A Hard-Hearted Man

by Melanie Craft

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, believe me, I understand perfectly. So you can spare me the speech about how you like me a lot but just don’t want a relationship right now. I heard it before, and I should have listened. Is this what you really mean when you close off? Are you warning me not to expect too much, since I’m only a quick affair to you?”

  Ross’s fingers bit into her arm. “Stop,” he ordered. “It’s not like that at all.”

  Her face burned as she faced him. “I think it is, and you just can’t stand to hear it said so plainly, because it embarrasses you. I’m good for a diversion while you’re here. A little fun, a little sex, but God forbid I might actually start to care about you, because then you feel guilty that you don’t care back. It’s good to know where I stand, at least.”

  “Lilah, damn it, I...do care.”

  “Please. Don’t try to make me feel better. I’ll be fine. I’ve got plenty of work to do. I certainly won’t waste any time being upset. After all, it’s better that we cleared this up, right? It’s good that we’re being honest with each other.”

  “No,” Ross said. “It’s not good. It’s more complicated than that.”

  “It’s okay,” she said tightly. “Really.”

  After all, he’d never lied to her about where he stood, and never promised her a thing. She’d known from the start that this was a short-term affair, due to end when they went their separate ways. She’d been ignoring her worries, pretending that fate would wave a magic wand and change everything to suit her. It hadn’t happened, and now she needed to deal with it like an adult.

  Her heart felt numb, frozen suddenly, and she knew that she would have to try to thaw it again little by little, or else the flood of misery might just overwhelm her.

  “Don’t worry about this,” she said. “I’ll still help you with Jake.”

  “To hell with Jake!” he exploded. “Do you think that makes any difference to me now?”

  “Yes,” said Lilah. Her little smile felt glued on, and her eyes were hot. “Of course it does. Look, Ross, you don’t have to love me. This isn’t an all-or-nothing situation. We’re friends, and I’ll help you. I just don’t think we should...sleep together anymore. That complicates things on my end.”

  She drew a shuddery breath. Damn it, she’d been expecting this. Why was it still a thousand times more awful than she’d ever imagined? “I should go.”

  Ross reached up to rub a hand over his forehead as if he were trying to scrub away an ache. “No,” he said roughly. “This isn’t over. I want you to understand what’s really happening here.”

  “I do. And of course it isn’t over. I told you, we’re friends. Telling you that I...care about you wouldn’t mean much if I were ready to dump you the minute you didn’t do everything my way, right?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he muttered.

  Lilah could feel the pain inside her swell, threatening to explode in a hot torrent of tears, and she didn’t think that she could stand to let this conversation drag out any longer.

  “I have to go,” she said desperately. “There’s so much to do.... We can talk about this some other time, okay?”

  She turned and began to walk, moving as fast as she could without running, back down the road toward camp. Ross quickly caught up with her.

  “I want to talk about this now,” he said, catching her arm again.

  “I don’t,” she said, and kept walking.

  He held on. “Lilah, wait.”

  She began to pull away, then they both stopped, surprised as Ted appeared on the road below them.

  “There you are,” he said, hurrying up to them. “Lilah, Elliot said that you have a disk copy of the stone tool data? I need it to check the numbers on the pieces we’re putting back in order.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” Lilah said immediately, but Ross kept hold of her arm.

  Ted, for the first time noticing the tension hovering thickly around them, looked suspiciously at Ross. “Is everything all right here?”

  “Everything is fine,” Ross growled. “Lilah will be there soon.”

  Ted scowled. “I need that disk now. We’re busy. I have to check the artifacts, and then I have to record the—”

  “Soon,” Ross repeated dangerously. “Go back to camp and wait.”

  Ted fidgeted, flicking his eyes to Lilah. “Will you hurry?” he appealed. “I need—”

  “I’m coming now,” she said, turning to Ross. He met her eyes, and she forced herself to hold his gaze. “Let me go, Ross.”

  Slowly, he released her, and she stepped away.

  “Bye,” she said with difficulty, not trusting her voice to add anything else.

  He didn’t answer, only watched, his face dark and still, as she and Ted turned back toward camp.

  Getting out of Ross’s immediate presence helped a little. Lilah felt numb all over, and the shell-shocked, frozen sensation scared her. The pain lurked, dark and turbulent, inside her, but it seemed to hover on the edges of her consciousness, as if something kept it from surging up to overwhelm her.

  The rest of the evening moved by in a blur, but she must have functioned reasonably well, because aside from a few odd and concerned looks, no one bothered her. She went back to work in the lab tent, and managed to finish sorting the pile of papers into their original folders by midnight, when everyone else started to yawn and wander toward bed.

  Lilah wasn’t tired. The idea of going to her small cot and lying there alone in the dark, prey to all of the thoughts and feelings which would inevitably come in a rush, made her think that maybe she would rather get started on sorting the bone pieces back into some kind of order.

  She was sitting alone in the tiny pool of lamplight when Elliot poked his head in through the tent flap.

  “Still up?” he said. “Go to bed, Lilah. Don’t take too much of this cleaning onto your own shoulders. We’ll all work on it tomorrow.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said in a low voice. “I’m not tired.”

  He frowned and stepped into the tent. “Are you feeling all right? You seem distracted tonight. Denise went to bed early with a stomachache. I hope we didn’t eat anything bad at dinner.”

  “No, I feel healthy enough.”

  “Something else bothering you then?” He fixed her with a keen eye under shaggy brows. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

  Lilah opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I’m okay,” she said quietly. “See you tomorrow, Elliot”

  When he had gone, Lilah half listened as the sounds of camp died away. She heard the rustle of the wind moving through the acacia trees and the soft footsteps of the new askari as he walked his slow beat around the edge of camp.

  The intermittent animal sounds in the night seemed eerie and distant, and Lilah suddenly felt utterly alone as she sat there in the lab tent, shadows hovering at the edges of her circle of cold light.

  She took a deep, experimental breath, feeling it shudder through her lungs.

  I will be fine. She took another breath. I will be fine.

  She didn’t feel fine. The frozen misery inside her began to thaw and swell, churning and rising until she felt that it was breaking over her head, drowning her in icy-hot waves.

  Ross knew that she loved him, but he didn’t love her. The only thing left to do was to get over him, and she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to. She had seen this coming from the very beginning, and had ignored it, but it was finally time to stop fooling herself.

  Very quietly, she put her head down on the table and cried.

  Chapter 16

  The constant horn blasts of Nairobi’s afternoon traffic came bouncing up to Ross’s open office window, and were blown right inside with the airstream from the ancient fan whirring away there. The stacks of papers on the desk flapped and rustled in the mechanical breeze, adding their noise to that of the traffic, the fan and the banging of the construction crew who were renovating the offices two floors below.


  Ross might not have noticed any of this on a better day, but he had started the morning with a fierce headache and a foul mood, both of which had steadily worsened as the day wore on.

  Today was not actually as bad as yesterday, or the day before that, when he had been unable to stare at his work for more than five minutes before he found himself lost in a mental replay of what had happened with Lilah.

  Her face haunted him, along with the memory of the rush of joy he’d felt when she’d shocked him by admitting that she loved him.

  But that happiness faltered and fell before the awareness of what this all meant, of what he had done. She had wanted to hear him echo that love back to her, and she deserved to hear it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

  Loving Lilah would mean a negation of the security he had spent his life developing; it meant losing the strength of knowing that he needed only himself. Loving her would twist his soul and heart and life into hers. That was far too much power to trust anyone else with.

  She accused him of keeping her at a distance, but the truth was, he had already allowed her to get far too close. Now the future without her looked gray and lifeless, and he knew, angrily, that he was feeling the consequences of his own recklessness.

  There was a knock on the office door, and Ross looked up irritably. Maya, his father’s longtime secretary, was only in a few days a week now that the ranch was no longer doing business, but unfortunately, this was not one of her workdays. Ross didn’t feel like dealing with visitors today, and wished that she was there to send them away.

  The knock came again, and he growled, “Come in!” just as the door began to open.

  Dr. Elliot Morris cautiously poked in his head. Seeing Ross, the man broke into a smile. “Well, then, I am in the right place. I had the number, but the door wasn’t marked.”

  “I took down the sign last week,” Ross said shortly, wondering why Elliot was here to bother him.

  Elliot nodded absently, looking around. “Ah. Of course. Moving out, I see.”

  “Right. Can I do something for you, Dr. Morris?”

  “Oh, no, not really,” Elliot said genially. “I’m just here to pick up the mail. This is where I get it, right? Lilah said—”

  “This is the place,” Ross confirmed, and pointed to a metal box by the door. “In there. I haven’t sorted it yet.”

  “No matter. I can do that.” Elliot began to shuffle through the pile of letters in the box, tossing a few to the side. “There should be several days’ worth in here. No one has picked it up since Lilah did, last week.”

  Ross wished that Elliot would just go away and leave him alone. Why did the man have to insert Lilah’s name into every damn sentence he spoke?

  But Elliot was feeling chatty. “Did you hear about the results of the potassium-argon dating of the site? Lilah’s guess about the age was right on track. It’s about four hundred thousand years old, give or take a chunk of time on either side, of course. Pretty neat, don’t you think?”

  “Quite.”

  “You really ought to come by and see the excavation. You’d be amazed at the amount we’ve taken out of the hillside.”

  “I’m sure,” Ross said, and sighed. Elliot was not going to go away, so perhaps he should attempt to be polite.

  Halfheartedly, he asked, “Is your camp back together now?”

  “More or less. We’ve been working hard, especially Lilah.” Elliot shook his head, marveling. “I knew she was determined to make this excavation a success, but I’ve never seen anyone so dedicated. These past few days she’s been up at the crack of dawn, and she barely takes two breaks for meals between then and midnight.” He frowned. “I wonder if perhaps she’s working a little too hard, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Elliot said, “I’m sure it’s nothing, but she just doesn’t look good lately. She’s tense, and has dark circles under her eyes. I don’t think she’s getting enough sleep, and she’s very quiet most of the time. I hope she’s not getting sick. Does that sound like any tropical disease you know of?”

  “Hard to say,” Ross muttered. How interesting, that Elliot had worked this news so casually into the conversation. He looked sharply at the other man, but Elliot’s face was as bland as a baby’s.

  “I’m probably overreacting,” Elliot said. “I always worry about Lilah. She’s been putting her energy into this excavation for a long time. My wife Mary Beth and I keep trying to lure her out of the library by setting up dinner dates at our house. We invite nice young men over, but so far, nothing has worked out.”

  “I’m sure that’s not for lack of interest,” Ross said with a chill in his voice, instantly disliking the whole category of “nice young men” interested in Lilah.

  “Men’s interest?” Elliot snorted. “No. Lilah’s the one with the lack of interest. She doesn’t get attached easily, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s self-protection,” Elliot said authoritatively. “She’s so fiercely loyal that when she falls in love, she does it with her whole heart. So think how bad it would be if she devoted herself to the wrong person. That piece of pond scum she called a fiancé is a perfect example. We all hated him, but she would have followed him to the ends of the earth. Until he broke her heart, that is. I suppose you know all about that.”

  Ross nodded shortly.

  “She’s a lot wiser now,” Elliot said. “I think that only one thing could get Lilah to fall in love again....” He trailed off provocatively.

  Ross couldn’t help himself. “What?”

  “A grand passion,” the other man said solemnly. “Someone who she loves so much that she’ll risk opening herself up again. Someone who she knows she’ll love forever.”

  Ross’s guts felt as though they were knotting and twisting inside him. Could that be true? When Lilah had said that she loved him, could she have meant this all-encompassing love that Elliot was describing? It didn’t seem possible. It was hard to even imagine a love so strong.

  And how could he, of all people, ever be that “grand passion” for Lilah? How could he ever accept or deserve devotion like that? That kind of love demanded marriage, children, shared dreams, a storybook future that could crumble in a hundred soul-shattering ways.

  “I’m sure she’ll find the right person someday,” Ross said tightly, although the idea of anyone else being the object of Lilah’s love made him feel physically sick.

  “Oh, I think so, too,” Elliot said cheerfully. “I’ll certainly keep doing my best to help. It’s the least I can do for a friend.”

  Ross didn’t answer.

  “I should be getting back to camp,” Elliot said, scooping up the pile of mail he had sorted out. “Really, do come down and see the site one of these days.”

  He dropped the mail into his bag, then suddenly raised his bushy eyebrows. “I almost forgot. Lilah asked me to give this to you. She said you wanted it.”

  He pulled out a flat red book and handed it to Ross.

  Claire’s diary. Ross took the book with some distaste. The binding was cool and smooth under his fingers, like the skin of a snake.

  “Thank you,” he said, and set the book on a chair. He didn’t feel like handling it now, and still hadn’t decided whether or not to read it.

  “You bet. Thank you for the mail. See you later.”

  Something was nagging at Ross, but it was something he couldn’t quite put a finger on.

  “Elliot,” he said abruptly, startling himself as the words came out. “You’re married.”

  Elliot looked surprised. “Yes. Thirty-five years this September.”

  “Married, as in to love until death do you part, in sickness and health...all of that.”

  “Well, yes.” Elliot looked puzzled. “That’s generally the way it goes.”

  “But it doesn’t go that way,” Ross said. “People can’t keep commitments like that. It’s more like love until you get in my way. Love until I have
something better to do.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Elliot said doubtfully. “I suppose it all depends on how hard you both try. Commitment isn’t easy. Marriage is no blissful happily-ever-after.”

  “Exactly,” Ross said bitterly, remembering his parents, possible contenders for the “World’s Worst Marriage” title.

  “But,” Elliot said, holding up one hand, “that doesn’t mean it can’t be done, and done in a way to make you proud of the years behind you and happy about the years ahead. Mary Beth and I both believe in our relationship.”

  “Aren’t you worried that she might stop feeling that way?”

  Elliot considered. “I suppose there’s always that danger.”

  “But you seem to think the risk is worth it.”

  “Of course. There’s always a risk, but should I let that keep me from working for something I believe in?”

  “Damn,” Ross muttered, surprised by a wave of déjà vu.

  This sounded just like his discussion with Lilah that day as they drove to Nairobi, but then they had been talking about his conservation work in Central Africa, and he had been the one arguing for risk-taking and bravery in the face of being hurt.

  “After all,” Elliot said gently, “what could be more precious and worthwhile than the relationships we build with people we love?”

  Ross could feel Elliot’s eyes on him, and when he looked up, he thought he saw quiet sympathy in the other man’s gaze.

  “Nothing,” Elliot said firmly, answering his own question. “Nothing else matters so much. How we love is who we are. Some people take an entire lifetime to figure that out, and by then it’s too late.”

  He checked his watch, and gave Ross a brief wave. “I’ll see you when you come down to visit us,” he said, and closed the office door behind himself.

  Ross stared, dumbstruck, at the space Elliot had just occupied, memories of another conversation forming in his mind.

  Otieno, speaking of Hugh, had said, “...at the end of a life, it is not land or business which truly matters, but umoja that can make one man understand who he is.”