Dodge the Bullet (26 page)

###

Sarah wandered the aisles of Hailey’s new
drug store that had opened on the corner of Main Street. She looked
through the shelves trying to find a special cream Shiloh had told
her about that would help keep her impossibly dry hands from
cracking in the arid climate. Shiloh had started coming around the
cabin in the afternoons looking for Kevin and often stayed to talk
to Sarah. She’d fill her in on the gossip around town all the while
keeping a watchful eye out for Sarah’s oldest son. Sarah felt
grateful to Shiloh for the company and for easing Kevin’s
transition to Colorado.

Sarah had floated through the last
twenty-four hours in blissful exhilaration following her sexual
reawakening. She’d made love with a man who wasn’t her husband and
she’d lived to tell. Although she hadn’t told a soul. Oh, she’d
wanted to tell Jenny. She’d even picked up the phone and had dialed
part of her number when she stopped and thought about what she
would say.
“Hi, it’s me. I had sex with Dodge.”
She knew
Jenny would be happy for her, knew she’d understand what a huge
milestone this was for Sarah. But she also knew the first question
that would come out of Jenny’s mouth.
“How was it?”
she’d
ask.

The answer to that question had her putting
the phone back on its base. She’d want to admit it had been mind
blowing, in both intensity and tenderness. She’d want to say it was
better than she remembered sex ever being. She’d want to say it was
something she intended to do again, with him, as soon as possible.
But those words, those joyous words of truth felt like a betrayal
to the only other man she’d ever been with.

As she wandered into the baby section, the
faint scent of diapers leaked out of the thick plastic coverings.
She’d smiled wistfully, remembering the thousands of diapers she’d
bought too many years ago and closed her eyes to savor the smell a
mother never forgets. That’s when it hit her. Her mouth dropped
open and the small bucket cart she held slipped from her hand and
crashed to the floor. Her hair products and deodorant rolled away
on the slick marble surface. She’d had sex with Dodge and hadn’t
even given a passing thought to birth control.

A young woman came down the aisle, Sarah’s
shampoo in hand, and tapped her on the shoulder. She motioned to
the mess on the floor. Sarah gathered her things with shaking hands
in a slow motion fog as the resonance of her thudding heart rang in
her head. My God, she thought.
I could be pregnant
.

The short drive home had been torture. The
clouds had moved in, big billowing clouds whose shade varied from
alabaster to gun metal gray. They moved quickly overhead and
changed the feel of the landscape below. The grass and wildflowers
swayed as the breeze kicked up the smell of the earth, well before
a drop of rain hit the ground and set free the scents of a storm.
Sarah rolled down the window, desperate for the cleansing gust of
fresh air, and noticed the temperature change. She looked to the
sky and thought it appropriate that it filled rapidly with storm
clouds; they so perfectly matched her mood. She’d left the store in
a panic. She needed to get home, find Dodge and tell him…what? That
in her haste to have him she’d forgotten about using a condom. Not
that she’d had one handy or had even seen one in the decade since
Todd’s vasectomy.

Sarah pulled her truck onto the gravel
drive. When she saw light and movement coming from the barn, she
parked near the side door. Christ, she thought as she sat in the
truck just outside the barn as thunder beat a staccato melody
overhead. She opened the door just as the first drops began to fall
and made a dash for the musty barn.

Miguel, his hands coated in grease, worked
on an engine of unidentifiable sort. Sarah could tell by the look
on his face she’d startled him.

“Hola, Miguel.” She felt ridiculous trying
to speak a language she didn’t have a knack for remembering. “Donde
esta Dodge?”

Mercifully, Miguel answered in English.
“He’s in back pasture, by old road.” He motioned with his hand in
the direction. “Tractor broken.”

“The boys?”

When he smiled, his perfectly aligned teeth
gleamed in the dark interior of the barn. “Home.”

Back in the truck, she used her cell to call
home and told the boys to stay inside because of the storm. She set
off toward the back pasture to locate Dodge and infest him with her
latest flavor of neurosis. She found him just where Miguel had
said, working feverishly under the hood of his John Deere tractor,
rain bouncing like ping pong balls off his hat and jacket. She
honked the horn, watched him jump and wince when the movement
caused him to injure his hand. He scowled at her, looked down at
the engine, squinted up at the sky and quickly made his way to her
truck. Sarah reached over and pulled up the lock, her stomach
fluttered with longing and dread as he climbed inside.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I need to talk to you.” Something in her
face must have given away her panic because he reached over with
his damp hand and laced his fingers through her hair. Her mind
instantly blanked at his touch.

###

Dodge pulled her closer across the small
bench seat. The musty cab held her scent in the air, the rain
infused it in his head. He’d spent the better part of the day
driving to Westmoreland tracking down the one dealership this side
of the mountain that had the belt he needed to get the tractor
running again. And all the way there and all the way back he’d
thought of her. He remembered everything about the hour they’d
shared the day before. He’d catalogued in his mind every touch,
every sound, every movement she’d made and was all but bursting
with need for her again. But the tractor had a need for the belt
and he wasn’t quite sure how to proceed with Sarah after their
first roll in the sheets. He’d been afraid an over-eagerness on his
part would scare her, cause her to classify him as a typical male
or worse, give away his insatiable need to have her again. He
kissed her forehead, caressed her scalp with his fingers and waited
for her to take the lead.

###

“I…” Sarah began, hesitated. He stared at
her, his fingers making lazy circles on her head. What a disaster
it had been not to have a condom the first time, and she could tell
from the look on his face there would be more times, and here she
sat, wanting him again. Had she thought to buy condoms at the store
when she’d had her epiphany? Of course not.

“We didn’t use protection when we…”

Dodge chuckled, his dimpled grin mocking her
panic. “I know when you’re talking about.”

“How can you laugh about this?” She didn’t
know what to expect from him, but she hadn’t expected laughter. “I
know I’m old. It’s been forever since I’ve worried about an
unplanned pregnancy, but it
can
happen. Todd would just look
at me and I’d get pregnant.”

His hand paused on her head. “You don’t have
to worry about getting pregnant, Sarah. Not from me.”

She slumped against the seat, the heat from
his body warming the cab as the rain ran like teardrops down the
windshield. “I don’t understand. You’re…you’ve had a
vasectomy?”

“No.”

His face changed, the coyness she’d seen
there swiftly hidden behind a mask. He’d shut his emotions off like
a curtain in a play and it fell with a swoosh between them. “I
don’t understand,” she said when he just stared at her.

Dodge lifted his hand from the tangle of her
hair and took off his hat. “I was married once before.”

“You were married?”

“In Chicago. The former client, the one who
sends the fancy wine? He was my father-in-law.”

Dodge turned to face the windshield. The
movement caused them to separate by inches, but Sarah felt like a
great ravine had formed between them.

“We were married for three years, two of
which she tried to get pregnant. Turns out I’ve been shooting
blanks all along.” He looked at her then and shrugged. “A little
ironic. Anyway, the stress and the disappointment of it brought the
marriage down.”

“Jesus.” All along she’d pegged him as the
wounded loner, someone whose past had kept him at a distance from
everyone. Everyone but her. The fact that he’d moved on from his
past, had married and tried to have children, selfishly it hurt her
pride and made her think less of what they’d shared. But when she
looked at him, really looked at his face, she saw a wounded loner.
Every part of his past was just as painful as what he’d endured
before. “She blamed you.”

“I was to blame.”

“No. Lots of people can’t have kids. It
doesn’t make you less of a man, less worthy of love.”

“Love’s not always easy, Sarah. You’re a
fine example of how much it can hurt. It wouldn’t have worked out
anyway.” She could tell he’d shut off that part of his life, knew
he didn’t want not to talk about it. “She was…we were from two
different worlds. She’s happy now. Two kids and a banker husband.
Probably even a dog and white picket fence.”

Sarah put her hand over his, leaned closer
until their knees brushed. “So, there’s your proof. There’s no way
you could have gotten Wendy pregnant.”

“Let it go, Sarah. I have. After my outburst
at the diner, so have most of the people around town.”

She shifted on the seat, took his hat from
his hand, put it down beside her. She’d do anything to bring a
smile to his face. “Any more revelations you’d like to share? More
heartbreak?”

“I’m no angel, Sarah.” Dodge ran his hand
down her arm, laced his fingers with hers. “Don’t confuse me with
some movie star cowboy or one of your made up heroes.”

“I’m not romanticizing about you. I haven’t
forgotten about your categories.”

He shook his head and closed his eyes.

“Dodge, you shouldn’t belittle what you’ve
been through.”

“It’s just something that happened. And now
it’s over. It’s why I don’t do relationships.”

She felt her heart slip. “You got married.
You can’t say you don’t do relationships.”

“It failed. I don’t do them anymore.”

“There were two of you in that
marriage.”

“I learned my lesson. Besides,” he touched
her chin with his finger, “you don’t do casual.”

“I’ve never had the opportunity for casual.
Why do I feel like you’re breaking up with me?” She heard the whine
in her voice and tried another tactic. “Why do we have to put a
label on this? This thing between us…it’s like a roller coaster
ride. We’ve strapped ourselves in, now we have a choice. We can
either close our eyes and pray for the end, or we can wave our
hands in the air and enjoy it.” She shifted on the seat and
straddled him, settled into his lap, laced her fingers through his
hair. When his hands clasped around her waist and pulled her
closer, she eased her whole body into his, her lips a whisper from
his. “However long it lasts.” She kissed him, slow and tempting.
“What do you say?”

“You’d better hold on tight,” he said as he
made quick work of the buttons on her shirt. “This ride’s about to
start.”

They made love in the small cab of her truck
while the storm swirled around them. It was sweaty and cramped and
heartbreakingly passionate. They could barely move, but she felt
unspeakably moved by the quiet way he whispered her name, the
tenderness of his touch, despite the amateurish location of their
pairing. She eased the pain from his eyes with her words and gave
him her body to heal him, the same way he was healing her.

It
was the clinking. Kimberly Weston shook her head and sat up
straight in her chair. That damn clinking noise was getting to her
and she wanted to bolt from the room with an almost overwhelming
absurdity. She looked at her watch. Again. Nearly midnight and
Benji was still at it.

First he’d shocked her by insisting she
accompany him to the fundraising dinner in the ballroom of one of
Denver’s finest hotels. He never took her anywhere even remotely
social when his wife and daughter weren’t present. And while they
were off at some weight loss spa in the desert, Kimberly sat
listening to the irritating clinking of plates and glasses,
silverware and bar drinks while Benji downed another scotch and
made the rounds of the room yet again.

Kimberly had never seen him like this. He
hated fundraising dinners, especially dinners honoring anyone he
felt beneath him on the political hierarchy. And Dalton Maddox
didn’t register a blip on Benji’s radar as far as Kimberly knew.
Yet here she sat, miserable and exhausted at a corner ballroom
table littered with dessert plates and empty alcohol glasses. No
wonder political fundraisers were so expensive; the bar bill alone
probably came to more than her yearly salary.

She’d spent the last half hour trying to
coax the Senator out of one conversation or the next, thought
surely he intended to leave as soon as she’d whisked him free. But
just as she’d wrangle him out of one boring discussion on subsidies
and gas prices, he’d bound head long into another until Kimberly
had given up. Sitting in the uncomfortable ballroom chair watching
Benji work the room and wipe beads of sweat from his brow, Kimberly
started to notice Benji’s strange behavior. With broad smiles and a
bunch of back patting, he worked the room harder than the Energizer
bunny. But it didn’t make sense. Most of the bills he’d signed on
to support were either dead in the water or had sailed through
committee. There wasn’t a need for him to rush from conversation to
conversation, stirring the pot, as he liked to call it when he
needed to get support from one backer or another. And if Dalton
Maddox was beneath Senator Ben Burwick, surely his supporters
didn’t merit his undivided attention.

Kimberly dropped the napkin she’d been
worrying when the cold realization of what was going on tingled up
her spine. Tonight was the night, it had to be. Benji wasn’t
working the room for votes or money, he needed an alibi. And there
was no better alibi than a room full of political supporters and a
public relations photographer. She reached into her clutch for her
phone and, after making sure Benji slung his political shit around
the room, stepped into the hall to make a call.