If I'd Never Known Your Love (17 page)

Pearl nosed the puppy closer to Julia. "I know this sounds crazy, but I think she wants me to help him."

David handed her the fleece blanket draped over the back of the sofa and reached for the phone. "I'll call the vet and tell him we're bringing him in."

"I'll do it," she said."You stay here so Pearl doesn't think we've conspired to steal her puppy. We don't want her to take off and disappear again. Not now."

Julia wasn't clear of the driveway, before she decided the puppy should have a name.

"How does Rufus sound?" she asked him. She waited for a reaction."No? Then how about Spot for that really cute spot between your eyes?" Again no reaction. This time she put her finger on his side to make sure he was still breathing. She let out a small cry of relief when she felt his tiny chest move up and down. She really, really didn't want him to die. She needed to win this one.

"Okay, so you're not crazy about the standard stuff. How about Francis? That's a good solid name that you don't run into very often. You can bet there won't be a lot of dogs at the dog park turning to look when your person calls that name."

He maneuvered to lift his head. It teetered upright for several seconds before falling to the side. That was indication enough for her. "Okay, Francis it is."

Julia touched his chin. Francis captured her little finger, took it in his mouth and sucked hard. "Good boy," she said, heartened at his strength and the cry of protest that followed when he discovered her finger wasn't what he'd expected. He was stronger than he appeared. "Hang in there, Francis. Help is only a half hour away."

Julia made it in twenty minutes. There were six people in the waiting room. When the frazzled receptionist refused to let her go in first, Julia didn't bother arguing. Instead, she unwrapped Francis and showed him to everyone ahead of her. Five years of dealing with bureaucrats had taught her direct and effective ways to get what she wanted.

The vet, the same one she and David had talked to about Pearl, did a quick assessment and said, "It's a good thing you brought him here right away. This little guy is in pretty bad shape."

"How bad?" Julia asked.

"The leg isn't broken, but he could still lose it if we can't get the infection under control." He continued to manipulate Francis's leg as he talked. "And there's no guarantee that amputation would work. How hard do you want me to try to save him?"

"Can he function with three legs?"

"Very well."

"Then I want you to do whatever it takes." She scooped Francis off the table and into her arms to keep him warm in the overly air-conditioned room. He responded by snuggling against her and nosing the inside of her elbow. She knew she should give him to the vet, but wasn't ready to let go. "What do you think happened to him?"

"It looks like a bite," he said. Then added, "Probably coyote." That confirmed what she and David had already guessed."She was probably bringing him back to her own pups for lunch. I'm surprised this little guy's mom managed to rescue him."

"I'm going to need something for his mom, too. She has a pretty mangled ear."

"I'm assuming she's the one you were here about last week."

Julia nodded.

"I'll give you an antibiotic that you can put in her food."

The vet took Francis and tucked him under his chin, where he weakly began rooting around again before finally latching onto a piece of soft skin. "Stop worrying. This guy is going to do fine."

Julia took the road back to David's house that circled the lake. It was shorter and more scenic, but took as much time as the direct route because of twists and hairpin turns. She kept glancing at the empty blanket in the front seat next to her surprised at how consumed she was with the need to protect Pearl's puppy.

She rolled the thought over and over in her mind, a sharp rock in a riverbed filled with smooth stones.

Was it the puppy Julia so desperately wanted to protect.. .or was it Pearl? What would she think when Julia came back empty-handed? Would she be frantic, or would she accept the seeming loss and devote herself completely to the one puppy she had left?

Maybe Julia should stay away until it was time for Francis to come home. That way Pearl wouldn't have to—

What was wrong with her? Why had she stepped so willingly onto this slippery slope of worry? She must be suffering parenting withdrawal, or maybe she'd developed a compulsive impulse to nurture.

Or maybe it was a desire to be nurtured herself. She was worn down from the need to be strong for Shelly and Jason, from pretending she believed she could build a life worth living without Evan, and from getting up every morning knowing the fight was over and that she'd lost.

Or maybe it was meeting a man so like Evan they could have been brothers. David was an aching reminder of what she had lost and what she would live without the rest of her life.

She had wonderful friends and the absolute best family. She had children who loved and looked up to her, children she would sacrifice her life to protect. She had to believe that all this, over time, would ease the ache in her heart. To think otherwise was too painful to conceive.

She could tell herself that her life would get better, that time and distance would dull the pain, but it was like all lies, filled with holes and predestined for collapse. Meeting David had brought that home in a way nothing else could. She was lonely beyond imagining.

Abruptly overcome with a powerful longing for a man she hadn't seen in almost six years, a man she would never see again, Julia pulled to the side of the road, let out a strangled cry and covered her face with her hands. She sat behind the wheel, sobbing uncontrollably until she was spent.

Exhausted and reluctant to let David see her with blotchy skin and swollen eyes and face the questions that would undoubtedly follow when he made the obvious assumption something had happened to Pearl's puppy, she got out of the car and walked to the lake. She wandered along the shore until she found a log and sat there to watch trout rise to feed on the afternoon caddis hatch. A piece of bark crumbled beneath her hands, on its way to becoming part of the soil that would feed a new generation of trees.

In death there was life...and heartache...and renewal. It was the natural order of things.

On the island the grass parted and the pair of year-round geese she and David had seen earlier lowered themselves into the water. This time they were accompanied by half a dozen fuzzy yellow goslings. Julia gasped—in surprise and then delight.
Where
had they been hiding?

Had Julia's mother been sitting beside her, she would have insisted the moment was a sign. Or maybe it was a cosmic gift that she'd come here at precisely the right moment to witness something to lessen her pain, and bring a smile.

Julia had no idea how long she sat there and absorbed her tiny miracle, only that after a while, somehow, she seemed less sad.

"Enjoy them while you can," Julia called out as she put her hands on her knees, stood and stretched. Considering what she'd said, she laughed. "Just be careful that you don't turn into clingy, overbearing parents and drive those sweet babies away before their time." She waited another minute for the parade to pass before heading back to the car.

The futility of her sorrow hovered over her like a cloud that refused to drop its rain. If grief were a coin she could spend to change the world, she had enough to stop the famines in Africa and negotiate for peace in the Middle East. But beyond personal pain, it had no value.

She had to find another way to remember Evan. A way he would approve of.

For now, Pearl and her puppies, maybe even David needed her.

Maybe almost as much as she needed them.

One Year, Five Months, and Four Days missing

There's no way for you to know this, Evan, but I haven't written to you for a few
months. Actually, it's been almost a year. I had a hard time coming back after we
paid the second ransom and then received the letter that . said it wasn't enough. I was
so sure our ordeal was over at last that I took Shelly and Jason to Bogota so they
could fly home with us, something I swore I'd never do.

I've fallen in love with Colombia and the people who've opened their hearts and
homes to me. But fear is a constant companion when I'm there. I won't ever expose
our children to that kind of danger again.

I don't know what to do anymore, Evan. I've begged and pleaded and thrown
temper tantrums with every official I can corner both here and at home. They've been
incredibly tolerant and understanding, but in the end, as ineffectual as the rest of us.

I try to imagine what your life is like now, what you do every day, what you 're
wearing, what you eat. I want to believe that the people who have you are misguided
yet kind, that they recognize what a good man you are and treat you well. It's the way
I survive day to day. It hurts too much to think of you being mistreated. If I picture
you locked away somewhere and suffering, a weight descends on me that makes it
almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning.

Your captors surely know you by now. They have

to recognize what a good man you are. I imagine you working with their children,
telling them that you have children, too, showing them the pictures you carry in your
wallet. Can't the men who have you understand how much your children miss you? How
can it not matter to them?

How can they keep you away from us all this time? We've done what they asked, over
and over again. Are they oblivious to the depth of their cruelty? What kind of people are
they that they don't care?

I used to keep a calendar beside our bed, next to the rose you picked for me before
you left. Every night I marked another day, counting how many you'd been gone. I don't
do that anymore. I don't want to be reminded of all the days we'll never get back.

When I can't sleep at night, I tell you about my day. I imagine you hearing me and
smiling over the details that make up my life now. I never tell you how defeated I feel at
times, or how I work to hide it from everyone for fear they will see it as a reason to stop
believing you are coming home to us.

And I couldn't tell you about the lump I found in my breast and how hard it was going
through all the tests without you here to lean on. The lump was benign—the process
reaching that diagnosis, utterly terrifying. I couldn't stop worrying about what would
happen to Shelly and Jason if something happened to me.

We need you home.

I'm worn down with missing you.

I'm going to read this tomorrow and will probably tear it up or burn it in the
fireplace. I don't want you to get the idea I ever doubted what I was doing to free you or
thought the work a burden. I would gladly spend the rest of my life at it, even if, in the
end, we only had one day together.

You are my life, Evan.

I will love you forever.

C H A P T E R 1 1

David plucked one of the larger chunks of meat out of the canned dog food and slipped an antibiotic capsule inside. They'd decided to start the pills in the morning after seeing how agitated Pearl was over her missing pup the night before. This was his third attempt. The first pill she'd managed to leave in the bottom of a bowl that she'd otherwise licked dishwasher clean.The second attempt he made an hour later. He opened a capsule and mixed it into some canned food. She sniffed the offering, gave him a piercing look and walked outside to go to the bathroom.

"Okay," he said, placing the bowl with the hidden capsule at the closet door. "Third time's the charm."

Pearl peered around the closet door and waited until David had backed across the room, before coming out. She sniffed and tasted and ate;

David leaned his shoulder into the wall and grinned."I win," he announced. But the victory was short-lived. Pearl abruptly stopped eating, worked her tongue around her mouth for several seconds— and popped out the pill.

"Oh, you trust me enough to move in with me," David said, venting, "but not enough to know I wouldn't poison you?"

"You two have a problem?"Julia inquired from the bedroom doorway.

David caught his breath at the sight of her, not realizing until that moment that he'd been waiting for her to come and fill his morning. "Just how important is it that she take these pills?" he asked, working hard to tone down his happiness over Julia's arrival.

"Why?"

"The only way we're going to get them into her is to pin her between us and shove them down her throat. I can see getting away with that once, but not twice."

She held out her hand. "Let me try."

"Gladly." He handed her the bottle and watched her go into the kitchen, allowing himself a moment of guilty pleasure as he admired the shape and form and movement that he'd concluded made her one of the most beautiful women he'd ever known.

Julia came back and gave the wary dog a stern frown. "Okay, Miss Pearl. We're through messing around. You're going to swallow this pill and you're
not
going to give me any grief about it. Got it?"

Pearl tilted her head to one side and stared at Julia, holding her ground while Julia approached, but the dog was poised to flee.

David shook his head in wonder when Pearl made a whimpering sound and leaned into Julia. If he believed in such things, he would swear Pearl understood.

Julia put one hand over Pearl's muzzle and with the other separated her jaws and slipped the pill to the back of her tongue. Pearl swallowed, and it was done. "Good girl,"

Julia said, this time scratching Pearl's chin. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of leftover chicken she'd taken from the refrigerator. Pearl accepted^ e peace offering, tucked her nose under Julia's hand for one last scratch and went into the closet to check on her pup.