by Renee Roszel
She might have recovered from the damage to her heart then. But not now. She would carry the memory of Ransom’s kisses with her to old age, and any man who might one day try to compete with that memory would surely fail.
“The house smells good,” Ransom said, coming up silently behind her.
She closed her eyes, savoring the rich sound of his voice. “Thank you,” she murmured. Trying desperately to lighten the mood, she joked, “I hope you won’t need a chain saw to cut this batch of bread.”
“You didn’t have to bake bread, Sara,” he said coolly.
“It was the least I could do,” she muttered. He hadn’t reacted at all to her attempt at humor. It was ironic, she mused as she moved the loaves to a basket and covered them with a cloth. She’d continually scolded Ransom for his teasing and taunting only days ago. What she would have given right now for one of his devilish grins and a kidding remark about forklifts.
She was being silly, she knew, but she felt a shattering loss. Her whole being cried out to know this man intimately, to marry him and bear his children. For a few brief moments in his arms, she’d come close. He’d revealed himself to be a tender lover who could make her happy to simply be a woman. Yet now he treated her as if she was an aged schoolmarm or nun—with distant respect, but no familiarity. She knew, if given the choice, she would miss his playful affection more than she would miss breathing.
“All packed?” he asked, breaking into her sad reverie.
Trying not to show her distress over his aloof attitude, she nodded. “I’ve been packed for hours.” Although she knew she would regret it, she turned toward him, then caught her breath. He was so tall and handsome, and his black hair was mussed just enough to make his face agonizingly endearing. She knew he hadn’t planned on tormenting her, but he’d succeeded nevertheless.
His mouth tightened when their eyes met, and his eyebrows tilted downward. She couldn’t decide if his harsh expression indicated annoyance or pity. Either one filled her with dismay.
“I’ll get your bags,” he offered. Her stomach contracted at his dispassionate tone, and she couldn’t respond. There was an awkward pause before he asked, “Is Lynn packed?”
“She and Tag have already taken the bags to the airstrip,” Sara said, grateful her voice didn’t break.
“Oh.” Another troublesome pause. “Then perhaps we should join them,” he suggested, his face impassive.
How Sara hated this! She wanted to run into his arms, to ask him what she’d done that was so unforgivable he should put up such a harsh, impenetrable wall. Her only sin had been to listen and care—and love. How she missed the warm laughter in his gray eyes and the unceasingly wicked chuckle that had once infuriated her.
“You needn’t bother going to the airstrip,” she blurted, pride forcing her to pretend indifference through till the end. “You’ve done enough. Why don’t you go do your egg count. I know it’s important to you.” She spun away to pick up the basket of bread and place it on top of the refrigerator, all the while aware of his scrutiny.
“A good host doesn’t abandon his guests,” he replied, his voice clipped.
She whirled on him. Unable to stop herself, she challenged, “I think we’ve gone beyond trivial social amenities, Ransom. Do what pleases you, for heaven’s sake.”
A flash of disquiet stole across his handsome face, but it was quickly replaced by that same infernal air of calmness. “Perhaps we have, Sara,” he observed dryly. “I’ll say goodbye here, then.”
Cold dread engulfed her. This was it. She would never see him again. With courageous effort, she hid her despair behind a mask of politeness. “Goodbye. Thanks for your hospitality.” She offered him a rigid hand to shake.
He flicked an insolent glance toward her outstretched fingers. “I thought we’d gone beyond trivial social amenities,” he said, throwing her own words back at her.
With insulting deliberateness, he slid his hands into his hip pockets. This final rejection was simply too much. He wouldn’t even touch her hand in a parting, if hollow, gesture of friendship. She blushed fiercely. How could he be so indifferent, so cold? How could she have thought he was a warm, caring person? Fearful that her torment and yearning lay naked in her eyes, Sara knew she must get away, must run! Damn her crumbling composure. If she didn’t escape this instant, she’d be weeping in front of him, making more of a fool of herself than she already had.
Desolate, she rushed out of the kitchen, out of the house, and out of Ransom Shepard’s life.
THE CHILLY NIP of the first day of February was in the crisp Kansas air. Sara inhaled the cool pine fragrance of the night. She exhaled and frosted the darkness with her warm breath. Standing under the half-hearted glow of the diner’s fluorescent sign, she huddled deeper into her old wool coat and shivered. The bus was late again.
It didn’t make much difference. Lynn was still at her after-school job, since the dress shop where she worked stayed open until nine on Thursdays. So, there’d be no one in the apartment, anyway. She might as well stand out here under the stars and enjoy the clean night air. She only wished that, just once this winter, it would snow. It hadn’t yet, not once. Christmas had been dreary and bleak—but not because there hadn’t been snow, she realized.
She hiked up her purse strap, regretting that she wouldn’t be able to attend the community college again this semester. Finances were tight, and she would have to work. But she vowed to enroll this fall and keep at it until she graduated. She’d taken Ransom’s angrily given advice. “Dammit, be a nurse!” he’d shouted at her.
When she’d returned to Kansas, she’d decided that was what she had to do. Besides, studying would help get her mind off a certain man back in Alaska.
First, she’d passed her high school equivalency test in August. Then, in September, she’d begun taking courses at Butler County Community College. Starting school again had been tough, working the breakfast and lunch shift at the diner and then going to class for three hours five nights a week. But she refused to feel sorry for herself. This was a dream she planned to make come true. Maybe she couldn’t make all her dreams come true, but she’d succeed with this one, no matter how long it took!
She heard the bus roaring around the corner and walked to the curb, her mind slipping back to yesterday afternoon. Lynn had received another letter from Tag. He was doing well in school and was a member of the junior varsity basketball team. According to the letter, Ransom was an avid fan and never missed his son’s games.
The door of the bus swooshed opened, and Ransom’s sternly handsome face was pushed from her mind. She climbed aboard and took a seat beside Erma Drope, whom she almost always saw on the bus at night. The elderly woman was the town’s most avid gossip, but Sara liked her, and greeted her with a smile.
Erma was the perfect image of a grandmother—plump, pink-cheeked and smelling of baking spices. Sara figured Erma must be close to a hundred, but each evening without fail, this four-times widowed woman took the bus to and from the local movie theater.
“What did you see this trip, Erma?” Sara asked, aware that as Erma’s riding companion she was expected to inquire.
“Brad’s latest picture,” Erma gushed, fluffing her wispy white hair.
“This must be the tenth time.”
“Thirteenth.” She sighed. “I could spend all my nights with Brad Pitt.” Elbowing Sara suggestively, she added, “If you get my meaning.”
Sara nodded. “I believe I do. You’re so naughty I blush.”
Erma giggled her squeaky giggle. “If I were only seventy-five years younger, I’d give that Angie person a run for her money.” She sighed again. “But enough about my love life. What about you, you pretty little thing? I never see you with any of our local young men.”
Sara’s heart twisted, but she attempted to act nonchalant. “I’m awfully busy with my job—”
“Nonsense, child. Why, when I was your age I worked at a silk-stocking factory by day and checked hats at a speakeas
y at night. I had a different beau with every snap of my fingers, and you’re twice the beauty I was. I’ll wager you have your own Brad Pitt tucked away somewhere. Is he in the service or something?”
Sara sidestepped the question, hoping her reply sounded lighthearted, though the old woman had hit upon the sorest spot in her life. “Erma,” she said with a grin, “not everyone has your sex appeal.”
Erma harrumphed. “Such a closemouthed thing you are.” She frowned. “You never talk about yourself. But I’ve heard tell you met a very nice man when you traveled to Alaska.”
Sara felt the blood drain from her face. Lynn must have told people about their visit to St. Catherine Island. And Andover was small enough that everybody knew everybody else’s business. She fumbled with her purse, arranging it and rearranging it in her lap. “I—we met a lot of nice people up there,” she hedged.
She could have added that Tag and Lynn had kept up a relationship via the mail. Sara knew, for instance, that Ransom had begun to date again. Lynn made it her solemn duty to read Tag’s letters aloud, although Sara had no idea why she did. She supposed her sister simply wanted to share news of their faraway friends. Unfortunately what Lynn was really doing was pouring salt on the open wound in Sara’s heart.
“But,” Erma persisted, “I understand there was one very handsome, very wealthy man who—”
“Where did you hear that?” Sara interrupted, her voice sharper than she’d intended.
“Well, I was shopping for a Valentine gift for my great-granddaughter Felice. You know, the one who moved to Great Bend?” When Sara obediently nodded, Erma went on, “I stopped in the loud little boutique on Main called Teen Queen. Your sister helped me. Lovely child. She’s a very good salesgirl.”
“And a talkative one, I gather.’’
“Yes. She said she plans to make retail sales her career.” Erma elbowed her riding companion again. “And do you know what else she said?”
“That she wants to have her lips sewn together for Valentine’s Day?”
“Dear me, no!” Erma tittered appreciatively at Sara’s quip. “No, what she said was that she met this handsome rich man who was very nice, and if she’d been a few years older she would’ve tried to make him fall in love with her and marry her.”
Sara closed her eyes. The irrational daydream of marrying Ransom had hardly been out of her mind once in the past seven months, but with Erma’s unexpected reminder, the desire rushed back with the intensity of a blow to the solar plexus.
“So,” Erma went on, her voice full of curiosity, “I thought, since you are a few years older, you might have had a—” she giggled “—you know, a small amour, shall we say?” Sara was elbowed again as Erma added coyly, “My dear, we women of the world can speak frankly, can’t we?’’
Determined to put an end to this conversation, Sara turned toward her seat partner, her expression as pleasant as she could manage. “I’m afraid I’m not the woman of the world you are, Erma. There isn’t anything to tell.” She hoped her tone made it plain the subject was closed. She certainly had no intention of mentioning she was hopelessly in love with Ransom and, yes, they had shared a small amour—in the form of a few haunting kisses that had branded her lips and heart forever.
The bus stopped and several people got off. Sara looked at her watch. Nearly eight-thirty. She’d be home in ten minutes.
“Well, well...” Erma gave Sara yet another nudge in the ribs. “Goodbye, Brad, hello, handsome stranger.”
Confused, Sara glanced at Erma and saw she was gaping openly toward the front of the bus. As they began to move again, Erma grinned lecherously. “I wonder if that good-looking buck likes older women?”
Sara followed Erma’s gaze and saw a powerfully built man deposit his fare and begin to walk down the aisle. His gray eyes met Sara’s for a split second, and she almost fell to the floor of the bus in shock. She must have let out an audible gasp, for not only Erma, but several of the other passengers swiveled around to see what was wrong.
The man continued toward her, but seemed not to recognize her. Paralyzed in her seat, Sara could do little more than drink in his well-remembered physique. She knew her mind must be playing tricks on her, because there was no way on earth Ransom Shepard would be in Andover, Kansas, riding on the city bus. But this man, dressed in an impeccably tailored brown vicuna sport coat, black slacks, a black turtleneck and hand-finished loafers, looked exactly like Ransom.
Sara decided she must be having some sort of crazy hallucination. Her desire for him, mixed with fatigue from working double shifts, and possibly even toxic bus fumes, were making her see things that weren’t real. Clearly there was a handsome man there, but it couldn’t be Ransom.
The stranger sat down in the seat across the aisle and peered at his watch. Sara noticed the expensive timepiece glinting in the interior lights of the bus. She looked at his profile. It seemed to be the same ruggedly masculine face she’d fallen in love with on St. Catherine. But that was no doubt a vision caused by a raging fever she didn’t know she had. She supposed that was a sign she was very ill indeed— too befuddled by sickness to even realize she was sick. Suddenly woozy, she rubbed a hand over her eyes, trying to dispel the fevered apparition.
Erma asked, “Are you feeling poorly, dear?”
“I—I must be coming down with something “
“Excuse me,” a resonant voice murmured.
Sara twisted around to find her face only inches from the man’s. He’d leaned close. His cologne filled her nostrils and her body sang with remembrance. She swallowed hard, wondering whether she’d died and gone to heaven or whether Ransom Shepard, the man she loved with all her heart, was actually at her side.
“I’m new in town,” he went on. “Does this bus go to McCloud Street?”
Sara could only nod dumbly.
“Why?” Erma interjected loudly. “Do you have family on McCloud?”
“Not yet,” he said, shifting his gaze to the curious matron. “You see, there’s a young woman who lives there. I plan to propose to her tonight.” His eyes, compelling and magnetic, moved back to meet Sara’s, and he smiled wryly at her surprise. “I don’t deserve her, I know.”
Erma prodded excitedly, “Who? Who’s the young woman?”
He continued to look at Sara, his words no longer for anyone but her. “I let her leave me last summer, and I haven’t been quite the same since. I’ve tried to forget her, dated women I didn’t give a damn about, but my sleep and my business have suffered.”
Sara watched, transfixed by the sincerity she saw in his face and heard in his voice. “That... that’s a shame,” she whispered.
He covered her hand with his, and she was aware of low murmuring from their fellow passengers as he said, “You see, I’ve had this problem with trust.”
I know... she thought, but no sound came.
Ransom didn’t seem to mind her silence. Smiling, he went on. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I’ve decided you’re the person I need to help me through it.”
Erma shouted triumphantly, “It’s Sara! He’s here to propose to Sara!” Obviously living a gossip’s fondest dream, she threw her hands to her chest and wailed happily, “I may die!”
Ransom surveyed the ludicrous surroundings of his unorthodox proposal, then grinned. Pulling Sara to her feet, he took her into his arms and assured her huskily, “From Lynn’s letters I know you started college, and I know you couldn’t go this semester.” His eyes glistened with love as he added softly, “We have colleges in Anchorage, Sara. And we need nurses there, too.”
“I’m dying. I’m really dying!” squealed Erma. “Kiss her, you wonderful scoundrel. Brad would!”
A frown began to cloud his features and he searched her pale face. “You haven’t answered my question, Sara. Will you marry me?”
Her throat still blocked by emotion, wouldn’t let her utter a sound.
Before her eyes, all pleasure seemed to leave his face. “Don’t say no,” he appea
led softly. “I realize I was hard on you those last days, but I was afraid that if I touched you I wouldn’t be able to let you go, and then I’d fall into the same trap I did with Jill. I didn’t want to give anyone that much power over me again.”
The hard-won honesty of his confession made his voice rough, and Sara’s heart went out to him. “I—I do understand, Ransom,” she managed.
Warmth radiated from him as he drew her closer and murmured quietly so only she could hear, “You’re a caring person, Sara. I love you for that. When you left me, I found out that against my will I loved everything about you.”
The devotion in his gaze would have staggered Sara if he hadn’t been holding her snugly to him. “I love you, Ransom,” she whispered solemnly. “I’ve loved you for so long....”
His eyes flashed with unguarded relief. “And?”
She blinked.
Hard male lips grazed her cheek as he reminded her, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She flushed, suddenly self-conscious, but deliriously happy. “Yes, oh, yes. I’ll marry you.”
His expression became almost reverent. For an instant, he kissed her with his eyes. Then he lifted her face to his. Their lips met tenderly, and Sara’s body tingled from the exquisite contact she’d craved for so long. Standing on tiptoe to enjoy the gentle persuasion of his mouth to its fullest, she curled her arms about his neck, savoring the taste of him.
Everyone on the bus began clapping and hooting. The delighted clamor broke through to Sara’s consciousness and embarrassed, she pulled away from Ransom’s arms.
“This is your stop, Sara,” shouted the driver. “And have a happy wedding!”
“I knew it,” declared Erma. “And you denied having a small amour up there in Alaska!”