Love Finds You in Romeo, Colorado

by Gwen Ford Faulkenberry

  “Claire,” he said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  She glanced at him with an urgency in her eyes. It seemed as if there was something more she wanted to say—something she had to get out before the moment passed.

  “To answer your question, I came back here to get away. I had to get away—from our house, that town, our life. I can’t explain it, and I don’t know if it was right. But Rob’s cancer almost killed me, too. It’s an evil, horrible disease. He fought so hard—we fought it together, but…” Her voice trailed off.

  “I know, Claire. I know,” Stephen said softly. He’d seen pancreatic cancer a few times and knew how it ravaged the body, rapidly making patients so thin and wasted. As a doctor he’d been limited—there was very little that medicine could do for it once it was big enough to be detected.

  Claire looked back out the window into the night, and Stephen knew she was far away. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but he didn’t dare.

  “The only reason I had to live was Graeme. I wanted to live, for Graeme. But everywhere I looked in Arkansas, I saw death. Our home, our friends, his family, the university, all of the memories—instead of being good, like all of the books and counselors say—it was like death was sucking me in. It was a black hole. I knew I had to get away.

  “Abuelita and Romeo seemed the only safe place for me and Graeme. But, you know, I don’t really feel safe here either. I don’t know if I ever will again.”

  She looked up.

  “I can’t believe I’m telling you all of this.”

  Stephen couldn’t either.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Claire felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It was the first time in a very long time that she’d told her story to anyone. Why Stephen, and why it had happened in this way, at this moment, was a mystery to her. Like the evening, it had been a gradual unfolding. She certainly hadn’t gone looking for the opportunity. And she had no idea of the consequences. The weight of it all might be too heavy for him. He might be bored, or scared, or any number of things. In a sense, though, it didn’t matter what effect the listening had on Stephen. The telling had been good for Claire.

  But as she looked into Stephen’s face—the square jaw, the chiseled features, and the eyes, so curious yet soulful—Claire became aware that he was utterly engaged with her. Not just kind or patient or politely sympathetic—and certainly not pitying—but ostensibly not bored or uncomfortable, either.

  Stephen looked to Claire like he wanted to touch her.

  She reached over and squeezed his hand.

  “Thank you. For listening,” she said.

  Stephen put his other hand over hers and nodded, saying nothing. Claire could feel the tortuous veins of his bottom hand pulsing underneath her palm. The hand that covered hers had a workman’s roughness, and it scratched a little as it rested on top of hers. In another room, a clock ticked.

  Claire had a sudden impulse to jerk her hand away, even to start running—again—like she’d run away from death. But, strangely, as they sat together in the quiet, listening to nothing but the clock and the low sounds of each other’s breathing, something in Claire relaxed ever so slightly.

  “Stephen,” she said, after several moments had passed, “I’ve used up my word quota for the decade. It’s your turn. Tell me about you.”

  He tilted his head to one side and smiled at her mischievously, a half smile.

  “First things first. Do you want some more coffee?”

  They both got up off the floor, stretching like cats. While he poured more coffee, Claire found the bathroom. She brought back a framed picture she found of Stephen and Maria, who were considerably younger when the photograph was taken in front of the Eiffel Tower.

  “When was this?”

  “Maria and I are twins—fraternal, obviously—and so we graduated from high school in the same year. That following summer we backpacked across Europe. The trip was a gift from our parents.”

  “Oh my goodness! How wonderful!” Claire exclaimed, taking the cup he prepared for her.

  “It was, especially looking back. I think they just wanted us out of their hair for the summer, but what an opportunity.” Stephen looked at the picture and smiled at what he saw. “We had a great time.”

  He replaced the carafe and led them back into the sunroom, where they settled back into their places on the floor.

  “Thanks for doctoring my coffee,” she told him, inwardly pleased that he mixed it just right. “Where did you go besides Paris?”

  Stephen laughed, “Where didn’t we go is a better question. We did a whirlwind tour of all of the major sites from Greece, up and across the mainland, and even over to Great Britain.” He ran his fingers through his dark hair. “We didn’t really know what we were doing—staying in hostels and sleeping on trains—we lived like gypsies. Even though that was a fantastic trip, I’d love to go back someday and take my time. You know, really interact with the culture.”

  “You and Maria must be really close,” Claire said.

  Stephen’s eyes were serious. “Yeah. We are,” he said. Then he took a sip of his coffee and grinned. “She tries her best to keep me in line.”

  “You know, one of the things that sent me into a tailspin was a picture of you she has in her office.”

  “Really? How embarrassing.”

  “I think it’s sweet—now,” Claire smirked. “What about your parents? Are they still living?”

  “They are—in Florida. Maria and I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where our dad was a surgeon. When he retired, they moved to a golfing community in Florida called Naples.” Stephen held his cup between his two hands in his lap and stared at it for a moment before looking up at Claire. “We’re not really all that close. I see them about once a year, usually at Christmas.”

  Claire thought she saw something like grief—or at least disappointment—in Stephen’s eyes. In that moment it was easy to imagine him as a little boy, with his long, sweeping eyelashes and chipped front tooth.

  “Well, how did you get here? Romeo’s a long way from Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

  Stephen cocked his head to one side. “Do you want the long version or the short?”

  “Whichever one you want to tell me.”

  “The short version is that I followed Maria.” His eyes were playful, his mouth a corrupt half grin.

  Claire stared him down.

  “You want the long version, huh? Well, I’m afraid that, compared to your story, it reads like a cheap romance novel.”

  She grinned at him and said, “Page one.”

  Stephen stretched out his long legs and wriggled his toes a little within his socks. His knees popped when he extended them. Claire noticed that his feet were big, and on a whim she wondered if they had the beautiful veins, meandering so close to the surface, like he had in his hands.

  “We both went to college in Oklahoma, but then she came out here to med school, in Colorado Springs. I stayed in Tulsa—did my residency there—and got married.”

  Claire swallowed her surprise with a sip of coffee.

  Stephen continued, though it seemed to her that the story bored him.

  “Basically, Claire, I was a workaholic. I worked eighty-hour weeks, making money and establishing a reputation, doing what my dad did. I stepped right into his shoes.”

  “What about your wife?”

  “She had a baby.”

  Claire registered her shock this time. “You have a child—children?”

  “No,” Stephen said, and he looked weary when he said it. “She had a baby with another man.”

  “Oh my, Stephen,” Claire covered her mouth. “I can’t imagine.”

  “Yep.” There was irony—pathos—in the offhand way he said it.

  Claire didn’t know what to say next, but she tried to urge him on with her eyes.

  “It was a mess—a sordid mess. Trust me, you really don’t want to know the details.”

  Claire took that to mean he rea
lly didn’t want to talk about it.

  “So how did you end up in Romeo?”

  “The main constant in my life—besides God, I guess, although I was pretty out of tune with Him at the time—the main constant was Maria. She had met Manuel in residency, and they were married and settled in Salida. She wanted me up here. Away from Tulsa. She’s the one who found the opening at the clinic in La Jara.”

  Stephen took a drink of his coffee.

  “I applied for it and ended up staying with them in Salida for awhile, kind of getting my life back together after I started at the clinic. It was a total paradigm shift for me—but one I needed.

  “I found this place in Romeo about eight years ago, and well—I just knew it was where I wanted to be.”

  “It seems really peaceful,” Claire observed.

  “It is. I can’t really imagine ever being back in the city. It doesn’t even seem like that could have been me back then.” Stephen shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. When his eyes came back to Claire’s, she thought they held plenty of regret.

  “What about your friend, the football coach? Have you known him long?”

  “Well, that’s the other really cool thing about being here. Joe’s my best friend from college. We were roommates at OU—played football together. He stayed there awhile after we graduated, working with the team and getting his master’s. Then he coached at a few different high schools in Oklahoma. We’ve always kept in touch.

  “After I got here, he came to visit a few times and really liked it. I told him when the head football coach’s position came open in Manassa, and he came up here and got the job!”

  “That’s great. He must be really good.”

  “He is a good coach—and a good man.”

  Claire glanced down at her phone and looked up at Stephen in shock when she realized the time.

  “Stephen, did you know it’s one in the morning?”

  “No.” His eyes showed a look of surprise.

  “I can’t believe Abuelita hasn’t called me. I think I’d better go home.”

  “Okay.” He rose to his feet.

  The drive home was quiet, inside the truck and out, except for the hum of the truck’s diesel motor. Stephen seemed pensive to Claire—pleasant, but more serious than before. While her senses were heightened by all of the coffee, she wondered if he was tired.

  Stephen’s dusty gravel road was dim and deserted. Even the Patricks’ house looked completely dark. No TV was on, and the window where Nell had stood watching—to Claire it seemed days ago—had its curtains drawn like a veil. Even the slanted roof of the house looked like a hat pulled down tight over someone’s eyes, to shut out light.

  As they turned onto Highway 285, which led through town, Claire noted the grain elevator and its proximity to Stephen’s road. She recorded it in her mind, should she need to remember where he lived. How many times had she driven right past that road, never imagining who—or what—could be down it?

  Other than the gaudy fluorescent signs, which blinked, advertising different beers available at Abe’s Bar, Romeo proper looked like a ghost town; there was nothing open and virtually no one else in sight.

  It was surreal in some ways for Claire, going home to Abuelita’s and back to the reality of her life. She felt as if she was emerging from a bubble she’d been in for the past several hours. They turned onto 142. Soon, the sight of Abuelita’s house and its gates gave her clarity.

  Like the great iron fence in front of the Casa, Claire had had to build fences around herself and Graeme for protection—protection from pain. Part of that process was getting away from memories and from people in Arkansas who knew their story too well.

  Since moving back to Romeo, Claire had permitted few people to even come close to those fences, and certainly only a select group had been let inside. Martina, Oscar—even Abuelita were only allowed to come so far.

  And yet, as Claire reached into her purse and pressed the button on the remote to unlock Abuelita’s big iron gates, she knew she’d done exactly that same thing tonight with the gates of her heart. She’d opened up and bidden Stephen Reyes to come inside and see what was there. Not everything, of course—but enough. Enough to scare her to death that she’d made a mistake.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Even though he was bone-tired, Stephen couldn’t sleep. The evening had been amazing—first seeing Claire at the grocery store, with her scattered oranges all over the floor; and then the confession she made about him and Maria at the park in Romeo, where she seemed so deeply connected to the plight of the lone pine tree. It made more sense to him now—the way the pine tree’s loss affected her—after hearing her story.

  Had she really sat on his sunroom floor and told him that story over coffee? This very night? That beautiful, private woman who had become such an enigma to him over the past weeks and who he thought was out of his reach—had she really let down her guard and trusted him?

  She had. In one evening they’d become friends.

  The next morning Stephen slept in until seven-thirty. After a breakfast of oats and fruit and an article in the Colorado Journal of Medicine, Stephen took out the brisket he’d prepared the day before and placed it in the oven. It had to bake at 275 degrees for five hours, then get cold again in the refrigerator before he served it to Nell and Gene for dinner.

  Knowing that Joe would be at church, he decided to go for a run by himself with his dogs. He planned to do the seven-mile loop he’d once calculated from his driveway, to the right and all the way to the end of the gravel road, which was the Evanses’ place, and back to his driveway.

  It was a beautiful morning. The cedars, piñons, and junipers, which were scattered along the road, shone with the rays of the sun, while wisps of cirrus clouds decorated the bright blue sky. Regina and Duchess frolicked and danced beside Stephen as he jogged, seemingly happy to have him to themselves after the relative neglect of the night before.

  He could hear the tap-tap-tap of an occasional woodpecker on a tree somewhere and spotted an indigo bunting in a rosehip, or champe bush, as the locals called them, right beside the road. The vibrant plumage of the bird was magnificent. A quick splash of color, like it was painted right into dense branches of the bush—it was there and then gone.

  Only the sight of the Evanses’ place at the end of the road hampered Stephen’s mood. The nice ranch-style house seemed darker than it ever had before, even though the sun was dazzling. Weeds showed through the usually well kept lawn and flowerbeds, and a frayed ribbon hung from the mailbox, like a black flag waving in the breeze. Stephen shuddered as he turned back toward home.

  The Patricks showed up at Stephen’s house in the Gator at two o’clock sharp.

  “No nap?” he asked them, skipping down his back steps in work clothes and muck boots.

  “No rest for the weary,” Gene said, turning off the Gator’s motor but sitting still in the driver’s seat. His long, lanky form relaxed behind the wheel and his legs were spread apart. He wore starched blue jeans, muck boots, and a flannel shirt that was open at the collar. His worn, straw hat nearly touched the ceiling.

  “It’s ‘no rest for the wicked,’ Gene,” Nell admonished him as she stepped down from her seat in Big Smith overalls and a red cotton shirt. Turning to Stephen, she said, “I guess you’re all rested up after your busy night last night?”

  Stephen knew it would be coming. “Yes, I am.”

  “Did you have a date last night after all? Who was that with you in your truck?” Nell’s arms were akimbo, and she blinked with curiosity.

  “Give the guy a break a minute, Nell,” Gene slid out of the Gator. “We shore had us a fine date, thanks to your proddin’,” he said to Stephen.

  “That was mighty nice of you, son,” Nell had to agree. “You shouldn’t have done it, but I’m glad you did.”

  Stephen felt pleased. “Where did you two lovebirds go?” he wondered.

  They all started walking together toward the west side of th
e barn where Stephen’s corral was located.

  “We went to that there Rumors up in Salida. Had a mighty fine steak.”

  Stephen thought, as he had many times before, that Gene could have come straight from an episode of Gunsmoke.

  “I love that place. Did you sit outside by the river?” he asked Nell.

  “No, it was too cold. But we sat inside by the fireplace, and that was real nice. Gene and me even split a dessert after our main meal was over.”

  Nell’s eyes seemed to twinkle at the remembrance.

  “No Frosty this time?” he teased her.

  “We got this chocolate raspberry stuff with two forks.”

  When Nell smiled, Stephen thought he saw a glimpse of who she must have been when Gene first met her, fresh off the train in Romeo.

  “Chocolate raspberry ganache? That’s my favorite. I just shared one with my sister the last time I was there.”

  “The only bad part of the evenin’ was when we got home,” Nell shrugged. “Gene had to go down and fish Stan Evans out of Abe’s Bar again.”

  “That’s too bad.” Stephen made a face. “How’s Marsha handling… everything?”

  “Better than Stan, I guess.” Nell looked sad. “Least she’s not drownin’ her sorrows at Abe’s.”

  He opened the first gate for them, where he already had their workstation set up, and Nell and Gene donned plastic aprons and assumed their positions. The little bull calves, separated from their mothers on the other side of the corral, were bawling loudly.

  “You’d be bawling more if you knew about the surgery you’re in for,” Nell observed, nodding her head in sympathy toward the calves.

  The whole operation went smoothly—like clockwork—for the entire afternoon. Stephen’s nice, new corral, superior equipment, and skilled organization made everything noticeably easier than it had been at the Patricks’ older place. Still, after several hours of work, they were beat.

  “Why don’t you guys come on in? Believe it or not, I’ve got dinner cooked.”