rejoice in his going and he would know she didn’t love him—not really.
Afraid she wouldn’t want him to come back.
“Well,” Gaby said impatiently when he didn’t answer.
“I’ll think about it.”
He thought about nothing else. He rehearsed a hundred ways to ask Carin—and Lacey—to come with him.
You could paint the north woods. You could paint wolves. Lacey would learn so much. Think of the educational opportunities. Not many kids ever get a chance to do something like that. I could show you my world. We could share it.
But that was getting dangerously close to personal. It was almost like saying I love you, and Nathan couldn’t do that because he was afraid she didn’t love him.
If he knew she did, it would be easy. If only he could figure that out without having to ask. He needed a sign, he thought, as he walked up to the house with Lacey three nights later, Zeno bouncing along ahead, darting after a lizard here and a frog there.
They had been out shooting in the twilight, and Nathan had talked a little about the light in the north woods. If Lacey said, “When are you going again?” he thought he would mention Gaby’s offer.
But Lacey didn’t ask. It didn’t seem to occur to her that he would have to go again. Because he’d said he would stay forever, he reminded himself. Or take them with him.
Carin was in the kitchen when they came onto the deck. “Wash your hands. Supper’s ready,” she said. She didn’t smile the way she usually did when they got home. She wasn’t frowning exactly. She just seemed…remote.
“Something wrong?” Nathan asked.
“Wrong?” Blonde brows lifted. “What could be wrong?”
He didn’t know. Still he felt an odd clutching in his gut at her words. A premonition?
He found out that night when they were going to bed.
“Gaby called,” Carin said. She was brushing out her hair and she didn’t turn around. But he could see her face in the mirror.
Nathan went very still. “Did she? What did she say?”
“She wanted to know what you’d decided about going up north.” Carin’s words were flat.
Nathan scrubbed a hand over his hair. The moment of truth. Smile at me, damn it. Give me some encouragement, he begged her.
But Carin just kept on brushing her hair. She didn’t even look at him.
He paced around their bedroom. “I know I said I’d stay forever,” he began.
“And we both know that’s impossible,” Carin said sharply.
“Well, I—”
“Gaby told me you need to go.” Carin’s tone was firm.
“I—” Hell. How could he just blurt out an invitation now? Damn Gaby, anyway! “I’ll be back.”
Carin’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Her expression grew shuttered. “Lacey will be glad to know that,” she said dully. Their eyes met in the mirror. And then her gaze dropped.
Nathan sighed. “I’ll call Gaby in the morning.”
“Good idea.” Carin set the brush down, then got up and crossed the room. She slipped into bed and pulled the covers up.
Nathan shut off the light and came to slide in beside her. Every night since their marriage they’d touched, they’d made love or they just wrapped their arms around each other and slept.
Tonight they lay inches apart. But neither reached across those few inches.
“Good night, Nathan,” Carin said tonelessly. Then she rolled onto her side, turning away.
They went through the next three days like zombies. Polite, civil zombies who shared a bed and a daughter—and nothing else.
The rapport they’d built over the past weeks had vanished just as Nathan had feared it would. Carin shut him out and retreated into a shell. So much for wanting to take her with him.
Her indifference now was killing him. If he was going, he had to go now!
He called Gaby and told her, “Get me on the first flight you can.”
She’d called last night. “Get to Miami in the morning. Your flight leaves at one.”
Hugh agreed to take him. He had a cargo that needed to be delivered. “If you don’t mind the seaplane,” he said.
“Anything.”
Even so, saying goodbye to his daughter nearly did him in. Lacey was distraught to learn that he was going away. She’d been sulking since he’d told her. “You could take us,” she’d said.
But Nathan, seeing Carin’s back stiffen at her words, had said, “No, I can’t.” He didn’t say he wished he could.
Now Lacey wrapped her arms around him and gave him a fierce hug. “You’d better come back.”
“Of course I will. Soon.” It was the best he could do.
“You’ll e-mail? You’ll call?”
“Yes. And you