by Rachel Lee
Then she left the room with her cocoa, making it clear as she put the bell on his tray table that she would not come back.
He stared at the ceiling, thinking about what she had said. The devil of it was that she was right. Absolutely right. They had an insurmountable obstacle, and unless one of them was willing to make a radical change, there was no point even trying to figure out what had gone wrong the first time.
Because it was obvious as the ceiling overhead that there was no future.
* * *
Bri took her cocoa into her bedroom. Unless Luke rang for help during the night, he was on his own. Somehow, someway, he had made her want to weep.
Weep for what? Lost dreams? A dead marriage? Great sex? Because when she came right down to it, great sex might have been the sum and substance of their entire marriage.
Postcards from exotic places hadn’t made up for his absences. Brief letters from her, with little to say because she didn’t write him about her work and there was little enough when he was away. Coffee with her girlfriends. A movie. She’d read a lot of books and watched too much TV, and you didn’t write about those things.
Then, finally he’d come home, practically a stranger again, and they hadn’t talked nearly enough. Except about immediacies. Except about what they were doing at the moment.
Hell, they hadn’t even built any dreams. There hadn’t been talk of a later, because later had only looked like the present.
What had they been thinking? What had they thought they were doing? She had begun to feel like a way station on his trip through life, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to find that he had felt pretty much the same at some level.
How did military families handle this? she wondered. Well, they had kids, for one thing. She and Luke hadn’t even gotten around to discussing that. If it had been mentioned at all, it had been reserved for some vague day in the future.
A day when things would be different. But they were never going to be different. They hadn’t shared enough of the really important things, maybe because they were too busy panting for each other. Or maybe because they couldn’t figure out how to fit those things in.
To this day, she couldn’t have said which of them had been more reluctant to talk about years down the road. Changes. Family. Future. It was as if they had been caught in a soap bubble, in their own little universe.
God. Sitting on the edge of her bed, looking backward in time, she saw it all so differently than she had then. Maybe the entire marriage had been a mistake from the start. Phone calls had always devolved into sexy talk. So had their occasional Skype conversations when they could get together at the same time. They had spent an awful lot of time communicating on one single level.
They had, she realized, never built a truly sturdy framework. Whether because they’d been so randy for each other, or because time had always seemed to have such a short horizon, or because they’d been blind to really essential things, they’d built a house of cards and a wind had blown it down.
But what good would it do to talk about it now? Nothing would change. Nothing could change, and there was too much old pain between them now.
She sat for a while, turning things around in her head, seeing them differently. She’d been too young. Maybe he had been, too. Too late now, though.
Then she remembered his certainty that he had been pushed on that mountain. Someone had tried to kill him. He seemed sure of it.
Her heart squeezed with a fear she couldn’t ignore and she got up, returning to the living room.
He was still awake and merely looked at her as she entered.
“You’re sure you were pushed?” she asked bluntly.
“Like I said, I can still feel the hands on my back. I don’t think I’m imagining that.”
She shook her head and perched carefully on the edge of the bed. “You can’t be alone,” she announced.
He glanced down at himself. “Obviously.”
“That’s not what I meant. If someone wants you out of the picture, what makes you think that was their only attempt?”
“But I told you, getting rid of me won’t stop the project. It would hardly slow it down.”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone had another reason.”
His gray eyes widened. “Reading too many mystery novels? Bri, I hardly know a soul in this town. I haven’t been upright long enough to make an enemy.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t have to be personal.”
He gave a slight nod then nearly knocked the wind out of her. “I never asked. Did you want kids?”
When she caught her breath she asked, “Where did that come from?”
“Plenty of time to think about what an idiot I was. You’d think a guy would ask his wife about something like that.”
“A guy would, if he had a wife.”
“Oh, man.” He closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillow.
“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t know what it was, Luke, but it wasn’t a real marriage. That’s where we went wrong. I’ve been thinking about it, and it’s inescapable. We had a great romance, but that was it. We never got to the point of planning a future, discussing where we’d like to be someday. I’m not even sure we even thought about the future. It seemed limited to the next time you’d be home.”
He nodded, but didn’t speak immediately. His answer came slowly. “We’d have had to make some big changes.”
“Changes neither of us wanted to make. Neither of us wanted to change jobs. I don’t think you’d have been happy staying at home and working a desk. I know I wouldn’t be happy without nursing. So there we were, benighted lambs, thinking that somehow, magically, it was all going to work out.”
“We never did the hard work, is what you’re saying.”
“Mostly, no. And by the time we had to face the things that were wrong, it was blowing up. Maybe for some people it would have been enough. It wasn’t for us. Or at least it wasn’t for me.”
“It wasn’t working for me, either, toward the end. I could feel you pulling away, and I didn’t know why. Color me stupid. Maybe it wasn’t pulling away, maybe it was just finally seeing the reality of all that was missing.”
“Maybe,” she agreed quietly. “There was certainly a lot missing as I look back on it.”
“So tell me, Bri. If you could paint a future, what would it look like?”
“What difference does that make now?”
“I’m just curious.”
She rose from the edge of his bed. “It’s none of your business.”
As she walked back to her bedroom, however, she realized one thing for certain: she still wasn’t dreaming of a future. She still hadn’t even thought about it. She was stuck in the same bubble, only this time alone.
Chapter 7
Monday morning brought some good news. Tim and Ted showed up to transport Luke to the hospital for his X-rays. Bri followed in her car, not because she felt she needed to be part of his treatment but because she was beginning to feel like a caged rat. She missed work; she wanted to get in touch with everyone, get her finger on the pulse of all that was happening.
While he was examined and treated, she wandered the corridors, touching base with her friends and coworkers. It seemed she hadn’t missed anything except a car accident on the night of the heavy snow. Everything else was pretty much standard illness, injury, surgery and so on. She was welcomed warmly by everyone, but she had to admit to a lowering feeling that everything had gone just fine without her. Well, of course it had. She was a nurse, not a brain surgeon. Every nurse here was capable of stepping into another’s shoes. They had to do it often enough.
It would have been nice, though, to hear just one person say, “We sure missed you when...” Instead they all hastened to assure her she could take as much time as she needed. They were glad to cover for her, and were sure she would do the same for them.
Well, she would. Still. She knew she was being petty, but Luke seemed to bring that out in her.
She was beginning to wince at some of her recollections of their marriage. Craziness. What was this need to feel important? Why should she feel any more important than the next person?
Sighing, she eventually made her way back to Luke, who was now sporting soft casts on his arm and thigh, and a sturdier one on his calf. He could bend his knee again, and was doing so with great delight as Dr. Trent watched his range of motion.
Trent looked at her as she entered. “Great recuperative powers here. This guy is officially allowed to use crutches, but only around the house. It’s still too icy out there, so chair outdoors. We’re setting him up for rehab starting next week, unless he decides to go elsewhere.”
Well, that sure left a question hanging, Bri thought. She took the patient instructions and started scanning them while they helped Luke back into his chair. “Can he get into my car now?”
“Push the seat back if you can. Can you? I don’t want him bending that knee too far yet. It’s a little less than stable after a week of immobility.”
“I can push it back.”
Luke spoke. “Do I get a say? I’d really rather travel in a car.”
“There are the steps,” she remarked. “I salted them, but...”
Trent put his foot down. “No steps. Absolutely no steps. Let me call Tim and Ted for you.”
“Ah, hell,” Luke said quietly.
“Hey,” Bri said, “they’re nice guys.”
“Very nice guys. I just want...” He stopped himself.
Trent grinned. “I get it, but be a good patient. You don’t want to make anything worse.”
Luke nodded grimly, and argued no more.
“I’ll get that ramp built,” Bri said, feeling for him. “It’ll give you a lot more mobility.”
That didn’t look as if it sat well with him, either. “If you get a ramp, I’m paying for it.”
“Okay by me.”
Neither of them, she thought as Tim and Ted finally appeared to take care of transport, had even mentioned the possibility of his moving out. That gave her pause, but when she thought about it, she had to admit she was in no hurry to evict him. While they really hadn’t talked all that much about the past, the conversations they had shared had eased something within her, like an old grief beginning to let go. Maybe by the time he was ready to take care of himself, the past would be dealt with in a way they could both live with. That at least was hopeful.
Because sometimes she had wondered just how much their ruined marriage had affected the woman she had become and the way she was living her life. Maybe when they popped the bubble with their fights and divorce, they’d replaced it with something much harder to get rid of: amber.
So once again she followed the ambulance back to the house and unlocked the door so Tim and Ted could get Luke inside. They even brought in the wheelchair.
She thanked them profusely, watching them leave, reluctant to go back inside. The night of the storm Luke had asked her to paint her future and she hated knowing that she still had no idea what she wanted from her life.
Frozen in amber indeed. Something had been truncated by her marriage to Luke. These days she couldn’t remember if she’d had any dreams even before she met him. She must have. Didn’t everyone?
As she was standing there on the porch, noticing that the heavy snow was melting at last, garbing every house in sparkling icicles like a winter wonderland, one of the sheriff’s cars pulled up.
Immediately, she felt herself tense.
Gage Dalton, the sheriff, climbed out and limped toward her. A bomb explosion years before had killed his first family and left him burn-scarred and limping. He approached with his patented crooked smile. “Big guy still here?”
“He’s inside.”
“Okay if I talk with him?”
“Of course. You don’t even need to ask. Do I look like a gatekeeper?”
Gage laughed. “You’re a nurse. That makes you a gatekeeper. Besides, it’s your house.”
She had to laugh with him. “Come on in. Coffee?”
“I never say no.”
She went to make the coffee while he went in to greet Luke in the living room. She returned while the coffee brewed in time to hear Gage say, “It’s good to see you can bend your leg again.”
“It feels like heaven,” Luke admitted. “I can hardly wait to start crutching my way around here.”
Gage chuckled. “I can imagine. Been where you are, years ago. I hated it. By the time I was mobile again, I was ready to rip out walls.”
“That’s about how it feels.”
Bri felt the understanding pass between them. The moment stretched, so finally she said, “Coffee in just a couple of minutes.”
Gage nodded, then said, “We need to talk.”
Bri didn’t like the sound of that at all. Gage had taken the office chair, so she sat on her battered couch that had been moved as far out of the way as possible against the wall. “What’s going on?”
Gage looked at Luke, who waved his hand that it was okay.
“Well, it’s probably best to tell you both since we don’t have a clue what’s going on here.”
“Which is?” Luke asked.
“You were right. Somebody pushed you. The deputies who went up there with Mike, your coworker, found footprints in the snow. It would have been easy for someone to sneak up on you there, with the wind blowing and the trees so close. Pop out, push and disappear.”
Bri’s jaw dropped and her heart began sinking. She’d feared this since Luke had mentioned that he could remember the feeling of hands pushing his back, but there’d been a slender hope he was remembering wrong because of his concussion. That hope had just died. Now there was evidence.
“But why?” she whispered. She felt almost light-headed from the shock of knowing for certain.
“Exactly.” Gage turned to Luke. “Any enemies who might have followed you here?”
Luke shook his head. “None that I know of. A big part of my job is trying not to make people angry.”
“Well, I’m having a lot of trouble trying to figure out why anyone around here would do such a thing. Nobody really believes we’re going to get a ski resort this time. Countless others have tried, as they say. That land has changed hands six or seven times while I’ve lived here. It never pans out. So while some folks would really like to see it, most are sure this is going to fall apart like every other attempt. We’ve hardly reached a point where anyone should want you gone that way. It just doesn’t add up.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Luke agreed. “If anyone in town asked me about it, I made it clear we weren’t going ahead without a big meeting with the town first. Ideally, we’d like people around here to support the idea, and to get that we need their input.”
Gage nodded. He leaned back a bit in the office chair, which creaked, and winced as he did so.
“You okay?” Luke asked him.
“I’m as okay as I’ll ever be. Back trouble. All right, no obvious suspects hanging out there. Dang.” Then he flashed a grin. “There almost never are. Still, whoever it was chose an interesting method of dealing with you. No face-to-face, no explosive confrontation, no weapon. My guess is he wanted it to look like an accident, but again that doesn’t tell us a whole lot. All right, we’ll keep working it, and you be sure to let me know if anything occurs to you. I don’t care how off-the-wall it may seem.”
“Can do,” Luke agreed.
“Now for the rest of it,” Gage said. “Assuming someone wanted to kill you, not just mess you up—and from your injuries and the fall I really think this was an intended kill—we need to consider something else.”
“Which is?”
“Whether you should get the hell out of town for a while.”
“I can’t leave my job. In fact, I won’t. As soon as I’m getting around again, I need to talk to the townspeople about this.”
Gage’s mouth grew crooked. “You mean you won’t be driven out. Well, I’d like to point out something else to you.”
“What’s that?”
“If someone’s after you, do you want Bri getting caught in the middle?”
Luke’s entire face tightened. “I’ll move back to the motel.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Bri snapped. “You can’t take care of yourself there. Don’t give me nightmares of you trying to cross an icy highway to get to the truck stop diner. No way.”
Gage stood. “That’s my exit cue. You two work it out.”
Bri rose as well. “You haven’t had your coffee.”
“I’ll have it another time. I know when to exit.”
She saw him out and came back to the living room. Luke, sitting in his chair, rested his chin in his hand and looked like one very unhappy man.
“I can’t leave town,” he said finally. “If I do that, I can kiss off my job. You have no idea how much time I spent this week convincing Greg I could get it done.”
She nodded and sank slowly onto the office chair. “I don’t want you to get fired.” Although maybe a secret part of her did. She couldn’t decide if that was petty or some absurd hope that they could get back together again.
“So he’s right. I can’t put you in the line of fire by staying here. If that guy really wants me dead, he might try again.”
“There’s no way to be sure of that. None. Maybe he figures you’re already out of the way. It’s not like anyone else knows you’re still working.”
“Mike is still running all over the mountain collecting information.”
“But that’s Mike. And I find it curious that nobody has bothered him.”
That brought Luke’s head up. “You’re right.”
“This isn’t making sense. But one thing I know for sure, you’re keeping your job and that means staying right here. And why isn’t Mike dropping by, anyway?”
“We’re talking by email. I guess he doesn’t want to inconvenience you.”
“Well, tell him it’s no inconvenience. Maybe he has a sense of something. We ought to talk to him, too.”
“Bri, I’ll leave. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you because of me.”
