Free Intimate Portraits by Cheryl B. Dale Page B

from
the past night, but she pulled one back from the tall windows to enjoy the
vista of trees, sunshine, and the lake sparkling in the distance.
    Branches of low-lying laurels quivered.
She stilled. Something or someone was out there, coming toward the cabin.
    A wild animal?
    Yes. In plain view on the lake
trail below the cottage, a deer with spotted chest and white ears and horns,
its coat burnished by a beam of gold early morning light, trotted confidently
through the underbrush.
    Oh, pretty! She barely breathed,
scared he’d look up and see her spying from the window and run, but the buck
came on without haste, oblivious or uncaring. Three more, a doe and two
half-grown fawns, followed in quick succession, strolling up the trail as
though it were their private domain.
    No time to get to her camera. If
she moved, they’d spook.
    Before the graceful creatures passed
out of sight around the cottage, they stopped. She shrank back out of view but
bumped into an unyielding bulk.
    Rennie. She smelled his woodsy
scent, recognized his presence before he spoke. “It’s all right, they haven’t
seen us.”
    His hands, below her shoulders,
held her against him and warmed her through her sweater.
    His whisper grazed her ear. “There’s
something on that little knoll, see? Maybe a salt lick. Or a plant they like.”
    She did see it. She concentrated
on seeing it, on forgetting his chest touching her back, his hands on her arms.
    The doe reached out a supple neck
to munch on some shrub or grass out of sight behind the rhododendrons.
    The deer. Don’t think about Rennie.
    Even if his chest did rub her
back with each breath. That and his heat and his Rennie odor made the desire
inside her rise to a physical ache nearly impossible to contain.
    Over the hammering of her heart,
she heard footsteps, and Laney’s hushed whisper: “What are you two up to?”
    “Watching the animals at
breakfast. Be quiet and scoot over here.” Rennie stealthily shifted so that
Laney could slip in. He left one arm around Autumn and draped the other around
his sister and the three of them stood in silence, watching as the marvelous wild
creatures ate their fill and sauntered out of sight.
    “Well.” Autumn was the first to
exhale and disengage herself from the marvelous civilized creature beside her. “What
a beautiful way to start the day.”
    Laney was more prosaic. “We are in the mountains, remember. This stuff happens. How about a cup of coffee for
us insiders?”
    “Another of the benefits of being
an early riser.” Rennie squeezed his sister. “Fresh coffee and picturesque
visitors, girls. Who could ask for more? Does it get any better than this?”
    “It gets lots better,” Laney said
smugly. “It takes more than deer and coffee to make my day perfect.”
    Rennie winked at Autumn. “What a
shrew you’ve become. And today your anniversary, too. For two years you’ve been
saying marriage is bliss and now you say you’re unhappy.”
    “I didn’t say that. I merely said
deer and coffee aren’t everything.”
    “Two years.” At the table, he sat
down gingerly on a wooden chair as if making sure it would support his weight. “You’re
an old married woman, Laney. And you and Norma both said you weren’t going to
get married until you were at least forty.”
    “That was before I met John,
smartass. I saw at once that I’d better grab him before somebody else did.”
Laney, who despite her tartness exuded a lazy well-being markedly unlike her
usual frenetic energy, got two cups, filled them full of hot coffee, and put cream
and sugar into one. “I made a wise decision.”
    “No cream or sugar for me,” Rennie
said.
    “Fix your own. This is for John.”
    Rennie’s jaw dropped. “Dios mio. Waiting
on him hand and foot. And this is the same girl who thought feminists needed to
be more aggressive?”
    His sister stuck out her tongue. “We
all grow up. Besides, John deserves a cup of coffee in bed. He’s had a hard
week.”