Pete spun around and slammed out the door. It crashed against the outside of the building on the backswing, swung closed so hard it gave another whack against the frame, then connected again and again, each thud less violent as it slowly reverberated to a rest.
Irene broke the tableau. She gave a great sigh, then reached across the table and took Boone’s hand in hers. She held it for several moments, while his eyes slowly closed.
When she released Boone’s hand and stood, Ted rose with her. While she headed down the hall to their bedroom, Ted hesitated. With a jerky motion, he put a hand on Boone’s shoulder and squeezed. Boone’s facial muscles tightened and he gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.
Then Ted followed Irene, and only Cambria and Boone were left.
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to feel. The undammed emotions still swept through her. So opposite and so strong.
Boone’s eyes opened slowly. He pushed back his chair, then levered himself up with his palms on the table. Even walking slowly, he’d nearly passed her chair when she finally pushed out some words—paltry, inadequate, but at least something.
“I’m sorry, Boone.”
He stopped next to her, still looking straight ahead. “No need. You warned me. You called this one right, didn’t you? Totally right.”
As he continued out, she could only repeat, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
* * * *
At midnight Cambria took a last glance at the light in Boone’s cabin that had gone on twenty minutes before, turned off her lamp and went to bed.
At one, the light in the westernmost cabin still burned, and she gave up the notion of sleep.
Pete had gone to practice as usual, then called and said he’d eat dinner with a teammate’s family. When he returned home, he retreated immediately to his room, mumbling something about a lot of studying.
Boone hadn’t come to dinner, and Cambria, Ted and Irene ate a nearly silent meal. Maybe too much had been said too fast, and they needed to assimilate it. When they gathered in the den before a television none of them heeded, Cambria supposed an instinct for human contact drew them together.
Boone had had none of that contact. The man who’d been raised to believe he had to do things for people to earn their love sat alone in his cabin, having been told he could do nothing.
It surprised Cambria to realize that though she wasn’t finished with her anger at Boone, it didn’t stop her other feelings for him. The only one she allowed herself to acknowledge as she crossed the darkness between their cabins, however, was concern.
She considered knocking, but instead pushed open the door and called his name softly.
There was no answer, though she heard movement from the bedroom.
She went to that open doorway and found Boone transferring a folded shirt from a drawer to a suitcase opened across the arms of a big chair.
He glanced up, unsurprised.
He exhaled through his nose, accepting her presence. A jerk of his head toward the bed indicated she might as well sit.
She sat.
“I shouldn’t have bothered to unpack this afternoon when Irene brought me back,” he said, resuming his chore. “Would have saved a lot of time.”
He hadn’t been packing in the eight hours between the time he’d left the kitchen and his light had gone on. If Cambria had to guess, she’d say he’d sat somewhere without noticing that bright sunlight turned to twilight, then faded to night, while the grooves around his mouth sank deeper and the lines at the corners of his eyes, which had gradually disappeared since his arrival three and a half weeks ago, returned.
She didn’t mention any of that. She hooked her heels over the bed-frame rail, cupped her hands around her bent knees, and went directly to the point.
“I’m sorry, Boone. I said some harsh things. About your sister, I—”
“Harsh, but true.” He didn’t look at her, continuing to pack with steady, automatic motions.
“Maybe it was. But it wasn’t fair to throw in your face the mistakes you’d made in the past when you’re trying to change.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes, and I don’t know if trying counts in anything.”
“Boone...” What could she say to make this easier for him? What did she want to say? He was hurting, but he’d also inflicted hurt. She took a deep breath and said what came to mind. “You don’t have to leave.”
“Staying’s not going to help anything. Or anybody. Even Irene and Ted, generous as they are, can’t feel real comfortable having me around after this. I don’t want that. And you...”
He shot a look at her that she didn’t meet. He went on. “Pete probably wants me around even less than you.” His expression grew distant. “You know, with all the things I should have been feeling, I found myself looking at Pete this afternoon and seeing that cut-through-steel directness, and I couldn’t stop trying to sort out if it reminded me more of Kenzie, Irene, or you.” He blinked, and his eyes focused once more. “I don’t see him coming around to thinking better of me anytime soon, do you?”
“He can be stubborn,” she admitted.
Boone’s mouth twisted. “Well, at least there you’ll agree he takes after me.”
“He’s nicer than you are, because he hasn’t had as many hard knocks.”
His expression eased, almost achieving a smile. “Subtle as always, huh, Cambria? But you’re right, he is nicer. I’m glad. And grateful he hasn’t had hard knocks.” He grimaced. “Except the knock I just gave him.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you were Pete’s biological father? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to. Almost from first seeing you.” He added the black shirt he’d worn the day he’d kissed her by the flower box to the growing pile in the suitcase. “I had this strange urge to ask you how I should handle it. Because you seemed to see right into me, to see the gap between what I’ve done and what I want to do—with the company, with people. Cully says I need a kick in the head to shake up some of my notions. You sure did that for me.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“It didn’t affect only me. It was Pete, too. And I didn’t feel free to tell anyone before I told him. That’s what I’d planned—to tell Pete first, then the two of us would figure how to go from there. But I fell for you and that got all tangled up with everything else. I knew I should tell you before we made love—” He gave a self-mocking parody of his grin. “But I wasn’t thinking about being fair or open with you, I was thinking about what you did to me. I tried to tell you, the night before last, but...Obviously, I didn’t try hard enough. When you confronted me yesterday, I couldn’t lie to you and—” He shrugged. “And everything came apart.”
Cambria was taken aback. She’d expressed similar thoughts not so long ago in explaining to Jessa that she hadn’t told Boone about Jessa’s situation because it wasn’t her secret to share. It bled away more of her anger, weakening her guard on her other emotions.
“I love you, Boone.”
Heat burned at her cheeks. Not at what she’d told him, but at how she’d done it. She’d made it sound like a confession, a dark secret, unwillingly admitted, tinged with anger.
And she’d said it to his back. The bureau mirror showed his face, but with his head down to look into the open drawer, shadows and his lowered eyelids masked any hint of his emotions. Only his stillness betrayed he’d heard her.
Then he took another shirt from the drawer, the final one, apparently, because he slid the drawer shut with his hip before placing the shirt in the suitcase.
“I love you, too, Cambria.” Though matter-of-fact, his voice sounded husky, its usual smooth edges roughened, almost raw. “I told you that.”
“I know, but...” His calm forced an urgency on her. “Will you stop that damn packing?” His hand dropped short of the drawer handle he’d reached for. In the mirror, she saw his eyes squeeze shut. When she spoke again, her voice softened. “Plea
se, Boone. Please come sit with me.”
He hesitated, then he did as she asked. They didn’t look at each other, but she felt immeasurably comforted when he took her left hand from her knee and clasped it in his.
“Okay, Cambria. I’m sitting. What else have you got to say?”
She blew out one breath, then pulled in another. His hand tightened around hers as she spoke.
“You are not responsible for Pete. Yes, your genes are in him. But the people responsible for raising him, for making sure he brushed his teeth and played nice with his friends, are his mom and dad. And the person who’s responsible for who he’s going to be from now on is him. You wouldn’t be doing him any favors by trying to take over that responsibility from him, even if he’d let you, which he wouldn’t.”
With her free hand she pushed her hair behind her ear. She risked a glance at his face. He appeared to stare at the juncture of the floor and wall.
“All you can do for Pete now, Boone, is to love him. If he’ll let you.”
He slowly turned to face her. She drew in another deep breath. She might as well get all the poison out at once. It would either cure them or kill them.
“That’s all you can do for me, too, Boone. You can’t change my past. You can’t change my feelings about Angie Lee. You can’t heal all the hurts. I’m responsible for dealing with those—or not dealing with them. All you can do is love me. You know how Irene talks about life’s storms? Well, I want someone to stand beside me during those, not to stand in front of me.”
Silence weighted the seconds, dragging them longer.
“I don’t know if I can.”
It hurt her, no denying that. But what brought even more pain was the look of battered hurt in Boone’s eyes. A lifetime of doing things one way warred with this new notion.
“I’ve tried, Cambria. God, I’ve tried. But nobody knows better than you about my failures. Between you and Kenzie and Cully, well, I see what you’re getting at, but I don’t know...When you told me about your mother walking out, and then she died, the first thing I did was try to take over. And with Pete...I messed that up just about every way there is.”
She touched his cheek. His eyelids dropped and he turned into the touch. Then they were reaching for each other, mouths meeting in a hunger for closeness and forgiveness, taking greedily, giving generously.
So generously that the desperation eased. Without releasing his hold on her completely, Boone threw the pillows to the headboard and shifted around to prop his back against them, drawing Cambria with him, within the crook of his arm, while she wrapped her arms around his waist, their outstretched legs tangled together.
He stroked her hair.
“I do love you, Cambria. I want you to know that. Really know it.” He kissed her temple, softening the words to come. “But that isn’t really where you have doubts, is it?”
“No.” It came out a whisper.
He rolled his head to look at her. “You need me to stand beside you instead of in front of you? Well, I need things, too. I need you to trust me. Not accepting everything I ever do, but trusting me on a basic level, including my secrets. Every human being has secrets. That doesn’t mean they’re evil. Every human being makes slips. Can you accept the secrets and forgive the slips? Can you trust me like that?”
He gave her no chance to answer. Smiling rather sadly, he kissed the bridge of her nose. “Do you think we can learn all those things?”
“I don’t know.” Her tightened throat allowed only a whisper.
Boone’s arm brought her to him. As he lowered his mouth to hers, he said, “Neither do I.”
* * * *
From the doorway, Boone looked back at Cambria, asleep. In his bed. In the disorder of sheets, pillows and blankets they had created together, making love as if their physical passion and the bonds it expressed would prove that what they had between them could surmount what they didn’t have.
He wanted to remember her like this.
He had to leave. That’s what he’d told her in the letter propped on the bureau. A second letter was addressed to Pete.
He’d written them in an unthinking stream when he’d risen from the bed, as soon as he’d been certain Cambria had fallen deeply asleep. He hadn’t read over what he’d written, but had sealed each letter as soon as he’d finished, and put them on the bureau for Cambria to find.
Then he’d finished packing and loaded the rental car. The suitcases and clothes and computer and fax seemed such paltry belongings. What he left behind was so much more precious.
But he couldn’t stay, and he didn’t deserve to take the love and affection he’d been given.
He’d come here to find a son who didn’t want him as a father. He’d tried to reconcile himself to that, to reorder his thinking, to adjust his heart. He hadn’t succeeded.
Unless he did, he couldn’t be around the Westons without causing all concerned pain. He wouldn’t do that to them even if their generosity allowed it.
So where did that leave him and Cambria?
Together, maybe they could work on the changes they’d talked about a few hours ago. If he asked, Cambria might go with him, separate from her family. But how could he ask? She needed them and they needed her. He wouldn’t ask her to make that sacrifice.
Mostly because he loved her. But a small, selfish part of him also knew that if he asked her to come with him and she said no, his heart might not survive.
He didn’t kiss her goodbye. Not because he feared she would wake, but because he feared he wouldn’t go if he touched her again.
* * * *
There shouldn’t have been any time. Not a moment to think or remember or hurt.
The cabins were filled nearly every night. Ranch work demanded as much effort as ever. Irene took on the organizing of a benefit bake sale to send the high school band to Denver to perform at halftime of a Broncos game in the fall. And Pete, besides helping both her and Ted, divided his time between baseball and Lauren.
But Cambria thought and remembered and hurt. And she suspected that Pete, though steadfastly refusing to read the letter Boone left, or to acknowledge any interest in Boone Dorsey Smith, did the same. She saw shadows in the clear eyes under the dark eyebrows so much like those of the man who had helped conceive him, then had become his friend.
She became more convinced of that the noontime she walked into the kitchen to find Irene and Ted staring across the table at Pete with surprised concern.
“You’re not going?” Ted asked, obviously trying to clarify something he’d just heard.
“Nah. It’s dumb.”
“But Coach Lambert’s going to rent a big-screen TV to show you all a movie, then have a stereo set up so you can dance. All your friends will be there with their dates.”
“I see those people all the time. It’s boring.”
Cambria knew they were talking about a big team party the baseball coach was throwing. Pete had talked about it all season. Now he didn’t want to go.
“But, Pete—”
“I said I didn’t want to go. What’s the big deal?”
He pushed back from the table and left before Cambria could draw a breath.
Irene’s gaze went from the door that had closed behind her son to the plate with food still on it, and her eyes filled. Ted put a hand on her shoulder.
“I know,” Irene said with a slightly wavering smile. “Everything will be all right. I know.”
“That’s right. Pete’ll be just fine.” Ted’s voice was the rock of calm and love that had been Cambria’s anchor. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and a strong heart. Give him some time.”
Pete did have a good head and a strong heart. But Cambria doubted this would all smooth away with time.
* * * *
“I still don’t understand why you needed me to come along,” Pete grumbled an hour later from the passenger seat as the truck bounced slowly over the dirt track to timbered acreage up the mountain.
“Because
you have a strong back for hefting logs into the truck once I chain-saw the fallen trees to firewood size,” Cambria said.
“Why are we getting firewood now, anyway? It’s the middle of summer.”
“Better to do it now than when it’s freezing. Besides, it gives the wood time to cure.”
“Did you have to pick the hottest day of the summer?”
Before she could burst the bubble of his exaggeration, Pete flipped on the radio, set to Bardville’s only station.
“So come out and support our boys Saturday at the game at Tippett Field. But before that. Coach Lambert is giving his players a chance to let loose—not too loose, boys! —at a party Wednesday night. There’ll be a cookout to start and a dance to finish, with a showing of a movie sure to inspire a baseball team—Field of Dreams—on a special, wide-screen TV donated for the occasion by—”
Cambria turned off the radio. Pete stared straight ahead through the windshield.
She gave him another quarter of a mile to see if he would say what needed saying on his own. He didn’t.
“You need to decide, Pete.”
“I decided. I don’t want to see some stupid movie about a guy playing catch with his dead father, trying to change what happened. I’ve got my father, I’ve got my family—”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, you have to decide if you can give Boone anything, any part of you.”
Silence.
“You liked him, Pete.” When something flickered in his face, she purposely changed tenses. “You like him and you care about him.”
Pete’s hands slid off his knees to dangle between them as he slumped forward.
“I liked him,” he said so softly the engine almost swallowed the sound.
“Are you going to be happy having him out of your life forever?”
“How about you?”
She shook her head. “That’s different. And more complicated.”
“Because of me?”
Her little brother was growing up. He deserved honesty. “Partly. There are other issues.”
He nodded, looking impossibly wise for sixteen years old. “But you know what Mom says. ‘Food feeds the belly, love feeds the soul and the heart.’ “
A Stranger in the Family (Book 1, Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy) Page 19