The Long Way Back

by JoAnn Ross

  “But he did chicken out,” Caine said.

  “Seems he did,” Joe Bob agreed. “For now.” His tone was that of a man who’d witnessed the lighting of the fuse and was now waiting patiently for the TNT to blow sky-high.

  “But I gotta warn you, Caine, Harmon does tend to think right highly of that new truck. I wouldn’t want to be the guy who caused it to get all those fresh gravel dings.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the other men in the bar, all of whom had had their own hassles with the Olson boys.

  “No point in borrowin’ trouble.” Oley pushed the beer toward Caine. Foam spilled down the side of the mug, puddled on the bar and went ignored. The Log Cabin had never been the type of place to hand out cocktail napkins.

  Caine took a long drink of the icy brew, then put the mug down on the bar, making a new ring. He wiped the foam off his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Real good to have you back home again,” a man next to Joe Bob offered.

  “Hiya, Johnny,” Caine greeted his cousin. “It’s good to be home.” He nodded toward Dana Anderson, who’d once been his brother-in-law and had stayed his friend. “Dana.”

  “Caine. Good to have you back… . Heard the Yankees cut you,” Dana said carefully. They’d drawn straws before Caine had arrived to see who’d broach the sensitive subject, and he had unluckily drawn the short one. “We’re all sorry about that.”

  Caine downed the beer in thirsty swallows and pushed the empty mug toward Oley, who filled it to the brim. Just as he didn’t spend money needlessly on cocktail napkins, Oley had never believed in wasting a fresh glass every time a customer wanted a refill. He took Caine’s money and put it away in the King Edward cigar box he used as a cash register.

  “It’s not that big a deal,” Caine insisted. “The feeling in my arm is coming back more every day. I figure I’ll be back on the mound before the All-Star break.”

  “For what team?” a man in the back of the bar dared ask.

  Caine shot a quick glare through the haze. “Any team that needs a championship,” he retorted.

  “Well,” Tom Anderson, Dana’s twin brother, said, “we’re all rootin’ for you, Caine.”

  A murmur of agreement went around the room. “So,” Joe Bob said, bravely forging his way deeper into dangerous conversational waters, “is it true what the papers are sayin’? That you shocked yourself with an electric drill?”

  “Although it’s embarrassing as hell, that’s what happened,” Caine said. “At first I had some weakness in my arm. But I’ve been working out and the strength’s coming back.”

  He took another drink. Talking about his accident made Caine thirsty. “I’ll be back to one hundred percent in no time.”

  “Is that what the doctors say?” Joe Bob ventured carefully.

  Caine frowned down at the white foam topping his beer. “You know doctors,” he said finally. “They won’t commit to anything for fear of getting a malpractice suit, I guess. But I know my body better than any damn doctor and I say it’s getting better.”

  He chugged the beer down, seeking alcohol’s soothing properties. “Injuries are part of the game,” he muttered. “Everyone knows that. The problem is that too many sportswriters and owners and managers—hell, even some fans—all want to be the first to predict the end of a guy’s career.”

  A low murmur of sympathetic agreement circled the room. Caine slammed the mug down on the bar with more force than necessary. “When I retire, it’s going to be because I want to. Because playing baseball isn’t any fun anymore, or maybe even because I can’t win.”

  His tone implied that he considered that alternative a major impossibility. “And no owner or manager or sportswriter or goddamn quack doctor is going to make that decision for me.”

  Silence descended.

  “Hey, Oley,” Caine called out, realizing that he was to blame for the dark mood. “How about a round of drinks to celebrate the prodigal’s return?”

  For the next few hours, Caine bought beer after beer for his hometown fans and congratulated himself on having the good sense to return to a place where a guy didn’t have to throw a four-seam fastball ninety-five miles an hour to prove himself a man.

  Much, much later, the door to the bar opened.

  Bottles, glasses and mugs were slowly lowered to tables as every man in The Log Cabin stared at Harmon Olson, back from delivering his load of logs. Standing beside him was his brother Kirk.

  Looking at Harmon, Caine was sorry to see that his memory hadn’t been playing tricks on him. The elder Olson boy was every bit as big as he’d remembered. And Kirk, unbelievably, was even bigger.

  The Olson brothers were forest-hardened males who, like so many of the men in the bar, had come into manhood wrestling with behemoths of timber twenty times their weight. Harmon’s torso had thickened with age, but his muscles still bulged like boulders beneath the red-and-black plaid sleeves of his shirt, and his arms were the size of smoked hams.

  His hands possessed long thick fingers that could encircle a man’s throat with the same deliberate ease they circled an ax handle. Beneath a gray 1950s-style crew cut, Harmon’s eyes looked like hard gray stones; his beard resembled steel wool.

  His baby brother Kirk’s hair was still blond and curly; his face was reddened from working outside. His beefy hands were curled at his sides into enormous loose fists and he looked every bit as dangerous as his Viking ancestors.

  “That your damn Ferrari, O’Halloran?” Harmon’s rough loud voice reminded Caine of the bugling of a bull elk in mating season.

  “Guilty.”

  Caine pushed off the stool with a sigh. He’d always considered himself a lover, not a fighter, and he usually managed to talk his way out of altercations. Unfortunately, neither Harmon nor Kirk looked as if they’d dropped into The Log Cabin for afternoon conversation.

  “You near caused me to roll my new truck,” Harmon growled. He began rolling up his sleeves, revealing rock-hard forearms. A bluish purple tattoo had been etched into the dark flesh below his right elbow; of what, Caine couldn’t quite tell.

  “You know, I’m really sorry about that, Harmon,” Caine said with an ingratiating smile.

  The Olson brothers walked toward him, mayhem on their minds and faces. Behind him, Caine heard chair legs scraping against the sawdust-covered floor as onlookers hurried to get out of the way.

  “You made my brother get gravel dings in his new paint,” Kirk said, appearing unmoved by Caine’s famous smile.

  “And damned impolite of me it was, too,” Caine agreed.

  He knew Harmon’s fury had little to do with a few paint dings. What had him all uptight was the fact that he felt he’d been made to look like a coward in front of his entire town.

  Caine finally saw what Harmon had tattooed on his arm. It was an amazingly accurate facsimile of a Peterbilt log truck.

  Not an encouraging sign.

  “So, naturally, I have every intention of paying for any damage I may have—”

  He was reaching into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet, when Harmon let out a roar, lowered his gray head and charged like an enraged buffalo, butting an unprepared Caine in the gut.

  The air whooshed out of Caine’s body. “D-dammit, H-H-Harmon,” he gasped. “We c-c-can w-work this out.”

  He saw a burly fist coming and ducked just in time. Caine heard the air whiz past his ear. “I take it that’s a n-no.”

  Someone—Kirk probably, since Harmon was standing in front of him—hit Caine a thunderous blow on the side of his head. As he lurched around on wobbly legs, Caine managed to get the heel of his hand under Harmon’s pug nose and rammed upward.

  When Harmon cried out in pain, Kirk grabbed a handful of Caine’s hair and sent him sprawling. He skidded across the floor, coming up the way he used to pull out of a slide.

  By now the entire room was in motion. Johnny Duggan left his stool as if ejected from it, with Joe Bob and Tom and Dana Anderson right beh
ind. Other men followed.

  Some, due to family loyalty along with a few others envious of Caine’s fame, sided with the Olson boys. The others remained loyally in Caine O’Halloran’s camp.

  Caine, on the floor with his face in the sawdust, felt a steel-toed boot slam into his ribs. Flashbulbs exploded in his head behind his eyes, and his stomach roiled.

  Enraged, he staggered to his feet, and while the Anderson brothers kept Kirk occupied, Caine slugged away at Harmon, resorting to the boxing techniques he’d learned in college.

  Right jab, left cross. Right jab, left cross. Harmon suddenly lurched. Watching him fall to the ground, Caine had a perverse urge to call out “Timber!”

  “All right, goddammit, that’s enough!”

  Oley took out the shotgun he kept beneath the bar for just such occasions and fired it into the air. Loaded with blank shells, it managed to silence the room without causing undue damage to the ceiling.

  “You boys have had your fun. Now why don’t you just sit down and get back to drinkin’ before I have to start writin’ out bills for broken furniture.”

  Harmon staggered to his feet. Caine, braced against the bar, held his fists up in front of him, Joe Sullivan-style.

  To Caine’s surprise, Harmon thrust out a bruised hand. “I’m willin’ to call a truce if you are.”

  Immensely grateful for the furious giant’s abrupt about-face, Caine accepted the gesture of reconciliation. As he reached out to shake Harmon’s outstretched hand, Kirk hit Caine with something a great deal larger and heavier than a fist.

  A red haze covered Caine’s eyes, a gong reverberated inside his head. And then he went down.

  When he opened his eyes again, his mouth was full of sawdust and his head was swimming.

  “Caine? You okay?” The man’s voice sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of the sea. “Dammit, boy, answer me,” Joe Bob urged.

  Caine pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He stayed that way, his head hanging like a winded horse for a long time, trying not to embarrass himself by throwing up.

  Johnny Duggan squatted down beside him. When he put his broad hand on Caine’s shoulder, Caine flinched. “Want me to go for the doctor?” Johnny asked.

  “No.” Caine closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. When he opened them again, he could focus a little more clearly. His shirt was wet and he reeked of whiskey. “I’m okay.”

  He crawled over to a nearby table, grabbed hold of a heavy oak chair and slowly pulled himself upright. The sea of faces staring at him blurred for a minute.

  Caine inhaled again, which cleared his vision, but made his chest feel as if it were on fire. Glancing around the bar, he saw, with relief, that the Olson boys were gone.

  “What happened to the gorillas?”

  “After Kirk sucker-hit you with that bottle, Oley threatened to call the sheriff. That’s when they decided they had other things to do,” Joe Bob explained.

  The bottle explained why he smelled like a drunk coming off a three-week-long bender, Caine decided. He tentatively felt his mouth with his left hand. It was swollen and his lip was cut, but no teeth appeared to be loose. And his nose, thankfully, seemed to be okay, too.

  “You know, Caine, you are whiter than new snow,” Tom Anderson said.

  “Not to mention your pretty face lookin’ like Joe Bob’s catcher’s mitt,” his brother Dana added. “And you’re swaying on your feet like an old-growth hemlock about to fall. Come on, hotshot,” he said, taking hold of Caine’s arm. “Let’s get you over to the clinic.”

  “You’ve got a clinic here now?” Caine was grateful for that bit of news. The way his stomach was churning, he didn’t think he could take driving down those twisting mountain switchbacks to the hospital at Port Angeles. “Since when?”

  “Since Nora came back from the Bronx six months ago and opened one up in Gram’s old house,” Tom answered.

  Propped up by the Anderson brothers, Caine had been making his way, painful step by painful step, toward the door. At this latest bulletin, he stopped in his tracks. “I don’t think this is a very good idea, guys.”

  “Try looking in a mirror and telling us that,” Tom advised.

  “You don’t have to worry about a thing,” Johnny Duggan assured Caine. “The girl turned out to be a right fine doctor. Fixed up my yella-jacket stings just fine. Should be able to patch you up without any trouble at all.”

  “I’m fine,” Caine said, trying to ignore the flames licking at the inside of his chest. “All I need is a stiff drink and a little rest.”

  “You need to be checked out,” Dana corrected. Under his breath, he added, “Don’t worry, Caine. From what we can tell, Nora’s put the past behind her.”

  If that was true, Caine wondered what the chances of his ex-wife passing on her secret might be. Not good. Since despite her brother’s optimistic assertion, Caine couldn’t forget her pale face and ice-cold eyes when she’d told him that she’d never—ever!—forgive him for their son’s death.

  “I still don’t think…” His head fogged again; he took another breath to clear it. “Aw, hell.”

  Dana Anderson watched the color fade from Caine’s battered face, saw the pain in his eyes and made his decision. “You’re going to have to face her sometime, Caine,” he said, pushing open the door. “Might as well get it over with.”

  CHAPTER 3

  It had been a long day. Twenty minutes after her last patient had departed, an exhausted Nora was getting ready to close the office when the clinic door opened, and there, standing in the doorway, haloed by a blaze of light from the setting sun behind him, was Caine O’Halloran.

  His handsome face had been badly battered, his upper lip was split open and his right eye was surrounded by puffy flesh the color of ripe blueberries. He was weaving in the doorway, braced on either side by two rugged blond men she knew too well.

  How dare her brothers go drinking with Caine! And then, to have the unmitigated gall to bring him here, expecting her to patch him up after whatever drunken brawl he’d gotten into this time, was really pushing their luck!

  Although his right eye was swollen almost completely shut, the left was as blue as a morning glory and gleamed with a devilish masculinity that long ago—in another world, at another time—had possessed the power to thrill her.

  Caine’s split lip curved in a boyish grin that Nora knew had coaxed more than his share of women into sharing intimate favors.

  “I sure hope you weren’t planning to close up shop early, Doc,” he greeted her in his deep, bedroom voice. “Because you just got yourself another patient.”

  It was as if time had spun backward, and Caine and her brothers were boys again. Having gone through their wild years together, the unholy trio had gotten in more than their share of fights. They’d always emerged, bloody but not bowed, grinning with the sheer satisfaction of having stuck up for one of their own.

  “Dana Anderson, I thought you’d grown up.” Nora turned on him, not yet prepared to confront Caine. “And exactly how do you plan to explain that black eye to Karin?” she asked Tom hotly.

  He shrugged, looking sheepish. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to back me up if I told her that I got hit with the wrong end of a two-by-four.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t.” Nora turned her back and walked into the examining room.

  The three men exchanged an uneasy look, then followed.

  “But it wouldn’t do you any good even if I was willing to lie,” she continued as she opened a small refrigerator and took out a cold pack, “since by breakfast tomorrow, everyone in town will know that the Anderson boys were out brawling with that hellion, Caine O’Halloran.

  “Here.” She tossed the gelled pack to her brother. “Put this on that eye. It’ll be ugly as sin by morning, but that should help keep the swelling down.”

  She took her other brother’s hands and frowned as she looked at his skinned knuckles. “This is going to hurt for at least a week,” sh
e predicted.

  “You don’t have to sound so pleased about it,” Tom complained.

  “It’s only what you deserve for fighting. And at your age!”

  “You saying we should have let the Olson boys kill Caine?”

  “I’m saying that responsible men—intelligent adult males with wives and children—don’t get into brawls in bars.”

  She shot Caine a cool, disapproving glance, really looking at him for the first time since the men had entered the clinic.

  “I’m not surprised that you’re involved in this.” Her voice reminded Caine of the ice on a melting glacier—cold and dangerous. “One day back in town and you’re already in trouble.”

  “Harmon swung the first punch, Nora,” Dana said.

  She arched a blond brow. “And I wonder whatever could have provoked him? Could it be, perhaps, that some hotshot jock with an IQ smaller than his neck size practically killed Harmon by playing chicken in a Ferrari in some misguided attempt to live up to his stupid macho image?”

  “Ouch,” Caine objected. “What the hell ever happened to Osler’s creed—the part about a doctor judging not, but meting out hospitality to all alike?”

  Sir William Osler had been a famous clinician in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Enthusiastic about his theories concerning the emotional and social responsibilities of a physician, Nora had quoted from his essays to Caine. At the time, he’d been so busy rubbing some foul-smelling grease on his damn glove, she hadn’t thought he’d heard a word she’d said.

  “I’m amazed you remember that.” Surprise took a bit of the furious wind out of her sails.

  “Oh, I remember everything about those days, Nora,” Caine answered quietly.

  An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. “Well,” Dana said with forced enthusiasm, “now that Caine’s in your expert hands, little sister, I guess I’ll get back to work.”

  “And I promised Karin I’d stop and pick up some milk and bread on the way home,” Tom said.