Affair of the Heart

by Joan Wolf

  The hypodermic went into her arm and she closed her eyes. “As soon as it takes effect I’m going to splint that foot,” she heard the doctor saying. “She’s got to keep it perfectly immobile.” They seemed to be moving away from her, and she tried to open her eyes to say goodbye but the effort was too great. She went to sleep.

  * * * *

  Joe was at the hospital the following morning to take her back to the ranch. She checked out of the hospital, and Joe wheeled her out to the station wagon. On the doctor’s suggestion she had rented a wheelchair for a week. She also had crutches. She was still wearing the warm-up pants, as they fit more comfortably over her bandaged ankle than the jeans Joe had brought for her, but she had put on a fresh shirt and underwear and fastened her hair at the nape of her neck with a rubber band the nurse had found for her. She got into the back of the station wagon with her leg stretched out, and Joe moved the car out of the parking lot.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Yes, very well, thank you. Whatever it was the doctor gave me sure knocked me out.”

  “That’s good. You looked exhausted when we left you yesterday.”

  “I’m awfully sorry about this, Joe,” Caroline said contritely. “I’ve been a dreadful nuisance to you.”

  “Honey, I’m the one who’s sorry. Jay should never have given you that horse to ride.” Caroline didn’t say anything, and he went on, “It sure spoiled your vacation, I’m afraid. But we’ll make you as comfortable as we can. Maybe Mary Anne would come out to spend a few days with you.”

  “I don’t want to put anyone out,” Caroline said firmly.

  “And I think you should notify your father,” Joe went on as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “I’ll write him,” Caroline promised. “I just didn’t want him to know I was in the hospital.”

  “Why not?”

  “He couldn’t do anything about it,” she replied, “so what would be the point in worrying him?”

  “That sounds familiar,” Joe said dryly.

  She looked out the window. “Does it?”

  “You and Jay must be cut from the same kind of cloth.” Joe put on his directional signal for the coming exit and looked into his sideview mirror.

  Caroline felt an odd tightness in her chest. “I usually heal fast,” she said with an attempt at lightness. “Why, once I broke my arm and I was out of the cast in a month!”

  “Well, let’s hope your ankle heals up quickly then.”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “The doctor made all kinds of threatening noises about my staying off it.”

  “Well, you just listen to him. Does it still hurt?”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad today,” she lied.

  They rode for perhaps half an hour more and then Caroline couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Where is Jay?” she asked. “Out mending fences?”

  “No.” Joe sounded preoccupied. “No, as a matter of fact he was putting his gear together for a hunting trip when I left. That mountain lion. Killed eight calves up in section thirty-two and seven more in section twenty-six. At over five hundred dollars a head, we can’t afford to let him run loose for very long.”

  “Jay is going after him?”

  “Yeah. He and three of the men. He’ll probably be gone by the time we get back.”

  “Oh,” said Caroline. She swallowed. “How long will it take, do you think?”

  “Hard to say. Could be a few days, could be more. Jay’s going to track him down—even if he leaves our range. No rancher can afford to have that thing around.”

  “No,” said Caroline, “I suppose not.”

  Jay was gone when they got back, and Ellen and Joe made Caroline go to bed. She spent the remainder of the week either in bed or on the living-room sofa or on the front terrace in her wheelchair or on the chaise longue. By the end of the week the swelling had gone down considerably.

  “You’re a good patient, Caroline,” Joe told her over dinner a week after the accident. “You obey orders and you don’t complain. Unlike my son, I might add. In that respect, you are not cut from the same cloth.”

  “Isn’t Jay a good patient?” she asked. She found an almost illicit pleasure in talking about her stepbrother.

  “Terrible,” Joe replied promptly. “Never does what the doctor says to do. Used to lie like a trooper and play football when he had no business to be out there. Got a bum knee, mainly because of his own stubbornness.” Joe frowned. “We should be hearing something from him soon,” he muttered. “Got a report today that the lion killed five more calves. He seems to be heading west.”

  As if on cue there was the sound of footsteps and then a knock at the kitchen door.

  “Yeah!” called Joe, and a man came in. It was Frank Adams. “Did you get him?” Joe asked. “Where’s Jay?”

  “Jay’s going on,” Frank replied. “We were running short of supplies, so Matt and I came back. He’s a cunning bastard, Joe. Moving toward Idaho.”

  Joe gestured to the man to sit down, and Ellen served him some food. Caroline sat quietly and listened to his report. She was awed and a little frightened by the strangeness, the wildness, of the whole episode.

  Three days later she was sitting on the terrace reading a book in the early afternoon sun with Regent curled beside her. The dog had looked for Jay continually the first few days after he left and he had then apparently decided that Caroline was keeping vigil as well. For the last week he had sat beside her, alert to all the comings and goings of the house, his ears always listening for the sound of a beloved voice. It wasn’t Jay, however, but Joe who came up to the house from the barn to join her. He sat down and said flatly, “Jim just came back. His horse went lame. Said Jay was going on by himself.”

  “Oh,” said Caroline hollowly. “Isn’t that-dangerous?”

  “Well, if he gets hurt, how the hell is anyone going to know?” Joe looked angry. “Damn fool kid. He never gives up. Doesn’t know how to give up. Never did.”

  “Oh, Joe,” said Caroline helplessly.

  “He’s so goddam intense. Too intense. Does everything one thousand percent. Can’t understand anyone who isn’t the same way.” Joe looked at her somberly. “That was the problem with him and Nancy. When he was little, it was fine. She was his mom and he loved her. But when she started to go away ... he just couldn’t understand that. In his book it could mean only one thing—she didn’t love him. She didn’t love me.”

  Caroline looked away from Joe over the expanse of lawn toward the bunkhouse. “What do you mean, she started to go away?” she asked after a minute.

  He shrugged. “She left me a couple of times before she finally left for good. Went off to friends in New York. It happened when Jay was five and then again when he was eight. When he was ten she went for good. But long before that he had lost his trust in his mother.”

  “She came back twice?” Caroline’s eyes swung back to the man beside her.

  “Yes.” He rubbed his hand over his face in a gesture Caroline had seen his son use. Then he smiled a little crookedly. “She did love me, you see. Through it all, I always knew that. She just couldn’t take the loneliness of the ranch. It was my fault as much as hers. I wouldn’t move. It was she who had to give. And in the end, she couldn’t. She wasn’t made for it, Caroline. She was made for bright lights and lots of people— the kind of life your dad gave her. I hope she was happy.”

  “You loved her, didn’t you?” Caroline’s husky voice was very gentle.

  “Yes. She was it for me. Jay can’t understand that, though. He can’t understand her infidelities, can’t understand how I kept taking her back. He’s so possessive. He could never do that. In many ways he reminds me of my father.” He looked at the girl seated so quietly beside him. “It’s made him wary of getting too close to any one woman, I’m afraid. And he’s had plenty of girls after him, I can tell you that. He has his mother’s charm when he wants to use it. I think he finally may be ready to settle down, though.”
r />   “Mary Anne?”

  “Yep. She’s a sweet gal. And she loves ranch life, which is important. Jay could never live anywhere else.”

  “I know. He loves it here.”

  “He wouldn’t even leave Wyoming to go to college,” Joe said with grim amusement. “It wouldn’t have hurt him at all to have broadened his world a little. I wanted him to go to Cornell. But he wouldn’t.”

  “He seems a very decided man,” said Caroline with an effort at lightness.

  Joe turned a shrewd gaze on her face. “How have you two been getting along?”

  “We’re tolerating one another.” She wrinkled her nose at him, and he laughed and rose to his feet.

  “He was worried to death when that horse came back without you. And he didn’t like leaving you in the hospital at all. Got hold of the doctor and told him to make sure you took the painkillers. Wanted to get a private nurse for the night, but there wasn’t one available.”

  This was all news to Caroline, and she stared at Joe in astonishment. He ruffled her shining hair affectionately and said, “I hope the hell he gets that lion soon.”

  Caroline’s face was sober as she watched the big rancher stride down to the barn. Joe was worried. Caroline felt as if there were a knot lodged right smack in the middle of her stomach.

  Two mornings later, at ten o’clock, the phone rang. Ellen answered it and Caroline heard her say, “Jay! Where are you?” There was a moment’s silence, then, “You got him? Good boy.” Then more strongly, “Give me the number there.” Pause. “I’ll get your dad and have him call you. He’s been worried. We all have been. Okay. Goodbye.”

  There was the sound of the phone being hung up and then, from her vantage point on the terrace, Caroline could see Ellen hastening down the path to the bunkhouse. It was an hour before Joe got back to the house. He grinned at Caroline as he went in the front door. “He’s in Montana, over by Yellowstone. He got the lion.” The screen door banged behind him, and Caroline could hear him dialing the phone in the living room.

  “Jay?” he said when he finally got through. “How are you, son?”

  There was a long pause and then Joe said, “I’ll send Matt to get you with the truck. How are the horses?” Another pause. “Okay, then. Good job, son. We’ll see you tonight sometime. Yeah. Goodbye.” In another minute Caroline saw Joe come out the kitchen door and head toward the bunk-house.

  Joe was jubilant over dinner. “That lion has been around Montana for months,” he told Caroline. “Killed a whole lot of cattle. Jay says he’s a national hero up there for getting rid of him. Evidently there’s been more than one hunting party who lost him.”

  Caroline had been in bed for hours when she heard the sound of a truck in the still clear night air. She got out of bed and limped over to her window. The truck was down by the barn. She stayed by the window for five minutes and then she could see the figures of two men coming up the road to the house. It was Joe and Jay. They were walking very close together. In his left hand Joe was carrying a rifle. His right arm was laid across Jay’s shoulders. They went into the house, and Caroline got back into bed and went to sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  Caroline awoke the following morning with a feeling of vague anticipation. At first, sleepy and fuzzy-minded, she did not remember what it was she was looking forward to. And then the realization struck her. Jay’s home, she thought. Jay’s home.

  She got herself dressed in pale-green slacks and a yellow shirt and brushed her hair until it shone. She dusted a little blush across her cheeks, put on mascara and lipstick, picked up her crutches, and went downstairs.

  Ellen was alone in the kitchen. Caroline felt a stab of disappointment, but she smiled, leaned her crutches against the wall, and sat down at the table. Ellen chatted briskly the whole time she was fixing Caroline’s breakfast and sat down to have another cup of coffee with her. Ellen had come to approve of Caroline. “She don’t complain,” she had told Joe after Caroline came back from the hospital. “She’s hurting, I can see that, but she don’t complain.” Ellen had all the Irish admiration for stoicism in the face of pain, and Caroline had risen inestimably in her opinion. So now she told Caroline all about the hunting trip and Jay’s reception in Montana. The men had breakfasted an hour ago and disappeared. “It’s a nice morning,” Ellen said as Caroline finished her coffee. “Why don’t you go and sit on the terrace?”

  “Okay.” Caroline smiled at Ellen, picked up her crutches, and went outside.

  Regent was gone. Caroline sighed, sat down on the chaise longue, and picked up her book. She was still there an hour later when the jingle of spurs told her someone was coming up the drive. She glanced up and there he was, walking with his own peculiar grace, coming straight at her, his dog at his heels. Caroline looked at him and suddenly felt as if something inside her had been put through a wringer. She put her book facedown on her lap and waited.

  He stopped next to her chair and looked down at her gravely. “How’s the leg?” he asked.

  “All right. Getting better.”

  He nodded, looked around for a chair, and sat down. The reality of his lean, bronzed presence was overwhelming her. “Dad says you’ve been a model patient.” His voice was very quiet. It sounded a long way off through the banging of her heart.

  “Yes, well, I didn’t want to make a nuisance of myself. It was my own fault I sprained it in the first place.”

  “Dad said I shouldn’t have given you Dusty.”

  “It wasn’t Dusty. I can handle him. It was my own carelessness.”

  “I know you can handle Dusty.”

  “So.” She shrugged. “I go in to the doctor tomorrow, and I expect he’ll give me the okay to start putting some weight on it. I’ll be able to leave by the end of the week.” He didn’t say anything, and she changed the subject. “I hear you got your mountain lion.”

  “Yeah.” His dark-blue eyes were veiled and enigmatic. “Have you just been sitting here for ten days?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I’d rather hunt lion any day,” he said dryly.

  Caroline gave her husky laugh. “So would I,” she admitted. She put her hand down on Regent’s silky head. “But I had company. This guy was keeping vigil for you.” The dog looked up at her as if he understood, and she murmured softly to him and scratched his ears.

  “Jay!” A cowboy was standing halfway up the drive and calling. Jay turned his head, and Caroline regarded his admirably chiseled profile. For the first time she noticed that he had his mother’s nose. “Joe wants you at the feed lot!” the man said, and Jay nodded and stood up. The dog immediately moved to stand next to him.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said to Caroline, and she nodded mutely and watched him all the way down the road to the barn.

  * * * *

  She didn’t see him again until they were all sitting together around the dinner table. Caroline was very quiet, listening to the sound of the men’s voices, aware with every fiber of her being of the blue-eyed man seated across the table from her. He was telling his father about something that had happened to him when he was out in the mountains. He was so casual, so amusing, that the very real danger of which he spoke appeared negligible. His father said something, and Jay suddenly smiled. It was the smile she had seen but rarely, a young, infectious, radiant smile, and Caroline felt her heart stop, thump once loudly, and then begin to beat again quickly.

  No, she thought wildly. No. It can’t be. It’s not possible. She took a bite of steak and looked at Joe, clinging desperately to ordinary things as a shield against this new and frightening knowledge that was threatening to overwhelm her. “What do you think, Caroline?” Joe asked, and she blinked and stared at him blankly.

  Ellen laughed. “She’s a million miles away.”

  “Wake up, Caroline!” said Jay. “You look like a sleepwalker.”

  She blinked again, transferred her stare to him, made an effort, and drawled, “When you say that, smile.”

&n
bsp; Joe began to laugh, and after a brief second Jay did smile, this time directly at her, and Caroline could hide the truth from herself no longer. There he sat, Joseph Alan Hamilton, Jr., her obnoxious stepbrother, and she loved him.

  How had it happened? She lay in bed later, wakeful and bewildered, and she wondered. She had always thought that love was something that grew out of affection and admiration. It was what she had kept expecting to happen to her with Cliff and Gerald. And instead it had come like a bolt of thunder, with the blaze of a man’s smile and his dark-blue eyes. Until now she had always thought Romeo and Juliet was all bosh. “Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!” God.

  What was she to do? Could she just go quietly away, knowing now what the true nature of her feelings was? She had thought her reaction to him was purely physical. It wasn’t. Lying sleepless in bed, she knew with utter certitude that she would never feel this way about any other man. The question was, what was she going to do about it?

  Caroline was heavy-eyed and tired the following morning, and strong coffee only helped marginally. She looked at herself in the mirror and dispassionately decided that the doctor would probably put her back in the hospital, she looked so ghastly. She applied a little more blush to her pale cheeks, pulled her hair back from a center part with two tortoiseshell barrettes, put a lime-green blazer over her striped shirt and white slacks, and looked again. She still looked ghastly. “The hell with it,” she mumbled and made her way downstairs on the hated crutches. Joe was to drive her into Sheridan at ten o’clock, so she went out on the terrace to wait for him.

  It wasn’t until the station wagon stopped in front of her that she realized the driver was not Joe but his son. He got out of the car and came around to her. “I’ll take you in,” he said. “Can you sit in the front, or do you want the back?”

  “The front will be fine,” she answered and swung herself over to the car door. He took the crutches from her and held the door as she got into the front seat. Once she was established he opened the rear door, put the crutches in, and came around to slide in behind the wheel. He backed the wagon expertly down the long drive and turned it, and they began the two-hour drive to Sheridan.