Standing Bear's Surrender

by Peggy Webb

  Maybe Savannah would get it. Then she realized Savannah couldn’t get the door: Sarah had given her a well-deserved day off. And it wasn’t Delta’s day to work.

  Sighing, Sarah went to answer the door, then almost had a heart attack.

  “Jim…” She pushed her hair back from a face suddenly gone hot.

  “Hello, Sarah.”

  The way he said it sent shivers down her spine. The way he smiled melted her all the way down to her toes. The way he looked at her…

  Sarah caught a sharp breath. The look he gave her was both predatory and possessive. Memories flooded her until she was drowning. She’d already gone under three times and soon she would be lost.

  Don’t think about New Orleans. Don’t think about the way he’s looking at you.

  She couldn’t help herself. His eyes blazed through her like comets, and her whole body was on fire. She guessed she’d have stood in the doorway forever if he hadn’t said something.

  “May I come in?”

  “Forgive my bad manners. It’s Delta’s day off and Savannah’s not here and I guess I’m flustered…with all there is to do,” she added late, much, much too late.

  Of course he’d know she was flustered by him. Who could help but see? She led him into the den.

  “Can I get you something?”

  “Yes.” His smile dazzled her. “You.”

  “Ohh…”

  Her hand flew to her chest to hold in her flyaway heart. It was beating like a caged bird straining to be free. Sarah meant to sit on the sofa like a lady, but her limp body betrayed her. She sort of slumped and slithered instead.

  Her hem got stuck between the crushed velvet cushions. With her dress hiked over her knees and her heart pounding wildly, she sat there like a mannequin. Speechless.

  Jim went down on one knee and took her hand. Sarah forgot to breathe.

  “I’m asking you to marry me, Sarah.”

  Joy ricocheted through her, and hard on its heels, pain. She squeezed her eyes tightly together as if she could shut out the truth, the unbearable, horrible truth.

  He turned her hands over and planted sweet hot kisses in her palms. The kisses seared her heart.

  “Sarah, open you eyes.”

  How could she help but obey? She would do anything for Jim, anything except this.

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Oh, Jim…”

  “I hope that’s a yes. Say yes, Sarah.”

  The pain moved all over her, settling in her temples. Sledgehammers pounded them, and she thought she might faint.

  “Sarah?” Jim slid onto the sofa and pulled her into his arms. “What’s wrong?”

  She thought of saying nothing. She considered dismissing his question with a light reply. In the end she could do neither. Jim had given her so much. He’d given her the world. Didn’t he deserve the truth?

  “Everything, Jim. Everything’s wrong.”

  “Tell me and maybe I can make it right. I want to help you, Sarah.”

  He smoothed her hair, then kissed her softly on the lips. She leaned against him, savoring the feel of a solid wall of muscle, basking in the feeling of being protected, even for a moment.

  Maybe Julie was right. Maybe they should put her father in a nursing home, then Sarah would be free to follow her heart. But at what price? She couldn’t possibly build her happiness on her dad’s misery, and she had no doubt that he’d be miserable away from his home, his family.

  She pushed away from Jim and scrunched herself into the corner of the sofa.

  “There’s nothing you can do. I have to do this myself, Jim.”

  “Don’t shut me out, Sarah. I realize you have responsibilities. I can help with your father. I want to help.”

  A tiny seed of hope began to germinate, but she quickly squashed it. What kind of life would that be for Jim, confined to the house, playing watchdog for a man he barely knew?

  “No, Jim. I can’t do that to you.”

  “What are you saying, Sarah?”

  “Don’t you see?” Her heart broke and she pressed her hands over the gaping wound. “I can’t marry you.”

  Abruptly he got up and walked to the window, his back stiff. She’d wounded him. If not his heart, certainly his pride.

  All of a sudden Sarah realized that he had never said he loved her. Did he? Was love implicit in a proposal? She wished she knew.

  Staring at Jim’s unyielding back she remembered all the ways he was wonderful. She couldn’t sit on the sofa without making him understand.

  Soundlessly she crossed the thick carpet, then put her hand softly on his arm.

  “Jim?”

  The wounded look on his face brought tears to her eyes.

  “Please, please understand.”

  His eyes sought hers, and for a moment she thought everything was going to be all right. For a moment she thought he was going to smile at her in perfect understanding, then tell her that he would remain her friend. Always.

  “You’ve been a wonderful friend to me.”

  “Is that all I’ve been for you, Sarah?”

  No! She wanted to scream her denial. She wanted to fall into his arms and pour out her love for him.

  Then what? Nothing had changed. She still couldn’t marry him no matter how many declarations of love she made. The kindest thing she could do for the man she loved would be to let him go.

  He mistook her silence for assent. With his face a cold mask, he walked out the door.

  “I love you,” Sarah cried. “I love you, Jim Standing Bear.”

  But there was no one to hear. The Bear had already gone. Out of her house. Out of her life.

  Sarah woke in the middle of the night and found her father trying to climb over the garden wall. She finally got him inside, then fired the night sitter on the spot. Her third since Mrs. Grimes.

  She cried that night, sitting in a chair beside her father’s bed after he’d gone back to sleep. But she wasn’t crying for him this time. She was crying for Jim, and for all she’d lost.

  Jim woke in the middle of the night and decided to buy an airstrip. Why not? Flying was the only thing he had left, and thank God he had that. Otherwise he might go crazy. Could losing a woman drive a man crazy?

  Summer was almost over before Sarah found the letter.

  Sleep eluded her these days. She’d gone to her garden, not to dance but to mourn. Bone-weary and heart-broken, she sat beneath the outstretched wings of her broken angel.

  She lifted her eyes to the rooftop next door. Jim wasn’t there, of course. She’d known he wouldn’t be. She hadn’t seen him since the night he proposed.

  So long ago. So very long ago.

  Sarah sighed. At least she had that. He’d asked her to marry him. When she got back to the house she was going to turn back the pages of her desk calendar and mark the date, then put the calendar in the trunk with her other memorabilia.

  A full moon lit her garden, and flowers perfumed the air. The flowers Jim had planted. Following the winding brick pathway, Sarah knelt to sniff and admire each precious blossom.

  Memories overwhelmed her, and all of a sudden Sarah was so mad she shook her fists at the heavens.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why?”

  She was still looking skyward when she saw a glimpse of gold in the angel’s outstretched hand. Dragging a chair toward the statue, she climbed up and retrieved the music box her father had given her when she was six years old. He’d given Julie an identical one in silver.

  The music began to play as soon as she lifted the lid, and inside lay her father’s letter. She opened it up and began to read:

  Sarah, this letter is for you because I know you’ll be the one to try and sacrifice yourself for me. Both my daughters love me, of that I have no doubt. But Julie has always been the practical one. You’re a caretaker, Sarah, and for that reason I worry what will happen to you when my mind is completely gone.

  That’s why I’m writing this letter. You’ll try to take care
of me yourself. Don’t. I beg of you. I’m writing it down because you’re at school and I can’t tell you, and I don’t know when, or if I’ll have the mind to do this again.

  The words blurred, and Sarah looked up at the moon and blinked back her tears. Then she read on:

  Sweetheart, the thing you should know about this disease is that I’m happy in the world my failing mind has created. Time means nothing to me. Whether I see you and Julie every day or only once in a blue moon, it’s all one and the same. I suppose this alternate reality is God’s way of compensating for the dreadful loss.

  Sarah glimpsed the brilliant mind she’d taken for granted. All her life she’d had access to a fount of wisdom and knowledge, and she hadn’t fully appreciated it until she’d lost it.

  I want you and Julie to find a reputable place for me staffed with compassionate nurses. It wouldn’t hurt if they’re pretty, either.

  The old Dr. Sloan was shining through, and Sarah smiled through her tears.

  This is the last thing I’ll ever ask you to do, Sarah. Don’t be noble and sacrifice yourself. Put me in a home! I mean that. No matter what happens remember, Sarah…tell Julie, too…I’ll be loving you, always.

  The tinkly sound of the music echoed his last refrain. Sarah closed her eyes and hummed along with the song. “Always.”

  “Let’s take a little stroll through the clouds. What do you say?” Jim glanced at his brother sitting in the copilot’s seat of the Baron.

  “Go for it, pal. You know your way around the sky. Wish I could say the same thing for you on the ground.”

  “Let it drop, Ben.”

  The plane vanished into a thick cloud that looked like dirty banks of snow piled around them. Surrounded by the foglike thickness, Ben fell silent and Jim breathed a sigh of relief.

  Sometimes he wished he’d never told his brother about his ill-fated proposal to Sarah. It still hurt just thinking her name, and Jim tried to push her out of his mind.

  This time it didn’t work. At fourteen thousand feet the plane shot out of the cloud into stunning brilliance.

  “Wow!” Ben said.

  “Ever seen the moon like this?”

  “No. Man, oh, man.” He looked at his brother. “I bet Sarah’d say yes if you’d bring her up here. It would be the perfect setting to tell her you love her.”

  Jim hoped the expression on his face gave new meaning to the word grim. For once in his life, he wanted his baby brother to shut up.

  But Ben had never been the kind to back away from a fray let alone a formidable expression.

  “You did tell her you loved her, didn’t you?” Jim’s silence damned him. “Man, oh, man. Didn’t I teach you anything about women?”

  Grim vanished and morose took its place.

  “I guess not.”

  “Then it’s about damned time I started.”

  Julie and Sarah cried over the letter together, then they left Savannah in charge and set out to find a place for their father.

  “It must have a place for dancing,” Sarah said, and an all-day search turned up the perfect facility set in a lush garden.

  They made hot tea, then pulled off their shoes and collapsed in Sarah’s library.

  “You know what this means, don’t you, Sarah?”

  Sarah didn’t want to think about it. She had a Ph.D. in the school of disappointment.

  “It means you’re free. You can go to Jim and tell him how you feel. You can…”

  “Don’t.” Sarah held up her hand to stop her sister’s flow of words. “I haven’t seen him in months. What makes you think he’d even see me, let alone ask me to marry him?”

  “What makes you think he wouldn’t? Especially after what he’s done for your boys.”

  “What are you talking about?’

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  Julie rolled her eyes. “It’s been in all the papers.”

  “I haven’t had time to sit down in weeks, let alone read a paper.” Delta would have told her if she hadn’t been on leave for the birth of her first grandbaby. “Are you going to tell me or what?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Jim Standing Bear bought a private airstrip, and he’s teaching your boys to fly in his off-duty hours. He said that flying not only gives the boys a summer activity, but it also builds their self-esteem.”

  Julie gave her sister a triumphant smile. “He’s a damned hero, Sarah. Again.”

  Love was a tornado ripping through her, tearing away pain and loneliness and fear.

  Jim was rescuing her boys. He was doing it for her.

  Or was he?

  If he’d done it for her, why hadn’t he come over to tell her so? And why had he never said, “Sarah, I love you”?

  “Go to see him, Sarah.”

  What if he told her no? Sarah didn’t think she could bear that.

  “I can’t, Julie. I just can’t.”

  Julie didn’t press the issue. Mainly, Sarah guessed, because they were too busy. Within a heartbreaking few days they had settled their father into Angelwood Manor.

  Though they didn’t need sitters, Savannah would still come every day so their father would have a familiar face, and a dance partner. His room was only two doors away from the recreation area, an enormous space with a player piano and a parquet floor.

  When Sarah went home the empty house enveloped her. She had far too much space. And she was entirely too close to Jim. Tomorrow she was going to look for a smaller house, as far away from his neighborhood as she could get.

  “What are you doing?” Julie asked when she called the next morning.

  “House-hunting,” Sarah said, then told her why.

  “You’ll do no such thing. Today we’re going to the beach.”

  “Are you going to try to boss me around the rest of the summer?”

  “No, only today.” Julie giggled. “Put on something stunning.”

  “For the beach?”

  “Well, yeah. You never know.”

  Sarah got suspicious when Julie headed toward the same stretch of isolated beach Jim had carried her to so long ago. Had it been months? Suddenly it seemed like yesterday.

  “Close your eyes, Sarah,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  “You have a surprise for me? That’s sweet, Julie.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s me. Sweet all the way to my dyed roots.” She parked the car, cut the engine, then yelled, “Ta-dah!”

  Sarah opened her eyes. There in the bay was a riverboat, and on the beach beside it was Jim Standing Bear. She turned to her sister in amazement.

  “Julie…What in the world…?”

  “Go to him.” Julie gave her a gentle push. “Go and ask Jim.”

  Her heart beating like war drums, Sarah got out of the car and started toward Jim. The stretch of beach between them seemed endless.

  There was no sound except the car engine as Julie pulled back onto the highway and headed home.

  Now she was completely alone. Except for Jim.

  She was glad she’d worn a dress, pink, a soft summery confection Julie had pulled out of her closet when she saw Sarah’s gray sweatpants and white T-shirt.

  “Good Lord, you look like an orphan,” she’d said. “Here. Wear this.”

  Jim was still as a statue, watching her in agonizing silence. The wind whipped Sarah’s skirt and the sand dragged at her feet. Then suddenly Jim was running, running toward her with his arms wide open.

  Laughing, crying, she raced into his arms. He caught her up and held her so her feet were dangling and her face was two inches from his.

  “I thought this day would never come,” he said.

  “Neither did I.”

  He began kissing her, and she slid down the length of his body until her feet were touching sand. But she was still floating. She might never stop.

  Jim pulled back and cupped her face. “Let me look at you.” His eyes
, intense and shining, swept over her face until she was so flushed she thought she’d faint. “My God,” he breathed. “How have I stayed away so long?”

  He kissed her again, and she couldn’t have said the exact moment he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the gangplank and into the riverboat. He didn’t stop kissing her until they were inside an enormous ballroom with piped-in music and gleaming floors and silver balls spinning on the ceiling. Spinning as fast as Sarah’s mind.

  “This is for you, Sarah.” He leaned over and left a trail of kisses from her mouth to her throat, then beyond, and it was only then that she realized they were all alone on the riverboat.

  It was only then that she realized Jim had given her another of her dreams.

  “Oh, Jim,” she said, then words failed her. They probably always would in the presence of this magnificent man.

  “I love you, Sarah. I’ve been loving you for so long I can’t remember when it all started.”

  “I do,” she whispered. “I loved you even before I met you. When I looked up and saw you on your rooftop watching over me in my garden, I loved you.”

  The lost words suddenly came tumbling out, and Sarah knew exactly what to say. Standing on tiptoe she pressed her lips softly against his, then leaned back, smiling.

  “You are my hero, Jim. You’ll always be my hero, and the answer to your question is yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  Laughing, he swung her into the air and spun her around until they were both dizzy and out of breath.

  “If I’d stuck around longer when I first asked that question, is that the answer I’d have heard?”

  “Maybe. Think of all the time we’ve lost.”

  She was feeling coy and mischievous and loving every minute of it. For a moment he looked genuinely crestfallen, then his recovery swept her off her feet. Literally.

  Jim scooped her up and headed belowdecks. He didn’t stop until he was in a large stateroom with a canopied bed.

  “Just think of all the fun we’re going to have making up for it, future Mrs. Standing Bear.”

  He spread her upon the bed as tenderly as if she were a bruisable flower. Then he lay down beside her and kissed her.