Dorothy Garlock (27 page)

As if he were trying to see in a burning room choked tight with stinging smoke, Robert blinked slowly, his eyes languidly
searching about until they lit on Cole’s face. Recognition took a moment to follow, but when it did, the injured man gave
the faintest hint of a smile.

“Cole… what… what hap—?” Robert whispered.

“Don’t try to talk, Dad,” Cole soothed. “You took a fall down the stairs and hit your head. Sophie’s gone to fetch the doctor
so everything’s going to be all right.”

Robert’s hand rose as if he wanted to bring his fingers to his aching head and check for blood, but he could only raise it
partway before it collapsed back down against his chest. His breathing was ragged from the effort, his eyes swimming dizzily.

“Don’t move, Dad. Just lie still until the doctor gets here.”

“I’m… I’m sorry… son…” Robert managed to say.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” Cole corrected him. “You just fell down the stairs is all. It could have happened
to anyone. Heck, it probably should have been me.”

“That’s not… that’s not what… I’m sorry for…” With great effort, Robert once again raised his hand, this time placing it on
Cole’s and giving it a gentle squeeze. “What I… have to be sorry… about,” Robert continued, “is… far more than just… a tumble
down… the stairs.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Cole protested.

“Yes… yes, I do… and we both… know it.”

“This isn’t the time.”

“It most… certainly is…” Robert insisted. “I’ve known that it was… wrong to blame you… for what happened… to your mother…
but I guess it was… easier to blame… you than myself.”

“Neither of us is to blame for what happened to her,” Cole explained, recalling Jason’s words to him the night before he left
for the navy. “What happened to her was an accident.”

“An accident… that might have… been prevented if… I’d been… home more often…” his father argued. “You did… all that you… could,
Cole. You have… always done all… that you could.”

“But it wasn’t enough to save her.”

“There was… nothing that either… of us could have done,” Robert said. “But the greatest… tragedy of all… has been how I’ve
pushed… you away for something… that you could… not have changed. For that… my son… I’m as sorry as I… can be.”

For years, Cole had struggled to obtain his father’s forgiveness, but when it hadn’t been attained, he’d rebelled against
the man as many sons eventually did. But now that he had what he had so desperately wanted, he felt no sense of triumph, no
gloating happiness, but rather a calming, soothing sense that everything was as it should have been. It was as if he had found
redemption for what had happened when he was a child; he’d managed to reach his father and somehow find him at the same time.

Cole knew that, in the end, Jason had been right all along; all that had been needed between him and his father was a little
time and patience. A breakthrough had been developing between them, a few cordial words spoken over breakfast and their time
together rebuilding the Hellers’ barn. All were signs of a gradual thawing of the silence. While it was unfortunate that it
took a vicious tumble down the stairs to finally break through the ice of their distance, Cole was glad that it had happened
just the same.

Everything is going to be all right…

“I’ve always been proud to be your son,” Cole said, meaning every word.

“Not as proud… as I have been… to be your father.”

Before Cole could say another word, there was a commotion at the top of the stairs and he looked up to find Sophie and Dr.
Palmer staring down at them. Happiness flooded his heart at the sight and his spirits soared with the renewed hope that his
father was going to be all right.

“What happened, Robert?” the doctor asked just as soon as he had hurried down the stairs to join them.

“Took a… spill… is all…” the man said in answer. “Must have been… the heat that… got to me…”

While Dr. Palmer began to look over his father, Cole’s eyes found Sophie and he held her gaze for what felt like forever.
The harsh words that he had spoken to her only a few short minutes earlier seemed as if they had been uttered years before,
but that did little to staunch the regret that suddenly overcame him. Forcing her to tell him about Graham Grier seemed a
selfish act, a trifling thing compared to what had just happened. He’d been able to depend upon her to help save his father’s
life, and that was all that mattered.

“Thank you,” he said to her. Her only answer was an understanding smile.

Emotions that Cole had only ever been able to imagine rushed over him as he stared into Sophie’s eyes. He was struck by how
beautiful she was, both on the inside and out, and the sudden realization struck him that he had fallen in love with her.
Whatever their future together might hold, he knew that his feelings for Sophie Heller would burn on until his dying day.

“We’ll need to move him, Cole,” Dr. Palmer said.

“Will he be all right?”

“He doesn’t appear to have any broken bones,” the doctor explained. “There really isn’t much to do for him other than stitch
up that cut in his head and make sure he gets plenty of rest.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Sophie exclaimed.

“For now, we need to get him back to my office so I can tend to him.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to help,” Cole worried. “I had a hard time getting down these steps. Even without carrying my
father’s weight, it won’t be easy.”

“I can help… son,” Robert said.

He and the doctor managed to raise the wounded man to his feet, each of them slinging one of Robert’s arms over his shoulder.
Cole had to steady himself, straining to keep his bad leg still, but he managed to hold the man’s weight.

Together, he and his father took the first step.

N
IGHT HAD LONG
since darkened the sky by the time Cole was able to drive Sophie back out to her family’s farm. They rode with the windows
down; the sticky warmth of the day clung long after the sun had slid out of sight. A restless wind did little more than stir
the heat. Crickets chirped noisily from the darkness. Sophie stared out the window and into the sky, the crescent moon looking
back silently.

“He’ll be all right,” she said, breaking the quiet of the truck’s cab.

Cole grunted in answer.

“The doctor assured us that all he needed was to be observed for a few days if we made sure that he got plenty of rest,” she
continued. “The next thing you know, he’ll be back on his feet and as good as new.”

When Robert Ambrose was taken from the hardware store to the doctor’s office, his wound was stitched, but there was little
else that could be done. Dr. Palmer had been confident that he would make a full recovery, but Sophie could clearly see that
his cheery prognosis had given Cole little comfort.

“I just felt so damned helpless,” Cole muttered.

“But why?” Sophie exclaimed. “If you hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened!”

“It’s… because of my mother.”

It was then that Cole finally told Sophie about the fateful day when he had lost his mother, the day that had changed his
life forever. He told her about the awful sound that first alerted him that something was wrong and the trepidation that filled
his heart as he walked out onto the landing, finding her lying at the base of the stairs. With his fists clenched tightly
around the truck’s steering wheel, he recounted his failure to reach her, of his inability to get his leg to do his bidding,
all the while screaming for her to wake up. When he’d finally managed to reach her, he’d been overcome by fear, retreating
to a corner while her life slipped away. His brow furrowed as he explained how this failure,
his failure
, had impacted his relationship with his father ever since.

“Oh, Cole,” Sophie whispered, her chest tightening with emotion.

“I always believed that he blamed me for her death.”

“What happened to your mother wasn’t your fault,” she disagreed. “You were a child! No matter how great his loss, your father
couldn’t possibly blame you.”

“I think that I can finally believe that,” Cole explained. “But when I saw him this afternoon, lying at the bottom of the
stairs just like my mother had been, I couldn’t bring myself to move. It was like I was a child again, just as scared and
helpless as ever.”

“But you did move,” she argued. “You did reach him, Cole.”

“Yeah,” he admitted with the faintest hint of a smile. “I did.”

“Whatever problem your father’s had because of the death of your mother, I have no doubt that he cares for you. No matter
what, you will always be his son. Emotions sometimes get the better of us all, but family is a bond that can’t be broken.
Nothing can change that.”

Cole nodded. “You’re right. And even though we’ve had our problems by the bucketful, to see him lying there, wondering if
he was dead, was almost impossible to bear.”

Sophie found herself struck mute. She knew just how Cole had felt; the night that her family’s barn had been burned, she’d
been forced to stand face-to-face with the same nightmare. Just as Cole had done, she had cradled her father’s bleeding head
in her lap, all the while wondering if he was going to die. His was a fear that she knew all too well.

“Thank you,” he said, his hand leaving the wheel to find hers.

“Why would you need to thank me?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious but glad to feel his touch.

“Because even though I found the strength to make it down those stairs, none of it would have mattered if you hadn’t been
there,” Cole explained.

“There’s no need to thank me,” Sophie said, flushing slightly.

“I’m grateful just the same.”

When her family’s farm finally came into view in the sparse light of the moon, Sophie couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment.
Though her day with Cole had gone nothing like what they had planned, she’d still taken joy at spending it at his side. That
it was about to come to an end was regrettable.

After they had bounced around the inside of the truck’s cab during the drive up to the house, Cole said, “Do you think your
father would get offended if I showed up one day and fixed all of these holes?”

“You’d ruin all of his fun if you did,” she said with a laugh.

“If he’s not careful, one of these days he’s going to hit his head so hard that he’ll get a visit of his own from Dr. Palmer.”

Cole brought the truck to a halt but didn’t shut off the engine. While Sophie would have liked for him to join her for a bit,
maybe for a talk out on the back porch, she understood his desire to look back in on his father.

Save for the never-ending calling of insects, the farm sounded quiet through the open windows of the truck. Even if Bing Crosby
were to step out of the recently finished barn and start crooning, Sophie doubted that she could have heard him over the pounding
of her heart.

“Cole, I—” she began before his lips found hers.

Though they had kissed several times since that first night outside the theater and under the moon, Sophie still felt as if
she were floating on air every time their lips touched. An intense passion raced through her, a magical feeling that she never
wanted to end.

“Oh, Cole,” she moaned into his mouth.

Sophie met his advances tenderly at first, even a bit tentatively, but the flame of her desire quickly grew. Pushing herself
closer to him, her body pressing up against his, she found her fingers traveling up the length of his arm, crossing his shoulder,
and playing with the soft hair at the nape of his neck. When he finally broke their kiss and buried his face in her hair,
she was happy, even if she wished he hadn’t stopped.

“My darling Sophie,” he whispered into her ear.

When she finally broke from him and got out of the pickup, Sophie stared back at Cole through the open window. “I’ll come
to town tomorrow and check in on your father.”

He smiled. “He’d like that. And so would I.”

This time, instead of rushing to the house in tears, she watched as he reversed the pickup truck to back down the hazardous
drive. Before he headed back toward Victory, she stood on her tiptoes and waved, hoping that he would see her in the inky
darkness. Then he was lost from sight, leaving her alone.

Sophie headed to the farmhouse with a spring in her step and joy in her heart; she wondered if she’d be able to sleep a wink!
She’d just given thought to how lucky she was to have found a man like Cole Ambrose when the sound of a stick snapping froze
her in place. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it had not been an animal—and that she was not alone.

In that instant, all of her familiar fears came rushing back with the speed of a locomotive.
Who is waiting for me? Ellis Watts? Riley Mason? Can I possibly make it to the house in time?
Sophie was just about to throw caution to the winds and make a break for the house when a shadowy form stepped out from the
deep darkness at the side of the barn and stood directly in the moonlight. Though the moon was nowhere near half full, she
could clearly see who it was.

It’s Graham!

“Sophie,” he said. “I think it’s time we talked.”

For a moment, fear grabbed hold of Sophie’s heart and would not let go, but when it finally did, anger took its place. She
couldn’t believe the utter contempt that Graham must have for her and her family to show his face under the shadow of the
very building that had replaced the one he had helped burn. But after everything that had been done to her, after all the
laughing and slurs, she found that she was tired of running.

Striding determinedly across the yard, Sophie came to a stop right in front of Graham, reared back, and slapped him across
the face with all the strength she could muster. The crack of the blow seemed to hang in the air, trapped in a moonbeam or
caught in a light breeze.

“Why, Graham?” she demanded of him. “Tell me why!”

“Sophie, I—”