John shifted uneasily. “I talked.”
“But not about the big pink elephant crashing
around in the living room. She was supposed to
ignore that.”
“She knew…I had issues.” The searing pain in his
gut was back.
“Issues?”
“Nightmares.”
“Before she came up here at Christmas? She knew
you had nightmares? Which means she slept with you
when she had students here?”
He scowled at her. “Of course she didn’t.”
“So, not nightmares. What?”
“Flashbacks!” he shouted, then closed his eyes. Get
a grip. “I had a flashback,” he mumbled. “Fiona knew.”
“And yet, she came to spend time with you at Christmas.” Liz sounded thoughtful.
Yeah. There it was, the miracle.
This stare from his sister was almost fierce. “Do
you love her?”
He surprised himself with a hoarse laugh. “Why else
am I telling you about her?”
“Because you can’t resist my persuasive powers?”
She gave him an evil grin. “Okay, okay. You love her.
You’ve blown it with her. What’s the next step?”
“No next step.”
“Because you’re chicken?”
She was taunting him, wanting a rise. She struck
out. Bleakly he said, “Yes.”
“Oh, John.” Abruptly she stood and came to him,
wrapping her arms around him in a fierce hug. “Oh, John.”
He turned to her and held on tight, embarrassed by
the fact that his face was wet. “What do I do, Lizzie?”
She told him.
He didn’t like it, but the future lay before him, stark
and hopeless if he refused—as any future without Fiona
would be. And Liz was right in making him admit he
was afraid. If he were any kind of man at all, Tabitha’s
e-mail would have made him determined to fight for the
woman he loved.
“Maybe,” he mumbled. “Let me think about it.”
His sister tilted back her head to scowl at him.
“Okay. Yeah.” He squeezed his eyes shut on a wave
of vertigo. When that didn’t help, he opened them again.
“If you mean it…”
“I mean it.”
“Then you win,” he finally conceded.
She smiled, her face soft. “No, brother mine, you do.”
INCREDIBLY his sister had offered to take over the lodge
for up to two weeks. She’d taken her vacation with that
intention.Yes, she assured him, she had actually brought
athletic shoes, jeans and sweatshirts. No, she wouldn’t
split wood, but she was fully capable of hauling it in,
doing laundry and cooking for a dozen, three times a day.
“My dream job? Nope. But that’s what I came here
to do.”
“Wait a minute. You’re lying. You don’t have room
in that bag for enough clothes…”
“My suitcase is in the trunk of the car. If you said no,
I wasn’t going to bother hauling it in.”
Now, having been assured he wasn’t needed, John was
on his way down the mountain, his own bags in the back
of his SUV. He had the key to Liz’s condo so that he could
stay there, but she’d admitted to telling their parents about
how she planned to force him into action. He knew damn
well his mother would be hoping he’d choose to stay with
them instead, sleeping in his childhood bedroom.
And he had an appointment for Monday morning at
:00 a.m.—scheduled by his sister—to see a counselor who specialized in posttraumatic stress.
“He’s a Vietnam War vet,” Liz told him. “He has a
prosthetic leg.”
In other words, John was left with no valid excuse.
His guests were being taken care of. He could stay in
solitude at his sister’s place if he wanted. And, yeah,
maybe the counselor would understand everything. But
what about the guilt? Could anybody understand that?
John’s unease grew as the trees thinned and then
opened into the rolling, fertile Willamette River valley,
logged and farmed in the nineteenth century by early
settlers. Agriculture had long since lost its way to the
growing population, pushing suburb by suburb out of
Portland.
He saw a sign that said Hawes Ferry, and his fingers