“Fine,” he called, from the office, she thought.
OK, not the tone she’d hoped for, but at least he was talking to her today.
She grabbed her Burberry coat from the closet and wondered if she should take her warmest one, too. Fashion overruled practicality, and she pushed the closet door closed just in time to catch David’s hand.
“Do you mind?” he said.
She backed away, ignoring his snippy tone. She wasn’t going to let him ruin this for her. She checked her bag again for the boarding pass and license. She was being compulsive, but she couldn’t let anything go wrong with this flight. She went through the list of things she’d need over the coming week. Did she pack her tape recorders? Before she could panic, she remembered sliding them into her briefcase.
David stepped around her in his charcoal woolen coat, picked up her suitcase, and walked out the door. Paula turned on the threshold and looked at her home. Sweeper marks striped the beige carpet, parallel lines running across the expanse of the great room like yard lines on a football field. Her socks from yesterday lay in two distinct balls by the sofa.
She turned the lock on the doorknob and pulled the door shut behind her. David placed the suitcase in the back of the Cadillac Escalade and pushed his trendy glasses up on the bridge of his nose in a movement that was as familiar to her as the smell of her own home. So familiar that she rarely noticed it unless she was away for several days. She wouldn’t see David push his glasses up, smell his spicy cologne, or watch him squint over the Wall Street Journal for six days.
He opened the door for her, and she slipped inside before he clicked it shut. In spite of their problems, in spite of his relentless blaming and silent treatment, she didn’t want to part this way. Not now, when she was about to do the most exciting thing of her life. She wanted someone to share it with. Someone to be happy for her. Someone to cheer her on back home. Heaven knew her family wasn’t doing that.
David slid in behind the wheel and started the vehicle. His movements were sure and precise. Another man’s motions would betray his anger, but not David.
“Well,” she said, “at least you’ll be able to keep the house clean this week.” She delivered the line with just a hint of humor, planted there in hopes of coaxing him from his bitter mood. She turned her head just the tiniest bit so she could watch him from her peripheral vision. His face gave nothing away, and she wondered if she’d spoken the words aloud at all.
Paula turned forward and looked out her window. It was fine with her if David wanted to leave things this way. She could do this alone; she was a grown woman.
They headed up Snow King Avenue toward the Snow King Ski Resort. Already a few dedicated skiers were swooping down the slope on this lazy Sunday morning.
She looked at her watch again. Her parents would be getting up for church about now, her mom boiling a cup of water for that wretched cup of instant coffee. Hanna and Gram would be making breakfast for the guests of Higher Grounds Mountain Lodge while Micah shoveled the two inches of snow that had fallen overnight. Natalie would be scurrying to get breakfast ready for Taylor and Alex after an undoubtedly sleepless night with her adopted newborn baby, Grace. Paula’s stomach tightened at that thought.
She looked out the front windshield, up Cache Street, the road that would take her out of here. They were making good time. Most of the tourists probably stayed out too late to do anything more than loll about in bed.
As they crossed the line that demarked the edge of Jackson Hole, Paula almost expected the raucous blowing of party horns. She’d waited all her life to exit this miserable little hole in the middle of nowhere, and today was the beginning of that dream. But instead of party horns, there was only silence. She wished the radio were on so she didn’t feel as if she were about to choke on it. She struggled to think of something to say. She, whose words came easily and flawlessly.
“Your clothes should be ready at the cleaners by five tomorrow,” she said. It was lame, unnecessary even, since David knew very well when his clothes would be ready. At least she was trying.
But he sat beside her as cold as a mountain glacier. Couldn’t he at least grunt?
This is Paula Landin-Cohen reporting from inside an SUV, where a man is attempting to freeze his wife with the cold vapors emanating from his body. Join us at eleven, and we’ll give you all the details on this story.
They passed the elk refuge, but all Paula saw was acres of snow behind the fenced, rolling pastures. She looked at her watch again.
“You’ve got plenty of time,” David said.
She didn’t know whether to be thankful for his first voluntary words or peeved at his tone. She decided on the latter. He’d done nothing but snub her for months, and for what? She was innocent of cheating on him, and he was too stubborn to believe it.
“You know, we’re married, David. A little kindness wouldn’t hurt.”
His jaw twitched. “Married people don’t live across the country from each other.”
Like he cared. “It’s only temporary.”
The last word rang out in the car like an echo across Granite Canyon. At least they were talking. OK, arguing, but it was better than the silence.
“Not if you get your dream job.”
If words could wear a sneer, those two did. And it rankled her. Heat prickled her skin under the coat, and she felt like her temperature shot up ten degrees. “Why do you care anyway? You’ve walked around me for months, giving me your self-righteous silent treatment. Now I won’t be in the way. Not me or my soggy bath towel or my dirty dishes. You can live in your sterile house and keep it just the way you like it.”
He had no right to deny her this opportunity, nor to guilt her about leaving. He’d made decisions without her approval; why should she have to get the cold shoulder?
He turned the car into the airport, and she realized this was it. They were parting as enemies on the biggest week of her life. Why had she imagined calling him on Monday night from Chicago and sharing everything that had happened? She had no reason to call home. She would go back to her apartment after work tomorrow with nothing to greet her except silence.
David pulled the vehicle up to the building and popped the back open before exiting. Paula got out and stood on the curb, waiting as he lifted the suitcase out and set it at her feet. He straightened and looked her in the eye for the first time in weeks. Face-to-face, they stood closer than they had in weeks. Was he regretting his harsh tone?
Their breaths expelled in cold puffs of air and mingled together in a dance more intimate than anything they’d done together in a very long time. She had a sudden memory of their first kiss.
It had been their third date. She’d been teaching him to ski at Snow King, teaching him how to plow to control his speed, when the tips of his skis crossed and he went down. She plowed to a stop, laughing. They’d spent the whole day laughing. But when she saw he wasn’t moving, her laughter stopped.
“David?” She sidestepped up to him, kicked off her skis, and went down on her knees. That was when he reached for her and pulled her down on top of him. Bundled in so much clothing, he felt like a big cuddly teddy bear under her. His eyes sparkled with laughter.
“That was not nice,” she said.
“It worked, though.” His glasses were slightly cockeyed, and Paula felt a stirring in her stomach that felt right and wonderful. His grin melted away, and the look in his eyes should have melted the snow around them.
She went warm all over in spite of her bibs and coat. Their winter breath met and blended together. He cupped her face and pulled her toward him until their lips met.
“I’m sure you can get a porter to help you from here.”
The cold words yanked her from the memory.
“Or maybe you can charm some guy into carrying them for you.”
The words cut deeply. He was so wrong about her. So wrong about all of it. When would he believe her? What did she have to do to prove it wasn’t true? Somehow, he made
her feel guilty, like a little girl sitting in a principal’s office.
Yes, the words hurt, but she didn’t allow a trace of it to show on her face. Wouldn’t have mattered if she had, since David was walking away, walking toward his side of the car. Getting in. Driving away.
Paula picked up her suitcase and walked toward the airport’s door. And that’s a wrap.
Read more about the
Landin Family in
Mending Places,
the first book in
The New Heights Series
by Denise Hunter.
Available where good books are sold.
Hanna Landin’s past holds her captive, but Micah Gallagher, the rugged mountain guide she hires to help the family’s foundering mountain lodge, makes her wish she could move beyond it. Together Hanna and Micah face the past. But it’s more horrifying than either of them feared, and Hanna faces the ultimate challenge.
ISBN: 1-58229-358-9
THE NEW HEIGHTS SERIES
Mending Places • Saving Grace
OTHER BOOKS BY DENISE HUNTER
Kansas Brides • Stranger’s Bride Never a Bride • Bittersweet Bride • His Brother’s Bride
NOVELLAS
Reunions “Truth or Dare” • Aloha “Game of Love”
Blind Dates “The Perfect Match”
www.denisehunterbooks.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DENISE HUNTER is the award-winning author of eight novels and three novellas. A voracious reader, she began writing her first Christian romance novel in 1996, and it was published two years later. Her husband, Kevin, claims he provides all her romantic material, but Denise insists a good imagination helps, too. She and Kevin live in Indiana with their three sons, where they are very active in a new church start.
You can visit Denise’s Web site at www.denisehunterbooks.com.
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Saving Grace Page 29