EXCERPT FROM 'RESCUE'

When Sheila and Webster reached the ridge and the best vantage point, he stopped the car.

"This is it?" she asked.

"This is it."

She rolled down the steamed window to get a better look. The cold bit their necks. The moon and the frost lit the shape of the land and the dark mass of mountains in the distance. He seldom drove to the spot at night, preferring the color and clarity of the day; but he could see that from a cabin, the panorama outside a picture window would be worth staying awake for.

"You're going to build a house here?" she asked.

"Maybe. Someday."

"Kind of isolated."

"That's the point."

... He was happy on the frozen grass, his toes going numb, his collar up to protect the back of his neck. It seemed that already the land was delivering on a promise.