up for warmth and, accompanied by Phantom, went out to brave the unexpected drifts. It was Cody’s first real chance to see the lodge and surrounding property in the clear light of day, and the sheer vastness of it surprised him.
“Is that a pasture?” he asked once, pointing to a line of fence barely visible on the other side of the valley.
“Uh-huh. It’s empty at the moment; a horse breeder a few miles from here leases it every summer for his stock.”
“How many acres?” Cody asked again absentmindedly as he cleared snow away from the barn door.
“Three hundred. Most of that small mountain, in fact.”
Cody leaned on his shovel and stared at the “small” mountain. To his Texas-bred eyes anything taller than a molehill was huge; that mountain looked like Olympus. “You own that mountain?” he asked carefully.
Brooke was kneeling in the snow massaging Phantom’s leg, they’d removed the splint this morning. She glanced over at Cody with a tiny smile. “Well, actually,” she murmured, “I own—uh—all the land you can see from here.”
Cody stared at her. Then he turned his gaze to all the land he could see. Counting the “small” mountain, there were four of them flanking the valley, and the valley itself must have covered nearly a hundred acres. He looked back at Brooke and said solemnly, “Marry me.”
“That wasn’t a very flattering proposal,” she reproved. “I feel like part of a package deal.”
“So sorry.”
“Mmm.” She lifted an eyebrow at his grin. then added conversationally, “You’d better not stand in front of the door when you lift the catch.”
Cody, who’d set his shovel aside and started to open the door, received the advice just a moment too late. He managed to avoid the door shooting outward by stepping hastily aside, but one of Mister’s rear hooves landed neatly on his instep as the burro charged out of the barn.
“Ouch!” Cody sat down rather hard in the snow, holding his foot and glaring at the faded gray burro that had halted a few feet away from the barn. Mister glared right back at him.
Brooke was maintaining a straight face through sheer effort. “I warned you,” she reminded with a saintly air.
Cody struggled to his feet, obviously unhurt, and gave her a look of mock appreciation. “So you did. Remind me to thank you for that.”
“I don’t think I will,” Brooke said warily.
“Smart lady.”
Mister discovered an additional enemy just then, braying raucously as his bleary gaze focused on Phantom. The burro lowered his head
as if he were a bull getting ready to charge, an action that the wolf viewed with daunting disinterest and that made Brooke rise hastily to her feet.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” she warned the burro, stepping between them. “I’ll put you back in your stall, you bad-tempered animal, and not let you out until spring! Mind your manners—if you have any!”
The fact that Mister raised his head and proceeded to ignore the wolf was, of course, entirely unconnected with her warning. He proved that rather pointedly by feigning interest in Cody’s shovel and then by trying to take a bite out of Cody’s jacket.
Preserving his jacket with a neat sidestep, Cody kept a wary eye on the burro and addressed Brooke. “How old did you say he was?”
“Around thirty, I think. He moves pretty good for an old man, doesn’t he?”
“He’s part rattlesnake; you can see it in his eyes.”
“I told you he hated every living thing.”
“Would he really bite me?”
“If you gave him half a chance.”
Cody sighed. “Knocked in the snow by a woman and then a burro: I must be losing my touch.”
“Would you stop reminding me about that!”
“I was hoping you’d feel sorry for me,” he apologized gravely.
“Why for heaven’s sake?”
“So you’ll marry me, of course.”
“I’d never marry a man because I felt sorry for him.”
“Then I’ll have to try something else,” he said thoughtfully.
No mention of marriage had been made until these two light references, and Brooke passed them off as casually as possible. She realized that beneath the banter Cody was entirely serious, but she wasn’t yet ready to commit herself. The last dragon still remained to be faced and fought, the barrier of her fear defeated, and she wasn’t sure how to do that.
But in the meantime Cody’s lighthearted manner, his loving, teasing presence, went far in showing her what love was all about.
“Help!”
Brooke leaned against the barn and watched, totally deadpan, as Cody trampled a neat path around the barn. At her feet sat Phantom, and both observed the little game with detached interest. On his third circuit, Brooke helpfully noted that Mister was an old burro and probably wouldn’t be able to chase him around a fourth time.
But the burro, taking advantage of the beaten path, seemed to be gaining a bit on his quarry by the fourth go-round.
As Cody panted around the corner Brooke pointed out, “He wouldn’t chase you if you’d stop running.” She was trying desperately not to laugh, well aware that Cody was running because he was enjoying the game.
“There’s an old proverb,” Cody gasped as he passed her. “‘Better to say he ran here, and not he died here.’” He disappeared around the other corner with Mister almost literally breathing down his neck.
Giggling, Brooke listened as a sudden curse tinted the cold air blue. Then she heard Mister bray triumphantly and watched as the burro came barreling back around the same corner, Cody’s wool cap in his mouth. A hatless Cody was in hot pursuit.
“You moth-eaten donkey!” he roared wrathfully. “Come back here with my hat!”
Brooke burst out laughing.
“I’m going to have that animal stuffed.”
“Cody—”
“I’ll tie branches to his head and with any luck a hunter’ll mistake him for a deer and shoot him.”
“Cody—”
“Sic ’im, Phantom!”
“Just because he stole your hat—”
“And buried it!”
“I—uh—meant to warn you about this habit he has of hiding things. He’s worse than a crow.”
“My darling love, d’you see a pained expression upon my face?”
“Uh…yes.”
“D’you detect a certain gleam in my eyes?”
“Now that you mention it—”
“Observe my hands reaching for you.”
“Cody? Cody, you wouldn’t—Cody? Help! Phantom, help!”
“That looks like a comfortable snowbank—”
“Cody!”
Days passed, days of beautiful weather and laughter and love. They played in the snow like children during the days, drawing even closer to each other through laughter. And at night they drew closer as man and woman, exploring the depth and meaning of their love.
They shared the daily chores of cooking and cleaning and getting wood for the fire. They argued spiritedly about the best way to renovate the old sled they had discovered in the barn, then took turns being buried in snowdrifts because neither one could steer the thing. They took long walks with Phantom, both to exercise his injured leg and to explore their surroundings. They found an old harness in the barn loft and managed to put it on an indignant Mister, trying for three days to persuade the old burro to pull a large piece of tin across the snow with them aboard.
They built a snowman. Then a snow castle. Then made unartistic stabs at snow images of Phantom and Mister. They got gloriously tipsy on Cody’s eggnog recipe and held a solemn conversation on the merits of eggnog to cure all ills. They called Maine to check on the progress of Thor, Pepper, and babies, discovering that Thor was still somewhat incoherent, Pepper blissful, and twins doing nicely, thank you very much.
They made love.
They were never bored with each other, never restless. There was always something to do or say—or both. Always the feeling that it was new, that they were new and fascinating. The world might have stopped and left them to themselves.
“You remind me of Venus.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“‘Venus thy eternal sway, all the race of men obey’—or something like that.”
“I thought you meant the planet.”
“Funny.”
“Well, how was I to know? You’re always comparing me to one odd thing or another.”
“I resent that.”
“You resent it?”
“I’ve never compared you to anything odd.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You compared me to Queen Victoria yesterday just because I said ‘We are not amused’ when you put that hat on Mister.”
“She may or may not have been an odd thing: the point’s debatable.”
“And you compared me to a Pekingese when I put my hair up last night.”
“They’re cute—not odd.”
“And van Gogh after my portrait of Phantom in the snow.”
“He was a very great man.”
“And then—”
Silence.
“Uh…what was that for?”
“I had to shut you up somehow.”
“I’ll talk more often….”
“You won’t be able to do it.”
“My darling love. Watch me.”
“Cody, you won’t be able to.”
“Remember the bit about impossible things.”
“Believing six of them before breakfast? Are we wandering through Alice’s mirror?”
“Exactly. Want to attend the Mad Hatter’s tea party?”
“Before or after I bury you?”
“You think he’ll kill me, huh?”
“I wouldn’t waste my money betting against the possibility.”
“Such faith you have in me!”
“It’s experience with Mister that I have.”
“Hey! I grew up on a ranch, remember.”
“Well, Mister didn’t.”
“So?”
“No respect for cowboys.”
“I’ll teach him.”
“I doubt it.”
“It just takes a bit of timing and—There! Hi-yo, Silver!”
Crunch.
“My darling love—”
“Uh-huh?”
“Want to stop giggling long enough to help me out of this snowbank?”
“I thought I’d go to a tea party….”
“The woman thinks she’s a comedian.”
“The man thinks he’s John Wayne.”
“The man thinks he’s freezing his—”
“Language!”
“…ego off.”
“I’m contemplating a new artistic creation.”
“What’s that?”
“Cody in the Snow. Thor would enjoy it, I think.”
“Did you read that story called ‘He Killed the Woman He Loved’?”
“Must have missed that one.”
“Just let me get out of this damn snowbank…”
“Such beauty. Such ravishing beauty!”
“Then three cups of flour, and—”
“Helen of Troy.”
“Mix it with—”
“Athena.”
“You forgot the eggs.”
“No, I didn’t. Venus.”
“Stop licking the spoon; I haven’t finished with it yet.”
“Couldn’t resist. Mona Lisa.”
“Are we having the same conversation here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You. In comparison to other beautiful things.”
“I see.”
“What about you?”
“Can’t you tell? I’m trying to fix this cake you wanted.”
“Ah.”
“So make up your mind.”
“Hmm?”
“Whether you want the cake or my neck.”
“Can’t I have both?”
“Not at the same time. Either the cake or myself will fall.”
“Hard decision.”
“Flip a coin.”
“Heads, it’s you; tails, it’s the cake.”
“Well?”
“Heads.”
“Let me see—Cody, that’s a two-headed coin!”
“No kidding.”
“You’re a devious man.”
“But you love me?”
“But I love you.”
“Did you see that? A shooting star.”
“Make a wish,” Cody told her.
Brooke closed her eyes and wished, enfolded in the warmth of his embrace as they stood just outside the back door and waited for Phantom.
“What did you wish for?” he asked presently.
She was silent for a moment, once again looking up at the stars shining in a clear night sky. “I wished…for impossible things. D’you believe in impossible things, Cody?”