Barri Bryan - Return to Paradise.html

by Return to Paradise (NCP) (lit)

  Unwelcome scenes flashed through Kate's mind, like clips from an old movie, frame by frame, they appeared: Hank holding her in his arms, caressing her body, sending her into a frenzy of ecstasy. Hank's body pressing down on hers, sated and still, his breath coming in gulping gasps, Hank holding her in his arms, telling her how wonderful she was, as the warm afterglow of love surrounded them. And all the while he had been making love to Gina too. That knowledge was almost too painful to bear. Putting her arm around York's waist, she said, "Isn't that thoughtful of York?"

  Hank's mouth pulled into a grim line. "I'll send someone over to grease that windmill." Taking Gina's arm, he hurried away without so much as a good-bye.

  Gina waved over her shoulder as she and Hank began to snake their way through the crowd.

  "What got into him?" York asked, relief mixing with surprise to give his voice a higher pitch.

  Kate shrugged. "Who knows?" She watched Hank until the top of his silver head was no longer visible, her heart feeling a little heavier with each retreating step he took. She wanted to run after him, take him in her arms, and hold him and love him forever. He wanted her when it was convenient, or when Gina wasn't available. The one thing she couldn't do was share Hank with another woman. Closing her eyes, she struggled to control her emotions.

  "My Dear, are you all right?" York's concern sounded in her ears.

  She might never be all right again. The deepest hurt sprang from the knowledge that Hank didn't even know he had hurt her. To him she had been no more than another available female.

  A scene from another time and another place, long laid to rest, resurrected itself, like some malicious apparition. Her own words came back to haunt her. "Please, Jim, don't send me away. I love you. I'll do anything, only please, please, let me stay." Even now those words caused her to pale and swallow again. Never again, never, ever again would she subject herself to that kind of humiliation.

  The evening changed after that, from being a bore to being an ordeal. It seemed to go on forever. Kate wanted to escape, to find a dark corner, and cry until there were no more tears to shed. Hank was here with Gina. He would take her home and then...Kate deliberately made her mind a blank. The remainder of the evening she was numb, moving talking, smiling, and feeling nothing but a dull ache around her heart.

  "Kate." Belle was shaking Kate's shoulder. "Will you wake up from your daydream? It's time to go. Cody and York are waiting for us."

  "Daydream?" She was in the throes of a nightmare.

  "Come on, Kate." Belle was urging Kate toward the door. "The meeting is over."

  Kate trailed along after her mother. "I'm coming, Mamma. I'm coming." She scanned the room, looking for some sign of Hank, and found none.

  Getting home, saying good night, promising to go out with York the next Sunday, finding her room, tumbling into bed, all were enacted in a haze of emotional paralysis.

  Once in bed, Kate found that the tears she had promised herself she would shed had dried into an arid dust of emptiness. "It's better this way," she whispered to herself. "If I don't feel, I can't hurt." She wondered if it was permissible for a cattle rancher to count sheep. Counting didn't help. Sleep was a long time finding her.

  Kate woke with a dull headache and a bad taste in her mouth. She dressed, wondering as she slipped into her jeans, if it was possible to have an emotional hangover, and decided after she had swallowed two Tylenol and a tall glass of water, that it was.

  Coming into the kitchen, Kate poured herself a cup of coffee, and sat down at the table.

  Belle and Cody were nowhere in sight, but Lady lay curled up near the door, telling Kate that Cody would return soon. "Good morning, Lady." Kate lifted her coffee cup in a salute.

  At the sound of her name, Lady's tail thumped the floor as she laid her ears back against her furry head.

  "What do you have to smile about?"

  Lady's answer was more tail wagging, and a wide yawn.

  "Don't talk back to me."

  "Lady giving you a bad time?" As Cody came through the back door, Lady bounded to meet him.

  "We were having a discussion."

  "Maybe you were giving Lady a bad time." Cody raised his voice to be heard over the running water as he washed his hands at the sink. "You want more coffee?"

  "Please." Kate pushed her cup toward the edge of the table.

  "Is your Mamma still in bed?" Cody filled Kate's cup.

  "Mamma is still in bed?" Astonishment sharpened Kate's inquiry. "What happened?"

  Cody poured a second cup with coffee, and carried it to the table. "Too much night life, I suppose." He pulled up a chair and sat across from Kate. "She was sleeping when I got up this morning."

  "I'm glad she's resting. Mamma's not as young as she used to be."

  A wry smile caused Cody's whiskers to twitch. "You'd better not let her hear you say that."

  Kate's cup halted in mid air. "Sometimes I forget Mamma is not invincible. She's a very remarkable woman."

  "Well, I know that. That's why I hung onto her once I found her."

  "Love at first sight? " Kate put her cup on the table.

  "It was, and don't laugh. It can happen to anybody. You fall," Cody snapped his fingers, causing Lady to raise her head and wag her tail. "just like that."

  "Not everybody, Cody. Some men are immune to love."

  "Just men, Kate?" Cody raised a bushy eyebrow. "What about women?"

  Kate thought for a minute before answering. "I don't know about women. I do know about men."

  "Are you talking about Jim?"

  "No, I think Jim loved me once." Jim had only recently declared his undying love. Kate decided not to think about that.

  "Are you still in love with him?" Cody watched Kate's face with guarded interest.

  Kate thought awhile before answering. "Not anymore."After more thought, she said, "Somewhere along the way, my love for Jim died a slow, agonizing death." A frown pulled lines in her forehead. "It's disconcerting to realize you can fall out of love."

  "And a little scary." Cody added.

  "That too."A quick sip of coffee eased the catch in Kate's throat.

  Cody reached to pat Lady's head. "I'm not your Daddy, Kate, but if you want to talk to me like I was, it's all right."

  The tears Kate had searched for last night sprang, unbidden, into her eyes. "I'm beginning to see why Mamma fell in love with you."

  "I'm the lucky one, Kate. Your mamma gives my life meaning." "I do need to talk, Cody. Maybe a man's perspective will help."

  Cody chuckled as he pulled at his beard. "I'm not promising a miracle, Kate, just a listening ear, and my best advice."

  "In strictest confidence?" Kate pushed her cup back, and rested her elbows on the table.

  "Sorry, Kate. I don't have any secrets from Belle, and I never intend to have."

  With a wave of her hand, Kate dismissed that statement. "Mamma doesn't count. Everybody else does."

  "Then shoot."

  Kate put her chin in her hands. "York wants to marry me. He hasn't said that yet, but those are his intentions."

  "He said as much to your mamma and me. He quite a catch, Kate."

  "I know. But I can't marry him." Kate had not admitted that, even to herself, before now.

  "Why don't you ask yourself why? Then give yourself an honest answer?"

  "I can ask. I'm not sure I know the answer." Kate dropped her hands to her lap.

  Cody's voice was low. "I think you do, Kate."

  "He'd bore me to death?" Kate joked to keep from voicing the painful truth.

  Cody laughed, "That's a fact." Then sobered suddenly. "But that's not the reason you won't marry him."

  "No. It's not. I can't marry York for the same reason I couldn't reconcile with Jim. I don't love him."

  "Well, we finally got to part of the truth."

  "What is wrong with me, Cody?" Kate ran both hands along the sides of her face. "I have two eligible men who want me, and I find I don't want either of them
."

  "I guess the important question now is why don't you want either of them."

  "I'm not in love with either of them. It's as simple as that."

  "No, it's not, Kate. You haven't lied to yourself, but you haven't told all the truth, either."

  "How do you know that?" His amazing ability to read her thoughts made Kate bristle.

  "I'm not blind, Kate, and I'm not senile." Cody moved his thumb and forefinger along his mustache. "It's Hank, isn't it?"

  Kate's defenses crumbled. "Is it that obvious?"

  "Like your mamma says, Kate, you have a transparent face."

  "Do you think he knows?" Reaching across the table, Kate grasp Cody's hand. "I don't want him to know, not ever!"

  "Don't get upset, Kate. I won't tell him. I promised, remember?"

  Kate let out a long breath. "Thank you, Cody."

  "Why don't you want him to know, Kate?"'

  "Because it would embarrass him." Kate closed her eyes against the pain. "He doesn't feel the same way about me. He's involved with another woman."

  "That doesn't sound like the Hank I know." Cody's voice took on strident tones. "Did he tell you this?"

  Painfully, Kate whispered, "Yes, he did."

  "Maybe you misunderstood."

  Kate's pain mixed with a resigned sadness. "He told me he was involved with Gina the day we went to draw up the partnership papers, and I don't see any sign that says that has changed over the past few months. He was with her last night."

  "That may not mean a thing." Cody offered, hopefully.

  "Don't defend him, Cody. we both know it does." Little bursts of agony shot through Kate as she whispered. "He went from her arms to mine, then back to hers again. I've lived through that kind of hell before, but never will I subject myself to it again." She clamped down on her bottom lip. "With me it has to be all or nothing."

  "So what will you do?"

  "Nothing. Do nothing, say nothing, expect nothing. It's better that way."

  Cody's silver eyes glistened. "If I can do something, you will tell me, won't you?"

  "Thank you, Cody, but there is nothing that can be done."

  "What are you two gossiping about?" Belle stood in the doorway, tying an apron around her skinny middle. "Lord, why didn't somebody wake me up?"

  "Coffee's on the stove." Cody waved his hand in that direction.

  "Nobody made breakfast, I see." Belle moved across the floor in quick strides. "Do you still want biscuits?"

  "That's what I'm waiting for. Now that my wife has decided to get out of bed. I just about have time to feed the animals before my biscuits are ready."

  Cody crossed the room and put his arms around Belle. "Do I get a good morning kiss?"

  Standing on tiptoe, Belle let her lips brush across one side of his whiskered face.

  "That's a kiss?" Cody pulled Belle to him he kissed her soundly. Raising his head, he chuckled, "That's a kiss."

  With Lady following at his heels, Cody stepped through the back door, leaving Belle staring after him, and smiling.

  As she surveyed Kate's dejected figure, Belle's smile to changed to a frown. "You look awful."

  "Mamma, honestly!"

  "Bad night, Kate?" Belle took a bowl from the cabinet.

  "I slept well, Mamma." Kate lied through her teeth.

  "That's good to know." Belle dumped flour into the bowl. "Knowing you slept well will make my day."

  Kate changed the subject. "Don't you ever measure anything Mamma? How do you know how much of anything you have in anything if you don't measure anything?"

  "I measure everything," Belle insisted. "I take a pinch of salt and a daub of baking powder." She threw the named ingredients into the bowl. "Now I need a glob of shortening." She cut a knife through the can of shortening beside her, then used her fingers to dump the greasy mass atop the other ingredients. "You don't have to have a cup or a spoon to measure."

  "Mamma, what kind of logic is that?" Kate was taking her frustrations out on her mother, even though she knew she shouldn't. "Spoons and cups are instruments to assure accuracy." Making a wry face, Kate asserted, "A handful of this and pinch of that is not measuring, it's guessing."

  "Lord, you did have a bad night." Belle began to knead the biscuit dough with one hand, as she slowly added milk with the other. "So what are you going to do now?"

  "About what?" Immediately, Kate's defenses went up.

  "Turn the oven on, Kate." Belle raked dough from her fingers. "About Hank."

  Kate rose to do her mother's biding. "Mamma, don't start." She adjusted the thermostat. "How many degrees?

  "Around four hundred. Are you going to let him get away?"

  "Mamma, can you give me an exact temperature? What is this 'around four

  hundred' ?" Kate stood and glared at her mother. "Do you want me to lasso and hog-tie him, Mamma?"

  Pinching dough off in little balls, Belle patted each ball into a round biscuit, and crowded it into a pan. "You could fight for him, instead of giving up before you even try."

  Kate sat back down at the table and slumped in her chair. "I tried fighting for a man once, Mamma, and failed, miserably."

  "You can have Jim back, if you want him. That doesn't sound like you failed."

  "Damn it, Mamma, I don't want Jim back. And Jim wanting me back doesn't mean I didn't fail. I couldn't keep my own husband."

  Belle pushed the pan of biscuits into the oven, then wiped her hands on her apron. "Now you know all the mistakes not to make. And don't swear, it's not lady-like."

  "Mamma," Exasperation caused Kate to raise both hands, then let them fall into her lap. "Don't start. I'm not up to this."

  "You could marry York." Belle put her hand over her mouth to stifle a little snicker. "He's told Cody and me how he plans to 'woo and win' you."

  "That's nothing to joke about Mamma. Marriage is serious business."

  "Would I joke about you and York?" Belle's eyes rounded in an innocent stare. "No, never. Are you thinking about taking that declaration seriously."

  Wearily, Kate replied, "I am not going to marry York Taylor. Can we drop the subject?"

  "Good idea," Belle agreed, too readily. "Let's forget about York and concentrate on how you can make Hank forget that two-bit floozie who was hanging onto him last night."

  "Mamma, stop it. I know what you're trying to do, and it won't work."

  "I'm trying to help my only daughter."

  "You're trying to make me fighting mad. You think then I'll try to compete with Gina for Hank's fleeting affection."

  "Gina doesn't have anything you don't have, Kate." Belle's illogical logic took over. "Except cleavage and experience. And either of those in excess is too much."

  "Yes, she does. She has youth." Kate shivered at the pain of remembering. "I can't do it, Mamma. I have some pride."

  "That's all you're ever going to have if you don't wake up and learn that maturity can be an advantage, not a handicap."

  "Mamma," Kate spat the words out in distinct little syllables, "butt out."

  Belle had no intention of doing any such thing. "Let's talk strategy. Hank was not happy about seeing you with York last night. That's a good start, Kate."

  "Mamma." Arguing was useless, but habit was strong. "Hank was there with Gina. How can you..." A thin thread of suspicion wove it's way into Kate's brain. "Mamma, is that why you were so nice to York, why you agreed to go out with him? Did you go to all that trouble, endure that miserable evening because you entertained some slim hope that Hank would see me with York and be jealous?"

  "And he did, and he was," Belle announced, smugly.

  "No, Mamma, he wasn't. Not of me, anyway. Hank and York are arch rivals. They have been since high school days. Hank doesn't like the idea of York spending time with his employee."

  "Phooey," Belle sniffed the air. "My biscuits are done." She hurried toward the oven. "Get some butter out of the refrigerator." Belle set the pan of hot biscuits on the top of the stove. "And get tha
t jar of strawberry jelly."

  "I don't have a prayer with Hank. Neither does any other woman, for any length of time. He's a maverick, Mamma." Kate rummaged around in the refrigerator until she found the jelly.

  From the back door, Cody called, as Lady bounded into the kitchen, "Belle, Hank's out here. I asked him to come in, but he says he doesn't have time. Why don't you bring him a cup of coffee?"

  Kate wanted to crawl into the refrigerator and hide. Instead she straightened and found the butter, then balanced it in one hand and jelly in the other.

  "I'm busy. Kate can bring it." Belle set an iron skillet on the front burner of the stove. "What is Hank doing that's so important?"

  "He's here to grease the windmill. He says Kate keeps complaining about how it squeaks."

  Kate pushed the refrigerator door shut with her backside. "I did not complain. I just commented on how that contraption sounds."

  Belle and Cody exchanged silent, knowing glances.

  "I did not complain," Kate insisted again, "I didn't."

  Cody closed the screen. "Those biscuits do smell good."

  "Sit down." Belle was carrying the biscuits to the table. "Let me get you some coffee, then I'll make some eggs."

  Kate set the butter and jelly down on the table. "I did not complain."

  "Those biscuits look good, too." Cody began to split biscuits open and put butter inside. "After breakfast we can go see the new litter of pigs that were born last night. They are cute little things."

  Belle broke eggs into a bowl. "That's a good idea. I have to see to my chickens anyway."

  They were ignoring Kate. "Doesn't anybody believe me?"

  "Is the wind blowing outside?" a crooked little smile tugged at Cody's mouth as he shoved half a biscuit into it.

  Belle put on her most innocent face. "I do believe it is." She set the skillet off the burner.

  "As soon as we do the rest of the chores, I'm going to drive over to St. Agnes for some feed." Cody spread generous amounts of jelly over a biscuit. "Would you like to ride with me, Belle darlin'?"

  "Sure," Belle heaped scrambled eggs into a platter.

  "I need to go to St. Agnes," Kate interposed. "Would you mind if I rode..."

  Cody gave Belle a broad wink. "The wind's getting louder, don't you think?"