Solomon's Decision (9 page)

Dang it all! He'd just have to convince his wife that Solomon fella had a good
chance of comin' up with the money by September.

"He's back!" The excited voice was nearly unrecognizable, but after a few seconds
Madeline recognized Sandy's shriller-than-usual soprano. Her best friend never
remembered to identify herself, but always jumped right into the middle of what she
wanted to say.

"Who?" She missed a few words as she switched the receiver to her other ear.

"...said somebody else'd be coming in a week or so and they'd call me to get the
place ready and probably they'd want me to clean and change the beds, like I do for Amelia
and Lester, only I don't know where they're going, now that it's rented...."

"Whoa, Sandy," Madeline soothed. "You always talk faster than I can listen. Back
up and start again. Who's back?"

"Erik Solomon, that's who, and I thought you liked him. I do, and I've already got
a man, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a hunk when I see one. He's the first really
eligible man to come to town in years and if you aren't interested in him, you need your
head examined. I mean, the way you live all alone and devote your time to the Wednesday
Club and the PTA and all, well, I just think--"

"Sandy."

"...it's time you started dating again but there aren't any likely candi--"

"Sandy!"

"--dates in Garnet Falls and you won't even go to McCall for any of the dances
and--"

Madeline practically shouted, "Sandy, that's enough!" She couldn't help smiling,
because Sandy was determined to get her married off. She could practically hear her
irrepressible friend biting words back. After a suitable wait, she said, "I am not interested
in dating. I am not interested in getting married. I am particularly not interested in Erik
Solomon."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe me, Sandy. I'm fine the way I am. I've got the twins and I don't need any
complications in my life."

"Yeah, but--"

"But nothing. Let's talk about something else. Are you still planning to bring the
girls out to the ranch Sunday?" Sandy's daughters were the same ages as her cousin's two
boys, and were tomboys enough that Jace and Dennis considered them suitable
playmates.

"I may have to work Sunday afternoon."

"Didn't you work last Sunday?" Sandy only waited tables in the Conestoga House
when one of the regular waitresses was absent. Madeline secretly thought three jobs--hotel
maid, cocktail waitress, and part-time waitress--were too many for her friend, but
resolutely kept her mouth shut. Sandy and her husband were saving for a house of their
own.

"I can take the girls out when I go on Saturday No need for you to make the trip"
With extra kids along to keep hers amused, she'd have a chance to examine her feelings.
How
did
she feel about Erik's return, anyhow?

Shortly the weekend was settled and Madeline hung up. Thank heaven, she
thought to herself, she'd been able to distract Sandy.

When were her friends going to give up and accept that she wanted to spend the
rest of her life single? Probably about as soon as she convinced herself.

* * * *

Erik wasn't here to make a decision on Wounded Bear Meadow this time, but to
resolve a question about his future. Now that DSL was installed, the studio apartment
above the Wooden Nickel gave him a place to set up his computer and work just as well as
he could in Washington, D.C.

It wasn't the first time he'd left the nation's capital to set up shop in more congenial
surroundings. Since about half of his work was consulting, it really didn't matter where he
hung his hat. His clients could contact him in Idaho as easily as in D.C., and he'd be a lot
happier here than in the impersonal rooms of his seldom-used condo.

With summer approaching, he needed no other excuse to seek the clean, dry air of
Idaho's mountains. Last year he'd had to be available as an expert witness until Congress
adjourned. He'd sworn then he'd never spend another summer in the nation's capitol.

So he'd told Walt it was his turn to have some fun. Never mind his astronomical
charge rate. He'd work for technician's wages, just to get out of the city and into the high
country. Or did the NWT director think he'd forgotten how to run a transect and interpret
soil cores?

And while he was here, he'd work through his feelings for Madeline.

Madeline, whose eyes had told him to come back, even as her voice told him
goodbye. Madeline, who was the only woman he'd ever known who could make him
wonder if going through life alone, as he'd long since chosen to do, might be a dismal and
lonely process.

Since absence hadn't lessened his hunger for her, it was time to try proximity. He'd
never known a woman who wore well, not when he was with her every day.

Once Madeline's glamour was dimmed, he'd go on with his life.

Yeah. A summer with Madeline would be a sure cure for the way his body surged
with desire whenever he was anywhere in her vicinity.

It had always worked before.

He finished stowing his belongings and looked around. A far cry from elegant, the
large room with a kitchen tucked into one corner and a small bathroom walled off in
another, was nonetheless comfortable. The varnished knotty pine walls were warmly
welcoming and the brightly floral slipcovers on the two chairs added color. What he found
the most remarkable was the king-sized waterbed that dominated the north end of the
room, under a large skylight set into the sloping roof. The place looked more like a love
nest than an occasionally rented spare room available to guests of local residents.

He picked up the phone and dialed. Now that he was settled, it was time to begin
his campaign to get Madeline Pierson out of his system once and for all.

Surely she would have answered after fifteen rings. He cradled the phone and
looked around the apartment, no longer so welcoming and warm. In fact, it felt positively
cramped. Music and laughter filtered faintly from the tavern below, inviting him to
socialize, instead of hiding up here in his cave.

Unable to stand his own company tonight, Erik followed the sound of music down
to the Wooden Nickel. Capturing a corner table, he ordered a beer and a sandwich. One of
the fellows at the bar seemed familiar, so Erik gave him a casual wave which was, after a
slight hesitation, returned. When the waiter came back with his roast beef on
sourdough--he hoped they gave doggie bags--Erik introduced himself and mentioned he was the
upstairs tenant. The men at the next table overheard, as he'd intended them to, and he was
soon in the midst of a conversation about the Seattle Mariners' chances at the pennant.

By ten that night, he was one of the guys.

"Not too many single women in Garnet Falls," Sheriff Wally Blanchett said, in
response to his query about feminine companionship. "Leastways none past twenty-five or
so. I had to go up the road, to New Meadows, to find my lady."

"There's Linnie Pierson," Steve Lindholm said. "She's not so old. And she's
pretty."

Alf Wallace snorted. "Pretty is as pretty does."

"What d'ya mean by that, Alf?" Steve half rose from his chair. "Linnie's a real nice
girl."

"I didn't say she wasn't," Alf retorted. He was older than the others, and his face
bore the imprint of years of viewing everything in the worst possible light. "But she ain't
always been, has she?" He waved the waiter over and ordered another round without
asking if anyone was ready. "How'd she get them kids if she's pure as the driven
snow?"

Erik's ears pricked up.

"I wondered about that myself," Wally admitted. "She and the Zenger boy never
did get married, did they?"

"He was killed a couple of weeks before the wedding," Steve said. "Tractor rolled
on him."

Alf snorted. "But those kids ain't his. Not unless that was the longest pregnancy on
record."

"What do you mean?" The words burst out of Erik despite his resolution to keep
quiet and listen.

"Figure it yourself. Jesse died in July. The twins was born more'n a year later." Alf
sat back, a smarmy grin on his fat face. "I figure she got herself knocked up on one of
those 'business' trips she's always takin'. Funny business, if ya ask me."

"Aw, come on, Alf, Linnie's not like that," Steve protested.

"She sure seems like a lady to me." Wally leaned forward across the table, holding
Alf's eyes with his own. Erik bet himself the sheriff had been a holy terror in the Marines.
"I don't like to hear you talk about her like that."

Erik's fists were knotted on his lap. It was either that or paste Alf's bulbous red
nose all over his face. No matter who her children's father was, no one had a right to speak
of her in so derogatory a manner.

"Alf, I've told you before to keep your big mouth shut." The deep, gravely voice
came from behind Erik. He'd heard it before. Lester, the tavern's taciturn owner, seldom
came out from behind the bar, rarely spoke to his customers.

"Well, this here fella was askin' about Linnie Pierson, and I had to tell him, didn't
I?"

"Yeah, you had to tell him the stories your dirty little mind dreamed up." Lester
planted big fists on the table and bent to look right into Alf's face. "Alf here knows the
truth but he don't believe it," he said. "But Linnie's one of the finest women ever lived in
Garnet Falls and I won't let anybody badmouth her. Not in my tavern."

"Do
you
know who fathered her twins?" Steve asked, looking almost
ashamed of his curiosity.

"No, and it's none of my business, either, is it?"

Everyone but Alf nodded. Lester returned to his seat behind the bar.

"One time when I was home on leave," Wally said, "my pa said something about
her going up to Portland and getting herself artificially inseminated. He was real
disapproving, Pa was."

The other men began discussing the possibility, while Erik mulled the question
over in his head. He liked it better than the alternative. The Madeline he knew wouldn't be
so careless as to get herself pregnant by accident. She'd been so particular that he protect
her.

"Well, I still say she had to get them twins some way," Alf said as he stood, "and I
don't believe no doctor done it to her. She had herself a one night stand up there in Portland
or somewheres, you mark my word."

Erik felt his face flush and was grateful for the dark corner in which they sat.
Madeline had had a one night stand up in Seattle, not all that far from Portland. Had she
had others?

"Alf, you either find somewheres else to sit, or you and me's goin' out to the
parking lot and have us a little dialogue," Wally said. "Got that?"

"Need any help?" Steve grinned, but Alf was getting to his feet, mumbling as he
did so.

"Sour old fart," Wally said when Alf had stomped to the door. "He's one of them
fellas can't say nothin' nice about nobody."

Steve agreed. So did Erik, but contented himself with a nod. "Tell me more about
Mad...ah, Ms. Pierson," he said, after the waiter had brought them another round. He was
beginning to feel pleasantly mellow. One beer was usually his limit, and here he was
sipping on his third.

Wally shrugged. "I don't know much to tell. Just what Ma wrote me when she was
still alive. Linnie was about eight or nine when she came to Garnet Falls to live with her
grandparents. Her parents had been killed in an auto accident and the old folks were her
only kin willin' to take her."

"She was a cute little kid," Steve put in. "Lived next door to my cousins, so I saw
her a lot. Then she started followin' Jesse everywhere, so I saw even more of her. She
thought he was right up there with Superman and Santa Claus."

"She got some kind of scholarship to college, didn't she?" Wally asked.

"Two or three, I think. She was top of her class at graduation."

"So what happened with her fiancé? You said he was killed? Just before
the wedding?" He never had heard how Jesse had died. The note from his sister had been
brief and tear-stained.

"It was really awful." Steve shuddered. "Jesse was usin' an old Massey Harris
tractor to pull a load of fenceposts up to one of the high pastures, 'way back of the main
house. There was a culvert--a big old wooden thing goin' back a long time. They figured
the back tractor wheel hit it just wrong and caved it in. Jesse was thrown and the tractor
wheel caught in the barb wire fence and sorta wrapped it around him."

Erik really didn't want to know any more, yet he had to. "The tractor kept
moving?"

"Nope. Just the wheels." Steve looked sick.

So did Wally.

"The doctor said Jesse bled to death. It didn't take long, 'cause the big artery--the
feme...fero...anyhow, the big one in his groin was torn clear open."

"The femoral artery," Erik said, although he didn't know why it mattered.

"Yeah, that one. The doc said he was probably unconscious in minutes, dead soon
after. And even if somebody had been there, there probably wasn't anything they coulda'
done."

"I don't imagine so," Erik agreed. God! That must have been devastating for
Madeline, to lose Jesse in such a horrible way. "What a tragedy."

"Yeah, Linnie was pretty laid out," Steve agreed.

"I was home on leave right afterward," Wally said. "She lost a lot of weight, went
around looking lost and half dead herself for a long time."

Steve emptied his glass and set it down. "Her boss back then probably kept her
from goin' off the deep end. He kept her so busy she didn't hardly have time to think. My
ma was his secretary, and she said he found all sorts of conferences and meetings and
classes for her to go to. When the county wouldn't pay her way, he paid from his own
pocket."

"What about her grandparents? Were they supportive?"

"They were both gone by then, I think." Steve thought a moment. "No, just her
grandpa. Old Man Pierson died when she was in high school, and her grandmother went
into the rest home about the time Linnie graduated college. She was pretty sick all that
summer."