“I’d take it as a personal favor if you heard her out, Mona,” Doc appealed to her. “She really wants another chance to be the mother she couldn’t be before. I know that in your eyes she’s done nothing to deserve another chance, but—”
“Are you in love with Elena?” Mona asked abruptly.
The unexpected question appeared to jar him for a moment. She knew she’d never spoken to him like that, but then, he’d never hurt her like this before, never taken someone else’s side against her before.
“What I feel for her doesn’t matter,” Doc replied in his quiet, even voice. “What does matter is your relationship with her—or lack of one. Some day, Mona, she won’t be around. I don’t want you to look back then and realize that you’re feeling guilty about your behavior toward—”
“What makes you think I’ll feel guilty?” she asked. For the moment, she decided not to tell him that Joe had already driven home the point he now tried to make.
Doc paused for a moment, as if wrestling with an issue. When he began to talk, he told her something about himself he’d never shared with anyone. “Because I had an absentee father and had the same feelings about him as you do about your mother. And when he came back into my life suddenly some twenty years later, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.”
She could see by his expression that this was hard for Doc to talk about. Doc, who had always been able to talk about anything without hesitation. She realized that by telling her this, he tried to spare her the same kind of guilt.
“He left,” Doc was saying, “and I never saw him again. I didn’t know at the time that he was dying and he’d wanted to make amends so that he could die in peace.”
Doc paused, taking a long breath. “I didn’t give him that peace and sometimes, when I sit back and take stock of my life, that comes up to haunt me.” His eyes peered into hers. “It’s on the minus side of the tally.”
She wanted to put her arms around him, around the young man he’d been, feeling abandoned just as she had. “How old were you when he left?”
Doc shrugged, the white lab coat he wore moving about his wide, powerful shoulders. “Six, seven, I don’t remember exactly. What I do remember was the look on his face the last time I saw him. He was anguished and heartbroken. And I had done that to him, to another human being. To my father.” His voice was kind, supplicating. “I don’t want you to feel the same way, Mona.”
It suddenly occurred to her that maybe Doc was trying to tell her something covertly. She felt a chill go zigzagging along her spine. “Are you telling me that she’s dying, Doc?”
Her question seemed to throw him for a second. “What?” He then realized she might have picked that up from his own story. “No, but that doesn’t change anything. If you send her away, you’ll carry that look in her eyes around with you for the rest of your life.” He took her hands into his. “I don’t want that for you.”
Mona blew out a breath. She loved Doc and didn’t like these mixed emotions. In her heart, she knew that he was only thinking of her. But a part of her still resisted what he asked her to do. Resisted and nursed hurt feelings.
If she was honest with herself, she knew that Doc and Joe were both right in their urgings. It wasn’t her nature to harbor a grudge. Bearing one against her mother was like a dark force that ate away at her soul, and she’d kept it inside of her for a long time now. Long enough.
With a nod of her head, Mona gave in. “Is she still upstairs?”
“Yes,” he told her. “Upstairs and packing.”
Packing. Elena was leaving. That meant that all she had to do was keep busy and out of the way. By the end of the day, her problem would be gone and life would go back to the way she knew it.
Kind of, she amended, thinking of last night and Joe. After experiencing that, nothing would ever really be the same again. There was another factor to consider. She was now a sister-in-law, as well as a sister. That changed a lot.
It wasn’t just Rick and her against the world anymore. Their family was expanding. Within a couple of months, she’d be an aunt. And Rick would be a father. She supposed that it would be a good thing for the baby to have a grandmother, and Olivia’s parents were both dead.
Mona made up her mind.
“I’m going to take a break, Doc,” Mona informed the senior veterinarian.
Without waiting for Doc to comment on the fact that she hadn’t begun to work yet, she went toward the rear of the clinic and went to the back stairs. Gripping the handrail, she made her way slowly up to the second floor and Doc’s living quarters.
When she came to the landing, she stood there for a second, waiting for her heart to settle down again. It had gone into double time as she tried to anticipate the words that would pass between her and her mother.
She hadn’t a clue.
Taking another breath, she made her way to the last bedroom. The room she had found her mother the previous time. The bedroom door stood ajar. Rather than push it open, she knocked on it lightly and waited.
“Come in, Henry,” she heard her mother respond. “I’m almost finished.”
Mona opened the door and stepped over the threshold. Her mother’s back was to the doorway. She was bent over an opened suitcase that was on the bed, trying to arrange what went inside.
“I’m not even good at packing,” she said, still thinking she was talking to Doc. “I can’t seem to get everything back into the suitcase. It all fit when I came,” Elena lamented, shaking her head. “Don’t see why it won’t go back in now.”
“You’re leaving.” It was a question hidden in the guise of a statement.
She saw her mother stiffen, then turn around, a look of tentative disbelief on her face, as if she thought her ears were playing tricks on her. When she saw who was in her bedroom, the look of stunned surprise froze for a moment on her face.
“Yes,” Elena finally answered, “I’m leaving.” She took a breath, as if to steady her voice, which trembled. “I thought it would be better that way. Whether you believe me or not, I don’t want to cause you and your brother any more pain than I already have, and it seems that having me around does that, so I’m leaving.”
Mona took another step closer to her mother. “Where will you go?”
The shrug was careless. And hapless. “I don’t know yet.” The smile that came to Elena’s lips seemed forced. “It’s a big country and there are a lot of places I haven’t seen yet.”
“They’ll still be there later,” Mona told her quietly, seriously. “I mean, if you don’t go now.”
Elena looked at her uncertainly. The question she asked was uttered very carefully, as if she was afraid of hearing the answer. Of being wrong. “Are you asking me to stay?”
“Well, if you go,” Mona told her, “then neither one of us will ever know if this has a chance in hell of working, will we?”
Her mother’s deep brown eyes were searching hers. “Are you saying that you forgive me?” Her voice rose at the end of the question as joy and hope wove their way through it.
Mona couldn’t jump into it that fast, even though a small kernel inside of her wanted to. The small part that belonged to the little girl who had lain in bed, night after night, wondering what it would be like to have a mother who loved her.
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that I’m leaving myself open to the possibility of forgiving you. If I feel that you deserve it,” Mona qualified. “Doc seems to think you do and Joe thinks I should give you a second chance and I’ve always had a lot of respect for both their opinions.” Pausing because she was afraid her voice would break, Mona pressed her lips together before going on. “So, I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m willing to give this relationship a try—if you’re really serious about making amends.”
“Oh, I’m serious,” Elena said quickly, tears gathering in her eyes only to come spilling down her cheeks. “I’m very serious,” she assured Mona with enough feeling to fill a stadium. There was silence for
a moment, and then Elena said, “I need you to know that leaving you and your brother here with your grandmother was the best thing I could have done for either of you. I wasn’t stable. After your father died, I couldn’t take care of you, either of you. I wasn’t a fit mother. I wasn’t even a fit person.”
“You don’t have to explain right now.”
“Oh, but I do. It took me a long time to forgive myself. Forgive myself for being alive when your father was dead. By the time I worked things through, years had gone by. I didn’t know how to come back. And when I finally did, Enri—Rick sent me away. It took me eight more years to work up the nerve to try again.”
“I won’t send you away this time,” Mona told Elena quietly.
Elena steepled her fingers together before her lips to keep the sobs from escaping. And then, in a shaking voice she struggled to keep even, she had to ask, “Am I allowed to hug you?”
Mona said nothing. Instead, she silently held out her arms. Elena fell into them, sobbing loudly.
Mona struggled valiantly not to do the same. In the end, she lost.
Chapter Fifteen
“Your brother’s coming back tomorrow.”
Joe’s quiet voice broke through the echoes of subsiding euphoria within her bedroom.
They were lying together in her bed, the way they had been every night since that first time. This was a new frontier he’d crossed. The women he’d bedded before had one thing in common. He rarely saw them twice, certainly not more than a handful of times. This was entirely different. Different and amazingly satisfying, although he tried not to explore as to why. He knew the danger in that. Mona would bolt.
He had his arm tucked around her, keeping Mona close to him. He knew all this was temporary, the way someone reluctant to wake up from a good dream knew without being told that it couldn’t last forever. Dreams never did.
“I know,” she murmured, loving the way her body curled into Joe’s. Lying beside him like this was almost her favorite part of their lovemaking. The operative word being almost.
Funny how her perspective on things had changed in such an incredibly short amount of time. When her brother left with Olivia for their honeymoon, she’d felt gnawingly alone again, like someone forced to remain on the train platform while her life pulled away, locked tightly inside the train that was departing from the station.
And now, now things were different. So very dif-ferent.
Mona turned into Joe, tilting her head so she could look up at him. “I wonder what’s going to surprise Rick more, that I’m actually talking to our mother or that you and I are…”
Her voice trailed off as she realized she didn’t know what to call what she and Joe were now. Lovers? That was too solid a word. She was going to say “together” but that might scare him away, as well, and besides, he’d never actually come out and said anything to make her believe that this was more than a pleasant interlude for him.
“Are more than friends,” Mona finally said for lack of another, better term to describe where their relationship had now gone.
And even that, she thought, looking at Joe’s impassive face, seemed not to be the right thing to say. So what were they? What did he think their togetherness meant?
She waited for him to speak, to jump in and tell her what he was feeling.
“You’re going to tell Rick about…this?” Joe questioned.
He was being deliberately vague because Mona appeared to have gone out of her way not to label what was going on between them. He especially avoided the word relationship because he knew how Mona didn’t trust relationships.
“No,” she replied, sensing that that was the answer Joe was after. “I’m not going to go out of my way to specifically mention it. Why?” At the last moment, she’d decided to confront him. This playing games couldn’t continue indefinitely. Either he was committed or he wasn’t. And if he wasn’t, she needed to know now, not six months down the road after she’d irretrievably lost her heart. “You don’t want my brother to know you’re…‘seeing’ me?”
God, but it was hard second-guessing what she wanted to hear. He went with a traditional excuse, even though, as far as he was concerned, it carried no weight with him. If he believed that Mona actually cared about him, about them, he would go up against Rick in a heartbeat.
As he spoke, Joe watched her face for a reaction. “Rick’s my boss. Bosses usually don’t like their employees sleeping with their sisters. Besides, you said this was no big thing.”
She’d said that for his benefit—and, she supposed, in part to keep from scaring herself. It was, she knew deep in her heart, a lie right from the very beginning. This was a very big deal. At least, it was to her.
But obviously not to Joe.
“Right,” she said, keeping her tone matter-of-fact to hide the hurt all but exploding inside her. “It isn’t. No big deal at all.” She sat up, holding the sheet to her. She wanted him gone—before he could see her cry. “Look, since Rick and Olivia are coming back tomorrow, maybe I should clean up a little bit.” She kept her face averted, avoiding his eyes. “Would you mind letting yourself out?”
The cool tone jarred him, but then, maybe that was what he needed, he told himself. Something to shove him out of the fool’s paradise he’d constructed for himself. He’d foolishly created it despite all his self-imposed warnings that she was out of his reach. He’d known from the beginning that giving in to his feelings would make retreating back to his life that much harder.
It was coming to an end a lot faster than he’d thought, but then, it served him right for letting his guard down.
“Sure thing,” Joe said. Sitting up, he grabbed his jeans from the floor and slid into them. He put on his shirt just as quickly.
Sure thing, her mind echoed bitterly. No objection, no “Why so quick?” No protest on his part. If she really listened closely, she might even be able to detect relief in his voice. Relief because now he didn’t have to go through some kind of a scene as he broke it off with her, she thought angrily. He had his fun and now he was going to be free.
And she had fallen in love with him.
How could she have been so stupid?
Just because her mother finally returned didn’t mean that the pattern that had haunted her life for so long was broken. One way or another, she was still the one who got left behind, physically or emotionally. By everyone who mattered.
Mona felt the bed shifting. Joe was on his feet. “See you around,” she heard Joe say to her back.
Mona didn’t bother to turn around, didn’t suddenly jump up, the sheet wrapped around her, and implore him to stay. She didn’t even answer his parting line with some kind of banal response. She just wanted him gone. Now. Before she did do something stupid. Like beg him to stay, to make love with her and make her feel that the magical moment would last forever.
And when, less than a couple of minutes later, she heard the front door close, she let out the shaky breath she’d been holding. But instead of getting up to clean, the way she’d told him she intended to, Mona fell back on the bed, curled up and cried what was left of her jagged, scarred heart out.
* * *
UNABLE TO SLEEP, HER BODY almost bruised from all the tossing and turning she’d done, Mona finally got up a little after one in the morning. It was then that she finally turned her attention to cleaning the house. She judged that maybe, if she was busy enough, the pain would fade for a little while and leave her in peace.
And maybe, your next trip out of Forever will be to Oz, she silently mocked herself.
Feeling dead inside, she got busy.
* * *
MONA LOST TRACK OF TIME.
All that mattered was cleaning, cleaning everything within an inch of its life. She kept up a steady stream of conversation, talking to Apache as if the dog was diligently absorbing every word she said. Several times during her cleaning frenzy, Apache came up to her and licked her hand, but not as if fishing for treats. She could have sworn she saw a lo
ok of empathy in the soft brown eyes as the animal looked up her.
He knew, she thought. Knew her heart was breaking. Animals could be eerily intuitive at times.
“Too bad the guy who brought you to me doesn’t have some of your skills,” she said out loud.
It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and start making plans for the rest of her life. If Doc felt as if he had the situation under control, she might see about setting up a practice in Dallas the way Rick had suggested when she’d returned.
She paused, one window shy of finishing her task, letting the sponge fall into the dirty water in the bucket.
“What do you think, Apache? Would you like to go live in Dallas?”
The dog didn’t bark. Instead, cocking his head he just looked at her, his eyes mirroring the deadness in her soul.
The dog definitely had more on the ball than Joe did. She sank her hands into the bucket again, squeezing the sponge, ready to keep going until the house sparkled and she dropped from exhaustion. Hopefully the two wouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
* * *
“YOU’RE WHAT?” LARRY echoed, looking at Joe as if the latter had just lost his mind.
Joe took a breath. After the way things had ended last night, he knew he couldn’t remain in Forever. The town was too small for him not to keep running into Mona. Seeing her and not being with her would just be too painful for him. He had to leave. As soon as possible.
He’d decided to break the news to Larry first in preparation for telling Rick. So far, this wasn’t the reception he’d anticipated.
“I’m thinking of trying my luck someplace else,” he repeated in the same monotone voice he’d used to tell Larry in the first place. Anything else and he was afraid he’d give his feelings away.
“Like as in leaving Forever?” Larry asked incredulously.
“Like as in leaving Forever,” Joe confirmed with a quick nod of his head.
Larry frowned and shook his head. “You and Mona had a fight, didn’t you?”
A Baby on the Ranch: A Baby on the RanchRamona and the Renegade Page 30