Mid January, 2004

Every John Denver song about mountains played in my brain over and over as the small plane circled over white crags. I thought about how I'd been living in Monterey the day he'd died in a plane crash taking off from the airport there. I have no idea on earth why I think such inappropriate thoughts when I am in a plane. But my fear of flying seems to somehow bring out that part of me.

By the time I was walking off the small jet that had vibrated its way from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe's airport, I was a bundle of raw nerves. But when I felt his presence nearby, the calm I'd come to think of as his affect on me was like this unexpected flannel blanket.

We smiled at each other and he asked me where my winter coat was. I said, I'm wearing it, and he shook his head at me as I regarded my all-weather coat and wondered what was wrong with it. Our first stop was a store where he forced me to buy some heavy ass parka that swallowed me whole. He also made me buy boots ... real boots, he said. They were fleece-lined and practical. About the only thing he approved of was my gloves but he still made me buy some that were waterproof to go over them.

Do you know that every other man I saw always appreciated the effort I made to dress in something they might find sexy or alluring? But not Egan.

Maybe he just had a practical side to him that figured if I froze to death on him during this trip, I'd not be much use to him in the sack.

So we finally were in his truck and driving up these roads along the sides of the mountain and I was looking at him so that I wouldn't have to look outside my window at the sheer heights we were already at. Actually, he was a damned good view.

And then he did the one thing that made me feel he was letting his guard down a bit for me. He glanced over at me, smiled and said, "Come sit closer to me. Been missing you."

I slid in under his arm and rested my head on his shoulder as my hand settled in atop his thigh. "I love to feel men shift when I'm sitting next to them like this. Like the way their muscles feel here."

"I like feeling a woman's body like this. Small bones. Soft. And you smell so good."

"Wow."

"What?"

"Well, you just have never said anything so ... effusive before to me. It's like you're gushing at me."

We chuckled together when he threatened to make me ride in the back of the truck. There was an easy silence between us for the rest of the ride. Another thirty minutes and he turned onto this gravel road that led down then up. Then over. Then down. Then it ended at a clearing and the cabin stood small and alone and brown in a field of white.

"This is it?" I asked and tried not to sound nervous.

He was already out of the truck and his hand was tugging me along with him. He just smiled at me in that way Egan has of being calm even in the face of my girliness.

"When you said a mountain cabin, for some reason, I just pictured something a bit more ..."

"Swank?"

"Well, comfortable."

"It's comfortable. Come inside and see."

As he opened the wood door to this ... well, it seemed rather rough-hewn to me ... this very small cabin, I tried to be brave. I tried not to be rude to my host for the week. "I never thought to ask but it does have heat, right?"

"Sure."

"Running water?"

"Most times."

I turned to look at him and he was carrying my bag into this other room. "Egan? How about power?"

All I heard was a grunt that I wasn't quite sure how to interpret. So I followed him into the other room. Smallest bedroom you'd want to see. About all it was big enough for was a double bed and a bureau ... and a small potbelly stove in the corner that worried me.

"I didn't realize we'd be roughing it this week," I said.

He frowned at me and just stood there by the bed, his hand still on the handle of my suitcase that he'd placed atop the mattress. "This isn't rough. It's nice. Not as posh as some of those fancy places you go with the others, but I warned you about that."

"I know. But I just assumed ..." I swallowed and shook my head. "I'm sorry. What's wrong with me? You've let me come here to see you and I start by criticizing this place you love. Forget me. I am just being the winter wimp that I am."

I went to take off my parka but his hand on my arm stopped me. He dragged me behind him as he went into the main room. "Don't take the coat off yet. Let me get the stoves going first."

Good God.

That was when the fuller import of where I was dawned on me. I'd just willingly begun a week with Egan in a small mountain cabin with apparently no central heat, only generator power and spotty running water. He told me later that the running water was spotty because if it got too cold or the generator froze up, the water stopped being pumped in from the well.

And it was winter out there. I mean, the real deal. Not like the soft winter of the south where we thought we'd die if the temperature dropped into the 40s. I don't know the last time I've actually had to co-exist with snow that didn't melt when it hit the ground.

Why had I done this crazy thing? Why hadn't I had Egan come to New Orleans like any sane person would do?

Because when I'd contacted him to ask about a visit, he'd said that the week I wanted to see him was in the middle of the three weeks he spent in this cabin. He came there every January, he told me. It was a ritual with him. He needed the remoteness of it.

So he says to me, instead of me coming there, if you want to see me, you come here to me. And I rather knew that it was important to him that I not hesitate. That I showed him that a visit with him was not about whether or not it was a convenience for me. It was about wanting to see him.

"Egan, I am seriously unprepared for this weather," I told him.

"Figured as much," he said without even pausing from tossing wood into the stove in the main room. Once he had that going, he pulled a kitchen chair over near it, told me to sit and then he went to light the stove in the bedroom. Then he came out and started preparing the fireplace.

Meanwhile, I'd begun to get warm so I had the big parka off. I just watched him work. No stray movements. Nothing flashy. So sure of what he was doing. He'd long since gotten rid of his outer garments and was moving with ease in jeans and flannel shirt over a long-sleeved Henley.

I went to where he was and sat on the floor as he finished building the fire. As it took off with flames in the dry tender and newspaper, I sighed and leaned in on his body. He sat next to me and together we watched as the flames caught on the logs he'd stacked just so.

"Why here?" I asked him. I knew he'd know what I meant.

"So I can be really alone."

Looking at him, sitting there next to me and just staring at me. "Why did you let me come if you wanted solitude?"

"Because you asked. Besides, I figure you won't intrude where you're not welcome."

"Well ... thank you, then. I guess. I mean, was that a compliment?"

He rolled his eyes at my silliness. "Why did you ask to see me?"

"To see you?" He nodded at me. I frowned. "No particular reason, Egan. I didn't want to let that much time go between visits with us. It felt like we made progress last time. Didn't it to you?"

Saw this little blush on him and when I marveled at it, it got worse and he looked away from me. I wouldn't let that drop because I wanted to understand it. With Egan, I never needed pretense. I could just act and he'd respond as he saw fit. So I climbed up in his lap and faced him. His hands rubbed along my thighs but his eyes wouldn't meet mine.

"If you'd just look at me, then I'd feel so much better," I whispered to him. When his eyes finally came up to mine, I smiled and leaned in for this tiny kiss. But then his lips parted and I couldn't resist the way he tempted me further. One long, slow, wet kiss later and we were both smiling.

He is so beautiful to me. I simply had to trace over his face with my fingertips. He breathed in deep and let me. But when I was finished and just let my hands linger on his biceps, he jostled my body in closer to his. This rough, all-man movement that made me feel at once more feminine and desired.

We undressed each other with little preamble and no fake modesty. Yet it also wasn't like we were ripping each other's clothes off just to have at it. It was just what it was ... two adults who longed to be together and didn't need to be coy about it but did need to be nice to each other.

The skin along my back, from my hips to my neck, was warm ... so very warm ... from the blazing heat of the fire in the hearth. His hands almost felt cool as they slid up ... and then down. Each stroke would bring me closer to his chest and then ... release me. I liked the way he'd do this ... holding me steady in his lap while he stroked my breasts and then would gently suckle each one. The way he'd breathe right along with me each time I'd get caught unaware by the brevity of his movements and the lingering sensations they caused.

Whispering encouragement to each other ... rocking in on him and over his shoulder, my eyes looked out a window and saw white flakes falling as if they were puffy figments of my imagination. And then I leaned my chin over his shoulder and watched his back muscles work ... the way they would clench and then release and then lengthen.

Caught between his body and the fire, I wondered why I'd ever been concerned about being too cold up here in this winter wrinkle in time. I think I even said aloud that odd thought ... that I could stay warm and cozy inside this cabin for a week with him ... and why had he bothered making me buy a coat and boots?

Learning about Egan has been one of the unexpected joys of my recent months. He is so straightforward and unaffected ... yet he holds his mysteries in close comfort. He is not so eager to share ... yet he sees no reason to hide if you look. It's just that he accepts himself and has a comfort in his skin that intrigues me.

But he doesn't necessarily look that close inside me. He's fine with the surface. Maybe he prefers it. But maybe it's that he knows I prefer it if he only sees the surface. In which case, he sees far below the surface, doesn't he?

One thing I learned real quick in this visit was that if I was going to be on his turf, so to speak, I'd be doing things his way. Evening was descending before we finally roused ourselves from before the hearth. I said something so tender footed ... where can I wash up? Meaning ... I have to pee.

Chamber pot.

I couldn't stop giggling.

Until he tossed me outdoors with nothing on but my boots, which he'd shoved over my feet as I lay helpless laughing at his face because I told him I was going to kill him for bringing me to some cabin without indoor plumbing and no central heat ... and not even bothering to realize how traumatic that would be for little old Southern me.

He tossed me out the front door and as I lay there shocked and spread-eagled in the snow, he pointed to the left and told me the 'facilities' were 'that-a-way.'

He threw my parka out to me as I scrambled to my feet but then he barred the door. Leaving me no option but to run around the side of the cabin in search of ... outhouse.

"You fucking bastard!" I screamed at him and heard the yell screlch off the mountain. Pounding on the rear door of the cabin to let me in, I failed to hear him approaching me. But sneak up on me, he did ... and he picked me up in his arms and carried me shivering and begging away from the cabin. I begged some more ... please take me back to the warmth of the cabin and I'll never complain again, I said. He grinned at me. Told me he had something to show me. I said, I saw it and I loved it like I always do.

Next thing I knew, he had put me down and was stripping ... telling me to get everything off ... 

Hot spring.

He helped me in with him. My teeth were chattering until I got to about chest high. Bliss. Truly bliss. Sat with him there as the sky turned navy blue and watched the first star come out but then he said, we needed to get out. He helped me out, got me dressed and led me back to the cabin. Don't know what was in the water but whatever it was, it kept me warm and compliant all through dinner and kitchen clean up duty.

That night, we snuggled in bed together and just existed in peace.

This is what he does for me. He brings me quiet. He lets me stop the voices in my head that make me question each emotion and make me wonder at each decision I make. His influence on me is profound. Because of him, I have re-learned the value of simply acting on impulse with confidence that even if the action is not right, at least it's my own action. With his example, I've felt that I can also understand fully that sometimes, taking no action at all is the best action of all.

The next few days, I learned how to exist in winter up in the mountains. Well, I didn't really learn, but I learned how to follow Egan's example and heed his advice. I bundled up as he showed me without any lip and no whining. He took me on long walks in snow that often came thigh-high. We slid down powdered whiteness and he got a kick out of my wonder at just how much it hurt to thaw out after being out there in all that cold.

I told him late one afternoon when I was watching him chop wood that I'd never really been so far from other humans except when I'd paddle deep into the swamps. And that this experience was reminding me that there was a huge part of me that liked my times of solitude.

He stopped his work, wiped his brow with a bandana, and looked off over his winter escape. "Some people have to learn by doing. Some learn by seeing. Others, though, they learn by looking inside. Know what I'm trying to tell you, Ann?"

Nodding at him, I chose this as my moment. "I give a convenient love, don't I?"

Knocking off the last pieces of split wood for the fireplaces, he regarded me closely. "Seems to me that that's not what you're after."

"Exactly."

I helped him gather the wood pieces and we stacked them near the back door on this metal rack that kept them above the frozen ground and sheltered under the eaves from the heaviest of the falling snows. Inside we warmed up our bodies by the fire and then we fixed dinner. I liked this about Egan. There was no presumption of who would do what chores. We just did them together. And we worked in concert with such ease.

We sat at the small table and ate as dusk approached. I noticed him eyeing the snow that was falling with earnest outside. When I asked, he told me we were in for a real dump of the white stuff.

However, I was totally unprepared the next morning when I woke to an empty bed and rose to now-familiar deep cold in the cabin to go in search of him and find him staring out that window. There was nothing but white out there and I knew something big was up when he told me not to worry.

"You don't tell someone not to worry if you don't already know there's reason to worry," I grumped to him.

"I do. I know you'll think this is bad news but it's pretty typical for this time of year. It's why we laid in a good supply of wood yesterday. And we got plenty of food and water won't be a problem because we can just get buckets of snow and ..."

This was when I focused on the outside world. Really focused.

"Is this a whiteout?" I asked him and felt oddly calm.

"Yeah. Been building on us."

"And with all the new snow ... we're snow-bound?"

"Yeah."

"For how long?"

"You'll miss your plane."

"Okay."

His eyes were sharp on me. "Will he be worried about you? It'd be about impossible to get word out to him but maybe he'll call the ranger or ..."

"You mean Jack? No. He'll be fine. He's off on his own trip and I wasn't sure when I'd be back from this so we figured we'd meet up next time we were both in New Orleans."

"Does he know?"

"I didn't even know until I got here."

"What will he say?"

"He'll want me to do what's right for me. He loves me."

"It can't be that easy, Ann."

"It never is. But I can't let that stop me. Right?"

He sighed hard and looked off into the fire. "Guess you'll tell me when you're ready."

It took the night falling in on me to find a way forward. The wind finally died down and with it, the swirling snow finally found places to rest. There was a half-moon out and I made some lame joke about Half Moon Bay and he said we should go walk in the night.

I put my hand in his and we wandered over this landscape that was almost warm. I asked him about that and he said he'd noticed that it often seemed that way after a heavy snowfall ... almost like the snow was insulating the air near the ground.

"Dino exists back in my real world," I told him as we stood there looking up at a sharply stark sky.

"And you figure that means something to you personally, d'ya?"

"So much has changed, Egan. This wasn't what I signed up for."

"Life never is."

"This is different. This was a choice. And it does mean something and we both know it."

But it still took me another week or so of dithering around before I finally decided what to do. But it seemed to me that Egan was the one who gave me the space to be calm in how I went forward. His gift to me has always been the calm of quiet.

When I think on it, each man I have come to know has brought me gifts that, if I was smart, I would never let go of. And I know I won't. These diaries provide such records of those gifts and even if I'm still very much a work in progress, at least I am still trying. But the largest truth is that I have begun to examine a truth that matters above all else to me as an individual.

In the last few weeks, I have come into the knowing of this and another truth that I should not have. But, then again, maybe it's always been my fate to have reached this crossroads and pretty well know which route I'd take. As is my want, I will take the route that seems most choked with weeds and potholes. I could stay this course of status quo but, in the end, I don't think it's what this experience has been about. Besides, staying where I am guarantees heartache that I don't think I'm strong enough to bear. At least going the other way, I have the comfort of believing this was the way I was meant to go all along.

I used to never believe in fate as an inevitability. All I need now is courage in facing fate.