Stay With Me (10 page)

She smelled like fresh milk and sweet
alfalfa.

She turned toward Fred and pointed an
accusing finger at him. “Why are you just standing there? Did you
intend to let him fall over?”

“He’s the most bull-headed person I’ve ever
met,” Fred said, not at all embarrassed. “Said he could go out and
fix fence today. I figured he’d come to his senses if he stood up
and fell over before he got to the door.”

“Men,” Sarah said, looking disgusted. “I just
don’t get it.”

“Get what?” Fred asked.

“You’re supposed to be his friend.”

“I am. I wanted him to fall here where I’d
have a chance of catching him rather than off some cliff in the
high country. Now maybe he’ll listen to me and let me finish fixing
his fence.”

“Quit talking about me like I’m not here,”
John growled. “I’m not dead yet.”

Sarah shook her head and rubbed her temples.
She turned toward Fred. “Where are the children?”

“At home. Helen and Thomas were up when I
left. No doubt Missy’s out and about by now. I told Helen I’d be
back later, that I needed to help John.”

“You should have brought them with you. I can
babysit here just as well as at your house.”

“You’ve got your hands full already, Sarah,”
Fred said.

“That’s me,” John said, crossing his arms
over his chest. “I’m a handful.”

Sarah frowned at him and turned back to Fred.
“The clean laundry needs to come in. I’ve still got the towels to
wash. I can take care of that--the children will help. Then you can
spend the morning here fixing fence and still have time to do some
of your own work.”

“You’ve got to be exhausted,” Fred said. “Did
you sleep at all last night?”

“Sure,” Sarah said, turning her back toward
the men. She lifted a stove burner and stuffed some kindling
inside.

“You’re a bad liar,” Fred said. “Maybe the
worst I’ve ever seen. Isn’t she a horrible liar, John?”

“I don’t know,” John said, wondering how this
woman had managed to upset his life in just two short days. It had
to stop. “Maybe she’s lied about so many things, she doesn’t even
know what the truth is anymore.”

He tried to ignore the startled little hiss
that escaped from Sarah.

Damn her. How dare she look so hurt? This
woman had lied to his brother many times over. “Don’t you remember,
Sarah? Don’t you remember lying to Peter about wanting to live on a
ranch, wanting to help him, wanting to have his children?”

Sarah’s back looked as if she had a steel rod
running up it. She didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you remember telling him that his
dreams had become your dreams?”

With deliberate motions, Sarah picked up two
eggs from the basket, cracked them against the counter, and dumped
them into an empty bowl. She grabbed a fork from the shelf and
started stirring.

No one said a word. Finally, Fred spoke.
“John, I know you probably got a hell of a headache, but there
ain’t no reason to be mean.”

“This is none of your business,” John
said.

“It’s not important,” Sarah said, at the same
time. “Look, I’m going to make myself some eggs. Would either of
you like some?”

Damn her. He didn’t want eggs. He wanted her
to fight back, to show her true self, so that he could stop
thinking crazy thoughts.

“What’s that in the pot?” Fred asked,
motioning to the stove.

“Beef and barley soup,” she said, keeping her
back to him.

“Soup?” John asked. “Where did we get
soup?”

“I made it last night.”

She’d made soup? What else had she done?
Washed down the walls? Shod some horses?

“You need to stop doing things,” he said. He
did not want to be beholden to her.

She whirled toward him, her mouth in a tight
line. “I was worried about you,” she said. “I wanted to help.”

“I don’t need or want your help.”

“I wouldn’t worry about me offering a whole
lot more,” she said. She set the bowl of raw eggs down and walked
out the door.

It made him all the madder when she calmly
shut it.

“You’re an ass,” Fred said, his voice heavy
with disappointment.

He was. But it was her fault.

“She’s done nothing but be helpful since she
got here two days ago. You know it probably wasn’t easy for her to
see you that way last night but she held up better than most men I
know would have,” Fred said.

“I didn’t ask her to.”

“No, you didn’t have to. That’s the
point.”

“Well, she’s gone now,” John said.

Fred walked over to the window and looked
out. “She didn’t go far,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s hauling up water. Probably for the
laundry.”

“She doesn’t even have a hat on.”

“Nope.”

“She didn’t eat her breakfast. She should eat
something before working in the sun.”

“Probably,” Fred agreed.

The two men stared at each other, neither
showing any expression.

“You want her,” Fred said, his eyes big and
round. “You want her and its killing you.”

“It’s odd that you’re the one talking crazy
when I’m the one with a hole in my head.”

“No. I don’t know how to explain it. She
seems prettier now. And a whole lot more womanly. A man would be
crazy not to want her.”

“I don’t even like her.”

“Try telling that to your cock.”

John laughed, glad that he still could. He
couldn’t think of a bigger mess. He wanted Sarah flat on her back
with her legs spread.

“What are you going to do about her?” Fred
asked.

John shook his head. “Not one thing. She’ll
be gone in four days.”

“A lot can happen in four days,” Fred
said.

“Absolutely nothing is going to happen. We’ll
keep out of each other’s way and then she’ll get on the stage and
I’ll never see her again. A month from now, I won’t even remember
that she’d been here.”

“You’ll remember.”

He would. As hard as he might try, he thought
he might never forget. “Here’s what you and I both need to
remember. We need to remember what an absolute bitch she was.”

“People change.”

“Do they? Do they ever really change or are
they just good at pretending, hoping you’ll see what they want you
to see?”

“I’ve seen her with my children. I don’t
think she was pretending. I saw her last night. She cared, John.
She cared about you.”

“It’s not possible.” He lay back in bed,
exhausted over just the small exchange. He hated being ill, being
less than ready to handle whatever might come his way.

“I’ve known you a long time,” Fred said, “and
I’ve never known you to be deliberately unkind. I don’t think Peter
would have wanted you to be cruel to his wife.”

“I don’t want to talk about Peter,” John
said.

“Too bad. I don’t think Peter would have
wanted the two people he cared about most hating each other?”

Yeah, but would he have wanted them sleeping
together either? “She shouldn’t have come back,” John said.

“Maybe not. But she did. She’s been a big
help to me and it you weren’t so stubborn, you’d admit that she
helped you, too. John, for God’s sake, she’s going to be gone in
just a couple days. Can’t you be decent to her for that amount of
time? Can’t you just forget about the past and see what might
happen?”

John shut his eyes, not wanting to see the
disgust that he could hear in his friend’s voice.

“Peter’s dead and it’s her fault.”

Fred didn’t say anything for a long moment.
“John,” he said, more quietly than usual. “Did you ever think it
might have been Peter’s fault? Or maybe nobody’s fault at all?
Silver mines collapse. It wasn’t the first time and it probably
won’t be the last.”

John sat up in bed, his eyes now wide open.
“Peter would never have gone into that mine if he hadn’t been
desperate for money. She made him desperate.”

“I don’t know,” Fred said. “Maybe at one
time, it would have been easy to believe that. But lately, I’ve
come to realize that we all make choices. Some of them are good
choices and some probably bad. But we make them. Circumstances or
other people may force us to look at alternatives, but in the end,
it’s each one of us who makes the choice. Each one of us has to
take responsibility for the decision.”

“She pushed him,” John said, unwillingly to
accept that Sarah’s hands were not stained with Peter’s blood.

“Or maybe,” Fred said, as he opened the door,
“he chose to be pushed.”

***

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Fred said. He squatted
down next to her.

She turned the wash bucket’s handle, wringing
out John’s wet shirt. It had taken her fifteen minutes the night
before, just to figure out how to feed the clothes through the
contraption. She really missed the push buttons on her big-load
washer. “
You
haven’t done anything to apologize for.”

“John’s a good man.” Fred ran his hands
through his red hair. “He misses Peter. Maybe more than even I
realized.”

She thought about how empty her life had been
after her parents had died. “It’s hard to lose family,” she
said.

“You feel powerless. When Franny died, I was
furious with God. What kind of God took a woman away from her three
little children?”

“I suppose your father-in-law wasn’t too
crazy about that?”

Fred chuckled. “No. Over and over again, he
kept telling me that God works in mysterious ways. I almost hated
him for it.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I realized he was just trying to convince
himself. He couldn’t admit it, but his faith had been shaken.
Ultimately, I think he came to terms with her death.”

“How about you? Are you still angry?”

“Sure. Some. But I’ve got the children to
worry about. I need to take care of them. That’s what Franny would
have wanted and expected. They give my life purpose. But John, he
doesn’t have anybody to give him purpose.”

“What about his mother?”

“He’s been taking care of her since he was a
boy. When Peter died, that didn’t change. John doesn’t have what he
needs. He needs a reason to get beyond his grief, his anger.”

“If that’s true,” Sarah said, “I hope he
finds it soon. He’s going to be an angry old man before he realizes
it.”

“He’ll come around. He just needs a little
more time.”

“For his sake,” Sarah said, “I hope time
flies.”

“It always does,” Fred said, smiling at
Sarah. He stood up. “He’ll work his way out of this. He just needs
to fumble around a bit first.”

“His fumbling is hard on my self-esteem,”
Sarah said, trying to make light of John’s comments. She didn’t
want Fred to know how much it hurt. As odd as it seemed, she’d felt
some kind of connection to John since the minute he’d swung open
that heavy door, his gun slung over his shoulder, his hair wild
around that incredible face.

Last night, when she’d touched him, when
she’d run her fingers across his hot skin, she’d felt the power, as
if an electric current connected his chest to her fingertips. She’d
wanted desperately to kiss him. She regretted her cowardliness,
regretted that she’d be back in her own time and never have known
the softness of his lips.

“Self-esteem?” Fred shook his head.
“Sometimes you say the strangest things. Anyway, I’ve got to get
out and get that fence fixed.”

“Fred.” Sarah stood up quickly, almost
upsetting her bucket. She laid her hand on Fred’s thick arm. “John
won’t let me help him. Will you at least let me help you? Go home
and get the children. Bring them back here. I can watch them and
keep track of how John’s doing as well. That way you can get the
fence fixed and still get some of your own planting done. If it
gets too late tonight, just leave the children here with me. You
can come get them tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. John needs rest. I think he probably
has a slight concussion. I’ll keep the children outside with
me.”

***

When John woke up for the second time that
day and heard the sweet laughter of children, he thought he might
be delirious. He sat up in bed and looked around, relaxing only
when he realized where he was and how he’d gotten there. He still
wasn’t happy about being stuck in bed like some invalid but at
least he hadn’t lost his senses. Then he heard the children again,
their high-pitched voices floating through the open window.

He edged out of bed and stood still until he
got the dizziness under control. When he walked over to the window,
he saw all three of Fred’s children playing jump rope, with Missy
and Thomas swinging the rope and Helen, singing a little song,
jumping high, her bare feet barely touching the ground between
swings. Morton lay just off to the side, his front paws stretched
out, his head resting on them, like he didn’t have a care in the
world. Like it was perfectly natural to have three children playing
in the yard.

For a brief moment, John allowed himself to
think about how good it would be to see his own children playing
games. He’d always kind of figured it would happen but now, with no
real prospects around, and him working eighteen-hour days trying to
build up his cattle herd and keep his ranch running, he’d about
given up hope. He didn’t have the time to find a wife nor the
energy to handle one. A wife would turn his life upside down. Even
more so than Sarah had these last two days.

Where the hell was she, anyway?

And as simply as that, she appeared, poking
her head out of the barn door, as if he conjured her up, through
some kind of magic. “I’m ready for you,” she yelled to the
children.

“Five more minutes,” Helen yelled back, her
voice coming out in breathless spurts.

Sarah smiled. “No. Playtime’s over. I need
your help.”

Help
?

Thomas stopped turning his end of the rope
and Helen stopped jumping. Missy, looking puzzled, pulled on
Helen’s bare arm. Helen pointed toward the barn where Sarah stood,
waving them toward her. Missy dropped her end of the rope and took
off toward the barn, like a hungry cat going for fresh milk. Morton
got up, stretched, and went after her. Thomas and Helen followed.
John watched until they all disappeared inside the barn.