She smiled at his back, remembering how he had been at eighteen. Even thinner, she recalled, even more idealistic, and just as wonderful. They had always loved this place, being children there, having children there. Even when things had changed, they had never lost that cocksure certainty of who and what they were. She understood him, heard his thoughts as if they were in her own head.
“A cargo pilot,” Will muttered. “And what the hell kind of name is Hornblower? There’s something about him, Caro, I don’t know what, but something I’m not sure rings true.”
“Don’t you trust Liberty?”
“Of course I do.” He looked back, insulted. “It’s him I don’t trust.”
“Ah, the echo of time.” She cupped a hand to her ear. “The exact words my father once spoke when referring to you.”
“He was a poor judge of character,” Will muttered, and turned back to the window.
“Most men are when it comes to the choices their daughters make. I remember you telling my father that I knew my own mind. Let’s see, was that the first or second time he threw you out of the house?”
“Both.” He had to grin. “He said you’d be back in six months and that I’d end up selling daisies on a street corner. Fooled him, didn’t we?”
“That was nearly twenty-five years ago.”
“Don’t rub it in.” He fingered his beard. “Doesn’t it bother you that they’re here—together?”
“You mean that they’re lovers?”
“Yes.” He dug his hands in his pockets again. “She’s our baby.”
“I remember you telling me once that making love was the most natural expression of trust and affection between two people. That hang-ups about sex needed to be eradicated if the world was ever to experience true peace and goodwill.”
“I did not.”
“You certainly did. We were crammed into the back seat of your VW, steaming up the windows, at the time.”
He had to grin. “It must have worked.”
“It did, mostly because I’d already decided you were the one I wanted. You were the first man I’d ever loved, Will, so I knew it was right.” She held out a hand and waited until he’d clasped it. “That man downstairs is the first Libby’s ever loved. She knows what’s right.” He started to object, but she tightened her grip. “We raised them to follow their hearts. Did we make a mistake?”
“No.” He laid a palm on the gentle slope of her belly. “We’ll do the same for this one.”
“He has kind eyes,” she said softly. “When he looks at her, his heart’s in them.”
“You always were overly romantic. That’s how I caught you.”
“And kept me,” she murmured against his lips.
“Right.” He toyed with the hem of her sweater, knowing how easy it would be to slip it over her head, and exactly what he would find beneath. “You don’t really want to sleep, do you?”
With a laugh, she overbalanced so that they both tumbled onto the bed.
***
“It’s so strange.” Libby dropped down on the grass beside the stream. “Thinking that my parents are going to have another child. They looked happy, didn’t they?”
“Very.” Cal settled beside her. “Except when your father was scowling at me.”
She laughed a little as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Sorry. He’s really a very friendly man, most of the time.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He plucked at a blade of grass. It hardly mattered if he had her father’s approval or not. Soon Cal would be out of his life, and out of Libby’s.
She loved it here beside the water, which ran fresh and cold over the rocks. The grass was long and soft, dotted along the bank with small blue flowers. There would be foxglove in the summer, growing as tall as a man and bending over the stream with its purple or white bells. There would be lilies and columbine. At dusk deer would come to drink, and sometimes a lumbering bear would come fishing.
She didn’t want to think of summer, but of now, when the air was as fresh as the water, with a clear, clean taste to it. Chipmunks raced in the forest beyond. She and Sunny had hand-fed the friendlier ones.