Sunset Island - Sunset Secrets Part 11

"Who else?" asked Mona. "Or has Madonna been going around using your name again?"

Carrie took the vase and turned it from side to side, looking for the card.

"If you're looking for a card, don't bother,"

Mona continued. "And don't think I've taken on a new job delivering flowers, either. There's a gentleman waiting downstairs in the foyer. He looked so downhearted, I offered to run interfer- ence for him and bring them up myself."

Josh, "Thanks, Mona," said Carrie, setting the flowers carefully in front of the mirror on her dresser.

"Guess I'd better go down and talk to him."

"Whoa now-don't bowl anyone over with excitement or grat.i.tude on your way down, okay?"

"Sorry, Mona. They're beautiful and every- thing, and you were sweet to bring them up. It's just that I'm not sure I'm looking forward to this conversation."

"I can dig that, girlfriend, but you could at least muster a smile. Those things aren't cheap, you know, and I think his heart's in the right place."

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Carrie, taking time for a heavy sigh before heading downstairs.

Josh was watching for her, and they saw each other the moment Carrie reached the foot of the stairs. Carrie was surprised at how the sight of him warmed her. It had been strange to feel so out of touch with him for the past couple of days, though she hadn't really acknowledged that until just this minute.

"Tell me I'm a jerk," Josh told Carrie sheep- ishly, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"You're not!" she protested.

"Yeah? I got so mad at you the other day, I stormed out of my own room," Josh retorted.

"That was kind of funny," Carrie said wryly.

"If you say you'll forgive me, I'll regain my sense of humor."

"Of course I do," Carrie insisted. "If you for- give me."

Josh's grin told her all she needed to know.

"The roses are so beautiful, Bil-" She had started to call him Billy! She couldn't believe it!

For a split second she thought maybe he hadn't noticed, but one look at his face showed her that he had.

"Even I don't deserve that," he said with a rueful attempt at a laugh.

Carrie felt tears welling up. "No, you don't,"

she said softly. // only the earth would open up and swallow me right here and now!

"Maybe I was hoping you'd had time to miss me and change your mind about this vacation." A moment ago, Josh's hands had been reaching out to hug her. Now his fingers were clenched into tight fists.

"No, Josh, really, I ..." Carrie fumbled for the words that would make everything all right again, but no words came to her, "Obviously, I'm just making an a.s.s out of myself here," Josh said, trying for a lighthearted tone and failing miserably.

"No, Josh, I-"

"Yes," he corrected her. "It's my own fault. It's like I'm wearing a sign that says 'kick me.'"

"I'm sorry, really," Carrie, pleaded. "I didn't-"

"Just save it, Carrie, okay?" Josh said tersely.

"Look, I'm willing to stand by what I told you. I'll give you till you get back from spring break but then you're going to have to choose."

"But I-"

"No more buts, Carrie," Josh interrupted. "It's him or me."

Tears were streaming down Carrie's face. She felt paralyzed.

"Good-bye, Carrie," Josh said, then turned and walked out the door.

By noon the next day, Emma and Sam were high in the Great Smoky Mountains. They had left the car in a lot at the foot of a hiking trail and carried a blanket and a picnic lunch up a winding mountain trail. Just as the park ranger had promised, the view from the ridge was spectac- ular. Sam inhaled deeply and flung her arms out wide as Emma took in the beauty of the mountain crests and valleys sprinkled with the delicate pink and white of dogwood blossoms. It occurred to Emma that she'd seen much more of the Swiss Alps than she ever had of her own country.

Sam and Emma spread their blanket near the edge of a rocky cliff and sat back to feast their eyes, figuring they could wait a few minutes before digging into the carton of seafood salad (Emma's) and tuna sandwich with chips (Sam's) they'd procured at an Asheville delicatessen. It was then they heard the waterfall.

"Listen, Emma," said Sam, sitting up straight and c.o.c.king her head to locate the exact source of the sound. "I hear water. The map said there was a waterfall up here!"

With that, Sam grabbed her camera and scam- pered off to the right, disappearing over the edge of an outcropping of rock. A moment later her head popped back into view.

"C'mere, you won't believe this!" she called.

Emma followed her to a rock ledge just on the other side of the ridge.

The falls were striking in their beauty, cascading down from the next ridge over, and creating a frothy, bubbling pool where they met the river below. A s.h.i.+mmering rainbow edged the mist surrounding them.

"Let's move our blanket down here!" exclaimed Sam. "There's room, and we'll have this view while we eat." Sam broke into one of her dance routine kicks and said, "If there were a couple of gorgeous mountain men around, I might even consider staying here forever!"

Emma started leading the way back up. When she saw their blanket, she stopped in her tracks.

Someone in a fur coat was bending over to inspect what they were having for lunch. How incredibly rude! she thought. That woman has the manners of a pig! Suddenly it dawned on Emma: not pig, bear. The fur coat belonged to a bear. A large bear. And the bear had just lifted its snout to sniff out Emma's presence.

Emma stood stock still, completely paralyzed with fear. Dimly she remembered the ranger's warning at the entrance to the park: there were bears in the area. Well, it was a little too late now. She had no idea what to do.

"What's taking you so long?" Sam asked, coming up next to Emma. "I'm really starv-"

Emma grabbed Sam's arm in a vise-like grip and pointed mutely toward their blanket.

Sam was just as petrified as Emma. "We don't have bears in Kansas," she whispered weakly.

"Well, we sure don't have them on Beacon Hill!" Emma hissed.

The bear regarded the girls almost casually.

"Maybe it's like with a bee-you're not sup- posed to annoy him." She gulped.

A low growl rumbled up from the animal's chest.

"I think we're way past that stage," Emma whispered.

"Please go away, please go away, please go away," Sam chanted under her breath.

The growl grew to Richter-scale force, finally erupting from the bear's snarling mouth as an ear-splitting roar.

Without thinking, both girls ran for a nearby tree, where they crouched and cowered.

"What's he doing?" Sam said with her eyes shut tight.

"Eating," Emma said.

They kept themselves plastered to the tree, not daring to move for fear of angering the bear. It seemed like forever that they hid behind the slender safety of that tree.

"What was that?" asked Emma, in response to a particularly unpleasant sound.

"Bear belch," Sam reported.

When they looked again, the bear seemed to have settled in for a nap on the blanket. Any time one of the girls tried to move from her crouching position behind the tree, the bear snarled and made as if to lumber in their direction.

"What are we going to do, Em?" Sam whis- pered. "Aren't bears supposed to hibernate or something?"

"It's springtime!" Emma answered.

They waited there for what must have been forty-five minutes. As Emma tried to rub a cramp out of her leg, suddenly there came a deep rumble. It seemed to come from the air surrounding them.

"Please tell me that's not an entire herd of bears," Sam wailed softly.

"Pack," Emma said automatically. "And I think that was thunder. If you'll look to the west, I think you'll see the cause of it."

Beyond a ridge across the main valley, a dark cloud was advancing, and even as they watched, a fork of lightning streaked across it.

Great, thought Emma. We're about to be caught in the rain for the second time in twenty-four hours.

She found herself wis.h.i.+ng with all her heart that the problem was as simple as being in her own little car with the top stuck down.

The next growl the girls heard was low, threat- ening, and constant. Too constant.

"It is a pack of bears!" Sam wailed, grabbing Emma. "This guy has brothers and sisters. We're dead meat!"

"No, it's a mechanical growl," Emma said, listening carefully. "You know, as in motor roar, not animal roar."

"As in maybe we're going to be saved?" Sam asked hopefully.

Together the girls crept to their lookout spot, slowly raising their heads so as not to attract the bear's attention. It didn't seem to matter, though.

The bear had its back to them and appeared to be listening, too. But not for long. A forest-green Jeep suddenly appeared, churning through the woods, then fairly leaping into the clearing where the picnic blanket was spread. The bear didn't hang around to greet the new visitor, but gal- loped off at surprising speed and vanished into the trees.

Emma and Sam scrambled up from where they'd been trapped, lunchless, for over an hour now. The Jeep met them at their blanket. Behind the wheel was a uniform, and wearing the uni- form was a rugged but gorgeous park ranger whose clothes did not disguise his perfect body.

This was definitely not the meek-looking, balding ranger they'd talked to at the park entrance!

"I see you've met Tiger," said the man ruefully.

"Tiger didn't wait for a formal introduction,"

Sam said, looking toward the path along which Tiger had beat his hasty retreat.

The ranger laughed a friendly, booming laugh.

"I'm Ted Ballinger, the guy who gets to go around apologizing for Tiger's rude manners."

Emma introduced the two of them. Sam was still busy watching to make sure Tiger wasn't on his way back for another visit.

"Don't worry," Ted told her. "He's scared to death of my Jeep. He won't come back."

"Thank G.o.d for small favors," Sam sighed with relief.

Finally she was able to turn her full attention to the magnificent specimen of guy-hood that stood before her. Be still, my heart! This guy is hot.

"The problem with Tiger is that he's been fed by so many tourists over the years, he's devel- oped lousy manners. He doesn't seem interested in hurting anyone, but he's staged hostile take- overs of many a picnic basket," Ted explained.

He offered them a ride down the mountain.

They accepted gratefully. Sam was practically swooning in the Jeep's jumpseat, and she kept her eyes fixed on Ted as if she didn't want to miss the view for even a second.

"You girls stick around for another day or so, you might even see some snow," said the hunky- looking ranger. "That little shower on the next ridge is only the beginning-there's a major spring storm system heading this way."

"We're leaving tomorrow," said Emma. "We have to be in New York by Friday."

"Well, get out your boots and parkas," laughed Ted. "You're headed right for the brunt of the storm."

Ted saw them safely to their car, and waited as they started up and drove away.

"Now that is what I call adventure," Sam sighed. "Don't you think a park ranger would make a nice pet?"

Emma laughed. "You're incorrigble!"

Sam fluttered her eyelashes at Emma. "It's just part of my charm, ma'am, just part of my charm."

"Those buns!" Sam moaned. Ranger Ted was now almost two days behind them on the high- way, and Sam had said the word buns in his memory at least fifteen times.

The previous day's drive to Was.h.i.+ngton on the Blue Ridge Parkway had been peaceful and sce- nic, with only a couple of patches of rain. But today, an icy wind had nipped at their cheeks as they packed the car. Now, as they headed toward New York City, the sky was low and blanketed by a thick gray mantle. Emma was concentrating seriously on her driving, but the heat inside the car was making Sam feel cozy enough to sleep.

"Mind if I have a little nap?"