“What’s going on?” he said, rubbing Kim’s shoulder. Her dad had always been the one she could talk to, but then, he’d often let her mom step in and do all the child rearing, as he called it. He had a farm to run while her mom ran the house and raised his daughter.
“Oh, Kim has a got a bee in her bonnet about Bruce Siegel. She’s harping on about something that happened when she was just a kid, twenty years ago.” Kim watched the expression on her mom’s face as she looked to her dad. “Some phone call.”
“Hmm” was all her dad said, as if this really wasn’t an issue.
“It wasn’t just a phone call, Mom, and you know that. Bruce called to tell me he wouldn’t be coming home and had been invited on a mission to South Africa for six months. If I’d known—”
“You’d what, Kim?” her mom snapped, interrupting her.
Her dad glanced over his shoulder to her and her mom while pouring himself a coffee.
“You’d be waiting here, still alone,” her mom continued, “pining away for a man who’s moved on to see the world.”
“You seem to forget I am alone,” Kim said, feeling so sad. Didn’t her mom have any idea what this had done to her, how it had shaped her life?
“Kim, that was your choice. Craig was a good husband,” her dad said, standing behind her mom and letting her know where his support was. Facing her parents, she realized they weren’t willing to even try to understand how she felt.
“You’re right, Dad. Craig is a good man, but not for me.”
She watched the disappointment on her father’s face. Her mother glanced up at him. The two of them could never figure out how to get Kim to understand what they felt was right for her, the way they felt it should be.
“You didn’t try, Kim,” Clarice said. “Marriage is work. We watched you pushing Craig away because of some fairytale you believed in. Life isn’t all sunshine and butterflies. It’s hard and cruel and unforgiving at times, but you make the best of it. Craig was a hard worker, responsible, a good husband for you until you broke his heart. You pushed him right out the door.”
“I didn’t love him,” Kim said. “I couldn’t love him, and no one deserves to be stuck in a marriage with someone they don’t love. He deserved someone who could love him. At least he knew that, which is why he left.” For a moment, she felt as if she was that seventeen-year-old girl on the verge of being a woman, standing before her mom, asking her to stop inviting Craig over. “And, Mom, you just kept encouraging him, sending him my way, inviting him for dinner, pushing me to go out with him, sitting on the porch and bringing us lemonade. I was such a fool, listening when you urged me to stop pining for Bruce and just try. You urged me to go out with him to the dance, to spend time with him, to go for a drive… You’re right, he was nice and good and decent, and I liked him. I just didn’t love him.”
“Kim, you made the choice to marry Craig,” her mother snapped.
“Yes, I did, after you pushed me his way. You just kept putting him in my path. I only decided to marry him, Dad, after you took me aside and talked with me. Do you remember what you said?”
Her father watched her and slowly nodded. “I do, Kim, and I still believe it as I watch you now, living alone with a horse for a companion. You should have children, Kim. You’re our only daughter. We should have grandchildren.”
“I’m your only child, so sorry to disappoint you.”
“Hey, watch your mouth. You’re disappointing me because you’ve made yourself be alone for no reason. I told you before how important it was to let go of your infatuation, that a strong marriage can’t be built on a fantasy. All the chemistry you had with Bruce, we saw the direction that was headed, and we worried about you being brokenhearted when he finally left for medical school. He’d be introduced to a world you wouldn’t belong in, and his interest would stray. Craig was a great guy. He’s our kind. He’s a farmer. He would have been a wonderful father to your children, a good husband. He wouldn’t have strayed. He’d have been faithful.
“Love is something that comes in time after years of being together, working through so many of life’s ups and downs. You didn’t have a chance to work through anything. You wouldn’t give yourself the chance. You gave up, Kim.” Her father sounded so disappointed and was shaking his head. “And Craig gave you so much. You know that. That small farm you have, the property…if it wasn’t for Craig, where would you be? He left, but he left you everything. He left with nothing to start over again.”
Her father was right about that. She’d been so selfish and young, and when Craig finally walked out the door, bitter, with a look in his eyes that let her know he’d loved her so much that he now hated her, he’d signed the divorce papers and left her everything so he could walk away clean. Last she’d heard, he’d remarried, living two counties away—had five kids and a small ranch. She did wish him well, and there wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t regret hurting him, wishing she could have loved him. But you can’t make your heart feel something it isn’t meant for.
“You’re right. I was horrible to Craig, and he didn’t deserve the way I treated him, but you also shouldn’t have pushed us together. If I’d only known the truth about where Bruce was, that he wanted me to know that he hadn’t just forgot about me…he was coming back for me!” she said, choking.
“He tells you that now?” her mother asked, but it sounded more like an accusation.
“Bruce isn’t a liar, Mom. He never heard from me before he had to leave because you didn’t give me his message. I didn’t know he was planning to go to some mission in South Africa. It was for his career, and it would do so much good. I would have waited for him.”
But her mom was shaking her head. “I don’t know, Kim. None of us can go back and rewrite the past. Maybe I should’ve told you.”
Her dad was resting a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “It’s not all on your mother, Kim. I’m your father, and you were a teenager, so young and impressionable. I watched an idealistic young man leading you down some fanciful path. I still believe we made the right decision, I just regret how you’re still hurting.”
“Dad, Bruce told me you asked him to stop calling. I was married, and he still called.”
Her father was shaking his head. “Yes, I did. After so many months of him not calling, he started again after you were married. I told him to stop, man to man, because he needed to understand that a man doesn’t call a married woman.”
What else could she say to her parents? She knew they loved her and had thought they were doing the best for her by keeping her in the dark. “But that was my decision, my chance with Bruce, and you took it away from me—from us. You should have told me, not kept it from me. It’s a wonder he doesn’t hate me, because if that were me in Bruce’s place, I’d hate him.”
***
Chapter Six
Driving into Columbia Falls twice in one week was something Kim didn’t do. She lived on a moderate income, and the extra gas she was using would tighten her budget for the month. She might need to consider picking up a part-time job. She could always go back to the feed store—it would do her good, she thought—but she also needed to find a way to make things up with Bruce, to somehow make it right with him, the thing she’d done because she believed he’d left her. What a mess.
The traffic was heavier in town this time of day, late afternoon, but she couldn’t wait until tomorrow. She considered going home and calling Bruce, but whatever it was she needed to do, it had to be in person. She had to see his face and be near him. In person was always better, and after all these years she wasn’t about to allow another forgotten message to be what ultimately kept them apart. She didn’t have a clue what she was going to say as she pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store across the street. Since the professional building where Bruce’s practice was had an underground lot with very little parking space, she wasn’t about to try there.
She locked her door and hesitated at the street corner, her legs feel
ing like lead weights as she crossed. Maybe he wasn’t even there. He could be at the hospital, or dealing with an emergency. She hesitated at the lobby door and almost chickened out when the door opened and two chatting women walked out. She grabbed the door and went inside, stopping at the elevator with another man who was waiting. When the elevator doors opened she stepped in, she jabbed her finger on the third-floor button. The man pressed four. The doors slid closed, and she stood beside him. He was close to her dad’s age, dressed in blue jeans and a dress shirt, she could feel his interest as he watched her.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is,” she replied, praying the elevator would hurry up. She didn’t want to have a conversation with this man. “Oops, here’s my floor,” she said.
The elevator dinged, and she stepped forward, her nose to the steel door, counting the seconds until it opened. She didn’t look back as she stepped out, and she let out a heavy breath and searched the listings of offices and names on the wall. She found Bruce’s office number and turned to the right, going to the end of the hall to the office door with the sign saying, “Bruce Siegel, Pediatrician.”
She wanted to run her hands over the brass lettering and the last name she had practiced writing over and over as a teen, a name she had wanted to be hers. Mrs. Bruce Siegel, Kim Siegel—it was a fantasy that had ended in heartache and years of being alone, and what she had now was another man’s last name: Edwards. She was Kim Edwards. Somehow, it felt so wrong.
The door to the office opened, and a young woman pushing a stroller with a toddler inside stepped out. Kim jumped out of the way and smiled in her direction, glancing down at the little girl staring up at her. Another ache in her heart for the time that had passed. She and Bruce could have had a houseful of children, a boy with a round face, square jaw, and eyes as deep as his, and maybe a daughter she could spend time with, brushing her hair, sharing things that only girls did.
“Can I help you?” a voice called out to her as she was daydreaming, standing in the doorway amid the parents and children who filled the busy waiting area. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. She was about to leave when the woman behind the desk glanced up again. “Ma’am?”
So she stepped inside and closed the door, pulling the strap of her purse over her shoulder, squeezing the leather and feeling completely out of place. Make an excuse was the first thing that popped into her head. She stepped to the counter so everyone couldn’t overhear the pathetic excuse she was about to give for being there. She prayed that something intelligent would come to mind.
“Kim?”
Her face warmed and her throat thickened as she stared back at Bruce, who looked absolutely amazing as he strode down the hall toward the desk. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and the same black jeans he’d worn to her place the night before. He had a stethoscope around his neck, and he flicked a pen and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He said something to the woman behind the desk—maybe a nurse. Then he stepped over to Kim, his hand out toward her shoulder, blocking her from view of the other patients. She was grateful for that gesture, but then, Bruce had been nothing but a kind, good friend to her since he came back.
“Come into my office,” he said, guiding her down the hall to a room at the end. She could see a desk with two chairs in front of it. He closed the door behind her. “What brings you here?”
She stopped in the middle of the room and turned to face him. She couldn’t get her tongue to move. He was so much taller than her. Kim wasn’t short, but she had to look up at him. There was something so special about this man, who gave her all of his attention when he was talking to her. There was no being lost in his head or busy doing ten other things as some people did. He was always very much in the present.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and he frowned, his expression letting her know he was confused. “I talked to my mom—to both my parents, actually. They never told me you called, Bruce. I don’t know why Mom chose to keep it from me. I thought you left me. I never got your message. I think my mom and dad both decided you were as good as gone when you left for medical school and you’d soon realize you could find someone better.”
Now he appeared angry. She’d never really seen him angry. Annoyed, yes, but he was a man who controlled his emotions well, a man who thought things through. Even as a teen, he’d had fire and passion, but he was always levelheaded, like now. He was a man everyone respected. She thought the world of Bruce, but she didn’t know what he was thinking.
“Well, that’s truly sad that they think I’m that shallow. Did you believe the same thing?”
No, not what she was expecting. She opened her mouth to say no, absolutely not, but the truth was she had believed he’d done just that. How could she not when, as far as she was concerned, he’d up and left without a word, without trying to contact her? “Yes, I did. When you didn’t come home for the winter break, I felt left behind. What else was I to think?” How could he not understand? “Put yourself in my place. If it were me who left…”
“But you did.” He brushed past her. “You married someone else, Kim, and that left no chance to straighten anything out.” He was behind his desk, putting distance between them, glancing down at some files and then shifting them to the corner of his desk as if he didn’t know what to do. “Kim, it’s water under the bridge now. I got over it a long time ago.”
She didn’t want to hear that, afraid that next he would tell her he’d gotten over her. To hear that would truly be the end of any hope she was still holding on to. Maybe it was the heartbreak she couldn’t hide that made his expression soften.
“Kim…”
“Don’t say it,” she begged him, “because I never got over you. You’ve haunted my dreams every night, and you’re the reason I’m doomed to be alone, because I gave my heart away to you and never got it back. I can’t love anyone else.”
He started to say something, then closed his mouth. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“I’m sorry, I should go,” she said. “You have patients waiting.”
She was shaking when she started to the door and reached for the handle. Then she felt his hand on her shoulder, and she turned to face him. He placed both of his large hands on her shoulders holding her there in such a caring way, and she breathed him in. When you love someone so deeply, the smell of him is better than any drug out there. His was a scent she craved, and it drove her crazy when she was near him. Not willing to have just that one fix, she needed to be with him, but she didn’t have any idea how to make it happen without seeming crazy.
Then he did the most unexpected thing: He leaned down, touching her forehead with his, nose to nose, sliding his hands up and over her face, into hair she had left loose and hanging down. Then he pulled away, stepped back, and said, “Have a great day.”
Leaving her no choice but to leave.
***
Chapter Seven
She stared up at the starry sky, fantasizing about a life that could have been, a life in which she could spend every day and night with the man she loved, to really know him, understand what he was thinking before he even said it. She thought she could’ve had that with Bruce, but as she wiped her face, which ached from the tears she’d cried all the way home from Columbia Falls, she realized she’d now played her last card. She’d opened her heart to the man, but after she hurt him so badly, he’d used his time and distance from her to heal. How could he? She had never healed, and it hurt to believe he was capable of moving on. She realized she would never be able to, not as long as she remained here, but where could she go and what could she really do? This was her home, where she’d grown up and where she expected to die.
Living way out here in the country in the peace and quiet had its perks, but it could also be the end of a person when it left so much time to think about things that were best dealt with and put aside, never to be thought of again. She could hear her horse nicker before she heard the sound of a vehicle in the distance. Maybe s
omeone lost. Maybe a neighbor down the road. But the sound was closer, and she spotted lights in the distance coming down her driveway.
It was late for Kim. The sun had set an hour before, but the summer heat had really spiked the thermometer that week. It was so hot she wondered if the house would cool off any time before dawn.
She heard a door shut, then footsteps on her porch. She couldn’t see the front of the house, and she walked as fast as she could in the dark. She heard him before she saw him.
“Kim!” he shouted as he pounded on her door.
“I’m right here,” she said.
He turned and looked her way even though he’d have a hard time seeing her from where she stood in the shadows. “Kim, why don’t you have any lights on? What are you doing out in the dark?” He started down the stairs and stumbled off the last step.
“Oh, watch that last step. There’s a rock there. You can’t see in the dark.”
“Yeah, great, Kim, you could break your arm or your neck. You need an outside light on for safety.”
She actually shrugged, then realized he couldn’t see it. “Can’t afford it, Bruce. I keep the lights off so my electricity bill will be low. Besides, I know where everything is.”
He was right in front of her, so close she could reach out and touch him—but she didn’t, because she didn’t know why he was here. She squeezed her fists, and he put his hands on his hips, then moved another step closer, putting his hand on her elbow. “Come on in the house,” he said.
“Why? It’s cool out here.”
He slapped his hand to his neck. “Yeah, and the mosquitoes are out here, too.”
“Not that bad,” she said. She heard a few buzzing around, but they apparently really liked Bruce, as he slapped his hand to his forehead next.
His Promise (Married in Montana Book 1) Page 3