A Father for Philip Read Free Page B

it won’t
start. I was following this trail, looking for civilization.”
    The resonance of his voice should have
come from a much deeper chest than the bony one under the green Forest Service
work shirt.
    “I… Where?”
    “Where do I expect to find
civilization?”
    “No.” She stood, laughing, and brushed
off the seat of her jeans. “Where is your truck broken down?”
    “On the forestry road. Just through the
trees there. I was surveying the old fire-break,” he said. “Checking it out to
see if it needed widening or culvert repair or… whatever, and now I’m stranded.
Can you tell me where I need to go for help, or do wood-nymphs not know about
mundane things like that?”
    “Oh.” It took Eleanor a few moments to
collect herself. “I… I’m sure my dad can help.” It hurt to speak. Her heart
still thudded painfully in her breast, and those eyes, those intense, slate
gray eyes under the thick brows and dark shaggy hair refused to release her.
    She needed to get away from him but did
not know why, knew only it would be better to go than to stay the way her
heart, her blood, her every nerve cried out for her to do. Stay! Stay! Stay! Her heart pounded out the word with each beat.
Emotions tumbled through her, frightening, powerful, overwhelming. “I’ll, um,
go get him.”
    “Wait!” he said urgently as she whirled
to run. He reached out and took her hand. His felt enormous, cool and hard.
“Wait.” She looked back at him over her shoulder. “What’s your name?”
    “Eleanor,” she whispered. “Eleanor
Barnes.”
    “Eleanor.” He said it slowly, savoring
each syllable as if it were sweet. “Eleanor,” he repeated. “I’m going to marry
you.”

Chapter Two
     
    Now, many years later, Eleanor sat in
the rose arbor David had built for her, remembering those words. Eleanor, I’m going to marry you . The
words had echoed and reechoed through the empty caverns of her heart, flooding
and filling until she was no longer empty, no longer aching with the unnamed
and unnamable needs of an early spring day, but spilling over with something
just as unnamed, just as unnamable but equally potent.
    That day when he’d made his startling
declaration, she’d gasped, put one hand to her mouth and fled, casting a couple
of disbelieving looks back at the strange young man who’d come out of the
forest. He stood watching her go, the smile still upon his gaunt face, his eyes
still glowing with the light from within. Eleanor had run all the way home that
day, and her father, who’d been fifty-four years old the time of her birth, the
birth which claimed his wife, looked up from nailing a new board on a broken
stair-railing. At seventy-three, he had sparse hair gray. His skin hung loosely
upon his frame as though waiting to be filled out the way it had when he was
young. “Where have you been, girl?” he demanded. “What are you doing running
around outside when there’s work to be done?” He seemed oblivious to the bed
sheets flapping on the clothesline not far from where he toiled.
    “I went for a walk, Dad. The day’s much
too good to waste inside. I met someone in the woods on the Anderson place. His
truck’s broken down.” Eleanor heard her own words rush out breathlessly. From
its heat, she knew her face was flushed. Her eyes felt bright, too, and she
lowered them before her father’s keen stare.
    “What is it, Ellie?” he asked sharply.
“Did he scare you?”
    “No!” Then, more sedately, “No, Dad. I
was running because... because it’s spring.”
    A gnarled and gentle work-worn hand
stroked the deep rich chestnut of her hair, and George Barnes said, “Yes,
Ellie-girl. Spring days are for running. Your mother was the same, you know.
The same in looks, the same in manner. Then when it seemed we would never have
a child, she stopped running, stop singing and laughing and I thought my heart
would break. But one more time, girl, just one more time, she ran to me,
laughing, looking