Broken Promises by Patricia Watters

thought of having to explain to her father the reason she didn't show up at camp the following morning brought a sinking feeling to her stomach.
    At the trailhead, Ralph pointed the way, saying, "The overlook's not more than a couple hundred feet up the trail. There's a wide flat area where you can look down." He turned and headed back to the house.
    Tess and Zak started up the steep grade, following several switchbacks until, before long, they found themselves high on the hillside. At the level spot on the trail that Ralph described, Zak stopped and looked through the binoculars. While peering down into the nest, he said, "Ralph's right. One chick. I can't tell what else is in the nest though, but it looks like a couple of bottles. Here, take a look." He turned and handed Tess the binoculars.
    She turned the focusing ring until a woolly gray eaglet came into view. "I thought it would be brown," she mused.
    "That's postnatal down," Zak said. "That chick's only about a couple of weeks old."
    As Tess watched the young bird through the glasses, an adult swooped into view and perched on the edge of the nest, a fish dangling from it's hooked beak.
    "That's probably the mother," Zak said. "For the first few weeks the father hunts and the mother feeds. Keep watching and you'll see her show her chick how to rip the kill into pieces."
    A series of chortling cries came from high above, and another eagle swooped down and glided in a wide circle. The mother bird left the nest and flew up to join her mate. Together, the pair circled in a wide arc, then suddenly, they came together and plunged toward the earth, rolling and tumbling as they spiraled downward, until it seemed certain they'd crash. At the last moment, in perfect control, they broke apart and pulled out of their plunge, then soared swiftly and silently together on a current of wind.
    "That was amazing," Tess said. When she turned to look at Zak, he was so close she could feel his breath on her face. He was also looking at her with that intensity again...
    She turned away and continued to watch the pair, but the look on Zak's face lingered, as did the almost uncontrollable urge to just let Zak kiss her and get it over with and see if there really was something about the way he kissed that was different from the way David had kissed. Two mouths meeting, tongues tangling, breaths intermingling. That's it. A kiss was a kiss...
    "When they're courting, their aerobatics can be pretty spectacular," Zak said. "Just then they locked talons and begin a cartwheel toward the ground in a sort of love ritual."
    Tess couldn't help turning toward him then, and again he was looking at her, not the eagles. "They mate for life," he said, holding her gaze, "sometimes staying together as long as twenty-five years. And when one dies, the other begins a lonely journey, roaming the skies." He bent down, and curving a finger beneath her chin, brushed her lips with his. Although his only contact was his finger on her chin and his mouth on hers, it triggered a reaction in Tess that could not have been stronger had he taken her in his arms and held her.
    He slowly withdrew his lips. "Like I said, some habits die hard."
      Tess moved away from him, and said, in a wavering voice, "We'd better get back."
    Without waiting for his response, she turned and headed down the trail at a quick pace, intending to stay well ahead of him. It bothered her that the short, brief kiss was not just a kiss that made her lips tingle a little bit... that it sent her heart pounding, and her breath catching, and her mind reeling between wanting to throw her arms around Zak and kiss him long and hard, or pushing him away and demanding he explain his quick marriage seven years ago. And she would expect answers before she let him kiss her again. If she let him kiss her, that is.
    When they returned to the house, Ralph met them on the porch. His face was glum. "The airpark called and said the ceiling's too low and they can't get