The You I Never Knew (26 page)
She had shivered, walking through the four rooms, picturing Sam there with his mother. Sagging furniture with holes in the upholstery, a dinette set from the fifties, swaybacked beds in the tiny bedrooms. No wonder he’d never invited her over.
“You were gone,” she said after a long silence. “Your house was empty. I drove up to the café to see if your mom was still working there. Earl Meecham said she took off, hadn’t even left a forwarding address for her last paycheck.”
“Forwarding addresses are always a problem,” he said, “when you don’t know where you’re going.”
She stared into the ripening glow of the heater. “What would it have cost you to tell me good-bye?”
He was quiet for a long time, so long that she got suspicious and studied his face in the light from the heater. She didn’t know him anymore, couldn’t read that lean, serious face. He seemed tense, his eyes turbulent as if he was at war with himself.
“Sam?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t say good-bye,” he said at last, his voice quiet and controlled. “It was a long time ago.”
“Everything was a long time ago.”
The anger drained away and brutally soft memories crept up to seize her. There was a time when they stood at the center of the world, and everything seemed possible. She remembered the laughter, the passion, and the utter belief that all their dreams would come true. She remembered the love everyone thought they were too young to feel.
He rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “I’ve never been good at good-byes.”
She knew he was going to kiss her. He had his hand in the right place, cradling her cheek, and he had their eyes in the right place—they were both staring at each other’s lips—and, most of all, he had the moment in the right place. She was not thinking of anything beyond the here and now, and how badly she wanted him to kiss her, hold her.
He leaned forward and she moved her knees out of the way, and neither of them hurried, because every heartbeat, every breath, every second was important. Their lips touched, and the taste of him rushed through her with a powerful force, memories exploding across the years, and the passion between them was fresh, alive, yet as old and familiar as something they had carried around for decades.
They didn’t speak. They knew better than that. Because if one of them spoke, they’d start to rationalize, and if they rationalized, they would know this was insane, and in a tacit agreement they decided to explore the insanity. Their coats came off, then boots and sweaters and jeans, and his hands were everywhere, and so were hers, sensations tumbling faster than thought. Hard muscle, soft flesh, his mouth mapping the topography of her body until instinct and remembrance converged and they knew each other again. Finally, the hurrying started, because there was an urgency, a need that wouldn’t wait. She leaned back against the curve of the chaise and he braced his arms on either side of her, and he came down and she came up, and there was a moment of union so perfect that she saw stars.
Afterward he stayed on top of her, and she wanted to keep him there forever, because as soon as one of them moved or spoke, life had to start up again. She felt his back warm beneath her palms, listened to his heightened breathing, touched her lips to the pulse in his neck.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, and he remembered that thing with her ear, the way it made her tingle all over when she felt the heat of his intimate whisper.
No one but him had ever discovered that about her.
“That we shouldn’t move or talk,” she whispered back.
“Good idea.”
But after a while, she couldn’t help it, and she asked, “What are
you
thinking?”
you
thinking?”
“Oh, honey. Dirty thoughts. Really dirty thoughts.” And he told her in explicit detail, shoving her back against the chaise, whispering into her ear in the way only he knew how to do, and all of a sudden they were making love again, his kisses and the strokes of his body harsh the way she needed them to be, bringing her to a soaring climax that had her crying out, her voice echoing through the gloom of the empty building.
“
Now
what are you thinking?” he asked, long afterward.
Now
what are you thinking?” he asked, long afterward.
“That I’m glad for the dark.” She kissed him briefly—that inventive mouth that had just done such unspeakably exquisite things to her—and forced herself to sit up, pull on her sweater.
“Why?”
“Because—” she stood up, hurriedly pulling on panties and jeans “—I’m not an eighteen-year-old girl anymore. I’m thirty-five, and I look it.”
He laughed in disbelief, zipping his jeans. “You’re worried I’ll be disappointed in how you
look?
”
look?
”
She fumbled with the buttons of her fly. “Well, maybe not worried, but—”
“Listen.” He took her busy hands and put them against his bare chest, his unbelievably muscular, sexy bare chest.
“I’m listening.”
“Of course I remember the way you looked back then. How could I not? I was eighteen, too. Your body used to drive me nuts. Yeah, I remember that.” He traced his finger down her throat, over her breasts, waking them up again. “But what I was thinking about when I was holding you just now was how I used to love you.”
She felt dizzy, suddenly, sick and dizzy with guilt and confusion. “We’d better go.”
He hesitated, as if he was going to say something else. But then he buttoned his shirt, turned and unplugged the heater, and flicked on the flashlight.
They left through the door they had come in. It had started to snow, big thick flakes, the kind pictured on Christmas cards. In the sodium vapor glow of the corner streetlamp, the swirling snow looked glorious, magical.
Halfway between the door and the truck, a shadow fell across the alley.
Sam put his arms around her, catching her against his chest. “What the—”
A flash exploded in their faces, and although Sam didn’t realize it, she knew exactly what had happened.
They’d found her. The dirt diggers. The paparazzi. The kidney-patient stalkers. The princess-murderers.
Tires spun on the salted and sanded road, and then the sport-utility vehicle sped away, leaving Michelle and Sam frozen like a pair of coyotes caught in a bounty hunter’s searchlights. The familiar glowing ache from the flash filled her head. She should have recognized them. She had seen their Explorer pass the hospital earlier this evening. She should have known the buzzards were circling.
“What the hell was that all about?” Sam asked.
“You’ll read it in the papers,” she said dully, feeling her insides coil up with dread. “Could be as early as tomorrow.” Digital file transfers had made the process as swift as a phone call.
“I don’t read that kind of paper.”
“You’ll be amazed when you see who does.”
M
ichelle stood in the hall of the hospital feeling weak with relief. Her father had stabilized and he was back on the pre-op meds he’d been taking in preparation for the transplant. Barring any other crisis, they were back on track for the procedure. In a few minutes, he’d be discharged.
ichelle stood in the hall of the hospital feeling weak with relief. Her father had stabilized and he was back on the pre-op meds he’d been taking in preparation for the transplant. Barring any other crisis, they were back on track for the procedure. In a few minutes, he’d be discharged.
But she felt as if all the other parts of her life had careened off in different directions. Last night, in the mysterious darkness of a half-forgotten place, she and Sam had made love. She’d wanted him with a wildness and a hunger so uncharacteristic of her that she had begun to think she was becoming someone else entirely. A stranger to herself. A traitor to the life she had built so far from here. She should be feeling shame, regret, guilt… but she couldn’t.
Restless with her thoughts, she wandered to the small waiting lounge by the reception area. No one was around, so she helped herself to coffee. Nurse O’Brien came in, smiling a greeting.
“Michelle, right?” she asked.
“Michelle Turner. I’m spending way too much time at this hospital.”
The nurse sat down on a vinyl-covered sofa and gave a weary sigh. “Tell me about it. There’s a flu going around, so I’ve been working overtime for the past week. Your boy doing all right?”
“He’s fine. But that head wound was a big scare.” She paused, wondering how much the nurse knew about them. Everything, probably. This was a hospital, after all. “Did you happen to notice a reporter or photographer snooping around last night?”
“Uh-huh. I’m afraid your father was seen checking in yesterday.” She sent Michelle an apologetic look. “We didn’t let anyone in to see him.”
“Good. It’s a constant worry,” she admitted. “I’ve tried to keep Cody anonymous for years.” She took a deep breath. “Um, so are people here talking about it? About Sam and Cody?”
“That they’re father and son?” she said easily. “Oh, yeah.”
“I was afraid so.” Michelle was dying to ask what they were saying, but she was not sure she wanted to know.
“I never could picture Sam with a kid of his own.”
Something in Alice O’Brien’s tone, in the deep knowing of her observation, caught Michelle’s attention. “Have you worked with Sam long?”
Alice O’Brien lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “He didn’t tell you?”
Michelle felt a strange shift in the atmosphere and instinctively braced herself. “Tell me what?”
The nurse waited, clearly weighing her options. Then she said, “Sam and I used to be married.”
The atmosphere silently exploded. “Oh.”
God
.
God
.
“It appears you and Sam must have a lot of catching up to do.”
“He should have told me,” Michelle said, mortified by the situation he had put her in.
“It’s all old history, but it’s no secret.” Alice O’Brien spoke straightforwardly. “When he came here five years ago, I took one look at him and fell like a ton of bricks.” She grinned. “Most of the staff did. Sam and I got along great, decided to get married. I think Sam just drifted into the relationship, and I was fool enough to mistake it for love.” Tugging her pink sweater close around her shoulders, she added, “I have the classic nurse personality—nurturing, caretaking—and he wanted love and sex and a woman.”
“Alice,” Michelle said, “you don’t have to explain this.”
Sam should have
.
Sam should have
.
“I don’t mind. You’re bound to hear the story from somebody or other. It wasn’t too dramatic. I fell hard, and Sam—well, he sort of came along for the ride, I suppose. When I said I wanted to start a family, that was my wakeup call.” She pushed back the sleeve of her sweater, checked her watch. “He had a bad reaction to that. Said he saw enough unwanted kids in his practice. And I realized he was never going to give me what I needed. Hell, what I
deserved
. So we split up.” A tolerant smile tilted her mouth. “He felt bad about it, but I stuck to my guns. It’s better this way. We’re still friends, colleagues.”
deserved
. So we split up.” A tolerant smile tilted her mouth. “He felt bad about it, but I stuck to my guns. It’s better this way. We’re still friends, colleagues.”
Michelle leaned back in her chair, her thoughts spinning. Though younger than Michelle, Alice spoke with the wisdom of a much older woman, and her words reverberated in the silence.
He was never going to give me what I needed.
He was never going to give me what I needed.
“In his way, I think he loved me for a while. Just wasn’t meant to last,” she concluded, standing up and checking her watch again. “He’s a complicated guy, had a rough life. He learned to love fast, he learned to love hard, and he learned to let go. No one ever taught him how to hold on.”
* * *
Mounted on a line-backed dun mare named Daisy, Michelle rode along a track that wound to the south and west of Lonepine. She felt the cold slice of air in her lungs, the numbing lash of the wind on her face. The afternoon sky was overcast and tinged bronze by a stingy leak of sunlight.
After Alice’s revelation, Michelle had taken her father home; then she drove straight to Lonepine. Sam had gone off on horseback to check a wildlife trap. “He’ll probably stop at the hot springs on the way back,” Edward had informed her. “He generally likes to do that when he’s in a mood.”
In a mood.
She didn’t ask Edward what he meant by that. She’d find out for herself soon enough.
She didn’t ask Edward what he meant by that. She’d find out for herself soon enough.
The trail was easy to follow, just as Edward had said it would be. She rode up past an abandoned slash pile from an old logging operation, then angled down toward a low field where the snow had melted away to reveal steaming mudflats. A herd of elk shied away as she approached. At a rock-bound natural pool, a tall roan horse was tethered, but she couldn’t see Sam. Dismounting, she wound the reins around a low alder branch and climbed up to the pool. Thermal springs abounded in the area, and the wispy steam softened and obscured everything, adding a faint tinge of salt and sulphur to the air.
“Fancy meeting you here,” said a disembodied voice.
Michelle peered through the steam, and there he was, sitting chest-deep in the pool, wearing nothing but a smile. She tried not to think about that smile, or the way the dampness curled his hair, or the beads of water on his shoulders. “I had a little talk with Alice at the hospital today,” she said.
His smile disappeared. “Then I guess you’d better have a seat.”
“Maybe you could get dressed, Sam—”
“Or you could join me.” The smile sneaked back across his lips.
She sank down on a flat rock, covering her face with her hands. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were married.”
She heard a trickle of water, and suddenly he was gliding toward her, taking her hands away from her face. She should leave now, just get up and ride away, but she felt stuck here, unable to move.
“I would have told you, Michelle, but we haven’t had that much time to talk.”
“We’ve had time to do a lot more than talk.”
“Yeah.” His hands—damp, warm, insistent—peeled off her gloves and unzipped her jacket. “Yeah, we have.”
The rising steam and the heat and his touch filled her with a strange and helpless lassitude, and everything she’d planned to say simply evaporated. With slow and deliberate care he removed her boots and socks.
“It’s my fault my marriage to Alice didn’t work out.” His whisper rasped in her ear, and then he kissed her in a leisurely way, imprisoning her by her own desire. It was a powerful drug, the taste of him, the taste of passion.
“She claims her needs… weren’t met.” She forced the words out even as she surrendered, peeling off sweater and jeans, letting the delicious shock of cold air and hot water race over her bare skin.
“She’s right. I couldn’t give her what she needed.” Long slow slide of his hands down over her body as he drew her deep into the silky water, secretly heated in the heart of the earth. “Because I gave it all to you.”
* * *
Sam had always been one to think on a matter before deciding what to do. But the thing was, all the thinking in the world never seemed to do a damned bit of good. He always came around to what his gut told him to do in the first place. The second he had figured out the truth about Cody, he had been consumed by fascination. He wanted to know the boy, be near him, be with him. Circumstances had handed him a way to do that—if he could get Michelle to agree to it.
Still sitting in the thermal pool and squinting through the thick wisps of steam, he watched her getting dressed. His body reacted as fast as it had when he was eighteen—maybe faster. Because now he knew from experience that sex like they’d just had didn’t come along every day.
He figured he ought to be dressed when he broached the topic of Cody, so he made himself chill out, waded to the shore, and dried off before the numbing cold hit him. Yanking on jeans, socks, and boots, he kept stealing glances at Michelle. She was beyond beautiful, always had been, but now that he was coming to know her again, he saw something more in this woman. Years ago, he had seen the promise. Now he saw the way time and caring and motherhood had molded her, softened her. Though she was slender, her breasts and belly had the sweet roundness common to any woman who had ever given birth and nursed a baby. It didn’t seem to matter how much time passed. The mother-shape was always there.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked, slightly suspicious, still flushed from the hot springs and from their lovemaking.
He tugged a gray UT Athletic Department sweatshirt over his head. “Do you have to ask?”
She sniffed, but not before he caught a flash of amusement in her eyes. “I didn’t come out here looking for sex. I came looking for answers.”
“So the sex was just sort of a bonus, I guess,” he said.
“Very funny.” She put on her boots and started walking toward the horses.
“Michelle, wait.” He followed her, jumping from stone to stone to keep clear of the steaming mud. A few elk, only slightly perturbed by the presence of humans, sidled off toward the woods. “There’s something I need to ask you.”
His tone must have touched off her suspicions, for she turned to him with her eyes narrowed and her arms folded across her chest, unconsciously protecting herself. “What is it?”
He figured he’d best just get it said. “When you and Gavin go in for the surgery, I want Cody to stay with me.”
He knew she was going to object before she even said a word. It was there in her narrow-eyed, guarded expression. He didn’t wait for her to speak, but went on, “I’ve been thinking about it for days, and it’s a good plan. He can—”
“I already have a plan for Cody,” she said. “He’s staying at Blue Rock. Tadao and Jake are there, and now Natalie. They—”
“They are not his family.” Sam tried to keep his temper, his desperation, in check. “His flesh and blood. He’s got me and my mother. He needs a chance to know us. The timing’s right, Michelle.”
She took a step back. “No.”
“What are you worried about?” he asked. “I want to spend some time with my son. How can you object to that?”
“Because I don’t think you know what you’re asking.” She spread her arms. “You just dismissed your marriage to Alice with a shrug, more or less. You split up with her after a year. And now you want to take on a son?”
The barb dug deep, but Sam wouldn’t let his pain show. He knew what she was doing. She was trying to make him mad, hurt him, so he’d back off. Suddenly, he saw her so clearly that he wanted to hug her. “Aw, Michelle, you don’t need to be afraid.”
Her chin came up. “I’m not afraid.”
“You are. You’re scared Cody and I will become best friends and he’ll forget the person who walked the floors at night with him, and fixed him birthday cake, and stood in the rain at all his soccer games.” Sam walked over to her, took her hand, pressed his lips to it, and kept hold. She tasted of the mineral springs. “You don’t need to worry. A kid will always choose his mother. Trust me on this.”
He stepped away and jammed on his hat. He hadn’t meant to say something so revealing. “Come on, Michelle. You’ve had sixteen years. I’m asking for a week.”
She unlooped the lead rein of her mare, then raked her fingers through the horse’s thick winter coat. “Where are we, Sam?” she asked him. “I need to know that before I decide.”
He knew she wasn’t asking for directions home. They had come to a place where there were no more secrets, no hesitation. But with their new closeness came vulnerability on both their parts. He didn’t know for certain he could become a family man overnight. His experience with his mother had taught him the tender hurts of commitment and responsibility. But he wanted to try. They were opening themselves to trouble—but also to joy, if they could make this work. Sam was sure of it.
“Well?” she asked, waiting. “Where are we?”
He held her horse’s head while she mounted and stood looking up at her. “At the beginning, I guess.”
* * *
The restaurant called Trudy’s was one of the few good things about Crystal City, Cody decided. His meal of a giant cheeseburger and fries, followed by chocolate cream pie, had been a welcome change from the macrobiotic stuff his grandfather’s nutrition specialist served.
Too bad his parents had ruined it by dropping a bomb on him right after dessert.
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