Snowbound

to say the words.

She said them for him. “It’s a symbol, isn’t it? The

outward manifestation of…something. Something you

won’t tell me about.”

“Can’t.” He unclenched his jaw. “Is that what this

comes down to? I have to relive it for your benefit, or

you won’t believe I love you?”

She looked sad. “No. If it was just the one incident,

I could understand better. But you don’t talk about

anything.”

Incident? He hardly heard the rest of what she said.

The horrific splinter of a moment in time that had killed

six teenage boys and maimed four others and him was

an incident?

Suddenly furious, he got out of bed. “You don’t get

it, do you?”

“No, I don’t. And I won’t if you don’t tell me.”

John was still stunned. He’d been thinking about this

all day, feeling something he hadn’t in a long time:

hope. And it had blown up in his face.

“So we’re down to show-and-tell or bye-bye?”

Fiona still looked sad, but also resolute and composed.

She wasn’t wavering. She wasn’t torn. “John, it’s not that

simple. I have a commitment to be in that classroom

Wednesday. I can’t walk out on Willamette Prep with no

notice even if I want to. It’s unrealistic for you to ask me.

And you know I’m working on my master’s degree at

Portland U. Am I just supposed to forget that, too?”

“You could finish the year out…”

“Do you intend to stay here forever?” Her eyes were

clear and entirely too perceptive. “Never work again in

robotics?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go back…”

“How can you, if you can hardly bear to go into

Danson?”

“Time heals. Isn’t that what they all say?”

“Is that what the veterans’ hospital counselor said?”

He didn’t answer.

“I didn’t think so.” There it was again, something

very like grief in her voice. In just above a whisper, she

said, “I was falling in love with you, too. If only…”

John didn’t let her finish, interjecting harshly, “I

could be the man I used to be?”

“No. If only you’d take your courage in your hands

and work toward being the man you can be.”

His heart was as frozen as the ground outside. The

only heat John felt was his anger. “And who is that?”

“I don’t know.” She slipped from bed and went to her

suitcase. “I can’t even guess, because I don’t know you

well enough.”

He watched as she pulled on a T-shirt and her pajama

bottoms, then came back to bed.

“I’m going to sleep,” she said with dignity, climbed in

with her back to him and pulled the covers up around her.

What could he do but the same? He turned out the

light and lay on his back, his body rigid as anguish and

fury washed through him in turn, the one rolling in and

then fading back out as the other crested.

She didn’t love him. She didn’t know him. No, worse

than that—she saw him as a coward, despised him.

A man who’d known pain, he didn’t think he had

ever hurt as much as he did now. God. She despised

him. If she knew…

He seemed to hear her whisper. How can I?

If he told her, then she would know. That he had

acted, however good his intentions, so recklessly, so

foolishly, that he had all but killed those boys with his

own hands. Then how would she feel about him?

He hadn’t thought he could sleep, but he did eventually, only to awaken shouting. Shouting the warning that would forever come too late.

“John!” Hair tumbling around her shoulders, Fiona

sat up beside him. She laid a hand on his forearm. “Are

you all right?”

“Yes.” He got out of bed, went into the bathroom and

shut the door. And he stayed, until she had either fallen

asleep or was pretending she had. And then he lay

beside her in bed until the time when he could reasonably get up.

He was busy baking by the time she appeared, and

guests began trickling in for breakfast soon thereafter.

Right after breakfast, Fiona went back to his room to pack.