That's Our Baby!. Pamela Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t expect conversation at all. Come to think of it, last time I sat down to dinner with you, you got up, flounced into the bedroom and slammed the door. It pretty much ended small talk.” He shot her a look out of the corners of his eyes.

      She didn’t like that look, but countering it was far from her first priority. She stood up, gingerly shifted from one foot to the other to see if her knees worked, and when they did, she wobbled over to sit at the table. In the process she tried to make up her mind if Sam’s last accusation merited a response. Finally she said as coolly as she could, “The incident you’re referring to happened four years ago, and you had come to visit Doug and me in Seattle. And you took the money I’d been saving for a bang-up anniversary celebration weekend and wouldn’t give it back.”

      Sam leaned over the table, his eyes dancing. “I won that money fair and square from you and Doug in a poker game after both of you insisted that you could beat me. A bet,” he said pointedly, “is a bet.” He went back to the stove and brought her a plate of goulash.

      “A bet may be a bet, but because of it Doug and I had to stay home for our wedding anniversary, when I’d been counting on a lovely weekend in the Napa Valley complete with a room at a picturesque inn overlooking the vineyards, complementary wine and a heart-shaped Jacuzzi. Some friend you were, Sam.”

      “You were the one who turned down the chance to play strip poker.” He yanked out his chair and sat, regarding her with uplifted brows.

      This made her indignant. “We were joking about it, sure, but neither Doug nor I would have—”

      “That’s why we played for money instead. I hate sore losers.” Sam shrugged and dug into the goulash. “Say, this is good.”

      If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was Sam’s cockiness. He thought he was God’s gift to women. No, to the whole world. She forgot to concentrate on eating, and noodles slipped from her fork. Then she lost her grip and the fork fell to the floor with a clatter. Sam raised his eyebrows and went on eating.

      She pushed away from the table and stood up. “I don’t think I’m hungry,” she said.

      He stared at her blankly. “What is this, some kind of grandstanding for attention? I’ll pick up the fork. Also the noodles. So sit back down.” He got up and cleaned up the mess.

      “Grandstanding? Is that what you think I’m like?”

      “You don’t need to get all upset,” Sam said in a reasoning tone. “Come on, sit down, you’re making me uncomfortable looking down my throat while I eat. There’s nowhere to go anyway.” He sat down again.

      In the past, Doug had acted as a buffer between Sam and Kerry. Suddenly Kerry missed Doug so much that tears welled in her eyes. She wanted nothing so much as to scramble up the ladder to the loft and curl up on the narrow cot there, preferably in the fetal position. But Sam would probably call such an exit grandstanding. She sat.

      “There’s nowhere to go, all right. That’s nothing I didn’t already know,” she said heavily. Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them away, but not before Sam skewered her with a keen but not unsympathetic look.

      “Why don’t you go stay with your parents in La Jolla?”

      “They offered to send me a ticket, but I had work to do here.”

      He started to scoff at that, but she interrupted. She’d already lowered her guard. She saw no point in lying and, moreover, she thought Sam might as well know how things stood. “My lease on the Seattle house expired, and coming to Silverthorne gave me a place to stay over the summer. I’d already had the idea of opening the lodge to the public. I’m counting on this place to provide me with an income next year and I’m going to need every penny of it.”

      After a long silence Sam cleared his throat and said slowly, “I advised Doug not to invest in that avocado farm near San Diego. He wouldn’t listen.”

      Kerry managed a shrug. “Both of us trusted friends who painted a too-bright picture of how well it would pay off. By the time we pulled out of the venture, our money was gone.”

      “I thought you’d managed to save some before he died.”

      “We had other expenses,” Kerry said, thinking of the pricey fertility workup that she and Doug had undergone when she didn’t get pregnant on schedule as they had hoped and planned. All their remaining funds after the avocado-farm disaster had gone to pay the clinic.

      She drew a deep breath. “Anyway, Doug and I thought we’d have time to rebuild a nest egg, but then he died. I paid off our debts with most of the insurance money, and there’s not much left over. Silverthorne Lodge is one of the few assets I have left. Either I make it pay or I sell it.”

      “Opening it to tourists is another gamble,” Sam pointed out.

      Kerry’s chin shot up. “I’ll make it work. I will!”

      Sam grinned. “I’m not saying you won’t. But you can’t stay here now. It’s too late in the year to be up here in the wilderness.”

      “I still have to strip the wax from the floors in the dining room, I wanted to put the finishing touches on the upstairs bedrooms so there won’t be anything to do but make the beds when I come back in June, and—”

      “You’re leaving when I do. I thought I made it clear that you can’t count on Bert. How much work can you get done with a broken finger anyway?”

      “A lot,” Kerry said hotly. As she spoke her finger began to throb again. “Anyway, I thought you said the Cessna’s not flyable.”

      “I can fix it.”

      “If you think I’m flying out of here in a plane that’s missing a strut and a float, you’ve got another think coming.”

      “Is that so?” Sam leveled his fork at her. “Well, let me tell you this. I don’t want to be responsible for what happens to you if Bert doesn’t show up.”

      “You could talk to him when you get to Anchorage, remind him to stop for me.”

      “And what if the weather is so bad he can’t make it for weeks? Don’t be ridiculous.”

      “I’m not any such thing!” Kerry shoved back from the table and winced when her finger hit the edge. She gripped her smarting finger and glared at him. “Why repair the plane at all? Someone’s got to come looking for you, don’t they? When you don’t show up back in Anchorage on time?”

      Sam stood abruptly and stalked to the window. He stared out at the blackness beyond the pane; it rattled with the force of heavy gusts. Windblown snowdrifts furled around the tree trunks outside, and the view of the river was obscured by eddying snow.

      “I didn’t file a flight plan, Kerry. Nobody knows that I left Vic’s camp and came here.”

      Kerry froze. “And you think I do dumb things? Listen, Sam, everyone knows you’re supposed to file flight plans. Including you.” She paused as their situation sank in. “You’re telling me that no one is going to be looking for you. They’ll think you’re still at the camp.”

      “For a while, at least. And the Cessna’s ELT isn’t working. Its battery СКАЧАТЬ