by Rachel Lee
“Have a seat,” she said. She remained where she was, staring at a coffeemaker that seemed to be taking forever and a window that stared back at her blackly, showing her more of the kitchen behind her than the world outside.
It was a big country kitchen. Martha had once talked about the days when the family was big, when they had hired help and everyone would gather here for the main meal of the day. At home she had an efficiency, with barely enough room for a narrow stove, small sink and tiny refrigerator. If she wanted to cook, she had to do the prep on her dining table in the next tiny room.
Still, the house was awfully big for one person, but she couldn’t sell it for ten years. She definitely needed to find a good way to put it to use.
Wandering thoughts again, but when the coffeemaker finished, so did the wandering.
“You still like it black?” she asked.
“Yes. Thanks.”
So she carried two mugs to the table, and finally had to sit facing him. No way to avoid it any longer.
He looked tired, she thought. Well, lack of sleep would do that. But damn him, he remained every bit as sexy as he had all those years ago. Maybe even more so. That didn’t seem fair.
“You’ve lost weight,” he remarked. “Have you been sick?”
She shook her head. “Just busy. Sometimes I just feel too tired to eat.”
“That’s not good.” When she didn’t answer, he spoke again. “I take it your job is draining. Want to tell me about it?”
“What’s to tell? I work with people most of society doesn’t care about. People who never had a real chance in life. Most of my job is trying to get children to do the things that will give them a chance. To avoid the things that will take away their chances. We try to give them a safe environment after school, encourage them to finish homework, feed them, expand their horizons a bit. And then they go home to the same despair.”
He gave a low whistle.
“Maybe that’s not entirely fair,” she said after a moment. “There are some bad parents. There are in any group. When I first started I was investigating abuse cases that occurred at very nice addresses. Then I moved over to work with underprivileged kids. A lot of people may not believe it, but some of my strongest supporters with these kids are their parents. They want their children to have a better life. But it’s kind of hard to believe in when you come home to a run-down apartment where no one cares enough even to get rid of the roaches, and there’s little food in the refrigerator.”
“Colliding worlds?”
She nodded, closing her eyes. “You have to take it a step at a time,” she said finally. “Right now I’m organizing a couple of communities to demand exterminators. You’d think management would at least provide that. Little kids shouldn’t be living with roaches, rats and mice. It’s not healthy. Sometimes they get bitten.”
“God!”
“Anyway, sometimes I feel like I’m trying to hold back a flood with a broom. These people are so ground down. But then you see the spark of hope in them when they think you can help their kids. They really care about that.”
“But you’re just one person.”
“But I’m not the only social worker. We do what we can. It’s hard not to get impatient, though. I could use a magic wand.”
“I imagine so.”
She opened her eyes, but looked back toward the window. “What you said earlier about bringing some of them out here?”
She noticed his response was hesitant. “Yeah?”
“I wish I could. I was thinking about it, but the problems are huge. And while Martha might approve, I’d need to get through all kinds of red tape. And then I asked myself what I could do for them in a couple of weeks here. Or even a whole summer here. Would I just make it harder on them when they had to go home?”
“That’s a tough question. I didn’t think about that.”
She shrugged and finally managed to look at him again. “It needs a lot of planning in a lot of ways. But I keep thinking how wonderful it might be for them to have a month or two when they just simply didn’t have to be afraid or hungry.”
“So they’re afraid, too?”
“They’re living in a damn war zone. Gangs. Drugs. Turf wars. They learn to be afraid very early.”
He cursed. “That’s no way for a kid to grow up.”
“I agree. But as one of my friends often reminds me, a lot of kids in the world are growing up exactly that way.”
“But it ought to be different in this country.”
He spoke with so much vehemence that she blinked. She’d never had time before to find out if Cliff had a social conscience. Apparently he did.
She glanced away toward the window again. She didn’t want to find any reasons to like this guy. None. She’d be leaving again in two weeks, whatever she decided to do with this ranch.
But then her thoughts wandered a different, faraway path. “You get used to it,” she said presently. “You just get used to it.”
“Have you?”
“I guess so. I didn’t realize until I got here just how much tension I was carrying all the time. My first night here I could feel it letting go. Something inside me is uncoiling. But it never uncoils for those children. Even in a safe place, like their homes, or at the youth center, I’m sure it never has long enough to let go because in just a short while they’re going to step outside again.”
He didn’t offer any bromides, but she heard him drum his fingers on the table. She needed to get away from this subject for a little while, she realized, because even just talking about it and thinking about it was ratcheting up her tension.
She fixed him with her gaze. “Do you have a lot of insomnia?”
“Sometimes. Usually not this bad.”
“I’d think with how hard you work, you’d just conk out.”
“You’d think.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Maybe I’m just one of those people who doesn’t need a whole lot of sleep. I certainly don’t walk around feeling sleep deprived.”
“I can’t imagine it. Sometimes I think I could sleep around the clock.”
“Maybe I should let you get back to it.”
The perfect out. She should have grabbed it, but she didn’t. “No, I’m fine. I think I’m done with sleep tonight. I was sitting upstairs thinking about things when I saw you ride up. I’m wondering if this house is always going to feel so achingly empty without Martha.”
“I don’t know. I wish I could tell you. I miss her, too, and I didn’t even live here, but you’re right, I keep expecting to hear her voice.”
“Yeah. And for some reason I’m focusing on that. That I’ll never hear her voice again except inside my own head.”
He hesitated visibly, then said, “Martha told me you were attacked once in Chicago.”
At that instant she seriously wanted to throw him out. His company had at least distracted her from that mixed-up dream where one instant she was with Cliff in the throes of passion and in the next she was being grabbed and pawed by that slimeball. She still didn’t understand why her mind had hooked those two things together, even in a dream, but she certainly didn’t want to think about the attack.
He must have read her face. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up, but I’ve worried about you ever since.”
“Why should you worry at all about me after the way I treated you?” she demanded, angry but not at all sure whether she was mad at him or something else. “And that was my business. Why would Martha tell you about that?”
He responded to her anger, his face darkening. “She worried about you. Constantly. Maybe she never told you, but she did. And after that, I worried, too. There’s a lot of crap between us, Holly. I’ve got plenty of reason not to like you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to you.”
He pushed back from the table. His face had grown hard, and his voice chilly. “Call me if you need anything. Martha put me on autodial.”
Then he walked out. Just like that. Not even a goodbye.
She sat alone at the table, cooling coffee in front of her, trying to sort through the tangled web of emotions inside her, but it proved impossible. All of it was impossible. She couldn’t imagine how she would ever get herself straightened out.
Coming back here had been a mistake. Dealing with rough neighborhoods by and large wasn’t nearly as dangerous as dealing with emotions. Things that could kill your body weren’t half as scary as things that could kill your heart.
Then she put her head down on the table and let the tears roll. Martha. Cliff. The past. The present. The only thing she was certain of was that she missed Martha with a grinding ache.
And sometimes, like now, her brain would furtively sneak in a question she didn’t want to hear: Had she made a mistake by not staying here and marrying Cliff?
Too late now, but apparently part of her would always wonder.
Damn, when she had raced to get out here, she had assumed that she wouldn’t see Cliff. He’d steadfastly stayed away during her visits to Martha after their affair, and it hadn’t crossed her mind that it would be different this time.
But here she was, and Cliff wasn’t staying away. Not at all. Although if she was to judge by the way he had just left, he might not come back.
That would be for the best, she told herself. Much better if she never laid eyes on him again. Even after all these years, he could still roil her emotions and waken her passions, and she really didn’t need that. Not now, not ever.
* * *
Cliff steamed as he rode home, but he reserved his anger for himself. He’d been stupid to accept Holly’s offer of coffee. He knew that woman could sting him, but he’d put himself right in the line of fire. Nobody to blame but himself.
As for her being upset that he knew she had been attacked, what was that? It hardly amounted to a shameful secret, and both he and Martha had worried about her. Hell, Martha had often talked about Holly and her concerns. Who else was she going to talk to? Nobody else around here knew Holly.
At first he’d found it uncomfortable to talk about the woman who had torched his hopes, but time had made it easier. He wondered about Martha, though, and about this whole setup.
Martha was no fool. She must have guessed what was going on between him and Holly that long-ago summer. At their age, she’d probably guessed they weren’t just two friends who liked to spend long hours alone with each other. No, she had to have known, even though she’d never said a word.
Of course, she couldn’t have known why they broke up. Maybe she thought it had been reasonably friendly. That much was possible, and might explain the current insanity of his being executor of the estate.
But why tell Holly she couldn’t sell the house for ten years? And while being executor didn’t exactly burden him with things he had to do, it remained that he felt Martha had meant him to keep an eye on things. Keep an eye on Holly.
Hell.
He almost muttered under his breath. Sy was getting a little antsy, though, probably picking up on his mood. The light wasn’t so great yet, although the first signs of dawn rode the eastern horizon. Regardless, he slackened the reins, trusting Sy to choose his own pace and safe ground. He’d long since learned it was the safest way to let a horse open up. They seemed to smell prairie-dog holes well in advance, and to see other obstacles quickly.
With the lack of tension, Sy cut loose. He hit a full gallop across the rangeland, maybe half a mile, then settled into a comfortable walk again. Cliff leaned forward, patting his neck.
“Better, boy?”
Sy tossed his head.
“I guess so.” But it wasn’t better for Cliff. He hadn’t been the one galloping. The question remained: What had Martha expected of him? And if she’d expected something, why hadn’t she given him a clue? Apparently, she hadn’t given Holly any clues, either, except that stuff about finding her dream. That was certainly opaque.
He sighed, feeling the last of the night’s chilly air, and tried to corral his thoughts. He had a lot to do today, and no energy to waste on thinking about Holly. He’d deal with whatever turned up as it became necessary.
In theory she was going back to Chicago in just under two weeks. Back to the job she had always wanted. A job that he thought might be slowly killing her. But what did he know?
He rode around to the barn and turned Sy over to one of his hired hands. He usually cared for the horse himself, but this morning he didn’t feel like it.
Ruben took the reins from him. “You got company, Boss.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that comes in a sports car.”
“Out here?” Cliff’s brows raised. He tried to think of anyone who might have business with him, because his neighbors and friends sure didn’t drive those cars. Useless out here.
He walked in through the back door and mudroom. His housekeeper, Jean, was at the kitchen sink. She looked at him, and her expression held none of its usual welcome.
“She’s in the living room.”
“Who?”
“Go look.”
He shook his head, wondering what the hell was going on. “Coffee?”
“Grab some.”
So he did, then headed for whatever was awaiting him. He reached the threshold of the living room and froze. “Lisa?” he asked with disbelief.
His former wife was stretched out on the sofa as if posed for a photo, showing her cleavage to best advantage, her long black hair draped perfectly as if to draw attention to her most notable feature.
The only good thing he could say about her arrival was that he felt no response whatever to her blatant sexuality. At least that part was dead for good. But his dislike of her lived on. He wanted to roar at her to get out of his house.
“Hi, Cliff,” she said, her voice sultry. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you and missing you. You don’t mind, do you?”
Did he mind? Hell, yeah. He was already trying to figure out ways to make her leave. But he needed a minute to put a lid on his temper, too. She couldn’t have called to ask first? “I’ve gotta get some breakfast. You wait here.”
In the kitchen, Jean simply frowned at him.
“You should have sent her away,” he said.
“Not my place. But if she stays, I go.”
Back to that. Lisa had almost cost him Jean six years ago, and Jean was part of the family—she’d been here his entire life. “She’s not staying.”
“Ha!”
“I mean it.”
“She already brought in her suitcases.”
“Then I’ll take them out.”
“Good luck.”
He opened a cupboard. “Breakfast?”
“Find your own. I’m not cooking for that woman.”
Cliff closed his eyes for a moment, wondering if life could get any more complicated. Well, of course it could. Lisa was here.
He settled for a bowl of cold cereal and headed back to the living room. He took the chair farthest from Lisa.
“So what’s going on?” he asked bluntly.
“I told you. I missed you.”
“You haven’t missed me in six years.”
She pouted. “That’s not true.”
“Just spit it out, Lisa. Spare me the drama.”
“Oh, all right then,” she said, sitting up, but leaning forward so her cleavage remained on display. He wondered why he had ever found that attractive. Right now he felt repelled.
“I’m between jobs,” she said.
“Really? Between marriages, too, I guess.” He knew she had married some guy up near Gillette, because once s
he had he’d no longer owed her alimony.
“Well, yes.”
“Sorry. What am I supposed to do about any of this?”
“Like I said, I’m between jobs. I just need a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?” His entire household would fall apart, and even some of his hired hands might desert him in that time. Lisa was nothing if not imperious.
“Yes.”
“And how are you going to find a job out here?”
She frowned. “I already have a job. Damn it, Cliff, don’t be a jerk. I start my new job in two weeks. I just need a place to stay until then.”
He was finding this hard to believe. Something about this smelled to high heaven. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.” Her dark eyes flashed. “You’re still a jerk, aren’t you.”
“I don’t like being lied to.”
“Well, I’m not lying. I have a job in Glenwood Springs, but I have no way of getting a place to stay until then. If I spend money renting a place now, I won’t make it until I get my first paycheck. That is all there is to it.”
It was almost believable. Maybe it was even the truth. But he sat there wondering whether she really wanted to stay here for two weeks, or if she wanted him to front her some money. Either one looked impossible right now. It was late spring, he hadn’t yet gotten the money for his wool, he had vet bills, especially for the new lambs and kids, he needed to... Well, he just wasn’t flush at the moment.
He looked at his bowl of cereal and realized that while he might need to eat, he couldn’t swallow a thing right now.
“I want you out of here,” he said flatly. “Try your sob story on someone else. Jean is already threatening to leave.”
“Jean always mattered more than I did,” she pouted.
“Unfortunately, I made the mistake of letting you matter more once upon a time. I lost three good hands because of you, and barely kept Jean. You have no idea of the havoc you managed to wreak and how long it took me to put things back together. I’m not doing that again.”