Page 34 of Rainwater
Last night was a wonderful dream that had to end. She had to accept that.
“One ticket to—” She turned to Corey, who stood with his saddlebags hanging over his shoulder. He looked strained and tired. She wondered if his head was hurting. Damn, why should she care? Why should she care for a man who had protected her, kissed her with so much emotion and need, touched her with such tenderness that it brought tears to her eyes? A man who looked as if he didn’t have a friend in the world.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked.
He shrugged and her chest ached with that little gesture. It said he had nowhere to go and that he didn’t care.
“What’s the end of the line?” Jennifer asked, turning back to the teller.
The woman glared at Corey and said in a waspish voice, “San Antonio, mister. You want to go?”
Jennifer saw Corey’s jaw clench as he struggled for control. “Yeah, that’s fine. As long as it’s far away from here.”
Her heart twisted with fresh pain and she turned away. Ellie stood next to her, solemnly waiting for her mother to buy the ticket. At Corey’s words, she saw Ellie flinch and swallow convulsively.
“San Antonio. One ticket, please,” Jennifer asked.
The woman quoted her the price, and Jennifer paid for the ticket. She turned from the counter and walked the few paces to where Corey stood.
“I’ll send you the money for the ticket when I get where I’m going and get a job, okay?”
“No.”
“Jennifer, I’m not going to argue with you about this again.”
“Then don’t. Just take it and go. You don’t owe me a thing.”
He was about to protest again, but she pleaded, “Please, Corey, let me do this. Ioweyou. This doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of the motorcycle.Take it!”
“All right, Jennifer,” he said with resignation. His intention was to send her the money anyway. She could do whatever she wanted with it.
He refused to look directly at her. It was too painful. She needed him. Her eyes spoke it in volumes. The need for a foreman, the need for him to stay, the need forhim.
Apprehension was growing inside of him at the thought of leaving Jennifer and Ellie here with those vicious cowboys. There was the bargain with Jay, yet how could he trust the man? How could he leave her? God, what kind of a man was he?
A coward.
Maybe that was what he was running from. He didn’t like feeling this way. His whole world had been shattered. The goring, the deaths and for the first time, he was feeling…what?Whole? As if for just a little while, he was getting some of himself back. Or was he losing himself to her? Her and Ellie.
She reached up and lightly touched his cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re going to send me the money anyway, aren’t you?”
He shrugged and looked away, her soft touch almost breaking him.
“Maybe,” she said, whisper-soft, “you’ll deliver it in person.” Very deliberately, she got up on tiptoe and softly kissed his mouth. He could taste her regret.
Then she was gone, brushing past him. Ellie turned around and smiled. He saw in her expression a child who knew about abandonment. He saw her cover up her pain and smile, once again, to spare his feelings. It was as if the child recognized the lost little boy in him who didn’t know where to turn or who to trust. The tears flooded his eyes and blurred the vision of her sweet smile.
Then she broke away from her mother and hugged him around the waist with tight affection. “Bye, Corey, and good luck. I’ll miss you.” Then she was gone out the door, clasping her mother’s hand.
Her gesture almost broke him in half. It almost sent him to his knees. But with years of hard control, he fought that weakness and endured. As he did when he’d been a child. Happiness was always followed by pain. A sick feeling of apprehension stirred inside him as he watched them cross the street and go into the diner. And with the apprehension came the shame. He clenched his fist, crushing the ticket, and with a swift jab, he hit the wall. The pain of split knuckles barely registered.
He cared about her.Them. But it didn’t change a damn thing. He was heartsick with the knowledge. Despair wrapped around him.To hell with it all, he silently screamed. He was leavingbecause he had no choice. All those years he’d avoided it, ducked it, hid and ran from it, but now, in a few short days, he’d succumbed to the delicious feel of family, home, a normal life. God, a sweet normal life.
Yet, the fear was always there. It was there now torturing him, tormenting him with the sureness of what would happen if he ever let himself take what he wanted. If the black rage lurked inside him, he didn’t’ want to discover it with Jennifer and make all his nightmares into reality. That fear, dark and terrifying, was what made him push the tears away—and let him turn his back on a woman who needed his help and a little girl who obviously worshiped the ground he walked on.
He went outside and sat down on the bench to wait for the bus, ignoring the ache in his heart and the clenching in his gut. The printed time on the ticket was ten forty-five and it was ten-forty now. He looked across the street and watched Jennifer and Ellie sit down in a booth near the window. Ellie waved, but Jennifer refused to look.
He was leaving.
