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Lindsey struggled up to them, breathless. “You think we should turn around?”
Rob swore. “This close to the summit? Are you insane?”
Lindsey flushed. “It’s not insane to show caution, Rob.”
“If you want guarantees, stay at home and knit a sweater.”
It was Cheryl who put her hand on Rob’s arm and tried to calm him. “I suggest we climb as far as the ridge and then take another look at the weather. If it looks threatening, we can still turn around.”
Suzanne wondered if she should point out the obvious. That if Rob wouldn’t turn around here, he would be even less likely to turn around when the summit seemed to be within his grasp.
And they still had to traverse the glacier.
“Mind if I lead the next pitch?” Rob adjusted his gloves and settled his pack more comfortably on his back.
Suzanne nodded reluctantly, and they continued the climb.
She just wanted the whole damn day over. She wanted it done so that she could get home to Stewart. He would have made one of his warming soups, a Scottish recipe of his mother’s that was so hearty it was a meal in itself.
To take her mind off Rob and the climb, she thought about that.
She thought about the day when maybe she would have three kids, too. She was going to nurture their individuality and treat them equally.
High above them, the snowflakes that had fallen in the night, so soft and delicate, locked together, increasing the weight and pressure. Those small clusters of ice crystals bonded and hardened, bearing down on the snow layered beneath.
Deep in the snowpack, the bond between the layers of snow weakened until the firm tread of Rob’s boot was all it took to release three hundred thousand cubic meters of snow.
There was no time even to shout a warning.
15
Posy
Three days after Hannah’s arrival, Posy was ready to run away with Luke and not leave a forwarding address. It was turning into the sort of Christmas she’d dreaded, only this time it wasn’t Hannah who was driving her insane, it was Beth.
Her sister was obsessed with the job in Manhattan.
Corinna had called three times in the space of an hour the evening before, while they’d been eating dinner.
Each time Beth had said I have to take this and stood up to take the call until even Suzanne, with her usually limitless patience, became frustrated.
Hannah had said nothing, which also worried Posy.
It wasn’t that Hannah was quiet, because that was often the case. It was more that she seemed vulnerable, and Posy had never seen her sister vulnerable before. She couldn’t forget those red eyes and that pregnancy test, but Hannah hadn’t mentioned it since and Posy didn’t feel comfortable raising the subject.
Was she pregnant or not? Pleased or not?
She knew her parents were worried, too, because she’d seen the looks they’d exchanged. Neither of them knew why Hannah was home early, and when they’d asked Posy, she’d kept her answer suitably neutral. If Hannah was pregnant, then it was up to her to tell people.
She might have suggested she talk to Beth, but Beth didn’t seem able to think about anything other than lipstick.
Posy was relieved to be able to retreat to the peace of the hayloft at the end of the day. This morning she’d returned to the lodge first thing hoping to snatch a quiet breakfast with her mother before they drove to the café.
Luke was planning an expedition to climb Denali the following summer and had invited her to join the team. Posy was excited at the prospect of climbing the highest mountain in North America and seeing Alaska. She was determined to find a way to talk to her mother. How could she turn down an opportunity like this one?
She wasn’t sure if it was the lure of climbing Denali that excited her, or the prospect of spending more time with Luke. She didn’t care. All she knew was that she wanted to do it.
And if she hired someone for the summer to help at the café, maybe she could.
