by Robyn Carr
Finally, she took him back to Sullivan’s Crossing.
And Sully was reborn. His temperament immediately smoothed over. His facial features relaxed. He greeted Enid, Frank and Tom, and spent about fifteen straight minutes greeting Beau. Then Sully ate a salad with turkey slices and complimented Maggie’s thoughtfulness for the lunch.
“I think you dropped twenty pounds,” Enid said.
“Twelve. And I could spare it. Now, Enid, it looks like I’m going to be keeping Frank company for a while. Maggie says I have to go slow. We should get Tom’s boy to help out with things like stocking shelves; get Tom to finish cleaning the gutters and clearing that trench around the house to the stream so we don’t get flooded, if we aren’t already.”
“You aren’t,” a voice said. “I finished clearing that trench and I checked the basement at your house.”
Everyone turned to see the man standing in the doorway of the store. Cal. Maggie looked at him closely for the first time. He was somewhere just under forty, with dark brown hair and light brown eyes that twinkled.
“Cal,” Sully said. “You’re still here? Good to see you! You been helping out?”
Cal stuck out a hand. “Sorry about the heart trouble, Sully. Glad to see you’re doing so well. To tell the truth, you look better than ever.”
“What the devil you doing here so long?” Sully asked, shaking his hand.
“Well, I could say I was here to help out, but that wouldn’t be true. I’m waiting for better weather to check out the CDT. Since I was here, I tried to lend Enid a hand.”
“He did a great job, Sully,” Enid said. “He’s been bringing in the heavy boxes from the storeroom, helped stock shelves, swept up, hauled trash, the kind of stuff that’s on your schedule.”
“That’s awful neighborly,” Sully said. “We’ll cut you a check.”
The man chuckled and ducked his head with a hint of shyness that Maggie was immediately taken with.
“No need, Sully. I didn’t mind helping out. It gave me something to do.”
“If you’re camping, you must have had other things on your mind to take up time.”
“To tell the truth, I messed up my planning. I thought I’d pick up the CDT out of Leadville but where it’s not icy, it’s flooding. A few chores weren’t anything. Enid took care of me. I appreciate the hospitality.”
“Are you planning to leave your vehicle in Leadville?” Sully asked.
“That was the plan.”
“Well, you can leave it here if it suits you and pick up the trail just over that hill,” Sully said, pointing. “Whenever you’re ready and no charge. No charge on the campsite, either.”
“You don’t have to do that, but it’s appreciated. In fact, this being your first day home, I’ll stick around a few days in case you need a hand. I don’t have urgent plans.”
“Are you homeless?” Maggie asked.
Everyone stared at her.
“I mean, you don’t need money and you’re in no hurry and you’re happy to help and... It’s unusual. Not that people aren’t friendly, but...”
He flashed her a beautiful smile. His front teeth were just slightly imperfect and it gave him a sexy, impish look. “No problem. In fact, I am homeless. I’m on the road, probably till fall. But I have the truck, the camper, I’m always on the lookout for places to charge up the laptop and phone and I think Enid gave me special treatment—some of the meals I got here were way better than what’s for sale in the cooler. I have what I need for now. And yes, I can pay my way.”
“Independently wealthy?” Maggie asked. And for someone who didn’t mean to be rude, she realized she certainly sounded it. “Trust-fund baby?”
“Maggie!” Sully reprimanded. “She might be a little cranky, Cal, on account of I turned out not to be the best patient on record.”
“No problem at all. I’m the suspicious type myself. No, not a trust-fund baby, Dr. Sullivan. Just a little savings and a lot of patience.” He shifted his gaze to Sully. “Right now I have time for a game of checkers. Any takers?”
“Don’t do it, Sully,” Frank said. “He’s brutal.”
“That makes it irresistible, now, don’t it?”
That’s when Maggie wandered off to the house.
* * *
Sully’s house was over a hundred years old. It had been built when Maggie’s great-grandfather was a young man, before he and his wife had their first child. The improvements and changes since it was originally built were haphazard at best. When old refrigerators died, new ones appeared and they never matched the original kitchen color or design. The washer and dryer started in the basement but eventually made it up to the back porch; the porch was finally closed in so a person wouldn’t freeze doing laundry in winter. Furniture was replaced as it wore out but never was a whole room remodeled. It was long overdue.
But the design was surprisingly modern for a house built in 1906 and Sully himself had reroofed it. There was a living room, dining room and a kitchen with nook on the main floor. There had been three bedrooms and a bath but Sully had installed a master bath attached to the largest bedroom. He had burrowed into the third bedroom for the space, which left a smaller than usual room, so it became his office. Over time he’d finished off the attic into a cozy loft bedroom but Maggie had no idea why. He didn’t marry again. It wasn’t like there were offspring wrestling for space. He’d recently remodeled the basement into what he called a rumpus room. “For the grandchildren I guess I’ll never get,” he said. “No pressure.”
“It’s not really too late,” Maggie said. “If I ever find the time.” And the right man...
“There wasn’t that much to do in winter so I worked on the house a little bit,” was all he said.
She loved the house, though it was in serious need of a face-lift.
She spent the afternoon settling their belongings into their rooms. Sully didn’t make an appearance. It crossed her mind to check on him, to make sure he wasn’t doing too much, but she trusted Enid to keep an eye on him.
She came back across the yard to the store a little after four and found Sully sitting by the stove with only Beau for company.
“Tired?” she asked him.
“I never been the nap kind of man but I’m starting to see the merits,” he said.
“Did you send Enid and Frank home?”
“Nothing going on around here, no need for them to stay. We can close up early. After we have a little nip.” He lifted his bushy salt-and-pepper brows in her direction. “Your friend the doctor, he said that’s all right.”
“Did he, now? You wouldn’t lie about that, would you?”
“I would if need be, but he did indeed say that.” Sully got up, a bit slower than he used to, and walked through the store to the little bar. He went behind while she grabbed a stool. “What’s your pleasure?” he asked.
“Is there a cold white wine back there with the cork out?” she asked.
“No, but it would be my pleasure to uncork this really nice La Crema and let you steal it. You can take it back to the house with you.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
“Now, I’d like you to do something for me, Maggie.”
“What’s that, Dad?”
“I’d like you to go out to the porch where that nice Cal Jones just sat down, and invite him to join us. Right after you apologize for being such an ass.”
“Dad...”
“You think I’m kidding around? Really, I didn’t raise you like that and maybe Phoebe did but I doubt it. She’s snooty but not nasty. I’ve never seen the like.”
She took a breath. “After your behavior in the hospital...”
“After you get your chest sawed open, we’ll compare notes. For now, the man was decent enough to help Enid and we’re grateful. Aren’t we, Maggie?”
She sighed. �
�You know what this is like? This is like getting in trouble at school and being marched back to the classroom to humbly take your medicine. How do you know he’s not a serial killer?”
“I’m not,” said an amused voice.
“Don’t you just have the worst habit of sneaking up on people!” she said. “This old man is a heart patient!”
“That’s no way to worm back into my good graces, calling me old,” Sully said. “Besides, I saw him coming. Say what I told you, Maggie.”
“I might’ve been a little impatient today,” she said. “And perhaps I didn’t show my gratitude very well...”
“She was an ass,” Sully said. “Not like her, neither. You want a little pop, son?”
“You’re on,” he said, sitting on one of the stools. “How about a Chivas, neat, water back.”
While Sully pulled the cork out of the wine, he talked. “So, Maggie here is very tough but tenderhearted and usually very good with her manners. Much better than I am. But I think putting up with me for three weeks since this operation just plain ruined her.” He pushed a glass of wine toward Maggie. “She isn’t going to do that again. Unless you give her trouble. Don’t give her trouble, son. She’s very strong.”
Maggie the bold and strong, she thought.
“I don’t have any trouble in me, Sully,” Cal said with a chuckle. “I’m just checking out Colorado.”
“And what are you doing here?” she asked. When both men looked at her, she held up a hand. “Hey, no offense, but people usually have a reason for finding themselves at Sullivan’s Crossing.”
“No offense taken,” he said. “I’ve been doing some hiking here and there. Hiking and camping. There’s a lot of stuff online about hiking the Divide, but you don’t want to hit the Rockies before May, and that might even be too soon...”
“Not this year,” Sully said. “It’s an early thaw. We damn near washed into the lake one year with an early thaw. The snowpack flows to the west, but we’re not without our wash. I gotta figure out how to get that garden in without lifting a finger.”
Maggie laughed. “Once again, he talks about me like I’m not even here. Of course I’ll help with the garden. So, you think you might hike the whole CDT?”
Cal shook his head. “I don’t think so, just a little piece of it, but I’d like to get up there and see what I see. I’ll hike and camp for a few weeks, then I’ll decide what’s next. Montana, maybe. Or Idaho. Canada. But not in winter.”
Over the years, Maggie had learned that you don’t ask a hiker why they take on something like the Appalachian Trail or the CDT. They’re driven. They want to be stronger than the trail, to break it or maybe just survive it. “The CDT is the longest one,” Maggie pointed out. “It can get lonely out there.”
“I know. I like the solitude. I also like the people I run into. People who want to do that are... I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like they have things to understand about themselves and every single one of them has different things to figure out.”
“And what do you have to figure out, Mr. Jones?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing too deep. How about what to do next? Where to settle?”
That sounded like true freedom to Maggie—choosing something new. She’d eventually have to go back to work in Denver. Right now she was using Sully’s rehabilitation as an excuse. She was needed here.
“If you like solitude, then that must be why you chose this campground in March,” Sully said, sipping from his glass and letting go a giant ahhhh as he appreciated it. Maggie and Cal laughed. “Doc says this is all right but you can bet your sweet ass that bitch of a nurse didn’t bring me no nightcap!”
“Dad!”
“You expect me to apologize for saying that? That was a simple, true statement!” He shook his head. “That one nurse, the one at night with the black, black hair and silver roots, she was mean as a snake. If I die and go to hell, I’ll meet her there.”
Cal looked at Maggie and with a wry smile said, “Long convalescence?”
“Three weeks of my life I’ll never get back,” Maggie said.
No man can, for any considerable time, wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which is the true one.
—NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
3
Once Sully had gone to bed, Maggie got on her computer. She might not be a trained investigator, but she was damn sure an experienced researcher. She started by collecting the possible variants on the name Cal. Calvin, Calhoun, Caleb, Callahan, Calloway, even Pascal. Then she tried just plain Cal Jones. She found several obituaries but not a single reference that could be their camper, so if he was a serial killer he was still an unknown one. She wasted two hours on that.
She heard her phone chime with a text. She was surprised to see it was from Andrew.
I heard about Sully. Is he doing well? Are you?
We’re fine, she texted back.
There was no response and she went back to tinkering on her laptop. About ten minutes later her phone rang and she saw the call was from Andrew. She sent it to voice mail. There was a ping—message received.
There were so many times over the past three weeks she had wished to hear Andrew’s confident and reassuring voice. To feel his arms closing around her. She had a few close women friends. There was Jaycee, her closest friend. Jaycee had called or texted every day to see how they were getting along. There were a few of the women she worked with, but Andrew had been the only man in her life for a long time. Since Sergei. And Sergei had been a total mistake. An artist of Ukrainian descent who, she eventually realized, wanted to marry an American doctor or someone of equal income potential. He’d had the mistaken impression she came from money because of the show Phoebe and Walter could put on. Walter could affect an image of aristocracy.
“I am so lousy at men,” she muttered to herself.
But Andrew shouldn’t have been a mistake. Her eyes had been wide-open—they were both professionals with young practices and bruised hearts. She’d been thirty-four, he almost forty. His marriage had been longer but far more expensive than hers, and his ex had been so mean. Sergei hadn’t been mean, not at all. In fact he’d been charming. Sweet. And after nine months of marriage expected a house, a car and 50 percent of her income for the next twenty years.
It turned out she’d had good instincts about lawyers. Thank God.
She didn’t listen to Andrew’s message, but she saved it. There would probably be a time soon when she’d crave that soothing voice. She wondered if he even realized that after all the storms she’d weathered lately one of her darkest hours had been the sight of Sully gripping his chest, panting, washing pale. She knew true terror in that moment.
It was amusing to Maggie that her mother thought Sully was such a loser, a simple, laid-back general-store owner, a country boy, an underachiever. Maggie didn’t see him that way at all. Sully was her rock. In fact, he was a rock for a lot of people. He had a strong moral compass, for one thing. He worked hard but he wasn’t a slave to his work, he saw the merits to a balanced life. He was possessed of a country wisdom attained through many years of watching people and learning about human nature. And he was true. He was the most loyal individual on earth. Sully thought Maggie was smart to strive to be as successful as Walter. But Maggie wished she could be more like Sully.
She settled back on the couch and decided to listen to Andrew’s message.
“Maggie, listen, babe, I’m sorry about your crisis with Sully. Is he there with you in Denver? When I get a day I can come up and check on you both...”
“I don’t want to be checked on,” she said to the phone.
“It’s been pretty crazy here or I might’ve heard sooner. I just heard about the bypass a couple of days ago but I was told he was doing great and you were with him so I didn’t jump on the phone.”
“And what’s this I hear that you took a vacation? Of indefinite duration? I hope that doesn’t have anything to do with our disagreement. I know you’re probably upset with me, I know that. Honey, I just want what’s best for you and I could tell I wasn’t helping anything. Maybe I made the wrong call but I thought it was probably best if you looked further than me to get support right now. I don’t know anyone who could cope with all you’ve been through any better than you have, but I just felt so helpless, and that wasn’t good for you...”
“I sucked the life out of you, remember?”
“Call me, please. Or email me or something. Let me know what I can do, when we can talk. You know how much I care about you and Sully.”
“Actually, I’m a little murky on that...”
“Maggie?” Sully said from the hall. “Who the devil are you talking to?”
She jumped in surprise. He was wearing his pajamas, his white hair mussed and spiking. “Um...the television?”
“The TV isn’t on,” he said.
“Okay, I was talking back to a message from Andrew. You don’t dump someone and then leave a kind and caring message. Too little, too late.”
“Hmm,” he said, thinking on that for a moment.
“I guess I need a fresh start,” she informed him. “I’d like to go back to eighth grade and redo everything.”
“I think this heart attack business has taken a toll on you,” he said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“It wasn’t exactly your fault,” she said. “Aside from your genetics, you’ve been in good health. Your father and grandfather probably had health issues they didn’t even know about. At least yours is resolved.”
“I understand all that, but there’s one thing you’re going to have to make peace with one way or another. I’m seventy. I’m going to die before you do.”
“That takes a toll,” she informed him. “Remember you said you weren’t quite ready? You remember saying that? In the ambulance?”