Luke shook his head “No—my land ends with this ridge. That”—he indicated the valley with a nod—”belongs to good friends of mine. And there”—his hand came up to indicate a series of low peaks at the other side where the land rose gradually from the valley floor—”that’s our goal.”
Joey stared at the place she had been struggling so long and hard to reach. It seemed very far yet, and there were still no guarantees that it would be the place she sought. But there was still a chance. She was almost there…
“Are you ready?” Luke was hitching his pack up over his broad shoulders. Joey nodded slowly, her eyes still locked on Miller’s Peak and the surrounding mountains, range upon range marching into the distance beyond them. She hardly noticed when Luke helped her into her own pack and started down the other side of the pass; she scrambled to catch up and concentrated on the uncertain footing of descent.
They soon found themselves once again among the trees, entering a land every bit as pristine—and primitive—as Luke’s had been. Joey was considering how she could possibly have done this on her own when something very fast and very determined burst out of the brush ahead of them and flung itself headlong at Luke. She very nearly lost her balance under the weight of the pack as she jumped aside, but Luke held his ground, and when the small form was about to collide with his legs, he caught it up and swung it into his arms. Stunned, Joey only then recognized the very dirty and very wild face of a laughing child.
A moment later Joey was laughing herself. It was hard to believe such a little girl could move so fast. Shrugging out of her pack, she watched in growing amazement as the child chattered a rapid-fire patter in a language most distinctly not English. Luke was smiling. It was just about as close to a broad grin as she’d ever seen on his face, and that alone was enough to capture Joey’s full attention.
She concentrated very hard on picking up individual words in the little girl’s babble. A fragment or two she managed to catch convinced her it was French she was hearing; a moment later Luke’s deep voice confirmed it, speaking in more measured tones. There was more genuine warmth in his voice and in his expression than she had ever seen. He shifted the girl in his arms as if she were as light as a feather, and she kept up her ceaseless chatter, tugging at his chin, giggling and squirming.
It didn’t bother Joey in the least that she could understand only a little of what the girl was saying, and no more than a portion of Luke’s brief replies. Watching them together was a revelation. Luke’s full attention was on the child, his head cocked and eyes bright with amusement. He was utterly relaxed, the hard planes of his face shifting again and again in response to the girl’s monologue. Joey thought he had entirely forgotten her existence, but even that did not annoy her. There was too much fascination in seeing a side of Luke she hadn’t realized even existed.
Luke laughed once, a deep chuckle as the child asked him a question; he shifted her again in his arms and answered. “Tu es devenue trop grande pour moi, Claire. Je vais devoir te remettre à terre.” A moment later he let the wriggling little girl slide out of his embrace to the ground, where she took firm possession of his hand and abruptly turned her full attention to Joey.
It certainly seemed odd that a child—no more than six or seven years old, with a dirt-streaked face, tangled black hair, and one finger planted firmly in her mouth—could focus that familiar, unnerving stare on Joey in much the same way Luke had. She felt as if she were being very carefully examined, judged, and sentenced by those wide green eyes. To counteract both the inspection and her uneasy reaction, Joey dropped into a crouch and smiled. “Hello, Claire. My name is Joey.”
The little girl removed her finger from her mouth, clutched Luke’s hand more tightly, and thrust out her lower lip with uncertain belligerence. After another long moment of concentration she turned to look up at Luke with a loud and demanding question.