Forever and a Day

by Linda Lael Miller

  Although she had no intention of waiting around for Mark to forgive her, Carly was comforted by Jim’s words. They gave her hope that one day the hurting would stop and she could go on with her life without limping inwardly. “I have this friend who wants to go out with you,” she said, remembering Janet’s request to be “fixed up” with Jim.

  He grinned. “The good-looking one with the grocery bag who was standing in the hall the first time we went out?”

  Carly nodded, smiling. “That’s Janet. She’s a wonderful person.”

  Jim laughed. “We’re a pair, you and I. Will somebody tell me why I’m sitting next to one of the most beautiful women in America, extolling the virtues of some other guy?”

  “That’s easy,” Carly answered softly. “It’s because you’re a sensational person yourself. Watch out, Jim—I’m starting to get the idea that there might be a few nice men out there after all.”

  Dinner was enjoyable, though Carly wasn’t able to eat much. After Jim brought her home, she took a bubble bath and went to bed with a book. And her thoughts strayed to Mark with every other word.

  On Friday afternoon, her extra clothes and sleeping bag stuffed into a canvas backpack, Carly got into her car and drove southeast to the town of Bend, where the river expedition would begin. It was late when she finally found the riverside park where the others had camped, and she noticed first thing that the mosquitoes were out in force.

  “Don’t be a negative thinker,” she muttered to herself, getting out her backpack and making her way toward the camp.

  The others were gathered around a huge bonfire, and they all looked at home in their skins, as Carly’s grandmother used to say. It was evident that river rafting was nothing new to most of them, but Carly already had motion sickness just thinking about it.

  Wearing her trusty smile, along with jeans, hiking boots, a flannel shirt and a lightweight jacket, she joined the gathering.

  * * *

  THE HOUSE MARK selected was in a good part of San Francisco, just far enough from his parents’ place to promote good relations. The windows in his den offered a view of the Bay, and Nathan wouldn’t have to change schools in the fall.

  To Mark’s way of thinking, the place was perfect.

  Except, of course, for the fact that Carly wasn’t there.

  He reached into the pocket of his sports jacket and touched the bracelet she’d dropped through the mail slot at the house in Portland. Sometimes he fancied that he could feel her warmth and incredible energy still vibrating through the metal.

  With a sigh, Mark stepped closer to the windows and fixed his gaze on the Bay. The furniture wouldn’t arrive for another week, so there was no place to sit.

  Life without Carly was like running in a three-legged race, he reflected; what should have given him more mobility and freedom only made it more awkward to move. He thrust his hand through his hair.

  “Dad?”

  He turned to see Nathan standing uncertainly in the doorway. “Am I allowed in here?” he asked.

  Mark frowned. “Why wouldn’t you be?”

  Nathan lifted one of his small shoulders in a shrug. “Mom didn’t like me to go in her living room. She was afraid I’d spill something on the carpet.”

  With some effort, Mark kept himself from expressing his irritation. Being annoyed with Jeanine wouldn’t do anyone any good. “Things are different here, big guy,” he said as the boy came to stand beside him. “We’re not going to worry much about the carpets.”

  Nathan looked up at him and flashed the gapped grin that always gave Mark’s heart a little twist. “I used to have to go to bed at nine o’clock,” he said, obviously hoping Mark would shoot another rule down in flames.

  “You still do,” Mark replied.

  “Darn.”

  “Hello!” a feminine voice called suddenly in the distance. “Is anybody home?”

  “Grandma,” Mark and Nathan told each other in chorus, and left the room to go down the stairs and greet Helen.

  “I’ve come bearing gifts,” she said, indicating the bucket of take-out chicken she carried in one arm. “Am I invited to stay for dinner?”

  Mark smiled at his mother, while Nathan rushed forward to collect the chicken.

  “She can stay, can’t she?” the boy asked, looking back over his shoulder.

  “No,” Mark teased. “We’re going to hold her up for the chicken and then shove her out through the mail slot.”

  The three of them ate in the spacious, brightly lit kitchen, at a card table borrowed from the elder Holbrooks. When the meal was over, Mark sent Nathan upstairs to take his bath.

  “I still think both of you should be staying at our house,” Helen fretted when she and Mark were alone.

  Mark grinned and shook his head. “We’re having a great time camping out in sleeping bags and living on fast food.”

  “If you’re having such a ‘great time,’” Helen ventured shrewdly, “then how do you account for that heartache I see in your eyes?”

  Mark’s grin faded. “It shows, huh?”

  Helen nodded. “Yes. Mark, when are you going to admit you were wrong, fly up to Portland and ask that lovely young lady to forgive you?”

  He sighed, glad his mother couldn’t possibly know how many times he’d made plans to do just that, only to stop himself at the last second. Carly was just getting started on her career, and he had to make a solid home for Nathan. He told himself it would be better if they just went their separate ways.

  “She’s already dating Jim Benson,” he said, hoping that would throw Helen off the subject for good. “I was a passing fancy.”

  “Nonsense. When the two of you were in a room together, the air crackled. I don’t care if she’s dating a movie star and an underwear model on alternate nights—Carly loves you.”

  Mark was fresh out of patience. “Well, I don’t love her—okay?”

  “Liar,” Helen responded implacably. “Don’t you think I can see what’s happening to you? You’re being eaten alive by the need to see her.”

  “You’ve been reading too many romance novels, Mother,” Mark replied evenly. What she said was true, he reflected to himself, and he damned her for knowing it.

  Helen got out of her chair with a long-suffering sigh and began gathering up the debris from their impromptu dinner, only to have Mark stop her and take over the task himself. He wasn’t about to start depending on other people, even for little things.

  When she was gone and Nathan was asleep in a down-filled bag on the floor of his bedroom upstairs, Mark got out his laptop, set it on the card table and switched it on. After a few minutes of thought, he poised his fingers over the keyboard.

  “Carly,” he typed without consciously planning to.

  “Now that’s brilliant, Holbrook,” he said to himself. “Neil Simon is probably sweating blood.”

  He sat back in his chair, cupping his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. In his mind he saw Carly dancing with Jim Benson that night when she’d insisted on keeping her date with the guy. And even though Benson was one of the best friends he’d ever had, his nerve endings jangled just to think of another man holding Carly, kissing her, taking her to bed.

  He cursed. Carly wasn’t going to go to bed with Jim or anyone else, not for a while, he told himself. She was too sensible for that.

  Then he recalled the way she’d responded to him, the soft, greedy sounds she’d made as he pleasured her, the way she’d moved beneath him. His loins tightened painfully, and her name rose to his throat in an aching mass. She was a healthy, passionate woman and, in time, she would want the release a man’s body could give her.

  In anguish, Mark thrust himself out of his chair and stormed across the room to the telephone. He picked it up from the floor and punched out her number before he could stop himself, not knowing what he would say, need
ing to hear the sound of her voice.

  Her machine picked up, and Mark leaned against the wall in mingled disappointment and relief. “Hi, this is Carly,” the recorded announcement ran. “If you’re a friend, I’m off braving the wilds of the Deschutes River, and I’ll be back on Tuesday morning. If you’re a potential burglar, I’m busy bathing my Doberman pinscher, Otto. Either way, leave a message after the beep. Bye.”

  Mark closed his eyes and swallowed, unable to speak even if he’d had words to say. He hadn’t expected hearing her voice to hurt so much, or to flood his mind and spirit with so many memories.

  He replaced the receiver gently and went back to his computer, but no words would come to him. Finally he turned the machine off and went upstairs, where he looked in on Nathan.

  The boy was sleeping soundly, a stuffed bear he wouldn’t have admitted to owning within easy reach. Mark smiled sadly, closed the door and went on to his own room.

  It was more of a suite, actually, with its own sizable bathroom and a sitting area that had probably been a nursery at one time. The walls were papered in pink-and-white stripes, the floor was carpeted in pale rose, and the place had an air about it that brought whimsical things to mind—sugar and spice and everything nice.

  He allowed himself another bleak smile, imagining a baby girl with Carly’s big blue-green eyes and tousled blond hair. The knowledge that such a child might never exist practically tore him apart.

  Resolutely Mark stepped out of the sitting room and closed the door behind him. In the morning, he told himself, he’d see about having it redone to suit a confirmed bachelor.

  * * *

  CARLY UNROLLED HER sleeping bag and spread it out on the ground near two other women who hadn’t bothered to include her in their conversation. The photographer the newspaper had sent along was a man—a very uncommunicative man.

  After removing her boots, she crawled into the bag in her jeans and shirt, listening to the hooting of an owl and the quiet, whispering rush of the river.

  The sky was bejeweled with stars, and the tops of ponderosa pines swayed in the darkness. It was all poetically beautiful, and there was a rock poking against Carly’s left buttock.

  She got out of the bag with a sigh and moved it over slightly, but when she lay down again, the ground was still as hard and ungiving as ever. A desolate feeling overcame her; she was surrounded by strangers, and Mark didn’t love her anymore.

  She began to cry, her body shaking with sobs she silenced by pressing the top of the sleeping bag against her mouth. It wasn’t fair. Nothing in the whole damn world was fair.

  After a long time Carly fell into a fitful, exhausted sleep, and she awakened with a start, what seemed like only minutes later, to find the gung-ho leader crouching beside her.

  He was handsome, if you liked the Rambo type, but Carly wasn’t charmed by his indulgent grin or his words. “Wake up, Girl Scout,” he said. “Everybody else is practically ready to jump into the rafts.”

  Horrified, Carly bolted upright, squirmed out of the sleeping bag and was instantly awash in nausea. She ran for the log shower rooms.

  When she came out feeling pale and shaky and having done what absolutions she could manage, an attractive dark-haired woman wearing khaki shorts and a plaid cotton blouse was waiting. There was a camera looped around her neck.

  “Feeling better?” she asked, offering a smile and a handshake. “My name is Hope McCleary, and I didn’t come on this trip willingly.”

  Carly swallowed, glad to see a friendly face. “Carly Barnett,” she answered. “And I was sort of shanghaied myself—I’m doing a piece for a newspaper.”

  Hope grinned. “With me it’s a magazine. I work for a regional publication in California.”

  Carly felt a little better now that she’d found a buddy.

  The two women walked back to the campsite together, and Hope helped Carly roll up her sleeping bag and stow it, with her backpack, in one of the rafts. The stuff was carefully covered with a rubber tarp.

  Rambo sauntered over and looked Carly up and down with disapproving eyes. “You missed breakfast,” he said.

  Carly felt her stomach quiver.

  “Maybe she wasn’t hungry, all right?” Hope snapped, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. “Give her a break!”

  Rambo backed off, and Carly looked at Hope with undisguised admiration. “Admit it—you’re really an angel sent to convince me that life is worth living after all.”

  Hope grinned and shook her head. “I’m no angel, honey, but you’re right about part of it—life is definitely worth living.” She paused to pull in a breath. “Like I said, I’m just a humble magazine editor from San Francisco. Where do you live, Carly, and what newspaper do you write for?”

  A pang went through Carly at the mention of the city that had charmed her so much. She might have visited it often if things had worked out between her and Mark. “I’m from Portland—my managing editor wants the scoop on adventure among executives. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t want me to run with the bulls in Palermo.”

  Hope laughed and laid a hand on Carly’s shoulder. “A woman called Intrepid,” she said. “But you are a little green around the gills. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to stay here and just question everybody when we get back?”

  Carly would have given her rhinestone tiara for a room at the Best Western down the highway, but she wasn’t about to let the weak side of her nature win out. “I’m going on this trip,” she said firmly.

  Soon they were seated in one of the rafts, wearing damp, musty-smelling orange life preservers and listening to Rambo’s final speech of the morning. Everybody, he said, was responsible for doing their share of paddling. His eyes strayed to Carly when he added that one slacker could send a raft spinning into the rocks.

  She sat determinedly on the wet bench, her jeans already soaked with river water, staring Rambo in the eye and silently praying that she wouldn’t throw up.

  Soon they were off, skimming down the river between mountains fringed with ponderosas and jack pines. The dirt on the banks had a red cast to it, and here and there the color had seeped into the trunks of trees. Carly got over being scared and was soon paddling for all she was worth.

  Diamond-clear water sprayed her, and her morning tea rose to her throat a couple of times, but all in all the experience was exhilarating.

  The convoy of three large rafts traveled until noon, then Rambo led them ashore for lunch. Shivering with cold and with the delight of finding a new area where she was competent, Carly drank tea and cheerfully chatted with the others.

  After thirty minutes Rambo herded them all back into the boats again and they were off.

  Several breathless hours later they stopped for the night, making camp in a glade where a stone circle marked the site of the last bonfire.

  Carly plundered through her backpack for dry clothes, then went into the woods to change. When she returned, there was a fire blazing and food was being brought out of the boats in large, lightweight coolers.

  Reminding herself that a Girl Scout always plans ahead, Carly hung her wet jeans and shirt on a bush, with the underwear secreted behind them.

  She jumped when she turned and came face-to-face with Rambo. He was grinning down at her as though she’d just greased herself with chicken fat and entered a body-building competition.

  “What was your name again?” he asked. Apparently, now that he’d decided Carly had a right to live, he was going to be chummy.

  She barely stopped herself from answering, Call me Intrepid. “It’s Carly,” she said aloud. “Carly Barnett. And you’re...?”

  His dark brows drew together in a frown. “Weren’t you listening during orientation?” he demanded. “It’s John. John Walters. Remember that.” Displeased again, he turned and stormed away.

  Carly raised one hand to her forehead in a crisp sa
lute.

  Hope came to her, laughing. “Come on, Carly—let’s go gather some wood before he decides you’re plotting a mutiny.”

  “I just can’t seem to please that guy,” Carly told her friend, following Hope into the woods.

  “Do you want to?” Hope asked over one shoulder.

  Carly chuckled. She was feeling stronger by the minute. It was nice to know she was a survivor, that she wasn’t going to die just because Mark had left her without so much as a backward look. “No, actually. There’s bad karma between Rambo and me.”

  They found enough dry wood to fill their arms and returned to camp.

  “Have you ever thought about writing for a magazine?” Hope asked as they dropped the firewood beside the blaze in the middle of the clearing.

  Carly shrugged. “No, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to try it. Why?”

  “You’re obviously a very special lady, Carly, and I’m looking for someone to replace a staff writer at the end of the month. Could you send me some clips as soon as you get back to Portland?”

  Carly was intrigued. Mentally she sorted through the pieces she’d done for the Times—the inside view of the shelter for battered women, the rebuttal to Mark’s article on fathers’ rights, the coverage of the food contest. “I don’t have much, I’m afraid,” she said finally. “I haven’t been working for the paper all that long.”

  Hope shrugged. “Just send me what you can,” she said.

  That night was pleasant in a bittersweet sort of way. Everyone sat around the camp fire, full of roasted hot dogs and potato salad, and sang to the accompaniment of John Walters’s guitar. The pungent perfume of the pines filled the air, and the river sang a mystical song begun when the Ice Age ended.

  And Carly’s heart ached fit to break because Mark wasn’t there beside her calling her Scoop. She wondered now why she’d been so insulted at his jibes over her title; it seemed clear, in retrospect, that he’d only been teasing.