by Dianne Drake
“My reflexes were slow, though. And we were struck broadside by another car. He’d run a stop sign, and if I’d been more alert, I might have seen it coming. But that’s something we’ll never know. Anyway, I was fine. Suffered a broken shoulder from the seat harness, some air-bag burns, but good. To cut a long story short, my father-in-law died.”
“But it was an accident. Not your fault.”
“See, that’s the thing. It was my fault. Maybe not the accident itself. But I’m a trauma surgeon and I failed to see his fatal injuries. Thought he looked fine. Did what he said when he told me to look after Norah first.”
“Like any father would do. Mark, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, not sure what else there was to say.
“He was a good man. He deserved better than what he got at the end, which was a son-in-law who missed a crucial diagnosis. So anyway, there you have it. I was on my way out the door. Resigned my post at the hospital, and ready to try something different. Then Neil and Eric asked me to come here.” He chuckled bitterly. “They knew exactly what they were doing, telling me they needed help. Friends help. That was the example I’d learned from my father-in-law, and I felt like I owed it to him, as well as to Neil and Eric. They asked for eighteen months, I agreed to it. And I know they’re counting on me to stay on when those eighteen months are done. You know, settle in to White Elk, have a change of heart, let those damn Three Sisters work their magic on me, or whatever the hell the legend is. But the thing they don’t have to live with, that I do, is the look on my father-in-law’s face when he died. He was so shocked. Not frightened, not angry. Just…”
His words trailed off, and Angela wasn’t sure what to do. Leave him alone for a while? Comfort him? In the dark, sitting on the cement floor, there weren’t many options. “I’m not sure what to say,” she finally admitted, “because I don’t think words will make you feel better. Time will do that, and in some ways accepting that you’re only human will alleviate some of the pain. But right now…”
Mark laughed aloud, breaking the tension. “Isn’t this the place where you’re supposed to put your arms around me to comfort me, then we…?”
“Have pity sex?” The suggestion as well as the tension breaker caused her to laugh. “Something I learned a long time ago, from my husband, was that sex doesn’t make it better if it’s not good to begin with.”
“And we’re not good?”
Actually, they were. Better than she’d thought they ever would be. Although she wasn’t going to admit it aloud. Because the truth was she might have been persuaded in amorous ways in that closet, not out of pity but inasmuch as even in the dark, when she closed her eyes, she could picture herself in his arms. And that image caused a raise in her pulse that excited her, yet worried her more than it excited. Her relationship with Brad had started off physically and she’d always thought everything else would catch up to that. But it hadn’t. So now she was cautious. Not prudish. Just cautious. It was as simple as that. “So tell me more about belaying,” she said, glad to be off the subject.
He chuckled. “You and me both, Angela.”
“What’s the supposed to mean?”
“I think you know.”
She didn’t even have to think about it because she did. They were good. And they were both wounded in deep ways. Ways that couldn’t be explored or cured in a pantry. In other words, proceed with caution. “Yes, I think I do.”
“So…the friction is usually applied by the climber’s companion. You never climb alone, by the way. Anyway, it’s applied by the companion at the other end of the rope, and it’s his job to watch the climber and be ready to jam the rope as soon as he sees the climber fall. What’s going to break that fall is that in a typical layout one end of the rope is tied to the climber. It passes through a metal loop fixed into the rock and runs down to a second person, called the belayer. He’s the one who stays at the bottom, watching the climber. And he’s the one who’s wearing a harness to which a ring, called a belay device, is attached. If the climber falls, the belayer locks the rope in the belay device, and the climber’s fall is stopped. He’s left dangling, probably pretty sore, but he’s safe.”
“Too bad life doesn’t come with a belay device,” she said. “Sounds like we could all use one sooner or later.” For her, sooner. As in right now!
CHAPTER SIX
“I HOPE that’s your elbow,” she said, yawning. Punching the glow dial on her watch, she saw that it was definitely morning. Early. Too early to be rescued, though. And the truth of it was she didn’t mind being curled up in Mark’s arms. It hadn’t happened consciously but more out of groggy attempts to find a comfortable position. As it had turned out, her comfortable position was against him, curled up at his side, one arm flung over his chest, her head in the crook of his shoulder.
Amazing, she’d slept well that way. Had listened to him breathe for a while, not sure if he’d been sleeping. Then had dozed off.
“I think it’s your elbow,” he said. “And it’s in my ribs.”
“I think it’s that jar of olives we opened,” she mumbled, not ready to move away from him. It was good here. Comfortable in an awkward sort of way. Instinctively, she laid her fingers to his neck and felt the beat of his heart. She’d heard it in his chest, marveled at its strength, and now she was feeling it. And it was so…personal.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Taking your pulse.”
“OK, I get that. But why?”
“Because I can. I mean, what I’m feeling under my fingertips is your life force. It’s a powerful thing. Kind of…”
“What?”
“Sexy, I suppose.” She moved her fingers just slightly up his neck, tracing the feel of his heartbeat.
“Well, I’ve got to tell you that you’re the first person I’ve ever heard call a pulse sexy.”
“So maybe not sexy as much as…”
“No! I like sexy.”
Angela rolled out of his arms and sat up. It was so tempting to stay there, to think about all the things they could do in the dark, the self-indulgence, the surrendering to temptation. And make no mistake about this. She was tempted. Everything about Mark, about this situation, tempted her in ways she’d never known sexual temptation could exist. But if she ever gave in to that, with any man, she wanted it to be…special. She’d missed out on special with Brad. That had been more about convenience…his convenience. Her naivety. Consequently, she just didn’t want to do that any more. Wanted better things for herself now, because whatever touched her touched Sarah. “Care for some water? Pretzels, olives? I think I might be able to find—”
“You’re not comfortable with me, are you?” he interrupted. “On a colleague basis, we’re OK, but this…it makes you nervous.”
“A little.” She reached for a bottle of water, not so much because she wanted a drink but because she wanted something in her hands. Something to fidget with. “My marriage was, well, I guess the best thing you could say about it was that it was tolerable most of the time. Brad wasn’t around much, so I wasn’t being smacked in the face every single day with the things he was doing. I don’t suppose I even knew I was living in a delusional world, where everything was the way I wanted it to be, not the way it was. If I’d known all the truth, which I doubt I do even now, I’m not sure how much of a difference it would have made because I don’t think I was ready to do anything differently. Not even when I knew he was cheating. Because I repressed myself so I could hang onto him. Although now that I’m away from all that, I can see how I stopped being me in order to have him. Then one day I was too old for him and he told me it was time for me to settle down. Not him, mind you. Me. In other words, he didn’t want the old wife following him around anymore.”
“Old? Had he taken a good look at you? Seriously, any sane man would be flattered having you with him.”
“That’s kind of you to say. But I saw the end coming. It was inevitable. I’d married him in spite of his proclivities, and I
would never let myself think past the moment. But then there was Sarah, and everything changed. Well, everything but Brad.”
“Let me guess. He didn’t want children, you did.”
“Yes, I wanted a child, had wanted one for years, but Brad was adamant that he didn’t want to be tied down that way. And our relationship was always about what Brad wanted.”
“So how did you end up with Sarah?’
“It happened when Brad and I had separated. We’d agreed to go our different ways to see if it worked out. Naturally, for him, it was working out beautifully. For me, not so good. I was so lost. Anyway, he was coaching up in Vancouver, I took a trip up so we could talk, didn’t expect that he’d even want to touch an old woman like me anymore, so I wasn’t using precautions. But apparently he was in the mood for old. Anyway, he moved to White Elk with me for a while, before I found out I was pregnant, but it wasn’t enough for him. I wasn’t enough for him. And Sarah was too much.”
“You’re very pragmatic about it,” Mark said.
“I spent eight years being pragmatic about my relationship, because that’s what I had to be. Otherwise I’d have gone crazy. Or maybe crazier than I already was as I’m the one who kept hanging on for so long.” She opened the bottle of water and took a drink. Her throat was dry, probably from so many revelations. The truth was, he was easy to talk to. She wasn’t much of a talker, though. Not when it came to the messes of her life. Because, to other people, what she’d done looked foolish. Probably because it was. So she’d learned a long time ago that the saga of her ill-fitting marriage really wasn’t a topic for discussion. Certainly not with strangers. And while Mark wasn’t exactly a stranger, he wasn’t not a stranger either. Which made her need to unburden herself seem even more unusual.
But he was a good listener. Said just the right words in the right places. The kind of man she should have chased for all those years, rather than the one she had. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“What? Tell me about your life?”
“It’s not interesting. I did dumb things.”
“Love can do that to you. And I’m pretty damned guilty of some dumb things myself.”
“Bad marriage?”
“Wrong marriage. I loved her father and believed marrying his daughter would be everything I wanted. He thought we’d be a perfect couple, kept telling me he couldn’t wait to welcome me into his family as a son. I was the son who needed a father, he was the father who wanted a son… The funny thing was, as well as I knew Tom, I’d never been around Norah that much. She was always away at school, or traveling. On her brief visits home, she seemed nice. You know, I don’t even recall spending much time alone with her. There was no…courtship. She adored her father, so did I, and I think we simply married to please him. It seems crazy now, but at the time it seemed to make sense.”
“Was it ever good between you?”
“Maybe at the start. But the more she wanted, the less I was able to give. And I’ll take my share of the blame. I was at the end of my residency, starting my new career, I didn’t have time for her and she was definitely high maintenance. We didn’t have anything in common except her father, and that’s not enough to sustain a marriage. Of course, letting him die the way I did…” He paused, his voice broke.
Instinctively, Angela reached out and took his hand. “Why is it that those who are the hardest on us are ourselves?”
“Because, deep down, we know how bad we really are.”
She liked the feel of his hand. Soft. Strong. It wrapped around hers like a glove made to fit, and she was in no hurry to break the contact. “You’re not bad, Mark. What happened was a tragedy. You had a hard choice to make.”
He shoved her hand away. “And made the wrong one. Which is why I shouldn’t be heading this mountain rescue program. What you do out there in the field is all about making choices, the right choices. But I’ve proven myself there, haven’t I?”
“That’s exactly why you should be the one in charge, because you care so deeply.”
“Too damn bad,” he said.
“What?”
“That I can’t let you into the program.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m not qualified. I get it. You don’t have to keep reminding me. But you’re not going to stop me, Mark. I am going to do this, am going to get my certificate, either from you or the next instructor in the door.”
“I know you will,” he said. Then leaned over and brushed a modest kiss on her cheek.
“What’s that for?” she asked, reaching up to feel the warmth his lips had left on her flesh.
“For thinking my pulse is sexy.”
It was hard to believe that it had been a week since that night in the closet, but it had been a week, to the day, and neither of them had mentioned it. If he’d been a betting man, he’d have bet that the definite lack of Angela these past seven days had been by design. Her design. They’d passed in the hall, greeted each other cordially, spoken only when necessary, and usually when in a crowd.
It was for the best, he decided. Because he’d enjoyed the way she felt, sleeping in his arms. He’d listened to her breathe for quite a while, not sure if she’d been sleeping or awake, quite enjoying the feel of her, the scent of her. Subtle, earthy. He’d tried to identify the faint whiff of fragrance, and decided to call it Angela, because that was the lingering scent of her, and he’d noticed it before. Liked it. Found it oddly…arousing.
“I’ve got emergency duty in the hospital,” he said, as she whooshed by him in the corridor. “I’ll be back by early evening.”
She stopped abruptly. Paused a moment. Spun round. “But the children start arriving this afternoon.”
“Walt’s here, if you need him.”
Angela huffed out an impatient sigh. “You know how important this first day is, Mark. I’d hoped… No, never mind. If they need you in the emergency room, that’s where you’ve got to be. So, go!” She spun back round, started to sprint away. But Mark caught up to her, grabbed her by the arm, held onto her.
“What’s going on here, Angela? I thought we were doing better together. But we’re back to this…this separation. Only there’s no bickering. And if we’re not bickering, that means we’re having problems. Only thing is, I don’t know what those problems are. Don’t have a clue. Haven’t been able to ask because you’ve been avoiding me. Or approaching me only when you’re in a group. So, tell me. Did I mutter something indecent in my sleep? Or grope you without knowing it? Because you’ve been acting like I have.”
“Not here,” she muttered, looking up and down the hall at all the people who were stopping by to help with opening day. “Not now!”
“Then tell me when, because I want to get this settled between us. We’re going to be spending the next week living at pretty close quarters, and the prospect of spending that with an iceberg isn’t very appealing.” He wasn’t angry. Just perplexed. Especially as they hadn’t stepped over the line—a line that had stretched thinner by the minute that night in the pantry. A line that had almost snapped after she’d snuggled into him and had felt so good there he’d fought off sleep just so he could lie in the dark and enjoy the sensation.
“Look, Mark. It’s not you. It’s me. I’m just not…comfortable in an up-close and personal situation. Not anymore. I proved myself once. Proved just how bad I am at those kinds of decisions, and wasted a lot of years not learning my lessons, even though I was being slapped by them every time I turned round. Since then I just…”
“Don’t trust men?” he interrupted.
“Not men, exactly.”
“Me? You don’t trust me? What the hell did I ever do to you to deserve that?” He growled the words, anger finally beginning to overtake him. He wasn’t looking for a lifetime commitment, wasn’t even looking for a fling. Just a…well, he wasn’t sure what he wanted from Angela. Whatever it was, though, was sure better than what he was getting.
She sighed. ‘Look, the truth is you…you remind me of my ex-h
usband. Not in your looks. But in other ways. Brad is…he’s the kind of man women just want to be around. They feel good with him. Safe, protected. They feel like that’s where they have to be, or their heart will break.”
The scowl on his face softened. The building anger dissipated. “You think that’s me?”
She nodded. “You do have that effect. The women at the hospital talk about you. I see the way they stare at you. You’re that lone figure, the one who stands off by himself looking detached and inaccessible, the one they want to persuade, or convert, so to speak. And I just can’t…” She stopped, shook her head.
He chuckled. “That’s me? That really how you see me?”
“It is.”
“I think I’m flattered. In fact, that’s just about the nicest thing anybody has ever said about me.”
“See, that’s just the way Brad would have reacted. Just the thing he would have said.”
“Is it really, Angela? Or is it what you want to see? Because seeing that in me, or any other man, protects you from making another mistake. You know, judge him to be like your ex, then run away before you allow yourself the chance to find out for sure.”
“I don’t want an involvement on that level, Mark. Don’t want to get close enough to find out if he’s really like Brad or if it’s my defense mechanism kicking in. Either way, it doesn’t matter so long as I keep my distance.”
“Then that makes you the lone figure, the one who stands off by herself looking detached and inaccessible. Except that’s not really you. I’ve seen you with Sarah, and when you’re with her, when you just look at her…that’s who you are, Angela. It’s all right there to see. I have an idea. Tonight, after we get all the kids tucked in, come to my room.”
She raised her eyebrows, started to back away from him.
“Bring Sarah,” he said hastily. “I know it’ll be well past her bedtime, but she can sleep in my room. And this won’t take long.”
