The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans

Author:Nicholas Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Connor watched her as she walked ahead of him up the stairs, watched the way her hips moved inside her dress and how she trailed her left hand with its plain gold wedding band on the banister. The light outside was fading and the skin of her bare shoulders was dark against the pale blue of the dress. She looked more beautiful than ever, even than on those lonely nights when he’d lain awake listening to the shell fire and thinking of her. Even more beautiful than she did in the picture that he always carried in his billfold, the one Ed had taken of the two of them on the day they went climbing. The one in which they were smiling at each other and looked, for all the world, like a proper couple.

Ed had put some Bob Marley on the stereo in the hope that people might start dancing, but everyone was enjoying sitting and chatting out on the deck and on the grass below. Julia had lit candles out there in glass sleeves and set some more in the trees and everything looked magical. Connor had asked if he could take a look at the house and so she was giving him the tour. They’d started out in her studio in the barn and she’d gotten embarrassed when he told her how much he liked her new paintings. Now they were back in the house. Everyone else was still outside.

As she reached the top of the stairs, she turned to look at him. He hoped that she hadn’t caught him looking at her hips that way.

‘It’s a great place,’ he said clumsily.

‘Yeah. It works real well for us. Though it’d be easier for Ed if we lived in town.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Oh, you know, he could be more independent, find his own way around more. He has a map of Missoula in his head, whereas out here it’s all new and . . . well, kind of riskier, I guess is what I mean. Not that it stops him doing things, mind.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Like the other day. This summer we’ve been running together. The trails are pretty good and he knows them by now and when I’m with him it’s perfectly safe. Well, one evening last week, I’ve been into town, I’m driving up the gravel road out there, coming around the corner and there’s this, like, apparition, in an orange hunting vest, in the middle of the road, running right at me. Guess who. He’s got his cane out in front, sweeping it from side to side, and this isn’t some gentle little jog. He’s going like flat-out.’

Connor laughed. He loved the expressive way she used her hands when she was telling a story like this. He figured it must be the Italian in her.

‘So I stop the car and he comes running right up to me and hits the front of the Jeep with the cane and stops with his hands on the hood and do you

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