Torn Apart (3 page)

“No, the office is in New Orleans,” J.R. said. “I’ve already done a little preliminary scouting around for housing, but of course I wouldn’t dream of deciding on anything until you were along to help decide.”

Katie’s smile froze. He saw her eyes widen as all the color bled from her face.

“New Orleans? You want us to move to New Orleans?”

J.R. cupped her face with his hand. “It’s a beautiful city. The area I’ve been looking at has some grand old houses just begging for a swing in the backyard and a little boy to climb up and down those big live oaks.”

Katie could feel tears pooling in her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the flood of emotions. Her voice was shaking as she asked, “But, J.R. What if we moved there and then Macklan Brothers decided to send you off again, anyway? That would leave Bobby and me alone there. What if—”

J.R. frowned. “I’m not going to be sent away, and the city wouldn’t be strange for long. You make friends easily. So does Bobby. Please, Katie. I’m the one who spends almost every night alone, away from you and my son. I’m the one who’s missing out on so much…so much. This is the first real opportunity we’ve been given to be together.”

“But Mom and Dad…”

J.R. gritted his teeth. “Your parents are dead, just like mine. But it wasn’t New Orleans’s fault that your parents died. There was a hurricane. We live through them here, too. And it wasn’t my parents’ fault that there was a drunk driver on the road. If I let myself fall into your way of thinking, I’d never leave the house again for fear of getting hit by a drunk driver, right?”

Katie knew he was right, but she couldn’t get past the horror of how her parents had died.

“But the levees aren’t safe and—”

Before she could finish, she saw J.R.’s expression flatten.

He turned her loose and stood abruptly, then glanced at his watch.

“We’re going to be late for church. We’ll talk about it more later. I’ll go check and see if Bobby is finished dressing. We’ll be waiting for you in the car.”

She knew as he was walking out of the bedroom that she’d hurt him. But he didn’t understand. She couldn’t take the chance of leaving the safety of Bordelaise. Not for New Orleans, anyway. Why, oh, why, did it have to be New Orleans?

Suddenly the day that had been so hopeful had turned sour. She got up, retrieved her purse and headed for the front door. Maybe a Sunday sermon would help.

The sermon didn’t help, and neither Katie nor J.R. knew how to cope with the sudden chill in their relationship.

When Bobby went outside to play after dinner, J.R. stayed in the kitchen to help Katie clean up.

Her shoulders were stiff with tension. She felt guilty for being the holdout, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around moving from Bordelaise. Everything here was familiar. Everything here was surely safer. She couldn’t bring herself to look at J.R. and see the disappointment on his face. She knew she was at fault, but didn’t have the guts to do anything about it.

J.R. dried dishes without comment, though from time to time he cast a nervous glance at her changing expressions. It was as if he could see what was going through her mind, he thought. Fear. Doubt. Shame. Frustration.

But she had to understand. He was missing out on helping Bobby grow up. Being a weekend husband and father wasn’t how he’d envisioned his life. He didn’t begrudge the years he’d had to spend away, but he wasn’t going to turn his back on the opportunity to have it all, like every other man with a family.

Finally he couldn’t stand her silence anymore.

“Katie, can we talk about this again?”

She turned, her hands still dripping with soap and water, her expression frantic. “What’s there to talk about? You’ve already decided!”

The words were little more than a verbal slap in the face.

“That’s not true,” he said. “I’ve been given a chance at a life with you and Bobby, and I don’t understand why that’s not important to you.”

Katie’s heart sank. “It
is
important. But—”

J.R. flinched. “There isn’t a ‘but’ in that statement, Katie. Either it is or it isn’t.”

Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t think.

“I need time,” she said.

J.R. shrugged. “Fine.”

He laid the dish towel down on the counter and started outside.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Outside to play with my son. I have to leave in a couple of hours and won’t see him—or you—again for another five days.”

Tears blurred Katie’s vision as the door slammed behind him.

This was all her fault, and she knew it. But he had to understand. She couldn’t take their son to a city as unsafe as New Orleans. She couldn’t put him in that kind of danger.

She walked to the window overlooking the backyard, and then watched as J.R. picked up a baseball bat, then leaned over Bobby’s shoulders as he showed him the proper way to grip it.

Their profiles were almost identical. In the years to come, when their son was grown, she knew he would be nothing short of a clone of J. R. Earle.

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to move to New Orleans, but she also didn’t want Bobby to miss these father-son moments. Time was something a person could never get back.

She turned away from the window with tears running down her cheeks, heartsick and guilty.

And later that night, for the first time in their married lives, J.R. left Bordelaise without kissing her goodbye.

Two

Friday morning, three months later

J.R.
’s anger at his situation was evident everywhere, from the tension in his face to the length of his stride. This wasn’t supposed to be happening anymore.

He had been sent to a Macklan offshore rig to fix a mess and had been stranded here for more than twenty-four hours. What had started out as a day trip to rig number seven in the Gulf of Mexico was turning into a nightmare.

Tropical Storm Bonnie, which had been out in the ocean for several days, had just been upgraded to a hurricane and was headed in their general direction. The National Weather Center was announcing the possibility that the storm could turn toward Houston once it neared land, rather than the coast of New Orleans, which had been the first prediction. Even though the hurricane would most likely veer west, that wasn’t going to stop gale-force winds from hitting the rig, or protect the inland cities from hurricane-related storms.

But the weather wasn’t his biggest issue. He was stuck on this rig because a crew chief named Stanton Blalock couldn’t leave booze and drugs alone. Blalock had worked his Wednesday shift higher than a kite and, as a result, had gotten careless. It had almost cost a welder his life.

Brent Macklan had been responsible for finding a new troubleshooter to fill the job J.R. had previously handled, and while he’d finally hired someone, the guy was en route from the Middle East and had yet to reach the States.

So when the news of the accident reached Macklan Brothers management, J.R. had been pulled off his job at headquarters, and dispatched to the rig to fire Blalock and escort him off.

No big deal. It wasn’t anything J.R. hadn’t done before, and it was only for the day. He’d flown out to the rig on the chopper that was going to transport the injured man ashore, then come back for J.R. and Blalock. But they were still over water when J.R. got a second call. The arrival of the new crew chief who was going to take Blalock’s place had been delayed. That left the rig minus both a crew chief and a welder.

J.R. had been ordered to stay until the new crew chief’s arrival. According to the info, it would take a couple of days to get him here, which meant J.R. was going to have to renege on his weekend with Bobby, which also meant he had to call Katie.

Thus the reason he was pacing.

Just hearing her voice made him hurt in so many ways he couldn’t name. Knowing it was his fault they were no longer together didn’t make the situation between them any easier. When she’d first refused to discuss the move again, he’d felt rejected on every level. Days had turned into weeks, weeks into a month, and she still wouldn’t budge.

Then, out of a sense of desperation, he had gotten an idea. He was going to find and buy their new house on his own, then present her with what he considered a “way out.” She could at least come and see it. Maybe spend a few nights there with him and see how she liked it.

But the whole thing had backfired. Instead of feeling curious about what he’d bought, she’d panicked and balked even more. The fight that ensued had been startlingly ugly, and they hadn’t spoken more than a few words at a time to each other since.

Now he lived alone in New Orleans Monday through Friday, then made the drive to Bordelaise to get his son. They drove back to New Orleans together to spend the weekends at the new house, leaving Katie alone in the town she refused to leave.

He was still reeling from the fact that she’d chosen to stay behind and separate their family. And now here he was, stranded on this damned rig because of Stanton Blalock, and about to miss his weekend with Bobby. Even worse, if the hurricane shifted direction, the rig would be evacuated, which meant, as acting crew chief, he would have to stay even longer and coordinate that, as well.

After a last rueful glance at the darkening skies, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and gave Katie a call.

Katie was doing laundry, making sure Bobby had all the clean clothes he would need when J.R. came to pick him up. She was still reeling from the fact that her cowardice had separated her from the only man she’d ever loved.

The news had rocked Bordelaise. J.R. and Katie Earle had been the perfect couple, or so it had seemed, so when the split happened, everyone thought J.R. must have been cheating.

To Katie’s shame, she’d let them think it, unable to admit it was all her fault—that she was too big a coward to follow her man and his work, and that she’d willingly broken up their family rather than move to New Orleans. She felt even more guilty that J.R. knew of the gossip but had kept her secret at the expense of his own reputation.

Now so much time had passed that they’d lost the ability to communicate. Katie dwelled daily on how much she was hurting him. She was a coward, and she knew it—so much so that she could hardly bear to look at herself in the mirror.

Just as she dumped the last load of clothes into the dryer, the phone began to ring. When she saw the caller ID, her heart skipped a beat.

J.R.!

The image of him naked and aroused flashed through her mind as she picked up the phone. It had been a long time—a very long time—since they’d made love anywhere but her dreams. She didn’t know her voice was shaking as she answered. All she knew was that she ached for the feel of his arms around her. She combed her fingers through her long, dark hair as if he would be able to see its disarray, then picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Katie, it’s me. Listen…there’s a situation on the job.”

Katie bit her lip. No hello. No how have you been? Just information.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

J.R. heard the anxiety in her voice and wanted to cry. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat.

“No, no, nothing like that. I’m just stuck out on a rig for a couple of days until the new crew chief flies in, which means I can’t come get Bobby tonight.”

“Oh. Okay, I’ll tell him,” she said.

“Make sure you explain how sorry I am, and that as soon as I get free I’ll come see him.”

“I will.”

“Okay. Great.”

Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up! Talk to me. Tell me you don’t hate me anymore. Tell me you’re coming home.
Katie’s fingers curled around the receiver so tight they went numb as she willed him to keep talking.

Talk to me, baby. Tell me you miss me. Tell me this is all a mistake. Tell me you’ll come to New Orleans.
J.R.’s stomach was in knots, willing her to keep talking.

But their thoughts never became words, and the silence lengthened.

J.R. was the first to give in.

“Call if you need anything,” he said.

“Take care of yourself,” Katie countered.

“You, too,” J.R. said, and disconnected before his voice started shaking.

The sudden silence in Katie’s ear was brutal. He might as well have slapped her in the face.

She hung up the phone. As she turned, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the other side of the room. The reflection was startling. Her hair hung limply around her face. The blue in her eyes looked gray, and her face seemed flat and expressionless. Even her lips appeared thinner—even hard. She touched the side of her face, felt the tension in the muscles and took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to make herself relax, but it didn’t work.

Too disgusted to look any longer, she turned away. But she couldn’t forget what she had seen. The truth was, she looked as sad as she felt.

And that was that, she thought, as she gazed around the room. At least she hadn’t been wallowing in self-pity.

Everything in the house was clean and orderly.

Everything was in its place.

She took another deep breath, then exhaled on a sob.

Everything was in its place except the people.

Unable to ignore the emptiness of her life, she dropped into a kitchen chair, laid her head on the table and sobbed.

It had been two days since Mama had told him that Daddy wasn’t coming this weekend.

At first he had been disappointed, but by the time Sunday morning rolled around, he was excited about the prospects of going to church with Mama like he used to, and then to the monthly dinner at the church after the services.

He hadn’t been to church with Mama since Daddy went to work in New Orleans, so he’d missed his regular Sunday school class and his teacher, Mrs. Bates.

He’d also missed playing with his friends, especially Holly Maxwell. He liked Holly. She was fun. Most girls didn’t want to run or get dirty. Holly didn’t care if she got dirty, and she could outrun almost everyone in their Sunday school class but him.