“LIKE I SAID, if you’re feeling like you want me to come see you and the baby tomorrow, I’m happy to do that,” Jake said.
“Thank you,” said Jameson, pumping his hand for the tenth time. “I hope she’ll be comfortable, and that I’ll be taking good care of both of them. But I’ll call if something seems wrong.”
“I’m sure your midwife will want to come check on both of them, so I suggest you give her a call in the morning to let her know the baby’s here. But don’t hesitate to call me, if you feel you need me.”
If the snow kept coming it wouldn’t be an easy trek in the morning, but he couldn’t leave them stranded up here if Natalia wasn’t feeling well or they were worried about the baby. He definitely wouldn’t be bringing Rory, though. From her strained and bleak expression, it was clear that helping deliver this baby had been beyond hard for her.
He thrashed himself for letting her come at all. Yeah, she’d been a huge help, and if he hadn’t been able to turn the baby he would have had to call on her surgical skills to do an emergency C-section. But her reaction to the baby’s birth, the way she’d looked holding the newborn in her arms, had just about destroyed him.
He’d delivered a lot of babies since they’d lost theirs nine years ago. So many that the birth of a healthy child, or even one with problems, didn’t feel personal anymore—didn’t bring back the sad and horrible memories of that day, and the days after when Rory wouldn’t lean on him. When she’d decided to just up and leave, smashing his heart to bits, along with everything he’d thought he’d have with her.
He’d been hurt. Devastated. And, yes, angry. Understanding why she’d taken off had felt impossible, and he’d been left to grieve alone, with bitterness gnawing at his gut over her actions. Her attitude.
But seeing the pain etched on her face tonight, the deep longing as she’d stared down into the baby’s small face, had softened the shell he’d closed around his heart, vowing never to let her back in for even a minute. Maybe it was time to try to forgive. Not forget—because there was no way he’d let himself get close to her again—but perhaps move on from his resentment? Try to understand at least a little why she’d left? He could work on that.
He turned to the woman who’d broken his heart and realized it felt achy all over again. “You ready?”
He watched her look back at Natalia and the baby, now resting comfortably on the sofa instead of on the hard floor, and give them a smile. Someone who didn’t know her might think it was a regular smile, but he knew it was full of all kinds of emotion. The emotions he could see swimming in her green eyes as she turned them back to him.
“Ready.”
He led the way out—and stopped short for a second, not believing the winter world in front of them.
“What the...?”
“Oh, no! How could there be this much snow? And it’s coming down so hard!” She stared up at him. “Are we going to be able to get back?”
“Good question.” He waded through the thick white fluff and stowed the equipment in the back seat again. “The roads won’t be plowed until we get closer to Eudemonia, but my truck can handle deep snow pretty well. I think we’ll be okay.”
“Should we just stay here?”
“I’d rather not. Unless you want to?”
He didn’t particularly want to bunk down there—for a couple reasons. One was interrupting the new little family having quiet time on their own. And the bigger reason was he didn’t think it would be good for Rory to have to spend that many hours around the baby—seeing her again in the morning, maybe even helping care for her.
He couldn’t bear the anguish in her eyes. He wanted to get her back to town so she could find her equilibrium again, since this experience had obviously cut her off at the knees.
“No. If you think we’ll be fine then I’d prefer to go.”
He saw her pumping her thighs up high, nearly to her waist, as she trudged through the snow, and realized that, while he’d grabbed boots at his house before they’d come up here, she was wearing flat, slip-on leather shoes.
“Jeez, Rory! You can’t walk through a foot of snow in those. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Why would I? I doubt if you have boots in my size hanging out in your truck.”
He strode around the car and she squeaked when he swung her up into his arms. “No, but I do have a different solution.”
She scowled, and at the same time a breathy laugh slipped across his face.
“Put me down. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Yeah?” The feel of her body in his arms, held close against him, felt beyond good—the way it had when he’d been unable to stop the need to kiss her in the kitchen. “The California city girl who’s been wearing a heavy winter coat even in early October has no problem walking practically barefoot in cold snow?”
“It’s a good thing I am wearing a coat, too, since you’re not dressed nearly warmly enough for this kind of weather and I’m perfectly comfy.”
Looking down into her eyes, he saw they still held a tinge of sadness, but they were filled with a smile, too. It was the kind of smile that reminded him of the Rory he’d known and loved before it had all got away from them. Unbidden, memories burned through his brain to join the feelings, the tenderness for her that welled in his chest, and he nearly dropped a kiss to her mouth again.
That would be a bad idea, so he drew a deep breath and looked away from that beautiful green gaze, trying to focus on getting to the truck.
He juggled her in his arms and opened the truck door, then placed her in the seat. “I’m glad you’re comfy. And I won’t say that coats are for sissies, since I admit it’s handy to have one when we’re in the middle of a snowstorm.”
He lifted his finger to swipe thick snowflakes from her lashes and somehow, without his meaning it to, his finger drifted down her cheek and across her lips. All the laughter left her face and her lips parted as she looked up at him. He could tell she was feeling it, too. All the heat that had been there for so long between them, that had flared into fire in the kitchen, now swirled inside the truck and left him breathless.
Damn. He straightened, then shut her door to go around to the driver’s seat. He stomped the snow off his boots before sliding into the dark interior next to her. No way was he going to start things up again with Rory. Too much bad stuff had happened between them, and the last thing either of them needed was to stir it up all over again—especially when she’d be leaving again in a matter of days.
“Put on your seat belt. Things might get a little rough.”
“How can you even see? It’s a blizzard out there.”
“Definitely not the best conditions for driving, but once we get about twenty miles closer to town the hilly roads give way to the main road, which is pretty flat.”
“I assume you have enough gas to keep us warm if we get stranded?”
“I’m not even going to answer that ridiculous question.” He shot her a grin, not wanting her to be worried. “You were always a survivor girl when you lived here, having your parents’ house stocked up and prepared for Armageddon. I learned from you—so, yeah, I not only have extra gas, I’ve got water and food. We could stay up here for days if we had to.”
She didn’t answer. He turned to see her eyes looking at him across the bench seat and his heart quickened. He hadn’t been thinking about what he’d said, really, but suddenly images of the two of them stuck inside this truck, holding one another close and making love to stay warm, were suddenly all he could think about.
He was glad that getting the truck out on the road took all his concentration and his mind off sex with Rory. And keeping the vehicle on the road when he could barely see became a bigger challenge with every passing mile.
After traveling for only about twenty minutes, in the worst conditions he’d ever driven in, he knew there needed to be a change of plan.
“Rory?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s bad out here.”
“Yeah...”
“I know there’s a dry cabin nearby, where a lot of hunters go. I’m pretty sure it’s off a road I think we’ll be coming to soon. What do you say we bunk there for the night and see how it looks in the morning?”
A long silence was followed by a deep sigh. “I don’t think we have a choice. If we keep going there’s a good chance we’ll end up in a ditch. I’d rather be in a cabin, where we can build a fire, than stuck in the truck in a snowstorm.”
“Then that’s our plan. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine, I promise.”
“Being fine isn’t what I’m worried about,” she said, in a soft voice that had him thinking bad thoughts all over again.
“I know.”
His hands tightened on the wheel because, yeah, being fine wasn’t the issue. Being close together for the whole night alone definitely was.
“Help me keep an eye out for the road. It’s off to the right, and there’s a sign marking it, but it’s going to be hard to see until we’re practically on it.”
They drove in silence, but he could have sworn the car hummed with something. There was an electricity between them, a new awareness now, with their plight of being in close quarters together. Thoughts of making love with her had his heart beating harder and his body stirring. But he wasn’t going to go there. No way. Neither one of them needed the tangled-up emotions that would follow a night of ill-thought-out intimacy.
Unbidden, memories of all the great sex between them shortened his breath. With her, it had always been more special than with anyone—both physical and emotional. A deep, multi-layered connection that he’d never experienced before or since. But what would being with her in that way again accomplish? All it would do would be to stir up the feelings clearly still between them, and his heart was sure to feel bruised and battered all over again—maybe hers, too.
No, they’d get set up in the cabin, have something to eat, then sleep. Somehow, though, he had a bad feeling that knowing her body was close and warm might make sleeping more than difficult. Even worse, he couldn’t deny that some masochistic part of him was excited about it. Anticipating being alone with her for the first time in a long, long time even as he told himself to cool it. He hadn’t wanted to admit to himself that he still missed her being part of his life, but the way he felt at that moment proved he did.
“There!” Rory exclaimed into the silence. “Is that the sign for the road?”
Jake peered through the thick flakes, finally seeing the sign, covered with snow and barely visible. “You have cat’s eyes. I think I would have passed right by it.”
“You’re having to concentrate on driving in this mess. I had the advantage of focusing on one thing.”
True. He’d been focusing on driving, finding the sign and her nearness—whether he’d wanted to be or not. “Yeah, well, thanks to you we might be able to bunk down in front of a warm fire very soon.”
“You think there’ll be wood in the cabin? Or are we going to have to scrounge for some underneath the snow?”
As he slowly made the turn onto the road he sensed her looking at him and dared a quick glance across the seat. Her lips were tipped up at the corners, and his own mouth curved in response.
“I’d think most hunters restock the wood, but probably there are some who don’t. If we have to dig under the snow, though, I’ll get you some thick socks to put on over your shoes.”
Her soft chuckle drifted into his chest and widened his smile. “As if. You’ve always had an ‘I’m the man, and I’ll do the heavy lifting’ mindset. No way would you let me gather firewood outside while you’re the one wearing heavy boots.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
“No,” she said softly. “You haven’t changed—at least not in any way that I can see. Mika’s lucky to have a man like you adopt him.”
“I’m the lucky one.”
The unspoken hung between them. The fact that neither of them had been lucky when tiny Adam had died inside Rory’s womb, shattering their dream of having a family together. Neither of them had found someone to share their lives with. Except he had Mika now, and his son was the best reason of all to keep his relationship with Rory friendly but distant.
She’d already proved she was a flight risk, hadn’t she? There one minute and gone the next. The last thing Mika needed was to get close to someone and then have them promptly exit his life.
The road came to an abrupt halt, with a hilly dead end right in front of them, and through the heavy snow the silhouette of a dark cabin appeared as a shadow.
“We made it.” He heaved in a breath that was full of relief, trepidation and anticipation as to how this evening was going to shake out. “Sit tight and I’ll carry you in.”
* * *
Rory looked at his dark profile through the blackness of the truck’s cab. When he’d picked her up and held her close to his hard body it had felt disconcertingly wonderful—just like when he’d kissed her earlier. How were they going to find a little distance in this small cabin? She didn’t know, but somehow that needed to be the plan for the night.
“Honestly, Jake, I can walk—”
“Stop being your usual stubborn self.” A disgusted sound left his lips. “The last thing you need is to start out with frozen feet when we’re going inside a freezing cold cabin. So just wait ’til I come around.”
She picked her purse up from the floor, watched his shadowy figure cross in front of the truck and considered it really bad news that her heart was already beating an odd little timpani rhythm in her chest and he hadn’t even touched her. They weren’t yet close together in that cabin, and she knew it was going to be both terrible and wonderful at the same time.
The door opened and his wide torso filled the cab as he leaned in, his eyes glittering in the darkness as they met hers.
“Hang tight in here, promise? It’s pitch-black, so I’m going to grab supplies from the back of the truck so we’ll have light.” He pointed his finger at her until it touched the tip of her nose. “Don’t move.”
She might be a little stubborn—as he’d always told her—but she wasn’t stupid. Much as she didn’t want him to carry her in—or kind of did want that, if she was honest with herself—she knew getting her feet and the bottoms of her pants wet wouldn’t be too smart when they didn’t even know if there was firewood in the cabin.
Feeling worthless, not helping him carry stuff inside, she fidgeted until she saw the beam from a flashlight dancing through the snowflakes, illuminating a wooden front door.
Jake’s dark form shoved it open. She couldn’t see what he had in his arms, but she could tell it was a pretty significant pile and she had to smile. He teased her about always being prepared, yet it looked like he had enough stuff to stay here a week.
Short minutes later her door was swinging open again and strong arms were reaching for her. “There’s not a lot of firewood, but there’s some. With what I brought we’ll be able to get a good fire going until I collect more.”
“You had firewood in the back of the truck? Why didn’t you tell me?”
With her purse strap slung over her shoulder, she snaked her arms around his neck, figuring it would help if she supported some of her weight as he trudged through the snow. The temptation to press her lips against his cold cheek was almost too much, and she forced herself to turn her face toward the cabin and away from his tempting jaw.
“I didn’t want you to think you wouldn’t still have to wear thick socks over your shoes to help me gather it up out here.”
This buoyant feeling welling in her chest was absurd. They were stranded in a snowstorm, in a cabin with an outhouse and no running water, and she was there with a man she didn’t want to be around. Except obviously, deep inside, she did. Their banter together was like old times, happy times, and she hadn’t realized until this moment how much she’d missed feeling lighthearted and happy with Jacob Hunter.
“Uh-huh. And how much stuff do you keep in your truck bed anyway? To think you always accused me of being hyper-prepared for disasters. Looks like you’re every bit as bad.”
He shouldered open the door, quickly shoved it closed against the cold wind and set her on her feet. The flashlight sat on a rickety table, aimed right at his hips and the front of his pants, and she jerked her attention away from wrong thoughts.
“Like I said, I learned from you,” he said.
“Where’s the wood? I’ll get started on the fire—I have some papers in my purse I don’t need that I can use to help get it started. What else do you have?”
He pounded his gloved hands together, then reached into a box, pulling out a battery-operated lamp and clicking it on.
“See, I’d have a bigger lamp with a bigger bulb. That thing hardly throws any light at all.”
“Do we need a lot of light?”
One dark eyebrow was raised slowly at her, and her pulse kicked at the gleam in his eyes that said he was thinking exactly what she was thinking, even though they shouldn’t be. Because she’d just looked around enough to notice that there was only one bed in the cabin, and if they were going to stay warm they were going to have to get in there together.
She swallowed hard. “No. Because we’ll have the firelight, too. Looks like the stack of wood here will last maybe a couple hours, so that’s not too bad.”
Quickly, she moved away from him toward the wood-burning stove and flipped open the door, shoving inside a few pieces of paper and a new notebook that she hadn’t used yet.
“Here’s the kindling and the bag of wood I brought. I’m going outside to see what I can scrounge up, since I’m already dressed.”
The words already dressed made her think of getting undressed, but of course he just meant he had on his jacket and hat and boots. Her face warmed at the place her brain kept going—which she supposed she should be happy about, since it was so cold she could see her breath in this place.
Time to get the fire built, you idiot.
The wood was nice and dry, and in no time welcome flames crackled and spat, filling the space with warmth and light. She stared at the fire, breathed in the smell of it, and felt her heart warm along with everything else. How long had it been since she’d built a fire? Sat in front of one? Must have been when she’d still been in college—long before she’d moved to LA.
She sat on her rear and poked her feet toward the fire, since they felt half-frozen in the flimsy shoes which she realized now she shouldn’t even have brought to Eudemonia. She looked up as the door opened and found she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Yes, he was older. They both were. But the way he looked now, with a knit hat covering his beautiful black hair, his nose and cheeks pink from the cold, his arms filled with snowy sticks, took her back in time to all those years, from boyhood to manhood, that she’d loved him with every ounce of her soul.
“You... Looks like you had some luck,” she managed to say. “How did you unearth it? I supposed you carry a shovel in your truck, too?”
“Is that a real question?” He stomped the snow off his feet just outside the door, then kneeled next to her to dump the wood onto the floor next to the dry logs. “Looks like you had luck, too. Good fire. You haven’t lost your touch.”
No doubt he hadn’t, either—but the touch she was thinking about had nothing to do with the fire.
“So, now what?” she asked, and then wished she hadn’t. Because the way he was looking at her told her he was thinking exactly what she was. Which was to get the fire blazing as hot as possible, cuddle in that bed naked and relive the past.
“Guess we should eat—though all I have to offer is camping food that’ll keep forever. Mom had a great spread for Mika’s party, but that was hours ago. You hungry?”
She was not going to answer that honestly. Because what she was hungry for was what she’d run away from. What she could never have again.
“A little. What’s on the menu?”
“Canned beans. And, yes, I have a can opener.” He flashed his devastating grin. “Canned corned beef. Beef jerky. Beef stroganoff.”
That brought her out of her rapt attention to the way the firelight flickered across the beautiful planes of his face, his unbelievably sexy mouth. “Clearly beef is your pantry staple. But beef stroganoff? Like, freeze-dried? Yuck.”
“Yeah. Pretty awful, but it’s better than starving.”
“Maybe I’ll wait ’til I’m starving.”
“Suit yourself.”
He pulled off his boots, placed them next to the door, and came to sit cross-legged next to her in front of the fire. He pulled a few cans out of the bag he’d carried in, and several bottles of water, handing her one.
“I recommend against drinking too much, or we’ll have to shovel a path to the outhouse.”
“Sounds like the perfect way to cap off my stay at home. Haven’t been in a frozen outhouse in a long time.”
“So there you have it. The highlight of your trip back.”
His brown eyes were filled with something she couldn’t quite read, and they stared at one another without speaking until he looked away to pull a package of jerky from his bag.
“This one is venison,” he said, handing her a piece. “A guy who works for the oil company started a side business, buying meat from some of the hunters around here. It’s pretty good.”
She took a bite and chewed at the dried stuff. “I’ve got to admit that’s delicious. Or maybe I’m hungrier than I thought.” She watched him open the beans and eat a spoonful right out of the can, then scoop another bite onto the spoon and hold it to her mouth.
“What happened to warming it up on the fire first?”
“What happened to the girl who used to love cold beans?”
His eyes were dark and alive, lit with humor and a heat that matched exactly what she was feeling as she stared at the way he slowly licked the sauce from his lips. It made her feel so breathless she opened her mouth without thinking, and he poked the spoon into her mouth, then followed it with a brief press of his lips to hers.
He pulled back an inch, and she managed to swallow the beans before he came in for another. The way his mouth moved on hers, soft and unhurried and tasting of sweet beans and hot sex, made her heart beat in slow, heavy thuds. Barely able to breathe, she cupped his warm, stubbly face in her hands and let the feelings wash over her, let herself absorb it and feel all the things she shouldn’t be feeling.
Their mouths separated and she looked into his eyes, now deeply serious.
“I shouldn’t kiss you. I know that,” he said, his breath feathering across her moist lips. “When you first came to take care of your mom I wanted to keep my distance. When that didn’t work out I promised myself I’d work on being your friend, putting the bad stuff behind us. Putting aside my anger with you and remembering why we’d liked each other from the time we were kids. But sitting here with you now, I can’t do that, either. Stupid or not, I want to be with you one last time.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. “I didn’t know it. I didn’t want to see you, either. I know you hate me. But I want to be with you, too, just once. Once more.”
“Rory.” His hands tightened on her shoulders. “I never hated you. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Was I furious with you? Beyond disappointed? Hurt bad? Yeah, I was all those things. But I never hated you—even when I wanted to.”
He kissed her again, and she clutched at him as he lowered her to the hard wooden floor, devouring her mouth until she felt dizzy from it. Flames leaped inside her, hotter than any fire, and she slipped her hands inside his shirt, loving the softness of his skin, the way it shivered at her touch.
Memories of all the kisses they’d shared tangled with the incredible deliciousness of this one. He tasted the same. He tasted like Jacob Hunter—the man she’d loved her whole life. Rory’s heart shook and fell, and she wrapped her arms around his warm back and gave in to the sensations she’d missed so much.
Then he sat up abruptly, leaving her confused. She pushed onto her elbows, her heart sinking as he stood and walked away from her across the room. Had he decided this was such a bad idea that he was able to stop? She knew it was beyond a bad idea, but she’d never have been able to stop, to walk away, when all she wanted at that moment was to kiss him and get naked with him and make love with him for the rest of the night.
“You...you changed your mind?”
“Hell, no,” he growled as he grabbed the bedframe and started dragging it toward her. “But this floor’s too hard to make love with you the way I want to, and it’s too damn cold to get naked this far away from the fire. So the bed and all the blankets are coming to the fire.”
Relief had her laughing, then getting up to help. “I always said you were a genius.”
“Not a genius—just a man who wants to get both of us stripped as fast as possible and under the covers without freezing in the process.”
The fire in the stove was the perfect height for the mattress. She and Jake tucked a sheet over it before he threw a few more logs in the stove. Then he reached to undo the big buttons on her coat and slide it off her shoulders. Without moving his gaze from hers, he pulled her sweater up over her head, and the rush of cold air from the back of the cabin skimmed her skin, even as the fire warmed her.
He must have seen her shiver, because he pulled her close and kissed her, at the same time tugging down her pants. With a gentle push he sat her on the bed and pulled off her shoes and socks, breaking their kiss again to wrap his hands around her foot.
“Your feet are like ice! Why didn’t you say something?”
“Once you started kissing me I didn’t notice.”
“I can relate...” His eyes gleamed. “And I know just the thing to warm you up.”
Like he had when he’d carried her to the truck, he scooped her into his arms and practically dumped her into the middle of the bed. He grabbed the blankets and an old comforter he’d brought and tossed them on top of her.
She watched him do a quick striptease, throwing his clothes far enough from the fire that they wouldn’t scorch, until he was standing in front of her breathtakingly naked.
For a long moment she let herself admire the masculine beauty that was Jacob Hunter: the way the firelight flickered on his skin, highlighting the dips and angles and defined muscle, the jut of his erection, the body she’d explored so thoroughly that she’d known every inch of it—every tiny scar, every imperfection.
She lifted her gaze to meet his and her breath caught in her throat at the way he was looking at her. The way he had all those years ago, when their lives had been wrapped together completely. And somehow, here tonight, it felt as if the entire world had shrunk down to just the two of them, emotionally and physically close in this tiny cabin covered with snow.
“There’s a problem here,” she said. “You’re still out there freezing, and I’m under the covers waiting for you.”
“Fixing that right now,” he said, and he crawled on all fours across the mattress and dropped a kiss to her mouth before joining her under the heavy blankets. He slid off her bra, then his hands roamed her body, making her shiver in a totally different way than she had been moments before.
He kissed her again, deepening it, and all worries that this was a bad idea, that they shouldn’t be doing it, fell away and she kissed him back, desperate to feel that connection with him once more.
His arms brought her body tight against his, and the way his skin slid against hers felt so delicious she gasped into his mouth. She stroked her hands up the hard planes of his chest and over his shoulders, remembering every little bump, every crevice, as though it was yesterday they’d been together and not years ago.
He lifted his mouth from hers and stared down at her. “I want to see you. Just for a minute. I want to see your body in the firelight. I promise I’ll warm you up.”
He tugged the blanket down to expose her breasts, his fingers slowly tracking its downward slide. Across her collarbone, over her breasts, caressing her nipples. She arched up in a silent invitation. His lips tipped at the corners, then he lowered his mouth to suck and lick, and she clutched the back of his head, moaning from the pleasure of it.
God, she’d missed this. Missed feeling this way—missed holding him and touching him and kissing him. She waited for the guilt to wash over her, the awful regret for her actions that terrible day, but it didn’t come. All she felt was a deep need to be with him, to enjoy this one time they had together before they went back to their separate lives.
“Frozen yet?” he asked as his mouth and tongue slid leisurely across her skin, his hands following. “I love looking at you. Your body is more beautiful than I remembered. But if you’re cold I’ll cover you up.”
“Cold? Are you kidding? I feel like I’m burning up.”
He chuckled against her skin as his hands moved lower to touch between her legs, making her gasp. “Burning up is exactly how I’m feeling, too.”
The touching, the way his tongue licked her breasts and her stomach and her hipbones, made her quiver and gasp, and she reached for him, wrapping her hand around his erection to make him feel good, too.
But in moments he pulled himself loose. “God, Rory. I need to be inside you now.”
“That sounds good to me.”
“Damn it.”
He got up from the bed and she felt suddenly cold, had to reach for the covers. “What the heck...? What are you doing?”
He rifled in his jeans pocket and held up a condom. “You’re not the only one who’s always prepared.”
Breathlessly, she laughed as he put it on, but her amusement quickly died in her throat as he slipped between the sheets and covered her body with his. Warm and hard and oh, so wonderful, he grasped her hips and slowly filled her, and it felt like all the times before, but somehow even better. She wrapped her arms around his back and kissed him, everything gone from her mind except the amazing way he made her feel.
They moved together in a devastating rhythm, faster and harder, their kiss broken as he stared down at her, his eyes glittering with the passion she remembered so well.
“Rory...”
Her name fell from his lips in a way that told her he felt the same deep connection that had filled every broken piece in her heart. As their bodies convulsed together in physical pleasure the past was forgotten, and for this short moment, at least, she felt almost whole for the first time in nine years.