Just Over the Mountain

by Robyn Carr

  “Loose tongues. Beer brains. I’m going home.”

  “I’ll bring Lindsey home tomorrow after a big breakfast.”

  “Thanks. Have a good sleep.”

  “I’m sleeping with the girls.”

  “Good idea.”

  They embraced and said goodbye in the kitchen. When they exited the kitchen, Susan went down the hall to her bedroom where the little girls lay sprawled on her king-size bed, the popcorn bowl half emptied on the floor and the movie over.

  Julianna went to the baby, wrapped him up, held him on her shoulder as she got the keys out of her purse. “Mike,” she said sharply. “Bring the diaper bag. Now.” And out the door she went.

  Dumb and Dumber sat at the table in confusion. Mike was the first to recover. “Uh-oh,” he said. “We’re in trouble.”

  “No way! What did we do?”

  Mike stood from the table. “I think it’s what we didn’t do, pal. I think we didn’t have, you know, humor.”

  “Oh, man,” John whined. “I was just joking around!”

  Mike grabbed the strap of the diaper bag and headed for the door, left open. “Good luck, bud. You’re gonna need it.”

  The door was barely closed when Susan returned to the living-dining area. She held a pillow and two blankets; late-summer nights were chilly in the valley. She tossed them on the sofa.

  “Aw…Susan…”

  “If you get uncomfortable, Sydney will be in my bed, so hers will be vacant.”

  “Susan, honey…”

  “Every time you opened your mouth tonight, things got worse. So do yourself a favor and shut up.”

  “But Susan…” he said to her departing form. He was stopped by the closing of his bedroom door. It closed with soft but unmistakable finality.

  June had had a quiet Saturday on call. She attended one asthma attack that had turned out to be minor, and one small head laceration on an active eleven-year-old boy that took a few stitches. She had the boy’s mother bring him to the clinic so she could use the treatment room rather than work out of the ambulance.

  She was just putting the treatment room back in order—wiping the counter and thinking about calling the Toopeeks to see if she could drop in for coffee later—when she heard the clinic door open. If there was a car outside the clinic, the assumption was that the doctor was in. She poked her head out of the treatment-room door and looked down the long hallway toward the reception area and front door. During office hours the door between the waiting room and hallway would be closed, but after hours it was propped open so that one could see from the front door to the back door.

  “Hey June-bug,” Chris Forrest said.

  She felt her cheeks grow immediately warm at the sight of him coming in the door. His years in San Diego had caused him to lose those small-town looks, leaving him a little more citified. The pants he wore were pleated and cuffed, his shirt was a Polo, his watch was gold, his shoes loafers. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow. And he was tall. So tall. When they’d dated in high school Elmer used to refer to them as a couple of noodles, for June wasn’t short and she was whip thin.

  He came down the hall, and as he drew nearer, he ran his hand through his errant dark brown hair, not as curly as it had been in his youth, but still plenty thick.

  “You have a few minutes to talk, June?” he asked.

  “What’s up?” she asked, resisting the urge to fan her cheeks. Why was she flushing anyway? she wondered.

  He took a deep breath. “This is way overdue. I have lots of explaining to do.”

  She tossed the paper towel she had used on the counter into the trash and washed her hands. “You do? I don’t understand.” But she did understand.

  “It’s been twenty years, we never talked about it, and—”

  “Hey, Chris.” She turned to him, held up a hand and forced a smile. “Let it go. It was a long time ago. Forget about it.”

  “But you’re still mad. And you have every right to be.”

  “Mad? Me? Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “June-bug, I know you. And you’re still mad at me.”

  “You don’t know me! You might’ve known some kid who had a childhood crush on you a couple of decades ago, but believe me, I’ve gotten over you. I’m not mad. I’m simply not interested!”

  And he smiled. Despite her efforts, she sounded angry. And if she was honest, she would have to admit to it. But what exactly it was that made her angry was a blur. Was it the fact that he ran off and got married to someone else while they were practically engaged? Or was it the fact that he never, in twenty years, attempted to explain why? Perhaps because, even now, after all this time and all this poorly concealed anger, she still noticed how damn good-looking he was? How dare he smile at her! Did she want to hear his excuses? Certainly! But she wouldn’t make it easy on him, because he just didn’t deserve that.

  “Can we go somewhere?” he said. “The café? A park? Just so we can sit down. And talk.”

  “We can sit in my office, if you insist there’s something you have to tell me.” Without waiting for his assent, she went to the office and placed herself behind the desk. Sadie perked up at the prospect of company and wagged a greeting to Chris, who responded with a friendly pat.

  “My mom told me you had old Mikos Silva’s dog.”

  “Sadie was willed to me, actually. I was treating Mikos for congestive heart failure. He left a note asking me to take her. Now she’s my very best friend. Have a seat.” June folded her hands on top of her desk and waited. She hoped she looked like a parole officer.

  “You look good, June. You haven’t gotten a day older.”

  She grimaced. Fishing for compliments, probably. Well, she wouldn’t oblige him. In fact, he looked better with a little maturity. Why did men do that? “Thanks,” she said.

  His grin only grew wider and he chuckled. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  She sighed in exasperation. “Chris, what is it you want to say to me?”

  “That I’m sorry. That I want to make amends. That I’ve spent more years regretting what I did to you than you’ll believe.”

  “Okay, forgiven,” she said, placing the palms of her hands on her desk as if to rise.

  “Come on, June. Give me a break. Please?”

  She sat back down.

  “When we were kids, I was really in love with you. Really. When you went away to college and I stayed behind, I could hardly stand the separation. On top of that, even the little community college was a huge struggle for me. I always struggled in school, you know that. My folks thought I wasn’t trying, but I was. I only lost interest in school because it was so foreign to me. I’m slightly dyslexic, as it turns out. So, I was doing okay, writing love notes, waiting for weekends, while you were attending the big college and getting straight As, but I felt like a big dope. I felt entirely not smart enough for you.”

  “As it turns out…”

  “I really didn’t expect you to be sympathetic…”

  “Wise of you,” she said.

  “See! You are mad!”

  “Well, if you have to know the truth, I was somewhat pissed that you promised to marry me and then ran off with another girl. And not just any other girl, but the very one who tried to get you away from me for all the years of my youth.”

  “Because you cut me out of your life,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We were going to get married after college, June. It was all mapped out. I was killing myself trying to pass stupid junior college so I could go to Berkeley after two years, to be with you, to maybe live together on the sly, and what did you do? You decided to be a doctor.”

  “My teachers all thought—”

  “And I heard about it from Doc. Not from you. ‘Well, she changed her major to medicine,’ he said. ‘I should have known,’ he said. ‘Now you’re looking at about eight to twelve years of study, Chris, old boy,’ he said to me.”

  She was quiet.
Hadn’t she told him? Had she really expected him to keep all his promises while she just did whatever? “I was only eighteen,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said.

  “I gave you my virginity, you son of a bitch.”

  “Well, I gave you mine, too, you know!”

  “Oh. You did?” It was easy to forget that guys even had virginity, they were always putting such effort toward acting like old experienced studs. “But I didn’t leave you!”

  “Yeah, you did. And instead of either one of us talking about this rift, we went our separate ways. I joined the navy, you became a doctor.”

  “You didn’t just join the navy, Chris. You got married.”

  “I’m still not exactly sure how that happened,” he said. “But it was a huge mistake. The marriage wasn’t good. Nancy came with me to San Diego and got pregnant, so we got married. She had a miscarriage, and there you have it. It was another six years before the boys came along. Then her folks moved to San Diego to be closer to her and the kids and the rest is history. I’m sorry, June. I know how much I hurt you.”

  “Like I said,” she said, but without that edge in her voice, “I’m over you.”

  “I like that word, ‘over.’ Think you could put a ‘start’ in front of it?”

  She laughed humorlessly. “Can you be serious? Do you really think you can come back to town after twenty years and say, ‘Whoops. Let’s give it another try’?”

  “Well, not just like that. I thought we’d…you know…date. Or something.”

  She leaned back in her chair. It would be so much more convenient if she could just say she had someone in her life and was not available. But when you were sleeping with an undercover cop no one was supposed to know about, things got dicey. She found herself smiling. How like Chris to waltz back into her life like that, explain in less than ten minutes how this little misunderstanding had resulted in one bad marriage and one broken heart, and how simple it would be to just start over and make it right.

  The phone rang and she picked it up. “Dr. Hudson,” she answered. She listened, threw in an occasional uh-huh, scribbled on a pad and finally said, “Sarah, give him an aspirin and if he stops breathing, do you know CPR? Good. I’m on my way.”

  She stood up and headed for the door. “Come on, Sadie. Gotta run, Chris. Gotta lock up, let’s go.”

  “What is it?” he was asking, running out the door so she could lock it.

  “A patient with chest pains.” She locked the clinic door, let Sadie jump into the ambulance ahead of her and then started it up. She lowered her window and said, “Oh, Chris. We’re not going to date. Or anything.” She raised the window and turned on the bells and whistles.

  Seven

  June called the police department for assistance at the Kelleher farm and asked Deputy Lee Stafford to meet her there. June couldn’t imagine what Daniel Culley would be doing at the Kelleher place.

  Sarah was an artist in her early fifties who had moved to the valley from the Bay Area ten years ago. She was divorced, had grown children and a couple of grandchildren. After years of creating, teaching and showing her work in the chaos of the big city, she had decided on the quiet beauty of the country.

  She had purchased a big old farmhouse on the edge of town and converted the garage into a mammoth studio with skylights and windows. There she painted, sculpted, threw pots, sewed and crafted. She also gardened voraciously and shared her produce. And her baking was to die for. She kept pets—cats, dogs, a couple of large birds—and had frequent visitors of family and friends from all over the country, establishing that she was loved by those near and far. She was a round, plush woman of deep beauty with a soft spirit that one felt like sinking into. Sarah was like a warm blanket. Though she was a newcomer of ten years, she had been immediately accepted and embraced.

  June knew that Sarah had added a pair of riding horses to her menagerie a couple of years ago, but they weren’t the type of horses Daniel trained. She couldn’t fathom the connection between Sarah and Daniel. Was he buying art from her? Were Blythe and Sarah friends?

  These questions were soon answered when Sarah came to the door in her dressing gown. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said. “He scared me to death. Every time he tried to get up and dress, he said he felt like one of his horses was sitting on his chest.”

  Bag in hand, June followed Sarah through the house to the bedroom. Propped against a few pillows, and wearing only his undershirt and boxers, was Daniel Culley.

  Poor Daniel didn’t even have the energy to blush. His pallor was grayish and his eyes sparkled with fear that he might be dying. June sat on the edge of the bed, pulled a vial of nitroglycerin out of her bag, and slipped it into his mouth. “Hold this under your tongue, young man, and let me get your blood pressure.” He sighed and sank back into the pillows, relieved. “I’m here, Daniel. You’re going to be all right. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He nodded, as though he knew this. “Lee Stafford is on his way, in case I need assistance in moving you.” He nodded again, pinching his eyes closed. A lot of people were going to soon be in on this secret. Too soon, the question of what Daniel had done to rile Blythe to the point she’d shot at him would be answered.

  His pressure was understandably a little high, but his pulse was normal and strong. June listened to his heart—nice and steady, no congestion.

  Within a few minutes his chest pains had subsided. “It’s gone! What was it?” he wanted to know. “Gas? Heartburn?”

  “No, Daniel. Probably angina. I don’t think you had a heart attack. I have a portable EKG in the ambulance, but we don’t even need to bother with that. I’m going to take you to the hospital and let them give you a workup.”

  “I feel pretty good now,” he said. “You sure I can’t just get back to the stables? As long as I go easy?”

  “Absolutely sure. You’d be taking a major risk.”

  “To the hospital, Daniel,” Sarah said firmly. “You’ll do exactly as June says. Thank you, June,” Sarah said, tears in her voice. “I don’t know when I’ve been more scared. I was afraid I was losing him.” She caressed Daniel’s face with her soft palm. “So soon after finding him.”

  “I’m probably too mean to die,” Daniel said. “Sarah, you’ll have to call her.”

  “I will, Daniel. But I’m going to go with you to the hospital.” She looked at June. “Can I call Blythe from the hospital?”

  “Um, look, I don’t mean to get into your personal business here, but do you think it might be better if I called her?”

  “Blythe knows all about Sarah. They’ve talked before.”

  “We’re friends, actually, though she’s been a little tense with me lately,” Sarah said.

  A little tense? June thought. She had to stop herself from laughing out loud at the absurdity of it. “Yes. Well, understandably, this must be a little difficult for her.”

  “We could have the situation all straightened out, but Blythe is being pigheaded,” he insisted. “Sarah, go call her and tell her I’m going to the hospital.”

  “Shall I follow the ambulance or ride along?”

  “Um, follow, if you’re okay to drive,” June said. “Then you’ll have a vehicle to get home in, in case I get tied up and can’t drive you back.”

  “Good. Fine.” She leaned down, clutching the loose bosom of her dressing gown together over her full breasts, and kissed Daniel on the head. Daniel looked up at her with the eyes of a man in love, and June saw Sarah for the first time as both nurturing and sensual. “You’re going to be okay now,” she told him with confidence. “I’ll get dressed and call Blythe.”

  “Hello?” Lee called from the front door of the house.

  “Back here, Lee,” June called. Sarah slipped into the bathroom before being seen and Lee appeared at the bedroom door. “Can you bring in the gurney? We’re going to give Daniel a ride to the hospital. He had some chest pains.”

  “Sure thing. Hey, Daniel.”

  “Hey, Lee
.”

  The two men appraised each other for a moment, as if to say, “Guess we both know why Blythe pummeled your arse full of buckshot.” Then Lee went after the gurney and nothing more was said.

  By the time Daniel was loaded and June and Lee were rolling him through the living room and past the kitchen, Sarah was dressed and on the phone. “Yes, of course you should be at the hospital, Blythe, and I’d like to meet you there… No, I’m afraid this time I can’t stay away… Well, dear, I don’t mean to seem unkind, but haven’t we given you all the time in the world for that? Hmm? You’re going to have to accept this change sooner or later because Daniel and I are committed to being together. The sooner you come around, the sooner the three of us can have a nice relationship. This terrible scare proves that we can’t wait any longer just because you’re uncomfortable…I do hope you understand, because you’re very important to us both. We love you, Blythe.”

  June had heard of modern couples, but this was taking things a bit far, she thought. Sarah was chastising Blythe for taking so long to accept this affair, calling it a “change?” On the one hand, she seemed so gentle and patient, but on the other hand, the concept was just plain mean. June honestly didn’t know what to make of it.

  “I’ll be right along, darling,” she called to Daniel as he was wheeled out the door.

  An hour later, Sarah was sitting close to Daniel’s bedside, holding his hand, explaining that Blythe couldn’t bring herself to appear at the hospital. June asked if she could speak to Sarah in the hall. It was difficult to think of Sarah as a predator, a woman who would go after another’s husband. She was so sweet, so loving, so devoted to peacefulness. But still…

  “Sarah, forgive my outspokenness, but surely you can see why this is hard for Blythe to accept. Can’t you?”

  “It’s not at all what you think, June. I’d never take another woman’s husband.”

  “But it appears that you have,” June said.

  “Things are not always what they appear to be.”

  “Well, then, what is it I don’t understand?”