by Tanya Hanson
Startled, they broke apart like a quick sword had sliced between them.
“Oops. Sorry,” Keith Murphy repeated, not looking the least abashed. He made a big show about bobbing his head and peering closely at Scott. “Hey, you’re Scott Martin, right? You did my mom’s website for the mercantile.”
Mary Grace ran her hands through her hair to tidy it, cheeks glowing with a furious, beautiful flush. “I told you you’re dismissed, Keith.”
“I just had one last question, Ms. Gibson.” He waggled a smartphone at her. “How come Grant Gibson’s website doesn’t say a thing about Cray-ton? It says he lives in Florida with his second wife Marla and their three kids Morse, Mason, and McKenna. You sort of get alluded to, a first wife, I mean, if there’s already a second. But not your so-called son.”
He stood insolent, his sneer so wide Scott held back a swat. Beside him, Mary Grace’s flush turned snow white.
“I said you’re dismissed, Mr. Murphy.” Her voice shook with what Scott heard as pain.
“You heard her.” Scott was a good eight inches taller than the boy and rose to full height. “You’re dismissed.”
“Hey, man. Just had a question.” Keith Murphy gave one final bleat and shuffled from the room, his pants too baggy and beltless to portray a true man of the West.
Breathing hard, Mary Grace stumbled to a student desk and collapsed in it.
“What was that, sweetheart?” He didn’t hesitate or mind at all, using the endearment. Her chalky face alarmed him. “What was that about?”
Bleak eyes bore into his before she looked away, arms crossed against her chest. “Scott, I…”
He read the body language loud and clear, and shoved his hands in his pockets. Obviously she didn’t crave his touch. Confusion flamed inside his head. Creighton’s own father didn’t acknowledge him? What was going on? Was Grant…not the father?
Scott’s skin crawled with unhappy suspicion. Yet the possibility of infidelity on her part breaking up her marriage was absolutely impossible. He knew that deep down. But something wasn’t right. Would she trust him enough to say? “Mary Grace?” He pulled Kenn’s leather desk chair and sat next to her. “What is it? What did Keith mean? About Creighton...and Grant?”
“Are you asking if Creighton is truly Grant’s child?” Hot pink dots splotched her white cheeks.
“No. Not at all. I’m just confused. Is Keith just being a troublemaker again?”
Looking away, she shook her head. “No. I mean, Keith probably wants to make trouble for me, but the truth is something I should have told you before now. Biologically, Grant is Creighton’s dad, but he doesn’t acknowledge him. Oh, he pays the bills and on time. Or I should say his attorney does. But that’s all my sweet boy gets from his father.”
“I don’t understand. I know divorce can be problematic. But Mary Grace?” He wasn’t sure what to ask, but now her hand flapped in her lap like a dying bird. She finally looked at him again. The chair squeaked as he reached over to wrap the cold fingers with his.
“Oh, Scott. I was going to tell you. I promise you.” Her sky-bright eyes blurred with tears. “And you and Creighton, well, I’d planned for the two of you to meet this weekend. Honest. Believe me.”
“Well, I do believe you. I guess.” He had to admit his skepticism. “But this weekend? I thought Creighton was with his dad?”
A dad who didn’t acknowledge him. What was going on?
“No.” Her blonde bob swung around her neck, and she wiped her eyes. Normally a woman’s tears wracked him, but not now, not with questions assaulting every one of his senses.
“But he’s not with you. Or your folks.” Scott stated the facts as he recalled the pictures he’d seen. A blond boy who looked astonishingly like his mother, big permanent teeth in a wide smile and her summer eyes.
She shook her head again and her hair danced. “No, he isn’t. For several months now, he’s been living in a group home in a Denver suburb. With highly trained caregivers and teachers.”
The desk chair nearly bent backwards as Scott’s shock shoved him downward into the leather. “I don’t understand.”
Her eyes appeared to look at him, but he could tell the gaze was a few degrees off from direct. “Grant left us when Creighton was three. When he was diagnosed with a rare, debilitating condition.”
Wordless, Scott felt his eyes narrow. She withdrew her hand and dragged it through her hair again.
“Scott, my son has mental and physical deficits that will never improve. The great athlete Grant Gibson couldn’t bear seeing him with all his imperfections.”
Finally Scott found his voice. “And you couldn’t tell me? You think…you really think I’d push you away, too?”
“No. Not really. I wanted to tell you, but the timing needed to be right. I’ve had men bail on me before, when they met Creighton. Grant wouldn’t take on his own child, and he was supposed to. It’s hard for a man to do so when he doesn’t have to.” She looked straight at him now, as if in challenge.
Disappointment warred with heartbreak in Scott’s gut. “A man? You mean me? I’ve given you that impression? After the talks we’ve had about the therapy program? You know about Heather. What…you really think that little of me?”
“No, no. I’ve learned these past few days that you wouldn’t mind. So I promised myself I’d tell you today. Earlier. When you wrote about getting ice cream. Today was to be the day. I promise.”
Scott shook his head, wordless, disbelieving. It was Lori all over again, a woman unable to trust him with her pain, with the tragic turnabout in the life she’d been given. His heart tightened into a sorry sad ball.
Clearing his throat, he stood. “Let’s go. It’ll be time for chores.” He wheeled Kenn’s chair behind his desk, and as had become his polite little habit, he grabbed the handles of her briefcase and laptop case. Heavy heart. Heavy feet. What if Jason hadn’t parked his truck this morning, hemming her in? What if Jason had met Pike at the Bar R instead of driving together to tend to the miscarrying cow?
What if Scott hadn’t come to town to retrieve Mary Grace? Or planned an ice cream date? When would she have told him? Or would she have told him at all? She’d promised it would be today, but what had just gone on made believing the little afterthought far too difficult.
“Scott, please.” She quickly locked the classroom door and caught up with him in the hall. “Please try to understand. Creighton’s a lot to take on. I needed time.”
He stopped and looked down at her in the empty hall. “I don’t have any real response. I just need a little time.”
Time. Was time all he’d need? Today was to have been a special one, full of possibilities of revelation and promises. But not now.
“Come on.” His voice was as heavy as his foot falls as they moved through the hall. Whether or not he’d actually have said the words I love you today would now never be known. And in the crush of disappointment, he sure wasn’t sure what he felt at all.
“It’s a rare syndrome called Angelman,” she said dully as she followed him outside to the visitor parking lot. A handful of students watched curiously, a couple of them waved and called out her name along with a goodbye. Already he could sense she was regarded with affection and respect, no matter the bad manners of one boy who, in his own pain, had caused an onslaught of more. Or maybe Keith Murphy had been a blessing in disguise. At least Scott hadn’t yet bared his soul, said words he might have had to take back.
The temperature had dropped, feeling almost like winter, and it matched Scott’s harsh mood and frozen heart. The manners Ma had engraved on his psyche compelled him to help Mary Grace into the truck, belt her in. The spice of her scent, the warmth of her skin, the tragedy in her white face all combined to pull his love to the forefront, but his heart wrenched tight at her distrust. She’d had far too many opportunities to speak of her son. His compassion for Heather and his sincere interest in the therapy program had been real and obvious.
“Do I want to kno
w more?” he asked as he settled behind the wheel.
“I’m sorry, Scott. But this is a burden I’ve borne for years, and not one I casually unload on people.”
“So now I’m only somebody casual?”
“No. Not at all. In fact, I think…I think I love you. But in my life, it isn’t just about me. Grant held my heart, and Creighton’s too, in his hand, then threw them down and stomped on them.”
“I’m not Grant.”
“I know. I know that now. But I had to be sure.”
I think I love you. The words rang merrily through his head, but he stopped the pealing right away before his heart thrilled to the sound. No. No matter he loved her, he wasn’t about to face a lifetime of mistrust, unshared secrets, hush-hush confidences. That’s not how he was raised. Besides, Lori keeping secrets had crushed him. Why go through that again?
Tires crunched through a load of fallen leaves as he left the school. Strangely, when she put her hand on his knee, he liked it there and didn’t shove it away.
“Scott, for a few months after birth, Creighton seemed perfect. Grant and I were so happy. But I’d had enough human development classes to know something wasn’t right. When he didn’t coo at me, or laugh or smile. Or roll over or sit up.”
When Scott didn’t respond, she said, “If you want me to stop, I will.”
“No. I’m listening.”
“The pediatrician kept diagnosing cerebral palsy. But finally we pursued what we saw. His muscles relaxed more than they contracted. His limbs and head sort of flopped. That’s what led us to Angelman Syndrome. Some call it the ‘happy puppet’ syndrome.
“When we were told there was no cure, neither of us believed it. But Grant understood enough to realize his son would never follow in his footsteps. That’s when he walked out. Me, I kept hoping for a miracle. And I had nothing left but to lean on God.”
Her downcast eyes and trembling voice wrenched his heart, but this was all a conversation they should have had days ago. Maybe not when she first mentioned a child, but definitely when she saw into his heart about Heather, the therapy program. All those hours to Lost Canyon and back, entering her parents’ photo-filled house. All that had been sheer opportunity.
Instead she held a subconscious mistrust that he wouldn’t or couldn’t understand. She’d never given him the chance. Just like Lori, and that had ruined everything.
His belly burned. His heart rumbled.
“Some Angelman children can live a fairly normal life, but in Creighton’s case, he will never walk by himself or be potty trained. His intellectual capacity will never rise above a nine-month old or so.” She moved her hand away now as if assuming he’d remove it himself. And he would have, when she said, “That’s all hard for a guy to take on.”
“But you never gave me a fighting chance,” he grumbled back at her, revved the motor, and headed to the ranch.
7
The spikes of Rocky peaks already showed silver, but Mary Grace shivered for other reasons on the way back to Hearts Crossing. At least Scott had the radio turned up loud. Cuddling into herself for comfort, she watched aspen leaves shudder in the wind, a scene that didn’t help at all.
But the hills, draped in the fiery colors of fall, began to wrap her cozily. And her heart did a now-familiar thump when the ranch came into view in the distance as they drove down a ridge. The safe welcoming house. The healthy horses content in their corrals. Oh, that black dot might be the Cowboy dashing after a squirrel. She grinned until her heart hitched in grief.
She’d ruined everything.
Oh, how at home she’d felt, how accepted. While her newfangled love for Scott would never die, she knew he’d never accept it. Oh, he might accept Creighton. She knew more than ever he was a man of heart and compassion. But he’d never accept her.
Her lack of faith, her lack of trust. Even though she believed her reasons were sound, she’d hurt him and not given him a chance. Lord, in Your goodness, hear my prayer.
“Scott, I never wanted it to get like this. I’m so sorry.” She offered another apology into his stiff silence. One angry bounce of his hands on the steering wheel, and she stayed quiet.
Like a grasshopper on the wing from the hills, a helicopter in the distance grew bigger and louder. Doyle Calhoun? The big black bug hovered over the main road until landing in a lot well enough away from the animals.
“Is that Mr. Calhoun?” She had to ask even though hesitant to inquire anything of the fuming Scott. Staying silent would be, well, weird. As they neared the ranch, she saw cars, cars, cars.
Whatever the hub-bub was, she didn’t belong, and her wounded heart wrung itself out even more. Out of place. An outsider, now more than ever. Letting a room, albeit rent-free, and sharing meals with a secure, happy family didn’t make her part of it. She’d been a fool to think otherwise.
Even more foolish to give her heart.
“Yes, and my goodness.” Scott slowed to watch the debarking, his voice tinged both with joy and concern. “There’s Christy. Getting out of the copter. Whew, I sure hope everything’s all right.” Voice tense, he stopped by the side of the road, and his sister-in-law, hair flying as the rotors stilled, ran to him.
He grappled her close, and Mary Grace withered even more, recalling her own perfect moments in his arms. Not caring about her nosiness, she lowered her window so she could hear.
“I did my presentation at the convention this morning, and I just miss Kenn too much,” Christi told her brother-in-law. “I managed to get on a stand-by flight.”
“Well, it can’t be a surprise. Doyle? All these cars…”
“Oh, Daisy’s throwing me some kind of welcome back party. A celebration for my big award. And Doyle, here. Well, once Elaine found out I was on my way, she suckered the poor man into sparing me two or three shuttle flights.”
The big “Last Real Rancher” guffawed in the warm, deep, down-home way Mary Grace had enjoyed at Sunday dinner. Whatever happened between her and Scott, she rejoiced in Elaine Martin’s luck.
“Nonsense. Had business up Denver way to begin with. Couldn’t resist picking up such a pretty passenger and getting her home quicker. Let’s get to the house.”
Goodness, the older guy was blushing! Mary Grace grinned a grin. But maybe she could slink away during the greetings and run ahead to the sanctuary of her room.
But no.
“Come in. I got room. Gotta get you to Kenn. And Elaine.” With a sly grin, Scott indicated his stretch-cab. Indeed, a half-mile remained down the long drive to the house. And he had no choice but to be polite. “Doyle, you likely remember Mary Grace from Sunday. Christy, she’s Kenn’s substitute while he’s recuperating. Mary Grace Gibson.”
Only Mary Grace heard the unhappy inflection he put on the last word, and her spirits tangled into a miserable knot. Christy engaged her in a hearty hug no matter they’d just met.
“Of course! Kenn’s talked about the great job you’re doing. Thanks for helping him out.” Christy Martin’s face glowed. “What a load off. I hope your days are going well!”
Other than Keith Murphy, but that was a sorrow Mary Grace alone must bear. “They are. Kenn’s got great classes. And everything so well organized. I want him well again, but at the same time, it’ll be hard to leave.”
Christy’s smile was true. “Hopefully some other door will open.”
“I hope so.” Because it’ll be hard to leave. The last short distance before Scott parked the truck allowed no time for small talk but enough time for Mary Grace to say it to herself, again and again.
It’ll be hard to leave. It’ll be hard to leave.
“Thanks for picking me up,” she said to Scott, dully, grabbing her things before he could and leaving his side in a dash. She headed up the porch to hurry to her room.
“Mary Grace!” Kenn called out from the fireplace, still hooked to his ice machine and electrodes. “How was your day?”
She gulped back tears, but said nothing untrue. “Good overall
. Those freshmen rock. And a lot of A’s and B’s on the vocabulary test. Yay.”
“Good to hear. You’re joining us for the party, right? At Pike and Daisy’s? Christy’s coming home early from her convention. We’re celebrating her award.”
The last thing she wanted to do should have been the first. If Scott weren’t so angry with her. And with good reason.
“Not coming home early. She’s already here!” Mary Grace couldn’t hold back. He deserved his joy.
Kenn started as if he were ready to bound to his feet, then chortled when he couldn’t.
“She’s right behind me. But about the party. Thanks, but I don’t know. I’m beat, to be frank.” Then she tried to tease. “I don’t know how you teachers do it day after day.” Sudden inspiration hit. “And I think I’d like to go to singles Bible study.”
“Well, think about it. I’d love for you to get to know Christy. And you can make up for it tomorrow night. We have family devotions every Wednesday evening.”
“OK. Maybe.” She heard the helicopter herd come in behind her and, unable to help herself, tossed Scott one last over-the-shoulder glimpse. Hoped he was coming after her.
He didn’t as much as raise his head.
She wished her guestroom wasn’t so comfy, so homey. The only thing she could think to do was call Creighton. Gale Sosa, who ran the home, was a deeply committed Christian and a compassionate nurse, but at this point, routine was paramount for Creighton. Disruption might confuse him.
As the phone rang, her blood pounded, turned cold.
“This is Mary Grace Gibson. Is it possible…to put Creighton on the line? Just for a second?”
“Hi Mary Grace. Gale here. I hope there’s no emergency?” The voice was full of concern.
“No. I’m just lonely for him, having a bad day. I know he doesn’t speak.” She plunged ahead. “But I could hear him laugh. And he does use basic hand signals. You could explain them. Please. We can make it work.”
“Of course. He’s just finishing his physical therapy. Let me see what I can do. You’re still on for a weekend visit, right?”