Love Thine Enemy (6 page)

Someone else was watching them. Cheryl could just make out a face in the frost-covered window beside the door. There was something familiar about it. A chill ran up her spine.

“Are you ready to go?”

Sam was beside her waiting to close the truck door. She glanced at him, then back to the hospital. The face in the window was gone.

Had she imagined it? The painkillers the doctor had given her were certainly making her feel weird. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back. “I’m ready. I think.”

Sam kept a close eye on her as they bounced along the highway through deep tire ruts in the snow. He could see she was in pain, but she wasn’t one to complain.

“Sam, stop the truck,” she insisted suddenly.

“What for?”

“Stop now!”

He stepped on the brake and the pickup slid to an abrupt halt. She opened the door, stepped out and was thoroughly sick at the side of the road.

Sam hurried around the truck, dropped to one knee at her side, and held her as she retched. Carefully, he
gathered her hair back and held it away from her face. It felt like soft strands of the finest silk as it curled around his hand.

What was there about this woman that got under his skin so easily? She could talk and act like the most independent woman in the world, but he couldn’t shake the feeling she needed someone to take care of her. Someone like him.

He marveled at his own foolishness. He was in deep trouble if holding a woman while she was being sick struck him as romantic. The realization that she would be gone from his life in a day or two brought a sharp twist of regret.

He continued to hold her, talking soothing nonsense until her spasms passed. After a few minutes he was able to get her back in the truck, but she was shaking like a leaf, and her face was pasty pale.

“I’m sorry,” she moaned.

Sam wet his bandanna in the melting snow and used it to wipe her face. Her eyes flew open at the touch of the cold cloth. She gave him a limp little half smile, but it didn’t ease his mind.

“Do I need to take you back to the hospital?” he asked.

“No, I’ll live. That cold cloth feels wonderful. I’ve always wondered why cowboys wore bandannas, now I know. They’re great for first aid.”

Her voice sounded so forlorn Sam couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “You women gave up wearing petticoats, so someone had to carry the bandages. Are you ready to go?”

She nodded, leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She was asleep before Sam got around to the driver’s seat. He shifted her until she was lying along
the seat with her head on his leg. He sat for a moment and let his fingers linger on her cheek. Yes, he would be sorry to see her go. He put the truck in gear and drove slowly home.

At the ranch, she stirred as he lifted her out of the pickup, but she didn’t wake. He carried her into the house and laid her gently on his bed, then he stood back and watched her as she slept. She was a tough little character. He reached down to smooth a lock of hair from her face, and she smiled in her sleep at his touch.

He liked her, Sam realized. He liked this tough, sassy, graceful-as-a-willow young woman. She stirred him in so many ways. She was beautiful, true, but her quick mind drew him more than her pretty face. She made him laugh, but at the same time she made him feel strong and protective. He tried to be objective about his feelings toward her, but she gave a soft snore, and it chased his objectivity away. He smiled but it was touched with sadness. She wasn’t for him.

She wouldn’t stay, he knew that even as he found himself wishing for a way to keep her here longer. He wanted time to sort out his feelings. To see if this was an infatuation or something deeper. He’d tried to harden his heart against her, but in spite of his best efforts, she’d hobbled right into the one spot that had been lonely and empty too long.

Why had God brought her here? To test him, or to heal him? He might never learn the answer. He simply had to have faith in God’s plan for him. He closed the bedroom door and headed for his office.

Bonkers lay stretched out along the back of the sofa in his favorite spot, but suddenly, he jumped up and took off for the front door. An explosion of sound came
from the entryway. Squeals, giggles and the sound of running feet.

A pair of identical five-year-old girls flew into the room and wrapped themselves around Sam’s legs.

“Did you—” one girl began.

“—miss us?” the other finished.

Sam shook his head. “Nope.”

“Yes, you did.”

“You missed us.”

Sam looked up to see his mother smiling indulgently from the doorway. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“We had lots of fun at Grandma’s,” Lindy said, clearly excited by her time away from home.

“Can we go outside and play now?” Kayla asked.

“Can we get—” Lindy began.

“—our sled out?” Kayla finished her sister’s sentence as the twins often did, much to the bemusement of those who knew them.

Sam lifted them up, one in each arm, and looked into the two most important faces in his life. “Kisses first,” he said. Two sturdy sets of arms circled his neck, and smacking kisses covered his cheeks. His heart expanded in his chest until he thought it might burst. God had been good to him.

Eleanor Hardin walked in and began pulling off her gloves. “If I had known they were going to be snowed in with me, I would have been busy when you called and asked me to watch them.”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t have. You loved every minute of it. Come in.”

“I can’t stay. I’ve got to get on the road.”

“You’re driving to Denver now? Is I-70 open already?”

“Yes, to both questions.”

He could see her searching the room with her eyes. “Cheryl is resting right now,” he said. “The doctor set her broken foot this morning, and she’s sleeping off the sedation.”

Eleanor looked perplexed. “I thought her name was Cheri.”

“Who’s Cheri?” the twins asked simultaneously.

“It’s Cheryl,” Sam answered.

“Her foot really is broken? The poor dear.” A slender woman with a short gray bob, Eleanor was dressed in jeans and a bulky green sweater. She swooped in and took charge as usual.

She plucked the girls out of his arms and set them down. “Go change into your snowsuits. Daddy will take you outside, but not until you’re dressed, including mittens.”

“Who’s Cheryl?” the twins insisted, jumping up and down.

“Girls, listen,” Sam said sternly. “Cheryl is our guest and she’s sleeping in my room, so you’ll have to be quiet.”

An identical mulish look appeared on their faces so he knelt in front of them. “You can’t wake her up. Understand?”

“Yes, Daddy,” they replied together.

“Good. Now, go get dressed for sledding while I walk Grandma out to the car.”

The twins took off for the stairs. Picking up Bonkers, Kayla said, “You can ride—”

“—on the sled, too,” Lindy told the cat.

Eleanor turned back to Sam. “Bonkers doesn’t look thrilled, does he? Son, I’m sorry to leave you in such a fix.”

He could see she was genuinely torn about leaving. He draped his arm over her shoulder and gave her a
squeeze. “Now, Mom, Becky needs you. Tell her the girls and I will keep her in our prayers. Go. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be okay.”

She reached up and pulled his head down to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “I know you will—you always are. I wish I could meet your Cheri.”

“Cheryl, Mom, and she isn’t mine. I told you, she’s a ballet dancer touring the country with her company. She’s been stranded here for a couple of days by the storm, that’s all. If I-70’s open, she’ll be able to get to Kansas City tomorrow and rejoin her friends.”

“If her foot is broken, she certainly can’t dance.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe she could stay and help take care of the girls until you get back? If she can’t work, she might be happy to take the job.”

“Are you certain you want to ask a stranger to watch the girls, Sam? That isn’t like you. What do you know about her?”

Not as much as he would like to know, he realized. “It was just an idea.”

“I’m not sure someone on crutches would be able to keep up with your two little whirlwinds.”

“The girls can entertain themselves. Even with her leg in a cast, she should be able to manage them with Gramps to help.”

“I know I’m leaving you in a lurch, but please think this over carefully.”

“I will. You know me, I never do anything without a lot of thought.”

“True. Now, walk me out to my car. There are some things I’ll need you to take care of while I’m gone. I have a small list of things for you to do.”

“Small? Knowing you, it’s as long as my leg.”

“Nonsense. It’s only as long as your arm.”

With a laugh, Sam followed his mother out the door.

At the stairwell, two little girls stuck their heads up and checked to see if the coast was clear, then they crossed to their father’s bedroom still lugging the enormous cat.

C
heryl woke to a nagging ache in her foot and trouble breathing. It felt like a twenty-pound weight pressing down on her chest. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the cat’s broad face. A yellow twenty-pound, fur-covered weight.

“Bonkers, get off.” She gave him a not-so-gentle shove.

She was in Sam’s room again, she realized, yet she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here. A slight noise caught her attention, and she turned her head.

Two identical little girls peered at her over the edge of the mattress. Their chins were propped on chubby hands and their elbows rested on the bed. The cat sat between them watching her with an unblinking stare.

Cheryl closed her eyes. “Let me guess. Tweedledee and Tweedledum?”

She opened one eye slowly. The pair remained. They watched her with solemn brown eyes, much darker than their father’s, but their short chestnut hair held a multitude of curls like his. It seemed she was going to meet Sam’s children, after all.

“Hi.” Cheryl spoke slowly—her mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. “You must be Lindy and Kayla.”

They nodded.

“I’m Cheryl.” Coming fully awake, she sat up and cast a fearful glance toward the door. “Is your grandmother here?”

“She went to see—” the one on the right started.

“—Aunt Becky in Denver,” the one on the left finished.

Lightheaded with relief, Cheryl leaned back on her elbows. Her luck had held. The Queen of Hearts wasn’t going to come running in and demand her head.

Cheryl eyed the bulky white cast on her leg. Her foot was broken, she was out of a job and she had no place to live. Some luck.

“Did Bonkers—” began the one on the right.

“—wake you up?” finished the one on the left.

Cheryl smiled to reassure them. “He did, but that’s okay.”

The twins looked at each other silently for a long moment. Cheryl detected a twinkle, very much like their father’s, sparkling in the depths of their brown eyes. Bonkers lifted a paw and gave it a lick.

“Daddy said—”

“—we can’t wake you up, but—”

“—he didn’t say, Bonkers—”

“—couldn’t wake you up.”

Cheryl followed the twisted logic, but she was having trouble following the single conversation coming from the two children. She scooted up in bed and leaned against the headboard, gritting her teeth as a stab of pain shot up her leg. “Do you always do that?”

“Do what?” they asked together.

“Finish each other’s sentences.”

Again, that look flashed between them. “Not always,” they replied together again.

“I know your names are Lindy and Kayla, but which one is which?”

“You have to guess.”

“How’d you hurt your foot?”

“How’d the doctor get that cast on?”

“Can you still—”

“—wiggle your toes?”

Cheryl smiled. “I think your father tried to warn me about you and your questions.”

“Daddy likes you,” remarked the child on the right.

“Yes, he does,” the girl on the left added. She picked up the cat, draped him over her shoulder, and they all trooped out of the room. Cheryl eyed the bedroom door for a while, but the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit didn’t show.

She left the bed an hour later still feeling unsteady, but she managed the crutches well enough. The pain in her foot was bearable if she didn’t move too fast or bump it. There was no one in the kitchen or the living room, and Cheryl toyed with the idea of going back to bed until she heard the sound of shouting outside.

She crossed to the sliding glass door that led to the balcony and eased it open. A crisp, cold breeze blew in, lifting the ends of her hair and chasing the last of the cobwebs from her mind as it carried the sound of children’s laughter to her.

Leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, Cheryl watched the sledding party in progress on the slope of the opposite hillside. Sam stood behind the twins as they piled on a red sled. He steadied it, then gave a shove that
sent them squealing and shrieking to the bottom of the hill. They tumbled out of the sled, trudged back to the top and started all over again.

Cheryl smiled with amusement as Bonkers crept up to investigate the sled. The twins picked him up and settled him in between them. Sam gave them a push, and they flew down the hill again. Halfway down, Bonkers apparently decided he didn’t care for the ride. He jumped out but went rolling and sliding down the snowy slope. The twins shrieked in alarm as they hurried toward the snow-covered cat.

Bonkers didn’t wait for help. He picked himself up with wounded dignity and stalked off, shaking his paws with every other step. Cheryl laughed aloud at the cat’s antics. She saw Sam laughing, too.

He must have heard her because he looked up and gave her a brief wave. She waved back. A warm glow settled in the center of her chest as she watched him playing with his children. This was a new side of him. It couldn’t be easy raising two small daughters, but he seemed up to the job. He was certainly enjoying himself now. He even took a turn on the sled as the girls shouted encouragement.

Cheryl covered her smile with one hand. What a comical figure he made when he sat on the small sled. His long legs were bent with his knees drawn up almost to his ears. With one hand, he kept his hat jammed on his head. The other hand he held high in the air like a bronc rider as the twins pushed him off the hilltop. His grin was as big as all outdoors, and Cheryl had no trouble imagining the boy he’d once been as he flew down the hill and tipped over at the bottom.

An unexpected stab of jealousy pierced her as she
watched Sam and his girls. Her father had never played with her and her sister; he had never smiled and laughed with them. A sudden, fierce longing to go out and join the fun came over her. Instead, she gave a rueful glance at the cast on her foot. With her luck, she’d end up breaking another bone, more than likely in her neck this time.

The sledding halted when a snowball fight broke out. It quickly became father against daughters, and it was a pretty even fight as the snowballs flew fast and furious between them. Suddenly, a cry of pain brought the game to a halt. Sam quickly crossed to where one of the girls sat in the snow with her sister bending over her.

Sam pulled off his gloves and knelt in front of her. He pushed the brim of his hat back with one finger. “What’s wrong, Lindy?”

“I hurt my eye,” Lindy answered with a pout on her lips and one fist balled up against her face.

“Let me look.” He tilted her face up and carefully brushed the snow from her cheek. “I see it. There’s an ouch-maker right here.” He touched his lips in a gentle kiss to her eyelid. “Is that better?”

“No.”

“It’s not?” he asked in surprise. “I must be out of practice. My ouch-remover always works. Let me try again.” He planted a second kiss on her cheek. “How’s that?”

“That got it.” She rubbed her eye and smiled at him.

“I think my eye hurts, too,” Kayla said in a wistful voice.

“It does? Well, come here and let me see.” Sam examined Kayla’s eye critically and planted a kiss on her cheek as well. “Better now?” he asked, and she nodded. “Good! Ready to fight some more?”

“No, we want to make snow angels.”

“Grandma showed us how.”

“Did she? You know what? She showed me how when I was about your age, too. Let me see if I remember.” He flopped backward into the snow and began to swing his arms and legs and the twins quickly joined him.

Cheryl watched the scene from the balcony door, and her heart warmed at the sight of Sam’s tenderness. She remembered her own mother kissing her cheek to make the tears go away. It was a startling, clear and treasured memory of her mother, and Cheryl couldn’t believe she’d forgotten it until now.

She stepped back and closed the door. Just for a moment, as she watched Sam and his children on the hillside, Cheryl wondered what her life would have been like if her father had been more like Sam. His children were very lucky, indeed.

Back in the bedroom, she sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. After dialing Damon’s cell phone, she braced herself to give him the bad news.

He answered on the second ring. “Sands here.”

“Damon, this is Cheryl.”

“It’s about time. Where are you?”

“Still stranded.”

“What? Are you kidding?”

“No, and it only gets worse. I’m afraid my foot is broken. I’m not going to be able to rejoin you for a few weeks.”

“Don’t tell me that! Geoffrey is already complaining because Miranda is taking your place in rehearsals. He says she outweighs you by ten pounds and his back is killing him from trying to lift her.”

“He complains about my weight, too.”

“I know, but you don’t miss your jumps.”

Cheryl cringed. “Did she?”

“The jeté entrelacé, twice! Fortunately, she recovered well. You understand I have to terminate your contract.”

“Damon, please. I’ll be back in a few weeks at most.”

“Maybe! I can’t hold your place. I’m sorry, Cheryl.”

“But I need this job.”

“It’s too bad. You had potential.”

It was the highest praise Damon had ever given her. She knew she wouldn’t get anywhere by arguing with him. She was fired. The least she could do was take it with dignity. “I hope I have the honor of working with you again someday.”

“We’ll see. I’ve got to go. Give me your address so I can have your last check forwarded to you.”

She gave him Sam’s address then hung up the phone and stared at it for a long time. The best role of her career had just gone down the drain. She knew there would be other roles, other chances to shine, but they seemed very far away at the moment. Now, what was she going to do in the meantime?

Several hours later, the tantalizing smell of roast beef drew her out of the book she’d been trying to read and out of the bedroom into the kitchen.

The twins were setting the table. One laid down the dishes, and the other followed arranging the flatware carefully beside each plate. Sam, wearing oversized orange oven mitts, removed a cookie sheet of golden-brown biscuits from the oven.

“Something smells wonderful,” she said, maneuvering into the kitchen. The cast was heavy and her pain medicine left her feeling lightheaded and groggy. She
joined Walter at the kitchen table, happy to have made it without falling.

Sam set the biscuits on a plate in the center of the table. “Are you feeling better? I could have brought you something to eat in bed. You didn’t have to get up.”

She smiled wanly. “I’m a little better, thank you. I wanted to get up. I’m not used to lying around.”

“At least let me get that leg elevated. The doctor said you need to keep it up.”

“Did he? I don’t remember much after he set it.”

Sam brought another chair and padded it with pillows, then gently lifted her foot onto it. The twins eyed them intently. He introduced them, and Cheryl had the feeling they hadn’t told their father about meeting her earlier. She decided to keep mum as well and was rewarded with a grin from each of them. They came and sat on either side of her at the table.

Sam introduced the child on her left as Lindy, and the one on her right as Kayla. Cheryl tried to find some way to tell them apart, but she couldn’t. They were dressed identically in blue jeans and green shirts.

Walter led the family in saying grace. Cheryl bowed her head with the others, but felt awkward and uncomfortable with her pretense of piety. The meal started out quietly, but the twins soon opened up and regaled her with stories of their stay at their grandmother’s during the storm and of playing in the snow.

Eating at a tennis match would be easier, Cheryl decided. They continued to start and finish each other’s sentences on some hidden cue. She found she couldn’t turn her head fast enough to keep up with them. Finally, she looked at Walter. “How do they do that?”

He shrugged. “Beats me.”

“What do you do?” Lindy asked Cheryl.

“I’m a classical ballet dancer. A ballerina.”

“Do you dance on your toes?” This time Kayla popped up with a question.

“Sometimes, but only when the steps of the dance call for it. Not all ballet is danced on your toes. There are lots of different steps.”

“Do you wear a tutu?” Sam asked with a smirk.

Lifting her chin, she replied with a haughty air, “I wear many different costumes when I dance. Yes, I wear a tutu, but I have even worn a cowboy hat.”

“Not in a ballet,” Lindy jeered in disbelief.

Cheryl grew serious as she studied the girls’ faces. “You’ve never been to a ballet, have you?”

Of course they hadn’t. Neither had she at their age, and if it hadn’t been for one special woman, Cheryl would have spent her whole life never knowing the beauty or her love of dancing. She glanced at Sam and Walter and wondered what they thought about her career. Did they consider it frivolous? And why should it matter what Sam or anyone else thought? It shouldn’t, but for some reason, it did.

Focusing on the children, she began to explain her art. “Some ballets are written to express the joy of the dancing, and some tell a story, like
Cinderella
or
Peter and the Wolf.
In that ballet, I was the duck,” she confided, and the girls giggled.

She stared at their father a long moment. “There is even a ballet about a lonely, clumsy cowgirl who wins the heart of the most handsome cowboy on the ranch. It’s called
Rodeo.
”

She’d never had the role, but she knew exactly how the character would feel. Lonely and left out, sad and
filled with a longing to be loved for who she was inside. Afraid no one could ever love her.

“Can you show us?” asked Kayla.

“What?” Momentarily lost in thought, Cheryl stared at the child.

“How to dance on our toes?” Lindy added.

Shaking her head, Cheryl said, “I’m afraid I can’t. Not with my foot in a cast. Perhaps your father will take you to Kansas City someday and you can see a ballet there. There are several good companies there.”

Kayla leaned forward. “Is that where you dance?”

“Cheryl is from New York, girls. That’s much farther away than Kansas City. No, we can’t go there and don’t ask,” Sam told them. “Enough questions. Eat!”