The Hungry Heart

by Brenda Gayle

  “Did you love him?” Nora asked.

  “Of course I did. I do.”

  “As much as you loved Thomas?”

  “Oh, my. How can I explain? Thomas was my first love. He has a place in my heart that no one can touch. But I never expected to see him again.”

  “Okay. Continue.”

  “It was hard for Mom and Dad, too. They had all these plans to see the world after I left home, and now they had a new baby to take care of. And on top of that, they lived in constant fear that someone would figure out the truth and try to hurt you.”

  “Why didn’t they just move away?”

  “I don’t know. I wondered that myself, but never asked. I think they needed the grounding of someplace familiar. It would have been too much for them to start over somewhere new.” Karen sighed. “Please don’t judge them too harshly. I know they were over-protective of you, that you didn’t have a happy childhood. But they were doing their best to keep you safe.”

  Nora tried to imagine what it must have been like for Karen and her parents at the time. She knew she should probably feel badly for thinking the worst of them all these years, and maybe that would come in time. For now, though, she needed to adjust to her new reality.

  “Did Robert know?” Nora asked.

  “He does now.”

  “And is he okay? Are the two of you—?”

  Karen shrugged. “He says he’s fine, but I know he’s hurt that I kept this from him all these years.” She smiled bravely. “We’ll survive.”

  Nora closed her eyes, exhausted. There was so much to deal with…just not now.

  “You rest, okay?” Karen said. “Oh wait a second.”

  Nora opened her eyes to see Karen fumbling in her purse.

  “The police kept all your clothes for evidence, but I rescued this from your coat pocket.” She handed Nora a folded newspaper clipping. Nora didn’t have to look at it to know what it was. She tucked it under her pillow for safety.

  “Am I interrupting?” a male voice said from the door. Nora recognized it immediately, but watched for Karen’s reaction.

  “Thomas.” The name was like a breath on Karen’s lips. Nora watched her turn to see him for the first time in more than thirty-five years. Her heart ached as he wheeled himself into the room. He looked gaunt and tired, but at least he was alive.

  “Karen,” he sounded so pleased to see her that Nora had to squeeze her eyes shut tightly to stop the threatening tears. “You look just as I remember.”

  She laughed. “You look a little worse for wear,” she said lightly. Nora could hear the breathlessness in Karen’s voice and she smiled at her mother’s schoolgirl reaction to seeing her first love after so long.

  “How are you?” He rolled over to Nora’s bed.

  “Fine,” Nora said and gazed up at her parents. “The doctors say I’ll be ready to go home in a few days.”

  “I’m glad.” Thomas smiled down at her, but his gaze kept drifting over to Karen, who seemed to glow under the appraisal.

  Nora had so many questions for both her parents, but realized they needed some time alone. She could wait. “I’m tired now. I think I’d like to sleep a bit. Maybe the two of you could spend some time getting reacquainted?” She leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

  “Would you like to go down to the cafeteria for a coffee?” Thomas asked Karen.

  “I don’t want to leave her,” Karen whispered. “Can we just talk over there?”

  Nora heard them cross the room and stand near the doorway. When they spoke their voices were muted. It felt voyeuristic, but she couldn’t stop herself from listening.

  “Are you happy, Karen? I’ve kept track of you all these years, and I’ve always wondered,” Thomas said.

  “Yes. I’ve had a very good life.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “What about you? Did you marry? Do you have children?” Karen choked on the last word.

  “No. I didn’t think it would be fair. I couldn’t be totally honest with anyone. I couldn’t tell anyone who I really was, and I could never be sure I wouldn’t be found out. I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.”

  “It’s a terrible way to live, isn’t it?” Karen said.

  Silence. Nora cracked open an eye and saw Thomas nodding silently, thoughtfully. “Nora’s great, though,” he said, breaking out of his reverie. “Makes everything worthwhile, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I do. What are you going to do now? Are you staying in Santa Fe?”

  “No. I never intended to stay here.”

  “Will you keep in touch? With Nora?”

  “If she’d like me to. I don’t know how much time I have left—it may be five years, it may be fifteen—but I’m through hiding. I want to die with my own name.”

  “The FBI’s not very happy about that,” Robert said, coming into the room.

  “I’ve given up enough of my life—thirty-five years. I think I’d like to take a little back for me,” Thomas said. “You must be Robert Pearce. It’s good to meet you, sir.”

  “But if you’re still in danger...” Nora said, abandoning the pretense of sleep.

  “That’s a risk I’ll take.”

  “I think the danger is pretty slight, now,” Robert said. “Ronnie Stokes is behind bars and likely to remain there for the rest of his life.”

  “But the others? There were others with him,” Nora said.

  “Thugs for hire. They have no stake in this fight,” Robert said.

  “And what about Senator Begay?” Karen asked tentatively.

  Begay? Nora recalled the two strange encounters she’d had with him. He was involved, too?

  “David Begay has decided he will not run for re-election when his term is done,” Robert said. “He’s going to focus his energies on his community. It’s ironic that the programs Begay has implemented in Shiprock over the last thirty years are very likely the reason Thomas’s old gang no longer exists.”

  Thomas nodded his approval. “So it’s really over then?”

  “So it would seem,” Robert said, extending his hand. “Welcome back, Mr. King.”

  ****

  “Good,” the nurse said, removing the blood pressure cuff from Nora’s arm. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine,” Nora said.

  She leaned back against the pillows and contemplated the stillness. Karen, Robert, and Thomas had been shooed out of her room when the nurse arrived to check her vitals. This was the first time she’d been left alone since she’d regained consciousness and, with nothing to distract her, bits and pieces of her ordeal were coming back to her.

  Nora looked down at her hands. Ronnie had threatened to cut off her fingers.

  “They’re all there. I checked. All ten of them,” Hunter said from the doorway. “Now your earlobes? That’s another matter.”

  Nora’s hand flew to her left ear and felt the bandage. That had been Ronnie’s first cut, she remembered. She felt for her right earlobe, but that one seemed to be intact.

  “Just the one. You’ll be pretty cheap to buy earrings for with just the one lobe.” Hunter’s voice sounded light, but Nora didn’t sense his usual mocking humor behind the comment. “Mostly, it was deep cuts. The doctors sewed them all up.” He leaned heavily against the doorframe, looking as if he would fall down without the support.

  “Are you just going to stand there, or are you coming in?” she asked. Every time she moved she could feel sharp stinging sensations throughout her body—Ronnie’s deep cuts. She’d refused the nurse’s offer of painkillers­­ to be certain she had all her wits about her when she saw Hunter again.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Last time I visited you in the hospital you dumped me.”

  “Well if I’ve already dumped you, what do you have to lose?” she said, trying to match his teasing tone.

  “That’s what’s got me worried,” he said, but came to her bedside anyway.

  On th
e table beside her bed, her cell phone began to vibrate and then the music began. She shrugged at the look of surprise on Hunter’s face when he recognized the tune, Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

  “I thought it was time for a change,” she said, scanning the caller-ID. Becca. Nora allowed it to go through to voice mail. She’d call her assistant­ back later—former assistant, she corrected herself. “Besides, I told you I liked this song when you played it for me in the car.” She didn’t tell him that she’d bought Green Day’s American Idiot CD and had played it so much over the past few weeks she’d pretty much memorized all the words to every song.

  She smiled, remembering Becca’s reaction when she had showed off her new ring tone. While Hunter may have thought Green Day would score her points with the younger generation, Becca had simply rolled her eyes and informed her that American Idiot was “sooo yesterday.” Time marches on—even for Hunter Graham.

  Nora slid over so he could sit down beside her on the bed. He looked exhausted. His skin was gray and she could see dark circles under his eyes. She remembered those eyes staring down at her just before she’d blacked out. It hadn’t been a dream. He really had found her.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said softly.

  “You’re welcome. Any chance you’re offering a reward?”

  “Maybe. What did you have in mind?”

  He shrugged. For the first time, Nora thought he looked unsure of himself. She remembered Libby’s concern for him given the disappearance of his cousin, and her promise to try to help him.

  “Your grandmother told me about Michael. Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  “Well, you’ve done an excellent job of taking my mind off of it for the past twenty-four hours,” he said.

  “Seriously Hunter.” She wasn’t going to let him pass it off as nothing.

  He sighed deeply and shook his head. “I’ve done all I can do right now, but thanks.”

  She could feel his thigh resting against her hip, but he didn’t make any move to touch her anywhere else. She wanted to reach out to him, to stroke away the lines of worry that etched his face. She wanted to tell him that she’d be fine, only she wasn’t sure that was true. Physically, she knew she’d recover. But emotionally? How did one recover from falling in love with Hunter Graham?

  There was no doubt he cared about her, but could there ever be more? She had wanted to tell him the truth about how she felt about him—that she loved him—but that was when she thought she was dying. What would his reaction be if she told him now? Would he be pleased? Or would he view her as simply another of his many conquests? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

  “I hear you’ve left your job,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said hesitantly. How did he know that?

  “I have a proposition for you. Right now Anna is officially in charge of the Graham Foundation, but as you know, that’s not her true love. How would you like to run it?”

  “Me?” Nora’s voice squeaked with surprise. “But what would Anna do then?” She stalled for time, trying to wrap her mind around what he was offering her. The Graham Foundation would be a huge step up for her. She could do it—she’d love to do it. Just imagine all the people she could help. It was breathtaking.

  It would also tie her closer to Hunter and his family, and she’d have a valid excuse to see him regularly. But could she bear to have a front row seat to his scandalous love life?

  “I’m guessing Anna’s going to be given a lot more responsibility at the ranch,” he said.

  “You’ve told them then? Your father and uncle? Is everything okay?”

  Hunter raked his hands through his hair and stared past her, out the window. “I don’t know where things stand at the moment. But yes, I finally told them.” He turned back to her and gave her a self-deprecating smile. “It was pointed out to me—with real-life examples—that sometimes you have to do the right thing regardless of what it costs you.”

  “Examples?” Nora thought about Thomas and his decision. It had been the right thing to do, but the cost had been incalculable.

  “You,” he said.

  “Me?”

  “C’mon Nora. I know you left CAN because of me—that you stood up for your principles and told the directors on your board they couldn’t interfere in your personal life. What I don’t get, though, is why you broke up with me anyway?”

  How did he know this? Was this why he was offering her the Graham Foundation? Did he feel guilty about her losing her job? She wouldn’t accept his charity.

  “It’s not that big a deal,” she said. “Sylvia and I had been disagreeing over a lot lately. Don’t you remember that crisis I was dealing with during our ‘cooking lesson’? I figured it was time to go anyway.”

  She was tired of lying down. It made her feel vulnerable. She tried to prop her elbows on the bed and push herself up. It was awkward, and Hunter immediately stood up to help her. As he plumped up her pillows to make a backrest, the newspaper clipping fluttered to the floor.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Nora said, quickly reaching out to take it from him.

  He pulled back and unfolded the paper, whistling softly as he realized what it was.

  “Give it back,” she said, cringing from the sensational headline: “Cougar Cages Hunter.”

  “Is this what got your board up in arms about us?” he asked.

  She felt tears welling up behind her eyes as she remembered the humiliation of the board meeting. In an instant she’d gone from being on top of the world to the depths of despair. She had been so happy that morning, confident in her career, and especially, thanks to Hunter, in herself as a woman. The board had tried to make their relationship seem tawdry and dirty. She couldn’t allow that.

  “Why would you keep this garbage?” he said.

  The paper ripped as she grabbed it from him. She stared down at the photograph of the two of them on their way into the fundraising dinner. Hunter was smiling down at her, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. He seemed so happy that she was with him. The picture allowed her to pretend he had loved her just a little.

  “I like the picture,” she said.

  Hunter took the clipping back and carefully ripped the paper, removing the text so only the photo remained. He handed it back to her and sat back down on the bed facing her.

  “You can keep the photo if you want, sweetheart. But why settle for a picture when you can have the real thing? If you want it.”

  She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. She had ached for him to touch her, and now as his hands cupped her face and his thumbs wiped away her tears, she found she couldn’t bear it. She shook her head to make him stop, and he dropped his hands and looked away.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  She wanted him more than she had wanted anything in her life. She stared at the photograph. That was what she wanted. She wanted to know he would always look at her that way. She had tried to convince herself that she could be satisfied with a part of him, with as much as he could give for as long as he could give it. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t enough.

  “I’m sorry, too.” He stood, preparing to leave.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake. Will the two of you just get over yourselves?” Libby stood in the doorway of the room, her hands on her hips. She scowled fiercely at them, intimidating despite her small stature.

  “It’s none of your business, Nan. Nora’s made up her mind and I have to respect that.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Nan.” Hunter was shocked by Libby’s outburst.

  “You are two of the most pig-headedly stubborn people I know. You’re both committed to doing the right thing, even at extreme personal risk, but you won’t consider asking the other one to take a risk on you.” She marched into the room and glared at the two of them.

  “You, Nora, threw away a career you love not because your board criticized your morals but becaus
e they questioned Hunter’s. Isn’t that true?” She didn’t wait for Nora to respond. “And you, my darling grandson, stood up to your father so you would be worthy of Nora. You moved heaven and earth to find her, and for what? To walk away now? To let her go without a fight?”

  She looked from one to the other. “Don’t look so shocked. I may be old, but I’m not blind. Admit you love each other. Kiss already and start the happily-ever-after. It’s not rocket science, you know.” She turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

  Nora stared at the empty doorway, her mind racing and her emotions in turmoil. Could Libby be right? Hunter had said he had finally told his father he didn’t want the ranch because of the example she had set with the board. But she had thought it was guilt driving him—that he felt responsible for her losing her position. Could she have gotten it wrong?

  She turned her head to look at him. He was staring back at her, a deep furrow between his brows.

  “Is it true?” he said. “Did you really quit to defend my reputation?”

  “You’re the best guy I’ve ever known, Hunter Graham. You try to hide it behind this façade of self-confidence, arrogance even, but you really care about people and you go out of your way to help them. I couldn’t stand the things they were saying about you—the hypocrisy. Pretty much every one of my directors is using their position on the board to advance their own personal agendas while pretending to be there for some greater good. How can they be so sanctimonious about my life when their own motivations are suspect?”

  She looked down at the photo and continued more quietly. “But it was about me, too. I can’t be part of an organization that judges a person’s character by what they read in a newspaper.”

  “Don’t make me out to be a saint,” Hunter said.

  “Oh don’t worry, there’s no danger of that.” Nora laughed softly, and then turned serious again. “Did you really tell your father in order to be w-worthy of me?” She stumbled on the word. “Worthy” seemed too magnanimous a term to use on her.

  Hunter sat back down on the bed. He took Nora’s hand in his and lifted it to his lips. “I’ll never be worthy of you. But I’d like to spend the rest of my life trying.”