Jack’s eyes narrowed as he considered her words. Leslie knew him well enough to know that he felt her misgivings. But he apparently wanted to make sure he was guessing her intentions correctly as he rephrased his question. “Ms. Rothe, do you feel the birds would be safe if Darby Development proceeded with their plans, provided they make the usual’ concessions for the eagles?”
“I’m hardly the person to ask, Mr. Sullivan,” she said, ignoring Nathan’s elbow as it dug into her ribs. “The forest service, I think, would be a better judge of that. If you feel the change in nesting habits is insignificant and want to take the chance that developing the area won’t produce some long-term effect on the eagles, then that’s your choice. As I said, I’m not an expert in this field.”
Jack and his colleagues discussed the matter for what seemed like a long time. When they finished, Jack once again gave Leslie a calculating glance before he spoke. “The project under consideration by Darby Development Company is one we had hoped would benefit both the private investors and the state. However, as an endangered species, the eagles must take precedence. We are fully aware that over the past few years their numbers have increased, but they’re not out of the woods yet, so to speak. Like Ms. Rothe, none of us here,” he indicated the other members of the panel, “is a trained ornithologist or eagle expert. We plan to file a recommendation that further investigation be made into this case, and the project’s impact on the nesting eagles be fully evaluated. It is our opinion, since the leases have already been granted, that if the two parties here today cannot come to an equitable agreement, this matter should be taken up in the federal court of this district. We would like to thank all those who came today for their concern and honest opinions.”
A loud din broke out in the room. Chairs scraped against the floor as people began to make their way out. Leslie and Nathan sat side by side, wordlessly, until the clamor had died down enough for them to speak.
“Why’d you do it, Leslie?” Nathan asked quietly. “If you’d have given Jack the go ahead, he would have agreed with you. He knows you’re honest, and he trusts you. Why’d you warn him off?”
“Because I am honest and because he does trust me. And I want him to keep on trusting me.”
“But those stupid birds aren’t that big a deal, and you know it. You’ve changed your mind about the whole project, and I want to know why.”
“Because it’s wrong, Nathan. Have you been up there? Up to the project site?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you’ve seen how beautiful it is, how untouched and irreplaceable it is, and you still want to build a ski resort in the middle of it?” She couldn’t believe it. She had forgiven herself for her error, because she hadn’t truly been cognizant of what she was doing. But she’d also vowed never to make that mistake again, no matter how busy she was or how much she wanted a project to succeed.
“A deal’s a deal and money’s money, Leslie. You know that. Where has this sudden attack of nature loving come from?”
Leslie thought about it. It hadn’t come from Joe. She’d been heartsick about her judgment before she met him. It had come from her. She’d known about beauty and love long before she fell in love with Joe. She’d just never paid any attention to it. She’d taken it for granted. She hadn’t seen the beauty of the land because it was always there and she had assumed it always would be. She hadn’t paid any attention to love, because she’d always had it and was arrogant enough to believe she always would. Her family, her friends, and her fair share of men had loved her, and she’d taken their affection as her due. Being loved was as common and natural to her as breathing, and that’s why she hadn’t seen it.
It was the love she thought she couldn’t have, Joe’s love, that stirred and excited her. She’d never been rejected or without love before. She hadn’t valued what she’d had or even been aware of it until she didn’t have it anymore.
“It came from me. It was there all along, Nathan. I just didn’t know it,” she answered finally. She opened her briefcase and pulled out a plain white envelope. “Now that I do, I want to give this to you.”
“What is it?”
“My resignation. I can’t work for you and be truthful with myself at the same time. And I think I should warn you that this isn’t the last you’ll be seeing of me. I’m going to work on the other side of the fence. I’ll be fighting you with all the energy I used to give to you, to keep you from destroying any more of our public lands.”
“Are you crazy? You’ll lose everything. There’s no money in being noble.”
“I know.”
Logically Leslie’s next move was to find a new job. She and the Department of the Interior had never been on the best of terms, but she knew they respected her work and considered her a formidable adversary. They might be willing to work with her as opposed to against her for a while, she calculated wisely. Of course, there was always the Environmental Protection Agency. She hadn’t completely lost her mind. There were other jobs for research analysts that paid more, and she could always volunteer her time to the preservation of natural resources. At the moment, however, she didn’t have the energy to decide what to have for dinner.
The review hearing that morning and her confrontation with Joe had taken their toll on what strength she had regained after her ordeal with the snake. The antivenin’s side effects had left her drained and weak for days. Together with the agony in her heart, she had almost come to wish the snake had killed her after all.
But with the return of her strength had come a faith that perhaps with time, Joe would come to understand and try to forgive her. That last thread of hope had been dashed to the ground that morning, and she felt lower than ever. A sort of miserable lethargy consumed her. All she had the motivation for, all she wanted to do, was to mourn her love. She wanted to recall what was and dream about what might have been. She wanted to be alone with her fantasies of a happily ever after.
When the phone rang, she switched on the answering machine and turned the sound down so she wouldn’t have to listen to the message. She took off her linen suit and left it on the floor where she’d dropped it. Wrapped in a soft terry robe, she made herself a cup of tea and settled herself in the chaise longue on her small balcony to watch the stars come out as the sun nestled into the mountains. The same stars had twinkled brightly and then faded in the dawn the night she and Joe had first made love. She drew in a deep breath and pretended to be able to smell the mountain pines. She listened for the rustle of leaves and the scuttling noises of small animals. …
She heard her door bell ringing. She tried to ignore it as her mind strove to regain that sense of happiness and contentment she’d had in the mountains with Joe. The gentle pinging became muffled noises and then a hard thumping on her front door. She blocked them out, hoping the person would go away as her body relived the acute, throbbing need low in her abdomen and the ecstatic anticipation at the tip of every nerve ending that Joe’s touch had brought her. She ached to be close to him.
“Leslie.” Her name wafted upward on the breeze from the street below. “Leslie. I know you’re there. Answer me.”
Joe’s voice wasn’t hard to recognize nor was the anxiety that riddled it. She sat up and looked over the railing at him. It seemed strange to see him in a suit. He’d probably had it on at the hearing, but she hadn’t paid any attention to it. Even from a downward angle, his shoulders looked broader under the clean cut of his jacket, and his legs seemed to take on more mass when the finer material of his slacks replaced his jeans. He’d gotten a haircut too. Unwillingly and in absolute defeat, she had to admit her feelings toward him hadn’t changed. It was one thing for her heart to ache and want to remember, but her brain had wanted to hate him. The fact that hating him was an impossibility, left a sour taste in her mouth and put a cutting edge on her words. “Now what do you want? To make sure I don’t ever try to contact you again? You have my solemn vow.”
“Come down and open the door, Leslie. We nee
d to talk,” Joe called back. His tone was less apprehensive and held that irritating note of authority he’d used when they’d first met.
What was he mad about now, she wondered. She’d done her best to correct her mistake, and he had gotten her out of his life. So where did he get off acting as if he had the slightest bit of influence over her anymore? “We have talked. Go away, Mr. Bonner.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said, irritated. “I’m not a stranger. You know me better than anyone else in your life. And I know you better than anyone else in the world. Now, come down and open the door.”
“No.”
“What I have to say is private, but I’ll shout it so the whole neighborhood can hear if you want me to,” he threatened. Even though his attitude seemed somehow softer and more cajoling, she knew he was serious. He was determined to be heard, one way or another.
Suddenly it was all too much for Leslie to cope with. Her anger wasn’t mighty enough to fortify her facade of casual disinterest. She did her best to swallow the painful lump in her throat, but it stayed and her words came out weakly. “Joe, please. Haven’t we hurt each other enough? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I didn’t mean to lie. I tried to tell you. I just didn’t know how. I’m sorry about the mountain too. I don’t even have a good excuse for that, so I won’t offer you one. Can’t we just let it go at that?”
“No.” Leslie could hardly hear him, his voice was so low. “Come down and open the door. Please, Leslie.”
She flopped back onto the longue and sighed. There didn’t seem to be any way around it. Joe had come to say his piece, and nothing would deter him. She might as well get it over with, she determined, throwing her legs off the chaise, standing slowly so Joe could see that she was on her way down to the door.
When she opened the door to him, he was leaning with both hands on the door jamb as if eager to get in. His presence loomed over her. Her heart flipped over and began to beat vigorously despite her brain’s warning that its excitement was in vain.
Joe studied her thoroughly for a second or two then scanned the room behind her before asking, “May I come in?”
“By all means,” she said, with a wave of her arm. As long as he’d come this far, he might as well come in to pour salt in her wounds, she thought, relying on sarcasm as a buffer for what she knew was bound to be a traumatic ordeal.
He continued to look around her home with interest. Slowly he walked to the center of her living room, taking in her Chinese art collection, the wall of book-lined shelves, her wheat-and-brown-tweed modular furniture, and the electronic equipment she had amassed.
“Well, I can see why you weren’t exactly at home up at the cabin,” he said. Mild humor curled the corners of his lips and echoed in his hollow words.
Leslie had never seen Joe look so awkward. His gaze was actively seeking a place to rest, but resisted any temptation to come to light on her. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and Leslie frowned as he began to shift his weight nervously from one foot to the other. This wasn’t the cocky, arrogant Joe Bonner she knew. This Joe Bonner was very worried about something. Like a homing pigeon, her heart went out to him.
“Would you like a drink or something?” she asked, and then wondered why she had. She wanted to be bitter and vengeful. She didn’t want to care about him.
“Thanks, but I came here to tell you something, and I think I just ought to say it.”
“Okay.” Her voice was calm even as she spread her feet and braced herself for whatever was coming. She stood straight and immobile, but she felt as if she were a fragile porcelain doll. One more ounce of pressure, and she’d shatter into a million pieces. “Shoot.”
Joe cleared his throat and glanced at her briefly, still unable to face her directly. “I’m not very good at making apologies. Not real ones. Not the kind you make when you’re begging for forgiveness, when you want whatever has happened to be forgotten so that things can go on as if it never happened at all.” He was silent for a moment. He examined the pattern in her rug for several seconds, then looked up, his eyes full of remorse. His gaze locked with hers. “I’m that kind of sorry, Leslie. I know I’ve hurt you, and you have every right to be mad, but I was hoping you might be able to forgive me.”
He might as well have been speaking Latin for all Leslie understood of his impassioned speech. None of it made sense. He was the betrayed, she was the betrayer, right? “I don’t understand,” she admitted finally.
Joe took two steps toward her then appeared to stop himself from getting any closer. “You were right. This morning at the hearing, you were right. You made a mistake, and then I made a bigger mistake. And I was a hell of a lot harder on you than I was on myself. You should have told me about your job. I don’t know why you couldn’t bring yourself to tell me, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that there must have been a good reason, because you’ve never been dishonest with me before. Maybe you didn’t know me well enough to trust in my love for you, I don’t know.” He shrugged, and there was a look of sadness on his face as if he thought he had failed her somehow.
“But my mistake was in not giving you the chance to explain yourself. I was so bent out of shape because you hadn’t told me and so afraid that I’d gotten involved with another liar that I didn’t even give you a chance to tell your side of it. All I could think of was putting as much distance between us as possible so I wouldn’t be hurt again. But it didn’t work. I was hurt, and I missed you. I thought about you constantly. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized I’d judged you on the merits of another woman. A dishonest, deceitful woman who wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped her in the face. You aren’t anything like her, Leslie. You never were. You were always honest with me. Brutally so,” he said with a soft laugh. Then he sobered and asked, “Can you forgive me? Or is it too late?”
A fleeting impulse to teach Joe Bonner a good lesson raced through Leslie’s mind. She might never again see him so low or so humble. But it was this same humility in him that reached her heart, and she instantly forgave him. “I haven’t had a whole lot of experience, but I don’t think it’s ever too late if you love someone,” she said.
Joe crossed the room in three long strides and took her hands in his. He looked deep into her eyes as if he couldn’t believe that getting her to forgive him was truly so easy. When he saw that it was, his gaze softened and the familiar expression of loving adoration eased the lines of tension and concern in his face. He cupped the side of her face with his hand as if she were the most precious thing he’d ever touched. His voice was thick and deep when he spoke. “I really am sorry, Les. The last three weeks have been hell. And then when I discovered how stupid I’d been, I was so afraid that I’d lost you forever. I can’t tell you how good it feels to be close to you again.”
“You don’t have to. I know. I’ve felt so empty inside.” Leslie pressed her forehead to his shirt front, as if trying to transmit her thoughts and emotions directly through his chest wall and into his heart. “I wanted to tell you, Joe. I was so scared that you’d be angry, that it would ruin all the happiness between us. I thought we had more time. I kept hoping the perfect opportunity would come along to make it easier to tell you. I knew you’d be disappointed in me.”
Joe sighed and wrapped his arms around her tightly. “I wish I could tell you that wouldn’t have happened. But it probably would have. I have a lousy temper, no doubt about that. But once I’ve exploded, it’s over, and I don’t stay mad for very long, honey. Honest. I would have come around, and we could have talked it out. I value honesty like yours. Even when I’m angry, I recognize the courage it takes to tell the truth.”
“Are you as good at making deals as you are at taking bets?” she asked, her eyes closed as she delighted in his embrace. It was like coming home and finding everything was the same. The familiar smells and sounds and sensations were right where she’d left them, in Joe’s arms.
“I think so.”
Joe’s laughter rumbled in her ear, and he squeezed her a little harder. “It’s a deal.” He pulled away slightly. Looking down at her, his face was animated with joy and merriment. “Is this where we get to kiss and make up?”
Leslie gave him a lazy, knowing smile. Her fingers deftly loosened the knot in his tie as she spoke. “We could do that. In fact, we could do that and then some.”
The kiss they shared was a slow, deliberate act. It was more than a seal on a deal. It was a mutual vow to cherish the love between them, to nurture it, to strengthen it against the pressures of the world and protect it from their own faults.
Now Leslie had witnessed both sides of love. She had been loved and had taken it for granted, and she had been without love. She much preferred being in love, aware and susceptible to its every inclination. She felt tuned into Joe. He was a man who was bright and intelligent, a man who excited her and cared about who and what she was. A man, not perfect, with at least as many faults as virtues, but also a man who suited her, fit her like a glove, and balanced her life.
They had come too close to turning their backs on a love so great and perfect that it had been destined to be right from the start. Whether they had wanted it or not, it was bound to happen.
Joe moaned and ended the kiss, although he didn’t release the hold that kept her as close as two clothed bodies could get. Nor did he restrain his hands as they wandered with familiarity over the body that he knew was his to possess. “Mm. I’ve missed those kisses of yours. Have I ever told you what a great kisser you are?”
“No. I don’t recall that you have,” she said. Her hands made their way along his strong, corded chest to the buttons that dotted the front of his shirt. “Is there anything else you’ve forgotten to tell me?” she asked, working at the buttons, fishing for the words Joe found hardest to say aloud.
“Not unless it’s that I think you’re pretty amazing.”
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