From Here to There (17 page)

 "Why?"

 The muscle in Phillip's jaw throbbed. "Maybe because I got out as soon as I could.  Derek was just a little kid when I left. He saw it as desertion. I didn't look back for a lot of years. There wasn’t time if I was going to make my life into what I hoped.” He took a big swallow from the beer bottle. “When I did, he said I was trying to soothe my conscience with money." He shrugged. "He's in college now, but I think he's working harder at forgetting what he came from than at studying."

 "Much the same as you," she suggested.

 "I haven't been proud of my past, but hard as you may find to believe this, I asked my mother to come to the wedding. She was scared to death at the very idea. As it turned out, I'm just as glad she didn't."

 "What do you mean?"

 "It didn’t turn out to be a very happy day, did it?"

 She frowned as she thought of something else. "But what about your sisters? They could have been in the wedding party. I'd like to have met them. We might have been friends."

 Phillip laughed. "Unlikely."

 "I still wish you'd given me the chance to try. I've always wanted a sister and here I find you've been selfishly hoarding three of them."

 Phillip snorted derisively. "I'm not sure you understand exactly what sort of women my sisters are." Deprivation had a way of hardening a woman in a way she would never imagine.

 "And you have nieces and nephews too, don't you? I can't believe you held this all back from me."

 "In the beginning, I told myself there was plenty of time, then, well, you know what happened then."

 The waitress, balancing plates and a coffee pot, set down their sandwiches. "You folks need ketchup or another beer?"

 Phillip shook his head as the waitress refilled Helene's coffee cup.

 "Don't think I've seen you before," she said, looking appraisingly at Phillip. "Were you the guy in that action flick? Dang it trying to remember its name."

 Phillip shook his head. “Not me.”

 "We get a lot of movie stars in here. You look all biffed up like them," she explained. "They're good tippers, most of them."

 "Interesting," Phillip commented, wondering if the burst of friendliness related to the hoped for tip or was from boredom.

 "You folks from around here?"

 "Down the valley," Helene explained, smiling faintly.

 Having evidently used up her quota of friendly conversation, the waitress moved down the aisle.

“So you got your education on scholarships?” Helene asked.

“A mix of that and working. I started out to get a degree in engineering.”

“A scientist?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. It’s not like I’m dumb... or is that what you also thought?”

“Of course not.”

“Well I started with that but had more of an aptitude for business. Basically I combined the two when I formed my own company.”

 "What does your mother know about me?" Helene asked.

 "Just that you're beautiful, talented and rich. The usual stuff."

 "You told her I'm beautiful?"

 "It's the truth, isn't it?"

 "You've never said it."

 "I have to have said it. I couldn't have been such a jerk as to have asked a beautiful woman like you to marry me and never told her how lovely she was."

 She bit her lip. "Yes, you could," she corrected him. "I want--" She stopped.

 Phillip looked in Helene's eyes and saw something there. Was it regret or resignation? Whatever it was, it was time to change the subject to something safer and less traumatic for both of them. "Amos said you were trying to get a job at the newspaper here in town."

 She smiled gratefully at him. "Yes, although my attempt is not looking particularly successful as yet. I did convince them to look at some human interest pieces of mine."

 "What did they think of them?" he asked, patting his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes, then giving up on the idea as he caught her disapproving frown.

 "They haven't seen them yet," she admitted, taking a bite of her sandwich. "I have to write them, and my mind has gone blank."

 "Writer's block," he suggested.

 "If it is that, it's complete," she admitted. "I can't even think of a subject or an idea to write about. My original concept was I'd interview people from around here, maybe a couple of somebodys. This area has abounded with writers, painters, actors, millionaires, different sorts of religious leaders. There are all kinds of possibilities, but right now none of them seem like what I had in mind."

 "And that was?"

 "I'm not sure anymore. I thought about the old-timers in this valley, who held on when it wasn't easy, the ones who represent what this country is all about... Or I've considered looking at people who've succeeded at something difficult despite the odds." She looked at him and smiled. "You'd make an excellent story."

 "No way."

 "Why not?"

 "Because I've kept my background purposely vague. I don't want the newspapers playing up the poor boy makes good angle. I don't need that kind of sympathy or publicity."

 "Oh, all right, spoil sport."

 "Damned right, but since I won't, maybe I can give you an idea that might work."

 "I'm all ears--proverbially speaking at least."

 "How about Dr. Albertson. He's probably delivered most of the babies in this valley and knows everybody's ailments for miles around. He's the last of a dying breed--the family doctor, who takes care of everybody's problems, who really cares about each patient and knows their histories. Like the way he was reminding you about Amos's need for a check-up."

 "That's not a bad idea," she mused, "except he might not be any more willing than you."

 "Can't know unless you ask. I've got a feeling if you want to do this human interest stuff, you're going to have to expect a few refusals."

 "I will give it a try." She stared at him for a long moment. So long, she almost made him squirm in his chair. "How long are you going to stay here, Phillip?" she asked finally.

 He still didn't have the answer for her. "I haven't thought it through."

 "I thought you thought everything through."

 He laughed and took another sip of his beer. "Which just goes to show how little you know me. Do you think I thought through coming out here or for that matter even marrying you?"

 "Didn't you?"

 "Not long enough obviously," he said, shaking his head ruefully. "I saw you, knew I wanted you for my wife, and set about finding the right people in order to meet you and make it happen. Every bit of it was acting on gut instinct. Obviously wrong feelings in that case. I am better at business than love, obviously."

 "You didn't love me," she said with no bitterness but a simple acknowledgement of the fact.

 "You obviously didn't love me either," he countered, not denying her allegation. "It didn't seem like that was going to be a factor. You were the right wife." He grinned again, his smile self-deprecating.  "That is you were supposed to be the right wife." He felt a surprising urge to reach across the table and kiss those lush lips, delving into her sweet mouth and shocking the hell out of her.

 "So, what now?"

 He laughed, glad she wasn't a mind reader. "I don't have an answer for you, Helene. Your uncle came to me with his crazy idea. At first I thought--no way. Just like you are thinking now, but then it began to make a crazy kind of logic. I needed to get away, try my hand at something different. I like the work I do in Boston, but it was taking on a certain sameness, not really challenging me any more. Maybe I liked the idea of working on a ranch."

 "You couldn't feel that way now, not after what happened with the wire."

 "So what happened? I made a mistake and learned a few things. Do you know how long it's been since I felt the kind of satisfaction I got from finishing that damned fence? I'll tell you. Too long."

 "But--"

 "I'm not sure about anything beyond today." He laughed, shaking his head. "Before I got involved with you, I thought out all my business moves. Now, even with my career, I'm not thinking--just reacting. So the only answer I can give you is I don't know why I'm here, don't see the reason behind coming and making a fool out of myself, and don't have any idea how long I'm going to stay--except that I'm not leaving
yet
."

 Stepping off the porch wearing an old plaid shirt, jeans and worn boots, Helene walked slowly down the hill to where Phillip was splitting firewood. He had a red scarf tied around his forehead to keep sweat out of his eyes and had stripped off his shirt. At every swing of the axe, his muscular torso and sinewy arms glistened with the movement of hard muscles and the sheen of sweat.

 She felt herself clenching her jaw, against the yearning that went through her body as she watched him bend to pick up a half log with his gloved hand, place it in front of him, lift the axe, swing it back, then come powerfully down, splitting the log neatly in two.

 "Nice pile," she said to let him know she was behind him. She didn't want to surprise him with the axe in his hand.

 He stopped and wiped his forearm across his forehead, a slow smile on his face as he turned to face her. "It's taken some time, but I think I'm getting the knack of it."

 "I'd say you've got the knack. Look at the pile you've split."

 He glanced behind him at the heap of wood. "Not too bad," he agreed, obviously working to repress the smile of pride. "But Curly comes by every half hour or so and tells me any idiot could split more and faster and that I'm handling the axe all wrong." He was leaning on the axe handle, his body hard, the muscles across his chest defined, his belly so ridged that she felt an almost overwhelming temptation to reach out and touch it.

 "I thought I'd stack," she said, remembering why she'd come. She brought her own hands out from behind her back and revealed leather gloves.

 "You don't have to do that. It'd put blisters on those beautiful hands."

 "Hands aren't beautiful if they don't work," Helene said, nonetheless pleased at his compliment, then added with a grin, "That was pure Aunt Rochelle."

 "She must have been quite a woman."

 "She was. Everything I know about keeping house came from her." She thought then about the journal she had yet to open. A message from beyond. Maybe she was afraid to see what it said. Could there be secrets within that she would not want to know? Possibly better to keep her illusions if that’s what they were.

 "She taught you a lot," he said with a grin.

 She bowed her head in acknowledgement of his compliment. "Thank you. Aunt Rochelle believed a woman helped out wherever she was needed. I'm not doing anything inside now, and I saw this pile growing. So..."

 He scratched his jaw. "I can't argue with the wisdom of ages past or you when you get that stubborn tilt to your chin."

 Helene smiled. "You're a wise man." She bent and picked up an armload of split wood. "Are you still stacking it in the woodshed?"

 "Until it doesn't fit. Then your uncle said to pile it along the west wall."