Lonely Pride

by Tricia McGill

  * * *

  Despite having misgivings Sam went ahead and booked a flight for the next day. Secretly she hoped something would come up to force her to cancel the booking.

  The afternoon dragged. She knew she was rotten company as she and Barbara idly chatted while watching the afternoon soapies on the television.

  Towards four Barbara urged, “Why don’t you pop over to the clinic?”

  Sam shook her head, her throat clogged with unshed tears. “Mac made it perfectly clear he had no desire to see me again.”

  “Oh, surely you’re mistaken.”

  “No, I’m quite sure.” Pride wouldn’t allow her to risk a rebuff. In all the years she’d yearned for him to treat her as a woman she’d never felt such a longing as this one threatening to tear her apart. The fierce need he’d unleashed in her by his total possession was eating away at her and she knew no other man held the power to satisfy it.

  Restless, and taut as a bow-string, she called Rusty. With him ambling at her side she walked the same route they’d taken last evening. Ending up at the war memorial she almost turned in the direction of Mac’s clinic. Instead, she stared up at the stone structure that had witnessed their first encounter.

  Rusty whimpered at her side as if he could sense her desolation and she bent to fondle his ear. In this town, where once she’d fitted so well, she now felt as out of place as a man in work overalls at a banquet.