SAY AHHH...

by Donna Sterling

  She felt as if her heart had been ripped out of her.

  "Sarah, are you sure you're ready to go back to your husband?" Annie asked, slanting her a worried glance from the driver's seat.

  "Oh, definitely," Sarah replied, striving to hit an upbeat note. "It's high time I got my life back in order." She forced a smile. "It's such a relief to know who I am and where I … I belong." Her throat, unfortunately, had chosen to close up on the last word, choking her into silence.

  Annie bit her lip and furrowed her brow as she drove.

  They reached Denver around two-thirty. Neither of them was in a particular hurry to say goodbye. They stopped for a late lunch at a downtown café, discussing many of the memories that had returned to Sarah.

  She mentioned Grant Tierney, of course, and related the details she remembered. She did not mention the gaping holes that remained in her memory regarding her relationship with Grant, or the inexplicable fear that continued to haunt her.

  "I'm so relieved, Sarah, that you know who you are and that you remember your husband." Annie's gaze probed her face. "I must admit, though, that I was surprised this morning when you told me you were ready to go back to him. It just seems so abrupt. When I saw you with Connor last night, I felt so sure that the two of you…" She blushed and looked away.

  Pain throbbed in Sarah's chest. "I have to do what's right," she whispered.

  Annie nodded and changed the subject. Sarah was glad. She couldn't talk about Connor right now.

  She had to concentrate instead on the present and the future. Both were inescapably tied to the man she barely remembered. Grant Tierney.

  If she'd loved him enough to marry him, why did she dread seeing him again or venturing near his house? The fear could be a symptom of the head trauma, she reminded herself. Was it?

  "Are you sure I can't drive you to your house?"

  "Thanks, but no. My husband is meeting me at the airport," she lied. "I guess he'll be flying in from a business trip."

  "Okay." Reluctantly, she glanced at her watch. "It's already four-thirty. Guess I'd better drive you to the airport, and head back to Sugar Falls."

  The drive was too short for Sarah's liking. They arrived at the airport in no time at all.

  "I'll miss you, kiddo," Annie croaked, her blue eyes clouding with tears. "You'll call me, won't you? We'll visit and keep in touch?"

  "Always." They hugged, cried, laughed at each other and whispered their goodbyes.

  Sarah watched as Annie drove away. How she hated to see her go! She wished so much that Annie could be the one to drive her to Grant Tierney's house. She desperately needed her emotional support to see her through this upcoming ordeal.

  But the fear that pounded through her at the thought of returning to Grant wouldn't allow her to involve Annie. She had to face this reunion alone.

  Gathering her courage, she picked up her suitcase, resolutely walked to a pay phone and called a cab.

  She'd gone. She really had gone.

  He'd had no doubt that she would leave, yet a stubborn hope had stayed with Connor throughout the morning that she might still be there when he got home. He closed the clinic at noon, needing to see her. That hope was laid to rest when he returned home to find only a yapping little Shih Tzu waiting for him and a note taped to the refrigerator.

  The note reiterated how grateful Sarah would always be and how much she'd enjoyed her stay. She expressed hope that he'd want to keep Tofu. She would have felt guilty taking the dog away from where Timmy and Jeffrey could visit him, and she believed that Connor himself had grown fond of the pup.

  She promised to repay the money she'd borrowed. She wished him a very happy life.

  Connor changed into his jeans, saddled up Viking and rode hard, fast and long. He couldn't, of course, outride the pain. The pain sliced deep into his heart, and he marveled that he could still breathe or move or think.

  Not that he wanted to think. Thinking only increased the pain, because every thought was somehow linked to Sarah. Her scent, her feel, her essence, hovered around him in the very air, yet remained infinitely beyond his reach.

  He rode mindlessly, urging the stallion farther up the mountain until the slopes grew rocky, the trees stunted, the air colder and thinner. He brought the horse to a halt, tied him to a bare, dwarfed tree, then walked off into a wasteland of jagged crevices, rust-colored boulders and bottomless canyons.

  The pain had built to an unbearable pressure in his chest. He'd never have her again, never hold her, never laugh with her or gaze into her eyes. He'd found the woman he loved, and she belonged to someone else.

  He stopped at a canyon's edge and let out a deep, hoarse, primal yell. The pain, the anger, the hopelessness, echoed back to him a dozen times. He yelled again, and again, then sank down onto a boulder, shut his eyes and allowed the pain to wash through him in scalding currents.

  He would have given anything to win her love. He would have walked away from the life he'd worked for, from everything he'd become, if that was what it would have taken to make her happy.

  He'd fallen too deeply in love. She'd become an addiction. A potentially lethal addiction. He'd needed her as badly as alcoholics need a drink; as smokers need a smoke; as junkies need a fix. As badly, he realized, as his parents had needed their godforsaken mountains.

  Badly enough to die for.

  He swallowed spasmodically and forced himself to breathe. He'd never thought he'd fall into such a trap. He'd lived his life with the utmost caution, making choices based on logic. He'd charted a course for himself when he'd been just a boy and hadn't strayed from it … until he'd fallen in love with another man's wife.

  He'd never felt as lost or alone as he did right now.

  He glanced around, knowing he needed to put his emotions into perspective. With dull surprise, he recognized where he was. He hadn't been to this particular ledge for at least seventeen years.

  He had come here often with his father. Many an hour they'd spent, just the two of them, gazing over these jagged cliffs, talking and thinking and sometimes playing guitar.

  A different pain sliced through his heart—this one older and sheathed in anger. He couldn't think of his father or his mother without that stabbing anger. They'd denied him the freedom they professed to love. They'd scorned his vocation—medical science itself—choosing to believe in herbs, chants and the curative powers of flute music. They'd refused to see reason, to move into town, to join the world.

  He'd needed the world. He'd needed its good opinion of him. He hadn't understood how they could not.

  As he glared out into the cool mist, he realized with a sense of shock that he understood now. Suddenly, clearly, he understood.

  They'd had each other. They'd had their dreams. They'd lived the life they'd chosen and had died on their own terms. Why hadn't he seen the nobility in that?

  Had they ever come to understand him? He'd spent so much of his young adulthood breaking his ties to them; disassociating himself from their lifestyle. Even when he'd returned from Boston, he'd kept their art and music locked away, determined to keep even the memories of them at bay.

  Sarah hadn't understood. She'd adorned his home with the free-spirited beauty that had been his parents. The shock had been more than he could hide. He'd felt as if he'd stepped back in time; as if he could call out their names and they'd look up from their artwork and gesture for him to join them.

  The aching loss he'd felt had angered him. He'd thought he'd left that pain far, far behind. He'd thought he'd left them, far, far behind.

  He knew now that he hadn't. They were a part of him. At one time, that fact would have mortified him. It no longer did. What had once seemed like flaws in his parents, he now saw as strengths.

  Sarah had seen that before he had.

  But he couldn't think of Sarah. Much easier to focus on the old pain, the one he'd lived with for so long. He'd learned to deal with the anger, the shame, the betrayal he'd felt over his parents by simply putting them
out of his life. He would live with the grief of missing them and the shame of abandoning them until the day he died.

  But he wasn't sure he could live with the pain he felt over losing Sarah. Exist, yes. Live, no. He'd been hollowed out, like the crevices in these cold, rock mountains. Mountains that had been both his prison and his home. Mountains that he both hated and loved.

  He'd been drawn back here—to the people of Sugar Falls, he'd thought. Yet he'd been ready to battle them all for Sarah's sake. He would gladly live without their good opinion, he realized, if he could have her by his side.

  Even if he couldn't.

  He peered out over the ledge, down into the gray-misted depths of the canyon. He visualized his parents' faces, heard the music they'd made, marveled at the colors they'd wielded like bright, powerful magic. That magic had once comprised his whole world.

  He would need the part of his soul he'd left behind in these old mountains. He would need every blessed fragment of his soul to help him get through the rest of his life.

  As he let the pain flow through him and cauterize old wounds, the wind rushed through the rocks in an eerie melody.

  It sounded strangely like flute music.

  * * *

  10

  « ^

  Connor returned from the stables around three that afternoon to find a sleek, black Harley-Davidson parked in his front driveway. Curious as to who would be driving a Harley in Sugar Falls, he strode around the house, past the motorcycle, to the front porch.

  A stranger stood knocking on his door. Dressed in black denim and leather, he looked like he might belong to some motorcycle gang. He stood about an inch taller than Connor with a solid build, muscular arms, shaggy blond hair and the beginnings of a beard glinting at his jaw. A fresh-looking scar disfigured one cheek, just below his eye.

  What the hell did he want? Medical help of some kind, probably. Connor halted at the bottom of his porch steps and squinted up at the stranger through the midafternoon sun. "You looking for me?"

  He turned and regarded Connor with surprisingly intelligent brown eyes. "You Doc Wade?"

  Connor nodded and climbed the few steps to the porch.

  "The name's Jack." The stranger extended a cordial hand. "Jack Forrester."

  Every muscle in Connor's body tensed as he gripped the man's hand. Jack Forrester. Sarah's mysterious caller. The one she'd been afraid to call back. The one whose name she'd said in her sleep.

  The stranger smiled, and despite his scar and scruffy clothing, Connor recognized him as a man women would go for. "I'm looking for a friend by the name of Sarah. A few folks in town told me you have a guest by that name. I'm wondering if she might be the one I'm looking for."

  Connor inquired with deceptive softness, "And if she is, what do you want with her?"

  "I have some private business to discuss with her."

  "You went through a hell of a lot of trouble to find her, didn't you, Jack?"

  "Some."

  "Sure you just want to talk?"

  The stranger's stance squared and his light brown gaze lit with challenge. "I'm not sure what business it is of yours, but yeah … I just want to talk."

  Connor inched closer, eye-to-eye, ready to tear his head off at the first wrong move. "What makes you think the woman you're looking for is in Sugar Falls?"

  "Annie Tompkins. She doesn't lie worth a damn. I figured she was hiding something, and came to see what it might be."

  Connor caught the guy by his leather vest and shoved him up against the log wall of the cabin, his fists lodged at the base of his throat. "Somehow, Jack, I can't see Sarah having a friend like you, and I don't like the idea of you hunting her."

  "Great," he muttered in a choked whisper. "Just great. I'd love to oblige you in a fight, pal, but I've already had a hole blown through me over this woman, and I'm not looking to have it busted open again."

  "You were shot?" Connor tightened his hold. "By who?"

  "Grant Tierney."

  Foreboding trickled through Connor. Sarah's husband had actually shot the man? "Maybe he had good reason."

  "If you believe that, you must not know him," Jack Forrester retorted. "He's one crazy bastard."

  Something about the steadiness of the guy's gaze made Connor believe him. He released his grip. "Crazy, how?"

  "Possessive. Obsessive. Just plain nuts. Of course, not too many people realize that. He puts on a good front." Jack Forrester straightened his stance, tugged at his leather vest and adjusted his shirt. A corner of a white bandage showed beneath his collarbone. He'd been shot pretty damn close to the heart…

  "Are you saying Grant Tierney might hurt Sarah?"

  Jack's eyes narrowed. "She didn't go back to him, did she?"

  Connor gritted his teeth against the anxiety slamming through him. "Yes."

  "Aw, hell!"

  The two men stared at each other in grim silence.

  "If you don't mind, Doc," Jack Forrester rumbled, "I could use something cold to drink. I'll answer any questions you have. And no, I'm not stalking her or making a play for her."

  "Damn good thing." Shoving open the door of his cabin, Connor led the way to the kitchen. He tossed Jack a bottle of cold spring water, impatient to get all the information he could. Jack sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and guzzled the water.

  "Tell me everything," Connor urged, "and make it quick."

  "I only met her a couple of times. Once in an airport when I ran into Grant, and another time at a picnic on the Point."

  "The Point?"

  "Moccasin Point, Florida. Grant and I grew up there."

  Connor frowned. "You grew up with Grant Tierney?"

  "He lived next door to me. His mother still does. Anyway, Grant's always been a little crazy when it comes to women. You see, he has this thing for, uh—" he tossed Connor an uncomfortable glance "—virgins."

  Coldness shot through Connor. "What kind of 'thing'?"

  "He's really into the idea of being 'the only one.' He insists on having a virgin bride. Of course, I don't know if Sarah's a virgin, but from the way Grant feels about the subject, I'd assume so."

  Connor didn't have to assume. He knew. His hands balled into fists. "He actually talked to you about this?"

  "He brought it up now and then, when we used to be friends. That was before I realized how crazy he is." A dark, tense look came over Jack's face. "Before he married my sister."

  "Your sister!"

  "He made her life a living hell. It took years of therapy for her to get over it. After she left him, he married another woman, who also divorced him. Then he met Sarah."

  Connor's hands tightened into fists. The thought of Sarah with a man like that made his gut hurt. "Why don't the women see through him?"

  "Oh, he's smooth. Cultured. He's from old money, though his father lost most of it. Grant made a lot of it back with land deals—some above-board, some not." Jack smiled grimly. "Investors, politicians, society matrons … hell, just about everyone … believes whatever Grant wants them to believe. And he goes after his women with everything he has. He rents jets, flies them around the world on dates, writes love poems. While he was dating Sarah, he even bought himself puppies to raise, just to impress her. Grant, with puppies. Ha."

  Connor was beginning to feel sick.

  "He does real well in the romance department until he marries a woman," Jack explained. "Then he changes—like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He starts feeling like he owns her. When I heard Sarah was marrying him, I wanted to warn her. I hated for anyone else to go through what my sister had. Besides, I liked Sarah the couple of times we met." He paused and smiled in pleasant contemplation. "We just kind of … clicked, you know?"

  "Clicked?" repeated Connor ominously, not particularly liking Jack's smile at the moment.

  He raised a brow, as if surprised by Connor's tone. "Friend-wise, I mean." Leaning forward, he studied Connor with a renewed interest. "If you don't mind my asking, what's your relationship with her?"
<
br />   "I mind you asking."

  Jack sat back, one end of his mouth kicking up in a grin.

  Connor's lips thinned in annoyance. "Did you warn her about Tierney, or not?"

  "I tried. She'd already left for Colorado, though, and I didn't know how to contact her. So, I showed up at the wedding."

  "But you were too late," Connor guessed.

  "Too late to talk to her, yeah. By the time I got there, the ceremony had already started. An odd thing happened, though. After Grant put the ring on her finger and the minister was about to pronounce them man and wife, Sarah held up her hands and said, 'Wait. I'm not ready to do this.'"

  Connor stared at him, his heart slowing to a near standstill. "She stopped the ceremony?"

  Jack nodded. "She apologized to Grant, gave him back his ring and walked out."

  The breath left Connor's body and he couldn't seem to draw another. "She didn't marry him?"

  "Not then. She may have later, I suppose."

  "You don't know whether or not she married him?" he shouted, barely refraining from grabbing him again and shaking his teeth loose.

  "If you give me a damn minute, I'll tell you what happened!" Jack yelled.

  The men glared at each other as Connor's sudden hope warred with confusion. She'd told him she was married, and that she loved her husband. She had to have married Tierney. Jack took another swig of water and wiped his forearm across his mouth. "He followed her to a room at the back of the chapel. I recognized the look on his face. There was trouble brewing. So, I went along, too. I didn't want to see Sarah get hurt. He tried to pressure her into going through with the ceremony. I was afraid he might succeed. I probably should have waited until he'd cooled down some, but I didn't want to lose my chance to warn Sarah. I asked if he'd told her about his first two wives." His gaze locked with Connor's. "He hadn't. She didn't know he'd ever been married."