Stony River (57 page)

How complicated everything was! You could let your heart choose what it wanted on one level, but on another level were things completely the opposite—a practical world that cranked along like a steamroller over your dreams. And the two worlds had nothing to do with each other. Without meaning to, she sighed. How happy was the person whose dream was the same as his reality!

Joel hadn’t had the same thought. His dream had materialized before his very eyes, and he was not the least certain what to do with it. Leaving Chantal’s bag to be taken in later—not wanting to be seen together in the halls of the small-town inn—they went down to the lake to talk.

Holding her hand as they walked along the frosty sand in the anonyminity offered by the night, Joel realized he felt right about none of this. But how could he tell her that his standards still wouldn’t justify it? And how could he turn her away, when she had left her whole life for him with the certainty he wanted it, too? At one time he had desired her more than anything, had vowed to live his life alone if he couldn’t live it with her—but without his knowing how, something had changed for him, so that he couldn’t get Sevana out of his thoughts or that new sense of promise out of his heart.

As they stopped in the private cove enclosed by willow bushes, his mind tried to work through the tangled net of desires, propriety, and present circumstances, while his sight dwelled on the enticement of Chantal’s face in the starlight. It was true, he had set this whole thing in motion by falling in love with her. He had told her time and again he wanted her, even while knowing it wasn’t possible. And finally, he had asked her to marry him—not once, but twice. He was responsible for what this had become—what it had caused her life to become.

He tried to tell her the truth as best he could explain it. That he still had reservations, that his ethics still couldn’t defend it. And she was not a careless or unfeeling person—she, too, had reservations about the people in her life she had hurt. Only her great love for him had made her go to such drastic measures. But she wasn’t trying to pressure him. She had a new life of her own in Vancouver. If he wanted her, she would be waiting for him there.

Just to talk about these things ordinarily, as though granting them to the realm of actual possibility, Joel felt the old desire rising uninvoked over his objections. He had put a stop to things while she was married; but she was free now, and that dream he had coveted so long could happen if he simply agreed. There were no longer such impossible obstacles to overcome—just his intrinsic and perhaps old-fashioned sense of honor. And maybe it wasn’t such a thing of consequence, after all. People split up and rematched all the time these days. Maybe it was more unscrupulous
not
to accept her, since he had already clouded the issue by encouraging it.

Here was the chance to rectify the mistake he’d made all those years ago, by not forgiving her first deception and finding a way to work through it, as she had begged him to. It was because of that stubbornness they were not together now. And if by his mistake the thing that had been destined was prevented, wouldn’t he be in the right by putting it back on its predetermined course?

It was within reach, everything he’d wanted for almost six years. The hazily lit stars, the opal sheen of the lake cradled by the rock-carved mountains and ice-frosted sand, the entrancing curve of her mouth, the unexpected freedom to call her his own…it was almost too intoxicating to fight. If he had begun to love another more, it was not because he loved her any less. He drew her against him without speaking in that hushed, wintry cove. But he was spared from making any life-changing decisions at the moment, because then he had to tell her about the letter in his pocket.

CHAPTER 39

Friday dawned clear, with only a few traces of fog floating above the river gorge. Up early, Sevana gave in to an impulse for a walk at sunrise. She always enjoyed a ramble out of town, the fresh air and quiet countryside unfailingly lifting her spirits—and this morning’s air was fresh from yesterday’s rain and unusually warm. Even the day itself held more promise than usual, for she and Willy were attending the art show in Taber after work.

On her tramp back to town, she saw David arriving at the church. She made a detour into the parking lot to speak to him as he got out of the car with a pile of books on his arm. “Morning, David.”

“Hello, Sevana.” He was used to seeing her walking the road any time of day. “Fine weather, isn’t it? I almost wish I didn’t have to go indoors and miss out on this prairie sunshine,” he confessed boyishly.

“Do you have to study?” It was merely conversational—she already knew the answer, judging from the volumes he was packing.

“And then some. I still don’t have anything for Sunday.”

“Whatever you say is always good.”

“Thank you.” He beamed transparently at the compliment. “Say, I sure was surprised to see Willy in church Wednesday night. What’d he think of it?”

“I’m not sure,” she hedged. Then she said honestly, “He said he couldn’t make head or tail out of it.”

David grinned. “Didn’t know I was so deep.”

“Willy doesn’t like philosophical issues,” she offered. “He doesn’t want anything interfering with his inspiration.”

“That’s a fine ideology for the young and rich,” David said ironically. “But no, it’s too early for sermonizing.” He gave her a humorous look as he shifted his books. “You have a pleasant day.”

She wished him the same and went into town. The weather stayed blue-skied and mild. Ralf brought in his labor of the past ten months—an imaginative depiction of chickadees in a chokecherry thicket. His paintings were not strictly true to life, but much more identifiable than Jillian’s. His newest creation was both detailed and fanciful, drawing you into it so that you felt hidden there in the bushes with the twittering of birds on a drowsy summer afternoon. Willy spared no praise, and suggested a price that brought a smile to Ralf’s face. They stood on the curb to see him off as an excuse to be out in the sun.

“Maybe when it sells he can afford a better car,” Sevana mused, as Ralf pulled away in his decrepit station wagon. She had always found it baffling that a capable career man of twenty-seven would drive something a teenager would buy for his first car.

“He doesn’t want to afford it,” said Willy. “That’s right, you don’t know about Ralf, do you?”

“Know what?”

“He’s cheap. Cheap as they come.” And with no particular inhibitions about discussing his friends behind their backs, Willy explained that even though Ralf was as sane as the day was long in every other way, he labored under the persistent delusion that he was only one short step away from bleak and grinding poverty—consequently putting such a large portion of each paycheck into savings that he, in truth, had barely enough to live on.

“He does have an excuse of sorts,” Willy allowed. “He grew up in a family that just about existed on boiled beans. He still sends a check home every month to his mother. But the rest of it disappears into all his accounts and funds. He’s always saying he can’t afford this or that, when his bank account is far in excess of Len’s—and no amount of Len pointing it out will convince him to change his habits. It just drives Len bonkers,” he finished in satisfaction.

“Does it bother Jillian, too?”

“Not so much. She knows it’s a hang-up with him, but she can be pretty conservative with money herself.”

By closing time the sunny day was already just a memory, replaced by night shadows. Sevana changed into a dressier outfit and they left town in the Jaguar, driving east under a waxing moon that flooded the dusky rises and hollows of the land with pastel light.

“What a sight,” Willy gloated, taking in the neon landscape. At times like this his worldliness always vanished, leaving nothing but wonder. It was one of the things Sevana liked best about him. Arriving in the neighboring town, he brought the car to a precise stop in front of the Taber community center.

The exhibit was well-attended despite its small-town locale. As they worked their way around the room, Willy was recognized by most of the people mingling among the displays. He took care to introduce Sevana to every artist there. The only one who truly impressed her was Chace Woirheye himself: young, long-haired, with a perceptive look in his jade-green eyes—an artist whose pictures suggested he understood the world he painted. But it was an amateurish painting of a mountain meadow by another local that triggered Sevana’s enthusiasm. “Even though it’s not the best painting, I love the subject,” she said to Willy in a lowered voice. “I’d like to paint something just like it.”

“I have a photo in a book that’s almost the same,” he told her. “You can borrow it whenever you want.”

“Wonderful,” she said happily, thinking of the Lindfords. “I’ve just found my next subject.”

They spent an hour or so looking around. When they were back in the car, Sevana confided, “The private art collection of yours I was privileged to witness a few days ago was far more impressive than this one.”

“What about Woirheye’s?” Willy objected, taking the wheel.

“Well, I did like his, I will admit.”

“He’s one of the best around.”

“Maybe so. But your pictures surpass his by a long way.”

“If you say so,” Willy said, speeding into the open plain.

Approaching Lethbridge, he shot a glance her way. “Too late to cook dinner. Let’s swing out to the Roadhouse before I take you home.”

With Willy, it was just easier to go along with him—for no matter how many times she turned him down, each new proposal was made with the same expectation she would agree. And in this case, she didn’t really mind. “If it’s just dinner,” she bargained.

“That’s a promise.”

Vandalier’s was so crowded they had to park out on the edge by a white stock truck. “Looks like the cattlemen’s convention,” Willy joked as he stopped alongside it.

“That’s not cattle, it’s sheep,” Sevana said with a bit of interest, noting the
Ownbeys’ Sheep Ranch
logo and insignia on the truck door.

They went into the murky interior, took the last empty table, and ordered dinner.

Willy was sipping his favorite scotch and Sevana an iced tea, when a man at a back table caught her notice through the gloom. He sat apart from the noisy revelers, in the manner of a traveler whose home and interest lay far from there. She took another swallow of tea, smiled at some inconsequential remark of Willy’s, and glanced irresistibly back to the man in the shadows. He sat motionless, his head bent, as if he was staring into the candleflame on his table lost in some deep reflection. He looked like Joel from the back. It was funny how she saw him everywhere, looked twice at every tall, dark-haired man she passed on the street. His black shaggy hair was well below his collar. Suspenders crisscrossed a buffalo shirt over hard, straight shoulders. A wool overcoat hung on the chair opposite. Sevana felt a strange sensation creeping over her, systematically freezing all her vital processes. It
was
Joel, it
had
to be, but—how could it be?

Then—it had only been a few seconds, although she was suspended in a dimension where time didn’t factor—the man took a last drink of his coffee and stood up to take the coat from the back of the chair. Turning as he shrugged it on, he saw her instantly through the semi-darkness, his eyes catching and locking on hers as unerringly as though some inner instinct had compelled him to look her direction.

The trenchant encounter of their eyes had a powerfully startling effect on him: he stopped as if shot. But regaining his self-possession almost immediately, he leveled his coat and made a straight course across the room to her—while Sevana rose to her feet, unable to take her eyes from his face or bring herself back to her surroundings in any way. Willy looked around for the source of her apparent consternation.

“Sevana—” Joel’s serious countenance broke into a smile.

“Joel!” The frozenness over her shattered with the familiarity of his dark-bright eyes. “What are you doing here?”

And without him finishing his sentence or her waiting for an answer, they embraced each other with swiftness and enthusiasm—for a handshake did not seem adequate after all the time that had passed and all they had known in a different place.

“I stopped by your apartment, but you weren’t there.” He ran a hand over his head in an uncharacteristic gesture of discomposure as they stepped apart.

“I was at an art show.” She still was not conscious of anything but his substantive presence and the clean smell of soap on his skin that remained in her awareness even after he drew away.

He had never left her thoughts since they’d parted, and yet he had become less and less real to her, until he was only an impression she was holding onto. But now that he was standing before her, real indeed, in physical strength and solidness of character and everything else that he was, she didn’t know how she had endured to be apart from him as long as she had. “I didn’t look for you so soon,” she said, in a voice that didn’t sound anything like her own.

“I had to come over unexpectedly. I stopped here for a bite, but I’ve got to be on my way.” He was regarding her in a puzzled way, and she realized he’d never seen her in a dress before, much less a fine black one, with her hair caught up in a twisted knot and a strand of pearls at her throat.