Faith Hope and Love (A Homespun Romance) (17 page)

Pain splintered in his chest, as the last sliver of hope fled.  "I see."

Their feet had stopped moving.  They faced each other like boxers in a ring.  The closeness of a few minutes ago might never have been.

Rachel waited a while.  When she realized Luke wasn't going to say anything she whispered, "I think I'll turn in now.  Thank you for everything." 

As she slipped away, Luke turned and strode into the darkness. 

CHAPTER 10

Gordie sat at the breakfast table, his face smeared with oatmeal, when Rachel entered the kitchen the next morning.  She had started him feeding himself and he seemed to enjoy it.

"Good morning." 

Aware of Luke leaning against the counter, mug in hand, she bent down and searched for a spot on Gordie's face that wasn't buried under oatmeal, to plop her kiss on.  He held his spoon out to her, generously offering her a taste of the cereal.

"No thanks," Rachel laughed, dodging the wavering, dripping, spoon.  "I'll get my own." 

Taking bowls out of the cabinet, she set the table in the eating nook. 

Luke's silence after the brief good morning weighed heavily in the air.  She had barely slept.  Knowing what was for the best and doing it were two entirely different things.  Rachel had tossed and turned, beset with uncertainties about going away, more terrified of staying on.  Her cogitating mind repeatedly came up with and discarded alternate plans of action.

She picked up the table mats and put them down.  The sunshine gave her something to talk about.

"Nice day isn't it?"  Anything was better than this silence.

Luke shrugged, "it's cold and windy outside."

End of a great
conversation.  Aimlessly she opened a drawer and shut it.

The clatter as the bowl fell made her jump.  Rachel turned to Gordie in time to see his face crumple.  Leaning over in his high chair he looked at the upended bowl of cereal on the floor.  His face scrunched up, a sure sign tears were not far away.  The noise had obviously startled him.  Before either of them could say a word, he looked up and held his hands out to Rachel, "Mama!"

Rachel stood rooted to the spot.  Mama!  Her brain absorbed the word, vibrated with its echoes.  He must have picked up the word from David and Angela.  They called Theresa that.  But why apply it to her?

`Oh, Gordie,' she thought, `not you too.'

Dimly she heard Luke say, "That's all right Gordie," as loud wails split the air.  Picking him up he patted his nephew's back and shushed him.  "Sit down, Rae."

She looked from Gordie's face to Luke's for the first time that morning.  His gaze rested on her like the lash of silk.  Warm,
understanding
,
comforting.  Suddenly it was all too much.  Rachel turned and ran out of the house.

"Good morning." 

Luke turned to see Theresa entering the kitchen.  Putting Gordie back in his high chair he said, "Give him some more cereal will you please, Theresa?"

"Certainly."

Luke knew where he would find her.  His feet carried him to the little glade she walked to each day.  It had been his mother's favorite spot as well and he had seen Rae walk up here from his study window. 

Rae was lying face down on the cold ground weeping as if her heart was breaking.  Poor little doe.  He had seen the expression on her face when Gordie had sprung his surprise.  The gamut of emotions warring there had confirmed what he suspected.  She was terrified that the stone fortress she had constructed around her emotions was disintegrating. 

He lifted her effortlessly, settled her so her head rested against his shoulder and simply held her.  It took a while for her crying to dwindle to great big sobs that racked her body from time to time.

It all bubbled over as he soothed her.  "I'm...not any good...at loving. 
I...didn't want G...Gordie to get attached to me.  I...n...never meant to hurt anyone."

"You haven't," he rubbed her back gently.  "Love is not something that can be doled out on request.  It's either there or it isn't."

"I don't want Gordie to be hurt when I leave."

"Then, stay."

"I c...can't.  Don't you see that?  I'm n...not like Chris.  I'm not any good at personal relations."

A cannon ball of anger formed low in Luke's stomach.  What kind of human monster had made her feel like this?

"What makes you think so?"

"My mother couldn't stand me.  That's why she left us.  My father had no time for me after she went away.  I tried so hard to get him to like me but he
...he...never cared.  He said it was all be...because of me."

Luke's face set in harsh lines.  "Your father didn't know what he was talking about, Rachel," he said sternly.  "He was blaming you for his own inadequacies." 

He could tell she was calming down from the way her breathing evened out and he continued, his hand absently caressing her head.  "Everyone here thinks you're wonderful.  Hannah says you're the answer to her prayers.  Juan and Theresa sing your praises all the time.  Even David says you're cool because you’re learning to play his video games.  Jason can't take his eyes off you and Mojo works late just to have the time to go riding with you.  Dr. Smith tells me Tom Atwell can't stop praising you either.  He showed me your file.  One remark of Dr. Atwell's on a report stuck in my mind.  It read:  a wonderful caring human being with an endless capacity for giving.  All these people can't be wrong Rae."

After a while, she raised a red, blotchy face to his and sniffed, "You talked to Dr. Smith about me?
"

Luke nodded and gently brushed a wisp of hair off her warm forehead.  He let his fingers trail down the side of Rachel's face, aching with the restraint he had placed on himself.  She was at her most vulnerable now.  To comfort her in the way he wanted to would be selfish.  "Yes.  When I called to tell him you weren't well."

Luke held her lightly turning his head so his lips rested against her temple.  "I love you, Rae."

The words tipped into a pool of silence.  The widening circles of stillness told Luke it would take more than words to coax her out of the dark woods of self torture once and for all.

In the distance a horse whinnied.  The bit of sky he could glimpse was framed with evergreens and cloudless.  Luke thought back to the filly Rob had bought last year.  Ill-treated by her previous owner, Golden Girl was in an awful condition when she had arrived at the Diamond Bar.  She wouldn't let anyone near her.  Rob had won her over not by chasing her, or coaxing her with tidbits, but just by going into her paddock daily and standing there, talking to her in a monotone, and waiting.  She had come to him in a week.

Rachel needed time and patience.  He was man enough to give her both, no matter what it cost him. 

"I...I didn't mean to get your shirt wet."  Her fingertips on his shirt front heated his body to fire, threatening to incinerate his recent resolutions.

"It doesn't matter.  Feeling better?
"

This time he let her pull away, sit up.  It was safer for both of them.

"Yes.  Thank you."

Her back was to him and he could sense her panic as she searched for her familiar barricade.  It must be hard to find nothing there.

"Don't worry too much Rae.  Things have a way of sorting themselves out."

There was no answer.  He didn't expect one.  Standing up Luke held a hand out to her.  She took it, coming up to within an inch of him.  His glance slid from her eyes to her lips.  Slightly swollen from her bout of tears, they didn't help his will power.  For a moment he was tempted to thrust logic aside and make love to her.  But with her
, he knew if he wanted it all, passion alone would never work.  Rae's mind had to acknowledge and accept her feelings, for the success of their future. 

Swallowing hard Luke flung an arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side, "Let's go home." 

Mama.  At odd moments during the day Rachel found herself saying the word under her breath.  What a wonderful word.  If only, she thought closing her eyes to shut out the piercing sweetness of hope, if only she could really claim the title.  Gordie's mama.  Luke's wife.  A date in January had been set she knew, for his official adoption of Gordie.  By then she would be on the other side of the world.  Back where she felt safe.  Where nothing or no one would ever again touch her heart. 

This time, Rachel knew, she would never return.

In the days that followed, she wrapped her presents, helped Hannah with some extra baking and spent all her spare time with Gordie.  She called Dr. Kenton's office and went down to Santa Barbara with Jason on Friday for her shots.  Afterwards Rachel opened a new bank account and transferred all her money into it.  She would email Luke the details.  Verbal explanations were redundant.

Luke came out of his office at night to find only two places set at the kitchen table.  Raising an eyebrow he looked at Hannah.  Was Bud picking her up for another shopping spree?

Hannah banged a dish of boiled carrots on the table serving him a much too generous helping.  "Rachel doesn't want any dinner.  She's running a fever."

Luke's brows snapped together, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I didn't know till half an hour ago," the clipped words warned he was in for a lifetime of boiled carrots.  Served at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  "Thought she was wrapping presents in her room but found her in bed with a temperature of a hundred and two."

He was out of the room before she had finished talking.  With a cursory tap on the door he entered Rachel's room.  She was propped up in bed, looking very tired.

"What's wrong, Rae?"  The sight of her flushed face knotted his stomach and the hand he put against her cheek trembled slightly.

"It's nothing," her eyes fever bright held a shot of some other emotion as she looked at him.  "I always have this reaction to the typhoid shot."

"Ty....” it took a whole moment to get air back into his lungs.  So, she was going ahead with her plans.  Their talk hadn't changed a thing.  "When did you have the shot?"

"This afternoon.  Jason was going in for supplies and he gave me a ride to Dr. Kenton's."

"I see."  Jason would do well to consult his astrologer about his future.

He looked at Rachel and his anger vanished.  Her saucer like eyes and arms wrapped around her body sent their own message.  Stubborn little thing.  Their talk in the grove might never have been.

"Why do you have the pillow under your arm?"

"The cholera shot.  My arm always swells a bit," she said apologetically.

Damn.  How many needles had they stuck in her?

"Let me see."  The gentleness of his hands as he looked at the pear like swelling on her arm, Rachel noticed, was at odds with the set of his mouth.  His fingers traced the area lightly, sending tremors of delight through her body.  "How many shots did you have?"

"Only two.  Next week I go back for the hepatitis shot and then I'm all set."

"I see."  He leaned forward to check her forehead but it was cold and slightly clammy.  She must have taken something for the fever. 

He swung away, jammed both hands into his pockets and stared out the window.

"Luke?"

Rachel's heart was going like a trip hammer.  It would be better if he shouted, said something.  The silence was like a slap.

He turned to face her.  "So, you've decided to leave on the thirty first as planned?"

"It's what I have to do."

Anger surged against the dam of
self-control.  Fear he had lost her flicked a switch that lifted the gates, and words raged through.  "I would never have taken you for a coward Rae, but that's what you are, aren't you?  You aren't going to face the truth till it's too late.  Maybe you never will.  When are you going to realize that life doesn't come with any guarantees?  If it did, Chris and Rob would still be here today, there would be no pain, no suffering, no hunger in the entire world." 

Anger drained out and a searing pain took
its place.  The pain of losing her.  The pain of an empty future.  Crossing over to the bed, Luke sat on the edge and placed a hand on either side of Rachel's head, not touching her.  He pinned her gaze with his own.  "Life only gives us opportunities, Rae.  It is up to us to make things work.  When you were a child, you couldn't do much about what happened to you."  Of its own volition one hand came up and brushed the wisps of hair off her forehead.  "But now you're an adult.  You have the power to change things.  Are you ever going to stop running long enough to give yourself a chance to use that power?"

The door closing behind Luke was like a curtain coming down.  The play was over. 

Only no one applauded.

CHAPTER
11

Christmas was a blur of visitors, Hannah's special dinner, concentrating on keeping her mind and eyes off Luke. 

Rachel had never received so many presents in her entire life.  The fact that the people who gave them to her wrapped genuine affection with their gifts touched her deeply.

Luke handed her a slim box from under the tree Christmas morning, saying, "From Gordie and me.  Wear it in good health."  The Gucci watch with its single diamond had robbed her of speech.  He had thanked her for the picture of Gordie in the silver frame, leaving the room before she could say anything.

He had slipped back into the role of perfect host.  Polite, cool, remote. 

While there were people around it had been easy to avoid Luke, but the day after Christmas Rachel wondered how she would get through the next few days.  Her emotions were like tightly stretched violin strings...the tiniest increase of tension would be disastrous.

Deliberately
, she went into the kitchen late that morning to avoid the possibility of running into a bare chested Luke again. 

Piling the clothes she would be taking with her on the kitchen table, Rachel checked them against her list.  Ordering them through a catalog had saved time and energy.  She had everything she needed. 

Hannah's stiff back reminded her of the change in their roles.  The housekeeper had grown increasingly quiet over the past few days, and it was Rachel who filled the heavy silences with words these days.

"I have to wash them before I can pack.  The starchiness is terrible in the heat, otherwise," she was saying when Luke entered the kitchen.

His features froze as he took in the pile of white clothes.  Silently he crossed over to the stove for a cup of tea.  Hannah took the towel on her shoulder and swiped viciously at an imaginary speck on the counter.

“The carrot muffins are nice and warm,” she announced.

Rae wondered about the carrot muffins and the tone.  Everyone knew Luke liked blueberry muffins best.

Luke filled his cup, turned to rest against the counter, "I've got some business in Sacramento that I've been putting off for a while."  His gaze rested on a spot on the window as he spoke to the room at large.  "I can't do that any longer.  Think I might have to leave tomorrow."

"How long will you be away?"  Hannah didn't seem the least bit surprised at the news.

Rachel snipped at the price tags on her clothes, head bowed, waiting for Luke's answer, heart in mouth.

"I'll be back late New Year's Eve."  After she had left.  "Do you think Betty and Bud would like to come up for a visit till after New Years?"

"They'd be delighted," Hannah said without an ounce of pleasure in her own voice. 

"Great.  I'll make the arrangements then."  He was gone leaving behind a silence that pressed down heavily on Rachel.  Picking up her clothes she took them into the large laundry room and flung them into the washer. 

It was best this way, she told herself fiercely, as she angrily swiped at the treacherous tears.  Luke had taken matters into his own hand, accepted her stubbornness and decided to leave the field clear for her departure.  He was making it easy for both of them.

The relief she ought to feel was conspicuous by its absence.

She was in the family room trying to concentrate on Agatha Christie's,
'Death on the Nile', at ten that night, when she heard the study door open and shut.

"I'm leaving at four in the morning, so I'll wish you goodbye now." 

She stood up on feet that didn't seem to be there.  She kept her tone steady.  "Goodbye Luke.  Thanks for everything."

She stared at the second button of his shirt. 

"Sure."  He could have been talking to anyone.  "Keep in touch.  We'd like to know how you're getting on." She might have been going to L.A., instead of halfway around the world.  "I'll send you pictures of Gordie so you can keep track of how he grows."

He held his hand out, shook hers briefly, dropped it, put a hand on her shoulder.

This is it, thought Rachel, this is the last kiss.  A minute later she was standing alone.  All she'd felt was a friendly squeeze of her shoulder as if Luke were some old uncle wishing her goodbye.

The day of her departure dawned clear and bright.  Rachel woke oddly grumpy.  Her eyes looked back at her from the bathroom mirror, ringed with dark circles.  "If this," she told herself waspishly, "is what getting your own way does to you, I hope you don't get it too often." 

Making a face at her reflection she reached for a washcloth.  She would shower just before she left.

She had taken over the morning hour with Gordie since Luke's departure.  He was doing well with a feeding cup, but still liked his bottle first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

"I love you, Gordie."  She rested her cheek against the soft chubbiness of his, willed her message imprinted in his subconscious.  "I always will."  He grabbed the first button of her shirt and tried to get it off.

"Good morning."  The brusque tone and the abrupt way Hannah turned to the stove didn't fool Rachel.  The housekeeper was hurting as much as she was.

"Hi!'  The cheerful facade had to be kept up for a few more hours.  "Can I help with breakfast?"

"No."  Hannah opened cupboards, slammed them shut, looking for things she already had on the counter.  "Betty and Bud left early this morning for Hearst castle.  Asked me to say goodbye for them."

Rachel eyed the stiff back but didn't say anything.  She was hanging on to her own self-control by a thread.  It wouldn't stand the strain of too many words.  Even with Betty and Bud there, the last few days hadn't been easy.  Yesterday Jason had driven her down to the farm for one last look around.  The people who knew her had come up to wish her well and the more Rachel kept telling everyone she had to go back, the less convinced she herself became of it. 

"Breakfast will be ready soon," Hannah said gruffly over her shoulder.

"I'll get Gordie dressed then."

In his room Rachel played "Peek a boo," with him and read to him.  W
hen Hannah called that breakfast was ready, she picked Gordie up and went toward the kitchen, holding him close to her, breathing deeply of his baby smell, storing the feel of him for when she would be alone.

Ra
chel's favorite blueberry pancakes were on the table.  At the sight of them her composure almost gave way.  She managed one by washing it down with large gulps of water.  As soon as Theresa arrived, Rachel excused herself from the table, and carried her plate and glass to the sink. 

Plucking her jacket off its hook by the side door she let herself out without saying a word to anyone.  The cold air was a challenge she welcomed as she walked briskly up the hill.  The grass held traces of morning dew that wet the bottom of her jeans but she didn't notice it.  When she reached her favorite spot, Rachel sank on the ground, her back against the log.  A quick check of her watch showed it was only ten.  She had two hours left before Jason arrived to drive her to Los Angeles.  Juan had informed her yesterday of the arrangements Luke had made for her departure.

Luke.  Rachel plucked a blade of grass.  He had called every day and talked to Hannah at length.  The telephone was held to Gordie's ear as well so he could hear Luke's voice.  He hadn't asked to speak to her.

Hannah always said, `Luke says hello,' at the end of the call, but Rachel really wasn't sure if the housekeeper made that up just to be polite.

"Rachel."

She spun to her feet startled.  Mojo stood before her.  She hadn't heard him come up.

"Mojo.  How are you?"  She would miss him.  There was something about the feelings he harbored that she understood without it being put into words.  They were both different.  Both aware of it. 

"Are you all set to leave?"

"Yes."  Rachel turned away so he wouldn't see the pain in her eyes.

"Sabrina's going to miss you."

Rachel swallowed hard.  Each link she severed caused a part of her heart to crumble.  The milk white mare was very special.

"This is for you."

She turned and took the crumpled ball of tissue he held out to her.  Inside was a delicate necklace in pure silver, turquoise chips enhancing its beauty.

"Thank you."  She couldn't protest what it had cost him.  Mojo wasn't giving her a gift.  He was giving her a bit of himself. 

Rachel turned away as the tears poured down her face.  By leaving, she was robbing Mojo of a friend he needed badly.  Those who knew loneliness returned to it when things went wrong.

"Do you remember the first day, when you talked to me?"  The measured tones held no emotion.

"Yes."  Rachel swiped at her tears with the back of her hand.  If talking about it helped him, she wouldn't grudge Mojo the raw ache of relived memories.

"You said I was a coward."

"Only to make you go to the doctor."

"You're the real coward, aren't you?"

Turning Rachel faced him, "What do you mean?"  She had told him she had to go back.  How much more had he guessed?

"I was scared the medicine would kill me," his eyes held sadness more than anger.  And the truth.  "You're scared of trusting your feelings."

He was gone before she could ask him when he had gotten a degree in psychology.

Everything faded before truth.  Excuses, explanations, justifications.  Sitting down on the log seat Rachel picked up a pine needle and twirled  it.

She thought back to the first day in court, the great tension that had been part of her.  When Luke had brought her here she had been a bundle of nerves incapable of functioning on a personal level.  She had come a long way since that day. 

Her insecurities had been bandaged in acceptance, her
self-esteem raised sky high.  Love had eased her pain, cleared the mists of confusion that surrounded her past.  She had been given time to think, time to search herself for the truth about the past. 

Bit by bit
, she had remembered scenes with her mother in the last week.  They had floated to her out of the dim, distant past, free to reach her now that the barrier erected by her childish trauma was no more.  Laughing with her, listening to the sound of the ocean in a sea shell, having her hair brushed, being tucked into bed with a goodnight kiss.  One fact had emerged crystal clear.  Her mother had loved her.  Whatever had driven her away had nothing to do with that love.  Rachel knew she would never again torture herself with the thought that she had caused her parent's break up.

Luke had given her that.

Looking back now, she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't loved Luke, but the day of the picnic when he had kissed her awake, she had been sure.  Her capacity for loving had never been in any doubt.

Luke had told her she would have to stop running one day.  Mojo's words had stopped her long enough to take one long look at the truth.  She wanted to face it now, here, relive every incident and then bury it all here in the spot where she was sure a part of her would always remain. 

She had hope.  Deep inside her Rachel knew she had never been short of that precious commodity.  Till her father died she had hoped for some sign that he cared for her.  It had been hope that had made her take Luke to court.  The hope that she would have someone of her own to love.  Someone who would love her back.

Love had come to her unexpectedly, not only from the child, but from the man as well.  And she had refused it.

Rachel wondered if emotional cowardice wasn't the worst kind there was.  Luke's words spun in her head like clay on a potter's wheel.  Answers from her heart shaped the clay.

Stop running and face your fears. 

She had always said she didn't want to hurt Luke and Gordie but that wasn't true.  What she really wanted was to protect herself from being hurt. 

When the time comes I hope you'll deal yourself a good hand.

She had chosen not to play at all.  Opting for the easiest way out she had convinced herself love and hope just weren't enough.  Commitment took courage.

Life doesn't come with any guarantees...all it gives us is opportunities. 

She had to believe she would use those opportunities in the right way. 

The wheel stopped spinning.  She was left with one simple beautiful fact.

What she really needed, now, was faith.  In herself, in Luke, in their love.  Faith that she and Luke would do their best to make their marriage work...faith that it would. 

It was all anyone ever had.

"Faith."  Rachel savored the word even as she thought about it. 

It was the last vital ingredient her recipe for happiness had lacked.  Until now.

"Hannah."  Both women turned startled faces to her as she whirled into the kitchen, her hair threaded with a pine needle, her eyes over large in her flushed face.

"Is something wrong?"  Hannah wasn't really alarmed.  Rachel's face was glowing as if lit from within.  Hannah had no problem identifying love when she saw it.