From Here to There (23 page)

 He clenched his jaw as he stared at the unfinished ceiling over his head. Fear seemed to surge through his body. What had he done? He ran his fingers through his hair. He'd never wanted to care for Helene. He'd expected her to provide the model wife, the perfect hostess, the ideal mother for his children, but he hadn't wanted to become emotionally involved.

Now he found himself dreaming about her, watching for her, doing all the things a lovesick fool did when he lost complete control of his passion and life. He'd seen too many examples of what happened to people who made that mistake. Love was followed by pain, loss, bitterness and futility. A comfortable arrangement was what he'd sought, what he'd thought he had until the arrangement walked out on him. The feelings Helene had stoked to life last night were anything but comfortable.

 He sat up, leaning his elbows on his knees, and lit a cigarette. The bunkhouse was cold, but his superheated skin didn't seem aware of it. He tried to work through the situation but could see only one answer. Run! Get as far away from Helene and this ranch as he could get and make it as quick as possible. Already she was going to leave a hole in his life that he knew wouldn't be easy to fill. Staying longer would only make it worse. He'd take care of his morning chores, then talk to Amos. It was the only answer.

 Dressed in a warm flannel shirt, jeans, boots, hat and jean jacket, Phillip walked briskly through the crunchy barnyard to the tractor, the light barely illuminating the horizon, the sky nearly black overhead and the animals and birds strangely quiet, as though waiting for the sun to rise before making any serious claims of the land. In the distance he heard a night hawk as it swooped low over the horizon. Any other birds must have been huddled into tree branches until the light grew strong enough to begin their daily search for food.

 If anyone had told him a month ago he would enjoy getting up before dawn to feed a few hundred hungry head of cattle, he'd have laughed in their faces; but the ritual was a time of peace for him, and he found a satisfaction in it that had been missing from his life and from what should have been more satisfying or at least more profitable endeavors.

 The tractor started immediately. Backing from the equipment shed, he thought again about Helene, about how she'd felt in his arms, and he shivered.
Someone walked on my grave,
he thought with a bitter twist of humor.

 Within an hour, he'd loaded the wagon with hay bales, worked up a sweat and was on his way to the pasture, the land dimly lit by the rising sun. In the distance he could hear cows bellowing as they heard the sound of his tractor. Amos had explained to him the seasonal needs of the herd. At this time of the year, with short days and cold nights, the dormant grass couldn't sustain the large animals. They depended on him or someone like him even as they ate what grass they could find.

 Standing on the back of the wagon, Phillip broke bales apart with his knife and threw the segments as far as he could, then drove down the field and repeated the process. He'd learned that dividing the hay into multiple piles kept the stronger cows from hogging all the best feed. When he had distributed his load, he stood, watching the bovines nudge each other aside, run to another pile, bellow for their yearling calves. then settle down to serious eating.

The ranch operated on a slim budget which is why it was still feeding hundred pound bales instead of the big round, half-ton ones with round metal feeders. Everything was being done as economically as possible which told him the thin edge on which it had been operating probably for years.

 So what now, he thought pulling off his hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead. He couldn't seem to decide what to do about anything. He wanted to escape from Helene at the same time he wanted to claim her for his woman and have her in his bed every night.  

He had never dreamed land could get a hold on a man but he was finding it was nearly as strong a draw as Helene. Taking care of these animals was different than anything he’d ever known. But he had a life beyond this.

He needed to get back to his office. Assurances of modern communications aside, he knew from what Dale, his assistant, had said that the clients were edgy at not seeing him, but he didn't want to go back East. There was something about the high mountain air, about the work that filled an emptiness in his life that he'd never recognized as being there.

 Damnation, he thought dismally, he didn't have any idea what he wanted and recognized his thoughts were muddled. For a man used to making decisions for other people, he was doing a lousy job where it came to his own life.

 Back at the ranch house, he could see the lights on but felt reluctant to go up for breakfast. He didn't know how to face Helene, what he could say to her. Finally though the need for a cup of coffee overcame his reluctance. Anyway, he couldn't avoid her forever.

 "How were the cattle, son?" Amos asked, from where he was stirring up a batch of pancake batter.

 "Hungry," Phillip responded, pouring himself coffee and reaching down to pat Hobo. He didn't know if he was relieved or disappointed that Helene wasn't up. Considering the night they'd spent, it certainly wasn't surprising that she might have wanted to sleep in... or was she the one avoiding him?

 "I sure appreciate the work you've been doing for me. Don't know how I'd get along without you now," Amos said, testing the fry pan to see if it was hot enough and throwing in the first of the batter.

 "You've got Curly." Phillip sipped the pungent brew. He didn't know of anyone who made coffee stronger than Amos.

 "He's getting old just like me. What this place needs is young blood."

 "What about Rafe or Emile?"

 "Emile's got plenty to do running his own place what with Nancy having a baby and all, and Rafe never did have much interest in the routine working of a ranch. He likes being on the go and all the excitement that comes with the rodeo. No, I ain't got nobody who'll take it over when I'm too old."

 "You're a long ways from too old," Phillip said uneasily. He didn't want Amos to come to rely on him.

 "When it comes to work like bucking bales all day, I am," Amos said with a rueful laugh. "There's plenty I can do still, but there's a lot just ain't going to get done if I have to do it by myself."

 Phillip took another swig of the coffee. None of this was going the way he wanted. He should tell Amos he was leaving. He had to tell him but how? It suddenly seemed the world was closing in around him.

He'd avoided all emotional attachments from the time he'd been old enough to see the pain in them and now they would ensnare him cutting more painfully than the barbed wire had. He had known it was foolish to let it happen. Not only could his own emotions not be trusted, but those of others were equally or more unreliable. People said they cared but they didn't, not when the going got tough. Pain came from caring too much about anyone.

 Amos flipped a pancake. "I was thinking of trying to vaccinate those young heifers like I was telling you needed doing. You up to it?"

 Phillip shook his head but heard himself say, "Sure."

 He clenched his jaw. He couldn't let the old man down, not when he needed him. He could stay another few days, maybe a week. He'd just have to call Dale and explain the situation. If he ever got that fax hooked up, it would help some, at least with his business. But what about his personal life? That seemed to be getting into a deeper and deeper mess with no way out. Maybe he could talk Amos into hiring another man. That would get him off the hook. Then he could leave without feeling guilty, but what was going to fill the place he'd only just discovered was empty?

#

 Helene sat at the sewing machine, a pair of torn jeans poised under the needle, her mind wandering elsewhere. By the time she'd gotten up, Phillip and Uncle Amos were gone. In the quiet of the house, she'd fixed a simple breakfast and tried to think through her situation with Phillip. Carrying a cup of coffee into the den, she'd set up the sewing machine but then found it impossible to keep her mind on the needed repairs.

 She kept asking herself whatever had possessed her to go to the bunkhouse. Worse, what had caused her to behave like such a wanton when she got there? In her most fevered fantasies, she'd never imagined what it could be like between a man and woman, how much she would enjoy touching a man's body, knowing he desired her. It was a strange dichotomy of feelings. There was a heady sense of power in knowing how much he wanted her at the same time she'd lost control of herself so completely she'd forgotten about all the reasons she knew it couldn't work between them.

When she had gotten back to the house, she had found herself unable to sleep and had spent more time reading her aunt’s little journal. Mostly it had been a story of discovery, the land, the town, making friends, and then that other man who wasn’t Uncle Amos.

In September her aunt had been dealing with a proposal but was putting off answering it. If she liked Roger so much, why wasn’t she saying yes? If she had, well what the heck would that have meant? It was obvious that she saw ‘her’ Amos as just a friend, a funny friend who made her laugh but not one she was dating although they appeared to be doing a lot together but not as potential lovers.  A funny little man her aunt had even called him. He was shorter than her. Now how could she take him seriously as a prospect, well it wasn’t as though her Amos was asking for that anyway.

Okay, something definitely had changed in how she saw him as by the time Helene saw them together, that gleam in her aunt’s eyes was definitely not friendship. And what happened to Roger?

She supposed she could have skipped ahead to find out, but she felt there had to be a reason the journal had been left for her. She would follow the story as she had time and an ability to put emotional thought into what was being said. She wondered if she knew this Roger by another name. Maybe a mister something or other.

 The ringing of the phone interrupted whatever modicum of sense she'd been struggling to make out of her aunt’s story and her own.

 "Hi," Nancy's voice came over the line.

 "Hi, yourself. How are you and junior doing?"

 "Just great. He's kicking something fierce. I think she's as anxious as me to get this bun out of the oven. It seems like it's taking forever."

 "Well, you know what they say about a watched pot," Helene teased.

 "I know, but my stomach is sticking out so far in front of me that I can't do much except watch it."

 Helene laughed.

 "I heard you went out with Wes last night."

 That seemed like days ago. Had it only been last night. "Word does travel fast out here," she said. "Are there some kind of smoke signals on the hills that I haven't seen?"

 "No," Nancy chuckled, "just Wes was over this morning to talk about one of our bulls he's considering buying. He happened to mention it about three times."

 "Did he also mention Phillip went with us?" Helene asked with amusement.

 "Yes but not happily. I really do think he's interested in you, Helene."

 "It doesn't matter one way or the other because I'm not interested in him."

 "Why not? Wes Carlson is one very handsome man. I can't understand why you wouldn't find him a potential mate. Or is all of this none of my business?"

 "I wouldn't mind telling you... if I knew the answer. I just can't see Wes as someone I could ever be serious about."

 "Are you sure it isn't because you're already in love? Say in love with someone like your husband?"

 Helene hesitated. A day ago she'd have said ridiculous but now she wasn't so sure. She definitely wasn't ready to talk about her feelings for Phillip, and so she equivocated. "You don't have to be in love with someone to know you couldn't be in love with someone else."

 Nancy chuckled. "That sounds like a politician. Answering without answering." Abruptly she changed the subject. "How about you and Phillip coming to dinner tonight? I'd like to meet this husband who isn't a husband."