It hurt Geneva to hear her mother, always so strong and full of the confidence of her life, to speak so, and she wondered if she, Geneva, were less reckless, her mother would feel less helpless. Deep down, she knew the answer. She had always been a trial to her parents, and yet they had never stopped loving her for a moment. Their love had been fierce, almost wild, protective the way a beast is protective of its young. And yet, they had allowed her to fly away whenever and wherever she wanted, always blessed her, and always welcomed her home again. She took her mother in her arms, and felt her frailty, but she also felt the power of her love, and it felt good.
The day passed in bittersweetness, with Geneva reuniting with her friends and family. She apologized many times for the fear and hardship she had caused, and she was able to thank John for saving her life with passionate gratitude.
“Hey, thank you,” he said, grinning. “I can’t tell you how long I have waited for a chance to do something like that. Straight out of Alexander Dumas.”
Geneva smiled. “I don’t think so. I think I was supposed to be a little cleaner, maybe dressed a little nicer. I would say the scene was closer to Grotowski.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, taking her hand. “I got a chance to be a hero, and it was the best moment of my life. I appreciate it.” His smile turned wry. “Of course, it was helpful that Howard was there to keep me from getting myself killed—not to mention a really good horse.”
She looked at him long and hard. His eyes were as intense as they were the first day she met him, green and full of that same longing she had seen before that had caused her heart to lurch. But now she only felt sweet gratitude and a gentle hope that he would be happy. “You have always been a hero, John. You go to miserable places and give people hope and a chance to have decent lives. And I’m glad you had a chance to be a knight in shining armor. I’ve always wanted to be rescued like that, too, but,” she laughed, “I thought I’d have on a designer gown when it happened.”
His eyes were misty. “I’m glad you’re safe. Geneva,” he said, and his voice grew husky, “I’d do anything for you. I want to always make sure you’re safe and happy. And I want all your dreams to become real.”
She felt her own eyes growing wet, and she searched for the words to tell him… what? What could she say to him? What did she want to say to him, so vulnerable and so hopeful here beside her, holding her hand and looking at her with those burning eyes? She drew a ragged breath, and suddenly Lilly and Sally Beth burst into the room.
“My goodness, Geneva Lenoir, you just about scared us half to death,” breathed Sally Beth, “and girl, we couldn’t wait another minute to see yew! Do yew know we were here all day yesterday, and half the night, and Lordy, we’re not waiting another minute! Don’t tell that awful nurse we’re in here. They only let in two at a time. Lilly, you run in the bathroom if that nurse comes in. Geneva, honey, you look like you have really been through it! How do you feel? Did that old boar just rip you all to pieces?”
“Hello, Sally Beth. Lilly.”
John began backing toward the door. “I’ll get out of here,” he murmured. “We don’t want to wear you out.”
“Oh, John, don’t leave,” said Lilly primly. “They’ll never know, and Sally Beth can just leave if they come to throw somebody out.”
“I will not leave! I just got here! Yew can just run in the bathroom, and they’ll never know! Yew can stay, John.”
“I will not run in the bathroom,” declared Lilly. “You’re the one who should run in the bathroom. I’m surprised Geneva is even talking to you, since this was all your fault anyway. She probly doesn’t really want to see you right now.”
“What do you mean, my fault?” demanded Sally Beth.
“Well, you were the one who panicked when you saw the bear and caused Jimmy Lee to fall over the cliff in the first place. If it hadn’t been for you, none of this would have happened, and we would have made it back without any trouble.”
Sally Beth’s blue eyes grew rounder and she pulled herself up a little taller and put her fist on her hip. “What do you mean, Lilly Lenoir, saying it was my fault just because I got scared when there was this big old bear right in my face? What do yew think yew would have done if you’d had the guts to be the first one across that path? Huh? Hey, you never would’ve had the guts to be the first one, and if that old bear had run into you, you would have run everybody over. I did good, considering!”
“I’ll see you, Geneva. So long Sally Beth, Lilly.” John eased out of the room.
“Now see what you did!” exclaimed Lilly. “Ran him right off, and he’s such a nice man. Why do you have to do that?”
“I did not run him off.” She turned to Geneva indignantly. “Geneva, did I run him off? Lilly, I declare you are the orneriest girl in the world! Geneva, did I run him off?” Her expression altered suddenly. “I’m sorry, honey,” she cooed worriedly. “He’ll be back. Do yew want me to fix yer hair or somethin’?”
A nurse entered. “Sorry, girls, I need for you to leave while I check Geneva’s dressing. You can just step outside for a minute.”
“Sure,” said Sally Beth, glaring at Lilly. “We’ll be right outside if you need us, honey,” she cooed to Geneva. “And I’ll do yer hair anytime you want! And yer nails, too! I bet yer hands are a mess! And yer toenails, too.” She paused thoughtfully. “That was my fault. I shouldn’t a thrown yer shoe. I’m real sorry about that.” She brightened. “I’ll buy you another pair!”
“Forget it, Sally Beth,” smiled Geneva. “I’ll see you later.”
“Sure! We’re just outside!” She pointed toward the corridor with her perfectly painted hot pink fingernail as she opened the door.
The nurse peeled the bandages aside and dabbed at Geneva’s stitches with antiseptic solution, then taped new gauze over the oozing wound.
“How does it look?” Geneva asked anxiously.
“Not too bad,” the nurse replied briskly. “We’ll just keep watching it, and you need to get plenty of rest. Be sure to drink plenty of water, too.”
Efficiently, she took Geneva’s temperature, then gave her antibiotics and left. Geneva stared after her for a few seconds while her mind drifted on the currents of her recent memories, and before she had the chance to really wrap the arms of her mind around Howard Knight and hold him close, Howard Graves knocked, then stepped into her room.
He looked awful. Deep circles darkened his eyes, which appeared sunken and dull in the glare of the fluorescent light. “Hi,” he said gently, and his lips brushed her forehead dryly.
“Hi,” she returned tentatively.
Taking her hand, he stepped back and gazed at her a long time, then he gave a short, half-sob, half-laugh, and his already dull eyes clouded more. “You’re alive.”
She wanted him to feel better. “They say I’m too mean to die,” she said lightly.
He looked beyond her. “There wasn’t anything I could have done. I was just coming over a rise, and the others were already there. We heard you screaming.” His voice grew shaky. “I’m not a good enough rider. There wasn’t anything I could have done. I can’t shoot. I can’t ride. I could only stare at you, and watch the others do all that heroic stuff.” His eyes came back to her. “Oh, baby, there was blood everywhere, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
“Hey,” she said gently, touching his face. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Of course you can’t ride and you can’t shoot. You’re a city dude. I like you the way you are.” She smiled brightly. “You look great in a tux. You can dance the Rumba.”
He did not return her smile. “The doctors say you’re going to be okay.”
“Sure am.”
“Geneva… do you, could you…” He stopped and began again. “Geneva, I’m going back to DC. I can’t stay here. I’m too out of place. I feel worthless. I didn’t even know what to do when you were lying there on the ground, and the others were working on you to stop the bleeding. And you were jus
t there, all white and red with the blood pouring out of you. And everybody else was working like mad, trying to stop the blood. Even Sally Beth was cool and was tearing up strips of everybody’s clothes, and Lilly and I just stood there and watched, and I was absolutely helpless, watching you die.” He gave a dry sob.
“Hush, hush,” whispered Geneva, patting his hand. “It’s okay. I didn’t die. I’m right here, and I’ll be fine. Oh, Howard, I’m so sorry to put you through this. It’s my fault. Don’t be angry with yourself.”
“You don’t understand. There was nothing I could do. I don’t even have the right blood type, so I couldn’t give you blood. Sally Beth and Howard both gave you blood. I mean, everybody was there to save your life, except for me and Lilly. Both of us worthless. If I had been there by myself, I couldn’t have saved you!”
Geneva sat up. “Howard and Sally Beth gave me blood?”
Howard Graves looked more miserable. “Yes. They both matched your type. They wouldn’t even let your parents or your sister—they both just acted like they had the right to take care of you, and the rest of us could just go hang ourselves.”
She fell silent. She understood how he felt, how impotent he must still be feeling to know there are things to be done, but not to be able to do them. She thought about the night Rachel had her babies, and how she had wandered back and forth between Jimmy Lee and her laboring sister, wondering if they would make it through the night with her incompetent ministrations.
Howard’s gaze moved to the window and beyond. After a long moment, he dragged his eyes to her face again and sighed heavily. “Geneva, I have to leave. This is hell for me, knowing how you feel about me, and knowing there isn’t much I can do to change your feelings, especially now. I guess you can understand that I feel pretty worthless, pretty undeserving of you, and I need to get away for awhile, just to get to a place where I can feel competent again. I have never felt so out of control in my life.”
Geneva smiled. Yes, it would be difficult for Howard to feel out of control. His life had always been so ordered, and here in this place, barely civilized by most any standards, and in the mountains—not civilized at all—he would feel unable to function on any level. Very difficult for one who had always moved effortlessly and gracefully through the seeming labyrinth of his professional life.
He had not stopped talking. “This doesn’t mean I won’t try again, that I’ll give up. This place—you—have given me something, and I don’t intend to give it up until I absolutely have to—until you tell me.” He smiled, and hastened to add, “and maybe not even then, so don’t think you’re going to be getting rid of me very easily. I’ll be back.”
Geneva’s heart went out to him. He was so pitiful, so hopeful and yet so hopeless all at the same time. She did not know what she wanted to tell him, whether she wanted him to go away and never come back, or if she wanted him to be her friend (that old cliché!), or if she, somewhere, underneath the layers of her own hope and confusions, still harbored some small flame of love for him that might be rekindled.
No, there was no chance. But old habits die hard, old love dies harder, and there was some of him still in her, no matter how much she longed to be with another. And now Howard Knight’s blood was in her veins. She lay back and closed her eyes to trammel the tears that lay perilously close to the surface. In the darkness, she reached for Howard’s hand and squeezed it. When she opened her eyes again, he was gone, and she knew the time for good-bye had come, no matter what he had said. He was right. If he could not be a part of this place, he could not be a part of her, no matter how much she might try to deny this portion of her life, the essential roots of her boring deep into this earth, these mountains, giving her shape and definition.
Her parents were there again and then Rachel. Sally Beth and Lilly drifted through a couple of times, and of course, John was always there, lingering just on the periphery of her vision, trying not to be in the way, but always just there, burning her with those eyes. Howard Graves was gone, and Howard Knight did not come. She waited for him as she chatted with her family and with John, always looking eagerly toward the door when she heard a knock. But his continued absence hovered like a sulfurous mist over her head. The longer he waited, she knew, the less she would be able to convince him to love her.
He came at midnight. The others, even her parents, had gone when visiting hours were over, and she had given up hope of his coming, even though she had asked Rachel twice to go and ask for him. She was not asleep when he stepped lightly into the room, but was lying quietly watching the stars through her window, imagining that she saw them streaming across the sky. Although she felt tired and defeated for the moment, she still lay hoping for a way to reach him.
He did not speak, and made no noise, but she felt his presence, and she knew it was him. At first, she felt him in such a quiet and intimate way she did not realize he was really with her, but thought him merely a wish, imagination borne on wings of desire. But presently, she began to feel more intensely the gaze that held her, and she turned to see him standing dark against the door.
“Howard,” she breathed.
He did not answer at first, nor did he move. Finally, she heard him speak quietly, “I thought you’d be asleep. I jist wanted to see that yer awright.”
Her heart was pounding with both love and fear. Carefully, she wiped her palms against the crisp sheet. “Come in. Please. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
Still, he did not move. “I jist wanted to see that yer awright,” he repeated.
“Yes, I’m fine. Thanks to you. You saved my life. Twice. I understand you gave me blood, too.”
She could see him more clearly now as her eyes adjusted to the darkened end of the room, and she caught the glint of his eye as he moved his gaze to her face. “I didn’t do nothin’ nobody else woulda done. John wuz really the one that saved ye. I jist got in a lucky shot.”
Her voice was shaking. “I know it was you who tracked me. It was you who first came searching for me. I know you would have done anything to keep me alive. Howard. I know you love me.” She said this last bit with a little rush of her breath while her courage was still building.
He said nothing, only looked at her.
She rushed on. “And I love you. You know I do. Please come here. I want to feel your arms around me. Please don’t be afraid of me. I really do love you. I won’t hurt you, no matter what you think.”
She could see him shaking his head slowly. “We done been through this all before. Ye jist cain’t see ahead like I kin. I kin see ye tryin’ ta live up on that mountain—.”
“But I can!”
He shook his head again. “I kin see ye gittin’ restless and wantin’ ta see the city, and ye’d ask me ta take ye there, and I would. And then, I kin see yer shame, and both our sorrow.” His voice was pregnant with misery.
For a moment, briefly, she saw it, too. She saw him sitting at a large, shining table with a crowd of her friends, looking lost and uncertain amid the linen and silver. And, regrettably, she saw herself, smiling at him and urging him to fit in, willing him to be a part of her company. She felt, deep down in her core, a tiny knot of embarrassment for him in front of people who would never understand.
She blinked back tears. “Howard, no! We can work it out!” She felt her growing desperation and searched for a logical argument. But there was nothing she could pull from her experience or from her logic that could gloss over the essential differences between them. There was the love, yes, and the passion, but beyond that, the days and months and years, she felt the tremor of his shame and his sorrow washing over her and tainting the hope of their love.
He approached her bed. When he drew close, she seized his hand and tried to pull him to her, but he held back and placed his other hand on her forehead. “I’m glad yer alive. I want ye ta live.”
“How can I live without you?”
He chuckled. “Ye kin live through anything. I never seen anybody more alive than yew. Even
when I saw ye fallin’ in that old boar’s mouth, I knew ye’d live. And when ye was alayin’ there bleedin’, and we couldn’t git the blood stopped, I still knew ye’d live.”
She sobbed aloud and clung to his hand.
“Shh, there ain’t no need to be squallin’, now,” he said gently. There was a long pause, then he continued, “I sorta wanted to tell ye I wuz sorry for what we done. Ye know, I hope my lovin’ ye hasn’t caused ye no grief. But I cain’t say I’m sorry. I mean, I hate yer hurt, and I hate mine, too. But—,” he looked up and breathed deeply, “—but I cain’t be sorry fer what happened. I cain’t be sorry fer lovin’ ye. Never. Yew’ll always be a bright spot in me.” He stroked her head gently, then disengaged his hand and slowly walked back to the door.
He was leaving! In her misery, she cried out one last time with all her desperate hope, “Howard! Please!”
He reached for the door. “Howard! Chap!” She searched for words to touch him. “Ta li!” she cried out in anguish. And she saw him falter. He dropped his hand, then slowly, as if her will had been thrown around him like a lasso and she was pulling him toward her, he began to turn. She had triumphed! She caught her breath and waited for him to shake off his doubt and fear and come rushing to her. She practically tasted his kiss even now.
But before the turn was complete, before she felt his will succumb completely to hers, before he threw off the last fear and came rushing back to her, the door burst open, and the night nurse came bustling in.
“My goodness!” she exclaimed! “It’s way past visiting hours! You shouldn’t be here,” she chided.
Horrified, Geneva’s eyes left Howard for an instant while she glared open mouthed at the nurse. She felt a rush of wind, and before she could cry out again, he was gone.
The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set Page 35
