Chapter Two

Robin distractedly slid the last boxed pizza out of the warm oven. She hated cooking with a firece passion, and tonight in particular the chore seemed almost unbearable. Izzy had said that Cody wandered off to be alone. That was over four hours ago, and Robin was worried. Not that he hadn't been gone for longer periods of time before, but the circumstances were somewhat different this time.

And there was no telling when Matt would be back from taking those lost hikers back to their base camp. She wondered if she should go look for Cody by herself.
"Hey Robin, can you bring in a bottle of ketchup or something? These pizzas are...um...pretty well-done." Frank called tactfully from the dining area. Robin grabbed the requested bottle and brought it into the other room, sighing.

"It's getting dark out there." she said softly. Cutler glanced out the window. "Worried about Cody?"
"Yeah. Do you think we should go out and look for him"
Izzy shook his head.
"Let the kid be by himself if that's what he needs right now. He's been stuck in our back pockets for the last few weeks, he might need to breathe a little."
Robin sat down at the table again, picking at her pizza. Frank was right. It was burnt. She grabbed the ketchup bottle and nervously coated the sad little heap of carbon, trying not to worry.

Cody came back at ten, alone and unwilling to talk. He went into his bedroom and closed the door. No one, not even Izzy, could get him to open it again. Jesse Hawkes, the man who would live forever, was gone.

Two hours later, Matt finally came home.
Robin was waiting for him. She wordlessly helped him out of his white uniform jacket, noticing with disapproval that he was wearing the same shirt as the day before. He'd been up all night again, working too hard, checking the engines in the snowmobiles or changing the batteries in the walkie-talkies. Chipping ice from the radar dish, setting field markers, doing all the necessary busywork that he could find to keep himself from being still and thinking. His blue eyes were cold, cold as the snow-capped peaks he'd been trekking hrough since dawn.
"You never went to bed last night, did you?" Robin asked, taking his hand in hers to warm it.
Matt looked down at her, standing there in front of him in the weak yellow light from the open kitchen door. He noticed with a kind of weary interest that her pajama top was buttoned wrong , exposing a few inches of creamy white flesh just above her waistline. She must have dressed in a hurry when she heard him come in.
"I wasn't tired"
Robin started to reach up to touch his face, but dropped her hand a moment later. She had always loved him almost beyond reason, but lacked the courage to make the proverbial first move. And this did not seem the time. She settled for squeezing his arm instead.
"You should get some rest, Tiger. You'll be no good to us if you pass out on the trail"
"I could use a break, I guess." Matt acquiesced.. He knew better than to argue with Robin when she was being maternal. She led him over to the couch, then turned to add a log to the dying fire in the old stone hearth. No amount of scrubbing could ever quite get the blackened panels of granite fully clean, but over the years the entire area had taken on a homey, lived-in look nonetheless. Matt leaned back against the hand-woven Shoshone blanket draped over the couch, a gift from Frank's grandmother. He felt exhausted, both mentally and physically. The lost hikers were quarrelsome and demanding. They were pathetically inexperienced and should never have climbed as high and as far as they did, becoming lost and endangering themselves. It wasted precious time to rescue people who didn't respect the awsome dangers of mountaineering, but today it seemed like a blessing.

Robin vanished into the kitchen, only to reappear again with a ceramic mug of hot coffee and a plate of leftover pizza. Matt gratefully accepted the mug, but cast a dubious eye at the plate.
"What is this, a burnt offering?" he asked. Robin blushed.
"You know I have no talent in the kitchen, Matt. But thanks for the reminder."
"I'm sorry." Matt sighed, but he made no move to touch the food. He wasn't even hungry. His appetite, which used to be legendary, had somewhat slackened since the death of his father. It wasn't the only casualty. He didn't laugh as much, didn't smile and joke the way he used to. And he didn't like to be touched anymore these days. Robin missed his friendly embraces, the way he would crush her into his arms like a bear hugging a tree. She loved the warm, clean smell of his skin and the soap he used, the faint cologne, the softness of his sweater against her cheek. Those precious few moments of almost-intimacy were what kept her going most days, and she ached as much with the lossof their closeness as for the loss of Jesse, whom she had loved as a father.

The fire was quickly warming the room, relieving the chill that seemed omnipresent in the mountains. In the wan firelight the small lines of tension on Matt's face eased, the muscles in his jaw unclenching. It was good to relax for the moment, here with Robin in a warm room with the rest of the compound asleep. For the forst time in a month, just as Cody was suddenly clamping down in silence, Matt felt like talking.
"I miss him." he said, staring into the dark surface of the coffee. Robin sat on the floor, tentatively resting her shounder against his knee and stretching her long legs out toward the fire.

"I miss him, too." she whispered. Jesse had been closer to her than her own father, and she'd been horrified by his death.
"You know, when dad started the Rangers he knew it would cost him a lot. Not the money...he had a bit of that saved up and plenty of friends to borrow from. No, he knew there would be personal costs that would outweigh the financial problems. Mom left, he became estranged from a lot of his friends, and Cody resented him for awhile for his decision to 'go hermit', as he put it. Hell, even Grandma and Grandpa thought he was nuts. But he didn't give it too much thought. He just did what he felt was right, built this place and staffed it with the best people in the field, He knew it was risky, but that's how he lived." Matt stopped to take a deep breath, and when he spoke again it was with a new measure of calm."I know he had some idea that he would die in these hills. He used to talk about it when we were alone, usually on camping trips. He made me promise to take care of Mom and Cody, and this place. That's what I'm going to do, Robin. Take care of everything, and damn me for acting like a cold bastard sometimes while I try to do it. But I feel like I'm going to go insane sometimes, and this is the only way I can control myself. I'm so sorry. "
He gracefully moved forward and knelt down next to her, taking her by the shoulders and looking earnestly into her face.
His eyes were so blue, so gentle, so kind. Robin felt a jolt of almost unbearable desire rocket through her like a bolt from Heaven, and she gasped. Matt, mistakenly assuming it was his abruptness that caused her reaction, immediately released her.

"I didn't mean -" he began, but Robin cut off his words by suddenly flinging herself forward and pressing her lips against his. So great was his shock at the gesture that at first he did nothing. But pain, sorrow, grief, even rage can be turned to passion in an instant when the proper stimulus presents itself. And Robin had always been, to put it delicately, the proper stimulus.
Matt folded her into his arms, pulling her slim body against him and burying his hands in her thick blonde hair. Some part of him rebelled at what was happening - he and Robin had been friends for so long, and he hated the thought of jeopardizing that closeness - but her lips were soft and sweet, her hair was like raw silk slipping through his fingers, her warm body was pressed to his in a way he hadn't experienced with anyone in a very long time. Gently, he lowered her to the floor in front of the fireplace, deepening the kiss and slowly moving his hands down her sides.
"Robin..." he whispered against her neck when they broke apart. "It's ok, Matt. It's right." "But "
"No, no buts. I've loved you for almost ten years. And I know you love me, Matthew Hawkes. Now kiss me again, and this time do it like you mean it"
Matt looked down at her, at those gentle lips curving into a smile, at her hair pooled around her on the dark rug, and the oddly endearing way her shirt was buttoned all wrong. Right or wrong suddenly didn't matter to him anymore, and with more fervor than he'd felt in weeks, he leaned down to grant her request.

Outside the moon hovered high over the frosted peaks, turning everything blue and misty for miles around. The snow fell gently on the roof of the Ranger Station, on the cabins and outbuildings, the woodshed and the single twisting road that led up from the town below. The snow blew against the window of the room where Cody lay awake, tears clouding his vision. The snow slithered down the chimney and evaporated in the inferno, making the wood snap in the hearth next to the thick rug where Robin and Matt made love for the first time.

And the snow fell on the grave of Jesse Hawkes, who was supposed to live forever but did not, who died doing what he loved, and who would never be forgotten.