"How long ago," he asked, his voice low.
"Six years. Early in spring. I was sixteen, too old to be a child and not old enough to be anything else," Eden said, looking past Nevada, remembering another time, another place. "My sister, Aurora, was almost one. She got sick the way babies do, sniffles and short temper and endless fussing. Then she got an ear infection, then another cold, another infection, a cough, and each time she fussed less."
Eden hesitated before continuing in a low voice. "A late storm came down out of the Arctic, the temperature dropped seventy degrees and Aurora's breathing changed. We managed to get out on the radio to ask for help, but nothing could fly in that storm. All we could do was keep Aurora warm and pray that the storm broke in time."
Nevada closed his eyes for a moment, understanding all too well the feelings of helplessness and pain that Eden's family had endured. He had seen too many shattered families, shattered villages, shattered lands.
"I was the only one who didn't have a cold," Eden continued in a low voice, "so Aurora was sleeping with me. I was holding her when she died. I held her… for a long time."
The only sound was that of Nevada's big hands smoothing the blankets around Eden's shoulders as he watched her with an intensity that was almost tangible. He had no doubt of the depth and power of her grief. He could feel it beating silently around him, black velvet wings of sorrow and loss.
But he also had seen Eden smile, heard her laugh – and that, too, was genuine. Her joy in life was vivid and complex, generous and oddly serene. That was what had drawn him instantly to her – his absolute certainty that life was a hot golden cataract flowing through Eden, a fire that would burn against any darkness, any ice, any night.
Eden still smiled, although she knew that life was cruel and unpredictable, knew that it had betrayed joy and trust, leaving her to hold a dying child in her arms. She was even able to laugh.
"The ring on your necklace. It belonged to Aurora."
There was no question in Nevada's deep voice, but Eden answered anyway.
"Yes."
"Why."
Again it was not a question, not quite a plea, not fully a demand. Again Eden softly answered.
"I wear Aurora's ring to remind myself that love is never wasted, never futile."
Something stirred deep within Nevada, a part of him so long hidden that he believed it had died. The pain that came was shocking, making it impossible to breathe, much less to speak.
And he wanted to speak. He wanted to argue with Eden. He wanted it so fiercely that his hands clenched on the blankets. Yet he could find no words to counter Eden's certainty, no words to shake her serenity, nothing to equal her laughter; only a bleak, incoherent cry clawing at his soul, a cry of rage or fear or hope… or a wrenching blend of all three.
In a rush of barely controlled power, Nevada stood up and turned away from Eden. Silently she watched while he stirred the banked fire into life with a few harsh strokes, added wood, and walked to the sink. He dipped water from the bucket, primed the pump, and worked the long iron handle as savagely as though he were killing snakes. Water sped up from the hidden well and leaped out of the pump in a rushing crystal stream.
He filled three buckets, a kettle and the coffeepot before he released the pump handle. Buckets and kettle went to the hearth. The coffeepot went on the single-burner backpacking stove Eden had brought. Each move Nevada made was controlled, graceful despite the anger radiating from him like beat from the hearth.
Eden watched Nevada, reminded of the first cougar she had ever seen. It had been caged, and wild within that cage, raking with unsheathed claws at everything that came near.
What is it, Nevada? What did I say to make you so angry?
The question was asked only in the silence of Eden's mind, for she knew Nevada wouldn't answer if she spoke aloud.
After a few minutes Eden groped around in her sleeping bag, found her clothes, and dressed within the cocoon of blankets and bag. Even with pre-warmed jeans and a turtleneck sweater, she shivered when she crawled out into the cold air of the cabin. She pushed her stockinged feet into her fleece-lined moccasins, pulled on her jacket and went outside.
The soft closing of the door was like a gunshot in the taut silence of the cabin. Nevada put one more piece of firewood on the flames and sat on his heels in front of the hearth, watching the renewed leap of fire with bleak green eyes. But it wasn't the flames he was seeing. It was Eden's tears, Eden's smile, Eden's lips, Eden's eyes admiring him, wanting him.
Nevada spread his hands before the fire, saw their fine trembling, and balled his fingers into fists. He wanted Eden. He wanted her until he shook with it.
A raw word tore through the silence.
"Other than that, how do you feel?" Eden asked dryly, closing the door behind her.
Nevada spun around and came to his feet with shocking speed, his body poised for defense or attack. He hadn't heard Eden open the door.
He hadn't heard her.
"I must be losing my edge," Nevada said, lowering his hands.
She shrugged and hung her jacket on a nearby nail. "More likely your subconscious figured out I'm no threat to you, so why spend energy staying on guard?"
"No threat," Nevada repeated. Abruptly he had an impulse to laugh that was more shocking to him than the fact that he had been too caught up in his own thoughts to hear the cabin door opening behind him. "Lady, the only threat that matters is the one you don't see coming. That's the one that gets you."
"I'm not big enough to 'get' you." Eden looked past Nevada. "Besides, you can read my mind."
"I can?"
"The buckets."
"What?" he asked, taken off guard once more. Nevada turned and looked at the buckets warming next to the fire as though he had never seen them. In some ways it was true. He had pumped water as a physical outlet, not because they needed three buckets plus a kettle of water warming by the fire. "The buckets make me a mind reader?"
"Sure. You knew I wanted to take a bath. Presto. Bathwater appears."
"Wrong. You're not well enough yet."
"Pucky."
Nevada blinked. "What?"
"Don't try to change the subject. I need a bath. This time you're not going to talk me out of it."
"I didn't talk you out of it last time," Nevada pointed out coolly. "I just said I wasn't going anywhere and you decided not to have a bath after all."
"Um. Well, this time you won't get away with it. If I don't wash my hair it's going to get up and walk off my head."
"Eden-" Nevada began.
"Nope," she interrupted. "No deal. I haven't run a fever for almost two days. I'm having a bath and that's all there is to it."
"What if I stay and watch?"
"I'll blush a lot, but I'll survive."
"You're playing with fire," he said flatly.
"People who are cold tend to do that."
Nevada shook his head in disbelief, hardly able to comprehend that someone as soft and vulnerable as Eden was ignoring the kind of warnings that had made grown men back off. "Has anyone ever mentioned that you're too stubborn for your own good?"
"Frequently. Gives me great faith in the powers of human observation."
Narrowed green eyes swept over Eden's slender body. "Oh, I'm an observant, noticing kind of man, as you pointed out. Right now I'm noticing how hard and tight your nipples get when they're cold. Do they get like that for a man's mouth, too?"
Eden's lips opened but no sound came out. She was too surprised to think coherently, much less speak.
"I've noticed your tongue, too," Nevada continued. "Quick and pink and clever. I'd like to feel it all over, everywhere, every last damned aching inch of me. But most of all I've noticed those long, long legs of yours. I want to be where they meet. I want to sink into you, all the way in, and I want to watch you while I do it. I want it so much I wake up sweating." His pale, crystalline eyes pinned Eden. "Still planning on taking a bath in front of me?"