Chapter 13
Jake had nowhere to run. Still, he ran. He climbed off the couch, leaving Amanda silent and alone, and walked to the kitchen and began flipping on the lights and cleaning up the dishes.
It was a funny thing. A long time ago, back when he’d still dreamed about things like that, he’d dreamed that someone would come along and discover what he’d been hiding, would magically know somehow that he couldn’t read. They would come to him and tell him, and suddenly it would be all better. He wouldn’t be alone anymore. He wouldn’t be the only one who knew that he couldn’t read a dinner menu or a street sign or even the silly notes his little sisters wrote to him on the bathroom mirror in soap. And it wouldn’t hurt so much anymore.
How wrong he’d been. It didn’t hurt as much. It hurt more. It hurt so much he didn’t think he could breathe past it. He didn’t think he’d be able to get to sleep tonight or wake up in the morning or face any of the people he’d see.
He’d been wrong. He was more alone now than he’d ever been in his life.
“Jake, don’t do this,” Amanda whispered behind him. “Please.”
Jake didn’t answer. He collected the used dishes from the table, the delicious aromas taunting him, and carried them to the sink to get rid of them. To purge himself of them, of her, of the soft pain in her voice when she’d faced him.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Jake dropped the dishes in the sink. He couldn’t face her again, couldn’t seek those gentle green eyes for his peace. Because, now, all he’d find there was pity.
He supposed he heard the clicking of her heels behind him. He didn’t pay attention. Gathering up another load with hands that shook like he had the ague, he toppled them into the sink and began to run the water.
But suddenly she was standing before him, glowing like a Madonna in the harsh kitchen light, tears coursing down her face. And that was what shattered his pride.
“Go on back,” he rasped at her, the shame dragging him down, breaking him. Of all the people in the world he hadn’t wanted to be exposed to before, it had been Amanda. And now, in her eloquent eyes, he saw why. “Go back to your ivory towers and your theories and fairy tales, little girl. I have a ranch to run.”
“Why?” she demanded, standing up to him, standing right in front of him so he couldn’t escape. “Why are you running away?”
Jake’s smile was hardly congenial. “I’m not,” he assured her. “I’m going back to where I belong. I suggest you do the same.”
He managed to turn away from her, so he could scrape the rest of the food down the sink. Pungent and delicate and delicious, tastes he’d never experienced, forbidden fruit. Just like Amanda. Exactly like Amanda.
“Just like that?” she demanded, pulling on his arm, trying to make him face her. “‘Oh, well, Amanda, there’s nothing we can do now, I can’t read and you can, and so there’s nothing more for us here?’”
He spun on her, making her flinch. “What would you like me to do, Amanda? Would you like me to ask Lee, or Gen or Zeke? My family who all have college degrees? Would you like me to tell them that I can’t even read their goddamn letters? Would you like me to head on in to Lost Ridge and ask around about where I can learn to read? There are two hundred and twenty-seven people living there, and I do business with the majority of them. I’ve built a reputation on trust and honor and the strength of my word, just like you said. I’ve managed to earn a certain amount of respect in the area, because I know what I’m doing and I’ve never, ever lied to anyone. So, how do you think those people would react if they knew I’d been lying to them all along? What do you think they’d think if they found out I couldn’t even read the bill of sale I was handing them with their horse?”
“They’re your neighbors, Jake,” she protested. “Not your enemies. Besides, who needs to know?”
“It’s a small town, Amanda. You tell me.”
He turned again, desperate to be free of her, to be alone again with the cancer that ate at him, wishing she’d never seen it and reacted.
“I can find out for you,” she offered. “Go someplace you don’t live, someplace they don’t know you—-”
“No!” he roared, his fury pushing her back. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you do something like that.”
“You didn’t believe me, then,” she said behind him. “You didn’t think I meant it when I said I’d love you no matter what.”
His hand was on the door. He was only a few steps from escaping, from running out and getting in the car and flying over the dark roads until he couldn’t see those eyes again. But her words gnawed at him. He had to know. Like picking at a sore, he wanted the worst of it.
“Just when did you find out?” he asked, and then turned again. She’d never moved, never thought to shy away from him. It shuddered through him. He didn’t know what to do anymore. He didn’t know where to go from here. “How did you know?” he demanded. “Nobody’s ever known. Nobody’s even suspected.”
Her smile was so sad that Jake damn near reached out to her. “Little things. Familiar things. I wouldn’t have guessed, either, if it hadn’t been for Uncle Mick. You remind me so much of him.”
“And I suppose you taught him to read and he lived happily ever after.”
Her eyes were huge and dark and hollow. “No,” she admitted. “He wouldn’t let me. He said it shamed him too much. He never left that little world. Never stopped looking at the pictures inNational Geographic.He died not knowing how to read the stories he’d been telling all those years.”
The truth of it speared through Jake like lightning. Sharp and devastating, impaling him on the future, on the years alone, piling up like so much dead wood until it all toppled from the weight. Closing himself further and further away, from his friends, from his family. Closing himself off forever from Amanda.
“You did this on purpose tonight, then,” he accused, gesturing to the debris in the sink. “You decided to whet my appetite a little and see if it would pay off.”
Amanda straightened before him, her slim, small body as taut as a violin string. “Yes,” she admitted. “I wanted you to know that it’s out there for you. It’s all possible, everything you’ve ever dreamed, wanted, hoped for. And I wanted you to know that I won’t give up. I’m not letting you loose until you know that.”
