A Christmas Escape Read Online Free PDF Page B

Here there are spits and crackles a lot of the time.”
    She grinned at him. “I told you that this morning.”
    Finbar touched her arm. “Candace, why don’t you go on ahead of us a little way?”
    She understood the hint at once. Nodding cheerfully, she walked off ahead of them.
    Finbar sighed. “I’m afraid it is a little too far for me,” he said as if it were an apology. “She has so much energy.”
    Charles sympathized with him. He watched as she went in an easy stride up the steeper incline, looking eagerly at the path on toward the caldera.
    “We all did at that age,” he replied.
    “She shouldn’t go up much farther alone.” Finbar shook his head.
    Charles looked at Finbar’s face, pale beneath the sunburn, and said the only thing he could.
    “I’ll go with her, sir. Are you all right to return alone? It’s quite a long way…”
    Finbar smiled. “I’ll take it slowly. Please tell her not to worry. I know she’s young, and a trifle outspoken at times, but she has a gentle heart.”
    “I won’t worry her unnecessarily, I promise,” he answered.
    “Thank you, sir,” Finbar said seriously, his blue eyes very clear, his gaze direct. Then he turned and began the long walk back down to the level, and the white house now long out of sight.
    Charles had to lengthen his stride considerably to catch up with Candace. They were far up the mountainside now. The air was thinner, and there was a faint sharpness to it with an odor that might have been disagreeable to some, but Charles found it rather interesting.
    When he caught up with her, she was staring into the distance and the blue glimmer of the sea far away and below them. There was no sound but the faintest breeze, and—this far up—very little vegetation and no apparent animal or even insect life. The ground beneath them was mostly ash.
    Anxiety flickered across her face. “Where’s Uncle Roger?”
    “His legs were a little tired,” Charles replied, trying not to sound breathless. “He hoped you wouldn’t mind if he went back. I promised I would see that you got down again safely.”
    “But he’s all right?” she pressed.
    “Yes. It’s just a long way.” Perhaps he shouldn’t have concealed his lack of breath. “And getting steeper as we go up. I daresay the air’s a little thinner, too.”
    She regarded him more closely. “Are you all right?”
    Good heavens! Did she put him in the same bracket of age and corresponding frailty as Roger Finbar?
    “Or are you trying to make me feel all right about Uncle Roger?” she went on.
    To say she was frank would be an understatement.
    “The latter,” Charles replied a little tartly. “He would be very unhappy with me if I allowed you to be worried.”
    She looked taken aback, for once uncertain how to accept the remark. He noticed it with some satisfaction. In fact, he smiled back at her, meeting her eyes with something of a challenge.
    She understood immediately. “All right. Let’s go on up.”
    They climbed in silence for quite a distance, Candace always a few steps ahead of him. He appreciated that. It allowed him to see her all the time and know that while she was pushing herself, she was well within her strength. It also meant that if he was weary and had to grit his teeth to force himself on now and then, she did not know it. He realized now that he had been far too sedentary, not getting nearly enough exercise. It was not good for him. He was soft, weak where he should be strong. If this break over Christmas did nothing else for him, it would at least make him take more care of his health.
    The next time they stopped, his legs were aching, and he was glad to see that Candace also seemed a little out of breath. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was drawing in lungsful of the thin, slightly acrid air, but she was smiling broadly, not just with victory but with the pure joy of adventure.
    He looked around. They were standing on rock and cinder now and there was no vegetation at all.