Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) (17 page)

Sarah jerked back in surprise, but then let him do what he wanted. 
Which was to remove her other boot and warm the toes of that foot, too.

“Burke,” Sarah said on a laugh when he came around the car and got in
on his side.  “You have a really unusual way of getting people to let you help
them.”

But Joe wasn’t smiling.  “I’m not your enemy, Sarah.  And I can take
some of this, but not all of it.  You need to decide how you want things to be. 
Until then I think we should keep our distance.”

Eighteen

The drive down the mountain from Snowbird seemed to take three times as
long as the drive up, even with gravity in their favor.  Sarah stared out the
window the whole way.  She curled and extended her toes under the warmth of the
floor vent, replaying how nice it felt to have Joe’s big, warm hands rubbing
them.

Replaying the sensation of his lips on hers.

Then blinking hard to clear the image from her mind, even though it
didn’t work.

When they returned to the hotel, Joe asked her if she needed anything,
and when she said no, told her good night.  Even though there was still plenty
of daylight left outside.

He was gone before she remembered he had her key.  She stopped by the
front desk and showed her I.D. to get another one.

Maybe she didn’t forget he had it, she admitted to herself as she rode
the elevator.  Maybe she hoped he would still use it.

When she opened the door to her room, she saw that he had:  his laptop
was gone.  Her key lay in its place on the table.

Sarah sank onto the couch.

“You need to decide how you want things to be.”

Making it her problem, not his.

Or, if she wanted to feel generous about it—which she didn’t—giving her
all of the power.

He kissed her.

In the midst of everything else, he might have thought she forgot it,
or didn’t notice.  It had been very quick, after all.  But even if Sarah had been
as anesthetized as some of those other patients, she felt certain she would
have noticed Burke’s mouth on hers for the first time in six years.

And the way he looked at her when he gripped her arms in the parking
lot.

And the shock she felt when he explained that everything he’d been
doing all week, taking care of her, was his version of an apology.

“What if I don’t want it?”

“Then that’s your choice.  I’m just doing what I think
I should.”

Damn it, Burke, Sarah thought.  Don’t act like you’re the innocent
victim here.  Like I’m the one being cruel and unreasonable.  I was there for
you, I would have been there for you, I never would have left your side.

She had played back that image often, seeing him and his brother and
father off in the distance at graduation, huddled together all alone.  She
could have been part of that group, her arms around Joe or holding tightly to
his hand, comforting him on what she knew had to be a very hard day.  But he didn’t
want that, obviously.  Although she noticed none of his other girlfriends had
been around to fill that void, either.

So what was there to decide now? she wondered.  Whether to be polite to
him during the next three months of depositions?  It wasn’t as if there were
anything else on the table.  They weren’t lovers anymore, they weren’t even
friends.  Even her relationship with Mickey Hughes had survived the
peculiarities of law school, enough so that they got together for lunch once or
twice a year, and Mickey had found her this current job.

Was that what Joe wanted, a few lunches every year?  A “Hey, how you
doing, how are things, what are you working on these days?” kind of friendship
where neither of them ever said what was really on their minds, because then
they’d be right back where they were now in this kind of stalemate of anger and
guilt and yes, a little too much leftover lust for Sarah’s comfort, if she had
to be entirely honest with herself?

She stretched out on the couch and lay with an arm draped over her
eyes.  Mickey hadn’t done her any favor, she realized.  Yes, she appreciated
the money and getting back to work again, but this had turned out to be a much
more hazardous assignment than she knew when she took it.  Look at her now, she
thought, laid up in a hotel room, wearing hotel gift shop sweats, rehashing a
day when she and Joe had kept their hands and mouths to themselves in a
Walmart, and ended up sharing a chaste kiss in a mountain medical clinic.

The only thing she needed to decide right now was whether to watch a
movie on cable while she ate her dinner from room service, or just eat in
silence while she watched a mental repeat of the day.  Because either could be
equally dramatic.

***

The Salt Lake City airport was busier than she expected for
Thanksgiving morning—she assumed most people traveled the day before—but she
passed through the security line fairly quickly and headed for her gate.

There was no sign of Joe.  She hadn’t seen him since he left her in the
hotel parking lot the afternoon before.  She wondered if he would even be on her
flight after all.

But then she saw him in the distance, looking less like a hardy
lumberjack now and more like a person who had slept as badly as she had.  His
face was unshaven, which was a good look as far as she was concerned, but he
also seemed haggard, worn out.  And unhappy.

He saw her, too, gave her a quick nod, then found a seat somewhere
else.

So he really was going to stick to that “we should keep our distance”
thing, she thought.

“I can take some of this, but not all of it.”
  She’d thought about that statement a lot.

Take what, exactly? she wondered.  The sniping and the fighting, or the
rare moments here and there when they were actually friendly to each
other—maybe too friendly—forcing her and maybe him, too, to remember why they’d
been attracted to each other in the first place?

“I just wanted you to remember it wasn’t all bad.”
  Damn it, Burke, she thought, looking at him now
across the gate area, why did you have to stir it all up again?  She’d been
maintaining—they both had.  Why did they suddenly have to drop all the pretense
of being Henley and Burke and go back to being Sarah and Joe again?

The gate agent called for boarding, and Sarah waited for Joe to go
first.  If he wanted his distance, she could give it to him.  Fine.  Gladly. 
Take it.

She sat crowded into her window seat by a mother and child, the child
way too bouncy and excited about seeing Grandma.  Normally Sarah didn’t mind
having a few Cheerios spilled on her lap or a sticky hand messing with the
armrest between them, but what she really wanted right now was the peace and
quiet of a row all to herself, or of the Joe from the previous day—the one who
brought her hot chocolate and carried her to the clinic and warmed her toes in
his hand—that one, sitting beside her now, offering up a broad shoulder for her
to lean against as they both flew home together.

Stop it,
Sarah scolded herself.  Joe was right.  All of this sentimental crap was bad
news.

“Seeing family?” the woman with the child asked.

“Yes,” Sarah said, feeling no need to tell the woman she was actually
heading home from work.

The woman rolled her eyes.  “Us, too.  I hate the holidays.  Nobody
ever comes to us, we always have to go to them.”

Sarah nodded sympathetically.

Nobody ever comes to us, we always have to go to them.

You need to decide how you want things to be.

She wanted things to be easy—that’s what she wanted.  But it didn’t
seem possible anymore.

***

This is stupid, Sarah thought, watching Joe walk ahead of her through
LAX.  She wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t know him.

She lengthened her stride until she caught up.

“So . . . have a nice Thanksgiving,” she said.

“Yeah, you, too,” he said.

“Are you going to your dad’s today?” she asked.

Joe nodded.  “Your folks?”

“Yeah.”

They walked in silence for a few moments more, then Sarah finally took
the hint.

“Okay, see you on Monday.  Montana, right?”

“Montana,” he agreed.

Thank you,
was on her lips. 
Thank you for taking care of me.  Thank you for everything
you did for me this week.

But he’d already moved on.

Nineteen

Dinner at her parents’ house wasn’t until late afternoon, so Sarah used
the time in her apartment to catch up on her life.  Unpack, do a load of
laundry, hand wash a few items, spot clean her suit since it would be a week or
so before she could drop it at the cleaners.

She fixed herself a green smoothie with half a bag of prewashed spinach
and enough berries, bananas, and orange juice to disguise the taste.  She
appreciated the effects of all the added greens in her diet, she just didn’t
always like the flavor.

She answered a few e-mails, then repacked her bag.  This time she
filled it with jeans, T-shirts, and the kinds of slouchy, stretchy, comfortable
clothes she knew she could overeat and relax in.

At the last minute she pulled her Utah sweatpants and sweatshirt out of
the dryer and added them to the bag.

Fontana, California was only a few hours away from Los Angeles and
Culver City, traveling inland away from the sea.  Sarah listened to music the
whole way, not bothering to keep up on the traffic reports.  She missed a lot
of things about the Mercedes her old firm leased for her, but on long drives
like this, what she missed most was the sound system.  It was easier to sing
along and feel like she was in tune if she couldn’t hear herself too well over
the music.

But she still sang every tune.  Anything to keep from thinking about
Joe.

She wondered what Thanksgiving would be like for his family.  Just Joe
and his brother and his dad.  Did any of them cook?  Did they go out
somewhere?  Was it a sad event, spent reminiscing about Joe’s mother, or did
they do the man thing and sit around watching football all night and talking to
the TV instead of each other?

She turned the radio up louder. 
Stop thinking.

Finally she began passing the landmarks of her childhood:  the high
school, the library, the grocery store.  When she turned off onto her old
street, she slowed the car.  The houses looked the same, just maybe a little
more tired.  Still bikes left out front, cars with flat tires left at the curb,
a few kids skateboarding on the asphalt.

Sarah pulled into her old driveway and parked next to a car she’d never
seen.  It was obviously her dad’s current project.  She wondered if all
mechanics brought their work home, or if some of them had seen enough of engines
and transmissions by the end of the day that they preferred to find some other
hobby.

Her mother must have heard the car, Sarah realized, because she came
out of the house right away, still wearing her apron, the smells of the kitchen
clinging to her hair and her clothes so that Sarah got a her first whiff of
Thanksgiving just by hugging her mother close.

“Let me look at you, sweetheart.”  Her mother drew back and studied
Sarah’s face.  She tucked a misbehaving lock of hair back behind Sarah’s ear,
then hugged her again.  “It’s so good to see you.  We miss you.”

“Hi, Dad.”  Sarah’s father was a few steps behind.  She moved into his
embrace, enjoying the sensation of one of his bone-cracking hugs.  Even when
she was a little girl, he never treated her like she was delicate.

“Come on,” her mother said.  “You hungry?”

“Of course,” Sarah answered.

She followed her parents back into the warm kitchen, where Sarah found
the oven and all four stove burners fully employed.  Potatoes boiled, gravy
bubbled, turkey roasted, rolls baked.

“Mom, it smells wonderful.  Can I help?”

“No, you sit down,” her mother said.  “You had a long drive.  Dinner’ll
be ready shortly.”

Sarah took her customary seat at the table, across from her father. 
Her mother always sat between them.  It all felt so normal, so regular, so
exactly the same as ever, Sarah found it hard to believe how much had happened
since the last time she had been home for Thanksgiving, right after her
promotion.  She’d been bursting with the news then, anxious to share it with
the two people she knew would be as thrilled about it as she was.  Becoming a
partner in one of Los Angeles’s most prestigious law firms just days before her
twenty-ninth birthday.  What a thing to celebrate.

So much could happen in the space of a year, Sarah thought.  Or a week.

Or one day on a mountain with Joe Burke.

“Where’d you just come from?” Sarah’s father asked.

“Salt Lake City.”

“Never been,” he said.

“It’s pretty,” Sarah told him.  “You two might like it.  Cold, though.”