"Middle-aged and starting over," Ben said, his face alight with happiness.

They all laughed and then Noah asked, "When will you leave for New York?"

Jane bit her lip again and looked at Noah. "Oh, I'm asking so much, aren't I? I'll make it up to you. I promise I will."

Ben answered his question. "We were hoping to leave in another couple of days. As soon as Elizabeth can be ready."

They all looked at Elizabeth and she shrugged. "I could be ready tomorrow since I'll be buying new clothes in New York. It will be strange to have so much money that I can buy anything I want."

Noah frowned. "What do you mean?"

Jane grimaced. "I'm sorry, Noah. I should have told the two of you together. I'm giving all of the inheritance my father left me to Elizabeth. It's a sizable fortune."

Noah felt his heart sink lower as he realized what that meant. She really didn't need him now. She had all she could ever want in these kind, loving people sitting at his table.

She would never need him again.

Twenty-Four.

Noah watched as Elizabeth packed her things. She had been strangely quiet the last two days and he guessed she didn't know what to say to him. He didn't know what to say to her. It hurt just looking at her. He wondered if he would ever see her again after they left. The tiny part of him that said she'd married him for the security he could give her rose up to torture him. She would be caught up in her new life as an heiress and the weeks would turn into months that would turn into years, until he was just a distant, cold Alaskan memory to her. Sometimes lately, she seemed so wrapped up in her new family, it hardly seemed they were really married at all. Maybe it was for the best.

The arrangements were all made. Noah had hired a friend of his, a Tlingit, to guide them back to Juneau. He knew he would have to say good-bye from his own land. He couldn't bear it in Juneau with the others around.

Now it was nearly time and they were loading their saddle bags onto the horses. Noah handed Elizabeth a pouch filled with food for the trail and her canteen filled with the kind of cool, clear water that graced his land, and, for a moment, their eyes locked but neither said a word. It was just too hard.

Jane and Ben had left them alone in the cabin for obvious reasons and were milling around in the yard, waiting. Finally, Noah could stand it no longer. Taking the bundle from her hands, he laid it on the table and took Elizabeth by the shoulders. With courage from deep within, he kissed her. It was soft and heart-wrenchingly tender. Then he said, "Go. Regain some small part of what you lost. They need you now a and you need them."

She looked up at him and asked softly, "But what of you, Noah? What do you need?"

Why was she making this so hard? He wanted to shake her. Didn't she know this was killing him? With a deep breath, he said one last time, "I love you, and I need what is best for you. Now, go!"

She hesitated for a moment and then, with a final, quick kiss on his compressed mouth, she scooped up the pouch and walked to the door. Turning, she looked at him for a long moment, her face an unreadable shadow, his glowing with stark pain in a shaft of late-afternoon sun. Then slowly, softly, she shut the door.

Noah fought the battle of going to the window and won. Instead, he braced both hands far apart on the counter and leaned heavily against them. With his head dropped forward, he cried, "Oh, G.o.d!"

He heard the sound of horses' hoofs pounding away from the cabin and his spine stiffened. They were gone. She was gone. He stood there several more moments and then, raking his hand through his hair, he expelled a big breath and took up his ax.

THE FOREST RANG with his efforts to block the pain, but he couldn't seem to escape it. His old standby wasn't enough this time. Returning to the cabin, he took up his rifle. He walked his land. Gradually, he remembered it, the width and the breadth of the land, the trees and streams and rocks and animals, the little secret places that only he knew about. Places that quite possibly no other human had walked upon on this earth before. Places he loved. He relived why he loved it and how precious it was to him. He couldn't have left it. Living in a place like New York City would have destroyed who he was. He had made the right decision and the pain would lessen with time. With time, he would think back on her and be able to smile and remember how much joy she had brought him. With a time a The night was cold. Autumn was making her grand sweep over the land, and riding on its tail would be another Alaskan winter. The kind that brought challenges most men and woman shrank from, but the kind he, and yes, Elizabeth too, thrived on. There would never be another like her a not if he lived to be one hundred.

After a cold supper, Noah put on a heavy sweater and went back outside. The night called to him and complemented his mood. He walked around his yard, watching the stars come out. They seemed brilliant tonight in their sharpness and too numerous to count. The air crackled with electricity, as if expecting some great deed by the moon. He walked and walked, sometimes slowly and sometimes with sudden energy, trying to out-walk the ache in his chest.

The eeriness increased, causing the fine hair on the back of his neck to rise. His gaze scanned the land and then the sky. Then, deep in the sky, to the north, a jade green glow began. It rose, as if by deliberate, slow degrees, and wrapped itself around a shot of pink, the hue unknown on the earth.

Noah smiled. The aurora.

Like rivers of molten jade, a neon green surged across the sky, rising and falling a swelling and then receding. It seemed a living, breathing force and Noah marveled that it should be so. The lines whipped and moved and coiled around and over each other. They moved with hypnotic grace, a pulse of life, leaning and swaying and teasing one another. Their colors bright and then fading and then bright again.

Suddenly, in a burst of brightness, a silvery maelstrom opened above him. With an almost achingly sweet, slow motion it began to release ring after ring of silvery light, as though a starchild had thrown a rock in its midst. The movement didn't stop, hypnotic in its seeming infinity, it continued, one after another, each brilliant in its silver hue a unearthly a fantastic. The center pool of light became even more active as time went on. Then the center disc began to fade, the rings slowed, the light faded away, and in its place he could see two long rivers of green stretching from horizon to horizon, very slowly moving back and forth with sensual grace.

He had to tell himself to breathe again, it was so astounding. Never, in all the years he had lived here, had he seen anything so fantastic. It was unmatched imagination, unfathomable creativity.

For you, my son.

Joy leapt within him, comfort engulfed him. In a sudden knowing, he saw himself as he wasa"a beloved son of the Creator.

And then he saw an image of Elizabeth too. He saw her as she was. He had never been more righteous than hera"to the Creator, they were the same.

As his attention returned to the earth, a soft crying sound reached his ears. He jerked his head in the direction of the cry. There, on the edge of the slope, was a figure kneeling on the ground, face uplifted toward the heavens. Noah's breathing increased as he walked, involuntarily, toward the figure.

She turned her wet face toward his and gazed at him. He felt his heart leap. It was as if he could see into her soul. In a whisper that sounded too soft to be human, she said, "How breathtaking is this land. It stirs my blood with feelings I cannot find the words to express."

He couldn't say a word, could only stare at her, unbelieving. He thought her a ghost. She stood, a pale dress blowing around her and seemed to float toward him. When she was very near, she reached out her hand and placed her palm on his heart. With aching softness she murmured, "I've come home, Noah. I couldn't leave you, or this land, even for a little while. I want only to be your wife and to love you a always."

She was the ghost that haunted his heart and his dreams. She was the snow angel he'd found on his doorstep that first night. Only she wasn't an angel or a ghosta"she was his wife. His. Wife. He reached out and touched her shoulder. She was real. She had come back to him. With eyes closed, he crushed her to him, his hands moving over her back and arms, telling himself over and over that his Elizabeth did exist and she loved him. Looking down at her countenance, tracks of tears gleaming in the moonlight, he cupped her face between his palms. Who but G.o.d could have created such as she, and for him, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh?

Slowly, still within the enchantment of the land, always within the enchantment of her, he leaned down and kissed her like a husband kisses a wife who was lost but now is found, who was dead but now lives, and who would belong with him a forever.

end.