Mountain Song (11 page)

But tonight, after
loving Claudia, after carrying her sleeping form to the bedroom, he’d slept
better than he had in months. Years. Still, small sounds from the other room
slipped into his dreamless slumber: a chair being slid on a tile floor, a soft
voice.

Claudia was talking on
the phone.

Andy swung his legs
over the side of the bed, sheet still twisted around his body. Then he thought
better of it.
 
He glanced at the
digital bedside clock: 3:00 am. Who the devil could she be talking to at that
hour?

Slowly, Andy lowered
himself back to his pillow, but he was now fully alert. He shouldn’t listen. Had
no business doing so.

But there was nowhere
else to go, no way to block out the soft, warm tones of her voice, and a word
here and there drifted into the bedroom.

“...miss you...”

That had been
unmistakable. Andy lay back, shut his eyes and sighed. It was three hours later
in New Jersey. Six a.m., the start of the day. Coffee was brewing, and
somewhere a man would soon hang up the phone and begin going through the
motions of his morning, all the while thinking of Claudia. Slipping on a
custom-made shirt, shaving with a sterling razor. Pulling out of the driveway
in a sleek European sedan.

And Claudia missed
him.

The sound of the chair
again, then footfalls, soft ones made by bare feet on wood floors. Claudia had
been naked next to him, and Andy couldn’t help wondering if she had slipped on
a robe or if she still wore nothing at all. He heard the sound of water running
in the kitchen sink, a cabinet opening and closing. He pictured her drinking
deeply from a glass of cold water, ran a tongue over his own parched lips,
still swollen from the passion they’d shared earlier in the night.

“Just another day or
two.” Her voice was much more distinct now. She must be standing next to where
the phone was mounted on the wall near the hallway. “I love you so much,
sweetheart.”

Then the click of the
receiver being replaced in the cradle, and the footfalls padding down the hall
to the bedroom. Andy reached down, felt around in the darkness for his clothes.
Claudia swung the door open softly, and for a moment he saw her silhouetted in
the pale light she’d left on elsewhere in the house.

He couldn’t make out
her features, but the lines of her body were distinct in the golden glow. It
was his shirt she wore loosely, a single button fastened somewhere around her
navel. The cuffs, folded back several times, hung to her wrists, which seemed
slender and delicate in contrast. Her long legs stretched down to bare feet,
and her hair brushed her shoulders in unruly waves.

She looked so enticing
standing there in a faint halo of light that Andy wavered for a moment, letting
the fabric of his hospital scrubs fall from his fingers, straightening his
spine and regarding her with open wonder. The heat of their loving rekindled in
his gut, radiating out.

Claudia hesitated,
then snapped on a tiny lamp on top of Bea’s dresser. Her expression was
inscrutable, brows knit in anxiety or possibly annoyance, lips slightly parted,
eyes narrowed.

And Andy remembered
every word he’d heard her speak, seconds ago.

It would have been so
easy for him to slide back in the bed, taking her with him. Even now he longed
to twine his fingers in that shimmering golden hair, expose her fine jaw, start
there and make his way down, down to the very core of her, immersing himself in
her sensual beauty...

But in the last few
minutes, everything had changed.

“I’ll need that shirt,”
he said evenly.

“You’re leaving?”

“Don’t you think that’s
best?”

Claudia regarded him
for a moment, and Andy could see her breathing quicken, her breasts rising and
falling in the vee of the white cotton of the scrub shirt. The corner of her
mouth tugged downwards and she twisted a lock of hair around her fingers.

“I don’t know what’s
best,” she said finally. “I thought...what we did, what we shared earlier—”

“Without question the
best,” Andy cut in, his voice steel. “The best I’ve ever had, at any rate. But
even so, I’m not sure it’s worth it. I don’t care to share, Claudia. I guess I
know how it is—far from home, so much to deal with, it gets a little
lonely. You need something to hold onto. But if I’d known I was just a—a
temporary fix—” He gestured in the direction of the hall, the phone, the
link to her lover, the man who offered Claudia what she
truly
wanted. The man for whom he was just an easy, available
substitute.

Claudia took another
step towards him, then stopped, as though an invisible line was drawn between
them. She slowly folded her arms across her chest as if she were suddenly cold.

“It’s not like that,”
she said softly.

Andy managed a shrug. “It’s
none of my business. But I’m still going to need that shirt.”

“I’d like to explain.”

“Be my guest.”

“But—I can’t.”

Andy resisted the urge
to punch the daylights out of the down pillow at his side.

“
Won’t
,” he said. “Not
can’t
.
But don’t worry. I’m not stupid, you may recall. I think I can piece this whole
situation together pretty well on my own. Now if you’ll just give me my shirt—”

Claudia turned on her
heel and fled for the bathroom. While she was out of the room, Andy pulled on
pants, socks, rubber-soled shoes. The water ran in the other room, and finally
Claudia returned, wearing an old-fashioned silk bathrobe wrapped and tied
tightly at her waist.

She held out his shirt
with two fingers, as though it was radioactive. “Thanks,” he managed, and
pulled it on without looking at her.

Neither of them said
anything more as he eased past her out into the darkest hour of the night.

“You look dreadful.”

Claudia took a long
drag on her tall paper cup of black coffee, and considered her grandmother’s
greeting.

It was probably true,
though only Bea would be able to see how truly shaken she was. Claudia had
dressed carefully. After a long shower, she’d taken pains with her hair and
makeup, then selected a dress of her own design, washed linen the color of a
stormy sea. She’d added a string of semi-precious beads that had been a gift
from Bea.

Even then, she had
several hours to kill. Sleeping after Andy’s exit was out of the question, and
she would not allow herself to sit around and replay the last night over and
over in her mind.

“I think I ought to be
offended,” she said, trying for humor. “Do you know how long it took me to do
this French braid?”

Bea reached for her
wrist and gripped it with surprising strength. “My dear, let me clarify. You
are beautiful as always on the outside, but your aura is in sorry shape. Quite
cloudy, full of negative energy. What on earth have you been doing?”

Claudia opened her
mouth, and then shut it again, feeling the color rise in her cheeks.

“I’m just tired,” she
said shortly.

“Devastated, is more
like it. Did you see Andy last night?”

“Oh, Bea...look, it’s
nothing. I made a little error in judgment. Nothing that I won’t recover from. And
besides, that’s not why I’m here. I came all the way out to Lake Tahoe to care
for you, not the other way around. And I have some important things to discuss
with you.”

“Important, like what?”

“Like...” Claudia
frowned, and reclaimed her wrist from Bea’s grip. She pressed her palms
together, wondering how to begin.

“This is a big
surgery, this hip replacement,” she began.

Bea laughed
mirthlessly. “You don’t have to tell me that. Andy’s accomplice has been in
here, explaining the whole gory process.”

“You saw the
orthopedist?”

“Yes, I finally agreed
to see her. I have to say, she wasn’t the saw-wielding monster I’d expected. Made
a pretty good case for that new joint, though I can hardly imagine carrying
around a hunk of metal and plastic in my hip for the rest of my days.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re
considering it.”

“Thank Andy. He can be
very persuasive, in his own way.”

“Mmm.”

“I mean, I don’t think
he would have made a good salesman. He lacks—oh, I don’t know what you’d
call it, schmoozing skills, I guess. Andy’s never had any patience for greasing
the wheels. He just tells it like it is.”

Claudia said nothing,
considered just how persuasive he could be. Had been. Without saying a word.

“Of course, dear, you
already know that...” Bea added with an arched eyebrow, a crafty grin.

Claudia strove to
arrange her features in a neutral mask, and changed the subject. “You were
saying, about the surgery?”

“Dr. Dupree wants to
do it soon.”

“That’s good. The
sooner you do it, the sooner you’ll be able to travel, and we can get you moved
out to New Jersey. With Dad and me and—”

“Pardon me?”

The old gal was quick.
So much for trying to subtly slip it into the conversation. Claudia took a deep
breath. “I’ve been thinking about this, Bea. You can’t—it seems as though
you might be having a hard time by yourself.”

“I do just fine.” Bea’s
eyes showed a firefall of anger, wrinkles nested at the corners tightened with
anxiety. “I’ve never asked anyone for help.”

“But we
want
to help you,” Claudia said. “Want
to have you near us. I do, anyway, and I know Dad will too. There’s so much
room in that big old place of his—”

“Claudia Canfield, how
dare you!”

Claudia pulled back in
chagrin. She’d never seen her grandmother so angry. Never, for that matter,
seen her lose her temper at all, at least with her.

“You, of all people,
should know better than to make my decisions for me,” Bea continued, glaring
balefully.

“I’m sorry if—”

“Has it occurred to
you that this place is my home? That the people in this town are my friends? These
mountains have been my walls for decades now, my dear. I can’t leave them.”

“But in New Jersey,
you’d have
us
. There’s all kinds of
activities for seniors at the community center. And the club. Daddy’s driver
could take you wherever you wanted to go. And we’d hire a nurse, the very best
nurse, to help you get your strength back.” Claudia heard her voice trail off
to barely more than a whisper.

Under Bea’s glare, she
felt as though she were barely more than a girl. The silence that ensued was
terrible. Claudia wished Bea would say something, anything.

At last Bea coughed
delicately and lay back against her stack of pillows.

“Do you know what your
problem is, my dear? You’re still taking the easy road, the one you can buy
with money, just like you always have.”

“What...what’s that
supposed to mean?”

“You want to buy me a
new life when I have a perfectly good one right here—”

“No. Wait. What do you
mean by saying that I always have?”

“Claudia...do you
really have to ask?”

Claudia waited,
staring at a spot on her Grandmother’s chin, unable to look her in the eye. She
did have to ask. She needed her grandmother to spell it out.

But she had a feeling
she knew what was coming.

“I’m talking about Andy,”
Bea finally said, her voice a little softer. Almost regretful. “You tried to
use money to settle all the problems the two of you faced together. To pay his
way. To buy his education, make a home. You never stopped to realize that you
needed to work on things together. Would money have vanquished his demons? Yours?
Of course not. You can’t buy your way out of life’s biggest challenges. You
have to dive in and fight them with every ounce of strength you have. The only
way out is through, princess,” she added softly. “The only way out is through.”

“I—I thought I
had
learned that,” Claudia said,
realizing for the hundredth time that Bea harbored an enormous store of wisdom.
“I know I made mistakes.
 
With...Andy. But I thought I had learned
from them. I really thought I had matured. Grown up. That I was...that I’d
become a different person, ever since...”

“...since the day you
gave birth to Andy Woods’ baby.”

CHAPTER SIX

“Hey, watch it!”

Andy glanced up just
in time to avoid careening into a busboy pushing a cart loaded high with tubs
of dirty dishes. He swung his tray out to the side on one palm while he stepped
aside, a trick learned from waiting tables in crowded restaurants.

“Nice footwork. Ever
thought of becoming a professional dancer?” Rick Martinez fell into step beside
him as they sought out an empty table in the hospital cafeteria.