Touchstone

by Sharon Sala

  “Yes, boy, I see her, and I’m coming.”

  The wind was light, the sun already high overhead. Rachel could feel the heat of it, more on the crown of her head than on her face. The breeze felt good, lifting the weight of her hair from her neck. The scent of sage and mesquite was in the air, as was a hint of dust. But in west Texas, that came with the territory.

  A horse whinnied. She turned toward the sound. Houston’s horses! She’d almost forgotten about them. Taco nosed the back of her bare leg. She brushed her fingertips across his head, lightly scratching between his ears. Houston had left so many responsibilities behind when he’d come to New York. She hadn’t given them a thought, and he’d never said a word.

  She ached for him. For the freedom she once had of lying beside him each night. She was so close to him now, and yet had never been farther away. She felt as if she were dying inside. In a way, this was worse than the separation had been. Here she felt his presence, but the bond between their souls had been broken. And she took all the blame.

  “Rachel, wait!”

  She paused, waiting for the sound of his footsteps to catch up with his voice. Moments later he slipped his fingers through hers and gave them a squeeze.

  “Want to take a walk?”

  She nodded. “How about the grand tour? All the way to the barn and back, and don’t forget the big cactus at the well halfway between.”

  “Sorry,” Houston drawled, “the cactus bit the dust. But I’ll be sure to take you by the site, although the memorial plaque is still at the engraver’s.”

  She laughed in spite of herself.

  Houston froze. He knew he needed to move. But all he wanted to do was taste that laugh before it disappeared.

  Rachel tugged on his hand. “Come on, Houston. Just remember you’re my eyes. Unless I decide to get down on the ground and start crawling about to do a little feeling and tasting on my own, I will see only what you tell me I see. And truthfully, I’m not in the mood to eat dirt.”

  Just when he thought he couldn’t bear this for her any longer, she managed to make him laugh. She was ready to play, and he wanted in on the game.

  “All right, then,” he said, his voice deep, almost gruff, with stifled emotion. “But no smart remarks from the back of the bus.”

  He aimed them north and headed for the barn. His gaze swept the land before him: the gigantic openness of unencumbered space, the vast blue-white sky with a horizon that seemed to go on forever. Set against such a backdrop, the structures of what constituted his home were painfully insignificant.

  “I don’t think I know where to start.”

  The confusion she heard in his voice surprised her. She couldn’t remember a time when Houston hadn’t been in control.

  “You’re not being judged on your performance,” she teased, and briefly leaned her head against his shoulder.

  It was a friendly gesture, one meant to comfort rather than to enthrall, but it staggered Houston just the same. He took a deep breath, willing himself to start talking before he did something they’d both regret.

  “We need rain.”

  She laughed. “Houston. Tell me something I don’t know. Like, are there clouds in the sky? And do those sprigs of dill your mother once planted still come up by the windmill? You know, tell me that kind of stuff.”

  “There’s a line of thunderheads to the north. They look like a bunch of spilled cotton balls. Too far away to do us any good.”

  An image began to form inside Rachel’s mind as her mind withdrew old memories, pasting them up in her darkness like cutouts on a flannel board.

  Houston looked up, gauging the sun against the zenith. “The sky looks more white than blue, and there’s a half-dozen vultures circling off to our right. Maybe a dead rabbit or a coyote. It can’t be cows, because I sold mine.”

  Another bit of the picture became real in her mind. She could almost see the wind currents keeping the carrion eaters aloft. Their graceful flight and majestic wingspans were things of beauty, even for birds of such ungainly stature.

  “I didn’t know,” Rachel muttered, thinking of the twenty or so rangy, bald-faced cows always moving with their noses to the ground, constantly in search of enough food to eat.

  “I fixed the corrals since you were gone. They look good. Painted them white.”

  She tried to envision this, and frowned. As long as she’d known him, the ranch had existed in colors of rust brown and metal gray.

  “You painted the barn, too?”

  “Yeah. The tin looks like new. It’s amazing what a man can do when he can’t seem to sleep.”

  The image in her mind disappeared. Suddenly all she sensed was great pain. Startled, she stumbled, but caught herself before she could fall.

  The moment he said the words, he regretted them. It had been thoughtless and cruel of him.

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he muttered.

  “No,” Rachel said, accepting the blame. And then her mouth quirked. “At least something good came out of my selfishness.” Then she turned his attention back to the tour. “I heard horses. Are they still the same ones?”

  He nodded, then cursed beneath his breath, remembering that she couldn’t see an answer; she had to hear it instead.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t ride much anymore, but I still couldn’t bring myself to part with them.” Then he paused. “We’re at the windmill.” He took her hands and put them on the skeletal framework, watching with some degree of jealousy as Rachel’s fingers curled around the steel braces, feeling her way up its length with a tenderness he wouldn’t have anticipated.

  “You’ve painted this, too,” Rachel said, not bothering to hide the surprise in her voice. “It’s not rough with rust.”

  “Yes, well . . .” He let the silence speak for itself.

  Then he took her hand and moved it a bit to the left. When the cushiony heads of dill weed, bursting with seed, bumped against the palms of her hands, she jerked back, startled by the feel.

  “It’s okay. It’s just Mother’s dill, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember,” she said softly, and this time when she reached out, she curled her ringers around a small crown and pulled. The scent that came with the small bits of seed was distinctly tart and pungent, as only dill can be. She crushed it between her fingers, then lifted it to her nose. Instinctively her eyes closed as she savored the smell.

  “I love the scent of fresh dill.”

  Houston couldn’t quit staring. Her face was tilted just the least bit to the sun. Her expression was happy, almost content. A strand of hair clung like a stray black thread to the side of her neck. He reached out, barely touching her skin as he brushed it away.

  She turned toward his touch.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Your hair. A piece of it was stuck to your skin.”

  “Oh... thanks.”

  He swallowed, watching the way her lips formed the words. Everything around them became magnified a thousand times. The heat, the wind, the earth, the sky. He had the strangest sensation that if he didn’t move quickly, they would cease to exist. His voice was soft, barely a whisper against her face.

  “Ah, God...”

  She heard the ache in his voice, and could no more turn away from his need than she could have stopped her own breath. The dill fell from her fingers as she lifted her hands to his face. Before, she’d been unable to look at what she’d done to this man, but it was time. It was time.

  When her fingers brushed his cheeks, he took a quick breath.

  “Rachel.”

  It was a warning more than a question.

  “Shhh,” she whispered. “You see me. I need to see you.”

  His jaw clenched. She felt it and hesitated, aching for the loss of what had been.

  “I will not trespass,” she promised. “But I have missed you. I long to see you again.”

  A soft curse slipped into the silence between them. He closed his eyes, unable to bear th
e sight of her fumbling journey into his soul.

  “I’m here. Look your fill.”

  The palms of her hands were suddenly soft against his face, and Houston knew that the scent of dill and the feel of the hot Texas wind would be imprinted in his mind for eternity.

  “Your face is thinner.” Her voice lowered with renewed sorrow. “I keep saying I’m sorry. Someday I hope you will know how much.”

  “Rachel, I—”

  “No,” she said quickly, brushing her finger across the curve of his lips. “Don’t talk. Not now. Besides, there’s nothing you can say that will fix what I’ve done.”

  Her shoulders slumped, but only momentarily. Then she lifted her head, concentrating intently as she ran her forefingers across the arch of his brows, feeling the thickness and texture and remembering what a vivid frame they were for his eyes. When she traced her fingers across his eyelids, they fluttered beneath her touch. Moisture seeped from beneath the thick fan of lashes, but she made no comment. And so it continued, her hands tracing the shape of his face, committing it to a new kind of memory, while sorrow continued to build.

  He was leaner, his features more chiseled. There wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh anywhere. She’d traced the faint but definite lines that time had dug into his brow, as well as those around his mouth. She could imagine them forming. Houston, clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth when the going got rough. It was the kind of man he was. And just because she’d rocked part of his world didn’t mean he’d quit on the rest. A great sense of pride began to grow in her then, for the man that he was. A better man than she deserved.

  Her hands flattened as they slipped to his shoulders. She felt the ridges of bone and muscle with no spare flesh between. More evidence of the devastation of her faithlessness.

  Beneath her palms, his heart was pounding wildly. She raised her head, and in that moment another image was suddenly etched into the dark palette in her mind: Houston, standing tall before her, staring down into her face with cold despair.

  At that moment Houston groaned. He’d had enough.

  “Rachel, please,” he whispered.

  She yanked her hands away, as if suddenly burned. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said softly, clutching her hands to her chest.

  “But I’m not. Now it’s my turn.”

  Rachel jerked. “What—”

  His hands went to her cheeks, and she never finished her sentence. She could feel his breath on her face. Closer, then closer still. There was a physical ache in the space between them, but when he put his arms around her and pulled her close, the ache disappeared.

  “Houston—”

  “Don’t talk,” he whispered. “Just give me this.”

  She sighed. His mouth brushed her lips. She turned to him like a moth to the light. He tunneled his fingers through her hair as he tilted his head downward, tentatively tracing the shape of her face with brief kisses, mapping her image while sanity left him.

  She groaned and clutched at him with both hands.

  He lifted her off her feet, then turned, pressing her against the windmill until she was pinned between Houston’s body and the steel at her back.

  “Rachel, I need—”

  Taco barked. Once. But the short yip was a warning Houston recognized well. Someone was coming.

  He tore himself away from her and looked over his shoulder. A dust cloud was just becoming apparent.

  “Well, damn,” he muttered, and gently put Rachel back on her feet.

  Staggered by the sudden sensation of being turned loose in a whirlwind without an anchor, she grabbed on to his arm for balance.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Rachel groaned. And even as she was struggling with sanity, she kept telling herself it was for the best. She should have known that Houston would still want her—at least physically. But she didn’t think she could bear to make love to him ever again, knowing she would have to let him go.

  She began smoothing her hair nervously, thankful she’d had the foresight to tie it back from her face, and straightened the hem of her T-shirt. At the moment it was the best she could do. The urge to leave was strong, but she was uncertain about where to go. And the notion that some stranger would likely be watching her stumbling efforts to get back inside were all that kept her standing at Houston’s side.

  “Who is it?” she asked as she heard the car come to a stop.

  “It’s Kenny Monday, the man from the oil company, remember?”

  Rachel frowned. “Oh yes,” she said. They had yet to meet, but Houston spoke of him often. She knew that this meeting would be one Houston might dread. How do you introduce the woman who dumped you to your very best friend?

  Sixteen

  Kenny got out grinning, but the smile on his face stopped somewhere between casual and wide. When he saw the woman at Houston’s side, every social skill he’d been taught faded away. He’d known she was here. Had even prepared himself for the meeting. But as he watched them coming toward him, he fought an overwhelming urge to cry. At a distance, they looked as if they were two halves of a whole. Their steps were in unison, right down to the sway of their bodies. He saw her speak, and watched as Houston ducked his head to catch the soft whisper. The deference with which the man bent to her broke Kenny’s heart.

  So, Rachel Austin. We’re about to meet.

  Kenny tried to ignore her beauty, reminding himself that it was only skin deep and that a woman worth her salt wouldn’t have walked away from a man just because he was poor. But as they came closer the reminder seemed senseless in the face of his awe. Even with the small imperfections left behind by the terrible blast, she didn’t seem real. He stared, wanting to find a flaw that would make her appearance as normal as the rest of the world. But it wasn’t so. It was only after they got closer that it hit him. Her eyes. Those beautiful clear green eyes were looking right through him. He stared at Houston, wondering how he bore the pain of that vacant gaze. And in that moment he forgave her for whatever hurt she’d caused his good friend, because she’d paid for it dearly.

  Houston nodded. “Morning, Kenny. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Kenny tried to meet Houston’s eyes, but he seemed unable to quit staring at Rachel. Finally he managed a self-deprecating chuckle.

  “I’m trying to remember why I came,” he said. “But truth be told, it has completely slipped my mind.”

  Houston arched an eyebrow. “Rachel, this tall, ugly man who is staring at you as if you’re the last cookie on a plate was my friend Kenny Monday. I’m trying to decide whether to hit him now, or wait until you’ve gone in the house so you won’t hear him cry.”

  Kenny grinned.

  Rachel laughed.

  The introduction was just what had been needed to break the awkwardness of this overdue meeting.

  Kenny grasped Rachel’s hand. “He’s right, Miss Austin. I admit it. I’m staring.” And then his voice softened. “And I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed the sights as much as I am right now.”

  Houston snorted lightly. “Don’t pay any attention to his pretty words. He has a nice car. That’s the only reason women like him.”

  Rachel laughed again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “Won’t you come inside? It’s hot out today.”

  “It’s always hot in this blessed place,” Kenny muttered, then added with a wink at Houston, “But there are plenty of other things that make it worthwhile, right, old buddy?”

  Houston frowned, then shook his head. Kenny looked startled. Mutely he followed them into the house.

  “How about a cold beer?” Houston asked as Kenny quickly settled into his favorite chair.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Rachel, would you like something cold to drink, too?”

  “Do we have any iced tea left?”

  “I think so. I’ll check. If not, how about a beer?”

  “Make it a Coke and you have a deal,” she said.

&nb
sp; “Coming up,” he said, then he looked at Kenny and motioned for him to come. “Hey, Monday. Why don’t you give me a hand?”

  Kenny’s eyebrows shot skyward. “Sure. Be right back,” he told Rachel, and quickly followed Houston into the kitchen.

  “What’s the big deal?” he muttered.

  “Shhh,” Houston hissed. “I don’t want her to overhear this.”

  Kenny lowered his voice to a whisper. “Hear what? And while I’m asking questions, why are you still living in this place when your new house is finished and furnished, just waiting for you to move in?”

  “Because she doesn’t know about the oil wells or my new house or the new pickup that’s due to arrive any day. She doesn’t know about anything, and that’s

  just the way I intend to keep it. At least for a while.”

  “But why?”

  Houston turned, and the intensity on his face was impossible for Kenny to misunderstand.

  “I want her back.”

  Kenny shrugged. “But she’s already back.”

  “No. She came back because she needs me, not because she wanted to. I’ve got to find a way to help her become independent again. And then pray to God that she will stay with me because she wants to, not because she has no other choice.”

  “But if—”

  “Look, Kenny, use your head,” Houston snapped. “She left me before because I was poor—or because she was poor; I never really understood which. Anyway, that’s all in the past. If she stays with me this time, what I need to know is that she does it because she can’t live without me, not because I could buy her the moon.”

  “Ah.”

  “And,” Houston continued, “what I need from you is to keep your mouth shut about my business dealings in front of her. She thinks I work for the same company you work for. That’s all. Don’t let on that I own the damn thing.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Houston opened Kenny’s longneck, popped the top of Rachel’s Coke, and then thrust them into Kenny’s hands. “Here, and don’t hit on my woman while I’m looking for pretzels.”