His eyes misted, and she knew he was staring into the past, not seeing her at all, though his grip on her shoulders remained strong.
“Me, Cooper, Jake and Mac.” A wistful smile curved one corner of his mouth. “I was the oldest, Mac the youngest. Not that it mattered,” he admitted.
The wind kicked up again, twisting dirt into tiny tornadoes that raced across the yard in front of them.
“Mac was brilliant. Seriously smart. He was only sixteen, but he had some great ideas.” Sam smiled now and Maggie felt the tension in him climb. As if talking about that last summer brought it all even closer. “That year Mac had come up with some gizmo he said would make us all rich.”
“Really?” Maggie smiled up at him, trying to make this easier. “What was it?”
He smiled back at her and shook his head. “Hell if I know. Mac and Jake were big into motorcycles, though—always tinkering with some damn thing or another. And that summer the two of them said they’d come up with something that was going to improve engine performance and make us all millionaires.” His smile faded slowly. “They were right. The royalties on that invention have been incredible. But Mac never lived to see them.”
“Tell me what happened.”
He let her go and shoved both hands through his hair as he took a step back. Distancing himself from her? Or from the memories gathering around him?
“It was a contest,” he said bitterly, his mouth twisting as if even the words had a foul taste. “We took turns jumping off the ridge into the lake. We got ‘points’ both for how far out we were able to jump and for how long we stayed underwater before surfacing.”
Maggie’s stomach fisted and sympathy washed through her. She reached for him, but he shook his head.
“Just…let me get it out.” He swallowed hard and stared off into the distance again, seeing the past unroll in front of him. “It was Mac’s turn. Jake had already outjumped all of us.” A choked-off laugh grumbled from his throat. “Mac hated to lose. He took a running start, jumped off the ridge and landed farther out than any of us had gone before. Jake was pissed, but to win, Mac had to stay down longer than he had, too.”
“Oh, God…” She knew what was coming. Knew that Mac had died that long-ago summer day and, in dying, had set his cousins on a path that had kept them from everything they’d ever cared about.
Sam kept talking as if Maggie hadn’t spoken. “I was timing him. Had Jeremiah’s stopwatch. Mac had been under two minutes when I started worrying.”
“Two minutes? Isn’t that an awfully long time?”
“Not for him. He’d done it before. But this time…” Sam shook his head. “It felt…different. Don’t know why. I told Cooper we should go in after him, but Cooper wanted Mac to beat Jake, so he said to give him another few seconds. We waited. We should have gone in after him, but we waited.” His eyes filled with tears that he viciously rubbed away a moment later. “Not we. Me. I should have gone in after him. I knew something was wrong. Knew he was in trouble. Felt it. But I waited.”
“Sam…” Her heart ached for him. For the pain he’d carried for so long.
“I waited, stood there on the ridge timing him, for God’s sake, while Mac was dying.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. You always have been.”
He snapped her a furious glare. “Weren’t you listening? I knew he was in trouble.”
“You had a bad feeling. You were a kid, too.”
He brushed off her attempt at understanding and said, “I was the oldest. I should have known better. It was stupid to jump off that damn ridge. At two minutes and fifteen seconds, I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran and jumped in. The others were right behind me. The lake water was cloudy.” He squinted, as if still trying to see his cousin through the murky water. “Took us too long to find him. Took forever. He was lying on the bottom. We grabbed him and dragged him out. Laid him on the bank and pushed the water out of him, but it was too late. He was dead. Mac was dead.”
She reached for him, taking hold of his forearm, and his tensed muscles felt like steel beneath her palms. “I’m so sorry, Sam. But it wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s what everybody said,” he told her on a sigh. “Doc Evans examined the…body. He said Mac broke his neck when he jumped in—and unconscious, he drowned. And after that nothing was ever the same again.”
“You stayed away, Sam,” she said, sensing somehow that he didn’t want her sympathy now any more than he had before. “You made that choice. You and the others. You didn’t have to. No one blamed you.”
“I blamed me. Mac drowned. While we all stood there, timing him, he died.”
“You’re not psychic, Sam. You couldn’t have known that he broke his neck.”
He shook his head, refusing to hear her. Refusing to drop the burden of guilt he’d been carrying so long it had become a part of him. “I should have known he was in trouble. If I’d gone in when I first wanted to, I could have saved him.”
“He broke his neck,” she reminded him softly.
“He was only sixteen.”
“I know…” She lifted one hand and laid her palm against his chest, feeling the thundering beat of his heart. “But does staying away from Coleville make it easier?”
“Nothing makes it easier.”
“Then why stay away? Couldn’t you—I don’t know—honor Mac’s memory by coming home? Being the doctor this town needs? By living your life and being happy?”
Hope flickered briefly in his eyes before fading away again. God, Sam would like nothing better than to agree with her. To tell her yes, he’d stay. He’d stay here in Coleville, move back to the ranch. Surround himself with everything he’d missed for so long.
But he couldn’t.
He’d failed Mac.
And now he wasn’t allowed to be happy.
She frowned up at him and he saw the disappointment in her eyes when she asked, “Do you really think Mac would want you all to be miserable for the rest of your lives? To avoid coming home to the place you all loved so much?”
“No, he wouldn’t,” he said softly, reaching out to run the tip of his fingers along her cheek. “But that doesn’t seem to matter. Not for me. Or the others.”
“So when the summer’s over, you’ll leave again.”
He swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“And not come back.”
“Yes.”
“No matter how far you run, Sam,” she said quietly, “you’ll never be able to outrun your past. I know. I’ve tried.”
Nine
“Mad at me, aren’t you?”
Maggie turned from the chest of drawers where she was putting away the old man’s clean laundry to stare at him. He looked worried. And as guilty as a child who’d stolen a cookie just before dinner.
Her heart turned over and she realized that as disappointed as she’d been in him that he’d lied to her—she was more relieved to know that he wasn’t sick at all. He’d become so important to her over the last two years. This one old man had become the family she’d always longed for, and the thought of losing him had terrified her.
“Mad?” she repeated with a slow shake of her head. “No, not now. But I was. When Doc Evans first told us the truth.”
“I’m real sorry about that, Maggie,” Jeremiah said and hung his head before glancing up at her from beneath bushy gray brows. “Didn’t like lying to you, if that’s any comfort.”
His gray whiskers shone in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through his bedroom window. Wisps of gray hair fluttered around his head in the breeze dancing under the partially opened window. And his dark eyes glittered with the hope that he was forgiven.
Love filled her, sweet and rich, and Maggie knew she couldn’t hold out against him. Smiling at him, she said, “I’m just glad you’re not really sick, Jeremiah. You had me scared.”
He winced and hunched his shoulders as he pushed himself off the bed and stood up. “I’m sorry about that, too, girl. It’s just…
I couldn’t think of any other way to get my boys home.”
In a weird way, she understood the desperation of his lie. But still. “You worried everyone.”
“I know.”
“Sam’s pretty angry.”
He sighed. “I figured he would be.” Then, nodding, he added, “But he’s here. That’s the important thing. And he’ll stay the summer. Just as the others will. They all gave me their word.”
“What made you do it, Jeremiah? I mean, I know you miss them. But why now? Why this summer?”
He smiled again, and this time she saw that he was enjoying being secretive. “Can’t tell you that yet, Maggie. I’m going to wait until all of my boys are home to spill that secret.”
“You’re as stubborn as Sam,” she said with a slow shake of her head. Turning, she went back to the dresser and carefully stacked clean T-shirts in the top drawer.
“You like him, don’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes and glanced at him over her shoulder. “Jeremiah…”
He held up both hands and grinned. “Just asking. I’ve been watching the two of you—and I’m not so old I can’t see the sparks flare up when you’re together.”
She flushed and hoped he hadn’t sensed just how hot those sparks had gotten. Her heartbeat quickened and heat pooled deep in her center just thinking about the single night she’d had with Sam. And it wasn’t just the amazing lovemaking—it was watching him with Jeremiah, seeing him help little Katie. Seeing his tenderness and aching at his loneliness. He touched her in so many ways, but… “It doesn’t matter, Jeremiah. He’s still leaving.”
“And you’re going to let him?”
Her gaze snapped up to his. “It’s not up to me, Jeremiah. You know that. Sam told me. About Mac.”
The old man slumped as if someone had let the air out of his body. “It was a terrible thing, no doubt,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “But it’s time they all came to grips with it. Learned to let Mac go.”
“I don’t know if Sam can,” Maggie whispered, remembering the shadows in his eyes when he’d told her the story of that summer day.
“I hope you’re wrong about that, Maggie.”
Hours later Sam stared out the kitchen window at Maggie’s house across the yard. The summer night was clear and bright under the light of a full moon. A wind swept across the fields and rattled the leaves of the trees, sounding like a whispering crowd making bets on whether or not Sam would be able to stay away from Maggie.
Hell, even he wouldn’t take that bet.
From the living room came the sound of the television, some game show with a too-enthusiastic host shouting at a contestant. Jeremiah, now that his pretense of illness was over, lay comfortably in his recliner, snoozing.
Sam frowned and shoved both hands into his jeans pockets. He’d had it out with Jeremiah before dinner, telling his grandfather just what a rotten thing he’d done by pretending to be dying. By worrying them all.
But after apologizing, Jeremiah had said in his own defense, I’m sorry to hurt you, boy, but the day that Mac died, I didn’t lose one grandson—I lost four. Can’t blame me for trying to get ’em back.
And the truth was, Sam couldn’t blame him. Couldn’t even be angry about being tricked into coming home. Because honestly he’d missed this ranch and that cranky old man more than he could ever say.
Opening the back door, Sam stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him, shutting out the drone of the television and the rumble of Jeremiah’s snores. The summer night was warm, but the breeze sweeping across the open fields was cool enough. The scents of his childhood wrapped themselves around him, and he closed his eyes just to concentrate on them. Summer grass, clean, sweet air and from somewhere—probably the neighboring ranch—he caught the distinct aroma of steaks on a barbecue.
A low growl in the distance announced approaching thunder and the promise of rain sometime soon. He glanced up at the sky and watched as massive dark clouds rolled in from the coast, obliterating the moon, covering the ranch yard in deep shadow. How many storms, he wondered, had he and his cousins watched from the safety of this old porch? How many nights had they sat out here with cold sodas, watching lightning dance across the sky while they talked about girls and school and cars and every other subject so important to teenage boys? They’d all been so close. So much a part of each other.
So when Mac died, his leaving had splintered the rest of them. They hadn’t known how to talk to each other anymore. There were only three of them. They were off balance. Out of sync. Like a three-legged dog trying to remember how to run, they’d stumbled and fallen and finally they’d quit trying.
A shimmer of lightning flashed behind the clouds, illuminating them briefly just before a clap of thunder rattled the window glass in the door behind him.
Sam leaned one shoulder against a porch post and shoved both hands into his jeans pockets as he shifted his gaze back to Maggie’s house. It was taking everything he had in him to keep from crossing the yard, knocking on that door and begging her to let him in.
He’d been on his own for years—but he’d never been as alone as he was at that moment.
And for the first time in far too long, he hated it.
Across the yard Maggie’s front door opened and a slice of lamplight stretched across the ground, reaching for him. She held the screen open and stepped outside. “Are you going to stay there all night?”
His heart gave one sudden hard jolt against his chest. “I was thinking about it.”
She tipped her head up, glanced at the sky, then lowered her gaze to him again. “Looks like rain.”
Thunder growled in the background as another flash of light shattered the dark.
“Looks like,” he agreed, though he couldn’t tear his gaze from her long enough to look at the sky. She stood like a dancer, all fluid grace. Then she moved, taking another step toward the edge of her porch, letting the screen door swish shut behind her. Backlit, she looked like a dream, gilded curves and long hair loose around her shoulders.
“You’ll get wet if you just stand there.”
Nature’s cold shower.
Not a bad idea.
But he only said, “Probably.”
“It’s better in here.”
“But not safer,” he pointed out. Though the thought of going to her, letting himself be surrounded by her warmth, was nearly enough to bring him to his knees.
“Are you so concerned with being safe?” she asked.
“I’m trying to be,” Sam said. “For your sake.”
She tipped her head to one side and her hair swung in a lazy arc. “And you said you’re not a nice man.”
“I’m not. I’m really not.”
Overhead, lightning cracked and white-hot light pulsed over the yard. Thunder boomed, deafening, and the echo of it rolled through Sam until he felt his whole body shaking with it.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Damn it.” He muttered the words as he jumped off the back porch. Frustration punched at him. Couldn’t she see what it was costing him to try to do the right thing? His boots hit the dirt just as the first fat drops of warm rain splattered from the sky. He hardly noticed. His long legs carried him across the yard in a few hurried strides. He stopped at the foot of her front porch steps and stared up at her. “I’m trying like hell to stay away from you, Maggie.”
She smiled. “Who asked you to?”
“You should be.”
“See, I don’t think so.”
He looked up into her dark eyes while the lightning lit up the yard like a strobe light in a crowded club, and the emotions flashing in her eyes were just as wild. Just as dangerous.
“I think you’re a better man than you pretend to be.”
He pushed one hand through his hair, wiping the rain back and out of his eyes at the same time. “That’s because you don’t know me.”
“Oh, I think I do,” she said. “For instance, I know you volunteer with Doctors Wit
hout Borders—helping children who desperately need it.”
“Because I can help them and leave,” he said flatly, refusing the halo she kept trying to fit him for. “It’s not noble, it’s safe.” Rain slapped at him, thunder boomed and lightning flashed. He stared up at her, rain falling into his eyes and trailing down his face like hot tears. “I do my job and then I leave. I don’t hang around. Don’t make friends. Don’t care.”
“Yes, you do. You care,” she said stubbornly and he wondered why in the hell she wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t run. “You care more than you want to.”
“You’re wrong,” he insisted. “I travel around the country, work different E.R.s for a couple months and then leave. I don’t stay, Maggie. Not anywhere. I won’t get involved again. Won’t care. It’s the only way to keep from getting my heart ripped out. Again.”
She reached out to him, her fingers trailing over his cheek, wiping away the rain and smoothing his wet hair back from his face. “If you have to protect yourself, go ahead. But you don’t have to protect me from you, Sam. I’m a big girl. I make my own choices.”
“If you had any sense,” he muttered thickly, “you’d tell me to get the hell away from you.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Now, why would I do that when I so much want you to stay?”
He flinched. “I can’t. Stay I mean. Don’t count on that, Maggie.”
She came down the steps and into his arms, wrapping her own arms around his neck and looking into his eyes. She said softly, “I meant stay tonight, Sam. Stay with me tonight.”
The heat of her body sank into him, warming all the cold, dark places inside him. The scent of her—shampoo, soap and woman—filled him and Sam knew he couldn’t leave. Not even for her sake.
He pulled her close, his gaze moving over her face like a touch. And when he couldn’t stand waiting another moment, he took her mouth with his, parting her lips with his tongue, sweeping inside, tasting her, exploring her. He claimed her breath and gave her his own. He slid one hand up her spine and into her hair, threading his fingers through the thick, soft mass and holding her head still for his conquest.
Expecting Lonergan’s Baby Page 9