"Hell, lady," Rourke said, downing his coffee. "If I really thought you believed that, I'd give up on this whole damned thing between us."
"What? Divorce instead of the separation we have now?"
Rourke stood, walked around the table and put his hand on her shoulder, felt her touch her face against his hand, then felt her lips touch his fingers.
"Why do we fight?" she whispered.
"Because we love each other. Otherwise, we'd have given up a long time ago."
"On that," she said, "I'll admit you're right."
Rourke dropped to his knees beside her chair and wrapped his arms around her, feeling her body pressing against him. They stayed that way for a long time.
When he sat down again his coffee was cold and so was the food.
"I'll make some more coffee-would you like some more coffee?" she said, standing across the room by the stove.
"Yes, I'd like some more coffee." He smiled, and she laughed. While the fresh pot brewed, he followed her into her studio across the hall. "What's the latest book?" he asked, leaning over the slanted drawing table by the window.
"I don't have a title for it yet," she said, leaning over with him to look at the drawings. "Do you like them?"
"A snow leopard?" he said, pointing to one of the loose drawings at the top of the table. It was part of a composite. She had always made drawings and backgrounds separately, then combined them. It was a slow process, but her illustrations for the children's books which she also wrote had received considerable critical acclaim over the years.
"Yes," she said, her voice soft and girlish as she looked at the picture he held. "It's about a snow leopard. They're arboreal-hardly ever come down from the trees. This one has to. He's exploring a new world that's been right under his own world all his life."
Rourke put his arms around her. "What about the coffee?" she asked, pushing her hands against his chest.
"Pull the plug."
"Okay."
Hand-in-hand, they went back to the kitchen for a moment while she unplugged the electric coffee pot. Then the two of them went back down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor, into the bedroom.
Sun was streaming through the sheer curtains on the broad-paned windows. Rourke folded Sarah into his arms. His hands pressed tight against her back and her rear end. Her arms twined around his neck. She leaned up toward him and he kissed her lips, gently, then with greater force as her hands caressed his face. His hands slowly explored the familiar curves of her body.
They undressed each other by the windows. She smiled, almost blushing, as he stripped away her bra. They stood naked for a moment, arms about each other, watching the autumn-like landscape on the other side of the glass. Their land stretched for miles into the woods, whose deciduous and coniferous trees were untouched, save for the yearly Christmas tree they always cut and a few trees felled for wood to stoke the house's several fireplaces.
"In Pakistan, up in the mountains," Rourke whispered, "It's winter."
She touched her fingers to his lips and he pushed them away, kissing her again, then walking with her the few short steps to the unmade bed.
They sat on the edge of the bed while she told him what Michael and Ann had been doing since the last time he had come to see them all-just before he left for Pakistan. Then, naturally and easily, they fell back onto the bed, slipped under the sheet, warming each other for a while as their hands touched each other's bodies.
Rourke felt her hands slip between his thighs. His own hands touched her breasts, her thighs, then he moved over her, slipping between her thighs. Her back arched, her stomach pressing up against him. His lips touched her neck, her ear, her cheek, and as their mouths touched, their tongues touched also, the tip of hers at once exploring and inviting his. Her hands were guiding him and he moved against her, the moisture and heat of her, the twitching of her small muscles around him making him push all the more deeply into her.
Her breaths were short and erratic as she moved under him, her eyes closed, the lids fluttering as he watched them, sunlight through the curtains splashing across the face he knew so well...
They walked in the woods, both of them having showered together after they'd left the bed. Rourke wore jeans and boots and a pale blue shirt. His leather coat was open. Sarah's arm wrapped around his waist and under her coat. She shivered a little as they stepped into a small clearing a few hundred yards from the old house.
"Why did you come back, John?" she whispered, quietly.
"To see if we could patch things up. I don't care whether you think what I'm doing is right or wrong. But I want to be with you-you and the kids."
"But what about the children?" she said. "I don't want them growing up with the idea that death and violence are just normal-like you feel. Maybe you're right-I'll give you that. Maybe I'm so wrong that I'm a fool. But if everyone does nothing but prepare for the destruction of civilization, there won't be any civilization left to be destroyed. Do you know what I mean?"
"If the world is going to end, you'd rather not know about it?"
"Maybe. Maybe it's something like that. I don't want Michael and Ann growing up with guns and violence-there are other things. You, of all people, should know that. But you ignore it."
Rourke walked away from her and sat on a deadfall log in the middle of the clearing. In a moment she was standing beside him, her hands resting on his shoulders. "After all these years you still don't understand what I'm doing," he said. "You should come up to the retreat. Maybe you'd understand it better then."
"What do you mean?"
"All the money I've poured into the retreat over the last few years-you never once would go there. It's not an arsenal. It's a part of civilization, a protected piece. That's why I put it where I did-up in the mountains. That's why you can only get there by horse or motorbike-in good weather, with a four by four truck."
Sitting down beside him, she said, "All right. Tell me about the retreat."
Rourke looked at her, then said, "Okay. I'll tell you about it. You never wanted to know before." He sighed. "It was a cave to begin with. I bought the piece of the mountain first, then sealed off the cave completely-waterproofed it, everything. Using the natural configuration of the rocks, I built a second home there-for all of us. A place we could use when we wanted just to get away from things. And a place that, if everything fell apart, we could go to and still live like human beings. I turned the mouth of the cave into a long hallway. At the end of it is the great room-the ceiling must be thirty feet high and it's natural rock. It's huge. It's the library, living room, recreation room-it's just where you live. Opening off that are three smaller rooms that are bedrooms. Another room with a full kitchen. Baths, everything. The electrical power comes from an underground spring that runs the generators I installed. Heating is electric-with the rock and the high ceilings you never need cooling."
"It sounds like something from a science fiction movie."
"Maybe," Rourke said. "But it's nice-beautiful, comfortable, secure. The air that comes into the place is all filtered and scrubbed. Far in the back I built a humidified greenhouse that uses electric plant lights-those things last almost forever. It's self-contained, an environment within an environment. Books, music, videotape equipment, enough rations for the four of us for a couple of years. I even laid up a supply of booze. It's not an arsenal. Most of my guns I have with me all the time. I keep a few there. A lot of ammunition there. But that's just for security if necessary, and for hunting, not for a war."
"But if there were a collapse, John, wouldn't your retreat be discovered? I mean, how can you keep something like that hidden?"
"Our retreat, Sarah," Rourke said. "And it wouldn't be discovered. From the outside it looks like just a granite outcropping of the mountain. The entrance is completely concealed. Nobody'd find it unless they knew it was there and made an organized search of the whole area to find the entrance. It's even got an emergency escape exit along the stream that powers the place. And the water is fresh. I've got a filtering system to use if necessary, but the water apparently stays deep underground for a long time. It's clearer and sweeter than anything you've ever drunk. The temperature of the water is so cold, the spring might start off up by Canada. There's no way to tell."