Chapter 11
Amanda balanced on a knife’s edge. She trembled with the terrible chances she took. Her heart thundered in her ears, and her throat burned with the deception she practiced. Even so, she kept her voice calm and quiet. She faced the raw torment in Jake’s eyes and smiled. She sat still before him when what she wanted to do was curl into herself, protect herself from the disillusionment that bubbled free in Jake.
“That’s what I thought,” was all he said before he turned away again.
Hold me, she wanted to beg. Come to me, wrap me in your arms and let me take away that pain, that loneliness, that terrible distrust. Let it be like it was last night, before you thought to question what your instincts were telling you.
“You sure like to draw your own conclusions,” she mused, gaze on his taut, straight back. Knowing just how heavy the burden was that he carried. “What I was thinking was that I’d like to combine the two.” Turn around, Jake. Face me and let me close. Don’t make me taunt and torment this out of you. “I’ve been on the road too long, Jake. I want to go home.”
He turned then, but his judgment was still in his eyes, and it was harsh. “Then go home.”
She did her best to smile, but knew she faltered. “Not West Virginia,” she amended. “West Virginia really isn’t home, anymore. People treat me like a specimen there.” She laughed, a short, bitter sound. “Heck, they treat me like a specimen everywhere. I’ve been bouncing from city to city, trying to find one place to belong, and I think I’ve found it.”
He clenched that mug before him as if he were thinking of throwing it. His jaw was like steel, his eyes dark. “You belong here?”
She shrugged, and her shoulders shrieked with the strain. “I came here to write, Jake, that was all. And then, day after day up in that cabin, I realized that I’d rediscovered something precious. Something I hadn’t even known I’d lost. The silence, the harsh majesty of the mountains. The simplicity of life. Now, I don’t think I can leave again.”
“Then what was that about combining lives?”
Smiling, she uncurled her legs and climbed to her feet, her hands holding the edges of her robe together, her fingers taut against the soft fabric. Still she didn’t back down. “I like to travel, Jake. There’s so much out there beyond the Rockies. So many people to meet, so many beautiful cities and countries. I’d like to spend some time in Scotland, wander around the fjords of Norway, take a sailing ship through the Caribbean. I’d like to study new folklores in countries I haven’t visited before.” She let her smile grow wistful with the yearning she knew had crept into her voice. “And then I’d like to come home,” she said. “Here.”
He reacted as if she’d flayed him, his face frozen and taut with the pictures she’d painted. With the temptations she’d scattered before him. She knew now that those magazines hadn’t been an aberration. Closed away, year after year, all alone, Jake had held those pictures in his hands and yearned for something he’d thought he couldn’t have.
“Here where?” he retorted. “Wyoming? The Rockies? Lost Ridge?”
Amanda gathered her courage. “The Diamond K.”
Their war was fought for a minute in silence, her intent green eyes battling his tormented blue. The fire crackled and hissed. The wind moaned low outside. Shadows collected and shuddered along Jake’s features, deepening his distress. Punctuating his pain. Amanda didn’t think she could stand any more.
“You decided that, did you?” he challenged, dead still, his voice as raw as a winter wind.
Slowly Amanda shook her head, her gaze never leaving his, her hands trembling. “I hoped it.”
“And I was just supposed to wait here while you wandered around?”
“No.” She took a breath, knowing how close she was, how perilously she balanced on the brink of disaster. “I wanted you to come with me.”
His laughter was short and sharp, a bark of disbelief. “Just when am I supposed to do that?” he demanded. “Haven’t you been around to see the work that goes into this place?”
“Yes. But I know, too, that you’ve spent every waking minute since your twelfth birthday providing for everybody else in your family. Now they’re all out in the world, successful and independent because of what you gave them. And you’re still here working every waking minute. I think it’s time you did something for Jake Kendall.”
That was what broke him. So quickly that Amanda couldn’t even brace herself, Jake hurled the mug against the wall. The ceramic exploded, painting the wall in a ragged coffee stain. He stood rigid and unyielding before her, the frustration on his features turning them to stone.
“Well, I guess you haven’t heard, lady,” he snarled, trying to frighten her. Failing. “That’s just not the way it’s done here. It wasn’t when my grandfather lived, or my father, or me. We’re stuck here, tied to this place and this land and everything that it involves. I don’t travel, and I don’t learn about somebody else’s culture, because it’s all I can do sometimes to keep my head above water here. And this is the real world, not some fairy tale spun by a bored teacher who wants to reinvent the world just for her benefit. Live a real life, Amanda, and then come tell me how to run mine.”
Amanda battled tears. She dipped her head a little, trying so hard to know how to handle this. “You think I invented all that about having an outhouse and going barefoot just to sound romantic or something?” she asked.
She faced him then, her hands clenched tight against his distrust, against memories she’d only danced around for so long, against the pain of loss and the dread of separation. “Jake, I can’t think of a thing that’s romantic about an outhouse. Or being so poor that we didn’t have the money for shoes or electricity or a phone of our own. There were days when the only meal I got was the school lunch. There were nights when we all slept in the same bed just to keep warm because we’d run out of fuel.
“You want to know why I don’t go back to West Virginia? It’s because it took my family. All of it. My father and my brother and my uncles were all killed in a mining accident the day after my seventeenth birthday. I stood by a mine site for four days waiting for them to bring their bodies up. And I stood there with nobody because my mama and my Uncle Mick were already dead. I was already leaving when it happened. After that, I just didn’t turn back. So, yes, Jake, I think my life was just about as real as it gets.”
“It was different for you,” he rasped, the anguish palpable.
She nodded. “Yes,” she admitted. “It was. I was able to make my own choices then. I didn’t have the weight of three siblings depending on me. But you have the opportunity now, Jake. Don’t you think it’s worth taking? Don’t you even want to give us a chance?”
He started a little, as if struggling with warring instincts. Amanda held her breath, so close to him and yet held impossibly far away. “No,” he insisted, sounding even worse. “No. I don’t.”
“Why?”
