AN INNOCENT MAN

by Margaret Watson

  "Sarah."

  It sounded as if her name had been torn out of him. She waited, but he didn't say anything more. Her heart shriveled painfully and crumbled in her chest.

  "There really isn't anything left to say, is there, Connor? You've made your choices and your feelings very clear." She turned away, clutching the doorknob so hard her knuckles turned white. "I've got a waiting room full of people," she whispered, hating the thickness in her voice and refusing to meet his eyes. "And I know you must have a lot to do. I won't keep you."

  She moved slowly to the door, but couldn't bear to walk away without one last look at him. "Goodbye, Connor. Thank you for everything."

  He stood staring at her, tenderness fighting with the hardness in his eyes. The hardness won, and she closed the door quietly behind her.

  * * *

  Connor stood rooted to the floor for a long time, watching the place where Sarah had disappeared. Her goodbye had sounded awfully final.

  But then why wouldn't it, he asked himself bitterly. He'd made it pretty plain that he wasn't interested in anything Sarah Wesley had to offer.

  His lips thinned as he remembered her asking him if he'd been in love since he left Pine Butte and Barb. What the hell did she know about love, stuck here in this hick town all her life? She'd told him she hadn't been involved with anyone since she came back to Pine Butte six years ago. She had no idea how much it could hurt to love someone. It took him only a few minutes to pack his belongings. A half hour later, everything was loaded onto his motorcycle and he was ready to go. All he had to do, he told himself, was get on the bike, start it up and ride away.

  He'd leave Pine Butte, Colorado, and everything it stood for behind him. It would never have any power over him again. He'd finally defeated Ralph Wesley and learned the truth about his father, and now he could get on with the rest of his life.

  A life that would be sterile and empty without Sarah, a small voice reminded him, and he tightened his grip on the leather backpack. There was no way anything could work out between him and Sarah. The harsh truth made his chest tighten, but he ignored the pain. She couldn't leave, and he wasn't about to stay. There was no place for him here in Pine Butte. His memories, and those of the rest of the townspeople, went too deep. And besides, Sarah had never asked him to stay.

  Taking one last look around the bedroom, he slung the pack over his shoulder and walked out the door. He stood in the hallway and looked toward the clinic, longing for just one more glimpse of Sarah.

  It would have to last a lifetime.

  He heard Josie talking to someone in the waiting room, and the soft murmur of voices from on exam room told him that Sarah was with a patient.

  After standing for a long minute, staring at the closed door of the exam room, he turned and walked out the back door. Maybe it was better this way. A clean break would avoid teary scenes and painful goodbyes. Besides, he acknowledged bleakly, she'd already said goodbye to him. It would be a long time before he forgot the pain in her eyes as she'd said, "Thank you for everything."

  His motorcycle roared to life, and he turned the bike and headed toward Eagle Ridge Road

  . He didn't look back until he got to the place on the switchback where he'd stopped nine days before, driving into town. Easing the throttle down to idle, he slowed and lifted the visor of his helmet.

  Pine Butte looked the same as it had nine short days ago. The houses were still dusty, the sign that welcomed visitors still looked shabby and decrepit. But he had changed, he realized slowly as he looked at the town where he'd grown up.

  The words Sarah had spoken about forgiveness floated through his mind, and he knew with a shock of certainty that they weren't necessary anymore. Twelve years of hatred, and as many more years of torment before he'd finally left Pine Butte, vanished in the blink of an eye.

  Now, when it was too late, he realized the past wasn't important. He looked at the roofs of the houses below him, and his bitterness toward the town crumpled into dust. The town of Pine Butte faded into insignificance. Now, when it was too late, he realized that Sarah was all that mattered. And Sarah hadn't asked him to stay.

  Where there was no trust there couldn't be love.

  Snapping the visor down, he revved his motorcycle and roared toward Denver. He didn't look back again.

  * * *

  Sarah paused in the exam room as she heard Connor's motorcycle sputter to life behind the clinic. She drew in a deep breath, waiting for the sudden silence that would mean he'd changed his mind and was coming back into the clinic to tell her he was staying. The motorcycle just roared louder as he put it in gear and then the noise gradually faded as he drove away from Pine Butte.

  Carefully she let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Looking at the floor, she blinked several times and swallowed the hard, bitter lump in her throat. After what seemed like an eternity, she looked up at the child's face that swam before her.

  "I'm sorry, Billy. What were you saying? I couldn't hear you there for a moment."

  As the child chattered away to her, she felt the last of her hope slipping away, like the last leaves that fall from the trees in the winter.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  «^

  Connor rubbed his face wearily and leaned against the counter in the Denver hospital, staring at the chart with bleary eyes. His day had started here twenty hours earlier, and it would be another hour before he could get home. At least, he told himself, he wouldn't lay in bed tonight staring at the ceiling, seeing Sarah's face everywhere. With any luck at all, by the time he got home he'd be too tired to even brush his teeth, let alone lay awake brooding about Sarah Wesley.

  Pushing himself away from the counter, he stared at the chart in his hands. He had to write instructions for the child he'd just admitted to the hospital. Pull it together, he told himself savagely. He had to think about his patient, not Sarah.

  Except not an hour went by that he didn't think about Sarah. And it was even harder to keep her out of his mind when he was tired. He slammed the chart onto the counter, making the night-duty nurses jump in their seats. He'd been home from Pine Butte for a month, and the longing for her got worse every day.

  "Why don't you go home, Dr. MacCormac?" he heard one of the nurses say. "You've been here an awfully long time."

  "I have to get orders set up for Christy Kining." His voice hardly sounded like his own. Hoarse and harsh, it sounded as if he'd been up and talking for at least forty-eight hours.

  "You don't have to do it tonight," the nurse answered gently. "Go home and get some rest."

  "In a minute," he answered irritably. He stared at the chart as the lines became wavy and blurry. Finally, sighing with resignation, he shoved it into the rack at the nurse's station. "All right," he snarled. "I'll be back at seven o'clock."

  Running one hand through his hair, he walked down the hall toward the elevator. Just before he pushed the call button, he heard someone behind him.

  "Dr. MacCormac?" a vaguely familiar voice said.

  He turned around reluctantly. Whoever it was, he didn't want to talk to them at two o'clock in the morning.

  The woman who hurried toward him looked familiar, but it took a moment to place her. When he finally realized who she was, his face relaxed into a smile that quickly turned into a worried frown.

  "Mary Johnson! What are you doing here? Is something wrong with the baby?"

  "No, the baby's fine. It's our daughter, Jenny." She paused, and he saw the fear on her face and her struggle to control it. "She's here for heart surgery. Sarah's been telling us for a couple of years that we have to get it done, and after what happened with the baby, we didn't want to take any chances by putting it off."

  "I remember Sarah mentioned it once," he said softly. Even speaking her name made his heart ache.

  "She arranged everything for us," Mary told him, the fear and anxiety in her eyes momentarily replaced by a smile as she spoke of her friend. "She even called the
Parent's Place house so we would have a place to stay."

  Connor stared at her for a moment, not seeing the worried woman who stood in front of him. All he could see was Sarah's luminous face, shining with love. A love that he had refused, pushing her away and grinding her precious gift into the dirt.

  He forced his attention to the woman who watched him. "When is your daughter's surgery scheduled?" he forced himself to ask. All he really wanted to know about was Sarah.

  Mary licked her lips. "Tomorrow morning. The doctor told us it should be routine, and that afterward Jenny'll be as good as new." She looked down. "But I worry," she added in a low voice.

  Taking her arm, Connor led the woman to her daughter's room. Every pediatric room was a single, equipped with a chair that folded out into a bed. Her child slept peacefully in the semidark of the room. "You have to get some sleep, Mary. You don't want to scare Jenny in the morning when you're so tired you can't keep your eyes open, do you?"

  "I know," she sighed. "I just can't convince my mind to slow down enough to sleep, though."

  "You need to think about something else," Connor said firmly. He paused and watched Mary settle herself in the chair. He tried to think of something else to ask her, but he couldn't think of anything but Sarah. "How's Sarah?" he finally asked.

  Mary froze and looked at him. "What difference does it make to you?" she questioned carefully.

  "I care about her." He sounded as if the admission had been torn out of him, and he forced himself to continue. "I want her to be happy."

  Mary stared at him for a long time. "If that's true, you sure have a funny way of showing it," she finally said. "She's been desperately unhappy since you left, but you know Sarah. She's working harder than ever to try to cover it up. She's going to make herself sick if she keeps it up."

  Connor compressed his lips into a thin line. "And that bastard Ralph Wesley still won't pay to hire a doctor for the town?" Maybe the anger could keep him from thinking about Sarah being unhappy.

  Mary's eyes glinted with humor. "Ralph has other things to worry about right now. The EPA came down on him with both feet right after you left. He's so busy tap-dancing for them he hasn't shown his face in town for a couple of weeks."

  Connor made a noncommittal noise and stood to leave. Hearing about Sarah only made his loneliness and pain worse, and he wasn't in the mood right now to offer sympathy to Mary. "Good luck with Jenny's surgery tomorrow. I'm sure everything'll turn out fine."

  He almost made it to the door before Mary stopped him. "Just a minute, Dr. MacCormac … I mean, Connor."

  He didn't know Mary Johnson could sound so commanding, and he stopped and turned around. "Is there something I can do for you, Mary?"

  "Yes, there is. Why did you leave Pine Butte?"

  He stared at her for a minute and she stared right back, her gaze not wavering. A smile finally curved the corners of his mouth in spite of himself. "You don't beat around the bush, do you?"

  "I learned not to," she said frankly. "The baby and I both had a close call. It does kind of put things into perspective. I know it sounds corny, but you never know how much time you have. It seems pretty silly to waste it over something that was over and done with years ago."

  "It's not that simple, Mary."

  "Isn't it? What's going to seem more important twenty years from now, your quarrel with Pine Butte or having a life with Sarah?" Mary watched him steadily, her eyes calm and direct. "You think about that, Connor."

  "It isn't as simple as that," he repeated. "I let Sarah down. I didn't tell her the truth about myself. She gave everything to me, and I gave her nothing in return. She's better off without me." He paused, then added carefully, "And she didn't ask me to stay."

  "Did you let her think you'd want to?"

  "I didn't have to. She couldn't still want me after the way I treated her. She couldn't possibly forgive me."

  "Why don't you give her a chance to tell you that herself? Don't you think you owe her that much?" Mary watched him with wise eyes. "And don't worry about what the town thinks."

  "I don't give a damn about Pine Butte. All I care about is Sarah."

  "Then maybe you're using it as an excuse not to take a chance with Sarah."

  "I don't need any excuses." But he knew she was right. He'd spent a lifetime protecting himself from pain.

  Mary watched him for a moment, then smiled. "I think you'd be surprised about how the town feels about you."

  "No, I wouldn't. I know exactly how they feel. I just don't care anymore."

  "They're awfully proud that someone from Pine Butte made something of himself," she said softly. "And I think they'd be even prouder if he came home."

  "Bull," he snapped. "I'll always be that no-good MacCormac kid."

  "You're wrong." Mary's quiet voice rang with certainty in the semi-darkness of the room. "What Ralph and Richard Wesley say doesn't reflect what the rest of the town thinks." She rose from the chair and came to stand in front of him, taking his hand. "Everyone wants to give you a chance, Connor. Our parents may have been bigoted when your father first came to town, but give us a little credit for being able to change." Her face reddened and she dropped his hand. "And Tom has made sure everyone in town knows the truth about him and Barb Wesley." She watched him steadily. "So the only thing stopping you is yourself. Are you sure you're not using what happened when you were a child as an excuse for not taking a chance now?"

  The moment stretched out as he stood staring at Mary. She wasn't talking about the town and they both knew it. Finally he said softly, "I'm not sure of anything right now, Mary. But this isn't the time to discuss it. You have more important things to do. You need to get some rest." He bent over and kissed her cheek. "I'll be back in the morning to make sure everything is okay." He walked out of the hospital room, pausing to look back. Mary stood watching him, her expression impossible to read.

  Jamming his hands into his pockets, Connor strode out of the hospital and found his motorcycle in the parking lot. He tried to concentrate on the light traffic, but Mary's words kept playing over and over in his head. When he finally got home, he lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking about Sarah and Pine Butte and the lost innocence of his youth.

  Pine Butte had always stood for everything he hated about his childhood. It had been a symbol of every unjust thing that had happened to him as a child. But maybe Mary had been right, he thought slowly. Maybe he'd used the town as an excuse because he'd been afraid that Sarah couldn't forgive him for not trusting her. And instead of asking her and risking another rejection, he'd justified his refusal to stay in Pine Butte by saying the town wouldn't want him there.

  If he was being honest, he'd admit the grudge he'd felt against the town had vanished sometime during the days he'd spent there with Sarah. It had disappeared when he'd discovered something far more worthwhile, something far more precious than his hatred for one small town. No, nothing mattered anymore besides Sarah.

  And could what Mary said possibly be true? Could Sarah possibly forgive him for deceiving her? Could it really be as easy as Mary claimed? That all he had to do was talk to Sarah? He watched the flickering shadows on his wall from the car headlights below in the street, and wondered if he dared to take a chance.

  * * *

  He walked into the surgical waiting room the next morning at ten o'clock. Tom and Mary Johnson were both there, huddled together on a small love seat, their hands entwined and identical looks of sick worry on their faces. He dropped into the chair next to them.

  "How're you doing?" he asked softly.

  "It seems like it's taking forever," Tom answered in a low, tortured voice.

  "It always does. It may be another hour at least before you hear anything," Connor warned.

  Mary opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment the doom to the surgery area swung open and one of the heart surgeons came out, smiling broadly. Tom and Mary jumped up at the same time and rushed over to him.

  "Your li
ttle girl is fine," he said, and Connor slumped in his chair. He saw the tension drain from Tom and Mary at the same time. "She's in recovery now. She'll be going to her room in another hour or so, and we'll get you up there as soon as she is."

  The heart surgeon lowered his voice and told the Johnsons a few more details, and Connor stood up. Mary turned around to look at him, and he gave her a thumbs-up.

  "You're all going to do great." He watched her for a moment, and slowly began to smile. "And I have something important to do, too." Slipping out of the room, he headed for the parking lot.

  * * *

  Sarah rolled over and fumbled with the alarm clock, falling back into bed when the shrill noise finally stopped. It was getting harder and harder to get up in the morning. Maybe because she spent too much time laying awake at night, thinking about things that couldn't be.

  Pushing back the covers, she stepped out of bed and shivered. The air blowing through her open window was definitely chilly. Fall was coming to the mountains, and that meant winter wasn't far behind. That bleak season always made her feel especially claustrophobic, knowing that the mountain passes were covered with snow for days at a time and she was trapped in Pine Butte.

  But everything made her feel that way nowadays, she thought bitterly, heading for the shower. Instead of being in the place she belonged, doing the kind of work she loved, Pine Butte and her job had become her penance. She was trapped here with no way out. Denver and Connor were only four hours away, but they might as well have been on another planet for all the good that did her.

  Of course, Connor had demonstrated just how important she was to him when he'd left a month ago. She hadn't heard a word from him, and every day that passed made her die a little more inside. Finishing her shower, she dressed and ate her breakfast and went down to the clinic, operating on autopilot just as she had since the day Connor had left.

  She glanced at the appointment book and saw it was full. That was good. The busier she was, the less time she had to think about what was missing from her life. A perfect day, as far as she was concerned, was twelve hours of patients followed by one or two emergency calls. By the time she fell into bed she felt like a zombie and slept like one, too.