“Todd discouraged that.”
“How come?”
“In the beginning, we needed my income. Later…I don’t know. I guess the restoration company was his personal dream. Todd was never a selfish person, but I don’t think he wanted to share that.”
“Maybe not. Shame, though. A person ought to be able to do what she wants to do.”
Mara leaned her head back and thought over this turn of their conversation. It felt oddly releasing to be angry with Todd—to use that resentment to help let go of him. A love of history had brought them together. So why had he held her back? More important, what could stop her now?
“If you want to touch history,” Brock said, “you ought to see this place up the road. Todd and I came out here once in a while to explore. It’s an old adobe house, just about gone. Worn from the elements. Walls look like velvet, don’t they?”
Mara focused on the rippled mahogany-hued structure in the distance. Behind the old walls rose a line of steep cliffs dotted with rocky crags and overhanging mesquite shrubs. At the familiar anticipation of tackling the mystery contained within any historical site, Mara’s heart sped up and she leaned forward for a better look.
“What was the building’s function?” she asked. “Was it a homestead?”
“A trading post, I think. I’ve found bullets, broken glassware, tools, rusty nails, even a shoe sole.”
“Can you put a date on the place?”
“Never have. You’d think a document somewhere would mention it. Believe me, I’ve looked. Searched every book in my library and the one downtown. Nada. Not a word.”
Brock pulled the truck under a huge old cottonwood tree. In tandem, he and Mara leaned toward the baby and began to unbuckle her from the seat. For the first time since Todd’s death, Mara knew a heady sense of hope. Within her grasp she had both a dream and a plan. More than that, she felt the promise of building a future—without anyone’s charity.
At the recognition of that freedom, she looked up at Brock, the man who had somehow pointed her toward it. He was gathering Abby into his arms and settling her wobbly head against his chest. Holding the baby securely with one hand, he used the other to tuck blankets and quilts tightly around her little body. As he slid out of the pickup, he brushed a kiss across Abby’s forehead.
At the simple gesture, Mara felt an unexpected ripple race down the backs of her legs. Brock’s lips had touched Abby. His large hands held and comforted the baby. His chest supported her head. His muscled arms cradled her weight.
Mara stared, stunned at the realization rocketing through her. The moment Brock’s mouth had left Abby’s skin, Mara had wanted to take her baby and press her own lips to that spot. A sudden urge came over her to bury her nose in Abby’s blankets just to smell Brock’s scent. Just to know she was touching places he had touched.
Dear Lord, she prayed silently. Help me! What is happening? This can’t be right. I can’t be feeling this! Despite her prayer, Mara held onto the pickup door handle for support as she watched Brock amble toward the adobe ruin. His long legs moved in an easy stride, and his boots kicked up little spirals of dust. The tip of Abby’s white-capped head appeared just over one broad shoulder, her cheek resting comfortably on his sheepskin jacket.
“I figure this was the entrance,” Brock called, turning back toward Mara. “It’s a wide opening, and there are a few old planks lying around that might have been the board-walk.”
She could only stare.
“You coming?” he asked. “There’s nothing to be scared of. Rattlers are all hibernating this time of year.”
Realizing how foolish she looked, Mara started toward him, willing common sense back into her head. But as she approached, Brock’s eyes surveyed her up and down.
“You know, Mara, you look good for so soon after having a baby. I figured it would take you a long time to get over what you went through.”
Mara tried to squelch the flush that had spread across her cheeks. He was standing just inside the ruin, one hand holding Abby and the other stretched out to her. How could she be having these unacceptable feelings and thoughts in broad daylight, in a baggy old sweater, in a body that had given birth only a few weeks before?
It just wasn’t possible. But when she took his hand and felt his fingers weave through hers, she knew it was more than possible. Her breath trembled as she lifted her focus to his face.
“This must have been the front of the store,” he said, speaking to her eyes. “When I was a kid, I found an old coffee grinder in this room. Rusted, but you could tell what it was.”
Mara nodded, fighting the urge to move closer to him. “Did you find anything else? Signs? Scraps of fabric?”
As if sensing her unspoken turmoil, he pulled her toward him. It hardly mattered that they wore coats and sweaters against the December chill. As his arm grazed hers, Mara felt as warm as if it were midsummer.
“I carried everything back to the ranch house,” he replied, looking at her mouth. “It’s in my workshop. Labeled.”
She swallowed. “Did you make diagrams?”
“Yeah.”
“Done any digging?”
“No.”
Neither spoke again. Neither looked at the ruin. Or the baby. Brock ran his eyes over Mara’s face, across her lips, down her neck. Her fingers gripped his so tightly they throbbed.
“Mara…” he said in a husky voice. “Listen, I…”
“Brock,” she said softly, “I’m…so…” Mara tried again to swallow down the lump in her throat. What was she? Afraid, uncertain, eager? “I’m very…”
“Mara, you and I—”
“I think it’s—”
“Things are—” He paused. “I’m sorry. I keep interrupting you. What I’m trying to say is…if you…”
She shook her head as his words faded off, his attention riveted to her lips. “No, it’s really…um…. Do you…do you suppose there might be a record of the trading post in the county courthouse?” She pulled her hand out of his, swung away from him and headed across the bumpy ground. He had almost kissed her. She knew it. But it would have been a mistake. A terrible mistake. They could never have gotten past it. What little goodwill they had built would come tumbling down. She couldn’t let it happen.
“The deeds office?” she asked as she bent to examine an odd-looking stone. “Have you looked there?”
“No.” Holding the baby, he walked in the opposite direction to study a fallen wall. “I guess there could be an old title in the record books.”
“Or a survey.” She hugged herself tightly, fighting the dizzy sensation that had swept over her. If she hadn’t pulled away, he really would have kissed her. And she would have let him.
Dear God, where are You? You’re supposed to help me! This is more than I can bear. It’s too much!
“Next time I’m in Las Cruces,” he said, “I’ll check it out.”
“Good idea.” Trembling, she walked along the length of crumbled wall. How could this irrational, illogical thing be happening to her? She felt like a child—lost, uncertain, even afraid. And she felt like a woman for the first time in months. Her body tingled and her breath would hardly come. Had she ever felt this shaken with her husband…her comfortable, teddy-bear Todd?
Where was Todd at a time like this? She needed him! How dare he die and leave her in turmoil. How dare he bail out on his wife and daughter when his calming presence was required. Mara clenched her jaw and marched around the perimeter of the ruin without seeing anything.
Her parents had deserted her when she was six. How could they die in a car wreck just like that? She had needed them. Then Todd did the same thing. Vanished from her life. Would everyone?
Is this the kind of life God had planned for her? One heartbreaking loss after another? Where was her Heavenly Father when she needed Him most? She felt as though she was careening down a mountain road in a car without brakes. Someone was supposed to help her—and that someone was God.
Mara had
begged the Lord to help her forgive Brock. Evidently He had reshaped and softened her hard heart enough to allow this man the grace he didn’t deserve. But this was far enough! God was supposed to stop at forgiveness—not let her go recklessly running into Brock’s arms. What kind of a crazy plan was that?
It wasn’t God’s plan. That was certain. And if it wasn’t God’s plan, it had to be Satan’s—and Mara wanted nothing to do with it. Brock was a temptation. He was wrong for her. Everything about him had to be resisted.
She could hear the man talking somewhere in the distance, explaining his theories about the old trading post. She ventured a glance at him, and instantly another chill ran through her. Oh, no. This was not good.
If Todd were around, he would laugh and tell a joke and everything would feel normal. But he had to go and die, didn’t he? He had to leave his wife with a belly full of baby and a pile of debt. Now look. She was living with Brock! Brock Barnett—the man she had resented and hated through all those many months of terrible grief and loss. And she was gazing like a lost sheep into his brown eyes and aching for him to take her in his arms and kiss her.
Why God? Why, why, why?
“Back here it looks like there might have been a wood-burning stove at one time,” Brock was saying. He had stepped through the doorway of the main room and into the quarters behind. “There’s a hole in the wall where the pipe would have gone. Maybe somebody lived here. Do you reckon the trader’s family made their home at the back of his store?”
Mara scowled at the ground. She didn’t want to chat with Brock. She didn’t want any of this. She couldn’t want it. Couldn’t want him.
“I guess they could have,” she answered. “It wouldn’t be unusual.”
“Then there ought to be a trash pile somewhere. Todd told me those are the richest digging places. You can tell a lot from someone’s garbage, can’t you?”
“Depends.”
“Do you suppose we could date the place if we found some old bottles or china plates or something?”
“Maybe.” She stepped over the raised threshold between the front room and the back.
Brock was standing by the back wall, looking through a hole that had once been a window. A fragment of wood frame remained, nothing else. “I think this was the bedroom,” he said.
Mara almost choked. She wanted him to hand over her daughter and then turn over his keys. She wanted to drive to Sherry’s house, lay Abby in a crib and bury herself in bed where she wouldn’t have to see Brock Barnett or hear him or smell him ever again.
“If this was your bedroom,” he was saying, “you could lie in bed and look right out the window at those cliffs.”
“Why on earth would I want to look at a blank wall?” She realized her voice sounded harsher than she had intended.
“The cliffs aren’t blank. They’re a canvas of shadow and light.” He glanced at her. “Come here.”
When she didn’t move, he stepped over and took her hand. At his touch, a shower of sparks scattered down her spine. No! Not again! Moving as stiffly as a wooden puppet, she followed him to the window. There she removed her fingers from his and tucked her hand safely under her arm.
“See, Mara, the cliffs protected the trading post from the mountain winds.” His voice was low, almost hypnotic. “At sunrise, these cliffs are a deep purple. Velvety purple-black like an overripe plum. At dusk when the setting sun shines on them, they change from bright pink to beet-red. At noon, they’re stark white. In the summer sun, you touch a bare rock and your fingertips just about blister. You have to watch for scorpions and rattlers, too, when you go up.”
“You’ve been up there?” Mara craned her neck, trying to see the top of the enormous bluff. “To the top?”
“It’s where I train. I climb—”
“You climb these cliffs?” Todd’s face flashed before her eyes. She could hear the animation in his voice. Brock trains all the time. He’s got cliffs on his ranch where he practices. He’s good, Mara. Brock knows what he’s doing.
“Yeah, I climb here,” Brock admitted. “At least I did. This is a good place to work on technique. It’s a fifth-class rock face, which means you need ropes and special gear. Every year or two I’ve gone to a rock-climbing school. It can get to be an expensive hobby.”
One that Todd should never have taken up, Mara thought. And he wouldn’t have, if not for Brock. She studied him as she remembered her husband and ached to ask all the unanswered questions. How had Todd fallen? Why had he fallen? And why hadn’t his best friend saved him? Brock could answer those questions if Mara would let him. But she would never ask. She had to shut it away—that final day of her husband’s life. If she knew, if she felt Todd’s pain, if she heard the story from this man’s mouth, all the agony would return. She couldn’t relive it. She had to move on.
“Do you plan to keep climbing, Brock?” she asked, turning to face him.
His hand stroked over the form of her daughter’s sleeping body. “Does it matter to you, Mara?”
“You answer my question.”
“Climbing helps me relax and release tension. When I’m up on those cliffs, I feel a peace I can’t touch anyplace else.” He looked down at Abby. “Yeah, I guess I can see myself climbing again.”
Mara stared at him, a whirlwind of emotion tearing through her. Was it the death of her parents…or the loss of her husband…or the fear of abandonment…or the insecurity of her future? Or was it this man himself? Would losing Brock be too much to bear? Or would it serve both of them right?
Mara cut off the answer to her question before it had time to form. It was only Abby’s future that mattered.
“Well,” she said evenly, “if you’re planning to continue climbing cliffs, I hope you’ve updated your will to include my daughter.”
Chapter Twelve
Brock lifted his head to study the hues of gray, gold and pink mingled in the rock face he had scaled countless times. He knew the easiest routes up the slab, where balance and friction were more essential than brute strength. And he knew the more challenging paths that followed the natural line of cracks. These required such techniques as smearing, edging, clinging and fist-jamming. He had often gone up the cliff alone; he had led skilled companions; he had guided groups of novice climbers. More than once, he had successfully free-soloed the cliff using neither rope nor equipment. He was never careless nor casual, but he understood the soaring wall of stone so well it seemed like a comfortable old friend.
Yet to Mara—standing beside him in the ruins of the adobe house—the precipice represented death. He understood that, too. And for the first time in his life, another person’s feelings mattered more than his own.
“I have updated my will,” he told her quietly. In his arms, he held Mara’s baby, a soft, cuddled bundle who knew no better than to trust him instinctively. “Two weeks ago in Las Cruces I met with my lawyer to discuss the situation. A few days later I approved the revisions. When I die, my estate will belong to Abby…and to you, Mara.”
At the simplicity of Brock’s statement, Mara’s expression softened. She closed her eyes for a moment. “It’s not that I don’t care what happens to you,” she said softly. “I would never want…I mean, I’m hoping that nothing…”
“You just want to make sure your daughter has a future.”
“That’s right.” She looked up again, her eyes searching. “Do you understand?
“If I’m going to keep spelunking and parasailing and whitewater-rafting and rock-climbing,” he said, laying his cheek on the baby’s head, “you want to know you and Abby are secure.”
“I’m not hoping something happens to you, Brock. But I just don’t—”
“You don’t trust a man who would let Abby’s father fall off a cliff.” He spat out the words, and there was nothing he could do to hide his own pain. “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Mara. Did Todd tell you that he and I practiced on this slab until he could just about run up the thing?”
“
No,” she whispered.
“Did you know that I bought two of every piece of equipment so Todd and I both would be outfitted safely? Did you know he made up for any lack of dexterity with his uncanny sense of technique? Todd could climb just about anything.”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “Obviously not the cliffs at Hueco Tanks.”
“Oh, he scaled those, too. We were on our way down when he fell.” The image of that terrifying moment flashed before Brock once again. “It was late in the afternoon. Since it was getting dark, we decided not to rappel down. Rappelling can take a lot of time, because you have to secure the ropes, anchors and slings. Todd was afraid we’d have to leave some of the equipment behind, and he never liked to do that. We checked to see that the route was free of loose, rotten rock, and we began down-climbing the crag without ropes. I led, since I’d been at the Tanks a few times before. So we started down from the top, face out with our backs to the wall—”
“That’s enough,” Mara broke in. “How many times do I have to tell you not to talk about it, Brock? I don’t want to hear this. I can’t. I know what happened, okay? Todd fell.”
“Not there, at the top. It was later.” Unwilling to buckle to her denial, he kept talking. “The angle got steeper, so we knew we had to turn around and face the cliff wall. I decided we should use a rope at that point, just to be safe. I tossed mine up to Todd.” Brock could almost see the moment when his friend had caught the end of the rope. “We had it tightly stretched between us, and he was working to anchor it—”
“Stop it!” Mara cried.
“You need to know what happened.”
“No, I don’t. It won’t change anything.”
“Why won’t you hear me, Mara?”
“Why should I? To learn how Todd suffered? To be able to picture his pain more clearly? Why do you insist on telling me?”
“So you’ll know, so you won’t just imagine what happened for the rest of your life.”
Tears trickled down from the corners of her eyes. “You want to tell me for your own sake! You think you can get rid of the memory and pain and guilt by dumping it on me.”
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