A Man Without a Wife

by Beverly Bird

  Eddie laughed. “Yeah, I heard about that. Sorry I didn’t notice that dude messing with your other one. I was busy.”

  Dallas thought about it. “It’s just as well that you didn’t. Otherwise we might never have found the film.”

  “Fill it up?”

  “Top it off. It won’t need much. I stopped a little way back.”

  Eddie’s brows went up. “So you’re looking for Uncle Ernie again?”

  Dallas took a deep breath. “No. Ellen. Do you know where she lives?”

  “Sure. I’ve been out there a hundred times to get her car started.”

  “And?”

  “And how about a nice dinner next door?”

  Dallas laughed. The reflex surprised him. He would have thought he was too tense. “How about a bar instead?”

  “No liquor on the Res, but you’re only about thirty miles from Farmington. Technically, that’s right outside the border. There’s a real nice Anglo hotel there called the Sierra. Great restaurant, if you like that kind of thing and can afford it.” He ran his eyes up and down the Explorer again.

  “Can Ellen’s car make it?” Dallas asked bluntly.

  “Now it can. I dropped a brand new engine in it yesterday.” He waved a hand at the station. “The owner said do it and he’d pay for it. I think he figured she ruined her old one going after Ozzie. I didn’t tell him she hadn’t put oil in it in a month of Sundays.”

  “Good for you. So top off the tank and give me a can of oil besides. No, make it a case.” He figured he had just a little bit of gratitude to show himself. That was all it was.

  “Seriously?” Eddie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He hooked up the nozzle and went into the station to get it.

  There was absolutely nothing left to do at the clinic. Ellen had scrubbed the floors and had washed the walls. She had rearranged the chairs in the waiting room and had straightened out everything in the cabinets. The sun was dying behind Beautiful Mountain and the phone wasn’t going to ring today either. She had known she would live the rest of her days in an agony of hope. She just hadn’t known it would be so hard.

  She swallowed against something tight in her throat and dropped her lab coat onto the coat tree by the door. She glanced at the phone and wondered if she dared call Barbara Bingham.

  She had been home from the hospital a week now. She wondered if that last interview with Ricky had taken place. Or would Barbara still insist on that fourth visitation that hadn’t really taken place? Either way, she couldn’t get involved. She wasn’t wanted, wasn’t needed, and it certainly wasn’t any of her business. It never had been in the first place.

  She finally stepped out onto the tiny trailer porch and locked the door behind her. She had just reached her car and was thinking of the rare luxury of knowing it would start this time when a beat-up truck turned onto the side road.

  It skidded to a stop in a upheaval of dust and a man leaned out the window to grin at her.

  “Sorry, the doctor’s gone for the day,” she called out. “All I can help you with is herbal remedies, or maybe stitches or something.”

  “I’m not sick. Eddie said to tell you there’s some Anglo guy waiting to see you at the Sierra.”

  Her heart gave a very hard, very painful thump. “The Sierra?”

  “Yeah. In Farmington.”

  Her heart sank. It went slowly, fighting the descent. Not Dallas then. She couldn’t imagine any reason why he might turn up on the opposite side of the Res from Arizona.

  “Thanks,” she managed.

  She drove home and wondered if she should go. She was tired, bone tired. Cat had taken her stitches out this morning, but there was little any doctor could do about her lethargy—or her almost manic bursts of activity when the hurting and the waiting and the hoping got to be too much. She thought maybe she would just drive just as far as Shiprock and call the hotel. She could find out who in heaven’s name wanted to meet her and arrange another time.

  But she couldn’t imagine who it might be. Curiosity gave her some adrenaline and she went home to her own trailer, jogging inside. Then she found herself rampaging through her closet.

  There was no one, she thought. There was no one Anglo or Navajo, Mexican or Chinese or otherwise, who would want to meet her at the Sierra. Unless...

  She took a fast shower and brushed her hair with one hand while she put lipstick on with the other. Don’t hope too much. Don’t. It was crazy, it didn’t make sense, but when had any of this made any sense? She only knew that if she was wrong then the blow was going to be staggering.

  She took the back roads, barely trails, but if a rock kicked up and hurt her new engine, then she figured she would just have to save up to buy another one after all. She reached the Sierra in thirty minutes flat and wondered if he had waited.

  He hadn’t, at least not if the Anglo man who wanted to see her was Dallas.

  A little animal in her heart tried to claw its way up into her throat. She had to gasp for air around it. The parking lot was almost empty and there wasn’t a car in sight. There were a few trucks in various stages of disrepair and one Explorer that was even new, but nothing that looked like what Dallas might have bought to replace that sleek, black Jaguar.

  She made her feet move and went inside. The lounge was dark and smoky. She hesitated in the door. There were two men at the bar, both Native American, one with a long pony tail. Her eyes slid left, then right, then her heart stalled.

  He sat at the last booth in the back, one arm hooked over the back of the seat, the other hand idly moving a straw in the drink in front of him. There was a big box on the table and flowers—flowers sat on top of it. But her gaze touched upon them only briefly before it went hungrily back to his face.

  Impossibly, he looked to have aged in one short week. She thought she could understand that.

  He looked a little more world-weary and a lot tougher. His jaw was hard as he stared down into his drink. His hair looked as though he had run a hand through it one time too many. He was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen in her life.

  He finally looked up and pulled his other arm down fast. Her heart staggered. She forced her feet to move again and he stood up to meet her, and somehow that closed her throat all over again because it was so like him—he might have come here to pull her heart out one more time but he was Dallas and he would be polite about doing it.

  She fought a breathy little laugh that she wasn’t sure would sound entirely sane. “Hi,” she said quietly.

  There it was again, he thought, that husky, nervous edge to her voice, like a breath of air on his skin. He wondered how he had ever thought he was going to go through the rest of his days without hearing it.

  She looked beautiful. She wore the same short white blouse she had worn that first day in the orphanage, skimming the tawny skin at her waist. The top of her black jeans came just a breath away from touching her navel. Did she even realize what that could do to a man? Somehow, knowing her now, he doubted it.

  He had to work to find his voice. “Uh, sit down. Do you want a drink?”

  She slid carefully into the booth across from him, feeling fragile. “I don’t drink.”

  “You do when wolfmen break in and ransack a kid’s room.” Then he realized that that wasn’t really true. When he had finally found her glass the next day, it had barely been touched. She’d never taken anything more than that first hefty swallow.

  She gave a throaty laugh. “Extenuating circumstances.”

  “Maybe these are, too.”

  Her heart writhed. Don’t hope. “Are they?”

  He couldn’t answer, didn’t know what to say.

  “Eddie sent someone to say you were looking for me,” she went on finally, and that snapped him out of it, gave him some edge of sanity.

  “Why do they do that?” he demanded. “Why not just tell me where to find you?”

  “I might not have wanted to see you.”

  “So they’re prot
ecting their own?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And if I were Navajo?”

  “They still wouldn’t tell you. It’s just common courtesy. They’d give me the option.”

  “You took it.”

  “I wasn’t sure it was you.”

  “And if you had been?”

  I would have been here thirty minutes sooner. She lifted one shoulder in a very careful shrug.

  The waitress came. She ordered wine. She figured these were decidedly extenuating circumstances.

  “How’s Ricky?” she asked finally.

  “He misses you.”

  The words hit her hard. Something sweet slid through her and then there was only cold, drenching cold. The waitress brought her wine. She took a long swallow and coughed.

  “I’m sorry,” she managed. “I guess...I just can’t talk about him after all.”

  The admission caught him about the throat. Guilt tore at him because of the pain he had caused her, even knowing that rationally he hadn’t caused it at all, not really. She had given the boy up on her own—he hadn’t even known her then.

  But he had taken him away the second time.

  He couldn’t look into her eyes and see the ache there without feeling it himself. Expressive eyes. A face that held no secrets, no matter what lies her tongue tried to tell, no matter how well it told them. He found himself wondering why he had never thought of that before, that he could trust her because he would always know exactly what she was thinking just by looking into her face.

  “I need to talk to you about him,” he heard himself say.

  Panic flared in her eyes. “Did Ozzie do something to him? Did he witch him? Is he sick?”

  “Witch him? Oh, no. He’s fine.” He shook his head. “It’s just—maybe I was wrong.”

  “About what?” Her heart started chugging, slowly then fast.

  “It doesn’t matter to Ricky who you really are. All he knows is that you’re a friend and now you’re gone.”

  She swallowed carefully. “It has to be that way.”

  “Does it?”

  Her heart crammed up in her throat. “You said...that’s what you wanted.”

  “And I also said I was wrong.”

  Her pulse went crazy. Part of her wanted to laugh at the way he could do that—admit culpability while still making it sound as though he was somehow winning the point. The other half was ingrained, too weary of hurting, too frightened of letting it happen again.

  “So what are you suggesting?” she asked carefully.

  “The three of us could get together once in a while. He has a birthday next month.” He hesitated, feeling awkward and stupid. “I guess you know that.”

  Ellen nodded. She never did anything on that day, never went anywhere. For eight long years she had stayed home and grieved.

  And she would do it again this year. She knew that, knew there was no way she could find the strength, the control, to share that day with them. The three of us. No, she didn’t think it could be like that, but she asked just to be sure.

  “Like...get together as friends?”

  Everything about him seemed to relax. The release of tension seemed to make his shoulders slump a little bit. Or maybe... maybe it was something else.

  “Yeah,” he said, “like friends. We can do that, can’t we?”

  “Sure.” No. No way. No way in hell.

  She drained her wine and reached for her purse. She knew as surely as she knew she needed breath to live that she couldn’t be his friend. Even the glory of sharing time with Ricky would be stained, despoiled, by a longing for Dallas that would never be filled. And somehow she knew that that ache would touch Ricky—he was too smart, too perceptive not to feel it.

  But it would take too much effort to tell him that, energy that she just didn’t possess anymore. She would agree with him—it didn’t mean she actually had to see them again. If nothing else, she was adept at lies and excuses, she thought bitterly. Whenever he invited her somewhere, something would just have to come up.

  “Wait,” he said as she started to rise.

  She went very still but didn’t sit again.

  “I...Ricky helped me pick these out. He seemed to think you deserved them for your recuperation, having saved his life and all.”

  He held out the flowers to her. Ellen took them, feeling her fingers close around them like claws. Ricky seemed to think. Not Dallas.

  Still, she would cherish them.

  “I’m recuperated,” she managed. “But thank him for me anyway.”

  “And I brought you some oil for your new engine.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it keeps things lubricated and —”

  “I know that now. Why are you doing this?”

  She thought he looked miserable. Or maybe he was just uncomfortable.

  “Because I owe you a few thanks myself.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “You saved his life.”

  Her eyes widened. “Do you think I did that for you? No, Dallas, no. I did it for Ricky. And I guess I did it for myself.”

  She clutched the flowers but left the motor oil. She hurried for the door.

  She didn’t hear him come after her but even before she reached her car he came out behind her, carrying the box. Her heart started thudding hard. But again, it seemed easier to go along than argue with him. She never won arguments with him anyway.

  She paused in midmotion as she was unlocking her door and went around to her trunk instead. “Just drop it in there,” she said tightly. When he did, she slammed the trunk hard.

  “You’re lying again,” he said quietly. “It’s all over your face.”

  That jolted her. She looked at him wildly. “About what?”

  “You’re not going to do it, are you? You’ll let me think you’re going to meet us again, but I’m never going to see hide nor hair of you.”

  She felt herself shaking. She fought it. She clutched her purse hard against her midriff and brought her chin up. “What difference does it make?”

  “It shouldn’t.” He raked a hand through his hair. “But damn it, it does.”

  She made a quick move toward her door again. He caught her arm. “Don’t. Don’t leave like this.”

  If she didn’t go, if she didn’t get out of here right now, she was going to cry. And she had done enough of that in the last month to last her a lifetime. There were no more tears to give, no more cries to sob. She tried to shake his hand off, but he wouldn’t let her go. Suddenly she was furious.

  She turned into him, planted her hands against his chest and pushed hard just as she had that first day at the orphanage. “Don’t do this to me! Don’t you get it?”

  His hand finally fell away. He looked stunned. “Apparently not. Apparently I’ve been missing a lot.”

  She felt her unshed tears close her throat. “How can you be so smart and so stupid?” she demanded. “I can’t see you two again because as much as I love Ricky, I love you, too. And I can’t have you and I can’t stand it and I’m not that strong! I’m a coward, Dallas. You were wrong. I’m too scared to put myself through any more!”

  She fumbled with her keys and dropped them. She bent fast and grabbed them again, and for a minute she thought he really was going to let her go. She managed to straighten and turn around, but then it was like the first time he had really touched her. She heard something happen to the rhythm of his breathing, felt him closing the space between them, felt his breath at her neck beneath her hair. And she was shaking again, and this time there was nothing she could do about it.

  “I really didn’t want you to say that,” he said quietly, then his mouth was on her neck, her throat, his tongue skimming over the scar that would always be there.

  “Why?” she breathed.

  “Because I love you, too, and that makes this so damned weird, so impossible, and I don’t know where to take it.”

  Ellen felt her knees give out. She had to lean back
against him.

  He felt the weight of her, sweet and warm, and knew he wasn’t scared anymore.

  He was overwhelmed, God, yes. His head swam with the words they’d said and so much more there was yet to talk about. But the fear was gone and in its place there was only driving urgency and need. He turned her around and covered her mouth with his own, hungrily and fully, because as weird as it was, it was right, and in the end it was the only thing that made sense after all.

  He drove his hands into her hair and felt her clutch at the front of his shirt again. “Dallas, this is crazy,” she breathed.

  “No, that’s the hell of it. It’s not. Maybe it sort of fits.”

  “No...I mean, we’re standing in front of a hotel on a major thoroughfare.”

  “That’s sort of appropriate, too. That’s how it all started.” But he let her go, stepping away from her, pulling her away from her car.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going to Room Six-Eleven.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the number on the key I have.”

  Her head was spinning. “You took a room?”

  “It took you damned near two hours to get here.”

  “You took a room?”

  “It was getting late. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to drive back to Flagstaff tonight.”

  That was what he’d told himself. He supposed he’d known the truth all along.

  They started across the lobby at a dignified pace. But at some point his feet started moving faster. She had to jog to keep up with him. The elevator was open when they got to it and the doors slid shut again just as they stepped inside.

  He grabbed her hard and fast and lost himself in her again. She felt the little metal rail on the wall press into her back and didn’t care, couldn’t care. His tongue swept through her mouth, looking for hers, and she met it, dragging frantically at the buttons on his shirt.

  One more time. Maybe it was only one more time, but she didn’t have the will to turn away from it.

  The elevator gave a tinny ring and the doors slid open again. She gasped and tore her mouth away from his as an elderly lady stepped inside. There was a lurch as the car moved upward again. Dallas’ hand was at the small of her back, sliding lower, over her bottom, slipping between her legs. She gasped and felt the woman looking at her but refused to meet her eyes.