The Widow of Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  She couldn’t stop the sob that ripped its way out of her, or the tears that began to pour. Liam seemed to shake himself, then turned and wrapped her tightly in his arms.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him. I’m sorry you had to hear that. I’m so sorry, Sharon.”

  “I’m sorry for you,” she said between sobs. “Sorry you had to endure that. I’m glad you were there for him, though.”

  “I was. I swear I was.”

  She absolutely believed him. But when she stacked his loss against hers, they both looked pretty much the same: huge, enormous. Enough to steal the light and warmth from the day.

  “Then don’t apologize to me,” she gasped. “Please. I’m so glad he wasn’t alone, I can’t tell you.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and thought, really thought, about his losses. Not only his brain injury, but the loss of his old life, and his best friend and God knew how many other friends. He had suffered too much. More than anyone should have to.

  Yet he was still here and she thanked God for it. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, then hiccuped. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  He was strong in ways she hoped she never had to learn to be strong. She wished he could see it.

  Leaning back a little within the circle of his arms, she reached up and cupped his face. His eyes, which had been closed, opened at that, and in those light green orbs she saw a measure of the anguish that tormented him.

  “You’re a good and strong man,” she said firmly. “I am so glad you’re here with me.”

  He shook his head a little, as if denying it. She wondered if anyone or anything would ever convince him that he wasn’t broken in the ways that mattered.

  And she might never know. Chet’s death had just thrust itself between them again. She could only wonder if he was feeling guilty for their lovemaking, feeling he had betrayed Chet. She didn’t know how to bring it up.

  What she did know was that she didn’t feel that way at all. A little while ago, her heart had been singing with happiness. Every human was entitled to happiness.

  “Come inside,” she begged. “Let’s make coffee and something to eat. If you want to talk, we’ll talk. If not, we’ll just be together.”

  He looked past her. “I was going to start painting.”

  Withdrawal. She felt it and her heart squeezed. “It’s too late in the day. The light is awful now. Please, come inside with me.”

  The last of the stiffness slowly seeped out of him. Finally, he reached up to cover one of her hands with his. “Okay,” he said.

  But she felt he had gone to a planet a billion miles away.

  Inside she started a fresh pot of coffee, then pulled some cold cuts from the fridge and began to make ham sandwiches. Somehow, she thought, they had to edge back from this precipice. She felt as if everything were hanging in the balance of whatever might come next.

  “Lettuce?” she asked. “Mayo? Mustard?”

  “Whatever.”

  Oh, she didn’t like the sound of that. A feeling of desperation began to grow in her. Even if they had no future, she still wasn’t ready to lose him. No way. Friends for life would be better by far than Liam picking up his backpack and walking away for good.

  She put the sandwiches on the table. Then an impulse came to her. Picking up the phone, she dialed Ransom Laird. “Ransom? I’m looking for a goat or two to try my hand. Dr. Windwalker said you were the man...Yes. Okay, tomorrow morning. Thanks.”

  Then she sat at the table and waited for a response. A few more minutes passed, then Liam picked up his sandwich and took a large bite.

  “I go to these places sometimes,” he offered finally. “They’re not pretty.”

  “The war?”

  “The wars. Yeah. It’s usually in nightmares, which is better than having it happen while I’m awake.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. But there it is. I just have to deal.”

  Ignoring her own sandwich, she tried to think of one useful thing to say. She couldn’t.

  “Sorry if I scared you.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t scare me. I was worried about you. That’s very different.”

  He didn’t reply. She got up and poured the coffee for them. She had a feeling it was going to be another long night.

  Then he seemed to shake himself. “You decided about the goats?”

  “Yes. And I’d like you to be here because I may need your help.”

  Then he said something that made her feel worlds better. “I wasn’t planning on being anywhere else.”

  “You’re sure? Because a little while ago I got the feeling you were going to take off.”

  “I thought about it.” No explanations, no apology. Statement of fact.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “You can either run or you can stand your ground. It’s time to stand my ground. If you can stand me.”

  “I’m horrified that you’d even ask.” Not after what they had shared. But then he’d dreamed of Chet. Maybe she wasn’t good for him.

  She gnawed her lip, then lifted her sandwich, figuring she’d do herself more good by gnawing on some ham and bread.

  “Maybe,” she said eventually, “being with me isn’t good for you.”

  “Don’t even say that!” Finally some animation in his face. “Don’t think it. No, I’ve got some messes of my own to deal with, and they don’t have anything to do with you.”

  “I brought back memories of Chet.”

  “I never forget Chet, probably any more than you do. No, that wasn’t anything new. He was my brother. I mean that. More than a friend. I loved him, Sharon. The way I’d have loved a brother. Different from what you felt, but just as strong.”

  “Yes.” She waited, then took another bite. He resumed eating, punctuating it with sips of coffee. She wondered where this was going, or if it was going anywhere at all.

  But at least he didn’t seem so withdrawn.

  He finished both his sandwiches then went to get the coffeepot and refill their mugs. She still hadn’t made it through half of hers.

  “Sorry I upset you,” he said. “I’ll probably do that from time to time.”

  “I can live with it.”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  She wondered what he meant by that. We’ll see. So leaving was still on his list. Either that or he believed she would tire of him.

  It occurred to her that she owed herself and him some very serious thinking. No more back-and-forthing, but a decision. Did she want Liam around long-term? Even as just a friend? Could she deal with this?

  Although dealing didn’t seem to be her problem. Sometimes she got upset when he disappeared to manage his frustration and anger. Sometimes she just let it go. And sometimes she just felt lonely. She could handle that. His deficits? She probably didn’t know all of them yet, but from what she had seen they wouldn’t exactly make huge ripples around here, especially as he grew less frustrated.

  The way he sometimes just clammed up? But he was doing less of that. He’d just told her about Chet, which must have been painful for him, especially since he knew it would pain her. If there was one thing she’d learned about Liam, for all he’d been a soldier, in many ways he was a gentle soul. Chet had had harder edges when he came home, maybe because he really never had a lot of time to wind down before he had to start winding up again. It wasn’t that he’d been cruel. By no means. But there was a gentleness to Liam at times that surprised her.

  But mostly she had to be sure, because the last thing on Earth she wanted to do was wound Liam again. She had to know her own mind, even though the possibility would always remain that he would one day walk away.

  She had to know what she wanted, what her limits were, and then make t
hem clear so that he knew where she stood. So he could make a decision himself about whether he needed to move on.

  God, she hated the thought of him leaving, but if that was what would be best for one or both of them, then she was going to have to face up to it.

  And it was going to be difficult to be so hardheaded when her emotions were running so strongly. But she had to do it.

  “So you’ve decided to do that goat thing?” he asked again as they were cleaning up, as if he felt the need to break the silence and had seized the first thing he thought of.

  “I’m just talking to Ransom about it. That okay with you?”

  “I don’t have a right to say anything about it.”

  She turned to face him, sponge in hand. “You have a right. You’re going to be helping me. You’ve never said much about what you think about it.”

  “I like the idea.” He hesitated. “Sharon, think about it, please. If I stay, I’m going to be a hanger-on, basically. I don’t think I could hold a job, at least not yet. I get a disability check and have plenty of savings, and I could help out that way, but do you really want a dependent?”

  The question nearly floored her. “Is that how you feel? Am I making you feel that way?”

  He hesitated. “No. I’m just feeling that way.”

  “So how do you count what you’ve been doing around here?”

  “Just helping.”

  “Has it occurred to you that except for your help I’d need to hire someone? As it is, I’d have to provide room and board plus pay to anyone else. Heck, I wouldn’t want a stranger living in this house with me, so I’d have to pay a whole lot for a handyman. In fact, I ought to be paying you something.”

  He shook his head. She dropped the sponge and stared at him, giving him space to react to what she had said.

  “It wouldn’t be right,” he said finally, “for me to continue taking from you. You can’t possibly be making that much as a teacher. You’re probably mostly scraping by with a place like this. I need to contribute if I’m going to stay.”

  “You are contributing.”

  His expression became slightly mulish, a stubbornness she hadn’t seen in him before. “Not enough. Not by my standards.”

  At first she struggled with a sense of offense, because he felt she needed more from him. As if. Did he really think that barn had gotten into that shape because she could paint and clean it by herself? Or the house?

  But then she realized something more essential about him. This was a matter of his pride. If he was going to stay, then he wanted to feel like a partner, not a hired hand, not a guy working for room and board who sometimes needed to be guided through things and taught to read. He needed this for his sense of self-worth.

  But she resisted, anyway. It didn’t seem right to her. He was doing so much to fix up the place, and fixing up this place, as she’d learned, was darn near a full-time job. Catching up was going to take even more time. She needed his help, not his money.

  But he was insisting. Partner, not handyman.

  “Those are your terms?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t feel right the way things are. Call me crazy, but it’s how I feel.”

  So he definitely needed to contribute more than sweat and labor. Her heart swelled a bit as she recognized just how overly decent he was. And as she realized he wouldn’t settle unless he felt he was on fair footing.

  “You’re a remarkable man,” she said finally.

  He shook his head. “Just need to do what’s right.”

  That gave her something to think about. She certainly didn’t want him to feel as if he were taking advantage of her, even though he wasn’t. On the other hand...

  “Have you considered,” she asked, “that I might feel I’m taking advantage of you? You already do so much.”

  “I do damn little when you come right down to it. Some manual labor that I need at least as much as you do. Working hard helps me to feel better. I can’t just hang around. What I’m asking for here is a fair deal. If you want me to stay.”

  If she wanted him to stay. A fair deal. He was talking in business terms right now, and that hurt. She didn’t think of this as a business relationship.

  “Is that how you see me? As part of a business deal?”

  He swore. “Damn it, no! That’s the last thing I think of when I think of you. See? I can’t even make myself clear. I’m always hurting you somehow. I should just go.”

  Her chest squeezed until she thought she couldn’t draw breath. Her heart began to hammer. There it was again. She sucked air into that constricted place and said angrily, “There’s something we need to clear up right now before we go one step further.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ve got to stop threatening to leave.”

  “Threatening? I only mean...”

  “I don’t care what you mean. It’s hitting me like a threat! You want to talk about hurting me? Every time you give me a reason you should leave, that hurts. It hurts badly.”

  His mouth opened a little. He looked surprised. “I don’t mean it that way.”

  “Maybe not. But that’s what it sounds like. Have I asked you to leave? No. But you keep coming up with excuses to go. I can’t take that, Liam. I simply can’t take that.”

  “I keep trying to think about what’s best for you!”

  “Well, that’s not good for me in any way. I don’t want to wake up some morning to find you’ve just vanished. Or see you take one of your walks and never come back. God, that would kill me!”

  As soon as she said it, she knew it was true. One way or another, she had reached a point where she couldn’t imagine life without Liam. “You’ve got to stop,” she said again, as her eyes began to burn with tears. “Just stop saying it and thinking it. Please.”

  The silence that followed was agonizing.

  Then he said, “Okay. I won’t talk about it and I won’t think about it unless you say you want me to go.”

  Then she felt awful. “I don’t want to force you to stay. That’s not what I mean!”

  “Hell.” He rubbed his chin. He paced one circle in the kitchen, his leg hitching slightly as always. “I get the feeling I keep saying everything wrong. We seem to be cross-talking here. Can I try again?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay.” He faced her. “I don’t want to leave. That’s not the issue. The issue is whether this is right for you. That’s the only issue. Do you really want me hanging around long-term?”

  It was as if a stillness came over her heart, and with it came a certainty. “I don’t want you to leave. I’m sure of that, Liam.”

  “Okay, then. I don’t want to leave, either. But you’ve got to agree to let me help out financially around here or I won’t be comfortable. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Insisting more like, she thought, her heart lifting a bit. “I can deal with that,” she agreed.

  “Okay, then, it’s settled. I won’t talk about leaving anymore, and I certainly don’t want to. Was that clear enough?”

  Not quite. She wanted more than a handyman. But he hadn’t even suggested it. Even as her heart lifted, her stomach sank. He’d stay, but she knew with absolute conviction that she didn’t just want a partner in running the ranch. She wanted ever so much more.

  Hardly realizing it, she stepped toward him. She reached out a hand to him, then she caught herself and let it fall. She needed him to make the move.

  He’d seen the aborted move, though, and a smile began to creep across his face. “You, too, huh?”

  She didn’t have a chance to ask him what he meant because he closed the distance, wrapped her in his powerful arms and picked her up, then headed for the stairs.

  “I’m becoming very fond of you,” he muttered as he climbed. “In fact, I w
ant you more than ever.”

  That was fine by her. Her heart began to sing as it hadn’t sung in a long time.

  The day’s fading light poured through the window to wrap around them as they fell naked onto the bed, but Sharon felt as if they were wrapped in a golden glow. When his staff sank into her body, she felt a sense of completion and wholeness she hadn’t felt in forever. This was right, so very right.

  And later, when they lay damp and sated, all tangled up on the bed, she burrowed into him as if she could get inside him and never leave.

  She wanted this to never end. Never.

  “I probably shouldn’t say this,” he murmured, “but I love you.”

  Her heart nearly stopped, then skittered as it began to pound. “Why shouldn’t you say that?”

  “Because it’s not fair to you.”

  She reared up on one elbow, tossing her hair back, and glared at him. Funny to be so angry when every cell in her body was feeling heavy and happy and replete. “Stop worrying about what’s fair to me. Let me do that, okay?”

  His smile was lazy. “Okay. You sure can get mad on a dime. I think I just said something nice to you.”

  “Then you qualified it. Stop it. And while you’re at it, say it again.”

  “Which part?”

  Her anger dissipated as she heard his teasing tone. She playfully swatted his shoulder. “You damn well know which part.”

  “I love you,” he said without qualification. “Maybe you don’t...”

  She put her hand over his mouth. “Shh. I’ve been doing nothing but thinking about this, trying to think about what was fair and best for both of us.”

  “We both seem to have that failing,” he remarked from behind her fingers.

  “No kidding. Anyway, I’m glad you love me, because, damn it, I love you, too. I want a life with you, Liam. Just the way you are. I can’t imagine waking in the morning and not seeing you. I can’t imagine a day without you. I wasn’t kidding when I said it would kill me if you just left.”

  He grabbed her then, squeezing her so tightly that she squeaked. At once he loosened his grip. “Sorry, I guess you need to breathe.”