HER IDEAL MAN

by Ruth Wind

  She stepped inside, a hollowness deep within. With sorrow she saw how beautifully designed it was for comfortable family living, and for minimum ecological impact. The windows on the south wall were enormous, and Anna was sure the site had been selected with both the southern winter sunlight and the view of the valley in mind. The windows to the north were small and high. A generous kitchen, with cutouts for a stove and fridge, and the outlets behind them illustrated plainly that it had been wired.

  Curtis ran from room to room, his feet clunking on the plywood subflooring, and the sound struck Anna's nerves with thuds of doom. Wandering blankly from room to room, she saw in every loving detail the grace of Tyler's wood art.

  It was not especially large. A big central room with big windows and access to the deck, the efficiently planned kitchen, a bathroom with a tub, and three bedrooms. The largest also faced the valley.

  But she halted in a room that was very nearly finished. The walls were paneled in warm varnished pine, and a carpet of plush dark blue covered the floor. Curtains, once pressed and starched, hung at the two windows, and it was by their pattern, cheerful blocks and teddy bears in clean primary colors, that she understood what this room was to have been.

  "This is my room," Curtis announced. "I think it'th real pretty, don't you?"

  "I do, Curtis."

  "It's Mommy's house, though, so we don't live here."

  "I see."

  She turned slowly, thinking of the woman who had hung the curtains and chosen the color of the carpet, and she touched her stomach with a sharp, almost physical sense of sorrow. Kara must have been full of joy and anticipation, making preparations for her child and her new home. Anna could almost see her here, her blond hair pulled back from her face into an efficient ponytail, her big tummy covered with something sensible, like a cotton smock.

  Poor Kara.

  Instead, she had given birth only to give her own life in return. Anna wondered how she would feel if she knew Tyler had not finished the house, had not brought the son they'd made to the room his mother had prepared for him. Tears rose in her eyes. How awful that he'd made it a tomb, instead of the love-filled place it was supposed to be.

  Just as he'd made his life a tomb.

  Creeping anger filled the hollowness she'd been feeling. This very morning, he had stood there at that counter and showed her plans for additions to the cabin, and all the time he'd known this house was here. Looking around, she figured it would take about one-tenth the money and less than a quarter of the time to finish this place than it would to build and finish the addition.

  She suddenly remembered hearing him leave the cabin the night Curtis had been worried about losing his new mommy to childbirth. He'd left and come back much, much later, and when she innocently curled up to him, he'd turned away almost violently.

  And she'd awakened later to him making love to her.

  "Anna, is something wrong?" Olive asked. "You look funny."

  "I don't know," she said, and walked away, her arms crossed, to stand out on the deck that overlooked the storybook village spilling down the mountain. She breathed in the cool air, trying to calm her racing thoughts, but there were too many.

  She thought of the morning after the wedding, when he had stopped her attempts to make love to him by saying he'd been dreaming of Kara. Had the same thing happened yesterday morning? Had he come here in his grief and then returned home to dream of Kara, but expended that energy on Anna?

  It wounded her to think that it might be true. That she had been foolish enough to believe a real connection was growing between them, that he might truly be starting to love her. Last night had been achingly beautiful and real and deep. And she knew in her bones that it was Anna to whom he had made love last night, Anna who had reached through his sorrows and touched his soul.

  But all along, he'd known this house of his hands and heart was sitting here empty, and rather than move his new wife and new family into it, he'd chosen to leave it as a tomb to a woman he had still not let go of.

  It made her furious. "Mama! Curtis!" she yelled into the echoing rooms. "Let's get back, now!"

  * * *

  Tyler knew the minute Anna came over the hill. She'd found the house.

  And she was mad.

  "Uh, you know, I think Anna and I are about to have a serious discussion," he said, putting down his hammer. "Why don't you guys go in and have some coffee. Lance?"

  "No problem." Lance glanced over his shoulder as he put down the tape he'd been using.

  Quietly, they moved inside, and Anna had evidently given the same instruction to her mother and Curtis, for they broke off and headed toward the house as Anna approached Tyler. Against the vivid blue of the Colorado sky, she looked like some rare, exotic bird, passing through on the flyways, and the image gave Tyler a lump in his throat.

  "You found the house," he said when she stopped in front of him.

  "I did." She stared at him, her arms crossed. "Did you think it would never come up?"

  He took a breath, touched his chest, looked over her shoulder. "I don't know. I didn't really think, you know." He shrugged, unable to think of anything to add.

  She kicked the stake he'd driven into the earth only moments before. The gesture pained him, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say, no defense he could offer except the truth, and that he would not say.

  "You know, Tyler, I've pretty much been in love with you since the first moment I saw you."

  Her small chin jutted upward, and he saw the effort she exerted to keep her voice even. The thickness in his own chest grew more dense.

  "I saw you, and I saw the sorrow in your eyes, and you were just like a prince in a fairy tale."

  "Anna, don't."

  "No, for once you're going to listen to the whole thing, Tyler Forrest. All of it." She took a step forward. "I haven't asked one thing of you. I let you live in that glass tower of yours, safe from everything, from feeling things and loving people and participating in the world you live in, because that was what I thought you needed."

  A small, tight kernel of anger ignited somewhere amid the thickness in his chest. Tyler straightened. "Are you finished?"

  "No. I thought you were lonely and grieving," she said, and now tears of pure silver anger welled up in her black eyes, "and I know that's what you think. I know it's been Kara in your heart all this time, and I was willing to let you get over it in your own way, in your time."

  "Then what—"

  "How could you just let her house sit there that way, with no life or laughter in it? How could you kill her dream like that?" She dashed away the tears on her face. "When I saw those curtains that she hung so carefully for her son, I wanted to kill you, Tyler, because you were so selfish you couldn't even let her have that one thing. Because she had the nerve to live her own life, her own way."

  Of all the reactions he might have expected, this was one he'd never anticipated. It cut to the quick of his long-buried anger and guilt and hurt. "I was the selfish one? I begged her not to have that baby. We had a perfect life."

  "There's no such thing as a perfect life. And she had a right to try, Tyler. She had a right to feel that baby inside of her. Don't you see? She was willing to risk her life—she gave her life—to give you a son. And she did it because she loved you, you arrogant son of a bitch!" Tears washed over her face. "And in your heart, you know you were wrong. You were wrong to have a vasectomy, and you were wrong to be so angry with her, and you were really, really wrong to make an empty tomb out of the house you built together with so much love. You cheated her."

  With a distant part of his mind, Tyler realized her grief was raw and deep, and for a woman she had never known. He stared at her, unable to move or act, frozen by shame and sorrow—not only for Kara, but now for Anna, too.

  She bowed her head for a moment, then lifted it again, and she was calm. "I've done all I can, Tyler. You have to make a choice now." She lifted her shoulders. "Either you wake up and live, or spen
d the whole rest of your life waiting for someone else to come along and break down those walls." She tossed her head. "As much as I love you—and I do love you, Tyler—I'm not willing to martyr myself to save you."

  "Martyr yourself?" he echoed, just this side of sarcasm. "Please don't bother. I told you when you first came here that I wasn't some lost prince. You've always had this fantasy about me that doesn't have anything to do with who I am." Dangerous emotion welled in his throat. "Now you see who I really am, you see what a mess I made of my life, and what do you do? Run away!"

  They weren't the words he had intended to say, weren't even close. But he felt a choking panic at the thought of her driving back down the mountain, leaving him alone again. He closed his eyes. "Anna, please don't go."

  "I have to. You'll never sort it out as long as I'm here to lean on." Her voice quavered, very near, and he felt her head against his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around her fiercely, as if he could will her to stay.

  For one aching moment, she allowed it. Then she shifted, and Tyler reluctantly let her go. She patted his chest, then backed away. "For your sake, Tyler, I hope you'll do some serious soul-searching. It's time."

  Then she walked away, and Tyler let her.

  But in the deepest part of his heart, a wolf howled, low and long, silent and alone. Again.

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  « ^ »

  Anna asked quietly if she could ride back to town with Lance and her family, and they wisely asked no questions. The one thing Lance did that Anna had not, in her numbed state, considered, was call to Curtis, "Hey, kid, you want to come with us and go play with Cody?"

  Oblivious to the adult undercurrents, Curtis leaped off the porch. "Sure!"

  In the car, Anna's mother took her hand silently, and squeezed, but even when they dropped her off at Louise's house, Olive didn't pry.

  There was a first time for everything.

  Louise let her in with a frown. "Is there something wrong? Is someone hurt? You look terrible, child."

  "Would you mind if I stayed here for a few days, until I can make other arrangements?" Anna raised her chin. "I don't really have anywhere else to go."

  Louise, eyes troubled, nodded. "Of course, Anna. You know my home is open to you."

  "Thank you." She took a breath. "If you wouldn't mind terribly, I'd like to just be alone for a little while."

  Wordlessly, Louise embraced her, and Anna fought hard to maintain her self-control for just a few more minutes. There was a great gaping wound in her heart, and she didn't think she could bear much sympathy just yet. Stiffly, she drew away.

  "Let me get you settled." Louise led her to one of the back rooms, and turned back the covers and drew the drapes. "You just lay down and have yourself a good cry, honey. Sometimes, it's the only thing in the world that helps." At the door, she paused. "If you need me, I'll be here."

  Anna nodded. Louise quietly closed the door, and Anna followed her advice. Pitching herself face-first onto the mattress, she gave in and let herself cry. They were tears of genuine grief—for the barely budded love that had been growing between she and Tyler, for the beauty of the days they might have had. She wept for poor Curtis, who would never understand that it wasn't his fault that this had happened.

  And she wept for Kara, because she really had understood her in those moments in that lovingly decorated bedroom. She wept because she could not be there for her little boy, not the way she would have liked to be.

  And finally, she wept for herself, for the love she had found and lost, wept for the loss of her dream. Wept because there was, after all, no magic in the world to save lost princes.

  At last she quieted, and fell into an almost drugged sleep, where no dreams dared follow.

  * * *

  Louise paced the kitchen, unable to even calm down enough to cook. She didn't intrude on Anna's grief, but twice she heard her faintly, weeping as if her heart had shattered into a zillion pieces.

  She paced out to the deck and breathed deeply of the fresh air. What had she done when she put this in motion all those months ago? It had seemed such a good idea—two wildly romantic people who genuinely deserved the kind of passion each was capable of delivering, who were both pure and good and innocent in ways the world could never change. She had thought, somehow, that they might protect each other.

  Instead, she'd only made them hurt.

  In bewilderment, she wondered what had happened. Last night, they'd seemed to have finally reached that luminous place of lovers who were truly in tune. She'd never seen Tyler look as radiant as he had then, and Anna had made her think of nothing so much as a ripe plum, ready to burst with sweetness.

  What could have gone so terribly wrong in so short a time? She resisted calling Lance to get the details. She would let Anna tell it in her own way, in her own time. Or Tyler, if he showed up, which she doubted very seriously. At this moment, he was likely skulking and brooding.

  A knock sounded at the back door, a quiet knock that seemed to recognize the need for gentleness in this house. Louise looked at the door for a moment, her heart leaping in sudden hope. Then she shook her head. The romantic tangles of her children this past year had addled her wits. She'd even thought she might find true love.

  But maybe someone had brought news. She hurried forward to answer it, and stopped cold, her hand on the screen door.

  It was Alonzo. Standing there on her back steps, looking hale and tanned, his black hair freshly cut and shining in the bright day. He wore her favorite shirt, an improbably colored cotton stripe in tones of green and blue and purple.

  "Hello, Louise. Is she okay?"

  Of course. He'd come to see about Anna. It had nothing to do with Louise. But it was so good to see him, to have him here at a moment of crisis, that she swung open the door anyway. "I don't rightly know."

  He stepped inside, politely standing just inside the kitchen while she closed the door. While her back was turned, Louise tried to remember if she'd bothered to put on any lipstick this morning, and how long it had been since she combed her hair. Resisting an urge to lift a hand to her head to make sure it was neat, she gestured to the table. "Sit down. I have coffee, if you like."

  "That would be nice." He settled in the chair he favored, one that put his back to the wall and gave him a view of the window and the kitchen.

  Taking a mug from the cupboard, Louise said, "I think she's fallen asleep now." She gave him the cup and sighed. "I think I have some—"

  "No food, huh? You just sit. I no like the way you look right now."

  Louise frowned, not at all pleased by the comment, but she had to admit she felt a little winded by this new development. "Did Lance say what happened? They were so happy together last night."

  "It happens that way sometimes, no?" His dark eyes met hers, and Louise thought she caught a glimpse of melancholy there.

  "I suppose it does."

  Silence fell and roared between them, the only sound the ticking of the cuckoo clock in the dining room. Louise smelled the spicy aftershave he used, and the clean scent of starch in his shirts, which—judging by the knife-sharp crease in his sleeves—had been done by the commercial laundry.

  "I saw Tyler yesterday, you know," Alonzo said. "He was like somebody I never saw before, all happy and laughing. I never saw him laugh, never, in all the time I been here."

  Louise raised her eyes.

  "Maybe," he said, "it's not such a bad thing to push somebody you love a little bit, so they see what's good for them."

  "Well, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but I reckon I was still wrong to be such a busybody."

  "Louise."

  She stared at her cuticles, thinking that maybe sometime she ought to get a real manicure so they didn't look so raggedy all the time.

  He reached out and took her hand. Still Louise did not look at him, afraid he would see how desperately she missed him, how much she wanted to undo the damage they'd done each
other.

  "Lo siento mucho, Louise. I am so sorry I did not understand how much you wanted for your children, for that girl in there and your son, who was dying a little every day." He tightened his hand. "I hurt you. And I am so sorry."

  In more than thirty years of marriage, Olan Forrest had never seen Louise cry. She would not give him that satisfaction, and though she managed still to keep her tears contained, she could not still the roughness of her voice. "Thank you," she whispered, tightening her fingers around the heartbreakingly familiar length of his.

  "Is there any chance you will allow me to maybe take you to supper again one day? Not to rush, not to ask too much, but I will tell you the truth, mi amor, there are not too many women who laugh the way you do."

  And finally, she raised her eyes and let him see what was in her heart. For too many years she had hidden her true self, let others' needs come first in her life. She had learned to not even ask for anything. "I miss you," she said clearly. "Almost every minute."

  He sighed, and closed his eyes, and for a minute, Louise thought he hadn't meant what she thought, that he'd only been kind. Then he pulled her hand and pressed his mouth fervently to the palm, then her wrist, and she realized he had only been overcome. "Me, too," he said quietly.

  At that, Louise really did cry. And for once, she didn't even mind.

  * * *

  Tyler sank down on the porch steps as they drove away, all of them, leaving him alone. He felt dizzy with the sudden upheaval in his life. This morning, everything had felt so calm and easy and good. How could that have changed so quickly?

  It was utterly silent on the mountain, and he tried to tell himself he didn't mind. Once, he'd longed for the silence of these mountains, away from the noise of cars and people chattering.

  His father blustering.

  Tyler picked up a piece of wood and idly began to whittle, his mouth twisting bitterly. His father. That had been the real reason he wanted to be away from town. He'd known his father would never come up the mountain, and he never had. Which sometimes wounded, but mostly satisfied Tyler just fine.