off now, so the car’s heating wasn’t on anymore. She’d get cold, soon.
Opening the door of the minivan as soundlessly as she could, Allie reached in and unfolded the baby quilt that was sitting on top of the diaper bag. She tucked it in around Jane as well as she could with the restraining bar of the baby seat in the way, hardening herself against any ambush of tenderness. Had Karen’s news about her pregnancy changed anything? The possibility overwhelmed her.
Then she closed up the car again, leaving one window open just a crack to let in some air, and went over to her sister.
“Have you known him long?” It was almost an accusation.
Karen looked up from her viewfinder. “Nearly five months,” she said, betraying no surprise at the question. “Maybe you don’t remember. His place used to be rented out, then it came up for sale and was empty for about three months until he bought it. He moved in early September, and that was when we first met him.”
Allie nodded. The explanation told her everything she wanted to know. But Karen had more to say.
“He’s a great guy, Allie. The kind you could trust with your life. John and I have met his parents and two of his brothers, and they’re a close, wonderful family.”
“That’s good to know,” Allie answered. She trusted her sister’s judgment in a way that she trusted few other things in life these days. Then, changing the subject deliberately, she added, “Getting some good stuff?”
“Don’t know yet,” Karen answered. Her eye was already back peering through the viewfinder. “But I’m not taking any chances on this. I’m going to shoot as much film as I can so that there’s no way Nancy can come up with a suggestion for a scene that I can’t cover. I love those clouds just feathering above the mountains.” She waved a hand. “I want to take a whole lot of winter-landscape shots as well, for this photographic kids’ book I’m planning on the four seasons.”
Allie laughed. This was typical of Karen. She had energy to burn, and usually more irons in the fire, professionally and personally, than she could count. Allie repeated this gentle accusation out loud.
“Irons in the fire?” Karen looked up, with a self-conscious expression. “What do you mean?”
“Well, despite your being so nervous about the Nancy Sherlock cover, you still have time to think about a kids’ book.”
Karen’s expression cleared. “Oh. Right. That.”
“Why, what did you think I meant?”
“Nothing.” Very offhand. Not looking at Allie. Very seriously taking pictures and talking about the book cover again.
Allie felt a tiny tickle of suspicion and alarm, but she let it slide.
“I’m going to do night shots, interiors,” Karen was saying. “And I want to get out the clothing this afternoon, if we can, so I can get some shots of you wearing—”
She stopped abruptly and gave a hiss of dismay. She’d been taking pictures as she talked, changing lenses, moving the tripod, and the camera had just made a strangled, clicking sound that even Allie recognized wasn’t right.
“Hang on,” Karen said carefully, “Let’s try again.” She pressed the camera’s small silver button but nothing happened. “I’m not going to panic,” she informed Allie in a panicky voice.
“Okay, good,” Allie agreed.
“I’m just going to check out each possibility very carefully and slowly,” she continued, madly rattling, clicking, shaking and winding every bit of delicate camera apparatus that she could lay her hands on.
“Sounds sensible.”
“And if there is something wrong with it that I can’t fix,” she announced, ripping the entire roll of film out of the camera in several torn sections and dropping them onto the ice-encrusted dock, “I’m not going to overreact.”
All of which didn’t fully explain why Connor was greeted, on his return with the snowmobile several minutes later, with the news that as soon as baby Jane and all the bags were unloaded, he had to drive the minivan up to the main road. Karen needed to make an emergency dash into Albany to get her very expensive, state-of-the-art, obscure brand of camera repaired immediately.
“I’ll be gone three hours max,” she finished.
“Karen, it’s over an hour’s drive each way,” Connor pointed out patiently. “And then you have to get the—”
“Okay, three and a half. But I’ll be back before dark.”
“It’s already nearly four o’clock.”
“Before dinner.” She paused at last, and listened. “That’s Jane waking up, Allie.”
“Yes, I can hear her.”
Jane was waking up happy. There were some singing and cooing and gurgling sounds coming from the backseat of the van.
“If you can get her and put on her snowsuit, Allie, then Connor can take you and her and the diaper bag over to the cabin now, while I unload the rest of our gear. Then he can come straight back and drive me up to the main road. I can be on my way in five minutes.”
This time, Connor didn’t even bother to offer a more realistic time-frame, and Allie was too busy thinking, Jane. I’m going to have to look after Jane. All by myself. No one else around at all. For at least half an hour while Connor drives up and walks back down and loads our gear onto the snowmobile. And then when he gets back, it’ll be just him and me and Jane. For hours. I don’t want to do it. I’m scared. I’m not ready. I don’t know yet if I’ll ever be ready. Why can’t Karen see that? Why isn’t she helping me with this?
Because Karen was scared, too.
Allie could see it and hear it in the panicky plans and the jittery movements. First and foremost, Karen was a mother and a wife. She wanted a big, loving, untidy family in her big Victorian house next to Connor’s. But she had a strong creative drive as well.
Her career as a commercial artist and photographer was important to her, this cover for a guaranteed bestseller was her biggest break so far. She needed to continue this success if she and John were to afford that parcel of kids they dreamed of. She didn’t want to blow it, and her camera had jammed, and of course she was scared.
“Sounds do-able,” Connor said. He gave an apparently casual glance at the horizon over the snow-covered mountains that ringed Diamond Lake and added, half under his breath, “More or less. If we’re lucky.” Then aloud he said, “Let’s go, Allie.”
“Don’t hold dinner for me,” Karen told Connor. “Although I’ll definitely be back.”
“Of course you will,” Connor soothed her, as if he hadn’t just spent five minutes trying to convince her she shouldn’t go in the first place. He hunched his shoulders against the growing chill. It was only just past four o’clock, but the day was darkening by the minute. There was bad weather in the forecast, although it hadn’t made its appearance yet.
“And for Jane you’ll need to—” She tucked a strand of light brown hair behind her
