A Morning Like This (2 page)

“Okay. You’re right. I left myself open for that one.”

“You did.” He grinned and lifted his water glass, holding it high so the ice glistened in the candlelight. “Happy Anniversary.
Just think what we were doing twelve years ago right now.”

“Twelve years,” Abigail said. “It doesn’t seem possible. We were probably walking down the aisle right about now.”

“Well, no.” He checked his watch. “It’s three hours past that. I was thinking what happens
after
the wedding.”

“David!”

He crossed his arms and laughed and leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes mischievous. “Well, you said you wanted tonight
to be romantic.”

“That isn’t
romance
. That’s… that’s…”

“I’m a man, Abby. That’s romance.”

“Don’t lean so far back in your chair. You’ll fall over and the waiter will have to pick you up.”

He raised his eyebrows and righted his chair.

“To twelve years as Mrs. David Treasure,” she said, lifting her glass. “Hear. Hear.”

David raised his goblet, too, clicked it against hers, and set it down. He squared his shoulders and eyed her for a long moment,
the sudden stretch of silence an uncommon thing between them. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me,” he said,
reaching across the table and, in a sure sign of possession, gripping both of her wrists. “I want you to know that.”

After all these years, the shape of his hands could still stir her. His broad fingers. His powerful, square knuckles. The
dusting of blond hair on his arm, showing between the cuff of his shirtsleeve and the band of his watch.

She raised her eyes to his, touched her stomach where the warmth began… and blushed.

He grinned and leaned back in his chair.

Anyone watching could see by the relaxed way they chatted, by the way their laughter came in short, sharp bursts, that this
wasn’t the celebration of new romance. They celebrated an old, strong love. Conviction and commitment had been tempered by
the test of time.

The waiter brought around a cake with “Happy Anniversary” scripted in pink-sugar icing. When Abigail cut David a piece and
licked the knife, he inclined across the table and kissed her.

“No fair. You always figure out ways to get more icing.”

Only a few people recognized them as they rose to leave the restaurant; it was summertime and they’d reserved a late table
at the Rendezvous Bistro to avoid the tourist crowd. But the friends who did see them here in the newest, classiest eatery
in the valley didn’t let them pass without hailing them from across the room.

“Heard about your anniversary on KSGT this morning. That radio morning calendar keeps me up to date on everybody in town.”

“Hey, Treasures. Congratulations, you two.”

“Heard Braden’s pitching’s getting better this summer. Great kid you’ve got there.”

“Thank you.” “Hello.” “Good to see you,” Abigail and David repeated half a dozen times on their way out the door. David hurried
down the front walk of the restaurant to bring around their Suburban while Abigail carried the white box with extra cake.

“Are you tired?” Abigail asked when he yawned on the drive.

“Yeah. Boring, huh? I’m an old married man these days, anxious to get home.”

“Just as long as you’re going to the same home I’m going to, we don’t have anything to worry about.”

When they parked in front of their own house twenty minutes later, lamps shone in every window except Braden’s. Abigail grabbed
her purse from where it lay beside her on the seat.

“I don’t know why she can’t turn some of the lights off after she gets him into bed.”

“She’s young. Probably still afraid of the dark herself.”

But everything seemed fine when the babysitter let them inside the front foyer. Brewster, their black Labrador, met them with
delirious happiness in the hall.

“Everything all right?” Abigail surveyed the living room, making sure all was right in the Treasure territory. “No problems
or anything?”

The teenaged sitter examined the scuffed toes of her clogs as if trying to decide whether or not to tell them the whole story.
“Not any problems, really. Except Braden wouldn’t go to sleep when I told him to and he kept jumping on the bed. He said he
was practicing pitching wind-ups.”

“I’ll have a talk with that young man tomorrow.”

“He threw the ball sideways and it hit the shelf and made his lamp fall off. It crunched a big hole in the lampshade. I’m
really sorry.”

David draped his arm around Abigail’s shoulders. “To think that only an hour ago his mother was saying she wanted him to get
more practice.”

The babysitter picked up her backpack before she turned back to tell them something else. “Oh, and some lady called and left
a message on the machine. I didn’t answer it. I just listened to make sure it wasn’t you needing anything.”

David handed her a twenty and a five—hefty pay for four hours of babysitting these days, but Abigail had encouraged it coming
home in the car. Crystal was good and they both wanted to keep her. “You ready to? I’ll take you home.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Abigail waved them off and smiled to herself as she locked the door behind them.

Well.

Well
.

David had certainly been in a hurry to get rid of the babysitter.

She padded into their bedroom, eased her sandal straps off of her ankles with her opposite feet, kicked her shoes halfway
across the room, and wiggled her toes in the carpet. She assessed herself in the mirror for a moment before she peeled the
spaghetti straps from her shoulders and laid the new dress over a chair. Once she’d slipped into her fancy nightgown and robe,
she prowled, telling herself she ought to wander through the kitchen to turn lights off. Which of course was only an excuse
to snitch another bite of cake.

In the kitchen, she licked icing off her fingers and stared at the blinking light on the phone machine.

Hm-mmm. She should listen. She ought to check and see who’d called.

But just then she heard the door, the click of her husband’s key in the lock. He’d scarcely made it inside before he drew
Abigail against him and kissed her.

“Let’s check on Braden,” she whispered against his chin. Before she gave herself to her husband, she wanted to make certain
all was right within the circle of her heart and her home. She took his hand, leading him up the hallway to their son’s room
with its fancy lodge-pole pine bed, Ralph Lauren curtains, and Elks baseball cap dangling from the chair. David crossed his
arms over his chest and there they stood in the doorway, mother and father shoulder to shoulder, looking at the little blond
head on the pillow. Each of them was thinking how this time together had been good for them. Sometimes being busy with children
and jobs and everyday life could make a husband and wife forget how to complete a sentence when they were alone. Every time
they went out they had the chance to start over.

Braden had fallen asleep with his head cradled in his baseball glove. David released Abigail’s hand long enough to slip into
the semidarkness and wriggle the battered leather from beneath his son’s cheek. “Hey, sport.”

The movement roused Braden, who rolled over and squinted his eyes open.

“Dad.” Nothing more. Just the name. Just the word that meant everything.
Dad
. Two arms shot out of the blankets and tangled around David’s neck, pulling him low against the pillow as Abigail watched
with a weight of gratitude growing heavy in her chest. Her two boys, David and Braden. They meant the world to each other…
and to her.

Lord, when I trust You, I can trust everything around me. You’ve given me everything I ever wanted, right here
.

David readjusted the blankets beneath his son’s chin and kissed Braden on the forehead. “Love you, Brade.”

“Crystal wouldn’t let me practice my pitches,” Braden mumbled, still half asleep.

“She told us. We’re going to have to work out something about your lamp, you know. You’ll have to do a few chores and earn
money.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yes. It was very romantic. Your mother wore a new dress and made me feel special.”

“G’night, Dad.”

“Good night, son.”

Lord, thank You for keeping us secure
.

Braden burrowed his face deep into his pillow and his baseball mitt again, his eyelids closed. Abigail said in a hushed tone,
“Ah, he’s fine, isn’t he?” She leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder. “I just wanted to make sure. Do you have any
idea how much I love seeing you two together?”

“Well, Mrs. Treasure. You’ve seen everything you need to see, haven’t you?” He cupped his fingers around wisps of her hair.
“Maybe we ought to finish what we’ve started.”

“Maybe,” she echoed, and this time she couldn’t help smiling as David took her by the hand and led her where he wanted. As
they passed through the kitchen, though, the blinking light on their answering machine distracted him. He stopped for a moment
and stared at it.

“That can wait, can’t it? With all the things that go on around this place, can’t one of them wait until morning?”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“A girl after my own heart.”

“I
am
after your heart. And I think I know just how to get it.”

“Hm-m-mm.”

Abigail followed her husband into the bedroom that they’d shared since exchanging wedding vows a dozen years ago tonight.
Through the open window she could hear the coyotes yipping and the lilting music of Fish Creek and the hiss of night breeze
like rain, moving through pine boughs and cottonwood leaves.

“Love you.” Abigail nuzzled the words against his ear. “Nothing will ever change that, David. Ever.”

“You mean that?”

“Yeah.”

“You promise?”

“I
do
promise. That’s an easy promise to make.”

“You sure?”

“I
am
sure,” she answered without hesitating, her voice reflecting all the fervency of her faith in her God and in her husband.

But in the next room, the answering machine waited, the flashing light relentless as it flickered red against the microwave,
the dishwasher door, the chrome faucet, against every shiny surface in the kitchen.

Blink. Blink. Pause.

Blink. Blink. Pause.

All through the night.

B
rewster, the Labrador retriever, never let David Treasure sleep in past six-thirty. With dog breath pungent enough to awaken
dead things, he would sidle along David’s edge of the bed and flop sideways, eighty-five pounds of compact weight jostling
the mattress. When that didn’t work, the dog would shake his ears. He would pant. He would sink back to the floor with one
extended, wretched groan. He would rise on his haunches again. When David rolled over and squinted at the clock, trying to
protect his face beneath the covers, the licking would begin.

“Okay, boy. Okay,” David objected every morning, although never so loud as to awaken Abigail. “I’m getting up. You win again.”

This morning, as every morning, David yanked on a pair of baggy gray sweatpants that had seen better days, tugged on a faded
O
LD
B
ILL’S
F
UN
R
UN
T-shirt, turned on the coffee to brew, and, without being completely lucid, started out with the dog for a jog.

Even during the summer months in the mountains, at this altitude they could have a hard freeze during the night. The trail
David now followed was crisp with frost, already melting away where the sun hit it, the shape of shadows still encased in
ice. He left crushed prints behind him as he ran, a faultless marking of his footfalls where he followed the path along Fish
Creek. Above him, early sun from the east had begun to paint the pleats and folds of the mountains, the sheer, chaste light
of alpenglow spotlighting the hillsides in an ever-changing wash of gold and pink.

For a little while at least, the morning belonged only to David.

He could hear wind chimes singing from several patios as he passed. Farther along he saw his neighbor doing some early fly-fishing
in the stream. The man waved briefly before going back to his casting. The sun glanced off the line with each arc he made,
the tiny mayfly landing with precision upon quiet water. “Morning, David!”

“Morning, Joe! Having any luck?”

“I guess I should have stayed in bed. I think the fish are still asleep.”

David slowed his long strides and turned toward home; he’d do well to leave time for a shower and a shave. Back he headed
along the stream, past patios with cedar hot tubs and pretty wrought-iron gates. His feet pounded a hollow beat in syncopation
with the clacking of Brewster’s toenails as they crossed the rickety wooden footbridge together. As he trod quietly into his
house, reluctant to awaken Abigail or Braden, he spied the cake box waiting on the counter. It made sense, didn’t it? After
working off those calories, he would eat cake for breakfast.

He’d taken two huge bites when he noticed the flashing message light. Without thinking much of it, he pushed the play button.