Double Blind

by Hannah Alexander

  That was when life for poor Blaze—whose given name was Gavin—went swiftly downhill. According to the local grapevine, Blaze’s mother had no maternal instincts, and consequently, the boy had ended up at the boys’ ranch across the lake. Dane and Cheyenne Gideon loved him like a son and were obviously proud of his scholastic accomplishments.

  Blaze was very literate, but he had a tendency toward slang, perhaps used in an effort to fit into his surroundings.

  Preston set the completed coffee drink on the counter. “One Preston Black Special, just for you.”

  “You still thinking about a road trip?” Blaze asked.

  “Thinking will do me no good. She doesn’t want me there.”

  Blaze waited, his coffee-dark eyes watchful as he sipped his drink.

  Preston had never been one to make friends easily. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the reason: no child with a mentally ill mother dared to invite friends over after school. And so he was therefore surprised by his developing friendship with this kid. Blaze had a special talent for sliding beneath a person’s defenses.

  Preston also reminded himself that Blaze had a reputation for matchmaking, earned since his arrival in Hideaway, and the kid was proud of it.

  “Since when did Sheila start telling you where you could and couldn’t go?” Blaze asked.

  Preston gave Blaze a mock glare. “I’m for sure not going down that road, pal. I want to stay friends with her, not alienate her completely.”

  Blaze took a long, slow drink of the Preston Special. “Seems to me it can’t get much worse than it already is…unless she up and renews her friendship with that man in Arizona. You got any guarantee against her doing that?”

  “There are never any guarantees about anything when it comes to women,” Preston said. “You should know that by now.”

  Blaze shook his head. “Not me. I’m just a poor student, trying to figure out how to make his own way in the world.” He set his glass down. “Of course, even busy as I am, seems I’d have time to take a trip to Arizona, if anyone were to ask me to ride shotgun.”

  The girls ran back into the room, ready to go riding with Blaze. Preston grinned at them. “Don’t be too hard on the horse.”

  “We won’t, Uncle Preston,” Lucy said, gazing up at Blaze with complete adoration.

  Blaze winked at her, then opened the door to usher the girls outside. He looked back over his shoulder at Preston. “We could call it a mission trip, you know. From what Sheila said, they could use some more medical help out there to check the kids.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Preston asked. “I’m not medical.”

  “Clinics always need willing aides, and you’re a whiz with numbers and finances. Mission schools always need a lot of that, too. If the place doesn’t need your brain, it could probably use your brawn, fixin’ things, hammerin’ nails, you know, things like that.”

  Preston nodded as Blaze walked out the door with the girls. Blaze always tended to slice to the heart of a matter. Sheila wanted space, and she was candid about the reason why.

  Neither Preston nor Sheila could deny the attraction between them—a powerful draw that often left common sense and thoughtful consideration in the dust. Though they remained chaste, their attraction still influenced their ability to make good decisions.

  At least, that was what Sheila said. Preston knew she had good reasons to go to Arizona—even more compelling reasons than Blaze’s—but Preston couldn’t help feeling that one of her unspoken motives was to get away from him so it would be easier to break things off with him for good.

  Until now, he’d been comfortable respecting her wishes. But after talking with Blaze, that didn’t seem like such a good option, after all. Sheila had spoken of Canaan York with a great deal of affection, which Preston found impossible to ignore. Did she hold some kind of hope of renewing her childhood friendship with the man?

  What if the unthinkable happened? Sheila and Canaan had been good friends once—and he was the grandson of the owner of Twin Mesas School, as well as a physician, and most likely a Christian. Buster Metcalf, Sheila’s father, had mentioned, too, that Canaan was no longer married.

  Preston wasn’t the kind of man to panic, but neither did he want to just sit on his thumbs here in Missouri and risk losing the only woman who had ever made him see the possible merits of a lasting marriage.

  He knew Blaze had a passion for medicine of any kind, be it animal or human. Trauma junkie that he was, the kid could make a great pediatrician or a great E.R. doc, if he wanted. And he’d made it obvious he would love to take a trip to Arizona.

  With some creative reasoning, Preston and Blaze might be able to drive to Arizona and call the drive a mission trip. For sure, it would be that for Blaze.

  Preston’s first priority was Sheila’s safety. The Navajo reservation didn’t seem to him to be a safe place at the moment, and the more he thought about Blaze’s words, the more convinced he became that sitting here waiting for Sheila to call wasn’t necessarily the best thing for her.

  Sheila wouldn’t buy this thinking, of course, and she would resent his interference. No matter what Sheila said, though, one thing was obvious—Canaan York needed more help just to see that the kids and their families received the usual medical screening before school let out for the summer. Blaze could help get it done in half the time, and Preston did know how to do paperwork.

  Wouldn’t that be worth a little emotional risk for her, in the long run?

  A black shadow-image with long, pointed ears and sharp, blood-smeared fangs raced across the darkness after Sheila. Her mouth opened in a mute scream. Her body tensed, then jerked, bringing her wide-awake. She lay still for a moment, body stiff, as awareness of the dream slipped away and relief flooded her.

  She gazed around the shaded room, grown darker with the dying sun. Perspiration filmed her skin, soaking her hair and clothes, even the bedspread.

  A warm, dry breeze blew through the open window beside the bed, pushing past the lapis lazuli curtains. The tang of cedar was pleasant, but it stirred the dead ashes of the dream, evoking once more the monster that kept stalking her into her waking hours—a familiar specter that had impelled her here in the first place.

  “Sheila?”

  At the sound of her name, she had no trouble imagining the voice of that monster, calling to her from beyond the divide between sleep and consciousness.

  “Are you in there?” he asked.

  She felt a wash of relief and relaxed. It was Canaan’s muffled voice, reaching her from outside the apartment door. She blinked and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

  Canaan knocked.

  “Coming,” Sheila called, her voice barely more than a croak. She closed her eyes and swallowed, willing her heart to slow. The day’s events had mingled with her nightmares, making it all more real and more frightening.

  “Are you okay, Sheila?”

  “Yes, I’m coming, keep your cap on.” Great. She was in no mood to exchange small talk in the school cafeteria with new faces and with old acquaintances who had lived only in her memories for the past twenty-four years, and her reunion with Canaan wasn’t turning out to be as comfortable as she’d hoped it would be. So much for old friendships. After the incident with the dog, even Doc Cottonwood might no longer be so welcoming. She had prepared herself for this, though. She’d known it might not be easy to come back here; this could be a challenging exercise in patience—and fortitude.

  She opened the door, still fingering the hair out of her face. It didn’t surprise her to see that Canaan had on a different ball cap than the one he’d worn this afternoon.

  Sheila tried to force a smile that she couldn’t quite get to materialize. “Hi. Guess I fell asleep.”

  “I’m glad you decided to take a nap. Are we on speaking terms again?”

  “I hope so, because I wanted to ask you about your ball cap collection. How many do you have now?”

  He grinned. �
�I’ve whittled them down over the years, but I still have about fifty.”

  “You had more than that when I lived here.”

  He removed the one on his head to reveal shiny black hair, cut above his ears. Shorter than Preston’s.

  And why was she comparing the two men, all of a sudden? “I also wanted to ask you about the beautiful works of art.” She gestured toward two wood carvings on the coffee table. One was a life-size head of a bighorn sheep; the other was a startlingly beautiful replica of the famed Rainbow Bridge stone arch on Lake Powell.

  “The initials on the bottoms of these are CY.” She picked up the carving of Rainbow Bridge. “Anyone you know?”

  “Sounds familiar,” he said.

  She sighed. Canaan York had always been willing to shoulder responsibility when anything went wrong, and always reluctant to take credit—like for the beautiful results of his creativity.

  “So you followed in your mother’s sculpturing footsteps,” she said. “Is she still creating her fascinating works?”

  He nodded, obviously proud of his mother. “Her name is known in some circles all across the country.”

  “I think these are just as beautiful. I’m honored you used them to decorate my apartment.”

  She replaced the carving on the coffee table, aware of Canaan’s flush of pleasure and his effort to suppress it.

  “Thanks. Are you hungry?”

  “Not too much.” Sheila glanced at her watch. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m really not up to this right now. Why don’t you—”

  “You need to eat.” His deep voice suddenly became firm. “Besides, you should start meeting some of the staff. You don’t want them to think that you think you’re too good to eat with them, do you?”

  Sheila grimaced. Her head ached. But she did need to start meeting the staff, and she didn’t want to do it all alone.

  “You aren’t my boss until I start work,” she said. “But I guess I can force myself to eat.”

  Canaan gave her a smile, erasing the serious expression that seemed to be permanently attached to the adult Canaan York. “Hope you still like mutton stew.”

  Sheila made a face, and Canaan chuckled.

  “It’s a special treat for the others. They’re also serving chicken fried steak for those with biligaana tastes.”

  “Good.”

  “By the way, Betsy Two Horses is still in the cafeteria. She’s head cook now. She and your mother were once pretty good friends, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, they were.” It would be good to see Betsy again. Not that she and Sheila would have time to talk with a dinner crowd around, but just to see her again…Sheila reached up and fingered the turquoise-and-gold cross at her throat.

  Seeing Betsy would bring so many of her memories crashing back. But the time had come to face them—and there was no turning back now.

  Chapter Eight

  C anaan sat on the sleeper sofa in Sheila’s small apartment, listening to the splash of water in the bathroom as Sheila got ready to go to dinner. She obviously was reluctant to join him for tonight’s meal. He wasn’t exactly ecstatic about it, either. He would have enjoyed sharing a meal with her without the prying eyes of the whole student body and faculty on them. How he would love to sit down with her and catch up on the past years.

  Sheila joined him, and they stepped out into the darkening, cooler air of evening.

  “I had forgotten how suddenly night falls here,” she said. “In Missouri, the sunset hangs on forever.”

  “I remember,” he said.

  She looked up at him. “You were in Missouri?”

  “When I had rotations, I drove through a couple of times. I discovered that, in the Ozarks, the sun seems to spread out into the heavier, moister atmosphere there, and then, just before it starts its plunge past the horizon, it lingers in the line of forest.”

  “Sounds as if you enjoyed it.”

  “I did.”

  “I wish you’d tried to contact Dad or me on your way through. We could have put you up for the night.”

  “It just never seemed to be the right time.” Especially since she had been married then. Canaan doubted her husband would have understood an old male friend simply stopping by to spend the night.

  He couldn’t help noticing as they walked that Sheila was studying every line of every building, every plant. It must be disconcerting to find a once-familiar home changed so completely.

  All of the old school buildings were gone, and it seemed to take her a few moments to realize that the cafeteria, just ahead and to their right, was set in exactly the same position as the old one.

  “The new cafeteria’s prettier,” Canaan said, and was rewarded by a fleeting look of surprise. Amazing he could still, at times, read her mind.

  Piñon and olive trees, thriving in this climate, surrounded the cafeteria. Canaan had considered planting cactus, as well, but he couldn’t risk harm to children playing in the area.

  “It seems as if some calm, gentle spirit has encompassed the school,” Sheila said.

  He warmed at her words of praise. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t tell me you did the landscaping,” she said.

  He nodded. “Doc said I needed a deeper tan.”

  “That sounds like something he would say.” Warm affection filled her words. Sheila had once been one of Doc Cottonwood’s favorite young students; when he had taken her under his wing, it had helped establish her as just another student, and not a biligaana. Her friendship, in turn, had encouraged Canaan to face up to the bullies who’d picked on him.

  “I enjoyed the gardening,” Canaan said.

  “More than you enjoy medicine?” she asked.

  “No, but I like it more than being principal. Besides, the physical activity did me good.”

  She glanced up at him, and he thought he caught a brief gleam of approval as her gaze rested on the breadth of his shoulders, and again he relished that approval. Having been the smallest in his class, he had despaired as a child of ever growing. His growth spurt had hit in his senior year of high school. Perhaps it was this feeling of isolation for so long in his childhood that had kept him hitting the books when other classmates were more active in sports.

  “Once the trees have matured,” Sheila said, “this whole place will look like an oasis from the road.”

  “That’s the plan.” He hesitated. Though it would be great to bask in her kind words—particularly after the uncomfortable circumstances accompanying her arrival—he couldn’t linger there. “Were you looking for an oasis when you decided to come here?”

  “Nope.” Clipped. Almost sharp, and the tone relayed Back off clearly enough for most people.

  “So why did you come?” He wasn’t most people.

  “Because I’m between permanent jobs at the moment. And no, I wasn’t fired from my previous position. The hospital where I worked lost federal funding and had to cut back on staffing.”

  “A loss of federal funding would shut down most hospitals.”

  “It probably will this one, as well, eventually, but it’s still limping along right now.”

  “What was the infraction?”

  “One of the doctors refused to accept a patient being transferred from a smaller hospital. The patient died in transit to the other hospital in town.” She looked up at him. “Do I have to undergo another employment interview? Your grandfather already asked me these questions.”

  “I’m just curious,” Canaan assured her. “So you suddenly decided, after all these years, that you’d like to work for room and board and paltry pay in the isolation of this school?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “It’s been a bad homecoming for you,” Canaan said. “I’m sorry I’m not making it any easier.”

  “You sure aren’t.”

  He glanced at her, appreciating the profile of the grown-up Sheila. She looked a lot like her mother, though her hair was darker; her mother had been blond. Evelyn Metcalf had been a beautiful woman—at
least, from the viewpoint of a ten-year-old boy who didn’t know very much about women. Sheila had inherited those looks.

  It appeared that she’d also inherited a strong strain of her father’s dynamic personality. Although that strength seemed to have left her earlier today.

  “I think you’ve had a difficult couple of years,” he said.

  She didn’t look at him, but slowed her steps to match his. “You’ve been talking to your grandfather.”

  “Of course. I was sorry to hear about the death of your husband.”

  She nodded but said nothing.

  Canaan wanted to ask why she’d resumed using her maiden name, but that was pushing it too far. Maybe after dinner.

  “I gather you’re not thrilled about my presence here,” she said.

  “I am, in a way.”

  Amusement came and went in her expression. “A very small way.”

  “Fishing for compliments?” he asked.

  She chuckled suddenly, and he couldn’t help smiling. When they were kids, any time Canaan became frustrated and bemoaned his size, she’d poke him in the ribs and say, “Catch a big one, York, but you’ll have to clean it yourself.” Since Canaan wasn’t a fisherman, she’d had to explain the fishing reference she’d learned from her father.

  “We’re not talking about how I feel right now,” Canaan said. “We’re talking about your true mission here.”

  She scowled at him. She even had a pretty scowl.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “If I weren’t in the position I’m in, I wouldn’t be asking any questions, I’d just be happy to see you, no matter why you came.”

  “That wasn’t the impression I got.”

  He spread his hands. “Things aren’t as I’d like them to be.”

  “What did your grandfather tell you about me?”

  “Not enough for me to form an opinion, only that you’d had a rough two years, you needed a break for a few weeks and that you were the best nurse in the county.”

  She glanced at him.

  He shrugged. “Direct quote from your father, I think.”

  “Are you still open to discussion about the dog this afternoon?”