Where There's Smoke
“It doesn’t make sense to me, either. Why isn’t she with him? If I had believed you were dead, and discovered you weren’t, I never would let you out of my sight again. I love you so much that—” She raised her head. “Well, I’ll be. That’s it. Dr. Mallory doesn’t love her husband anymore. Maybe she’s fallen in love with somebody else.”
“Calm down now. You’re cooking up something in your mind that ain’t necessarily so.”
“Like what?”
“Like there’s something brewing between the doctor and your brother.”
“You think so too?” she asked excitedly.
“I don’t think anything. I think that’s what you think. Flying off to Central America alone together and getting captured by guerrilla fighters is pretty romantic stuff. Sounds like a movie. But don’t go reading anything into it that’s not there.”
She looked chagrined and admitted that a romance between Key and Lara had crossed her mind. “Both of them seem so wretchedly unhappy since they got back. Key’s itching to leave.”
“He’s always been a drifter. You told me so yourself.”
“It’s more than wanderlust this time. He’s not rushing toward a new adventure, he’s running away from something. And that describes Dr. Mallory, too. She didn’t act like a woman who’s beloved has suddenly returned from the dead.” She made a face. “From what I saw of him on TV, I can’t say I blame her. He sounded like a real jerk. Besides, he’s not nearly as handsome as Key.”
Bowie chuckled. “You’ve got a romantic streak a mile wide, you know that?”
“Key said that I’m in love and want everybody else to be as happy as I am. He was right.”
“About you wanting everybody to be happy?”
“About my being in love.” She gazed into his soulful eyes, her love exposed. Cupping his face, she asked earnestly, “When, Bowie?”
This subject often came up. Each time it did, it either fanned their passions or squelched them. Tonight it caused a physical breach. Frowning, he disengaged himself from her embrace, stood, and began rebuttoning his shirt.
“We have to talk, Janellen.”
“I don’t want to talk anymore. I want to be with you. I don’t care where it has to be as long as we can be together.”
He averted his eyes self-consciously. “I found a place I think might do.”
“Bowie!” She had a hard time keeping her voice to an excited stage whisper. “Where is it? When can we go? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Choosing to answer her last question first, he said, “Because it isn’t right, Janellen.”
“You don’t like the room?”
“No, the room is all right. It’s…” He paused and shook his head with exasperation. “I hate sneaking in here every night like a damn kid, fumbling around in the dark, copping feels, having to whisper like we’re in the goddamn library, then leaving by the back door. It’s no damn good.”
“But if you’ve found a place where we can go—”
“It would only be worse. You’re too fine a woman to be snuck through the back doors of motels for a quick toss.” He held up his hands to stave off her protests. “And another thing, you might think we could carry on without anyone finding out, but you’re fooling yourself. We couldn’t. I’ve lived in Eden Pass long enough to know how fast and accurate the grapevine is. It’s too risky to take a chance.
“Sooner or later word would get back to your mama. She’d probably come after me with a shotgun or sic the law on me. Hell, I’ve been in scrapes before. If she didn’t flat-out kill me, I’d survive. But not you. You haven’t had a troubled day in your life. You wouldn’t know how to handle it.”
“I’ve had lots of trouble.”
“Not the kind I’m talking about.”
She’d learned from her brothers that men hated when women cried, so she tried her best to keep from bursting into tears. “Are you trying to get out of it, Bowie? Are you making up excuses when actually you just don’t want me? Is it my age that’s turned you off?”
“Come again?”
A small sob escaped. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re trying to worm out of it because I’m older than you.”
He was equally vexed and incredulous. “You’re older than me?”