"I can't leave now."
He didn't touch her, didn't even move closer, but she felt his caress. "Later?"
"I can't. I have to stay until Silas and Jim leave."
"Ah, Jim." Hank took a sip of punch. "I met him."
"I'm sure Mamma saw to that."
They walked toward a bench near the windmill. Kate sat down on the hard boards, and Hank eased himself down beside her.
"No, as a matter of fact, I introduced myself."
Kate could think of no reply to that. Staring up at the windmill, she asked, "Can you grease that contraption? It squeaks and keeps me awake at night."
"He's not what I expected." Hank admitted, on a sigh.
She was not going to discuss her ex husband with her...Her mind faltered, unwilling to label her relationship with Hank.
"He can't keep his eyes off you, Kate."
"Are you going to oil that windmill?" Kate put her empty punch glass on the ground beneath the bench.
"I'd have to climb up on the platform." Hank lifted his head, and scanned the turning blades. "Did Jim ask you to come back to Dallas with him?"
"My Lord, You're worse than Mamma. That's none of your business." Kate glanced toward the group of people clustered under the trees, to see if anyone was looking their way. "Why would you have to climb to the platform?"
"I think it is some of my business. You signed a five-year contract with me. I don't want you running back to Dallas and leaving me in the lurch." He put his arm along the back of the bench. "The gear box is up there."
"Up where?" Kate could feel her body respond to his nearness.
"Up there on the platform of the windmill." Hank waved an exasperated hand toward the steel tower. "What the hell have we been talking about?"
Indignation stiffened her backbone. "You were prying into my personal life, that's what we were talking about."
"I am looking after my business interests. I don't give a damn about your personal life." The absence of anger in his reply stung far more than the words he spoke.
"You can put your mind to rest. Jim didn't ask me to come back to him." Kate stood, and began to walk toward the trees.
Hank fell in step with her. "Damn it all, you are one touchy female. What have I done now?"
She refused to look his way. "Nothing."
He caught her arm. "Then what the hell is wrong?"
Automatically, Kate admonished, "Don't swear." She stared down at his hand on her arm. "Will you let me go?"
He loosened his grip. "Don't forget you have a ride to make tomorrow." He hurried toward the bench where Aunt Cat sat talking to Belle and Silas.
She was becoming far too involved with Hank Sinclair. Her rebellious body already desired him with a craving that bordered on addiction, and in a moment of treacherous truth, she admitted to herself, that she could, so easily, fall in love with him. And all he was concerned about was his business investment.
As Jim hurried toward her, other emotions assailed her. She would never consider going back to Jim. Then why did she feel rejected because he hadn't asked her to return? She was like a child who didn't want to go to a party, then pouted because she didn't get an invitation.
"Kate?" Jim's voice was solicitous. "Are you crying?"
"I'm the mother of the bride. That's my privilege."
His look said he didn't believe her. "I thought perhaps Mr. Sinclair said something to offend you."
"We were discussing the windmill. It needs to be oiled."
"I see." Jim fell in step beside her. "From what I was observing the conversation seemed to be of a more personal nature."
"Hank has to climb up to the top of the windmill to oil it. He's not happy about that." Kate set her course for Mamma, thinking Jim would stop short of that destination.
She was right. Jim paused as he neared Cody. "Cody is going to show me his pigs. Would you like to come along, Kate?"
Kate wouldn't, and she said so.
Somehow Kate managed to get through the remainder of the day without snapping at Silas, or finding herself alone with Jim. By nightfall she was a basket case. Thank God Silas and Jim would be going back to Dallas early in the morning, Silas in his luxurious RV, and Jim driving Suzie's little sports car.
Kate had thought that after such a long, arduous day, she would not be able to sleep. She was wrong, she slept like a baby all through the night.
But not until the next morning, after the RV had rumbled through the gate, and the back lights of Suzie's car had disappeared down the road, did Kate draw a deep, easy breath. "Gone at last," She told Belle, who stood beside her on the porch, watching the disappearing vehicles.
"And without Jim saying a word about you coming to live in Dallas?" A frown puckered Belle's forehead. "I would have sworn..."
"Don't swear, Mamma." The knot of uneasiness she had lived with for the last three days was slowly untying, leaving Kate feeling empty and strangely deflated. "Jim doesn't want me in Dallas. That was a ploy he used to get back into his children's good graces."
Belle's frown deteriorated to a scowl. "Kate, sometimes you are just plain stupid."
"Mamma, honestly!"
"Not stupid as in dumb but stupid as in dense."
"There's a difference?" Kate questioned.
"You can't see the forest for the trees." Belle held the screen door open.
Kate was not up to a conversation with Mamma, not on the heels of her long weekend. "I'm going to the barn and saddle Ringo. The last thing I need is Hank on my case because I didn't make my ride and my report." She bounded down the steps.
"And you want some time alone," Belle called after her, as Kate trotted down the trail toward the barn.
Kate was winded by the time she reached the barn. She leaned against the tack room door, and pulled air into her aching lungs.
She was coming from the tack room, carrying Ringo's saddle when a voice called to her. "Kate?"
Dropping the saddle over the top rail of Ringo's stall, Kate turned, knowing even as she pivoted on the heel of her boot, that it was Jim who had spoken her name. The tone and timbre of that one word brought back a host of nostalgic memories. "I thought you were gone." The gaunt features of the man standing in the entrance way told her that his coming here in this manner was the act of desperation.
"I was. I came back." Holding up both hands, he pleaded, "Don't run away, Kate" His voice cracked, then revived. "I have to talk to you."
She wondered where he thought she would go. He was standing between her and the door. "About what?"
"Can we sit down?" He began to sidestep toward the bales of hay that were stacked in the corner. "There?"
"There is nothing left to say." Kate didn't move. "I have work to do."
Jim eased down onto a bale of hay. "Please, Kate, just a few minutes. I can't leave without saying this. I thought I could, but I find I can't."
"Without saying what?" She took a step toward him. "I'm rather pressed for time."
"Don't look so distraught. I am not going to hurt you again, ever." He pulled a straw from the hay and stuck it in his mouth. "Can we talk?"
"Is it about the children?" He could still hurt her if he did something to hurt Suzie or Michael. Given his present disturbed frame of mind, she thought he might be capable of doing just that.
"It's not about the children." Moisture glistened in the corners of his eyes. "It's about us -- you and me."
In that defiant, challenging moment, Kate realized that fate was a remorseless avenger, turning tables and twisting destinies with reckless abandon. "You and I belong to yesterday. We are a part of the dead past, Jim."
"Do you want me to beg?" His brows drew together in an agonized expression. "I will."
It seemed absurd that he should be reduced to begging. "Of course not." She perched on a hay bale across from him, thinking as she did so, that he had changed. The old Jim would never have humbled himself enough to beg for anything.
"Please don't be angry with me, Kate." His
voice was low and pleading.
"I'm not angry, I'm surprised. I didn't expect to see you again."
Jim swallowed, painfully. "I was going to wait, bide my time, try to show you how sorry I am for the way I have treated you. Then I saw you with that muscle bound cowboy, and I knew I didn't dare."
A smothering pain constricted Kate's chest. "You mean Hank?"
He stretched his lips into a sad, resigned mockery of a smile. "How many muscle bound cowboys do you know? Is it already too late, Kate? "
She was tempted to spare him. "Jim..." The lie died in her throat. "Yes."
Lifting his head, he stared at the barn rafters. "Are you in love with him?"
"I don't know." A faint smile touched her lips. "Maybe."
"The way he touched you, so possessively." His voice cracked. "You've let him make love to you, haven't you?"
She was set to tell that what she did was not his concern. Raising her eyes to his stricken face, she saw pain so profound that she dropped her head and stared at the toe of her boot that was kicking at the loose hay on the floor. "Does it matter?"
"That depends on how far it's gone. I could forgive you anything, Kate, if I could have you back with me."
He could forgive her? She wanted to laugh, and to cry. From the depths of her own anguish, she mumbled, "Even my inadequacies in bed?"
His head snapped back as if she had struck him. "I will go to my grave regretting those words, Kate."
"Regret is all we have left, Jim," That careless taunt had almost destroyed her. "and it's not enough."
He stood, and pushed shaky hands into his pockets. "I didn't mean all those cruel things I said, Kate, you must know that."
"It doesn't matter anymore." Rising, she turned toward Ringo's stall. "Good-bye Jim."
"I can't say goodbye this way." The anguish in his voice tore at her heart. "Please, Kate hear me out."
She faced him, and thought she had never seen him so shaken. For some reason she couldn't fathom, his meekness aroused a deep sense of pity. "There is nothing left to say."
He slumped back down onto the hay. "I've changed, Kate."
"People don't change basically, Jim. They resolve, then keep on resolving, again and again, but they go on being the same person they started out to be."
"If you will give me another chance, things will be different. I know now that I have only begun to measure the magnitude of what I've lost."
"I can't go back to my old life, Jim. My place is here now." The tears in her eyes blurred her vision. She blinked. "You must accept that."
"Kate, dear Kate." He made no attempt to hide his tears. "I won't give up. I can't. I'm still in love with you. I know you must find that difficult to believe, but it's true. May I come back to visit you again?"
The lump in her throat had reached gigantic proportions. "No. I'm sorry, but no."
"I want to make amends. I want to begin again. Please, Kate..." His voice trailed away on the end of a muffled sob. "I have been a complete fool."
She knew what that admission must have cost him. That knowledge made her reply all the more agonizing. "It would never work. I don't love you, Jim, and I never could again." The pain of saying those words was almost physical.
"You did love me once, you could learn to again."
She had to make him understand. "I could never trust you again, Jim. Without trust there is no love."
One hand moved through his thinning hair. "One indiscretion in twenty-five years? And God how I've paid for that, how I'm still paying."
Kate refrained from telling him that for her, his affair with Lila was much more than an indiscretion, it had been a soul-shattering calamity. She wondered why his misery should cause her such distress. The vengeful words she could have spoken turned to ashes in her mouth. Softly she assured him. "It's going to be all right."
He blurted out, "Nothing will ever be all right again! You must know Lila meant nothing to me. I had a case of middle-age crazies." He struggled to bring his emotions under control. "I shouldn't even mention her name in your presence. I'm sorry."
Nothing short of bald honesty would suffice now. "Jim, you and I both know Lila didn't destroy our marriage. We did that all by ourselves."
Dropping his head, he stared at the dirt floor. "Put the blame where it belongs. I destroyed our marriage."
"No, Jim, we're both responsible. We can't go back, and our futures are in different directions. It's over, Jim. Try to accept that, and go on with your life."
"It will never be over for me, Kate. I will always be in love with you. Maybe someday, you'll change your mind."
Her answer at once elated and saddened her. "There is no someday for us, Jim, and no maybe for me. Any love I had for you died a long time ago."
Unashamedly he brushed tears from his eyes. "This is what I deserve, what I expected. But I had hoped..." After a pause, he found his voice. "If you won't come back and be my wife will you accept the money I offered you?"
Gently she told him. "I don't need your money, Jim."
"In all honesty, it's your money too. Take it. Use it to repair the house you live in. Put a bathroom inside. Get a telephone."
"No, Jim." As she shook her head in negation, her hand reached out to him. "All I want from you is your friendship."
"That's more than I deserve." Ignoring her hand, he pulled her into his arms. "You will always be a part of me, Kate. I will always hold your memory in my heart."
She didn't try to break the embrace. Standing in the circle of his arms, old memories, old sorrows swamped her. "Good-bye, Jim."
He held her from him. "Goodbye, my love. I hope you find happiness. You deserve it."
Through a distortion of tears she watched him disappear through the barn door, his shoulders slumped in dejection.
Falling down on the hay, she burst into an agony of tears. The sound of her own lament almost drowned out the roar of Suzie's powerful sports car as it pulled away.
After a few anguished moments, Kate sat up, and wiped her sleeve across her face, as she sought to separate and understand the many clashing emotions that banged around inside her.
She began to saddle Ringo. As she worked, completely absorbed in her task, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. After all this time, she had closed the book on her life with Jim. That bittersweet realization brought a deep sigh.
"It's over Ringo, after all this time, it's finally over." She patted the horse's neck. "Where do I go from here?" Lifting herself into the saddle, she gave Ringo a gentle kick in his flanks, and pointed him toward the line shack.
The morning breeze blew across her face and lifted her hair. Somewhere in the clump of mesquites and palo verdes, a mocking bird was tossing his lilting song skyward. The cacti were in bloom, flaunting their magnificent colors of pearly yellow and iridescent red. Against the backdrop of verdant green that spread out across the rolling countryside, each bloom shone like an opalescent jewel.
A feeling of euphoria bubbled up inside Kate. After all this time, she was free. It had been a long uphill battle, but now she knew her life belonged to Kate McClure, and no one else. It was a joyous, but brief, disclosure.
That momentary buoyancy of spirit was replaced by a seizure of despondency. She was also alone. That revelation left her feeling isolated and detached.
Michael and Suzie had their own families now, and she could expect to be only a small part of their lives. With a degree of bitterness, she wondered if loneliness was the price of freedom.
Kate had never been afraid of the future before. Now, quite suddenly, she was. She possessed all this magnificent liberty, and she had not the slightest idea what to do with it.
"I'll think of something," she told Ringo, "I will definitely think of something."
As she rode past the line shack, Kate stretched her neck hoping she might see Diablo tied in front. She was reluctant to admit her disappointment when he wasn't there.
The remainder of her ride was not nearly so enjoyable, but
she made her appointed rounds, then turned Ringo in the direction of Circle S.
As she neared the bunkhouse, she found herself hoping Hank would be there. He wasn't. Instead she found Jake leaning against the side of the long, low structure, spitting tobacco juice, and whittling on a stick.
"Hi, Jake." Kate waved a greeting. She wanted to ask where Hank was, but decided that she shouldn't.
"Hello, Kate, everything all right today?" Jake closed his knife by pressing it against his leg.
Kate slid from the saddle. "Everything looks good."
"Hank told me to wait for you here. He says you can make your ride twice a week now that calving season is over."
That news should have been cause for elation. It wasn't. "Are you sure?"
"That's what the boss man said." Jake spit a long stream of tobacco juice onto the dusty ground. "And the mood he's been in for the last little while, I sure ain't about to argue with him." Jake added under his breath, "About nothing."
Kate should have mounted Ringo and ridden away. Instead she asked, "How is Aunt Cat?"
"Sassy as ever." Jake inclined his head in the direction of the rambling ranch house. "Why don't you go up and set a spell? She'd be glad to see you."
Kate startled herself by replying, "I think I will."
She tied Ringo beside the watering trough, and walked the short distance to the house, not allowing herself to examine her motives for making this unscheduled call.
A bright smile spread across Aunt Cat's face when she opened the door to see Kate standing on the other side. "What a nice surprise. Come in, Kate. I was about to have a cup of tea. You can join me."
Kate followed Aunt Cat into the living room. "I made my ride early today. I had a little extra time, so I thought I'd visit for a while."
"I'm so glad you did." Aunt Cat motioned for Kate to sit down, then sank into the huge couch that seemed to swallow her up in its vastness. "How are Belle and Cody?"
"Recovering." Kate laughed. "We had quite a weekend."
"Oh, the wedding was lovely." Aunt Cat offered Kate a cup of tea. "Your daughter was such a radiant bride."
Kate tasted her tea. "Of course, I thought so."
Aunt Cat took a delicate sip from the dainty china cup that had been poised near her lips, then set it on the low table in front of her. "I do believe the old adage that says all brides are beautiful, is true. Don't you?"
Barri Bryan - Return to Paradise.html Page 27