Improbable Solution

by Judith B. Glad

  "I'd like to keep him for two or three days," the doctor said when he joined Gus and Sally in the small lounge at the end of the hall. "Long enough to see him stabilized, anyway."

  "Is he going to be all right, Jim?" Gus heard the tears hovering at the edge of Sally's voice, but she was in control, as she had been ever since she recovered from that one brief, intense storm of weeping this morning.

  "It's hard to say. He could recover almost completely from this CVA—stroke—but you know he's not going to get any better." Dr. Berman rubbed his upper lip several times, as if trying to come to a decision. "It's more likely he'll have some debility. I think it's time you considered putting him where he can get professional care."

  Gus saw Sally stiffen.

  "I can take care of him. I took care of Mom."

  "Sure you can," Berman said. "That's why you look like something the cat dragged in."

  Gus glared. Where'd he get off, saying things like that about Sally?

  "I didn't sleep well last night." Sally's square little chin set and her magnificent eyes glowed with determination. "And I didn't have time for a shower this morning."

  Berman sat down on the other side of her and slipped an arm around her. If he hadn't been close to sixty, Gus might have been tempted to question his actions.

  "Sally, you've lost a good ten pounds since I last saw you, and you look twenty years older..."

  Was the man blind? Sally's figure was perfect, and her face was as young and unlined as a girl's.

  "...and so tired one good puff would blow you onto your knees. Not to mention the fact that Will's getting more uncontrollable." He touched the bruise on her cheek.

  "I'm fine," she insisted.

  Gus couldn't argue with the doctor's concern about her father's violence. He'd lain awake for hours last night, wondering if there was anything he could do to keep her from being injured again. And if he did, wouldn't she depend on him even more? He forced his attention back to the argument between her and the doctor.

  "I'll make a deal with you," Berman said. "If Will's condition stabilizes, I'll let you take him home..." He held up a hand as Sally started to respond. "Let me finish. I'll let you take him home, on one condition."

  "Anything. You know how Pop would hate being anywhere else."

  "I doubt he'd notice."

  Based on his own observations, Gus silently agreed.

  "Don't say that! Pop knows where he belongs. He'd...he'd die if he had to live anywhere else."

  "Sally, he's going to die anyway." Berman's voice was gentle, patient. "Sooner or later."

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, shook her head. "Not soon." she said. Her voice was strong, firm as she looked the doctor in the eye. "Not soon."

  Gus wondered if it was a prayer or a cry of defiance.

  "What's the condition?"

  "That you'll get someone in for at least eight hours a day." Shaking his finger in her face, Berman repeated, "Eight hours a day, not just overnight, Sally. I want you to have help with him so you can have a life of your own. You need to be getting outdoors, being with people, instead of walling yourself up in that dark old house and spending your youth on what's left of Will."

  "I've called the employment agency. They sent me two people to interview. The first one was a tiny little woman who'd never be able to handle Pop when he's upset. The other...well, let's just say she wasn't what I was looking for."

  Dr. Berman held up his hand. "Juana Dominguez is a practical nurse. She's about my age, and strong. She used to work here, but when her husband died, she decided she wanted a job that would let her live in. The man she was taking care of went into a nursing home just last week, and I know she's looking for another situation. She'll take good care of your father, Sally. I promise you."

  Sally chewed her lower lip and wrung her hands.

  Gus wanted to take them in his and stop their nervous twisting. Instead he said, "Do you want to meet Ms. Dominguez before you decide?"

  "Yes," she said. "Yes, I'd like that."

  Berman went to call the practical nurse and arrange for the meeting.

  Sally looked up. Her eyes were wide and troubled, her hands clasped tightly together, knuckles white. "I really don't have any choice, do I?"

  "It's the right thing to do," he said, knowing she needed reassurance.

  Hell! I don't know what's the right thing to do any more now than I ever did! Maybe taking him home is the worst thing she could do. What if he hurts her again?

  * * * *

  Pop had been home from the hospital for three days when Sally finally decided to take advantage of having someone in the house. Although Juana was competent, compassionate, cheerful and all those other qualities that describe the perfect nurse, Sally still worried about neglecting her father. Look what had happened when she'd ignored him for just one night.

  But this morning, the last Friday in April, was simply too glorious to spend indoors. She'd gone out in the dew-wet dawn and begun washing windows. This afternoon after school, Buster was coming by to help trim the hedges. Yesterday she'd made a hurried trip to the Post Office and had noticed how spiffy the rest of the town looked. Even the boarded-up stores on Main Street looked fresh, as if the whole town was putting on its Sunday clothes for the May Fest, only eleven days away.

  Today, since she didn't have to hurry home, she planned to treat herself to a long, leisurely lunch. Perhaps Gus would be there. She wanted to thank him for his help the day of Pop's stroke.

  He wasn't.

  Lyle was in his usual seat, the front-facing bench of the last booth. Both Roy Gilbert and Arne Lundquist were on their stools, where they'd been sitting every time Sally had come in to the café for almost six years. Roy and Arne hadn't spoken for four times that long—ever since Arne's daughter Erma and Roy's son Randy had gotten divorced—so the seat between them was empty.

  "How's that nurse workin' out?" Georgina said when Sally slid into the booth with Lyle. The constable wasn't in uniform this morning, but he still was handsome as the day was long. Just because she couldn't feel more than brotherly love for him didn't mean she couldn't enjoy his good looks.

  "I think she's going to be a godsend," she admitted, although it had taken her a couple of days to reach that conclusion. "Having her in the house, even when she's not officially on duty—well, let's just say I sleep better than I have for a long time."

  "Milly said she's some kind of kin to Pete Gomez's wife," Lyle said, after Sally had ordered the beef stew.

  "A great-aunt, I think. Lupe Gomez called yesterday to invite her to Sunday dinner." Grimacing, Sally set her coffee cup down after a single bitter sip.

  The door opened. She didn't need to turn around to know that Gus Loring had come in. She felt his presence as if he'd reached out and touched her.

  Lyle waved him to join them. "I've got to be on my way, and Sally shouldn't have to eat alone." He stood, letting Gus slide into his place. "The liver and onions are good today."

  With a touch to the brim of his western hat, he was gone.

  "I haven't had liver and onions in years," Gus said.

  "I never have. I'm not even sure I want to sit at the same table as someone who'd eat them."

  "You sat with Lyle." His almost-grin raised her internal temperature about ten degrees.

  She pulled herself together. "He was eating pie when I sat down." For lack of anything else to do with her hands, she sipped her coffee again. Immediately, she regretted it—the bitter brew burned all the way down. "I was hoping to see you," she said, as soon as she could speak.

  He raised his eyebrow but didn't reply. There was something different—something distant—about him, for all his superficial friendliness.

  "I wanted to thank you for your help the other day. I don't know what I would have done without you."

  "You'd have managed." He sounded almost angry. "If I hadn't been there, you would have done just fine."

  "Well, of course I would have," she said, irritated
at his rejection of her gratitude, "sooner or later. But having you there meant a lot to me."

  Georgina set her lunch before her, and she used the interruption to deal with her irritation. After the first bite of the stew, she said, "No matter what you think, I couldn't have coped as well without your help. I'll be glad to do whatever I can to return the favor."

  "You don't owe me anything," he said, his voice harsh, "so let's just forget about it." He set his coffee cup down so hard some sloshed over onto the table.

  Sally stared, confused. "But, Gus—"

  "Forget it, I said." He stuck the menu back behind the napkin holder. "Liver and onions," he said to Georgina. He stood, reached for the copy of The Oregonian that lay on the counter and sat back down, opening the newspaper between them.

  Sally wondered why she'd ever thought him a nice man.

  Gus knew he was being a real bastard. He could have politely accepted her thanks and simply said he'd be too busy to have much time for a social life for a while.

  Or something—anything—to make damned sure she didn't ask him for any more favors. Instead, he'd probably made her so mad she'd stay as far away as she could from him.

  Well, wasn't that what he wanted?

  No. What he wanted was to take her to bed and make love...have sex with her until neither of them could do more than lie in a boneless heap of satiation. She was under his skin, that was for sure. And the only way to get her out was—

  Georgina batted at the newspaper, startling him.

  "Here's your dinner. Now put that paper down and pay attention to your food."

  Sally still sat across from him, but she was looking at her plate, not at him. Her fingers were crumbling her roll, making a pile on top of the nearly untouched stew.

  Gus ignored her and picked up his knife and fork. Liver and onions had never smelled so good before.

  Just as he lifted a forkful of the first delectable bite to his mouth, Sally looked up at him. Her huge eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

  "I really feel sorry for you," she said. "You must be in incredible pain to want to hurt other people so much."

  While Gus stared, she tossed her napkin beside her plate and slid out of the booth.

  "Gotta run, Georgina," she said, her voice too high and too carefree. Waving and speaking briefly to others in the café, she made her quick escape.

  The forkful of liver and onions was still suspended just before Gus's mouth. He took it in.

  Was it shame that made it taste bitter as gall?

  Sally honestly didn't know why she even bothered to be nice to Gus Loring. He was the crankiest man!

  Well, she wasn't going to worry about it. Now that Juana was here to take care of Pop, she had a lot of catching up to do, and not just with her work for Frank Tsugawa.

  She was really ashamed to have the house looking so bad. Everyone else in Whiterock made an effort to keep the town presentable, even when they had to close their businesses. Look at the hardware store, for instance. When it came time for Gene Alpin to retire, none of his children had been interested in returning to become the fourth generation in the family business. And Gene hadn't found a buyer, although he'd advertised. So on the day last year when he turned sixty-five, he'd simply walked out the door and locked it behind him.

  But Gene must still be paying for upkeep on the building because its painted façade wasn't too faded. Behind clean windows, a display still invited people to buy hammers and cake pans and ladders. She looked inside as she passed, seeing that no dust dimmed the shiny tools and utensils.

  And look at Max Guthrie's law office, with its red door and the purple-and-gold trim around the long, narrow windows. She had to smile. Max would have been happier a hundred years ago, when his velvet-collared jackets and paisley ascots wouldn't have been so startling. His legal secretary, Edna Wallace, waved from behind her typewriter as Sally walked by. She returned the wave but didn't stop. Until she was certain Juana could handle Pop, she didn't want to stay away from the house too long.

  Grip greeted her with a fake-fierce growl as she passed his yard, and Elizabeth Alpin waved from her seat at the front window. Again she waved back, reminding herself to get over to see Mrs. Alpin soon.

  "My, but your roses look good this year," she told the bulldog. "I don't think I've ever seen that red bush so full of flowers."

  Her roses—her mother's roses, actually—had been paltry the past couple of years. They'd never been a match for Mrs. Alpin's, but they didn't deserve to be neglected, either. That was something she could remedy.

  She worked in the yard all afternoon, making discouragingly little progress at turning the bramble patch in the backyard into a semblance of a rose garden while Buster attacked the hedge. The fence surrounding it sagged in places, the paint on its pickets scaling and weathered. Half a dozen of the pickets had fallen off and others were held in place only by the tangled thicket of long-unpruned canes. In the center, the gazebo sat like a raddled grande dame whose beauty was fled, fortune wasted and hopes dead.

  This had been her childhood secret place where she'd gone to dream of a bright future.

  Stop that! You've been wallowing in self-pity so long it's become a habit. You chose to stay. Now think about someone besides yourself for a change.

  Twice when she went inside for a drink Juana was sitting with Pop, holding his hand while they watched soap operas.

  The second time, the practical nurse explained, "He's more quiet when I touch him. I think he gets lonely."

  Sally felt the acid burn of Juana's innocent words the rest of the afternoon.

  I think he gets lonely.

  She hacked at a particularly long rose cane, not caring when it whipped back and caught the skin of her upper arm—she was already a bloody mess from her war with the roses. And you deserve to be, a niggling little voice told her, the way you neglected your father.

  She couldn't even argue with the voice. When had she forgotten that it was as important to show Pop how much she loved him as it was to keep him clean and well-fed?

  "I won't ask who's winning."

  The words came from behind her, but she didn't turn around. She'd be damned if she'd let him have another try at battering her emotions. Before she was more than coldly polite to Gus Loring, he was going to have to apologize.

  Grovel, even.

  If she had any sense, no amount of groveling would get him back into her good graces.

  She aimed the loppers at another rose cane, shoving them into the twisted, tangled mass and gaining herself another long scratch on the back of her hand.

  "Sally?" His voice was low, gentle. Pleading.

  "Go away." Why should I let you mess with my head? For that was just what he'd been doing, with his ax-handle-wide shoulders, his voice as sensuous as the feel of fur on naked skin. She cut viciously, and saw she had taken a branch bud she'd intended to keep.

  "I came to apologize." He sounded as if he was right behind her.

  "Huh!" she said, grabbing the severed cane and pulling, never mind that she also had hold of a monster thorn. "You've got a lot to apologize—" The cane came free and she staggered backward, full into him. "—for!"

  His arms went around her, even as he fell backward. He managed to twist as they fell so she ended up lying atop him, nose-to-nose, chest-to-chest.

  Thigh-to...

  "Don't move!" he cried as she brought her leg up for leverage.

  She stopped the motion as she heard his words, but she didn't get off him. He felt too good, all hard muscles and warm, hard man.

  "Oh, God," she sighed, just before she gave in to the urge she felt every time she saw him.

  She kissed him, tasting the faint scent of gasoline on him, feeling the slight, gritty film of sweat from his day's work in an environment full of dust and oil.

  She liked it. He smelled like a man ought to smell—not like a garden or a pine forest or a civet cat in heat.

  "I wasn't going to speak to you until you groveled," she
said, and nipped his lower lip.

  "Grovel?" He settled her more comfortably along his body.

  "Something like that." She laid a line of kisses across his cheek, enjoying the slight prickle of his day's growth of beard against her lips. Her husband had always been well-groomed, immaculate and scented with spices and musk. She'd once thought him sexy but never so exciting as Gus was, right here, right now.

  His hand stroked up and down her back. His leg had somehow insinuated itself between hers.

  "So, do I have to crawl, or will a little writhing do the trick?" As he spoke, he moved his hips, thrusting himself hard against her, holding her bottom so she could do nothing but respond.

  "Ah!" A bolt of desire went through her, so intense, so irresistible she could feel her body shake with its force. Even as she cried out, his hand slipped around her nape, holding her tied-back hair with a firm grasp, bringing her mouth down to his again, this time with no teasing, no tantalizing. There was no play in his kiss, only promise. He showed her, with his tongue, what he wanted, what he intended.

  His hand slid up under the loose sweatshirt she wore, stopped at the back fastener of her bra. With practiced ease, he opened the hooks. One quick movement and he had her on her side, was looming over her, his big hand hot on her back, her midriff. The undersides of her breasts.

  He teased, now. His fingers stroked the tender flesh of her breasts, approaching but never touching her straining nipples. Releasing her hair, he swept her shirt up and pushed her loosened bra aside, revealing her breasts to the spring breeze and his eyes. His hands kneaded and caressed her, and his mouth explored her, starting at the elastic waist of her canvas pants, nibbling its way up the sensitive skin of her midriff. He laved the undersides of her breasts, first one then the other, and worked his way up the center.

  Sally knew she was the one writhing, and didn't care. She didn't want him to stop, wanted him to discover nipples aching with the need to be touched, to be taken into his hot mouth and suckled.