He was still the final authority, the one she had to butter up when she needed an advance on her allowance. But her mother made most of the routine decisions. She actually ran the Baldwin family. Tracy steered the ship, Dick was hardly more than a figurehead.
But it was different out here in the wild. Now their very lives depended on him. The first night, Tracy wanted to make camp at the base of a narrow V-shaped cleft between two steep slopes. Dick had made them press on. That seemed cruel at the time, but at dawn they all knew why.
The warming rays of the morning sun loosed an avalanche of snow that roared down that narrow slot. It tossed aside pine trees thirty feet tall and smothered the place where her mother had wanted them all to be.
Karina grinned as she thought about that, slowly stirring the melting snow. Dick even had to teach them all to do that. Tracy filled the little pan with snow right up to the brim and then wondered why it took so long to melt.
Her dad had dumped the snow out, put the pan on the stove empty and let it get hot. He dropped in a little handful of snow. When that melted, he dropped in a bit more. In no time at tall, the whole kettle was steaming hot and brimming full.
Karina did the same thing now and spooned in instant coffee as the water began to boil. The red light of dawn complimented the natural hue of her long hair which ran like a river of fire down the back of a fluffy white rabbit fur parka. Karina had no idea how sexy she looked at that moment.
Dick said, "Good morning," as he crawled out of the tent.
"Hi, Daddy. Did you have a good sleep?"
"Er, yeah." Dick yawned and stretched, hoping he didn't look as worn and wrung out as he felt. Karina's wide, innocent blue eyes were on him and he felt guilty as sin. What he'd done the night before with Jo seemed terribly wrong when he looked at his own young daughter.
"You want some coffee?" she asked. "It's fresh and hot."
"Sounds great." He thought the steaming liquid might clear the cobwebs from his head.
Karina handed him a cup and stood close by while he took his first sip. "Oh, that hits the spot!" he said.
"I melted the snow the way you taught me, a little bit at a time."
"Good girl." She was still standing very close, beaming up at him, anxious for praise. Sunlight glinted in her fiery hair and made her eyes sparkle like two deep pools.
"Don't I get my good morning kiss?" she asked after he'd taken another sip of the steaming brew.
"Oh, sure." He bent down and Karina pressed her soft lips to his cheek, but closer to his mouth than usual. The corners of their mouths actually touched. Dick's tongue moved impulsively to that side.
Karina giggled but did not break off the kiss. She used her tongue to wet his cheek and Dick shivered uncomfortably. All of Tracy's talk about sexual freedom seemed to make sense during the night. But now it seemed very sinful in the light of day, especially with his daughter teasing him with her tongue.
"How about a real kiss?" she asked, aligning her lips with his, hardly more than an inch away.
Dick answered with an uneasy laugh. "You haven't kissed me on the lips since you were a little girl," he reminded her.
Karina shrugged and kept her lips poised close to his. "That was just a silly phase I was going through. Remember, I didn't want you taking snapshots of me either because I thought I looked so ugly."
"Yeah, I remember. You'd run and hide whenever I got the camera out."
"Well, I'm not running any more." Her lips reached up toward his. Dick gave her a warm, but dispassionate kiss. His arms curled around her and his fingers sank into the soft white fur on her back. His tongue was quivering in his mouth and he knew hers was too, but they never touched.
"Well, well… look at you two!" Jo said in pretended shock. She'd just crawled out of the tent and stood by the door brushing her long, silver hair.
"There's nothing wrong with a girl kissing her father," Karina said defensively.
"Nothing wrong with a man kissing his niece either, is there Dick?" Jo walked toward him, letting her long mane sway in the morning light.
"Er, no. No, I guess not." What else could he say after last night? He bent down, avoiding her lips, and gave Jo a perfunctory little kiss on the cheek.
Jo snickered and said, "Oh, come on! Is that all I get?"
Dick planted his mouth firmly on hers, mostly because he was deathly afraid she might say something about last night. He didn't want her even dropping a hint that Karina might pick up. As their lips parted, he whispered, "Not a word about what we did!"
Jo grinned and winked, but he wasn't sure what that meant. He knew how young girls like to talk. Karina might hear the whole thing before noon. That thought cinched a knot in his gut.
Tracy crawled out last. With her auburn hair gleaming, she looked as bright and fresh as a new penny. "Hi, everybody!" If she felt any guilt or misgivings about her part in the night's revel, it certainly didn't show. She smiled and went right to fixing breakfast.
Dick walked over like he wanted to help. That left the two girls out of earshot. "Are you sure Karina slept through all we did?" he asked, with concern.
"Positive. I checked several times. She never stirred. Why do you ask?" She was opening a large packet of freeze-dried scrambled eggs.
"Because this morning it was almost like she was making a play for me. She all but insisted I kiss her on the lips."
Tracy just shrugged. "That's natural. Young girls learn about men from their fathers."
"Learn what, for God's sake?"
"Sometimes they learn everything." Tracy put special emphasis on the last word.
"Hey, you aren't suggesting…"
"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just telling you that it happens, that's all. And I'm not sure it's such a bad idea. I mean the first time, why not with a loving man who knows what he's doing? Isn't that better than some cunt crazy kid with pimples in the backseat of a car?"
"Oh, shit… I don't know. I couldn't do…"
Tracy grinned as she whipped up the eggs. "And five days ago you wouldn't have done it to your niece."
Dick thought about that all through breakfast. It didn't help him enjoy the meal. He was glad when they got packed and on the trail again.
"I wish we could stay here another day," Jo complained as they started off single-file with Dick in the lead. "I'd be happy soaking in that hot spring for hours!"
Dick called back, "I explained why we can t. We've got just a three-day supply of food, and it will take us that long to get back to the road where we left the car."
"Maybe we'll find another," Karina said brightly. "It was fun! I've never seen my dad naked before."
"You weren't supposed to see me then," he said gruffly. "It was the damn wind." Dick still had not shaken off his feeling of guilt.
"The wind's even stronger now," Jo said. "You'd get a real good look today."
Dick said to himself, "No you wouldn't. Today I'd have sense enough to avoid the hot spring. That's what really started all this." But the girl was right about one thing, the wind had picked up. It came howling out of the north, and it brought with it the dark, leaden clouds of a gathering storm.
That gave him more than guilt to worry about. A heavy fail of new snow would slow them down. A raging blizzard might stop them altogether, and with a limited food supply, that could mean real trouble.
He increased the length and speed of his long, gliding strides, wanting to gain every inch they could. Very soon, the three women were huffing, struggling to keep up.
"Dick, can't we slow down?" Tracy moaned. She was sagging under the weight of her pack and the two girls had fallen even further behind.
Before Dick could answer, they heard a long, eerie wail. "My God, what was that?" Tracy quickened the pace despite her fatigue.