The crunching sound of footsteps in the woods cut into his thoughts. He turned and there was Sara, looking as lovely as when he’d first seen her at the wedding.
And nearly as well-dressed.
She’d dispensed with the stylish cropped jackets she was fond of wearing, but her tailored blouse and pencil-slim skirt were suitable for a courtroom. She even had her hair up in a slick, professional style.
He gaped at her, half believing he’d conjured her up out of sheer want.
“I’m so glad you haven’t left yet.” She sounded breathless, as though she’d been rushing. He glanced down at her feet. Heels. “I was on my way to your aunt’s to try to catch you, but then I saw the PT Cruiser parked along the road and I knew you’d be here. I couldn’t let you go until I told you something.”
She was talking too fast, more like her receptionist Laurie than herself. He hadn’t been aware of moving toward her, but he must have been because she was suddenly near enough to touch.
He covered her lips with three of his fingers, staunching her flow of words.
“I need to tell you something first.” Now that he’d accepted the truth, the three words were like a wall of water that could no longer be held back by a dam. “I love you.”
Her lips curved upward, her eyes lit up and she grabbed both of his hands. “That’s what I was going to tell you. But that’s not all. I’ll come with you, Michael. Wherever you decide to go. I’ll even apply to the Peace Corps if it means we can be together.”
He’d been prepared to ask exactly that of her but the reality of what she’d be giving up struck him. “What about your law practice?”
“It’s barely gotten off the ground,” she said. “I can put it on hold and start over someplace else.”
“Do you mean you’re willing to give up Indigo Springs? For me?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“But you love it here.” He could barely believe he was arguing with her.
“I love you more,” she said. “Indigo Springs is just a place.”
Except that’s not the way Michael had long thought of the town. It had been a symbol of the mistakes he’d made, an embodiment of the pain he’d lived with.
Just a place.
“No,” he said forcefully. “You can’t come with me.”
Her mouth dropped open, the smile disappearing from her eyes to be replaced by what looked like pain.
“You can’t come,” he said, rushing to finish his thought, “because I’m staying.”
“You are?”
“I love you too much to ask you to give up your job and your home. It makes more sense for me to stay than for you to leave,” he said. “I can work for the Pollocks. Or start my own business. Or find a nonprofit where I can do just as much good at home as I can overseas.”
He hadn’t considered those possibilities before this minute, but they were all perfectly viable.
Sara laid a hand against his cheek, her eyes filled with concern. “Why would you offer to stay in a place that’s brought you so much unhappiness?”
“Because you’re right, Sara. It’s just a place. People are what matter and this town has a fair number of people I care about.” He stopped, realizing something even more important. “Even so, I’m not going to let anyone else decide what’s best for me. I’m going to take a page from your book and listen to my heart.”
She still didn’t look convinced. “But can you ever be happy here?”
A great blue heron suddenly appeared in the clear sky, gracefully flapping its wings. Michael had no way of knowing whether it was the same heron he’d seen the day he rescued the boy, but he liked to think it was.
“I’m already happy here,” Michael told Sara. “The town is a different, better place with you in it.”
The worry lines on her face smoothed. She looped her arms around his neck, the radiance back in her expression.
“If you’re sure,” she said, smiling.
“I’m very sure,” Michael said. “From now on, my home is where you are.”
And then, as the heron came to rest on the exposed surface of a nearby rock and the white water of the Lehigh splashed harmlessly around it, he kissed her.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2817-1
THE HERO’S SIN
Copyright © 2009 by Darlene Hrobak Gardner.
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