You're Still the One (7 page)

I felt like I’d been struck in the face with a handful of paintbrushes.

“He talked to his AA group about it, too.”

His AA group?
Darned if my jaw wasn’t almost on the floor. My dad had actually admitted he was an alcoholic? He went to AA?

“I tried to get him to shape up that butt of his. I even prodded him with a pitchfork one time. Truly, I poked him in the butt, and I told him, ‘See, even when I prod your butt, Ben, you still won’t move to make amends for your cruel behavior to your daughter.’ I didn’t understand it. I’ve got six kids and fourteen grandkids and they’re over all the time, and I could not understand why he did not apologize to you and do whatever it took to make amends.”

“You knew him—”

“You bet I did, although the first two years he lived here we didn’t talk. I met him once the first year—he was a mean, slobbering, warthog drunk. He called me an old witch. We didn’t get along. But eventually I knew him backwards and forwards and inside out.” She tapped her boot. “I got him cleaned up three years ago. Told him he was an alcoholic. He argued, threw that temper tantrum of his. By golly, it didn’t scare me at all—they’re all in denial, but he had his accident, you know—”

“No, what accident?”

“Oh, that’s right. You didn’t know because he was a crappy father and out of your life. Flipped his truck late one night. He was stuck upside down like a pig hung out to slaughter. It happened right down the road in the curve where that steel goat statue stands in front of Shelby’s house. He’s a steel artist.

“Anyhow, I galloped my horse, Give Me A Shiner—that’s her name—pretty darn fast when I heard the crash, but when I saw that it was him and I smelled liquor I peered in and said to him, ‘Hello and good-bye, you pathetic drunk. You could have killed someone or knocked over a cow.’ He was trapped, hanging upside down, and I galloped away. He yelled and slurred and swore and, by God, I left him there after I told him, ‘Tonight I’m going to pray to the good Lord that wisdom will be forced into your dense head.’ ”

I scrambled to keep up with her. “You left my dad upside-down, drunk, in his truck all night?”

“Sure I did. Although I think he was able to unstrap himself later. He was still flattened out, though, stuck in that crushed truck of his.”

I almost laughed. I have a mean streak when it comes to my dad.

“You gotta let drunks hit the very bottom rung of their lives, or they’re not getting better. By the time I rode back out about eight hours later, after my morning coffee, he’d made a mess all over himself in each direction. Lucky it was summer so he didn’t freeze, but he was still cold. Hungover and screwed up—that gave him a God moment, I think. Can you get much lower?”

“That’s pretty low.” I stood and marveled. I was totally amused at the thought of Dad upside-down. That’s what a drunken parent who calls you apple-core face does to you. They warp your sense of humor.

“I peered into the window and said, ‘You ready to change now, you donkey’s ass?’ He was crying. Broken. Like a bird with all the bones shattered here and there, the feathers of his wings all falling off. I hate to see a man crumble down to nothing, but he had to have that sweet meltdown. He nodded his head and vomited, so I called the police and a tow truck. They came. Ambulance took him to the hospital. I wasn’t going to take him smelling to the high heavens like that. He had to stay there for three nights.”

“What were his injuries?”

“Oh, a bunch of ’em. Self-deserved, by golly. Broken leg, broken arm, concussion. Dehydration. He’d tossed his cookies. Bruises. Bumps on his noggin. Truck was totaled. He remembered seeing me the night before, but I told him he wasn’t ready to join the civilized world because he was a menace to the rest of us on the road, so I’d left him.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me later that he was grateful every day he didn’t hurt anyone else and he deserved to be left there.”

I had to take a moment to process that one. My dad never took responsibility and was never concerned about anyone else.
Never
.

Pearl pointed her finger. “That man was so destroyed from what he thought was going to be his certain death, he didn’t even get mad at me. He had trouble breathing in there, he told me later. He’d had two heart attacks in his life and he thought the big one was coming and he was going to die upside down in his truck—”

“Two?” I knew about the one. “How . . .” I choked back a wall of emotion that unexpectedly sprung up in my throat. “How was he after that?”

“Didn’t touch a drop.”

“He stopped drinking? On his own?”

“Nah. That would have been impossible—he was too much of a lush, total crackpot. A bunch of the neighbors had one of those interventions. We went over to his house and told him he was the worst son of a you-know-what when he was drinkin’. We told him he was goin’ to rehabilitation. He refused, said he could do it on his own, so Tally raised his gun and shot a hole through the floor.”

I hooted. “I saw that bullet hole, and there’s another one in the wall.”

“The one in the wall is from Larry Dave. He said, ‘Donkey’s butt, you’re going to rehab because if you don’t, I’m going to burn your house down so you’ll move. We can’t have hammered drunks driving here—there’s kids on bikes who could get hurt, and you have tried our patience to the limit.’ Your dad gave some more push-back, his face all bruised and busted, bandages everywhere, and Larry Dave shot the gun again. That was about it. Your dad almost pissed himself.

“We shoved him in Bryan B’s truck—he’s got his guns on a rack there. You know Bryan B yet? He owns a high-tech business. Anyhow, he and William took him in. William’s an ears, nose, and throat specialist and his brother is a doctor in one of the rehab places, so we were able to smooth things along.”

“How long was he there?”

“Six months—can you believe it? He was a bad case. He didn’t have any of the animals then, so we checked on the house, made sure the pipes didn’t freeze and bust.”

Six months in rehab would have cost a fortune. I thought of my ball-breaking Grandpa Tad. He’d owned a chain of liquor stores and had made a bundle, although he lived like a pauper. That was where the rest of my dad’s inheritance went. Rehab and the house and orchard.

“They cleaned him up and started him thinking like a normal man, they did,” Pearl said.

I tried to squish down my roaring anger with my dad. Finally,
finally
, at the end of his life he gets sober? What about
me
? What about
my mother
? Why couldn’t he have gotten sober for us? His lack of sobriety cost my mother her life. “How was he after rehab?”

“New man, sweetie. New man. Humbled down to nothing. Went to AA every day. Kind, gentle, started talking a lot about you and your mom.” Pearl’s eyes got watery. “He knew he’d blown it. It was one of the reasons he’d kept drinking. Said he’d been a terrible husband. He blamed himself for your mom’s death. Said if he hadn’t been a jerk, she wouldn’t have left, wouldn’t have been killed in the avalanche. Hadn’t talked to you in years and said he missed you like the dickens, but said he didn’t do a good job.”

“He didn’t do a good job? He did a
horrendous
job. I moved out when I was sixteen because I couldn’t stand him. Couldn’t take being called useless, dumb, weird eyes like a cat, sneaky, loose . . .” I could hardly say the words, and I had no idea why I was sharing them with her. Maybe it was Pearl’s kind eyes; maybe it was because she had known my dad but had a clear view of his vile personality.

I deliberately tamped down my rising temper. Why did I let the memory of him still yank my emotions around? Why did I let him have that control over me? “Were you friends with him then?”

“We were more than friends, sugar. After about a year of him being sober, we became a couple. He had a lot of edges that I had to smooth down with a sandblaster and a pickax. I let him have it a number of times, and sometimes I wouldn’t even speak to him and he wasn’t allowed to cross my doorway. See, I think the alcohol stunted his emotional growth and maturity, and I had to play catch-up with him, beat him into human form and release the caveman within.”

“How’d he do?”

“By the end he was a good man, Allie. He even adopted the animals, all of them strays or rescues, to keep him company, and he spoiled all of them. He trained as a carpenter and actually did good work. See all my shelving? He did that for me.”

I choked down a sob and put my hands to my face.

“I’m sorry, honey. I know that’s gotta hurt to the core. He was good for me but not good for you and your momma, who deserved it. I get it. Man, that chicken-crap man! It makes me burn to think about it. You and your poor mother. That scarecrow creep. I’m telling you, I told him to call you and he said he did, but you didn’t call back, and I said to him, ‘What did you expect?’ He knew—he knew, Allie—that he didn’t deserve you. He cried over it.”

“You must be joking.”

“Not at all. Bawled like a baby. Many times. He had your photos in his wallet, along with your momma’s, and I saw him staring at them time and time again.”

The tears welled out of my eyes. I was touched by what she said about my dad, but I was red-hot mad. He found love for us at the end of his
life
?

“This painting—” I changed the subject. I’d had enough. I was going to explode. “I’d like to buy it.”

“Let me wrap it up for you, honey.”

“You’re a talented artist, Pearl.”

“Thank you.” She paused. “Perhaps . . . perhaps we could have lunch one day? You could come over here. I’ll kill one of the chickens and we’ll have avocado pesto chicken sandwiches and lemonade.”

I blinked, surprised. I had lived in the city a long time. I wasn’t used to such outward friendliness or having someone offer to twist a chicken’s neck for me. “Yes, yes, I would like that. Thank you.” Looking into her kind eyes, I realized that I would.

“We can talk about your dad if you want. Or we can leave the ole saddle-buster out of the whole thing.”

“I . . . I don’t know what I want. I don’t know if I want to hear about it . . . I think I do, maybe not . . .”

She put her hands on my shoulders. “Don’t make a decision now, sweetie. We’ll start as girlfriends.”

“Thank you.” I gave her my debit card to pay for the apple-tree painting with the amazing details.

“I refuse,” Pearl said. “It’s my gift to you, Allie. I know that your dad would want you to have it, too. I’m sorry about your daddy, sweetheart.” She gave me a hug. “He was sorry, too.” She gave me another hug. “You know there’s a barn dance coming up, right, sugar?”

I found a hammer and nails in the garage and I hung up Pearl’s painting over the fireplace. It added life, color, fantasy, and imagination.

I sat down on the couch with my mother’s red-and-white flowered quilt, took a peek at my dad holding open the bedroom door in his urn, and wrapped my arms tight around myself.

He had become a good man too late.

Way too late.

I read Jane Austen that night, lying under my yellow bedspread, then a crime thriller, and back to Jane. My strawberry-scented candle flickered on the nightstand. I couldn’t sleep and ended up pacing through the orchard, Bob and Margaret running around me in circles. I studied the constellations. I found no peace in them.

I recognized him immediately.

Jace was clad in a bike helmet and dark glasses hunched over his racing bike, making the bike look small. We were about to pass each other in the middle of a quiet, winding road, a vineyard to one side, a farm on the other, the morning sun warm, a bunch of birds peeping.

I kept biking. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize me. I was pedaling slowly because my ankle and leg were still tender, but I crossed to the other side of the street and turned my head away to hide my face. I, too, had on a helmet and dark glasses.

We passed. I exhaled with deep relief, before the choking sadness that has chased me around since I lost Jace years ago came roaring back, like grief on wheels. I put my head down and pedaled as hard as I could without splitting my leg open, as I’d always done to outride what I didn’t want to think about.

“Good to see you on your bike, Allie.”

I turned my head. He was right next to me, smiling. Handsome. Overpoweringly manly and muscled and huge.

“I can’t believe this,” I muttered.

“Where are you riding to?”

“I think I’m riding away from you. You go that way, I’ll go this way.” I tugged on the strap of my helmet as we pedaled beside each other.

“I was just thinking that I wanted to backtrack.”

“You never backtrack.”

“I can think of a lot of backtracking I’d like to do.”

“Then think of it while you’re pedaling north.”

“Will you bike with me?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Can I bike with you?”

“No, same thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” I struggled to find the right words, finally settling on honesty. “I don’t want to get wrapped up in you again because then I can’t think like a normal person.” And yet . . . I so wanted to do that. I trusted Jace enough to lose my mind around him, I did.

“I cannot understand why.”

I did not miss the sharp edge in his tone. Jace was no sap.

“If you’ll let this work between us, Allie, it could have a different ending than it did before.”

“I’ll be leaving soon, so what’s the point? I’m going back to the city. I was invited for interviews in Boston, Seattle, and Houston.”

He was quiet for a second. “And when you get a job, that’s it. You’ll be gone?”

“Yes.” My voice was soft. I ignored the way that traitorous heart of mine screamed in protest.

“Why? Why would you leave so soon?”

“Why? Because I need a job. And why would I stay?”

He shook his head a little and I knew I’d hurt him.

“Stay for us. Or stay because we’re living in the country with a stream running through our properties and apple orchards. Stay because you have a home here and a bunch of animals who like you. Stay because you can find a job here.”

“The jobs I applied for start immediately.”
And if I stay here longer, it will kill me to leave you, Jace. You deserve more. More than me.
I kept pedaling. “I am not used to not working. I need to work. It fills up the time.”

“Other things can fill up time, too.”

“Not in my life, Jace. Working is part of me. I’ve worked since I was sixteen, and from that moment on, the independence it brought me, the financial security . . . I can’t
not
work.”

“I’ll pay you to stay here.”

I laughed; he didn’t. He was serious, I knew that. Jace was the most generous, protective person I knew. Yellowstone showed me that. “No. I would never accept money from you.”

His jaw tightened and I could tell my quick rejection hurt him.

“You’re running from here as fast as you can. I can see that. You like to run, don’t you? When things get to a place that you don’t like, you shut down and you cut out.”

“That’s not true.” I bit my lip to keep a flood of emotions under control. “Maybe I am running. Okay, I think you’re right. I am running.”

“Why? Why are you running
again
?”

“My dad’s house is a reminder of him. We didn’t get along, so I need to move. I hardly know anything about horses or how to take care of an apple orchard or all that property.” I stopped my bike because my eyes were filling up behind my sunglasses and I couldn’t see. We were up on a hill, the land stretching out in front of us like a quilt, sections here and there for fields, farms, orchards, vineyards. “You’re here and you’re kind and fun and interesting, like before, and I feel us falling into
us
again, and I can’t have that.”

He stopped next to me. “For God’s sakes,” he swore, his voice raised. “Why do you keep pulling away? Why won’t you give us a chance?”

I could only give him a partial truth. “I can’t do relationships, Jace. I can’t get that close to anyone. I don’t trust men; I hardly trust women. You were the first person, outside of my mother, that I trusted.”

“Doesn’t that say something about us, then?” He pulled off his sunglasses with a little too much force. “About the quality of our relationship, our future?”

“We don’t have a future. You are looking for a wife, we both know that. I don’t want to be a wife, and I’m not presuming that you would want me to be your wife, but I don’t want to . . . to . . .” I waved my hand in the air.

“You don’t even want to try to be together? Get naked in my hot tub or wake up every Saturday morning and have French toast? Bike? Travel?” He moved his bike so our legs were touching. “Work on puzzles? Hike? Study the stars on our backs? Talk?”

“Right. No. I don’t want to do that.”
Oh yes, I do!

“No commitment then?”

“No.”
Yes!

“Why are you so averse to commitment?” He put his palms up, those muscles flexing in his arms. “What could possibly be wrong with being committed to someone you love for the rest of your life? What could be better than that?”

Nothing. Nothing would be better.
“I’m better on my own. I didn’t have a good example of a marriage growing up.” That was minimizing it. “You almost have it all, Jace. Everything you wanted. You have the house in the country, you’re a doctor—”

“I don’t have it all. I have the job, I have the house in the country, but I don’t have a wife or kids.”

“Then go find her, Jace. It’s not going to be me. And I don’t want children.” That wasn’t true. I choked back tears. I did want kids. I wanted kids so much I ached. But that wasn’t going to happen because of a tragedy on an inky-black night.

His face registered shock. “Why? Why would you not want children? We talked about kids before. I thought you wanted four, at least. Remember we joked and said we were going to name our kids Grizzly Bear, Waterfall, Fishing Stream, and Geyser because of Yellowstone.” He shook his head. “What changed your mind?”

“Life did.”

“What do you mean by that? You would make a great mother, Allie. An
outstanding
mother.”

I didn’t know about that. “I have no desire to get involved with you, to get close to you, only to walk away. What’s the point? We’d both get hurt.”

“Maybe you won’t walk away.”

“I will walk away, Jace. I can assure you of that.” I would walk. I would save him from me, as utterly and ridiculously melodramatic as that sounded. I didn’t want to hurt him by telling him the truth and I didn’t want him to feel obligated toward me in any way. But he would not want a life with me once he knew. I knew him, and I knew what he most wanted.

He studied me for a minute and I could tell that his fast, capable brain was working at a zillion miles an hour. Jace was a keenly intelligent, perceptive man, who listened carefully. I tried not to think about how much I loved that brain.

All around us the country danced, birds chirped, a cow mooed, wind puffed up the tree leaves, and the country quilt in front of us shifted square to square in a plethora of colors.

“Around the corner is the most amazing view of Mt. Hood,” Jace said finally, his voice kind. “Let’s go look at it. Then we can bike back and I’ll take you to lunch at Abigail’s Café. It used to be a house of ill repute, then a saloon, then a gas station. Now it’s a café, and they serve soup and sandwiches. I know you love soup.”

“Did you not hear me, Jace?”

He leaned in close, inches from my face. I wanted to cup his head with my hands and kiss him until we both dropped into that familiar, out-of-control passion. He smelled like pine and the woods and man and musk. I liked his razor stubble and knew how it would feel. My gaze dropped to those lips that were truly creative in terms of turning me to mush, to say nothing of what those talented hands had done to me each and every time we’d gotten naked.

“I heard every word. So, here are my words to you. I don’t want you to go to Boston. I don’t want you to go to Houston or to Seattle. I want you to stay here. I want you to reach up and kiss me.”

“I’m not going to reach up and kiss you.” Oh, but I wanted to.

He studied me, and I raised my eyebrows in challenge. He was a strong-willed man, and I was a strong-willed woman. Those characteristics sometimes clashed.

“Okay, Allie. We have no choice but to base our relationship on our mutual lust and attraction and go from there.”

“You don’t get it. There’s no going
from there
.” But that sounded delicious.

He grinned. “Then I’ll take the mutual lust and attraction part.”

He leaned in, looped an arm around my waist, tilted his head so our bike helmets didn’t smack together, and kissed me. I automatically closed my eyes and savored that kiss. He pulled away after long, yummy seconds, but only by an inch.

“Kiss me, Allie,” he murmured. “One kiss.”

I tingled up one side and down the other. My body heat notched up a hundred degrees. I could not resist. I put my hand on his shoulder, drawing him closer, and he kissed me again, and again, and again, both arms around me, holding me as close as he could with our bikes between us.

When I was good and steamed up, almost panting, totally not thinking anymore, and sunk way down deep in that erotic passion he engendered in me, he pulled away, smiled at me in a friendly and sexy way, and climbed on his bike.

He put out his hand to pull me along.

I swore again that he was trouble in the first degree and that this would lead to nothing but searing heartache for me, and him, but I put out my hand, he grabbed it, I climbed on my bike, and we pedaled up the hill to see a stunning view of Mt. Hood. We held hands halfway up.

At the top, we stood and stared at each other. He smiled at me again, our legs touching, and I could feel his happiness: his happiness that we were together, that I’d kissed him, that I’d agreed to bike with him.

I felt him
, as I always had. I felt his friendship and kindness, his deep attraction to me, his sadness that I kept scrambling away from him.

In my head—not out loud—at the top of that hill, the serenity of the sweet countryside all around, I heard the words I’d said thousands of times before.
I love you, Jace. I love you, I love you. I will always love you.

He kissed me again, hugging me close, and I kissed him back, sinking right on in.