Then Scott asked Tom to do his rope trick.
'It ain't a trick,' Joe said.
'Is too.'
'It ain't, is it Tom?'
Tom smiled. 'Well, it kind of depends what you mean by trick.' He pulled something from the pocket of his jeans. It was a simple piece of gray cord about two feet long. He tied the ends together to make a loop. 'Okay,' he said. 'This one's for Annie.' He got up and came toward her.
'Not if it involves pain or death,' Annie said.
'Ma'am, you won't feel a thing.'
He knelt down beside her and asked her to hold up the first finger of her right hand. She did and he put the loop over it then told her to watch carefully. Holding the other end of the loop taut with his left hand, he drew one side of the cord over the other with the middle finger of his right hand. Then he rolled the hand over so it was under the loop, then back over it again and put the same finger tip to tip with Annie's.
It seemed now that the loop circled their touching fingertips and that it could only be removed if the touch were broken. Tom paused and she looked up at him. He smiled and the nearness of his clear blue eyes almost overwhelmed her. 'Look,' he said softly. And she looked down again at their touching fingers and gently he pulled the cord and it slipped away and was free, still knotted and without ever breaking their touch.
He showed her a few more times and then Annie tried and Grace tried and the twins tried and none of them could do it. Joe was the only one who could, though Annie could see from his grin that Frank also knew how. Whether Diane knew too it was hard to tell, for all she did was sip her coffee and watch with a sort of half-amused detachment.
When everyone was through trying, Tom stood up and wound the loop round his fingers to make a neat coil of it. He handed it to Annie.
'Is this a gift?' she said as she took it.
'Nope,' he said. 'Just till you get the hang of it.'
She woke and for a moment had no idea what she was looking at. Then she remembered where she was and realized she was staring at the moon. It seemed close enough for her to reach out and place her fingers in its craters. She turned her head and saw Grace's sleeping face beside her. Frank had offered them the cabin, which normally they only used if it was raining. Annie was tempted but Grace had insisted they sleep outside with the others. Annie could see them lying in their sleeping bags beside the dimming glow of the fire.
She felt thirsty and so alert it was hopeless to try again for sleep. She sat up and looked around. She couldn't see the water can and would be sure to wake the others in the search. Across the meadow the black shapes of the cattle cast shadows yet blacker on the pale moonlit grass. She slipped her legs quietly from the sleeping bag and felt again the havoc done to her muscles by the riding. They'd slept in their clothes, only taking off their boots and socks. Annie was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She stood up and set off barefoot toward the stream.
The dew-drenched grass felt cool and thrilling on her feet, though she took care where she placed them for fear of stepping in something less romantic. Somewhere high among the trees an owl was calling and she wondered if it was this or the moon or plain habit that had woken her. The cattle lifted their heads to look as she passed among them and she whispered a greeting then felt foolish for doing so.
The grass on the near bank of the stream was churned by the cattle's hooves. The water moved slow and silent, its glass surface reflecting only the black of the forest beyond. Annie walked upstream and found a place where the flow divided smoothly around an island tree. With two long steps she reached the far side and walked downstream again to a tapered overhang of bank where she could kneel to drink.
Viewed from here, the water now reflected only sky. And so perfect was the moon that Annie hesitated to disturb it. The shock of the water, when at last she did, made her gasp. It was colder than ice, as if it flowed from the ancient glacial heart of the mountain. Annie cupped it in ghost-pale hands and bathed her face. Then she cupped some more and drank.
She saw him first in the water when he loomed across the reflected moon that had so transfixed her gaze she'd lost all sense of time. It didn't startle her. Even before she looked up she knew it was him.
'Are you okay?' he said.
The other bank where he stood was higher and she had to squint up at him against the moon. She could read the concern on his face. She smiled.
'I'm fine.'
'I woke up and saw you weren't there.'
'I was just thirsty.'
'The bacon.'
'I suppose.'
'Does the water taste as good as that glass of rain the other night?'
'Almost. Try it.'
He looked down at the water and saw it would be easier to reach from where she was.
'Mind if I come over? I'm disturbing you.'
Annie almost laughed. 'Oh no you're not. Be my guest.'
He walked to the island tree and crossed and Annie watched and knew that more was being crossed than water. He smiled as he came close and when he reached her he knelt beside her and without a word cupped his hand to the water and drank. Some slipped between his fingers, quickening the moonlight in silver trickles.
It seemed to Annie, and would always seem, that in what followed there was no element of choice. Some things simply were and could not be rendered otherwise. She trembled now at its doing and would tremble later at the thought of it, though never once with regret.
He finished drinking and turned to her and as he was about to brush the water from his face she reached out and did it for him. She felt the cold of the water on the back of her fingers and might have taken it as rejection and removed her hand had she not then felt through it the confirming warmth of his flesh. And with this touch, the world went still.
His eyes had only the unifying pale of the moon. Clarified of color, they seemed to have some limitless depth into which she now traveled with wonder but quite without misgiving. He gently raised his hand to the hand she yet held to his cheek. And he took it and turned it and pressed her palm to his lips, as if sealing some long-awaited welcome.
Annie watched him and took a long quiver of breath. Then she reached out with her other hand and ran it across the side of his face, from his harsh unshaven cheek to the softness of his hair. She felt his hand brush the underside of her arm and stroke her face as she had stroked his. At his touch she closed her eyes and blindly let his fingers trace a delicate path from her temples to the corners of her mouth. When his fingers reached her lips she parted them and let him tenderly explore their rim.
She dared not open her eyes for fear she might see in his some reticence or doubt or even pity. But when she looked, she found only calm and certainty and a need as legible as her own. He put his hands to her elbows and smoothed them up inside the sleeves of her T-shirt to hold her upper arms. Annie felt her skin contract. She had both her hands in his hair now and she gently drew his head toward her and felt an equal pressure on her arms.
In the instant before their mouths touched, Annie had a sudden urge to say she was sorry, that he should please forgive her, this wasn't what she'd meant to do. He must have seen the thought take shape in her eyes, for before she could utter it he shushed her softly with but the smallest moving of his lips.
When they kissed, it seemed to Annie she was coming home. That somehow she had always known the taste and the feel of him. And though she almost quaked at the touch of his body against her, she could not tell at what precise point her own skin ended and his began.
How long they kissed, Tom could only guess from his own changed shadow on her face when they stopped and moved apart a little to look at each other. She gave him a sad smile then looked up at the moon in its new place and trapped pieces of it in her eyes. He could still taste the sweet wetness of her glistening mouth and feel the warmth of her breath on his face.