Her Favorite Husband. Caron Todd

her leg hooked over his hip. Silky, but insistent.

      Taking into account what he knew about Sarah and about the city’s hotels, he tried to guess where she’d be staying, if she hadn’t already zipped back to Vancouver.

      As he guessed, she was registered at the newest, most luxurious place in town. When the switchboard put him through to her room, the answering machine picked up.

      “Sarah? It’s me.” Although there weren’t many customers in the restaurant, he lowered his voice as he said, “Don’t know about you, but I didn’t get much sleep last night. My behavior—”

      What could he say about his behavior?

      “It was inexcusable.” Strong word. He felt better, saying it. “Pretty much from hello. You probably know what happened. Same old problem, right? One of them, anyway.”

      He understood the banana peel remark had been an exaggeration, but it was true enough. Sarah jumped into things without looking, and she thought it was a good quality.

      “That’s no excuse,” he added, wishing he hadn’t brought up the past. Blaming the other person had a way of watering down an apology. “I was a jerk no matter what the provocation. Anyway, I’m sorry for being thoughtless last night. And I hope you’re okay this morning.”

      He imagined her voice, teasing, amused, saying of course she was all right. He used to wonder if it was even possible to hurt her. It was easy to infuriate her, but most of the time she kept things light. Or sexy. Like last night, walking toward him naked, as if he’d be mesmerized and do whatever she wanted.

      As if? She’d nearly got her wish.

      “I have to go, Sarah. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

      As soon as he ended the call he realized he shouldn’t have left it open-ended. He should have said goodbye. None of that till we meet again stuff. A definite we’re done goodbye.

      That’s what it was in his mind. Always had been.

      He woke up his sleeping laptop. In one pane, he began playing a downloaded video that showed how diamonds formed. In another, he typed Column, Week Two.

      Diamonds are forged by intense heat and pressure deep in the earth’s mantle….

      Boring. Delete.

      Diamonds are almost as old as the world itself. Some say they come from the stars….

      Boring and vague. Delete.

      He tried again.

      The only diamond that ever caught my fancy was small and flawed, but that imperfect fraction-of-a-carat held a whole world, a whole future.

      He stared at that for a while, then deleted it, too.

      SARAH’S SPIRITS BEGAN TO rise as soon as she felt the sun on her face. Last night couldn’t be undone. The problem of the missing book couldn’t be solved, not today, not until she and Liz sat down together. All she wanted from this moment in time was to take it in, to see and hear and smell it.

      For a small city, Yellowknife bustled. Ian had talked about that in his column, about people coming from all over the world to work in the diamond industry. Walking along the sidewalk, she heard so many languages spoken it was like an outdoor United Nations. The speakers of those languages were mostly men. Young, strong men of the wood-chopping, diamond-digging variety.

      She hadn’t planned to shop, but all along her route to the Old Town the stores were filled with local arts and crafts. She found treasures every few steps—soap-stone carvings, photographs of the summer’s never-setting sun and the winter’s northern lights, traditional beaded leatherwork and incredible quilts with colorful, hand-sewn northern scenes. Soon she had souvenirs for everyone in her family and at Fraser Press, and had moved on to birthday and Christmas presents.

      Just when she thought she couldn’t carry another thing, she came to a bookstore. Bookstores, she’d always thought, were as good as a rest, so she opened the door with her two free fingers and stepped inside.

      “Oh, my goodness,” a woman said, hurrying from behind a counter. “Let me help you with those packages.” For a moment they were almost bound together, trying to untangle bags without dropping any. “Have you bought the entire town?”

      “Not yet, but there’s still tomorrow.” Sarah pulled her collar away from her throat, letting a breath of air reach her skin. Her sweater, hand-knitted Peruvian alpaca wool, had seemed perfect when she was packing. “I didn’t think to check the weather before leaving home. It’s summer.”

      “Yes, it is. For a while. A short, but delightful while. You’re not the first to think we have winter year-round.” The clerk didn’t seem to mind Sarah’s ignorance. She had a grandmotherly manner. Sarah could imagine her curling up with a child, getting comfortable to read a story. “Feel free to browse and if you see something you’d like to buy, I’ll be happy to send it to wherever you’re staying.”

      Sarah thanked her, and turned to see the display on the closest table. It was a collection of children’s books. J. K. Rowling, C. S. Lewis, Enid Blyton…and Elizabeth Robb.

      The familiar covers jumped out at her. There was an early story about a boy and a space pirate, a more recent book about warring fairies—Liz had written that one while falling in love with Jack—and a third, Sarah’s favorite, a nature book, all lush paintings and no text, done in memory of Liz’s first husband.

      She began to leaf through it. Andy was on every page, a boy discovering the variety of life in a forest.

      The clerk must have noticed her interest. “That one is by a Manitoba author. Very popular. What’s the age of the child in question?”

      “Oh, about thirty,” Sarah said, with a laugh. “But I already have these three. I’m enjoying remembering the first time I read them.”

      “They’re lovely books, aren’t they? So colorful, and full of warmth, I always think. Robb has another book coming out in the spring. We’ve started a sign-up sheet.”

      “You need a sign-up sheet?”

      “It saves disappointment. I wouldn’t say the response compares to Harry Potter, but we do get a stream of parents and children coming in the month of an Elizabeth Robb release.”

      That was good news and bad news. “I’ll keep an eye out for it.” A desperate, anxious eye.

      Sarah chose some books—biographies of northern explorers and prospectors—and carried them to the checkout counter. As if the reminder of Liz’s problem wasn’t enough, taped to the wall behind the cash register she saw a clipping of Ian’s column. His black-and-white photo stared back at her.

      I didn’t, she wanted to tell it. I didn’t drop anything.

      ALL RIGHT, SO SHE had been a little careless where Liz was concerned. That don’t-bug-me tone had merited closer attention. Oliver could lecture her about it if he wanted, but not Ian.

      With heavy bags digging into her fingers and banging against her legs, she finally came to the lake. On a map or from the air its shape made her think of a goose in flight. From the ground, it was like an ocean. The water went on and on, all the way to the horizon, clear and blue and sparkling.

      Brightly painted houseboats—blue, red, yellow—were tethered on the north side. Farther out, sailboats and windsurfers glided across the waves. A few hardy people were swimming. In spite of the sun, the nearly twenty-four-hour sun, she couldn’t believe it was warm enough for that.

      It reminded her of the Whiteshell, where her family had a cottage. Huge sheets of weathered granite sloped up from the lake. Along the shore, rocks had long ago broken off and tumbled into the water. A stab of homesickness struck her.

      “Kinda pretty, a’nit?”

      Sarah turned with a start to see an old man nearly at her elbow. She stepped back, more comfortable having