Open Country

by Warner, Kaki

  Anguish churned in her belly. She wanted to explain, to tell him how in a moment of desperation she had made a terrible decision, and then had compounded it with silence because . . .

  She bent over, teeth clenched, as realization burned through her.

  Because she was so afraid. So weak. So loath to return to the lonely sterility of her life.

  Tears burned hot on her cold cheeks.

  Selfish, selfish fool.

  ONCE HE WAS SURE THE BOY WAS SLEEPING, HANK LEFT

  Charlie’s room and stepped into the hall. For a moment he stood listening, but all was quiet and dark except for the soft light coming from Molly’s room. Resolved, he crossed toward it.

  The room was empty, lit by coals from the dying fire and a single candle burning on her night table. Stepping into the room, he closed the door quietly behind him and went to stoke the fire. He had something to ask his wife and he wanted enough light to see her face when she answered.

  After stirring the embers, he added kindling until it caught, then more logs. By the time it was crackling, Molly returned. He didn’t see her come in, but he felt her watching from the doorway into the dressing room, her gaze like a warm hand sliding over his back. Adding more logs to a fire already blazing, he waited for her to speak.

  “How is he?” she finally asked, moving to one of the chairs flanking the hearth.

  Hank looked over at her, saw the puffiness of her eyes, and knew she’d been crying. He wondered why. He wondered what she would do if he walked over and put his arms around her and kissed the haunted look from her eyes. He wondered what her skin felt like beneath that silky robe.

  “Asleep,” he said and turned back to the fire.

  Unfolding the throw laid across the back of the chair, she sat and draped it over her hips and legs. “Thank you for helping him.”

  “He’s my responsibility, too, Molly.” As he said it, he shot her a glance, but she didn’t meet his gaze. He thought she might be hurt because Charlie had turned to him after his nightmare, rather than her. Most likely she was upset that he hadn’t told her about the hunt and probably thought that was the reason behind the nightmare. He decided to put that to rest first.

  “I guess I should have asked you before I took him hunting.”

  “Yes. You should have.”

  He studied her, trying to gauge the level of her anger, but she was looking down at a pleat she was working on in the blanket on her lap. He decided to wait for her to speak first.

  It didn’t take long. “You know how fearful he is,” she said. “I’m not sure I want him playing with guns at such a young age.”

  Definitely mad. Which sparked his own anger. “We don’t play with guns, Molly. We hunt.”

  “Charlie’s too young—”

  “Charlie didn’t hunt and he never touched a gun,” he cut in. “He wasn’t even there for the shoot or when the other men dressed out their kills.”

  She looked so surprised, it felt like an insult. “Did you think I’d bring harm to the boy, Molly? Have you so little faith in me?”

  He watched a flush move up her neck and across her high cheekbones. Her eyes were great wounded pools that shimmered in the firelight.

  “I worry,” she said.

  “Don’t.” Regretting that he’d snapped at her, he jabbed at the fire with the poker. How could he have forgotten this woman? How could he feel about her the way he did now, and not have a single memory of her from before the derailment?

  Unless there were no memories.

  The thought came from nowhere—so sudden and shocking he mentally recoiled from it, unwilling to examine it too closely or acknowledge that there could be any truth in it. But like a scrap of tune that wouldn’t let go, it kept circling in his mind until finally he had no choice but to face it.

  If there were no memories, then it was all a lie and everyone around him was in on it . . . even his brother. But why would they do such a thing? To what end?

  There was no logical reason for it.

  It made no sense.

  Still, the doubts ate at him, leaving a dark emptiness where trust used to be.

  The fire popped and hissed, sounding loud and intrusive in the quietness of the room. Somewhere out in the valley a coyote yodeled.

  Staring into the dancing flames, he tried to calm his turbulent thoughts. Brady would never lie to him. The one unshakable truth in Hank’s life was his faith in his brother. Since the day Brady finally told him the truth about Sam’s death, Hank had never doubted him.

  And he wouldn’t start now.

  Rising gingerly so he wouldn’t jar his ribs, he moved to sit in the chair across from Molly’s. He studied her. In the firelight she looked tired and sad and defeated. He focused on that, rather than the doubts, and posed the question he had come to ask. “What aren’t you telling me, Molly?”

  She wouldn’t look at him, but stared down at her clenched fists instead. He watched them loosen, the fingers straightening one by one, as if each movement was forced rather than a slow release of tension. When they lay stick-straight on her thighs, she still hadn’t spoken.

  “Why is Charlie so troubled?” he persisted.

  Her head flew up. “Charlie?” She shot him a quick glance before her gaze shifted to the fire. But in that single instant when their eyes had met, he had seen profound relief. Why? Again, that feeling that she was hiding something.

  He waited, having learned that Molly, like most people and especially his brother, found his silences intolerable and, when confronted with one, felt compelled to fill it with words. This time was no different.

  “After the children’s father died,” she began in a faltering voice, “my sister remarried. It turned out he wasn’t a very nice man. Nellie learned to distrust him, and the children grew to fear him. Before Sister died, she made me promise to keep Penny and Charlie safe and take them someplace far from his reach.”

  Hank remembered Penny saying “steppapas hurt.” Now he guessed why, and he didn’t like it. “Did he hurt them?”

  “I think he hit them, but I’m not sure. Nellie said he was ‘up to something bad,’ was the way she put it. Something about a new war. She didn’t explain what she meant and was too ill to question, so I didn’t press it. That night, I took the children and left Savannah. That was six weeks ago.”

  Savannah? Savannah was thousands of miles away. Yet they’d been back at the ranch for almost two weeks, and the week before that, he’d been in the infirmary in El Paso. Could that be right? He counted again. He and Molly had gotten married within days of meeting each other? That made no sense either, but he put it aside to puzzle through later. “Where were you headed?”

  “There’s a doctor in California—a colleague of my father’s—I thought maybe I could work in his clinic.”

  “Then you met me.” In Sierra Blanca. Thousands of miles from Savannah. Only days before the derailment.

  Her fists clenched again. “Yes.”

  The questions were piling up fast, but for now, Hank concentrated on the children. “Is their stepfather trying to find them?”

  “Charlie believes he is. If not him, then someone he sent. Penny told me she thought someone was following us, but she has a rather vivid imagination sometimes.” She looked up, her face showing confusion. “My sister said Daniel lost some papers. He thought the children had them, but when I questioned them, they seemed to know nothing about it. So I don’t know why he would come after us.”

  A memory skirted Hank’s mind . . . something Penny had said when he was sick. But the thought faded before he could grasp it. “Did I know him?”

  “Fletcher?” The question seemed to rattle her. “No. You never met.”

  Daniel Fletcher. Hank reminded himself to remember that name.

  “You tell Charlie he’s safe here,” he said. “You’re all safe here.”

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  He thought of something Charlie had said a few minutes ago when Molly had le
ft to check on Penny. “The hunt today didn’t set off his nightmare, Molly. After you left, he asked about Penny again, then you. Even me.”

  She watched him, her almost-green eyes reflecting back the firelight.

  “He seems worried that something will happen to us,” he went on.

  “That he’ll lose us like he’s lost the other people in his life. I think he feels powerless to save us, and that’s what makes him so afraid and angry.”

  “Save us from what?”

  He shrugged. “His stepfather? Who’s Mappa?”

  She seemed to draw into herself. Her gaze dropped to the hands clasped in her lap. “His grandfather. My father. His name was Matthew, but when Charlie first learned to speak, it came out ‘Mappa’ instead.”

  Hank watched her hands clench again and knew she was upset. He was learning to read the signs. “He’s dead?”

  “Three months ago.”

  “How?”

  “Supposedly he shot himself.”

  “Supposedly?”

  When she looked up, he saw anguish in her eyes, and beneath it, a smoldering anger. “Papa would never take his own life. He was too . . .” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “Focused,” she finally said. “Medicine was everything to him. His work was too important to him to leave behind.”

  His work? Not the daughter who apparently gave up everything to stay by his side? A log collapsed in the fire. Idly Hank watched sparks rise in a swirling dance and thought of his wife’s sadness and Charlie’s fear and Penny’s need for attention. Families were so complicated.

  “What did he say about Mappa?” Molly asked.

  Hank looked up to meet his wife’s troubled gaze. She had pretty eyes. Mysterious. They made him think if he just looked into them hard and long enough, he would know all her secrets. “He thinks the monster got him. And we’ll be next.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “But we can fix that,” he added quickly. “We just have to build up his confidence. Show him how to protect himself so he won’t feel so powerless.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  “Oh, I’ll think of something.” No use getting her upset again. She had a tendency to overprotect the boy. He waited to see if she would argue. Molly wasn’t one to be easily led or condescended to. He admired that. And even though he wished she would allow herself to rely on him more, he understood why she didn’t. Her father, for whatever misguided reason, had done a good job of teaching her to depend on no one other than herself. But she’d come around. Already she trusted him enough to come at him head-on, not cowed in the least by his size, or manner, or probing silences. She wasn’t afraid to question him and demand her answers. And she was smart. She wouldn’t be as easy to play as Brady, and he admired that most of all. But he still expected to win most of the time.

  “Before you do anything you think I won’t approve of, talk to me,” she said.

  Only a fool would agree to that one, and he didn’t consider himself a fool. “If you think that’s best.” He showed his teeth in a sincere smile.

  “I want your promise, Hank. Say it.”

  He sighed. “I promise.” Maybe too smart. “Now you do something for me.”

  She watched him, waiting.

  “Take down your hair.”

  Her eyes widened. The tips of her ears turned red. But she was too wise to pretend she didn’t remember his words the last time he had been in this room.

  Hesitantly she lifted her arms and tugged loose the ribbon tied around the end of her braid.

  He watched, hands gripping the arms of the chair, amazed that such a simple movement could be so . . . inspiring. Then her fingers combed through the loosened mass, drawing the shiny waves forward over her shoulder until the ends curled over her breast like a cupping hand. And his mouth went dry.

  His gaze traveled up to meet hers. A shock of awareness shot through him when he realized that while he had been watching her, she had just as intently been watching him. And reacting, judging by that flush on her cheeks. The idea of that made his heart thunder in his chest.

  He forced himself to stand while he still could. As he looked down into those almost- green eyes, he realized this woman had taken ahold of him in a way he’d never expected and in a way no other woman ever had. And he knew with certainty that whatever had passed between them before he lost his memory of her couldn’t have been any stronger than what he was feeling now.

  If it was all a lie, he didn’t want to know.

  Not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  Bending, he slipped his hand beneath her forceful chin and tipped up her head. He kissed her. She didn’t move, so he did it again. “I don’t know what to do with you, wife,” he murmured. Then still holding her chin, he put his mouth next to her ear and whispered, “But maybe next time, you’ll take off the robe and we’ll find out.”

  He heard her sharp intake of breath. Felt the flutter of her pulse against the fingertips still holding her jaw. Felt it all the way down into his chest.

  Letting his hand fall away, he straightened. “Apples.”

  A moment of confusion, then that slow, sweet smile. “No.”

  “Blackberries.”

  “Close.”

  “Thank God. I’m getting tired of waiting.” And turning, he made himself walk from the room.

  THANKSGIVING WAS A JOYOUS FEAST—NO BEAR MEAT, BUT plenty of elk and grouse and even a turkey, along with an assortment of English puddings and pastries, Iantha’s “down-home vittles,” and a few Mexican dishes contributed by Consuelo. Molly had never eaten so much.

  But she almost cast it all back up when well-meaning Jessica asked how she and Hank fell in love.

  “Yeah, Molly,” Brady seconded in a challenging tone once Molly had stopped coughing. “Tell us all about how my little brother proposed.”

  Still clutching her napkin to her mouth, Molly snuck a glance at Hank, hoping he would step in and tell his brother it was none of his business. He didn’t. And in fact, he wore as curious an expression as all the other faces staring and waiting patiently for all the sordid details.

  “Yes, well.” She coughed again, mostly for effect, but also in a frantic attempt to buy time to formulate an answer. And then, happily, somewhere during the time it took to carefully fold her linen and place it neatly beside her plate, inspiration arrived—and with it came all the half-imagined daydreams that had seen her through endless bloody days and countless lonely nights.

  Her perversity was beyond belief.

  Nonetheless, she graced her audience with a dramatic sigh. “It was quite romantic, really. Most definitely love at first sight. I—we, that is,” she added with a smile at her rather confused-looking niece and nephew, “were standing on the train platform when I looked up and there he was.”

  “But Aunt Molly—” Penny began.

  “Not with your mouth full, dear,” she cut in quickly before continuing. “He was so tall and handsome—”

  “You were able to tell that through all the hair?” Brady cut in.

  “Hush, Brady,” Jessica admonished. “Let’s hear her tell her story.”

  Oh yes, let’s. Molly took a deep breath, let it out, then forged into fantasy.

  “Later that evening, I saw him again,” she went on, the story unfolding in her head. “The children were in bed. I was too restless to sleep, so I went downstairs to get a pitcher of water. It was so hot. The air felt thick as molasses. I longed for cool water to rinse the dust and heat from my body . . .”

  Her thoughts drifted. She could almost feel the perspiration beading on her neck, trickling slowly down between her breasts. Then she realized that was her hand, and the tips of her fingers were sliding down past the loosened buttons at the collar of her dress. Shocked, she pulled her hand away, but noticed that both Brady’s and Hank’s gazes remained fixed on shadowed cleavage where it had been.

  “But the dining room was closed,” she went on in a voice that sounded breathless in he
r own ear. “So I went outside onto the boardwalk, desperate for a breath of fresh air. It was so hot and sticky, I could scarcely breathe. I felt like ripping off my clothes and sinking into the water trough in front of the hotel . . . anything to cool my overheated body. But of course, I couldn’t. Instead, I stood there, the darkness wrapping around me like a lover, the night so still it seemed a thousand crickets were singing just for me.”

  She paused and looked around at the rapt faces—Jessica, smiling dreamily, Brady’s blue eyes round in his slack face, and Hank . . . dear Hank . . . he looked almost flushed. Locking her gaze on his, she smiled lazily and dropped her voice almost to a whisper.

  “I didn’t see him at first, sitting so quietly in the shadows . . . watching. But I knew he was there. I could feel him”—her hand started wandering again—“feel his eyes move over my body as surely as if he’d reached out and brushed his hand over my—”

  “Well, all right then,” Brady said, abruptly rising from his chair.

  “How about we all go into the main room for cookies and cakes? Jessica, can I see you upstairs for a minute?”

  “But I want to hear the rest of the story,” she argued as he pulled back her chair.

  “No you don’t. We’ll be back in a minute,” he called, ushering her from the room.

  As the children stampeded into the main room for dessert, and Dougal trotted after Consuelo into the kitchen, Molly sat back in her chair, feeling a bit unsettled and oddly short of breath. And when had the room become so stifling? she wondered, fanning her face with her hand.

  “Over what?”

  Pretending to be startled, as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone, she glanced at the other end of the table, where Hank slouched in the chair watching her, his good arm hooked over the high back. That intense look was back in his warm, chocolate eyes. His masculine energy seemed to crackle in the air like fire.

  She resisted the urge to fan harder.

  “You said it felt like I’d brushed my hand over your . . . what?”

  She saw the laughter in his eyes and realized he was teasing her. It made her feel wicked and daring and braver than she was. Rising slowly from her chair, she sauntered toward him. “Strawberries,” she said, drawing out the word on a sigh. “Ripe, luscious, pink strawberries, so deliciously sweet on the tongue.”