HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (29 page)

Not this one. I love him, Mama. Love! I never thought it’d happen to me.

She imagined her mother looking over at him and then to the window, disappointment edging her lips a bit downward.
This isn’t how I raised you, Moira. You’ve gone far astray. You’re off the path. It’s time. Come back to what you know is right and true.

It’s not your path. I know that. But can’t my path be my own? Things change between generations, values—

Values never change.

My life is so different from yours. My world is—

You live in the same world I lived in. God’s own. You are God’s own.

God. I never had the faith you possessed. It was an heirloom, a tradition. No, I need to make my own way.

Make your own way, dear daughter. But you’ll find it is much more painful and difficult if you ignore the God who walks the path with you.

Moira closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she could not summon the voice of her mother again. She rolled onto her back and pushed her knuckles against her eyes, trying to ease the ache behind them. It was just as well.
Mama will not tell me anything I wish to hear.

Mama and Odessa had oft seen things the same way. There was much in her older sister that reminded Moira of her mother. Odessa adopted her parents’ faith. Moira increasingly thought it antiquated, a means to keep people in line, organized, accountable. Such things did not apply easily to the arts. The arts demanded freedom and flow, not formality and function. She turned again, and a moment later, again.

“Are you ever going to go to sleep?” Gavin asked in a mumble, shortly before dawn.

“I cannot.”

He sighed. “You need your rest, Moira. It will affect your performance. And my head is throbbing.”

A rush of anger washed through her. She sat up and leaned against the headboard, staring at him. “I can’t sleep because I am thinking of you.”

He leaned a little her way and put a hand to his head. “Whatever you think of me, can we speak of it come morning?”

“No, Gavin. I don’t believe we can. Something is wrong between us. Dreadfully wrong. What’s happened? A month ago, we were in love, the world before us!”

He looked over at her and then sat up, leaning against the headboard too. He took her hand, and by the way he did it, Moira was cast between hope and horror. Slowly, he looked from her hand to her face again. “Moira, I’ve been infatuated with you since the day we met. But I have never professed love.”

She pulled her hand away and folded her arms before her. “No, it has not been spoken between us. But what do you call this?” She lifted a hand to their shared hotel room.

“Convenience. A logical next step. We are adults, living in an age of propriety. If we wanted ultimate access to one another, we had to pretend we were man and wife.”

“Or we could become man and wife.”

He scoffed and moved to face her. “Is that what this is about, Moira? You want to be married?”

“Not to you,” she bit out, rising from the bed and pulling on a robe. She strode over to the window and stared outward. No, she would have to be honest, if this conversation were to get her anywhere. She took a breath. “I confess … I’ve imagined …” She looked over her shoulder at him. “Are we not quite well suited?”

He stared at her, and his eyes softened as they used to when she first thought it love. He rose and came to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and kissing her head, softly, slowly. Her heart lifted, thinking he would recant his hurtful words, confess how he had erred. But then he said, “Moira, we are well suited. But I cannot marry a woman of the stage. Especially the common stage. My friends, my family—well, it would not be accepted.”

Bewildered, Moira turned. “You … your family?” She frowned and whirled, sputtering in fury. “You have made me into …
this
. You
made
me Moira Colorado. You launched
this
career.”

“And it is delightful. But this is what I do. Launch a business or career and then move on. I’m a builder, not a maintenance man. And you are well on your way, Moira.” He reached out as if to cradle her cheek, but she moved away.

She could barely breathe. He was leaving her. She knew it now, rather than merely suspecting it. He was biding his time, searching for his opening to go. And now she had given it to him. She was merely a
maintenance
project to him.

“Come now, deep down, didn’t you figure our alliance was temporary? A delightful sojourn shared. You must admit, it has been mutually profitable. You found a new chapter of your career, and I—”

“Gained a mistress. A woman to put food on your table as well as warm your bed.”

“And I learned much,” he corrected her gently, “about an area of commerce I knew little about, and about a woman I care for deeply.”

“But do not love,” she said steadily.

“No, Moira. I do not love you. I have yet to find out what that means.”

She stepped forward and took his hand, lifting it to the center of her chest, covering it with her own. “But I do. This cannot be a mistake, Gavin. It cannot. I have felt the sparks of love before, but nothing like the sparking flames I’ve known when it comes to you. Perhaps it will only take a bit more time for you to understand what I already know. That we are meant to be together.”

His face grew more troubled. “I see now that I have let this go on too long. Forgive me, dearest. For a time you saw it as I did. I’m certain of it. When we first shared a bed, we were quite clear on things. Remember? You wanted to answer to no man. When did that change?”

She paused. He was right. She had insisted on that. Why did it feel like such a long time ago that she dictated thusly? “Slowly,” she said carefully. “Over time. Day after day, the more we were together, the more I came to respect you, love you. We’ve been working together, dreaming together, building together.”

“We’re building a
business
together,” he said ruefully. “The business being ‘Moira Colorado.’ Our intimate associations are simply a side benefit of that enterprise.”

“A side benefit,” she whispered.

He stared at her for a long moment. “I guess it is true. That all women eventually equate the body with the heart.”

She released his hand, the shadow of devastation closing in. “No. I equate sharing a life with love, whether as a friend or a lover.”

“Then I beg you to consider me friend, as well as lover.”

She turned away, rubbing her temples with her left hand. “That is how my mother once described my father in her journals. Friend. Lover. Spouse. That is where I have erred. You have never been my friend. And never truly intended to be my spouse.”

He was silent for a long moment. “I will pack my things and be off in the morning. I can hire a man to be your bodyguard.”

“That is what you want, isn’t it, Gavin? To be able to say I sent you off? So you can shrug off any guilt?”

“I assume no guilt, Moira,” he said, straightening his shoulders.

“No, of course you don’t.”

He moved across the room and opened a trunk.

“What are you doing?” Her voice rose several notches.

“Packing. I’ll catch the first train out of here so my presence does not torment you any longer. I’ll depart, and you can take the day to collect yourself before your performance.”

Her performance? Walking onto the stage was the last thing she could think of. “I will send word that I am ill and incapable of singing tonight.”

He paused. “Tonight. But not tomorrow. You must find the strength to do what you do best. To further your goals.”

“What do you care? You are leaving on the morning train.”

“But I have not invested in you to see my investment languish.”

Her eyes narrowed. She remembered signing their agreement. Gavin received fifteen percent of anything she made. “Of course not. You have, what, another year of profits to collect? From afar?”

“Three years,” he said calmly, as he folded a shirt, “from the time we dissolve our association.” He stared at her. “Which I assume we are doing right now.”

“Three years?” she sputtered. “I would not have signed such a document.”
Unless I fancied myself in love …

“But you did, Moira. And I would not have agreed to this without it. I was clear with you from the beginning. I wanted to invest in this business, explore it. But I would not have done so without some assurances to compensate me for my time.”

Slowly, she sat down on the edge of the bed, dimly listening to him pack, her mind racing with words and promises that might entice him to stay. But she swallowed each one like bitter spoonfuls of lemon. Nothing would change his mind. She listened to him wash his face and wet down his hair, lather and shave, familiar morning sounds for her now. Sounds she would not hear again. She listened to him dress, pulling on his trousers and shirt. A belt, a vest, a tie.

She wished her mother were here. To hold her, keep her upright when she felt as if she were about to disintegrate into a pile of ashes. She imagined her mother in the chair beside the bed again, her face awash with love and concern, reaching out to hold her hand.

He’s leaving me, Mama. He never intended to stay. I was a fool.

She wished she could feel the warmth in her mother’s hand, a gentle squeeze.
Let him go.

But I want him to stay.

I know. Let him go.

But I can’t do this without him, Mama. I don’t want to do this.

I know. Let him go.

And within minutes, she did.

Chapter 17

What Moira couldn’t get out of her mind was how easily Gavin walked out the door without a backward glance. Hidden by the curtains, she watched him leave the hotel and walk down the street, a satchel in one hand, a man carrying his trunk behind him. He turned the corner, apparently on his way to the train station. And never once did he look back. It was his way—ever forward-thinking. It was part of what had attracted her to him. But it burned, to know that even she couldn’t make him think twice. Or indeed, even pause.

She sat down heavily upon the bed. For hours.

Moira felt dizzy, but not faint. Hungry, but with no desire to eat. Sleepy, but unable to doze. She was lost. Adrift. Spinning. Empty.
What to do, what to do …
She alternated between fury and indignation and a heartrending agony she’d never before experienced.
What have I done?
she wondered, running a hand over his side of the bed. How could she have allowed him to so completely own her, envelop her? Was she not Moira St. Clair beneath the Moira Colorado facade? Was she not more than this? A whimpering woman, a mistress tossed aside? She would not allow him to reduce her to such a shell, the mere shadows of a life she desired, no,
claimed
.

A knock sounded on her door. “Miss Colorado?” asked a deep voice.

Moira frowned and pulled her robe tighter. But she walked over to the door without opening it. “Yes?”

“It’s Daniel, Moira,” he said lowly. “Can you come out for a moment?”

She frowned, not liking the tone of his voice. Slowly, she unbolted the door and pulled her dressing robe closed at the neck and peered out.

Daniel looked at her, taking in her stricken appearance, then glanced down the hall, both ways. “Get dressed, Moira. I need to talk to you, but you need to come out here, properly dressed.”

“What is it?” she said in irritation. “Out with it.” The last thing she needed right now was a lesson on propriety—

“It’s Gavin,” he said miserably.

“Gavin?” Slowly, her eyes moved to Daniel’s big hands, hands that held his hat solemnly before him. He didn’t worry the hat, circling it around and around, but there was something—

“Moira, Gavin’s dead.”

Her eyes slowly moved up his torso to meet his sad brown eyes. Surely she had misunderstood him. Gavin was liable to be turned around by now, seeing the error of his ways, formulating a proper apology to her—

She shut the door and dressed, as woodenly as a puppet upon a puppeteer’s strings. Surely she had imagined what Daniel had said.… Surely …

Moira came out into the hallway, her hair down, her dress haphazardly buttoned, but her eyes were on the tall man before her.

“He didn’t make it as far as the next town on the train,” Daniel said miserably. “He stood up, complained of a headache, then crumpled to the aisle. Passengers said he was dead before he hit the floor. Doctor said it must’ve been an aneurism.”

“Aneurism,” she repeated dully. The headaches, the constant headaches, ever since he was struck on the boat in that storm, when Daniel had come to their aid and—

“No one could have known, Moira. Even Gavin—he never sought a doctor out, right?”