"Scotch," Madeleine said.
He looked at her a little strangely. "On the rocks?"
"No," she said. "I think I'll have it straight."
Dev gave the order, but when he looked back at her, his expression was one of alarm. "This some new allergy medication I don't know about?"
A corner of Madeleine's mouth lifted. "It desensitizes. Isn't that what they say?"
"Maybe," Dev allowed. "You want to talk about it?"
Madeleine shook her head. "Not now. I want to hear why you're buying me this scotch."
"Because Lily called me when I was in Prescott. She said she'd seen you, talked to you for a minute that night in Reno and you made her think. She told me that she really meant what she said about … about it not being my fault. She said there was nothing to forgive. She said she knew she should have said it a long time ago, but she couldn't. She was embarrassed because … because she cared, too, and it felt wrong. She said maybe if we started to talk, maybe it wouldn't feel quite so wrong anymore." He looked up at Madeleine and shook his head, amazed.
Madeleine smiled at him.
"And then we talked. For the first time. For hours." His voice grew softer as he spoke. And Madeleine saw a vulnerability in him still, but the pain was seeping away. There was a kind of quiet sheen of light in his eyes. The reflection of the chandelier? she wondered. Or tears?
Whichever, she was thrilled for him, for both of them. She reached out and took his hand. "Oh, Dev. I'm so glad."
He nodded. "Me, too. I called her the next night. We've talked quite a bit more since then. Really talked. About her. About John. About what happened. About the way I felt. It isn't easy."
She rubbed her fingers along the back of his hand. "I'm sure it isn't."
"I'm afraid to hope sometimes. I mean, when I think about John, it doesn't really seem fair."
"Don't talk yourself out of happiness, Dev."
He smiled at her. "I'll try not to."
"Good."
She didn't drink much of the scotch, after all. Mostly she used it to toast Dev and the happiness she hoped he would find someday with Lily. Partly she used it to try to melt the ice she felt growing deep down in her heart.
She thought about Scott. She thought about Chan. She thought about love and loss and hope and the courage to try again.
And she wondered if she would ever find it in her. Finally, just as they were about to leave, she had to ask. "Dev, was Chan hurt on Monday?"
"Not much."
"How much?" Had she been sitting here for four days while he was in the hospital?
"Bruised some ribs is all. Why?" He looked at her closely. "Didn't he tell you?"
"I haven't seen him."
"Hell, Mad, what happened?"
"We made love." She couldn't tell him the rest of it. It hurt too much.
Dev shook his head slowly and gave her a squeeze around the shoulders. "I was afraid of that," he said.
* * *
He expected she'd have checked out. But every day when he asked at the desk, no, Miss Decker was still there. And every day he thought about going back and then thought, to what?
So he stayed away.
Besides, he didn't need to go back to hear what he already knew. She didn't even come to the rodeo on Monday. He looked up in the general area she always tried to be in. She wasn't there.
And just as well, since he barely lasted five seconds and then got himself run over. She might've enjoyed it, he thought sourly. She'd run over him herself.
He didn't understand why she was still there. She couldn't be planning to honor the rest of their damned agreement, could she?
This is Decker, ol' buddy, he reminded himself. Enough said.
He stopped at the hotel Friday morning. Yes, she was still there, the hotel clerk said. So he went up to the room. He debated using his key. He knocked instead.
She opened the door at once, then looked shocked to see him there.
"You were expecting room service?" he asked.
"As a matter of fact, yes."
"I'm sure they'll be along in a few minutes. I just thought I'd tell you I'm pulling out today right after the performance. I didn't make the finals, as you've no doubt heard. Shall I take you to the airport, have you made your own arrangements or are you going to stick this ridiculous thing out?"
"I'm going to stick it out," she said, just as he had feared.
"Swell," he said and turned on his heel and left.
She was there when he rode that afternoon. At least he didn't get thrown in front of her. He didn't make any money, but at this point the money didn't matter as much as his pride. He made a point of not limping or acting like his ribs hurt.
She was waiting for him when he came out. He unlocked the camper and stood back to let her go in first. It wasn't so much politeness as it was another example of pride. He didn't want her seeing how awkward he was.
"Do you want to drive first or shall I?" he asked her.
"Suit yourself."
He tossed her the keys. "I'll take a shower."
"Is Kevin coming?"
"No," he said wearily. "It's just us."
It would have been easier if she weren't still so damned attractive. It would have been a piece of cake if she were shrewish or bitchy or she snubbed him. She was so much the same. So very … so very … Decker. Just more aloof.
It was like there was a wall of politeness between them. A "you first," "no, after you," sort of consideration and respect that was so unlike the way he and Decker had normally treated each other that drove him wild.
But it wasn't just her, he was doing it, too. So how could he complain?
They got to Salinas with no missteps. She typed. He drove. She drove. He stretched.
One evening while he was stretching and she made a rest stop, she came back into the camper from a brief walk in a small forest glade and said, "Do you want me to help you with that?"
He was lying on his back, lifting his leg, trying to press his knee toward his chest, then rotate it outward. It hurt. He could just barely do it bearing his own weight. She'd helped him before. He was torn. He wanted. He was afraid…
He said, "Yeah. Why not?"
The why not was relatively obvious to him just a few minutes later. Her hands on him still had the power to arouse him. Her touch made him burn. Yes, he could do the repetitions now. Yes, he could get more range of motion without the possibility of damage.
One kind of damage, anyway. Not another.
"That's enough," he said hoarsely and rolled away from her to the side, drawing both his knees toward his chest.
"Did I hurt you?" She actually sounded worried.
"I'm fine. You'd better start driving if we want to get down the mountains before we stop."
Madeleine was silent a moment. He heard her take a breath. It seemed almost to catch in her throat. Then she said, "Yes."
* * *
She shouldn't have touched him. She knew it. She was a fool. She knew that, too. But she'd thought she could do it, had thought she'd developed enough immunity. Had wanted to prove to herself that he didn't matter anymore.
The more fool she.
She got back behind the wheel and pulled out rapidly, setting off down the pass more quickly than she normally would. Everything in her now just wanted to be finished with this, with him.
"Hey, Decker. Is that a cop?"
"What? Where?" Her foot hit the brake even as she spoke.
"No cop," Chan said. "Just slow down."
"There wasn't a cop? You just said that?"
"You were driving like a bat out of hell!"
"You're a fine one to talk! You want to drive? Fine! Do it yourself." She pulled over onto the shoulder, shut off the engine and flung the keys at him.
"Hey, Decker, I only said—"
But she was already out of the driver's seat and climbing up into her bunk above it. "I heard what you said, Richardson. Go to hell."
* * *
It
was all downhill after that.
In Salinas they went out with Lily and Dev. There was no way either of them could gracefully decline without putting a damper on what was supposed to be a happy evening. And, in fact, Madeleine supposed that for Lily and Dev it was.
They were talking together, smiling at each other. They were so wrapped up in each other that she hoped they didn't even notice that she and Chan hardly said a word.
Oh, Chan talked about some stock he'd talked to a fellow about in Wolf Point. And Madeleine said yes, that her dissertation was doing well. But they never talked to each other. They never smiled at each other. They scarcely even looked at each other.
And when Lily and Dev walked off hand in hand, Chan went out for a beer with the boys and Madeleine went straight to bed.
The next day he might not have talked to her at all except that he was having trouble getting his ribs taped himself. He struggled with the prewrap, ending with it slipping and the sticky tape stuck to his chest. Every time he tried to redo it, he pulled off the tape, grimacing as it pulled off his chest hairs, then swearing when he messed up the tape.
Madeleine was typing and she tried not to look up. It wasn't easy. Finally she said, "Do you want me to do it?"
He looked at the tape, then looked at her. She could tell it was a hard decision.
"It won't break my heart if you don't," she told him.
He thrust the tape at her. "All right. Yes."
She taped him as snugly and securely as she knew how. It wasn't a professional job by any means, but he seemed satisfied. He muttered, "Thanks," then said thanks again when she helped him on with his shirt and handed him his hat.
He grabbed his gear bag and headed for the door of the camper, then stopped.
"You coming or not?" he asked.
Fool that she was, she went.
* * *
He made some money in Salinas which was just as well. There wasn't anything else worth calling home about.
Not that he was calling home these days. It would be a while before he could call Julia Richardson and talk cordially instead of wanting to punch his mother out.
There was nothing good to say about the trip to Salt Lake. They got caught in a thunderstorm in the Sierras. Madeleine needed computer disks in the middle of nowhere, and they had to backtrack to Reno. They got a flat tire somewhere just this side of Elko. And the ignition system went out fifty miles west of Salt Lake.
Chan could roll with the punches most times. He felt like he'd been punched and kicked and stepped on now. He said so and he said a few succinct four-letter words, too.
"Well, it's not my fault," Madeleine told him.
"Who needed computer disks?"
She rounded on him. "Who didn't have a pumped up spare?"
"Who didn't bother to tell me she was having trouble getting the truck to start?"
"Who— Oh, who cares!"
"I care, damn it!" Chan yelled. He kicked his rigging bag and sent it crashing against the wall of the camper. "I'm going to miss my ride! And I drew Rock Shox. He's almost guaranteed to be in the money."
"He might be," Madeleine muttered. "What about you?"
By the time they got to Cheyenne on Monday of the last week in July, Madeleine thought they'd managed to blame each other for everything from the common cold to unrest in the Middle East.
"There's no sense going on with this, is there?" she said to Chan as they pulled up to the rodeo grounds in Frontier Park.
He shut off the engine and looked around at her. He looked as bleak as she felt. "No," he said tonelessly. "There's not."
"I think you could say we proved our point," Madeleine said. She tried to smile but it didn't work well, and even she thought her voice sounded husky and remote.
"Yeah." He looked away, staring out the window at the rows of campers and trailers beyond.
"So let's forget it, shall we? I'll go home."
He didn't say anything for a moment. It looked as though he was worrying the inside of his cheek. His fingers opened and tightened once, then twice, on the steering wheel. "Now?" he said finally, turning to look at her. "What happened to the two months business? How's it going to look?"
"Do you care how it looks?"
"Do you?"
They looked at each other. Neither said a word. There didn't seem to be any more to say.
Finally Madeleine said, "I got to Vegas on the 29th. I can leave on the 28th. That'll be two months exactly. Neither of our mothers should have the slightest quibble. All right?"
* * *
She didn't know why she bothered. What was she doing, hoping against hope? Looking for a miracle? Holding out for the infinitesimal chance that he would declare his undying love and ask her to stay?
No.
Then what?
Aching. Yes. And looking. Yes. And storing up memories, filing away in her mind sights of Chan, sounds of Chan, even, when she taped him up that one last time, the feel of Chan beneath her hands.
She was doing, she realized, what she'd done countless times before in her life. Every time they'd been somewhere – in Bali or China, the reservation or Alaska, she'd stored up bits and pieces of that world and tucked them away. In an envelope, in a box, in a folder, in her mind and in her heart. And then she'd gone away.
She could never take them with her. She'd learned not to try. She'd thrown out her memories of Scott. They didn't matter anymore. They seemed shallow compared to the ones she had of Chan.
What a summer this would be to haul out and share with her future family someday.
Would there be a family? she asked herself. The question left her feeling hollow, despairing, bereft.
But she had to believe there would.
Someday there would be the right man, the suitable man, the perfect man. The man who could touch her soul and her heart and who, in turn, would bask in her love.
And if she dared, she would tell him about this cowboy whom, one crazy summer, she had so foolishly loved.
* * *
He didn't expect to see her there in the stands, but it was a habit to look for her now. He rosined his bull rope; he fitted on his glove; he settled in on the bull; he wrapped the rope around and around his hand; he looked for Madeleine. He'd done it so long now it was part of the drill.
He did it Monday afternoon. He settled in and pulled up on the rope, got Dev to pull it tighter, took that one last wrap with his hand. He glanced over to his right and up, looking.
She was there, watching him. Intent. Serious. Beautiful.
He rode and even he knew it was poetry.
On Thursday he rosined, he settled, he fitted, he wrapped.
But he knew even before he looked: Madeleine Decker wasn't there.
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^
Good, Chan told himself, focusing once more on the hump on the Brangus bull's back. It was over. Finished. Done. He was free at last.
Now he could concentrate.
He monkeyed himself a little farther up against his hand. He felt the pull in his leg arrowing up to his groin. He settled his spurs. He tucked his chin and centered himself. He nodded his head.
The chute gate opened and the bull, a wily young one named Howard's End by a stock contractor with apparent literary aspirations, spun out into the arena.
If Monday's ride was the bull rider's version of a Shakespearean sonnet, this one was pure bad verse. Chan got knocked sideways going out of the chute. It was all he could do to hook his leg around and make a desperate stab at recovery.
He made it. Barely. He might qualify for the finals if nobody did great on Friday or Saturday. If the wheel turned and he was lucky.
"Hey," Gil said to him after, "you want to come down to the Cheyenne Club tonight?"
"Sure," Chan said. "Why not?" Celebrate his freedom.
Cheyenne during Frontier Days was a happening town. For every authentic cowboy and cowgirl there were a dozen or more wannabes walking around in flashy new shirts an
d fine, new, sharp straw hats. It didn't matter to Chan. Cowgirls who didn't know which side to mount a horse from could flirt as well as the real ones.
Chan was ready for a little flirting. He was ready for a lot more than that. He teased and laughed and flirted with the best of them. He even bit his lip and tried a little dancing. There was a blonde from Arkansas who cozied up to him right away. There was a redhead from South Dakota who seemed almost attached to his arm. There were half a dozen others that he could have made a play for and probably succeeded.
But when he left it wasn't much past midnight. And he left alone.
His ribs hurt. He was tired. He couldn't do justice to them. He had plenty of reasons. Take your pick. He hitched a ride from an Alberta cowboy on his way back to the camping area.
"You wanta stop and have a beer with us?" the cowboy offered, nodding toward the camper he was sharing with friends.
"Thanks, no." Chan declined. "I'm beat. Reckon I'll just go to bed."
It wasn't the first night he'd spent in the camper alone in two months. There were those days in Calgary after they'd made love when he'd walked out and left Madeleine alone in the hotel. But those days he'd shared the camper with anger and a grudge the size of Howard's End.
Tonight the grudge was gone. So was the anger. So was Madeleine. He was alone.
He shucked his boots, stripped off his shirt and jeans, then carefully, so he wouldn't hurt his ribs, climbed up into the bunk above the cab. She wasn't there now, and it was his bunk, anyway. Always had been until she'd infiltrated his life. Now he could have it back.
He settled in. Tried to rest.
But Madeleine was all around him.
He rolled onto his side and buried his face against the pillow. He could smell the flowery scent of her in the linen. He rubbed his cheek against the cool percale, wallowing in it.
"Should've changed the sheets," he muttered to himself.
He would. Tomorrow.
Tonight – just one night – he needed this.
* * *
"I hate New York."
"What?" Alfie stared at her as if she'd gone mad. "It's your favorite place on earth." She quoted Madeleine the sentiment she'd expressed more than once.
THE EIGHT SECOND WEDDING Page 19