Chapter 10
Amanda really wasn’t surprised that Jake was gone when she woke. Even so, she felt the sting of emptiness, the first flush of fear. How would Jake view what had happened last night? Would he hold the memory as precious as Amanda did? Would he realize that what they had shared had been much more than just chemistry and hormones?
Jake had betrayed himself. He’d shown Amanda how much he needed her, how much he cared for her. Jake, a man of few words, had shown by his actions what Amanda had come to mean to him.
And Amanda, who lived with words every day of her life, had been shaken to silence by what had lain unidentified inside her. Amanda, who had spent years trying to organize her existence into some kind of meaning, hadn’t had a clue as to what she’d been about. She’d always known she’d had commitment, perseverance, inquisitiveness. She hadn’t known, though, that bubbling at the core of her had been such a trenchant passion. Such life that it could burst over her like fireworks. Like dawn on a cold winter’s morning, crystalline and pure with the colors of heaven.
She hadn’t known that she hadn’t understood before quite what it was to fall in love. Because although she’d once been engaged, it hadn’t been until last night that she’d really understood. Falling in love wasn’t reason and sense, it was splintering need, it was aching uncertainty and gnawing ambivalence. It was knowing that the problems you faced might be more than you could solve, no matter how much you loved someone. It was facing those problems, anyway, and hurting all the more for it.
Amanda quickly bathed in cold water and dressed alone. She brewed up a pot of coffee in a cold kitchen, knowing that Jake hadn’t eaten after all before going down to the horses, and stared out the window into the shimmer of yet more blowing snowfall, wishing with all her heart that she knew what to do next.
The phone rang while she was looking through the office.
“Oh, good, the lines aren’t down, after all.”
Amanda sank into a chair by Betty’s desk. “Just the electricity. How are things in Boston, Lee?”
“Boston’s Boston,” the girl retorted. “How’s the ranch? Why didn’t you tell me that Jake had broken his ribs? Is he all right? How did you get back from the cabin? I’m so glad you’re okay. Is Jake?”
Amanda didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh. “He’s fine,” she assured the girl. “Just a little cranky and sore. How’d you find out?”
“When I couldn’t get anybody at the house yesterday, I called Maria. Was Doc McPherson by?”
“He stitched up a cut on his head and prescribed some medicine.”
“Which Jake didn’t take.”
“You’ve been through this before.”
Lee’s giggle was bright and rueful. “Poor Betty. Did she have to stay with him?”
“No, she didn’t. I did. Your brother almost landed out in the snow.”
There was a telling pause.“Youstayed with him? All night?”
Amanda scowled, still scouting the room. “It wasn’t as interesting as it sounds. I yelled and he snarled. Betty showed up just in time to keep one of us from getting shot.”
There were piles of forms on the neat desk, bills of sale, horse breed registry applications, stud books with notes scribbled in margins and checkbooks for utilities, taxes and other outsiders who didn’t trust a man’s word or his cash. All in the same handwriting.
“No, you don’t understand,” Lee protested. “I mean that Jake... well, I mean, I really love my brother and all, but...”
“It would have been easier if somebody had warned me,” Amanda agreed.
She was rewarded with another giggle.
Signatures. There they were, on the bills of sale. Just what she’d suspected. It gathered in her chest like weights, the collecting of inevitability. The approach of decision and action.
“Amanda?”
Amanda set the stacks down and gave her attention to Jake’s sister. “I’m sorry. I’m a little tired. Your brother came out on horseback to the cabin to get me yesterday. It was a long day.”
“On horseback?” Lee demanded. “How romantic. How scary.”
“How cold.”
“Sorry about that. I tried to call, but nobody was home. I forgot about the heater.”
“Uh-huh. Then Jake threw my computer in the snow because he decided it was unwieldy on horseback, so I’m stuck here without any company—except for the OK Corral—and nothing newer to read than your old schoolbooks.”
