Mountain Song (18 page)

And a wistful note had
started to creep into his voice.

It scared Claudia to
death. She already had the next speech prepared, the one in which she reminded
Paul that so very many people loved him, that he had a Grandpa and cousins and
aunts and uncles, more family than lots of kids had.

And that might buy her
a little more time.

But what about the
next speech? And the next?

How exactly was she
going to break it to Paul that his father had held his picture as though it
were radioactive and then tossed it aside? That he’d even for a moment, even
for one horrible unforgivable second considered a world that didn’t have Paul
in it?

On the television, Jay
shared a hearty laugh with his guest.

It was going to be a
long night.

CHAPTER NINE

“I thought I’d find
you here.”

Andy hesitated in the
doorway of the lounge, the sound of his voice jarring in the oasis of quiet
inside the busy hospital. It was empty in here today, unlike some days when
anxious family members paced and talked and did the hundred other things people
do to calm their nerves. The bright-colored overstuffed sofas were empty, their
cushions neatly stacked. The magazines fanned out on the coffee tables hadn’t
been disturbed.

Claudia stood at a
window, acknowledging his presence only with a slight shift in her posture, a
slight tensing of her muscles. He guessed she’d been staring out at nothing for
a long time.

Andy cleared his
throat. “I...imagine you know this already, but the surgery went fine. Bea’s
doing well, and she should be coming out of anesthesia shortly.”

“Dr. Dupree was kind
enough to stop by to tell me.”

“Oh. Good.” Meena
Dupree was known for her excellent rapport with her patients and her families,
her ability to translate technical information into words that explained
without intimidating or frightening.

When Claudia said
nothing further, Andy stepped into the room. Surrounded by the quiet stillness,
he felt almost like an intruder. On the other hand, this was
his
territory,
his
hospital.

“Uh, I have a few
things I need to say. Care to sit down for a minute?”

“I’d rather not,
actually.”

Andy felt a little of
his hard-won calm erode away. Hell, it was all a facade, anyway; inside he was
every bit as agitated as he had been yesterday. Still, he’d taken great care
preparing this morning, shaving and dressing carefully, rehearsing his words on
the drive over.

And she wouldn’t even
look at him.

“Claudia. Look at me,
damn it. I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

Slowly she shifted,
trained her unblinking eyes on him. Then he saw it: the emptiness in her gaze,
the lack of rancor or anger or any emotion at all.

And he felt less
certain.

But Andy did what he
always did. He’d prepared carefully, and now he plunged ahead.

“I’m sorry about how
things went yesterday. I realize now that I didn’t handle that conversation as
well as I could have. While I was caught off guard, I need to acknowledge that
I let my emotions interfere with my thoughts and I—and I may have said
some things I shouldn’t have.”

“You’ve got this all
wrong,” Claudia said softly.

Andy frowned. For a
moment he was tempted to barrel ahead into the rest of the speech he’d
polished, but her words stood between them like a giant obstacle.

“How can you say I’m
wrong? You haven’t even heard me out.”

“I don’t have to. I
can tell already that you’ve been going about this all wrong. So whatever
conclusion you’ve come to is sure to be well off the mark.”

“
What
?”

Claudia sighed, a
long, weak breath that took nearly all her energy. She sank into a chair,
looked up at Andy from under heavy lids.

He was dressed for
battle, tie knotted perfectly under his scrubs. His expensive Italian shoes
were polished, and at the Egyptian cotton shirt cuff protruding from the faded
aqua hospital cotton scrubs, his gold watch flashed importantly.

She didn’t have it in
her to fight him much longer.

“You said you let your
emotions interfere with your thoughts,” she tried to explain. “That’s so...you.
You never understood that sometimes your emotions
are
the truth. That your first reaction tells you everything you
need to know.”

“I’m sorry I don’t fit
neatly into the Oprah School of analysis,” Andy shot back, sarcasm masking his
anxiety. “Maybe I should have brought my psychotherapist along to help me sort
through things. You say I should trust my emotions. Well let me tell you,
Claudia, I was feeling at least a dozen things at once. If I gave myself over
to that, I’d be a certifiable schizophrenic.”

Claudia shook her head
sadly. “You’re always diagnosing, but you probably don’t even notice some of
the emotions in your heart. You’re missing the ends of the spectrum, Andy. You
spend your whole life in the middle, where it’s safe.”

“What’s that supposed
to mean?”

“Have you ever felt
joy, Andy? I mean real, pure joy, where you wanted to dance and sing and didn’t
care who saw you?”


She caught the flicker
in his veiled countenance. “What about rage?”

“I’ve been angry.”

“No. You’ve been
irritated. That’s as far as you allow yourself to go. There’s a difference. I
bet there are a thousand shades of anger you’ve never explored.”

Andy’s jaw worked. “If
you’re trying to goad me into exploring them now, you’re on the right path.”

“What about love?” The
words came out without thought, her lips shaping them with quiet melancholy. Well,
what about it? That was the real problem, after all, wasn’t it?

As the seconds ticked
past, Claudia realized Andy had no answer for her. He sat down at the other end
of the couch, leaned his elbows on his knees, laced his fingers together. Stared
at the floor. When he spoke, he didn’t look up.

“I came here to tell
you that I understand I have certain...responsibilities. That I intend to meet
my obligations, present and future, to the child.”

The child
. Yesterday Paul had spoken of Paul only as “it”. With mirthless irony,
Claudia considered that Andy was making progress.

But not enough. He was
way, way short of caring enough for Claudia to consider allowing him any closer
to Paul.

There was one way to
make sure the distance between them stayed so wide that she wouldn’t ever have
to worry about Andy again. One way to send him reeling so far and so fast that
even these belated feelings of responsibility wouldn’t bring him back.

She would do it. It
would take everything she had, tax her heart and her acting abilities to the
limit, but for this last challenge, she’d give it her all.

She forced a curve to
her lips, knowing full well what she was doing. That smug, self-assured half
smile had served her well, long ago, when there were suitors to be toyed with
and girls to be upstaged and hopes to be dashed and hearts to be broken.

She’d use it this one
last time. Put an end to this hopeless exercise and sever her ties to Andy
forever.

“That’s
so
thoughtful, Andy, but truly, Paul’s
needs are being well taken care of.”

There, that wasn’t so
bad. The Voice, the cool liquid pour of it, long shelved. She crossed her legs,
twined one foot behind the other, stretched a narrow wrist and looked at her
watch. Up went the chin a little, and her small sigh conveyed boredom. Not
obvious boredom, of course; that would be crass. Just enough so that a man as
intelligent as Andy couldn’t miss it.

“I’m—sure they
are. What I meant was...”

She saw she’d hit her
mark. Stung, Andy had recoiled, drew back his shoulders from her direct hit. As
he regrouped, uncertainty clouding the deep jade of his eyes, she ran her
fingers through her hair, played with the ends of a wayward strand. She focused
her gaze on a far corner of the room, visualized her closet at home, mentally
sorted her clothes—a trick she’d invented during college to appear to pay
attention in class.

Her professors, to a
one, had been fooled.

But was Andy?

“I believe I have
certain
legal
obligations,” he
continued coldly. “I’ll consult my attorney and ensure that I’m more than
meeting them.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,”
Claudia intoned with a wave of her hand. “I don’t expect anything from you. It
would just be a mess of paperwork, far more trouble than it’s worth. Let’s keep
this clean and simple, shall we?”

Fury ignited in the
smoldering depths of Andy’s gaze, in the iron lock of his jaw, and Claudia
inhaled in deep relief. It was done. She’d played him with a practiced hand,
and he’d fallen for it, never for the briefest second guessing how deftly she
outmaneuvered him. It was almost too easy.

“I’m doing this,” he
muttered, “whatever the hell you want. The checks will begin to arrive as soon
as I can make arrangements, I’ll promise you that.

Claudia sighed,
tightened her fists, then forced herself to relax her muscles. “If you must,”
she said, feigning resignation. “I’ll have one of Dad’s lawyers set up some
sort of account. Then you can correspond directly with them.”

Andy’s jaw worked. He
stepped back half a pace, appeared to change his mind, then anchored himself
defiantly on his heels, crossing his arms on his chest.

“It’s a drop in the
bucket to you, is that it, Claudia?”

“Oh, for heaven’s
sakes, I didn’t mean to imply—” Claudia’s attempt at a light laugh came
out all wrong somehow.

“Tell me something. Just
how rich would I have to be to merit the attention of the almighty Canfield
clan?”

“Now, Andy, this has nothing to do with—”

“Because here I was
stupid enough to think that just maybe after all those years it might not mean
quite so much to you as it once did. Crazy, I know, but I thought maybe the
dollar signs might not hold the same attraction they once did for you.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Now hot,
untempered fury flashed across his features. Minutes ago Claudia had accused
him of never feeling true rage.

Now she wasn’t so
sure.

“I came here to do the
right thing by my son. I’m a professional now, Claudia, maybe not a Park Avenue
surgeon worthy of your ilk, but they do pay me a reasonable salary. I can get
my accountant to document my net worth, if that’s what it takes. I assure you
my checks don’t bounce...”

As Andy ranted on, Claudia
stopped hearing his words. She’d gotten lost somewhere back at “my son.”

Words she’d given up
hope of hearing. Dangerous words, that could rip open fresh wounds and tempt
her into risking too much, far more than she could afford to lose.

“...why you left me
the first time. Maybe if I’d had that ‘MD’ after my name then—”

“Enough.” Claudia held
up a shaking hand. “Please. Send the checks. I promise you they’ll go into Paul’s
college fund.”

Suddenly the silence
was back in the room, deafening now. Andy hesitated, seemed to want to say
something more.

And then he was gone,
leaving her by herself in the room where other people waited for news of their
loved ones, and from which Claudia had just banished her own beloved forever.

“Woods? That you, man?”

Andy jerked awake,
nearly falling out of the molded plastic chair.

“What the hell—I—”

“Quiet,” Rick warned
him in a low voice, pointing in the dim light at the bed. Slowly Andy
remembered where he was, stood awkwardly and rubbed at his temples. He gestured
out into the hallway. Rick slipped out, and Andy followed behind and softly
closed the door. The bright light in the hallway flashed painfully into his
eyes.

“I’m sure the patient
needs rest, but what’s your excuse? Are you sure napping in the middle of rounds
is a good idea?”

“I wasn’t asleep,”
Andy said irritably. “I just—Mrs. Ramsey’s showing signs of preeclampsia,
and I was, you know...”

“Watching her sleep? Come
on, Woods. It’s under control. Besides, she’s in her thirty-sixth week, and the
baby looks healthy. I don’t think she needs you at her bedside every second.

“I just sat down for a
minute. I’ve been having back pain from tennis, that’s all.”

Andy stalked down the
hall, his friend matching his pace, no doubt convinced he was losing it. Well,
he hadn’t been asleep. At least, not for long. A few seconds, tops, and only
because he hadn’t had a decent night’s rest since...well, for a good long time.