Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [92]
“Guess what?” Susan crowed, putting the phone into the cradle.
“They hated you in Peoria.” He kept his face straight.
“The Times had a man here last night, happened to be on vacation.” Steve heard in her voice there was only one Times and that it was in New York. “He phoned in a review of my new work that Charlie says will net me a recording contract.”
As the 737 taxied for takeoff in Anchorage, he looked at the barren earth beside the runway and thought how impossibly rich his life was.
Steve realized that although Clare studied him with steady eyes, tears ran down her cheeks.
They sat opposite each other on his bed, crossed-legged like children in a reading circle, but he couldn’t read her.
He’d told her about screaming metal and fire. How he did not remember Susan and Christa’s funeral because he had attended in a wheelchair, doped to the gills. He’d been lucky, they told him, that he’d taken the impact there and not broken his neck.
How many times in those early days had he wished he had?
“After it happened, I was stationed at Park Service Headquarters,” he said. “I’d drive to work on the George Washington Parkway. Planes were always taking off and landing at National, flying low over the Potomac.”
“How did you come to Yellowstone?”
“Everyone knew I was having a rough time.” He swallowed. “My boss thought that if I had a fresh start someplace I could get back into research . . .” He looked at her squarely. “It was a kindness. And a move to get a problem drinker off their hands.”
She nodded. “Do you miss the booze? Crave it?”
“Some days are better than others.”
He didn’t tell her that sometimes he thought he would die for a drink. What had kept him going so far was waking each morning with a clear head and a load of unfamiliar energy. It was then that he realized he wasn’t getting old like he’d thought.
“Has there been anyone else?” Clare picked at a loose thread on his bedspread.
“No.” Steve eased back and propped himself on an elbow. He hadn’t felt this comfortable with somebody in years. “Living in Mammoth makes it tough. Few single women winter in and the summer staff are transients.” He felt her cool appraisal of his excuses. “And, of course, what you said. I’m shy of taking a risk again.”
He focused on Clare. “And you?”
“Since my divorce I’ve just tried getting Devon grown up. That hasn’t worked so well either.”
They kept talking, words tumbling over each other. He shared confidences he would not have imagined telling anyone, a substitute for what he wanted . . . to take Clare in his arms.
How many times on Mount Washburn had he caught himself spinning a scenario like this? Wondering how they might end up alone. Now he sat not three feet from her on his bed, for God’s sake.
What stopped him was Susan’s loving gaze from the nightstand.
The phone beside the photo rang, the sound jarring. Steve jumped. Rolling over and reaching for the receiver, he groused, “Yeah?” The bedside clock said two-fifteen.
“Is Clare there?” a male voice inquired.
Wordlessly, Steve handed her the receiver and walked out of his room.
“You said you needed to get to Jackson Hole Airport tomorrow to pick up your daughter,” Deering said. “Sorry, I mean today.”
Clare jumped to her feet beside Steve’s bed. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“Lucky guess?”
While she considered hanging up, he said, “How are you getting down south tomorrow?”
“With Steve’s truck burned, he’ll requisition another, or I’ll hitch a ride with someone from the fire cache here at Mammoth. Get my car at Old Faithful.”
“The south entrance is going to be closed all day,” Deering urged.
That meant going over through Idaho, a hundred miles out of the way.
“Come on. If Steve is going to drive you, I’m helping him out. It would be an all day job.”
She didn’t care to listen to Deering pretend to be nice to Steve, but what she absolutely did not want to be was late picking up her daughter. Devon must be feeling rejected by Jay’s taking off to Greece with Elyssa.
Clare decided. “Her plane gets in at two.