His Everlasting Love: 50 Loving States, Virginia (9 page)

From the door, Sawyer watched her hang up, then deflate like a balloon. Her shoulders hunching over like they were giving out as she rested her forehead against the hallway’s white wall.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, coming all the way out into the hallway himself.

She turned with a gasp, her eyes flaring with shock…and then nothing.

She composed her face and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been taking a personal call. You fell asleep, and I thought I’d just pop into the kitchen for a glass of water. But then my sister called, and...” An angry shadow crossed over her face.

And for some reason, the look on her face filled him with the strongest sense of déjà vu he’d ever had in his entire life. He’d seen that look on her face before…

But of course he hadn’t. She hadn’t ever spoken back to him in high school, and she hadn’t spoken more than one or two truly personal sentences since she showed up at his front door.

In any case the look passed just as quickly as it came.

“…I guess I lost track of time,” she finished. “I know how unprofessional this looks, but I was going to wake you up.”

Like he gave two fucks about her being professional. He crutched up to her, planting himself right in front of her to ask, “Willa, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said with a false smile. So, so false. He could tell just as sure as he was breathing. “But it looks like we’ve run out of time again. I’ve got to go, but I’ll come earlier next Tuesday. Make up for the lost time. I’m sorry.”

He was standing between her and the arched doorway that led back into the main part of the house, and she tried to move past him. Run out again. But he didn’t make the same mistake this time.

He grabbed her by the wrist, kept her there. “If there’s something wrong, I want to help.”

The words came from his heart, but instead of giving Willa the comfort he’d intended, they seemed to send her right into panic mode.

“I really have to go. I do. I have to go,” she insisted, tugging away her wrist. “Please let me g-go.
I’ve got to go
!”

He should let her go. He knew he should. Knew he was risking her up and quitting by keeping her there. But he couldn’t do it.

In fact, his hand shackled around her wrists even tighter as he asked, “Where do you have to go, Willa? Tell me where you drove off to last Tuesday.”

She shook her head. “I have other private clients. Not just you.”

She was lying. He could see it written all over her face. “I know why I’m scared of you, but why are you so scared of me?”

Again her eyes flared with something akin to panic. But then she stuttered, “I-I’m not sc-scared of you. I-I just have to g-go. I t-told you.”

She was still lying. But the stutter reminded him. Of how terrible he’d been to her in high school. Of how bad he’d made fun of her.

“I’m scaring you. I’m sorry,” he said, dropping her arm.

“N-no. I-I t-took a class. I’m-I’m j-just a l-little stressed.”

She stopped and took several breaths. Not regular ones, but the kind soldiers take when they’re under heavy gunfire and need to come up with a plan. The kind that don’t come naturally. The kind you have to be trained to take.

Then her face settled into a forced facsimile of the expression every PT he ever worked with had worn at the end of their session. Encouraging and undaunted, positively radiating good cheer.

“You did very well today,” she told him, voice steady and calm. “Just keep doing your exercises, and I think you’ll find the pain in your leg much improved by our next session. I’ll see you then.”

With that, she pushed past him, and by the time Sawyer got himself turned around and crutched back after her, she was walking out the front door.

Grace, who was in the living room picking up, barely got a chance to say, “Bye” before the door slammed behind her.

The little plump Latino housekeeper turned to him, her face a question.

“She lost track of time and had to go,” he explained. Feeling some weird need to cover for Willa’s behavior, even though she’d made it obvious they weren’t friends, and she didn’t want anything from him. Including help with whatever it was that had upset her.

Why did he have the feeling it had something to do with her mom? Something involving a book, maybe…?

“Has it been nice reconnecting with Willa again after Germany?” Grace asked.

Grace’s question made the tip-of-his-tongue feeling disappear from his mind. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Willa’s mother came over the little bridge while I was cleaning up the backyard—somebody’s been chucking his whiskey bottles out there,” she said with a censorious look.

Sawyer guiltily raised his eyes to the ceiling like he used to with Grace when he was a kid. Yeah, that had been him. Trying to see if he could get them all the way to the river.

But what could he say, except, “At least I’ve graduated from beer cans.”

Grace pursed her lips, looking not at all impressed by this upgrade. “Anyway, Marian came over to say hello,” she continued. “And she mentioned you and Willa had spent time in that German hospital together, while she was over there on a fellowship.”

What?!?! Willa had been at Landstuhl? At the same time he was? He supposed that might explain why it felt like he knew her. And why—

But then Sawyer remembered why everyone in Greenlee besides Grace called Marian The Crazy Librarian. Because she was batshit insane. Known for going around town and giving folks books they hadn’t asked for, claiming to talk to spirits nobody but her could see.

“I was in a coma most the time I was in Germany,” he reminded Grace now. “And I think I would have remembered seeing her if she’d been around during my recovery and first round of PT.”

“But Marian made it sound like you two had become really good friends over there.”

He lifted his eyebrows at the woman who’d become like a second mother to him. “Willa’s mother told you this? And did she give you a book, too?”

Now Grace looked away. Obviously embarrassed. “A copy of some book called
The World Crisis.
”

“Okay,” Sawyer said, shaking his head. “And you need Winston Churchill’s account of World War I because….?” he asked her with an indulgent smile.

“Well, maybe Miss Marian sees all this dust, and thinks I might need a great man’s help,” Grace answered with a rueful laugh.

Sawyer laughed right along with her, feeling more at home now than he had since returning over a week ago. Grace had always had this effect on him. Her warm and caring presence transforming their museum of a house into a cozy home.

“I have no idea what my father said to make you quit,” he told her. “But I’m glad you’re back.”

Grace didn’t stop smiling, but her eyes took on a certain sadness. Then she switched the subject. “I was thinking of chicken for dinner. Is this okay for you, Sawyer?”

“Sure,” he answered, heading toward the study. He still had to catch up on the work he’d skipped out on in order to come home early. “Mind bringing it to me upstairs later on? I think I want to eat on the balcony tonight.”

“Again? I swear you’ve been spending more time on that balcony now than all the years you were living in that room during high school.”

That was because he was an idiot in high school. Filling up every non-school or practice hour with dumb stuff like smoking, drinking, and hanging out with friends he could give two shits about, now that he’d lost his leg.

But now he liked eating on the balcony. Where he could see the back of her house. Even if he couldn’t see her.

God, he really was going crazy. Maybe he should consider seeking out some professional help to go along with this extra round of PT.

Because his leg might be getting better, but obviously he was losing his mind.

9

He ate dinner outside on the balcony for the rest of the week.

Staring at her house every night before going to bed. Even though they’d pulled all the curtains at the back of their house—he said “they,” he was pretty sure it was Willa. Not wanting him to look into her life. Not wanting him to see her.

Willa never came out except to occasionally put what looked like thin books on the old cart, still sitting unused behind their house. Like it was waiting for Willa’s grandfather to come back. He’d watch her scuttle out, leave the book, then scuttle right back around the brick house. Never looking up. Never acknowledging even for a second that she knew he was out there on his balcony. Watching. And wanting.

But he kept staring anyway.

Like a psycho. What the hell was wrong with him?

For some reason he wanted to pose this question to Willa. Maybe because she’d handled his leg so well, it felt like she had the answer to everything. Sometimes while sitting out on his balcony, unable to concentrate on the insane amounts of email that came with putting together a run for Congress, not drinking because he promised her he wouldn’t—sometimes while staring at her house instead of doing better things with his after work time, he wanted to just call her up and ask, “Hey, Willa, why do I feel like I have to be with you? Like you’re my missing half? You got an exercise in your little PT book to help me stop thinking about you?”

But he didn’t give in to that temptation. Instead he answered campaign emails and did some preliminary work on a few of the pro bono cases he’d taken on at his brother’s firm. Little cases that wouldn’t take up too much of his time. But his dad was already complaining about them.

“How are you supposed to concentrate on running if you’re working cases?” he asked.

Sawyer had managed to spin it to make it look like he was doing what was best for the campaign. But he suspected his dad was beginning to glean a little bit of the truth. That Sawyer enjoyed helping his fellow vets by practicing law a hell of a lot more than he enjoyed the prospect of becoming one of the guys who shaped the laws.

Whatever. Both activities, along with riding all over the state to meet with his clients, kept his mind fully occupied. Even if Willa was always in the back of it. Lurking. Like a ghost.

But he didn’t give in. He didn’t call her. Or text. Or show up at her door like he sometimes thought about doing.

Not until Friday night when he woke up in violent pain. It was his gimp leg, he realized. It felt like there was something alive inside of it, chewing on his muscles. He held onto his thigh, in pure agony. But no amount of massaging caused the muscle to un-tense. And it felt like his whole leg was on fire with pain now, even though he technically only had half of one.

Clenching his teeth, he reached for the phone and pressed the name he’d already added to his Favorites list. Even if she only considered him a client. Worse than a client. A patient, deserving of her pity.

“Sawyer?” her tired voice answered. “What are you doing calling me in the middle of the night.”

“I can’t—my leg. There’s something wrong with it. I can’t—”

He couldn’t explain, but it turned out he didn’t need to.

“I’m coming over now. Just breathe until I get there.”

She hung up, and Sawyer dropped the phone, surprised he’d held it up this long. This pain, it wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before. His leg wasn’t just throbbing like it sometimes did after a long motorcycle ride, it was radiating with a piercing sensation that went all the way up his back.

He breathed like she told him to. It was all he could do really. And it helped—if only a very little bit.

But then he heard her voice downstairs. “Where is he? And where is his room, exactly?”

It sounded like she was talking to someone. But before he could wonder about it, her feet were pounding up the stairs.

A light switched on a few seconds later. And then there she was. Like an angel. An angel wearing a long t-shirt covered in sleeping skunks. But Sawyer didn’t care.

“Fuck, thank you for coming.”

For a moment, she just stood there in the doorway blinking. And he realized it was because he was completely naked. As any red-blooded man, living in an ancient house without a decent cooling system, would be on a hot Virginia night.

But then she recovered, rushing over to the bed to examine his leg. Once again, he had that weird sensation she wasn’t just look at his stump, but his whole leg.

“I don’t see anything wrong, but if it’s what I think it is, I wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. Can you sit up?”

He did as she asked, in too much pain to ask her to explain what she thought would cause his leg to hurt like this. Worst than it ever had before.

She climbed onto the bed with him, her eyes still on his stump as she asked, “Have you been doing a lot of riding this week?”

He nodded. “But I talked to the stump like you told me, and did the exercises. It wasn’t giving me any problems this week, until now.”

“Well, this isn’t an angry thing, it’s more like...”

He watched as she pushed his stump so it was lying on its side at about a ninety-degree angle off of his hip. But instead of massaging the stump, she brought both hands down to where the other half of the leg would have been if he still had it. His brow crinkled as he watched her make a massaging motion with her right hand, digging into the thin air, like she was actually doing something.

He would have protested, except the pain almost immediately started to ebb away. For the next ten minutes all he could do was watch in fascination as she continued to dig at the air beneath his stump, until the pain was little more than a distant memory.

“All better now?” she finally asked. Voice soft, a small smile on her lips.

“How the hell did you do that?” he demanded.

She shrugged. “It’s kind of hard to explain. Especially at two in the morning. But if you can, take it easy tomorrow. Try to do some sitting around. Maybe on the couch with a few pillows under your left leg. And if you have any problems, text me. I have a few exercises you can do.”

With that, she started to get up. But Sawyer wasn’t having it. “Seriously, how did you do that?”

“Seriously, Sawyer, I’ve got to be getting back.”

“No,” he said, grabbing on to her wrist. “Not ‘til you explain what just happened here.”