AT FIRST SIGHT: A Novella(33)

From somewhere behind Adam, a dog barked, and the dugout tilted perilously. “Sit, Skute,” ordered Gantu. With the thrusting dip of his paddle, he asked, “Upriver or downriver, Mistress?”

Surely, Adam thought, either his feverish brain must be rampant with delirium or he was still asleep and dreaming. because next he heard Evangeline’s melodic voice. She was kneeling, leaning over him, and cradling his head up onto her lap.

“Into the wilderness, Gantu. I cannot think of a better place for Adam and Eve.” Tears of joy glistened in her eyes.

She bent her head, her hair falling around his face, gently kissed his lips, then murmured, “I once said eternity would come before you received a kiss from me. What do you think about living out eternity with me?” Then, she chuckled softly and tapped her fingertip on the bearded tuft in the center of his chin. “Well, with me and these three oafs?”

He blinked back his own tears. He had thought himself all alone in the world, without family or friends. He swallowed hard and got out gruffly, “I think I am one lucky devil.”

“Oh,” she murmured, “and there will be one more to join us.”

“One more?”

“Aye.” Above his face, her own dimpled. “But I do not think we shall be able to term this wee one a virgin birth.”

It took him a moment, and then jubilant laughter rolled deep from his chest, even though his ribs protested the pain. “What better belated Christmas present, my love.”

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