Before he could come up with an answer, the truth came out. “I was thinking, thank God I didn’t forget how that was done.”

She laughed, rubbing his back.

“What were you thinking?” he asked.

“I was thinking, thank God he didn’t forget how that was done.”

But he wasn’t laughing anymore. The look on his face was dreamy. He brushed her hair away from her brow. “You’re real special, Marcie,” he said. “I never saw this coming, but…” He couldn’t finish.

She put her palm against his cheek. “That’s nice, Ian. You’re awful special, too. And I let you get me naked when I’d been with you ten days.”

“You let me do more than that.”

“I wanted you to make love to me. You must think I’m a bad girl—”

“You are a bad girl, the best bad girl that was ever born,” he said. “The meanest little carrottop on the playground. You’re the best thing that ever happened in my life, Marcie. I was dying—you knew that. You made a difference. It’s what you always intended to be—a difference.” He grinned. “Like Abigail.”

“Aw. That’s the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.”

He brushed her lips with his. “Am I crushing you?” he asked.

“No. And don’t move. I don’t want to lose the feeling of being part of you.”

He wanted to tell her she’d be a part of him for the rest of his life, but that might frighten her more than his roar. “I’d just like to spoil you for a little while, if that’s okay.”

“Sounds interesting. Just how will you spoil me, if I might ask?”

“Well, I’ll start by not digging us out of here too fast,” he said. “How does that sound?”

“Like heaven. Pure heaven.”

Ian and Marcie dressed somewhat reluctantly and headed outside to check out the snow and make a run to the outhouse. It was still coming down, softly, slowly, but not too deep on the ground yet.

She got her turn first, and she made it quick. Then Ian was allowed the facilities. When he came out, he found himself alone. She must have gone back to the warmth of the cabin in a hurry and he began to follow. Before he got five feet, a snowball hit him square in the face. He wiped it away to see her leaning out from behind a big tree, laughing. “Did I mention I was good in softball?” she asked through her laughter. “I pitched!”

The chase was on—Ian took after her with a roar that was answered by giggles. He was stronger and more sure in the snow, but she was agile and quick and managed to get off a few snowballs while he was in pursuit. She ran around trees, rounded the shed at least once, took a few snowballs in the back and retaliated. But the chase ended when she tripped on something under the snow and did a face-plant right into the soft white powder.

He rushed to her side, scared, and rolled her over to find her laughing and spitting snow. He just looked down at her in wonder—did nothing disturb her? Scare her? Panic or worry her? He covered her mouth with his for a long kiss, and when he let her go she said, “Before we go inside, we should make snow angels.”

“I’m not making snow angels,” he said. “What if Buck sees me? It would ruin my reputation forever.”

“Just one, then. Yours would be so big—like Gabriel, for sure.”

“Then will you go inside with me? No more screwing around?”

“Aw—I thought that was your favorite part?” she asked, taking a handful of snow and shoving it in his face.

With a growl, he got to his feet, lifted her off the ground and threw her over his shoulder, carrying her back to the cabin. He stood her in front of the door and brushed the snow off her before letting her enter, then did the same himself.

“You’ve forgotten how to play,” she accused him.

“You play around enough for both of us,” he said. Without shedding his jacket, he got water heating on the propane stove and the woodstove. “I’ll give you a little time alone while I shovel a path to the john and hook the plow blade onto the truck. Think you can manage these big pots on your own?”

“Are you going to dig us out so soon?” she asked, clearly disappointed.

He smiled at her. “Not exactly. I’m going to make a couple of passes at the road—but no one has to know about it. I just don’t want to get us too buried. Do me a favor? When you’re done with your bath—start my water cooking?”

“Sure, Ian,” she said. “And if you’re very nice—I’ll scrub your back.”

Winters had always been a huge burden to Ian—the shoveling and plowing a necessary evil to give him access to the road, the john. But not on this particular winter day—this time it was a godsend. He’d like to keep Marcie boarded up in his cabin for a couple of weeks, but in reality, a day and night would be all he could really afford.

After making sure there was a path to the outhouse, he fitted the plow onto the truck and loaded the bed with firewood to make the truck heavier. He covered the wood with a tarp and drove down his access road. A couple of feet of snow wasn’t a big deal and if he cleared it today, tomorrow wouldn’t be as bad.

There was an old guy a couple miles down who had neither a plow for his truck nor a working tractor. In fact, it didn’t appear the tractor had been in use since Ian migrated to this mountaintop. The old boy’s road to Highway 36 wasn’t real long and tomorrow Ian would check on him to make sure he had a clear road and food. They weren’t friends; they’d hardly spoken. But Ian had been aware of him for a long time and just couldn’t stand the thought of him freezing or starving to death, stranded. It was a small thing; he only had to make the short pilgrimage a couple of times a winter.

When he finally made his way back to the cabin, she said, “Well finally! I’ve been wondering if I should come out and lend a hand!”

He pulled off his gloves. “We’re clear to the road if we have to get out of here. But there’s no reason we have to. Is my water hot?”

“Yes, and if you’re nice, I’ll make you eggs before they spoil.”

He took his jacket off and draped it over a kitchen chair. “You going to read your book while I take my clothes off and wash up?”

She grinned an elfish grin. “Not on your life.”

It was only two nights and a day, but for Ian it was healing and for Marcie, pure magic. They ate well, made love, napped in front of the woodstove, talked. The end of the snowy day found them together on the couch, Ian leaning back against the arm, stretched out, holding Marcie between his long legs, enjoying her closeness and their conversation. Her head rested against his chest and he stroked her soft hair, catching it between his fingers.

“I want to know more about Erin,” he said. “You two seem nothing alike.”

“Nothing,” she confirmed. “There are three different Erin’s. If you really want to know, get comfortable.”

He chuckled at her. “I’m comfortable.”

“Well, while we were growing up and she was so much older, she was just a bossy big sister. I think that’s the natural order of things, but it’s magnified when a mother is lost—the oldest daughter sometimes assumes the role. A giant pain in the butt. But then we lost Dad and she tried so hard to take care of us. We were beyond being taken care of, you know. A thirteen-and fifteen-year-old—we coped in our own ways, had our own lives. I had Bobby, and Drew had sports and buddies. I feel really terrible about that—we weren’t there for Erin at all. And she was just beginning law school, which demanded so much of her. But we were stupid kids—we didn’t know anything.”

“You told her that, of course,” he said. “Once you realized it.”

“Of course,” she said. “I was next to mess up her tidy little life, but at least she was already a lawyer in a nice practice when I hit her with getting married. She tried to talk sense to me, but I had only one thing on my mind. There were fights and tears between us, but in the end Erin did what Dad would have done—she gave me a wedding…”

“She did?” he asked.

“Or Dad did, depends on how you look at it. When Dad died, there was a house, insurance, stuff like that. Erin guarded it for things like educations. I wasn’t interested in all that—I wanted to marry Bobby. Since there was no stopping me, she did the only thing that would make me happy. And although I knew she was miserable about it, she beamed the whole time. She wasn’t upset about it being Bobby—she loved him and his whole family—it was just our youth.

“Then Bobby came home to us as an invalid. My big sister, who I’d spent so many years resenting and resisting, was the best advocate I had. She worked her legal brain for months to get us the best benefits available from the military. You know how it is getting stuff out of the military—you have to be a bulldog—relentless. Some people just luck into things like larger base housing or CHAMPUS for off-base medical care—but most people have to wait till stuff is available and then better be first in line when it is. That takes constant energy. She made phone calls, wrote letters, and I think she even got our congressman involved. And she was the one who found the perfect care center. And my glamorous sister? She got right in there, got her hands dirty, helped to wash him, change linens, brush his teeth, put salve on his eyes…She held him and whispered to him like the rest of us. She came through in every way.”

Ian felt his throat tighten. He tried to imagine that uppity broad who came to take Marcie away getting down and dirty like that. He couldn’t even get a picture in his mind of her taking a hike out to the “loo,” as they were fond of calling it.

“That’s the three Erins?”

“No—that’s the first two. The bitchy big sister, the dominant mother figure. Then there’s the one you met—she’s a very successful attorney. Very well-put-together, makes a good living, makes her clients happy and the senior partners proud. Her main concern is still me and Drew, making sure we have whatever support we need. But she’s thirty-four and alone. There have been a few very short-term boyfriends, but we’ve all lived in the same house together since Dad died, except that little while I lived with just Bobby. Erin has no life but us. She’s given us everything. She comes off looking domineering and maybe cold and calculating, but really she’s sacrificed everything, even her personal life. She should be married or at least in love, but she spent every free second making sure we were taken care of—me with Bobby, Drew with college and then medical school—you have no idea how much energy and expense is involved in just getting into medical school. Drew couldn’t have done it without Erin, just as I wouldn’t have known what to do about Bobby without her. Really, I owe her so much. I fight her when she bosses me, but I owe her big-time.”

He lowered his lips and kissed her head. “It sounds like you do.”

“That’s why I promised to be home by Christmas,” she said. She turned her head and looked up at him. “I could stay here forever, but I promised. And it’s not just for Erin—Bobby’s family thinks of me as a daughter, a sister, after all we did together…”

“I know. You held up pretty good in this place—it’s hard living here.”

“It’s not too hard for me. It’s cold on the butt when nature calls. And now I carry that skillet with me everywhere I go. But I’d take my frostbitten butt to see you feed that deer out of your hand any day.”

“That deer-feeding trick would get old after a while.” He twirled a red curl around his finger. “When you decided to come up here, what did you think was going to happen?”

“Not this.” She laughed. “In fact, I’d have bet against it.”