Stony River (70 page)

The entry light blinked on and David looked out. “Sevana?” He sounded startled as he came out on the step. “I wondered if I heard something out here. What’s up?”

She rose unsteadily to her feet, trying to draw herself together enough to face him. “I didn’t want to bother you, David. I just—Willy—he came over drunk—and—he—I—” What little reserve she had left she felt crumbling under his as-always kind gaze. She pressed a hand to her eyes, attempting to sort things out. It was so late, everything was blurring together, and she felt unable to think. “I ran this way,” she finished feebly.

“Come in!” David said in real concern. He ushered her through the sanctuary into his back office. As she’d thought, his desk was strewn with open books and papers as in a small, localized hurricane. “Sit down,” he urged, guiding her into a cushioned chair before he took his seat at the desk. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Willy grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go,” she recounted, her voice weak but calm. The night had phased past the nightmare into a hazy surrealness to be in David’s private study at that uncustomary hour. “He was upset with me. And I—” she swallowed against the choking sensation in her throat, “I barely got away.”

David looked grave. “What made Willy mad?”

She looked down. “I told him—I couldn’t be his.” The words were so low David barely caught them.

A little silence. “Did you, Sevana? After you brought him to church, I rather thought you were falling for him.”

Her lower lip fluttered with a brief tremor. “Willy is very dear, but he is so unstable—like me.” She glanced up in time to see a smile flit across David’s face. “He’s off pursuing—or being driven by—something he’s hoping to find, just as I was when I came here to Lethbridge.” She gulped. “I feel so bad. I am making him so unhappy, and I do love him; but he is so unreliable in some ways, and he is not like—” With the name on her tongue, she barely stopped in time.

“Joel?” David supplied steadily.

She almost flinched at the name, spoken aloud. “Yes.” He knew. She had never alluded to it, but he’d read it in her anyway.

“You’re right, Sevana,” David agreed. “Willy is not half the man Joel is. I wondered if you would see that. I hoped you would.”

“It doesn’t make any difference now,” she said flatly.

“I think it does.” David shook his head to stop the protest forming on her lips. “Yes, I know the situation with Chantal. We talked about it some the night he was here. And I happen to think he’s making a mistake. But it wasn’t the time or place for me to say so, when he had so many pressing things to deal with. Maybe you will have to be the one to enlighten him.”

Sevana laughed at the ludicrous statement. “I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” she said, although the strange, wonderful words made her heart rise with unwarranted lightness.

“I’ve never put much stock in ‘chance’, anyway,” David said cheerfully. “Well, so—where is Willy now?”

“I think he left. I saw a car drive off.” She stood up. “I’ll go back now, David. I’m sorry I disturbed you in the middle of the night.”

“Not at all. I work all kinds of odd hours when Krysta isn’t here—whenever inspiration strikes. Sometimes I wonder how long it will take me to adjust once she’s back to keep me on a schedule.”

Krysta had not been home in quite a while. David had mentioned in his Sunday morning announcements that she was filling in as mission cook for a few weeks, as well as taking full charge of Sascha and Talmo—stating frankly that she had grown so attached to them, he didn’t know if she would be able to give them up when another family was found for them.

Then he stood up from his desk. “You’d better stay at my house tonight,” he said authoritatively, as if he was her father. “There’s nothing to keep Willy from coming back tonight.”

But Sevana shook her head. “I’ve got to go home. I left a brush with paint drying on it. It’s one of my best ones,” she added lamely, seeing his look of amusement.

“I’ll drive you over so you can wash out your brush—” David’s mouth quirked again. “Then I’ll take you over to the house. We have plenty of extra room.”

At the apartment, David gave the place a once-through, much as Willy had done when he was looking for Ryder. But as he stood waiting for her to finish swirling her brush in the paint thinner, she said: “I’ll stay here tonight, David. Willy won’t come back, I’m sure of it. Even if he did, the door will be locked and he couldn’t get in.”

David hesitated. “What about tomorrow?”

“I’ll go back to work.” She shaped the bristles into a precise point with her fingertips. “That wasn’t Willy tonight. He’s—a different person when he’s sober.”

“So you’ll be all right until the next time he gets drunk.” David looked serious. “I don’t know what to say. But I guess you’re right; he’s not likely to break down any doors tonight…although I’ve seen stranger things happen.”

“I’ll be all right. Thanks for your help tonight, David.”

Still looking unconvinced he left her alone, and she secured the door behind him. Then she turned off the lights and threw herself across the bed without bothering to get into it. She cried a few tears into the crook of her arm before she fell into an exhausted sleep.

In the morning, her face wan and shadowed, she chose a tailored wool dress suit and coiled her hair into a businesslike twist before she opened the shop. She was on-edge, waiting for Willy to come in. Every time the door opened, she started nervously. When Willy did arrive, about midmorning, she laid aside the aimless sketch she’d been penciling and stood up as he came over to the counter. He looked pallid under his spring tan, but well-dressed and meticulously groomed as usual. “Morning, Sevana.” His eyes were on hers, but with a curious lack of expression. “Much business?”

“Only a little.”

He didn’t respond, but made no move away from her. Sevana took his square hand with the ornate gold ring resting on the counter and held it in both of hers. “Willy,” she said earnestly, “all night I wanted to see you again so I could tell you I’m sorry for the dishonorable way I treated you. I only lied because I was afraid. I take no pleasure in hurting you, Willy.”

“I would rather you had slapped me in the face!” said Willy, taking away his hand, “than to make me a king one moment and a beggar the next. But I can’t talk about what is honorable and what is not. Sevana, will you forget last night?”

“I forgive you, Willy. But forgetting will not be as easy.”

“I’m sorry, believe me, I am.” He still had little emotion to show for it. “I acted the fool.”

“A dangerous one, at that. Don’t you think it would be wise to cut back on your drinking before you get in worse trouble?”

“It did occur to me this morning,” he said cynically. “Well, you won’t have to worry about me for a few days. I’m going back to Calgary. Could you cancel Thursday’s class for me—let everyone know?”

“Yes, I will,” she began, then dropped all pretense. “Oh Willy, don’t go if it’s because of me. I don’t mind being around you. I still like you, Willy!”

“Do you? Even if you knew all those things I said last night, I feel that way even when I’m not drunk? Even though I wouldn’t ordinarily suit action to it?” His eyes glittered menacingly. “I’d say the farther away from you, the better. Confound you, Sevana!” And he stalked out of the shop.

Sevana sank down on the stool and hid her face in her hands. But the door opened again directly, and she jerked upright. It was David. “What happened?” he exclaimed. “I was crossing the street to see how things were going this morning, and I saw Willy come out the door like the devil was after him.”

“Oh, David, it was awful,” she said darkly, and told him what Willy had said. “I’m hurting him so!” she finished, almost in tears.

But David was not so sympathetic. “Sevana!” he remonstrated, “Willy is a nice person, admirable in many ways, but don’t you see how he plays life like a game? Have you ever thought it might be a challenge to him to see if he can win you? Not to say he isn’t attracted to you—what man wouldn’t be?—and you are an artist like him, besides! But perhaps the thing driving him most is the thought he can’t have you. No man wants anything worse than the thing he can’t have.”

Sevana regarded David. She was sure Willy was in earnest in loving her, sure it was more a matter of the heart than David gave him credit. But it was an observation she hadn’t considered before, and it did put things in a slightly different light. “Oh David,” she said with a sigh, “I do hope you’re right. I hate to think of him being brokenhearted.”

“Sevana, listen to me. I know a little about Willy’s kind. Loneliness is not one of his especial traits. He won’t linger long over a lost love, mark my word.”

Someone was coming through the door—Jillian, there to pick up a check for the sale of
Celestia
, a swirl of colors Sevana wouldn’t have expected anyone in the galaxy to voluntarily choose to own…the $500 she had ready to hand to her proving her diametrically wrong. David glanced at Jillian and said to Sevana in a lower voice, “Well, I’m on my way. Don’t fret. Things have a way of working themselves out.”

She tried to smile for his sake. “Thank you. Have you heard from Krysta?”

“Yes, she’s not on kitchen detail anymore, but she’s staying at the mission on weekends to keep Talmo and Sascha’s schedule from being disrupted any more than necessary. I’m going up to visit her in a few weeks. And then school will be out just a month after that, and she’ll be home to stay.”

“That’s wonderful,” Sevana said.

“Yes. My only hope is if she brings Sascha and Talmo home with her, she’ll ask the mission board first, instead of just flat-out kidnapping them.” With a humorous look he made his exit.

“Are you all right?” As soon as David was gone, Jillian came over, her brown eyes wide with an uneasy wondering. “Ralf told me Willy went over to your house last night stewed to his eyeballs.”

“Yes—but nothing happened.” Sevana wanted to protect his image as much as possible to his friends.

Jillian looked serious—or as serious as someone can whose face is finely misted with tangerine flecks from spray-painting a car in their private garage. “That’s not quite what I heard. Ralf said he was pretty much off his rocker, showed up at their house in the dead of night raving how he wasn’t going to give you up.” To the relief of one and all, after saying almost nothing for weeks on end, she had gone back to freely speaking her mind—except around her boss.

“You know how he is when he’s drunk,” Sevana said dismissively. “I did have to ask him to leave.” She still wasn’t prepared to spill the whole story for the edification of his closest comrades, but she needed Jillian to understand something. “But it isn’t that I don’t care for him, Jillian. Sometimes I’d even like to give in to him.”

“Look, Sevana, I’ve known Willy for a long time,” Jillian said crisply. “If you did give in, all you’d get is your heart broken when he found the next version of the love of his life. All I can say is, I’m glad you’ve had the sense to stay disentangled. Goodness knows he’s been working hard enough to get you. That little stunt he pulled in Calgary! I could have cheerfully strangled Len for letting him get away with it.
Len
, of all people. I guess it proves he’ll do anything for Willy, but sometimes his loyalty goes too far. I told Len it was like throwing meat to the wolves. I even painted a picture and mailed it to him anonymously because I was so mad…a wolf with blood dripping from its fangs…and if you look really close, there’s a few strands of blonde hair trailing from its jaws.”

“Jillian, you didn’t!” Incredulous, Sevana doubled over in an attack of laughter.

Her change in disposition was not lost on Jillian. “Oh yes, I did. It was a fast job, just to make a statement, you know, but quite a good likeness.” Upon a moment of critical reflection, she looked rather pleased with herself. “Len asked me if I was missing any of my artwork, and I said no—because it was his by then, not mine. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

Frank Larkin, former conservation officer and father of Len’s new girlfriend, was coming in the door with a new wildlife painting of which he was particularly proud—a fine black timber wolf in bushy winter coat. He was never to know why Sevana made a little choked sound in the back of her throat the moment she saw it—although she immediately became professional and complimented him gravely at length; nor why Jillian spun from it after one glance, looked helplessly at Sevana, and made a beeline for the door.

CHAPTER 49

In the days during Willy’s absence Sevana considered Mr. Thane’s offer. It had fallen into her lap right after she’d decided to pursue a degree, and she felt attracted by the idea. She discussed it with Jillian one night, inviting her over for a dinner of home-cooked beef stew—the two of them drawn closer together through recent events. They renewed the discussion another night over dessert in Jillian’s condominium, the bare beige walls and no-nonsense furnishings suggesting someone who required an uncluttered counterbalance for the dizzying multicolored creations that must surely be swirling in her head. Jillian, dishing up warm apple cake with whipped cream, thought Vancouver sounded outstanding, and was still urging Sevana to do it right up to the end of the evening when she showed off the roadster polished to a professional luster in her garage.