Dances of the Heart

by Andrea Downing

  Jake stood like a snared animal. At some stage, he may be able to tell his dad, but what about Lucinda? If her husband didn’t know the truth… And what would this extra bit of information about Robbie and Lucinda do to his dad?

  The first run had been relatively easy, if nerve-wracking.

  No, it wasn’t that it was nerve-wracking. He would capitulate because it was exciting. Like Iraq. It energized him, made him feel alive; it was a cat and mouse game that got his pulse going. Like making love to Paige, because he could never really have her. But then again, doing the run was bound to get easier if the border guards didn’t recognize him, get suspicious, and do a search of the car. Not the second time, they wouldn’t. Surely, not the second time.

  “When?” Jake snarled at last.

  Ty dabbed at his face again. “Well, that’s more like it,” he approved in a voice like molasses dripping in the heat. “Next week, if you wouldn’t mind, Jakie. Same address, so it’ll be real easy. Only one bit of advice.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Change the border crossing. Go down to Laredo or over to Del Rio. You used Eagle Pass last time. Switch out. They get to know you.”

  Jake stood still and studied the wrangler. “What difference does it make, Ty, if this is the last time?”

  He snorted. “It will be the last time. I’ve got someone else lined up, but they’re not here yet. Just this time. I promise you. But don’t take chances. Change the damn crossing. You got maps, don’t you? You’ll find your way. And one more thing, Jakie…”

  “What’s that, you bastard?”

  “Don’t change your mind. I swear, you change your mind...you’re gonna be one very sorry boy. Very sorry.”

  ****

  The Sunday sunshine sparkled on the pool as Paige scrolled down the numbers of recent calls on her phone and found the Texas area code. Her finger poised above the send button before she drew it back to study a chip in the polish on her nail. She grimaced and lay back again in the sun lounger, relieved all the guests had gone, all that is except for Ray who was no doubt upstairs making love to her mother. He certainly wasn’t taking this long to pack.

  She craned her head around to try to see her mother’s balcony jutting out from the far corner of the house, but only caught a glimpse of a curtain billowing like some fat person trying to get out of the room. Nope. Mom and Ray were definitely having a last tumble before he left. Paige glanced at the phone once again and jabbed ‘call.’

  “Hello?”

  Jake’s voice came across unusually disinterested in the fact it was she who was calling, and this irritated her for no particular reason. “Well, if I’m disturbing you, I can call another time,” she started. “What are you doing?”

  There was the split second of his coming to realize who had called. It made Paige smile to herself.

  “I’m lying in bed as it happens, stroking one of the dogs.”

  “As long as you’re not stroking anything else.” She imagined his expression at that. “Are you naked?”

  “And if I am? Did you phone for a trip down memory lane or is this some sort of courtesy call?”

  There was the sound of sheets rustling. Paige had forgotten the time difference but, even allowing for that, it was late for Jake to be in bed, even on a Sunday.

  “You’re in a mood,” she said. “I can tell. Tell Mama Paige what the matter is.”

  His sigh crackled down the phone. “You remember...” he started, but trailed off. “Never mind. How are you? How was the party? Has my dad left yet?”

  “Fine, fine and no, in that order. The party was our usual uproarious success and your father is now upstairs humping my mother before he leaves.”

  Jake snorted. “I think that’s more information than I need, Paige. Or maybe not,” he added with some amusement. There was a moment’s hesitation. “So...to what do I owe this honor? I’m sure you didn’t call to simply hear a Texas drawl one more time.”

  “I—there’s something I don’t understand. You’re twenty-seven, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you were in the army for four years, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Which takes you back to twenty-three or maybe twenty-two depending on your birth month.”

  “And?”

  “And so, why hadn’t you finished college by then? I don’t understand it.” Curiosity had got the better of her. Or was it just a damn good excuse to talk to him, talk to someone who was detached from the whole Hamptons scene she was dealing with, someone who seemed to care and who wasn’t her mother.

  “Because, like you, when Steven died, I quit my last year when Robbie died. I never graduated, never did my finals. Robbie and I were very close. I... Why do you want to know all this? What does this have to do with anything? What made you suddenly think of all this anyway?”

  There was rising anger in his voice, or maybe it was something other than anger—hate. Hate at being dragged back to that point in his life? He had told her it was his fault Robbie had enlisted; he had told Robbie to go in order to avoid trouble.

  “I...” She stuttered, searched around for some words to try to give herself time to think. “I just wanted to know. I was curious. I think I’m going back to law school and it all struck me.” But no, she had made it an excuse to phone him. Angry with herself, angry at being so weak she needed some sort of male companionship, some male attention, she sat up suddenly, tears just below the surface. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”

  “Don’t go!”

  There was an urgency in his voice, and Paige sat back again, thoughts trying to fall into place like the pieces of a puzzle.

  “I’m glad you called,” he said in a steadier tone.

  She took a deep breath and stared out at the vacated pool area. Tapping the chipped nail several times on the chaise armrest, she finally continued. “Your father...he talked some good sense to me at the party actually. I think I need to get on with my life, get back to work. There’s no point hanging about here feeling sorry for myself. Maybe... Why didn’t he talk you into going back, Jake?”

  “Because he doesn’t see the point any more than I do, really. Anyway, he’s leaving me to decide. Dad won’t push. He never went to college and he’s done fine. I don’t need a dang piece of paper to say I studied for four years. I’m going to take over the ranch. It’s my life, Paige. It’s what I know, what I enjoy.”

  “But maybe, sometime, you’ll need a business course or something like that.”

  “Paige...”

  She could almost hear the cogs of his brain turning.

  “I already studied what I need to know, and I’ve lived here all my life. It’s not like studying law. Anyway. Is that what you want? To go back to law school? Really want?”

  She hesitated only a moment. “Yes. It’s what I want.”

  ****

  “Ah, hell, Carrie, when you said you had called for a car to take me back to the airport, I didn’t realize it was gonna be a dang limo. Call me a taxi, for heaven’s sake. I can’t ride in that.” Ray took in the long, black limo and its uniformed driver with some distaste.

  Eye to eye, Carrie put her hands on his shoulders. “You can. And you will. Please. It’s on my account. Anyway, you’ve missed the train, and the only jitneys are all going to be full. Listen,” she continued, leaning her face toward him so their noses touched, “We had two extra hours together, which you must admit were pretty worthy of your time.” She stood back a second to flutter her lashes at him. “And it was a compromise between the train and a chopper. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know about ‘fair.’ But the extra time was sure worth it.”

  The driver came around and picked up his bag to put in the trunk before holding open the door.

  Ray regarded him with an intense aversion. “Just give me an extra minute, will you? I think I can manage to get in by myself.” He received a smile from the chauffeur and waited until the man was back in the dri
ver’s seat. “Listen,” he said, taking hold of Carrie’s hands. “We never had that chat, did we?”

  “You can call me on your cell phone and we can speak as you go to the airport. Which, by the way, would not have been very convenient in a crowded train.”

  Ray had a sense Carrie was trying to be stalwart at his leaving and that tears were not far from the surface. She was definitely trying to avoid a face-to-face discussion about where their relationship was going. Her hands fluttered like butterflies searching for a place to land.

  “Okay. I want you to think about what I have to do to get you to come out to Texas for a spell. You make your list of requirements and then give me a call. I’ll be sitting in that damn thing, waiting, in air conditioned splendor.”

  She nodded her head in acknowledgement, a hand clapped across her mouth as tears surfaced.

  “Oh, come on now,” he said, taking her into his arms. “We had three wonderful days, which is three more than we would have had if I hadn’ta got this brilliant idea.” He stood for a moment before kissing the top of her head and holding her away from him.

  “Oh, lord,” moaned Paige, suddenly coming down the front steps. “Is this the big good-bye? Am I missing it all? Is she bawling already?” She gave her mother a disgusted look and hauled a crumpled tissue from her robe pocket to hand to Carrie. “Do you want him to remember you with a red nose?” she mocked, then pecked him good-bye on both cheeks. “Give Jake a big sloppy one for me, will you, and tell him to go find Miss Texas or the Rodeo Queen. He deserves the best.”

  Ray gave a laugh in answer before turning back to Carrie and kissing her good-bye. He studied her one last time before he ducked into the car.

  An empty space opened within him, like a black hole into which his heart was falling.

  ****

  Her daughter’s arm came around Carrie as they headed back up the steps to the house, now empty of its visitors and accompanying tumult. The pool beyond resembled some David Hockney painting waiting to be finished, and the quiet was almost unbearable after the hubbub of the last few days.

  Bereft, she ached for Ray, a soreness like an open wound in her chest. The hand-holding walks in town and on the beach, the games of volley ball in the pool, the jokes with the others at meals, how he had fit in so easily. Even Ben Statler, with whom Ray had had the altercation at the party, said he liked him. There had been laughter, and there had been loving.

  Lots of loving.

  In all its forms.

  “So, what will you do?” Paige demanded at last. “He’s got a business in Texas and you…you’re all over the place. Can you make it work?”

  “I thought you didn’t like him. You made all those comments about him not being right, about Texas...”

  “Oh, Mother, haven’t you learned? I make comments all the frigging time. Do what’s right for you, for heaven’s sake. Don’t pay any attention to what I, or anyone else for that matter, say.”

  Carrie collapsed into a chair and stared out with the vacant mind that comes of loss. After a long sigh, she said, “I’ve got a book tour coming up, the new book to try to finish, and commitments all over the place. L.A. wants help with the screenplay of The Divide… I don’t know.”

  “But he is right, Mother. You can work in Texas. That’s one thing. At least part of the time.”

  She considered this for a moment, a sudden quandary striking her. “What about you, Paige? I can’t just leave you—”

  “Oh, for pity sake. Really. I’m a big girl now, and I have my own friends. And anyway,” she said, dropping down into a chair, “I’m going back to law school in the fall.”

  “You’re what? When did this happen? Are you sure? Is that what you want? Are you ready?”

  “They told me I would have to re-take the second year as I messed it up when Steven started running to doctors. So, that’s what I’m going to do, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Of course, it’s all right. But are you sure?” she asked again.

  “Yup. I’m going back to Penn.”

  ****

  Jake tapped in Paige’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. He could phone Grant or Toby to discuss his predicament but, since returning, a gap had been evident between them that hadn’t closed as yet. They viewed him differently. He’d been abroad; he’d served, and, in a way, he was out of touch with their world. Four years was a long time. Grant was engaged now with a wedding not far off, and Toby had got himself a job at one of the hotels in Fredericksburg, and would, on any account, think Jake a damn fool for not just having it out with his dad. They sure as heck wouldn’t care about Lucinda.

  And no one really knew him anymore; no one would understand how he worshipped his father and just couldn’t bring himself to hurt him, disappoint him. Even those two boys he’d grown up with didn’t really know the man he was now. But after the last conversation with Paige, an only child from a one parent family, he came to feel maybe she would understand.

  He tried her phone again and this time left a message.

  ****

  Ray carefully shoved his hat into the overhead bin and slid into the window seat, hoping he wouldn’t be next to a chatterer. While people did the slow march up the aisle past him and babies cried, and announcements came incessantly over the speaker system about how to put bags in the bins, wheels down, and to please take your seats so departure could be on time, he peered out the window trying to mentally escape it all, trying to get himself someplace else.

  It wasn’t that he needed a drink; Carrie had become his new addiction, and it surprised him. Perhaps he hadn’t drunk so much for the loss of Robbie and his part in that loss, but for the loneliness, the emptiness of a failed marriage as well as a lost son. Had he ever been in love before, truly in love, the way he loved Carrie? Her vulnerability mixed with control, her aloofness mixed with loving, her wariness mixed with need. He surprised himself, falling in love like this at his age, the intensity of his feelings throwing him and catching him off guard.

  While a brief telephone conversation from the car hadn’t brought any resolutions as to their relationship, he knew there had to be decisions as to what mattered now. Could he put aside this, that or the other to be with her? Could he be less responsible toward his business, give more responsibility to Jake and the two managers so he could take more time away? And was it worth it?

  After living so long on his own—both with and without Leigh Anne—there was no road map as to how to proceed with this new-found happiness and the need and compulsion to be with Carrie.

  He punched her number one last time before they put the ban on electronic devices, but she didn’t pick up. After the voice mail message finished, he said quietly into the phone, “We’re about to take off, but I had to tell you…I love you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jake gunned down I-35, country music blasting over the cranky sounds of the air conditioning. The heat was up in southern Texas, and Mexico would be unbearable, especially in uniform. His air conditioning barely dealt with the sun burning in through the windscreen, searing the steering wheel and everything else in the front of the car, including himself. Even his sunglasses weren’t providing protection, and he snapped down the sun visor and played with it to get the best coverage. Rain would suit his mood better, but there was little enough of that this time of year unless a hurricane hit the coast and moved inland.

  He recalled his conversation with his dad, when he told him he was heading down to Brownsville to visit a stud farm down there. The quizzical look on his father’s face told him he didn’t swallow that. Whatever his dad thought, he was now so caught up in sorting his life with Carrie, nothing much else was going to get a whole lot of attention, and this suited Jake just fine.

  What hadn’t suited him was the lack of response from Lucinda. All those phone calls to her to no avail. But he’d discovered from her parents that she and her new husband were having a postponed honeymoon in Europe and wouldn’t be back for a couple of weeks.
Bad luck.

  Deep in thoughts of the way his life was going, the ring of the phone jolted him and made him jump, the sound so sudden in the hermetic world of the car. He shuffled with one hand to grab the phone and tried to surreptitiously put it to his ear. “Hello?” He stole a quick glance at the screen to see who was calling, but glare made it unreadable. Then he heard Paige’s voice.

  “I see you tried to get me, so I am being unbelievably good-natured today and returning your call. Where the hell are you? You sound as if you’re in some laundromat or something.”

  “I’m driving. Can I call you back in five?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Jake. Are you the only man in Texas who really cares about driving and talking at the same time?”

  “Maybe.” He grimaced to himself. “I don’t want to get picked up by the cops. Give me five,” and he put the phone down.

  It was longer than five minutes to the next exit to find a place to stop. Jake parked by the side of the road, long grass and a ditch almost claiming the car. He was sure Paige would be gone by now, wouldn’t pick up—knowing her—but she did, first ring.

  “What took you so long?” she spat out.

  He was taken aback for a moment, then laughed wryly. “Boy, Paige, you’re that impatient to talk to me? You hankerin’ to hear my Texas drawl or maybe have phone sex or somethin’?” He could picture her in his mind’s eye for a moment, probably prancing around in her underwear or a bikini, the usual smirk on her face.

  “Didn’t you ask me that last time we spoke, Jake? It must be on your mind, not mine. Anyway, I think our sex-of-any-kind days are over. We’re too much like brother and sister, now the geriatrics have got so hot and heavy. Why, we’ve practically committed incest with all the shagging that was going on here last week.”

  He sat back, trying to think of his father with Carrie. It was a better picture than his father and his mother—more likely. “So, how are you, Paige? What else is happening in the rarefied world of the Hamptons?”