The Horseman's Bride

by Marilyn Pappano

  But it wasn’t the place that was getting her down It was the life. Where could she get a new one of those?

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Her mother’s soft question startled her. She looked up, saw Mary watching her and smiled wanly. “Have a seat. You can have sixteen whole minutes of my time, give or take a few. What are you doing out of church early?”

  “Your father was up most of the night with his cows. I told him I’d come home early and bring him a hot meal.” Mary slid onto the bench. “You don’t look good.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Shay said dryly, but she didn’t mind the comment. For too many years she’d been like Easy—too vain about her appearance. For a long time she’d been trying to hold on to him. Later, she’d been trying to prove to herself that his not wanting her hadn’t meant that other men wouldn’t. Today, this one day, she didn’t care how she looked. She’d been miserable and it was only fair that it showed.

  “So tell me what’s going on.”

  “Nothing’s going on, Mom.”

  “I know Easy’s back—not that you bothered to tell me. I also know you went to see him twice. It’s a sad thing when a mother has to pick up information about her own daughter through the grapevine.”

  Letting go of the glass, Shay dried the condensation on a napkin, then wadded it tightly in her fist. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to listen to me talk about him.”

  “I listened when you found out about the accident.”

  “But that was different.” That had been two people lamenting the misfortune befallen a third person they’d both known and loved—though in vastly different ways. This time would have been a jilted daughter speaking with great sorrow—and, yes, just a little hope—about the man with whom she had broken hearts, scandalized their town and jeopardized their mother-daughter relationship.

  “I take it things didn’t go well.”

  Shay glanced at her faint reflection in the plate-glass window. “Is it that obvious?”

  Mary tapped the tumbler between them. “Ever since you were tiny, chocolate milk has been your answer to all of life’s hurts. Do you want to talk?”

  “Do you want to listen?”

  For a time Mary sat silent, then she brushed back a strand of gray hair before laying her palms flat on the table. Shay couldn’t help but notice all ten of her fingers, and all ten of her own. She couldn’t help but recall Easy’s disfigured hand with a shudder.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” Mary began, her voice low and distant, “if Nadine and I hadn’t pushed you, whether you and Guthrie ever would have gotten engaged. She was my best friend in all the world—closer, even, than Betsey. We couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than the two of you married, having babies, giving them the same kind of upbringing that we’d given you. When it looked like it was going to happen, we were ecstatic. When you ran off with Easy instead...”

  She didn’t need to finish. Shay knew. They’d been angry, hurt and disappointed—so disappointed. It’d taken fourteen years and Guthrie’s falling in love with Olivia Miles to earn her mother’s forgiveness. Nadine Harris had died without granting hers.

  “No one wanted to consider that maybe you’d done the right thing—even if the way you did it left something to be desired,” Mary said dryly. “You’d been dating Guthrie for five years, but it took only a few days for Easy to persuade you to run off with him. Obviously your feelings for Guthrie weren’t quite what we all thought.”

  “I loved Guthrie,” Shay murmured. “I’ll always love him. But Easy...” Lacking the words to finish, she broke off and smiled instead.

  “See? That’s what I mean. I never saw you smile like that over Guthrie, but after all these years, after all this heartache, you still have that smile for Easy. That same smile Guthrie has for Olivia.”

  Shay knew exactly what Mary was referring to. Every time she saw Guthrie smile at Olivia, she thought her friend must be the luckiest woman in the world to be loved like that. Had Easy ever thought he might be the luckiest man in the world to have her?

  Or did he wish he’d never known her?

  “I have to admit,” Mary went on, “that Easy isn’t the man I would have picked for a son-in-law. Obviously— he’s not the man I did pick. He enjoyed his fun too much, took too many chances, put too much effort into charming his wild horses and his wilder women. But I’m not the one who would have had to live with him. I’m not the one who would have had to worry about him.”

  According to him, Shay had had nothing to worry about—at least, when it came to other women—and she was half convinced that he’d told the truth. She wasn’t at all convinced, though, that she believed him because she trusted him or because she needed to believe he hadn’t chosen those women over her or because she was a fool.

  But believing him didn’t make it hurt any less. It was just a different kind of hurt, a different kind of betrayal.

  “So, yes,” Mary went on. “I want to listen. Do you want to talk?”

  “Yes, I do.” The tension that made her body ache eased a bit, and her unsettled stomach began to settle. She felt a great relief at the prospect of being able to say anything she wanted to her mother without worrying about stirring up old grudges. But now that she had the freedom to talk, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “How is he?” Mary asked.

  Shay described his injuries in order of importance—scars, limp, hand—and saw sympathy soften her mother’s face. She talked about the shape the old house was in, the mostly empty rooms, and the shape the whole ranch was in, and then she fell silent.

  “Was he glad to see you?”

  What wouldn’t she give, Shay wondered, to truthfully answer a wholehearted, emphatic yes to that question? But she couldn’t lie about it. “No. He was...not friendly.” Hostile was more like it. Antagonistic. Downright mean.

  “Didn’t want you seeing him that way, did he?” Mary shook her head. “Men and their egos. You’d think the boy would be too smart to believe that a few minor imperfections would change the way a woman feels about him.”

  “These are more than minor imperfections, Mom.”

  “Did they change the way you feel? Would you be ashamed to walk in here with him and his cane in front of a roomful of customers? Would it sicken you to sit down to eat with him and have to look at that hand?”

  “Of course not!”

  Mary shrugged. “Then my point is made.”

  The bell above the door rang as a family of four came in. Shay watched Amalia seat them before turning her attention back to her mother. “I wouldn’t be ashamed But I do feel this incredible...” Not pity. She could never pity him for his handicaps. Doing so would only infuriate him and would diminish her.

  “Sadness,” Mary suggested. “Sorrow. Horror. Those are perfectly normal feelings. For heaven’s sake, Shay, the man you loved went through a horrific experience that left him with injuries he can never recover from. If you weren’t horrified by it, if it didn’t sadden you and fill you with sorrow, then there would be something wrong with you.”

  Injuries he can never recover from. The finality of those words sent a chill of despair down Shay’s spine. It wasn’t fair. He deserved better than to lose everything in one awful night. If he had to suffer such a terrible accident, to endure such horrendous pain, he deserved to come out of it whole and healthy.

  But life wasn’t fair. He deserved to not be maimed in a way that made his dreams for the future impossible. She deserved to find a little happiness as she grew older. Her mother deserved to have a daughter who didn’t disappoint her and rob her of the chance to fulfill her own dreams of becoming a grandmother. Everyone in this town—hell, in the whole world—deserved something they didn’t have and couldn’t get.

  But somehow Easy was more deserving than the rest.

  The last thought brought her a bittersweet little smile. “I’ve got to get to work, Mom. Want me to put in an order for two specials-to-go for you?”

  “Don’t bother
. I’ll go back and say hello to Geraldine and put in the order myself.”

  Shay stood up as two more families came through the door. “Thanks for listening.”

  Mary stood up, too, and patted her shoulder reassuringly. “Thanks for talking. I’ve enjoyed it.”

  After disposing of her milk, Shay pasted on a phony smile and went about the business of waiting tables and ringing up bills. She was as friendly as always, but she refused to be drawn into any conversations about Easy. That cut her chat time by about half and left her with more energy than usual once the rush was over. By three-fifteen, things were so quiet that she sent everyone else home. When the old clock on the wall read four o’clock, she had already cleaned up and closed out the cash register.

  She was in back, packing a foam container with leftovers for her own dinner when the bell announced a late arrival. “Sorry, we’re clo—” She broke off as she came through the swinging door and stopped so abruptly that the door banged against her on its return swing.

  Easy stood a few feet inside the door, looking about as uneasy as a man could look. He kept his back to the street, his hand in his pocket and his gaze on the wooden floor. Dangling against his cane was a plastic bag of the sort the cook put takeout orders in.

  Taking a few awkward steps, she laid the foam carton on the counter before it could slip from her shaky hands, then slid her hands into her hip pockets. Out of deference to the church folks, she left her short skirts, tight dresses and shorts at home on Sundays and dressed modestly in jeans and a T-shirt. Right this moment, feeling more than a little vulnerable, she was glad she did.

  “Hi.”

  “Your mother told me to bring this back.” He crossed the short distance to the counter, the bag banging with a ceramic ping against his cane with each step.

  Shay looked inside. The heavy white plate, saucer and utensils matched the dishes in the kitchen that she spent a good part of her days washing. What was he doing with them? He certainly hadn’t been in the café before now, and they never sent takeout on real dishes or they’d be serving on paper plates in no time.

  But he’d mentioned her mother, who had gone into the kitchen to give her takeout order directly to Geraldine. Her mother, whose job was running the house, whose hobby was running everyone’s lives. No doubt she’d suggested to Geraldine that they skip the throwaway plastic and foam on this particular order—for Shay’s sake, of course.

  She sighed heavily. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Mary seemed to think I did. It’s not easy telling her no.”

  “No, it isn’t.” But if he truly hadn’t wanted to come, he could have successfully refused. He was the only person she knew who was more stubborn than her mother.

  Not that she was reading anything into his being here.

  She placed the dishes, bag and all, on the pass-through, then turned back, her manner as nearly normal as she could force. “What do you think of the place? It’s about as classy as all those places where we used to eat, isn’t it?”

  He gave it only the briefest of glances. “It’s fine.”

  She took the long look around that he didn’t. The benches in the booths were turquoise vinyl repaired with black duct tape. The tables didn’t match, and more than a few owed their stability to matchbooks under one or more legs. The chairs matched neither the tables nor each other, the walls were in dire need of a coat of paint, and the torn stained menus needed replacing altogether.

  “Fine,” she echoed. “It’s a dive.”

  “Some of the best meals we ever had were in some of the sorriest-looking places.”

  That was true, and it was true here. No matter how worn the surroundings, the food was the best in town. She had that much to be proud of. “Would you like something to drink? Maybe a piece of apple cobbler?”

  “Sure,” he said in a very no-way sort of voice.

  “Iced tea? Pop?” Her smile was wobbly, as if it might disappear at any second. “I don’t have anything stronger, and I’m not allowed to touch the coffee maker.”

  “Pop’s fine.”

  She fixed two glasses and set them on the counter, then went into the kitchen to warm two servings of apple cobbler and top them with vanilla ice cream. When she came out again, he was gone from the counter. For one heartstopping instant, she thought he’d left, then she realized the glasses were gone, too. He’d simply moved to a booth—the one back in the farthest corner that couldn’t be seen from the street.

  Balancing cobbler, spoons and napkins, she slid onto the bench opposite him. There was something so incredibly familiar about sitting there—because they’d done it so many thousands of times before, she supposed. It just seemed right. Even if neither of them knew what to say to the other. Even if there was this tremendous discomfort between them. Even if neither of them seemed to even know where to look.

  “So...” She spooned melted ice cream back over the cobbler and watched it drizzle down. “What do you think of Heartbreak?”

  “Hasn’t changed much.”

  “No. We lost a few old businesses, gained a few new ones. Jerry Danvers took over his father’s law practice, only he has to practice in two other counties, too, to make a living. The post office burned down a few years ago, and they gave us a trailer in the old post office lot. They say they’re going to rebuild, but you know how slow the government works. It took them months to get the debris from the old building hauled off. The high school girls’ basketball team won the state championship last year, and they’re predicting the football team will do the same.”

  Easy fought the urge to smile as he listened to her. He knew from many years’ experience that she babbled only when she was nervous. She hadn’t done it the first time they’d made love, but the second time, that night in a motel outside Salina, Kansas, she’d babbled away until he’d kissed her. She’d been grateful for a reason to stop talking. He’d been grateful for the right to kiss her. After that, whenever she’d gotten edgy and started prattling, he’d slid his tongue into her mouth and calmed her down in one way while getting her all stirred up in others.

  What would she do if he tried it now?

  Probably grab hold and take him for a ride. They’d always been like gas and fire, ever since that first innocent kiss in her mother’s kitchen. Even when sex was the last thing in the world they’d needed between them, all it had taken was a touch, a kiss, sometimes nothing more than a look, and the need consumed them.

  Right now was one of those times when sex was the last thing they needed.

  There would never be a time when he wasn’t the last thing she needed.

  “—have the Founders’ Day celebration and fireworks at City Park for the Fourth and—” Abruptly she stopped, took a great, noisy breath, then said, “I should be quiet now, shouldn’t I?”

  “No. Go ahead and talk.” He’d listened to her voice for so many years in his head. It was one of his fonder dreams to hear it for real.

  She gestured toward his plate. “Your cobbler’s getting cold and your ice cream’s getting warm.”

  He looked down at the spoon. It rested in the bowl, its handle extending on the right—the normal position for someone who was right-handed. He clumsily reached across with his left hand, scooped up a bit of ice cream, then watched it slide back into the bowl. They’d tried to teach him to learn everything with his left hand in the rehab hospital, but he’d refused. He’d been too bitter, too damn miserable to care if he never did anything but lie unmoving in bed until he died. Instead, he’d taken his meals alone and used his right hand. But expecting someone else to eat and look at that mess...

  Grimly, he laid the spoon in the dish and pushed it away. He hadn’t wanted the damn cobbler in the first place. He’d only wanted an excuse to sit with her for a minute.

  “You can use your right hand,” she said quietly.

  “No.”

  “Why not? You’re right-handed People who are right-handed tend to use that hand when they eat.”

&nbs
p; “Not when they have less than half a hand.” His voice was sharper than he’d intended it to be. It made her flinch and lower her gaze to her own dish.

  Though it seemed a contradiction in terms, silence really could be deafening. It reverberated in his head, pulsing, smothering, until finally he broke it. “I didn’t know how much damage I’d done until nearly a week after the accident. My entire hand and part of my arm were wrapped in bandages so huge that I couldn’t see that anything was missing. They told me I’d broken a lot of bones, and I believed it I could feel the pain in all five fingers. Finally, when they were pretty sure I wasn’t going to die, they told me the truth. I didn’t believe them until they took off the bandages and showed me. Even then, I still felt pain in those fingers ”

  At first he’d been too shocked to understand all the implications. He’d needed first to deal with the plain and simple horror that his fingers were gone. It hadn’t been until the middle of that night that he’d realized the full impact. No more rodeo. No more working with horses. No more life. He’d cried, and his father, sitting beside the bed, had cried, too. It had been a first for them both—and hopefully a last.

  “I know it sounds too Pollyannaish,” Shay said quietly, “but at least you were lucky enough to keep the thumb and a finger. You can do a lot with a thumb and a finger.”

  “You’ll have to pardon me for not feeling lucky when they’ve cut off parts of my body,” he said dryly. “I was extraordinarily fond of every part I was born with. I had hoped to die with them.”

  She smiled faintly but said nothing. The silence went on so long that he began thinking he should leave so she could get on with whatever she had planned for the evening. Of course, what he should do and what he did do were often complete opposites. When Mary came to his house this afternoon, he should have sent her away. When she told him to return the dishes to Shay at the café, he should have refused. When she left without taking them, he should have set them aside for Joelle the next time she visited.