After The Storm (Men Made in America-- Mississippi)

by Flanders, Rebecca

  Carl glanced at his watch. "You've about twenty minutes to pack, mate. Hell of a drive to the airport."

  The sound of his voice seemed to push Kevin right back to the edge of temper again. Forcefully, he restrained it. "Wait in the car, Carl."

  Carl had one more tactical weapon, and that was to know when he'd pushed as far as he could. He glanced at Kevin, took his glass of Scotch and strolled toward the door. "Fine notion, as a matter of fact. I've some calls to make."

  When he was gone, Kate and Kevin looked at each other for a long time. Kate had not moved from her position just inside the threshold.

  Kevin smiled at her faintly. "Well, dear," he drawled, with a forced attempt at levity, "how was your day?"

  Kate said gently, trying to make it easier for him, "We knew it wasn't going to last forever, Kevin."

  He deliberately chose to misunderstand her. He came forward swiftly and grasped her hands. "Come with me, Kate" he urged energetically. "Mom and Dad would love to see you, and we could have a real vacation—"

  She shook her head sadly. "You know that's impossible, Kevin."

  He searched her eyes, saw the truth there and ignored it. "I'll be back in a couple of days," he assured her. "We can—"

  "No, you won't, Kevin," she said simply. "You've got things to do."

  He released her hands slowly and turned his face away. His breath came through his teeth in a long, low hiss. And then he said, staring at the opposite wall, "I don't suppose this is a good time to continue our conversation from this morning."

  Oh, Kevin, please don't. Don't make it so hard,. on yourself... on me... She began quietly, "Kevin—"

  He turned back to her quickly, forcefully. "Listen, Kate, I know what you're going to say. I've been thinking about it all day. You're thinking that our life-styles get in the way, that you have a practice here and I have a career in Los Angeles and that we'd never have any time together. But I've never interfered with your work, Katie, have I?" he insisted earnestly. "I know that what you have is much more than a job, and I respect that. I know I'd have to be the one to make the sacrifices, and I'm willing to do that. These things can be worked out, Katie, if you'd just give us a chance."

  She shook her head slowly, sadly. "It's not that, Kevin, and I think you know it."

  He looked at her, his expression numb and arrested, almost breathless. The look on his face remmded her of the way she had felt in the grip of her nightmare: staring into the face of approaching doom and being unable to run forward or backward, being unable to do anything except to stand rooted to the spot and let it happen. Watching him tore Kate's heart in two.

  He said at last, hoarsely, "I want to marry you Katie. I want it to be forever. You know that's the way it was meant to be."

  "No." It was barely a whisper, and she had to clear her throat, grasping for strength. "Kevin, please understand. We went through something earth-shattering together, and I suppose we'll always feel closer to each other because of that. But that's all it was." Determinedly, doggedly, she wait on. Every word she spoke was like a dagger through her own heart, but she had to say it. It was true. "Bizarre things happened to both of us that night. You became a hero, and I... fell in love. But it was like Queen for a Day, you know? It's nice while it lasts, but when it's over, it's over. What we've had these past couple of days was good, but now it's time to get back to the basics again. And the basics are that you and I don't really have a place in each other's lives. We never did."

  He looked at her for the longest time, and in rapid sequence denial, desperation, hurt, pleading and determination rushed across his eyes. He made a move as though to take her in his arms, and Kate stepped away. If he touched her now, she would crumble, and she couldn't afford to do that. She couldn't prolong the agony, for either of them.

  His hands went into his pockets, and she saw them bunch mto fists through the material. His face was tight, and his eyes were dark. He said lowly, "Damn it, Katie, I've spent half my life loving you. I'm not going to just walk away from you now.''

  "You have no choice." How calm her voice was, how steady her gaze. Inside, a thousand battles were being fought and lost. "You see, Kevin," she said simply, "I don't love you. I'm sorry, but that's one thing that hasn't changed."

  And just as abruptly as it had begun, the new and tenuous wonder they had discovered on the night of the storm was ended. She stayed just long enough to see the slow agony of something beautiful and untouched within Kevin's eyes begin to die, and then she turned and walked away. She was crying before she even reached the car.

  SHE CRIED A LOT in those next weeks. She couldn't understand why. She cried for no reason at all, and she cried for every reason in the world. She moved in with her father for the two weeks it took to remodel her house, but he didn't help a bit. He merely looked at her with a faint mixture of pity and tolerance in his eyes and said nothing. It was obvious he thought she had done the wrong thing.

  Kate was just as certain she had done the right thing. What other choice could there have been? Could Kevin have actually thought she would marry him? Even if they had only remained part-time lovers, they would have ended up hurting each other eventually; it was best to end it neatly and quickly, as she had done. Kevin would get over it; he had admitted himself that he had a notoriously short attention span. He would be fine. Kate wished she could be as certain about herself.

  It was stupid. There had been nothing between them except sex, a few brief and wonderful encounters that meant nothing except what she had allowed them to mean in her own mind. An entire lifetime couldn't change in a matter of days. Kevin had meant nothing to her before, and he meant nothing now. They why did it hurt so much?

  She kept expecting him to call. Throughout their long relationship the one thing she could always count on from Kevin was persistence. Scarcely a week had gone by in their lives when she hadn't heard from him in one form or another. But he didn't call.

  He did talk shows, which she didn't watch. He was on magazine covers, which she didn't buy. Everywhere she turned, she heard the name of Victoria Bend's real-life hero, but she didn't listen. She couldn't bear to listen.

  At first she was angry. How dare he put her in such a situation, anyway. Was he crazy? Did he think she was another one of his Hollywood airheads who would follow him around like a besotted puppy, worshiping at the shrine of Colt Marshall? What kind of future could he have possibly imagined for them? She had an entire town filled with people who depended on her for their very lives; he had a grueling schedule in one of the most demanding industries in the world. And conflicting responsibilities were only one of their problems. What could he have been thinking of?

  That was the problem, of course. He hadn't been thinking. Kevin never thought of anything much beyond his own instant gratification, and that left Kate to play the heavy. And she was angry.

  Yet she still thought about it, in a half-daydreaming, half-masochistic fashion, imagining what would have happened if she had said yes. Imagining that there were no conflicts and no schedules and no responsibilities and she and Kevin could have lived forever the idyllic days and nights they had known after the storm. Those were self-destructive and futile fafntasies, she knew, but in some perverted way they seemed to help her get through the night.

  In June, Jeff Brandon moved to town and took up his place in her practice with a minimum of strain and transition. At first she had been panicked, certain that the stress of the storm, which had caused her to make such a drastic mistake with Kevin, had also influenced her judgment in hiring Jeff. It was with enormous relief that she found only her heart had beeni affected that night and not her professional good sense. Jeff was as easygoing and efficient as she remembered him; her patients loved him, and every day he more than justified her trust in him.

  The town slowly showed signs of righting itself. With incredible energy, shopkeepers and residents set to rebuilding bigger and better than before. The hospital went up with astounding rapidity. Kate passed it every d
ay, stopped to watch the work and thought of Kevin.

  She moved back into her house and started to cry again. Somehow, without her foreknowledge, Kevin had given orders to duplicate every piece of furniture and every replaceable knick-knack that had been damaged in the storm, down to the smallest detail. Except for a few original pieces of art and personal mementoes, everything was exactly as it had been. Kevin had always loved her house, and he had given it back to her exactly as he remembered it.

  She started to call him then. She stopped only because she didn't know what to say.

  She had never known it was possible to miss anyone so much. She tried to think back over the years and discover whether this much time had ever before passed between Kevin's visits or phone calls. Though she was certain that with his busy schedule he must have been away from Victoria Bend for much longer periods than this, she couldn't recall a single one. She kept thinking that one day he would show up on her doorstep, invite himself in and settle down to raid her refrigerator and drive her to distraction with his annoying habits and that everything would be back to normal. And then it made her sad, because she wasn't sure what normal was for the two of them anymore or if she even wanted things to be normal again. She only knew that she wanted to be with him.

  By August she gave up waiting for him, expecting him, wishing for him. She was busier than she had ever been, organizing the hospital, orienting Jeff, assembling a staff. As the town was recovering from the aftermath of the storm, so was she. By inches and degrees her shattered emotional equilibrium was repairing itself, and soon everything would be just as it had been before the disaster struck. All it took was time.

  She still had nightmares occasionally and awoke gasping, reaching for Kevin. No one was there to comfort her. And she never turned on her television set anymore between the hours of eight and nine on Monday evenings. But other than that, everything was back to normal. She hardly thought of Kevin at all anymore.

  IT WAS THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER, and the hospital dedication ceremony was less than a week away. Kevin Dawson had been invited to officiate and had respectfully declined, due, ostensibly, to a scheduling conflict. Though everyone made understanding noises, there was some confusion and some hurt feelings among the townspeople. Kevin had never denied them anything before, and for the first time they were being forced to realize Kevin did not belong to them.

  The impact of Kevin's decision not to return to Victoria Bend for the ceremony affected Kate on multiple levels, many of them so deep she had yet to recognize them. She didn't understand. Kevin had cared deeply about the hospital; she was certain of that. She remembered the look on his face that afternoon by the lake when he told her construction had been speeded up. It had become a personal project for him then; it had been the first of his many philanthropic gestures in which he had taken an active part. And he must have known how his sudden absence would hurt the townspeople with whom he had always been so close. Was it possible he was turning into one of those celebrity snobs Kate had always accused him of being? Or was there something more?

  She only knew that on some deep and unconfessed level she had been holding on to hope for this moment. She had been certain that no matter what else happened, she would see Kevin again. And she had counted on seeing him at this ceremony. She couldn't fool herself anymore. Kevin wasn't coming back. Not ever. She had to let him go.

  Again she was angry. Had he cared so little for her that he could forget about her just like that? Disregarding all those stirring words of love, how could he let a twenty-year friendship dissolve overnight? Was he really that shallow, that thoughtless, or was he just living up to what she expected of him?

  A forlornness settled over her that was much like the mourning period after the death of someone close. How empty her life seemed without him. How painful it was to realize how close she had come to happiness and to know that she had been the one who willfully threw it away. She was thirty-four years old, and life was moving too quickly for her. At one time her patients, friends, neighbors and family had been enough for her. But Jeff was taking on more and more of her patient load, and as childish as it was, it hurt Kate's feelings somewhat to see how easily those she had always assumed could not survive without her accepted a stranger as their primary provider of medical care. Her father never seemed to have time for her anymore, and Victoria Bend, which she had always loved for its steady, placid nature, seemed strangely lacking in challenges. She was lonely.

  KATE AND JEFF SAW their last patient early one afternoon and lingered in Kate's office, discussing final plans for the hospital opening over a cup of coffee.

  "Well, I've got to hand it to you, Dr. Katherine Larimer," Jeff pronounced with satisfaction, draining the last of his coffee and leaning back in his chair. "You have single-handedly organized and staffed an entire hospital, and I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. You're one hell of a woman."

  "Am I?" Kate's surprise was genuine, but her smile was weak. The past months had been a blur of activity for her without real purpose or goal, just something to keep her hands busy so her mind didn't have to think. She supposed one day she would look back and be amazed by what she had accomplished, but at the present it didn't feel like any more than doing her job. "Maybe they'll dedicate a wing to me."

  "I wouldn't be a bit surprised."

  "Well, I guess that's it, then." Kate closed the folder on the last of the yet-to-be-done requisitions. "Now all we need are patients."

  "We'll have them," Jeff assured her. "Nature, unfortunately, has a way of taking care of details like that."

  "I hope the first one is obstetrics. I can't think of a better way to christen a hospital than with a birth."

  "Very possible. Mrs. Daniels is due in three weeks."

  Kate laughed. "We may have to fight over who gets to deliver her."

  "How about a team effort?" Jeff suggested, eyes twinkling.

  "These things usually are," Kate agreed. She straightened the folders and started to get up to put them away. She wasn't particularly anxious to go home, but she didn't want to keep Jeff any longer than she had to. She had discovered in her few months of working with him that he was something of a homebody; he liked working in his yard and on his house, and unlike so many other of her colleagues, never sought excuses to extend office hours into social ones. He was perfect for the small-town life.

  He surprised her by saying, "Have you got a minute, Kate?"

  "Sure." She sat down again, giving him her full attention. "What's on your mind?"

  "I realize that the past months have been really hectic around here," he said, "but now that the hospital is off the ground and we're ready to settle into a routine, there's something I've been wanting to ask you."

  She nodded, waiting. But there was no way she could have been prepared for what he said next.

  "How do you feel about fraternization between employees?"

  At first she didn't understand what he meant. Then she thought, with a faint twinge of disturbance, that he might be interested in Rose, her twenty-year-old secretary. But the last thing she wanted was to become involved in his personal affairs, so all she could say was "Well, actually, I've never felt anything about it. There's never been any reason to."

  He smiled. "In that case, do you mind if we form a policy now?"

  She tried to be open-minded. "No, I suppose not. What's your opinion?"

  By now he could see that she wasn't following him, and the fact registered with gentle amusement in his eyes. "I'm all for it," he confessed. "Would you have dinner with me tonight?"

  Kate couldn't hide her surprise, and he laughed softly. "In case you're wondering, my intentions are strictly honorable." And his expression sobered a bit, in a way that made Kate's heart skip a beat. "You can't really say you didn't see this coming, can you, Kate?"

  Kate didn't know why she was so incredulous. Since the first moment they had met, the conclusion had been obvious. Within twenty-four hours after having first laid
eyes on him, they had been jokingly discussing marriage. That they should become socially, as well as professionally, involved was only logical. Still, she felt compelled to point out, "Jeff, I know the social life in Victoria Bend leaves a great deal to be desired, but there are plenty of eligible young women who would love to go out with you. I'm sorry I didn't think of it before, but of course I'll introduce you—"

  "I know all about the eligible young girls, and I've already met my share of them, thank you. It just so happens that I'd rather go out with you right now. We are a good team, Kate," he said simply. "Do you have any objections to finding out whether we could be more than that?"

  Objections? She would be foolish to object. If she hadn't been so wrapped up in feeling sorry for herself because of Kevin, she would have seen the obvious so much sooner. She needed meaning to her life, and purpose. She needed to expand her horizons, move outside herself, begin to think about having a family. Jeff, whom she liked and respected, the perfect partner with her, shared her interests and her goals. In addition, he was pleasant and attractive and easy to get along with. There was no reason in the world why the two of them shouldn't explore the possibilities in their relationship. Jeff was perfect for her; even Kevin had said so. He could be the most perfect thing that had ever happened to her.

  She looked at him, and thought about it. And then she said gently, consideringly, "There's no point to it, Jeff. It would never work."

  Only the faintest flicker of surprise registered in his eyes, and she suspected he understood exactly what she meant. Still he asked simply, "Why not?"

  She smiled faintly. "I think... because we're too perfect for each other. There are no surprises, no challenges, nothing to fight about." She looked at him helplessly. "Do you understand what I mean?"