Bill:  You still bent on takin' the baby off by yourselves.

Ryan:  I am.

Billy:  I know a place, if ya want it.

Ryan turned from his tea.

Ryan:  Tell me.

Bill leaned against the edge of the counter, arms folded, papers and
phone tucked under them.

Billy:  Friend has some land in New Mexico...same place the Punk and I 
went to get the tree, Christ knows how many acres right up against a
national forest.  Back when he bought the place he was the only one gonna
live there so he built himself a little three room cabin.  Got married
later on, wife wanted a little more than what there was, so he built her
another place down the opposite end of his land, closer to the road.  We
used the cabin when we were up there.

For a minutes Bill was silent, lost in thought, remembering that trip.
Hours in the loft bed, the fireplace, nothing but a gallon of milk and a
bottle of Hershey's syrup, the punk licking the sticky stuff off...

Ryan:  William!

Shut up, Gaerity...the creaking of the bedropes like music, fire 
glowing orange, feeling her sweat-slippery skin under his hands, under 
his body...

Ryan:  William!

Bill shook himself, came back a shade reluctantly.

Billy:  Yeah, dammit!

Ryan:  Ye left me, boyo.

Bill sighed, putting the picture of her pulling him down into her firmly
away, for later examination.

Billy:  Guess I did.  Sorry, boy.  More ya need to know before ya can go.

Jade:  Go where?

Neither man had seen Jade make her way to the kitchen.  Ryan felt rather
than saw her standing behind him, raised an arm for her to slip beneath.

Ryan:  Away, mo chroi...to a green place of our own.  Would you like that?

He tipped her face up and looked deep into her eyes, rubbing her chin
gently.

Jade:  Very much.

Ryan:  William...go on, please.

Billy:  Where the hell was I...oh...yeah...okay.  You can use it as long as
you need to.  Little solar power, 'bout enough to run a couple of lightbulbs 
and a fridge.  Fireplaces on both levels...

...damp skin glistening, flames reflected in dark eyes...

Ryan:  Christ...

Billy;  Shit!  Woman drives me...

Ryan spoke softly.

Ryan:  They have that talent.  About this place you have for us.

Billy:  Yeah, right.  Okay.  Be cookin' on a woodstove.  Too far up in the
mountains for any TV, but you two don't watch anyhow.  Probably be enough
juice for the baby's CD player, if ya didn't use the lights.  Twenty miles
or so from groceries, hour from any kinda hospital, so be careful.

Ryan fingered the letter in his pocket...the one that promised him his
Jade's eyes... in a bottle.  Yes, careful, more careful even than William 
could guess.

Ryan:  I'd have us leaving today.

Bill shrugged expansively, grinned.

Billy:  Not a problem, Ryan.  Got a map...stole it from a Dawg I know...
got directions.  And this phone.  Hotter than hell at the moment.  Also
this laptop - clean.  Email the punk, ya need anything, and we'll see ya
get it.  Don't use the phone till I get that straightened out.

Jade:  Do we have to leave today, Ryan?  I was hoping to...

She pressed close, looking at him with those eyes...green as the hills
of his motherland.  He heard the paper in his pocket, the letter, crackle
ominously.  He knew what she had been hoping for and it would serve as
well as anything to cover the reality.  Ryan was damned if she would know
the danger she was in.

Ryan:  I know, Aingeal.  Trust me when I tell you that we must.

Jade:  I've heard so much...

Billy:  Dawg's a dawg, baby.  Mind your man.  Get ready...I'll wake the
punk up, send her out for some groceries.

Ryan:  It must be cold in the hills, William...

Billy:  'Bout half a cord against the side of the house...the place is
a woodlot...always deadfall.  If ya have to, you can always go buy wood.
Just let the punk know.  Go on, now.

Jade was showering and Ryan was packing a few things when Deb stumbled
down the hall.

Deb:  I just went there!

Billy:  Not for us...I toldja, Ryan and Jade.  They're leavin' and they 
need supplies.

Deb:  Leaving?  They just got here!

Billy:  They hafta, now get goin'.  You gonna be good now, girl?

Deb:  Not used to getting up at this hour anymore...money?

Billy:  That be enough?

Deb:  I think so...tell 'em I'll be back as quick as I can.

Within an hour and half, Deb was back with seven bags of groceries.
Ryan and Bill loaded them in the back of the truck, along with their 
personal baggage.  Jade hugged Deb, Bill gave Jade a squeeze, Ryan
shook hands with Bill and swept Deb close for a brief moment...then
they were on their way.

Jade hadn't planned on spending New Year's Eve in the truck, nevertheless
Ryan tried his best to make the drive a pleasant one.  Despite Bill's
excellent directions, they got lost once and missed two turns, but Ryan
finally got them pointed in the right direction, and he found the cabin
early in the afternoon.  Ryan sent Jade to the loft to go to bed and stay
warm there while he hauled food and wood and got the fires going.  After
he had completed the initial chores and the lower level was warm, he 
allowed Jade to come down and prepare a meal for the two of them.  Once she
had fed them, they took a walk in the remaining light.  A nap followed
the walk, and both were ready to see in the New Year by early in the
evening.

One of the disadantages of fireplaces and woodstoves, Jade decided right
away, was that they required so much attention.  Not like a furnace, where
you set the thermostat and forgot about it.  Ryan had banked the fire on
the lower level while they slept, and now the rooms were chilly again.  He
insisted that she sit on the sofa, wrapped in a down comforter while he
puttered around getting the room warm yet again.  He crunched around out
in the snow for the longest time before coming in with an armload of wood, 
which he dropped on the hearth.

Ryan:  Need to warm the place up, love.

Jade:  Perhaps all you need to do is crawl under this blanket with me.

Ryan:  Invitation received and accepted, aingeal, but first...

Jade smiled at him as she watched him complete his task.  Skillfully he
revived the fire, coaxing fresh flames from the bones of the last.  He
brushed his hands off against his jeans a time or two, then turned to her,
smiling.

Ryan:  Better?

Jade:  Much.  I don't think it'll ever stop snowing.  What are you up to,
grinning like that, boyo?

Ryan made no reply, instead went next to a canvas sack.  He had
cautioned Jade repeatedly to handle the bag gently, and when he started
emptying it she saw why.  He had filled it with countless candles, 
everything from tapers to votives to arty lumps of wax shaped like pieces
of fruit.  It was all Jade could do not to collapse with relief.  She had
been expecting the emergence of the green jars again.

Jade:  Christ, Ryan...where'd you get all these...wasn't that one from
Deb's bookshelf?

Ryan:  Which one, sweet?...this one?...she'd not deny me that...

Ryan was positioning the candles around the room, up the staircase to
the sleeping loft, on the floor, the mantlepiece, the window legdes, until
there was no flat surface in the room without its potential for light.  
Lastly he placed four tapers, of varying lengths, on the table beside them.
They were the candles she had watched by as she waited for him.  She had
all but forgotten about them, but there they were.  Ryan removed a cheap
butane lighter from his pocket and with it lit the shortest of the four
tapers.  He took it up and, beginning with the other three tapers, lit the
rest of the candles from that source.  Jade watched, entranced, as the
room began to brighten.  The little dwelling glowed with a warmth that only
added to that of the roaring fire.

Jade:  Ryan?

Ryan?  Aingeal?

Jade turned a gaze on him that melted even Ryan.  He stepped across to
her, the candle in his hands casting a glow on his rough features, softening
them, flickering in his eyes.  He set the candle on the table beside its
fellows and perched beside her on the edge of the couch, bracing himself
with a hand on either side of her.

Jade:  You amaze me, I...I...love you.

Ryan looked deeply into her eyes.  His voice dropped a notch, into a
lower register that Jade rarely heard him use.

Ryan:  You are love.

Jade could think of nothing to say...what could she say when the
man said so much...everything else seemed cheap.  He touched her cheek with
gentle fingertips.  She had to remind herself that this same gentle touch
allowed him to build his fiendish 'devices', yet it felt like an angel's
wingtip against her skin.  He cupped her face in a warm palm.

Ryan:  You are life.

Jade turned her face into his palm, kissed it, raised her eyes to his.
Her voice was a mere whisper.

Jade:  If you were to go, I know I would not survive it....but I know.
You're everything to me.  Don't forget...

Ryan:  It is all I know, aingeal.  I cannot forget.  To forget is to cease
to exist. 

With his thumb he traced the line of her cheekbone, caught up in the
yearning of the green eyes.

Ryan:  I'll not go.  There is nothing stronger than what I feel at this
moment.  It is my shield, my armor.

Jade touched her lips to his wrist.

Jade:  I'll protect you.

Ryan:  No doubt you'll try, love.

He leaned forward, touched his lips to her eyelids with slow fire.

Jade's breath caught in her throat.  She reached out and found his
cheek.

Jade:  You inspire me.  I can do anything. Even protect one so powerful.

Ryan:  This...between us...this is all the protection I need.

His lips, kis kisses, molten desire over the soft skin of her throat.

Jade:  Then you will be invulnerable, because it's all of my being.

She felt his lips curving in a smile against her flesh.

Ryan:  When you walk with me, I am one with the gods.

Jade grinned, leaned her cheek against the dark hair.

Jade:  As I remember...you are a god.  Mine.

Ryan looked into her face again, lay a single finger across her smiling
mouth.

Ryan:  It has become more than that.  So much more.

Jade:  I know.

Her voice was hushed.  She rested her head against his chest, wanting to
hear the strong heartbeat, to feel it against her cheek.  With a single
motion, Ryan moved backward, carrying Jade with him and settling against 
the opposite arm of the couch.  He pulled the comforter over them both,
drew her against his warmth.

Ryan:  Jade...are you still trusting me, aingeal?

Jade.  Yes.  I do.

The words came from her with no trace of hesitation.  His big hands went
to work on her back, strong fingers probing muscles stiffenend by long
hours of inactivity.

Ryan:  Good.  Enough to...remember what I taught you, should you need to?

Jade:  There are some things I've forgotten, I'll admit...some things I
can't *not* forget.  Those things are some that have stayed with me.  I
have not forgotten.

Ryan:  Not what I asked.  Could you remember...how to act?  How to obey?
Follow orders?

She raised her head, the better to look him in the eye.

Jade:  Ryan, are you planning something?

Ryan:  Sshhh, now.  No, love. Never mind, be forgetting I asked.

Jade knew too well when he started asking questions that there was
something going on in his head.

Jade:  I'd do whatever you needed, when you needed it.  You know
that...

Ryan:  Yes, I suppose I do at that...

The gentle backrub continued, the heartbeat went on, strong and steady
and reassuring in her ear.  A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows,
blew through the house.  All of the candles were extinguished, execpting
the first that Ryan had lit, the shortest of the four beside them.  Jade
stared into the steadily burning flame, and without having to wonder, she
knew why this one candle, in particular, continued to glow when all the
others didn't.  This single flame...symbolized the single life, the single
future, the single existence...that had been forged upon her reunion with
this man.  Fate had stepped in and had given them to each other, had given
them this second chance.  Jade swore, silently, to do her part to make
this good.  She yawned and stretched against Ryan, her hand finding his
chest and rubbing the skin lightly.

Ryan sat her up, rose easily from the couch with the deceptive grace of 
many big men.  As always, his lightness of movement fascinated Jade.  He
stepped across to where he had set his jacket and picked it up.

Ryan:  Almost forgot...a housewarming gift for you, aingeal.

He reached into an inside pocket and removed something so little she
couldn't see it at first.  But she heard a small, squeaky meow and saw that
Ryan was shyly offering a tiny tortoiseshell kiten to her.  She reached
out and accepted the little animal, and, beaming, cuddled it close to her
chest.

Ryan:  It has always pained me that you could not bring your wee one with
you.  Perhaps this will ease your loss.  I have called her Munchin...little
one, or something like it.  You can change that, if you'd like.

The little cat purred loudly in Jade's hands, and Jade rubbed the warm
thing behind its ears.  Deeply touched, Jade fought back the urge to cry,
rose to kiss him.

Jade:  Ryan...she's beautiful...thank you...I don't know what to say.

Ryan shook his head, a positively embarrassed little smile on his face.
He bent to the dying fire, unable to face Jade's transparent happiness,
and banked it with ash, to preserve the embers for the morrow.  Upstairs,
in the loft, he built that fire to heroic proportions.  For Munchin, he
prepared a bed in an old blanket.  For Jade, he prepared himself.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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