by Susan Wiggs
“It was fine, Michelle. Not every second, but we got along all right.” Lord, just like Cody. He wasn’t telling her a thing.
“What does he think of school?”
“Sucks,” Sam said, emulating Cody’s sullen manner. “But what else is he going to say?”
“Has he made any friends?”
“Hard to say. He was hanging with some guys. I don’t know if you’d call them friends. He spent some time with Molly Lightning, too.”
It felt… normal, talking over her son with Sam. Maybe this was what married couples did. She recoiled from the thought. “I feel so bad, making him go to a strange school.”
“You ought to try to get over feeling bad on the kid’s behalf.”
“I’m a mother. It’s what I do.” She fell silent.
After a while, Sam said, “I was surprised Brad didn’t stick around for the surgery.”
Michelle felt a stab of defensiveness. She didn’t know how to tell him about Brad. It was too… embarrassing. And he might read something into Brad’s departure that wasn’t there. Would she have broken off with Brad if Sam hadn’t been in the picture? She wanted to believe she would have, but the truth was, she didn’t know for certain.
“His job is incredibly demanding,” she said evasively. Color heated her cheeks. She had let Sam make love to her. Did he understand that she hadn’t given herself to him lightly? Did he understand she had never done anything remotely like that before? Did he understand that she’d been swept away by yearning and nostalgia and a passion that she needed more than air?
Or were those just excuses?
“If you’re so committed to some other guy, then why is he in Seattle while I’m sitting here doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This.”
He cupped his hands over her shoulders and kissed her long and searchingly just then. His embrace caught her, supported her, and imprinted the texture and taste of his mouth on her, and when it was over, she felt stupid and dazed.
She wanted to speak out, to stop him, but she held a hush in her throat, trusting the knowing tenderness of his hands as he caressed her. He drew from her a shameless and powerful wanting.
“We can’t do this, Sam.” Guilt shuddered through her. If she let him make love to her again, she was a goner.
He pulled back and gave her a look. “Only because you’re still recovering. Otherwise, we’d make friends with this old couch again.”
Laughing at her blush, he helped her turn off the lights in the studio and walked her back to the guesthouse. At the front door, he kissed her again, like a suitor dropping her off after a pleasant date. She went inside and stood at the window in the darkened living room, watching his headlights illuminate the snowy night and letting the tears come, feeling her heart shatter. What sort of life would she have had if they had stayed together?
If only.
The big burning issue in her life.
If only she had believed in Sam, if only she had worked harder to find him and tell him about the baby, her life would have been so different. They might have supported each other through the hard years, and now they’d be a family.
No. If Sam had known about Cody, there would have been no rodeo circuit for him, no medical school, no Yucatán. Burdened with a family, he might not have become a doctor at all, and all the lives he had saved would be lost, all the wounds that he’d healed and all the illnesses he’d cured might have gone untreated. Perhaps everything happened for a reason. Perhaps their estrangement was some sort of preordained event, designed to make their lives work out the way they had.
The thought nagged at her. She was back in Crystal City, wasn’t she? Beyond the obvious, what could be the reason for that?
It was idiotic to speculate. Gavin’s illness wasn’t part of some cosmic plan. It was something that had just… happened. Meeting Sam again was pure coincidence. She shouldn’t make any more of it than that. Certainly she shouldn’t be having these thoughts just because Sam McPhee had a way of kissing her until she couldn’t see straight, because he made love like a form of worship.
She had failed with Brad. Sam had failed with Alice. Maybe the two of them just weren’t cut out for the long haul.
The thought followed her to the edge of sleep.
Monday
Chapter 43
Michelle spent the day lost in thoughts of Sam. Her father was in bed, on the phone trying to arrange the renewal of his pilot’s license, and Cody was at school. Michelle tried reading, watching television, sketching a plan for a painting, but after a while she simply gave in to memories of Sam. She felt herself being sucked back into the past, dredging her heart through memories that burned. He was the first boy she had ever loved, and that one long-ago summer stood out vividly as a magical time. Each sunset burned brighter, more beautiful than the last. Each moonrise glowed with a promise she had felt certain was meant for her, only for her. She had been so naively young back then. She thought her love was like a river, ever flowing, never ceasing; nothing and no one could stop it—not even the granite boulders that divided the stream. She used to tell Sam her wildest dreams, and he would confess his deepest secrets. They were so open with each other, so trusting. She had thought she would remain in that dream-state of bliss all the rest of her life. She hadn’t understood that those golden days were rare, never to be lived again.
The hours passed so quickly that she felt startled when she heard someone drive up. Getting out of bed, she saw Cody getting out of the Jeep Sam had lent him. It was a cranky old thing, one that would have caused Cody acute embarrassment to be seen driving in Seattle. But here it was different. Her son was different, she thought, observing his assurance as he hefted his backpack over one shoulder and headed for the barn complex.
She put on a jacket and went outside, finding him with the farrier and a bright sorrel horse in the crossties. The hot smell of the blowtorch pervaded the air.
“Howdy, ma’am.” The farrier spoke past the wad of snoose that bulged in his lower lip.
“Hey, Mom.” Cody sat with a box of shoeing nails in his lap.
She couldn’t help smiling. “I guess this is something you don’t see every day.”
The farrier aimed a stream of tobacco juice into the waste trough. “Hand me one of those sixes,” he said, all business.
Michelle was surprised that Cody could distinguish a six-nail from a five or an eight. When the horse shied, she was even more surprised to see her son help out while the farrier worked.
“Let’s see what’s going on in the arena,” Michelle suggested when the shoeing was finished.
They stood at the rail, watching some of the hands work with the broncs. The horses wore flank straps to irritate them so they’d kick up their back legs, the higher the better. Raising rodeo stock was serious business. A good bronc or bull could become famous in its own right, and many Blue Rock animals had, but it required constant care and training.
“Until we came here, I never even knew they trained bucking broncs,” Cody said, lapping his elbows over the top rail. “I just thought they were wild horses.”
“Some cowboys have been known to ride their broncs home after a show. They just take off the flank strap and the horse turns into a kitten.”
They watched for a while, and Michelle took in the clear bright air, the sound of hoofbeats and equine snorts, the sharp profile of white mountains against blue sky. The ranch hands and horses worked together with a rhythm that seemed ancient, timeless. And in some way, crucial.
“You were a bit late getting home from school,” she said to Cody. “Did you stay after?”
“I gave some kids a ride.”
“I’m glad you’ve been making friends.” She took a long, slow breath and stared straight ahead at the jagged line of mountains. She didn’t want her expression to sway her son’s response in any way. “Hey, Cody?”
“Yeah?”
“Uh, Brad and I aren’t going to be seeing each other anymore
.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him stiffen. “Yeah?” he said again, this time with a different inflection.
“He’s a good guy, but we weren’t really going anywhere.” She hesitated. Cody didn’t seem to have any comment. Michelle asked, “Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we lived here instead of Seattle?”
“Hell, no, Mom,” he said, almost panicking as he jumped down from the fence and backed away. He touched the healing wound on his head where the stitches had been. “There’s nothing here. Nothing! We live in Seattle. It’s where we belong.” He paced up and down in the snow. “No one moves in the middle of high school. It sucks here.” Eventually he slowed down, then stopped, leaning against a fence post. “You’re not really thinking about moving here, are you?”
“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things, Cody.”
He picked at the gauze bandage on his hand.
“I wish you’d tell me how it really went last week, with you and Sam,” she said, frustrated.
He stuck the bandaged hand in his pocket. “It didn’t go any particular way. He’s just some guy to me. We got thrown together because of you, that’s all.”
Could it be? No chemistry, no magic, just circumstance between them?
“It’s too early to tell.”
“There’s no point. We’re going back soon. Right, Mom? Right?”
She didn’t answer him.
Tuesday
Chapter 44
Some days, it was the emptiness that hit Sam hardest. It didn’t happen often; long ago he had taught himself to survive without support from another person. Yet every once in a while, it caught him, that emptiness. Especially after having Cody around the week before.
To make things worse, today had been one of those days in doctoring that made him wonder why he thought he could help anyone. First there was the forty-year smoker who had decided to hold Sam personally responsible for his inoperable lung cancer. Followed by a harried mother whose HMO benefits had just been cut—she could no longer bring her asthmatic son in for therapy. She had to lie awake at night, crying helplessly while he wheezed for breath. Then there was a guy with a broken hand—claimed he’d done it on a hay baler, but when, shortly afterward, Deputy O’Shea showed up, Sam knew the cowboy had done it on some other guy’s face. He had seen Mrs. Duckworth for imaginary aches and pains, turned away a drifter who came looking for a prescription for narcotics, and listened as a teenage girl wrestled over whether or not to terminate her six-week pregnancy. Given the recent changes in Sam’s life, her dilemma took on a painful, personal edge.
As he drove home, he felt tension building in his neck and shoulders, and he knew it was one of those days when the empty house would echo with the void that existed, usually hidden, in his life. He used to visit Candy on the rez for some uncomplicated sex, but that wasn’t what he needed. He had to quit fooling himself. What would it be like, he wondered, to walk into a house that was warm and glowing with evening lights? That smelled of dinner and the presence of another human being?
What would it be like to talk about his day, really talk, not just complain or vent his frustration but to explain what went on in his heart, in his soul, when he had to look a good man in the eye and tell him he had cancer or when he lost a patient to the absurd vagaries of the health-insurance system?
He had attempted, long ago, to create that sort of life. It hadn’t worked. He and Alice had both tried, but their marriage had felt wrong, artificial. The end-of-work conversations were strained. The affection felt both false and forced. He was always pulling back when he should forge ahead.
The thing about it was, Sam knew how to take care of a needy person. He’d done it all his life, and never knew any other way. But he didn’t know how to love a woman who didn’t need him. A woman who could stand strong without support. Life had taught him that relationships were hard work, not a quest for joy and completion.
Ordinarily there was nothing Sam couldn’t get over by sitting down and having a beer with Edward, tossing a rope at a dummy steer, or taking one of the horses on a long, solitary ride up to the hot springs. But now that Michelle was back, he wanted more.
More than talk.
He wanted a connection, and he wanted it with Michelle. God knew, he’d seen enough other women over the years to understand that it only worked with a certain person.
Christ, she must think he was a maniac, coming on to her while she still had a healing incision. He wondered if she was pissed about that.
He swore between his teeth, and when he reached the turnoff for Lonepine he drove right on by. Kept going until he got to Blue Rock Ranch, its imposing gates and the dark boulders at the entrance as ostentatious as a castle drawbridge.
A glare of lights burning in the window of the studio beckoned him. He didn’t pause to think, just parked the truck and walked to the door. Through the sidelight he could see her on the sofa, and he paused, waiting for the nervous energy churning through him to calm down.
She was in another world; he could tell by the look on her face. He knew that look. It was the expression she had worn as a girl, totally absorbed by the images on the big canvas in front of her. Michelle was a beautiful woman, there was no doubt about that. But Michelle in the act of creation was beyond beautiful. As she painted, there was an incandescent quality about her that made him believe in her with all that he was.
He knocked at the door, but didn’t wait for her to answer it. “It’s me,” he called, letting himself in. “Don’t get up.”
“Sam.” She sounded pleased. But cautious.
“Where’s Cody?”
“He’s over at the main house, doing homework. He needed to do an assignment on a computer, so he’s working in my dad’s study.”
“How’s Gavin doing?”
She squirted something on her hands and scrubbed them with a rag. “He’s amazing. Stronger and healthier every day. He complains about the medications he has to take, all the side effects, but he’s faithful about it. We had a checkup today, and my staples are gone.” Drying her hands, she pulled her knees up to her chest. “I’m so glad it’s over.” She caught his expression. “The doctor in you probably feels compelled to point out that we’re not out of the woods yet. The transplant team warned us about rejection episodes, but I’ve already put my father on notice. He wouldn’t dare reject my kidney.”
She smiled and spoke lightly, though he could tell she worried. Rejection episodes were always devastating. Between Michelle and her father, more than the kidney was at risk.
“These days, the episodes are treatable,” he said. “I recommend you quit worrying about something that hasn’t happened and might not.”
“Okay. Thanks, Sam.”
“Michelle, about the other night—I was damned pushy.”
Her face darkened with a blush. “Was that an apology?”
“Well, I’m not sorry I kissed you like that.”
She ducked her head and fell silent.
“Can I see what you’re working on?” He hung his coat on a hook behind the door.
“Um, sure.” She angled the easel toward him. “I’m in advertising, remember? I’m used to people looking over my shoulder. Breathing down my neck, even.”
He walked over to the easel. It was the abstract painting she had been working on before. The big, violently emotional images hit him on a visceral level. Maybe he was reading a lot into it, yet he thought he could see the rage and the melancholy, but more than that, the sense of hope radiating through a distorted, two-sided structure near the center. It was a strange and moving work, startling and possibly disturbing.
“Michelle, this is no advertising art.”
“I thought I’d work on some things for the firm, but I keep wanting to paint.” She shrugged apologetically.
Her attitude bothered him. “Don’t apologize for doing work like this.”
“I’m not apologizing. I’m just—”
“Don’t explain this or rat
ionalize it, either. Not to me.”
She glared at him. “I wasn’t.”
“And don’t get defensive on me. It’s a bad start, especially when you consider what I came to say.”
She eyed him warily. “And what’s that?”
He took a deep, steadying breath. Held her gaze with his. “For seventeen years you were dead to me,” he said. “I had to live my life as if you’d never existed. Then, out of the blue, you come back here.”
Her hands twisted in the hem of her painting smock. “I didn’t come to torture you.”
“True. But your coming here made something happen. Something new and good.”
“Sam, that’s all in the past.”
“Look, if it was just a youthful fling, we would have forgotten, would have moved on. I know, because in seventeen years, I never forgot you, and believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. It’s because I never stopped loving you, Michelle.”
She tore her gaze from his, shaking her head. “How do I know I didn’t just catch you between ‘tryings’? How do I know your sudden interest in me isn’t because of Cody?”
“He’s a part of this, too. And you know better than I do that he’s not an easy kid. But he makes me want to try like hell to work this out.”
She went to the long worktable by the easel and started cleaning up, her hands moving nervously as she put the caps back on tubes and swirled paintbrushes in jars of cleaner.
“What is it you want from me?” she asked.
“For starters, I want you to sit back down. You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I’m sick of resting.” She worked faster, finishing her cleanup with an air of defiance. That was her way. Finish one thing before starting another. Finish cleaning up the paints before you give your attention to a man baring his soul.
He waited for her to finish. When she finally did, he said, “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, Michelle. You don’t seem happy, and your happiness matters to me.”
She wadded up her smock between her hands. “Don’t pretend this is about me and my happiness, Sam. It’s about you—”
