Mountain Song (8 page)

Disbelief edged into
something like fury. Claudia wanted him, of that he was sure. She’d stopped
herself only with what was clearly a monumental effort—but then she had
the temerity to announce that the incident meant nothing because there was
someone else in her life.

Then another
possibility occurred to Andy. What if there was a man in her life: someone she
didn’t love, but who had something to offer Claudia besides raw passion. After
all, Claudia was 26 now, old enough to marry. Bored, perhaps, with being
single; sick of performing bridesmaid duties at slick society weddings.
 

The image slowly took
shape. Rich. Powerful. Socially prominent. The kind of man who played polo and
marked birthdays with blue boxes from Tiffany’s. Who would squire her to the
ballet and the symphony and charity balls and all the other places a woman like
Claudia Canfield needed to be seen.

Places Andy had never
been. Not with her, anyway. It was true that the last few years had brought
invitations, opportunities, of the sort he’d never dared dream of. But when he
entered a restaurant or found his seat in a theater he was aware—always
aware—that he was out of place. When he caught the admiring eye of a
woman or the respectful glance of a colleague, he knew that it wasn’t really
him that they were seeing.

Sure, Andy Woods, MD,
well-paid and widely-admired physician, was welcome everywhere.

But would he ever
truly be that man?

“I see,” he said
tightly. “So, you still only open your arms to men who can afford to be there.”

Now it was Claudia’s
turn to recoil. “No, Andy,” she said, ice in her voice, “It’s not like that.” Any
trace of anxiety was gone as she regained her composure.

“Perhaps.” Andy
shrugged. “But you could say that history speaks for itself.”

Claudia pulled herself
to her full five feet ten inches—in socks—and stared straight into
his eyes. Funny how she managed to look regal even in the old baggy clothes she
wore; not many women could pull off a trick like that. “You make me wonder if
we ever really knew each other at all.”

Seeing her pull up the
wall, closing herself off to him, only angered Andy further. “What’s his name? Charles?
Preston? Met him at a polo match, did you? Or maybe you’ve known him all your privileged,
country club little life?”

“His name is Paul,”
Claudia said quietly. When her mouth formed the name Paul, she seemed to soften
a little, and he a second he saw through her bravado to the fatigue beneath. Fatigue
and other emotions he couldn’t read, troubling ones.

“And I’ve known him
only four years, and from the first moment I ever laid eyes on him I knew I’d
love him for the rest of my life.”

Despite his anger,
Claudia’s quiet conviction tore at Andy. The image in his mind—a tall,
blonde, figure leaning on a sports car, smooth hands that never labored, an
East coast lockjaw schooled into a silver tongue—fell away in tatters.

Because if Claudia
loved this Paul, if she truly loved him the way she claimed, then he must be
extraordinary. Of that Andy was almost certain.

But what about the way
she’d touched him? The hunger in her kiss? The path of her hands still
smoldered on his skin. Her passion was
real
.
Andy would wager everything that Claudia’s had not been the embrace of a woman
whose heart was already committed .

“No,” he said
abruptly, deciding, shaking his head. “No. I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care if you
believe me or not.”

“Not after the way you—after
what just happened here.”

He watched as deep
color rose in her face.

“I—don’t know
exactly
what
happened. But what I do
know is that I love Paul.”

“But you
want
me.”

Silence. Her gaze
fixed on a spot past his shoulder, and her thick lashes lowered to conceal any
emotion in her eyes.

“Admit it, Claudia,”
Andy demanded, refusing to back down. Lack of options made him deadly stubborn.
Having been born with his back against the wall, standing his ground had become
a way of life for him. He’d spent the better part of his professional life
trying to learn the art of compromise, but at this moment he felt like the self
he’d thought he’d left long behind. Like a struggling 24 year old again, ready
to burn it all down to prove some principal he wasn’t sure he could even
define.

“All right,” she said
softly. “I still...respond to you, Andy.”

Once the words were
spoken, Andy felt not a rush of triumph, but a frustration, deep and wide,
building inside him.

He wanted her. She
wanted him. He was a grown man now, a respected professional with diplomas and
awards. His car was paid for, he owned a home, had a comfortable bank account. He
was a man who woman aspired to be with.

And
still
he wasn’t good enough for Claudia
Canfield.

“Congratulations,
Claudia,” he said, tightly. “So you’ve found yourself someone. Someone with the
right pedigree, the right name in the social register, whose ancestors came
over here on the right damn boat. I’m glad. When he holds you at night, I hope
you remember every one of those advantages. Count ‘em good, because they’ll
have to make up for a hell of a lot of—”

Passion. Fire. Heat. What
they’d shared—what they’d almost stumbled into again, today, he was sure
was nothing she’d ever come close to again. He sure hadn’t. Never in the string
of women who’d briefly shared his life had he ever felt something even close to
what he felt with her.

And yet she wanted no
part of him, simply because of who he was. Or, more aptly, who he was not.

He didn’t bother to
finish his sentence.

“Forget it,” he
muttered, turning to go. “I’ll put together some materials for you. The
standard stuff on nursing homes and other assisted living alternatives. You’ve
got a lot of options in the area. I’m sure you’ll want to discuss it with your
father. I can go over it with you or, if you prefer, I can have the social
worker meet with you. And I’ll schedule Bea to meet with Dr. Dupree, the
specialist I think would be appropriate. If, that is, you have no objections.”

“Fine,” Claudia
sighed, pressing a palm to her temple and squeezing her eyes shut. It was as if
all the life had drained out of her.

The ding of the
microwave roused Claudia from her semi-dazed state. She rose from the kitchen
table and stirred the contents of the frozen meal, a mélange of pasta and
unidentifiable vegetables in a white sauce.

Claudia rubbed at her
eyes and glanced at the clock. Nearly eight. The clock, at least, was
battery-powered and so hadn’t been affected by the power outage. When Claudia
had returned from the grocery late that morning, the electricity was back on,
and she’d spent half an hour replacing light bulbs and resetting the digital
displays on appliances and clocks, until the house had been returned to some
semblance of normalcy.

For several hours
Claudia had dusted, scrubbed, and organized. Somehow she kept putting off her
visit to the hospital. She
would
get
the house put back together. Because her grandmother
was
going to return
to her home, no matter what Andy said. Claudia would see to that.

But now her arms felt
leaden, her face tired. Between the hard physical work of the early part of the
day, her confrontation with Andy (she didn’t even want to think of what
preceded it) and the hours she’d spent with Bea at the hospital, she felt
exhausted. Overwhelmed. Beaten.

A knock splintered the
silence, and then she heard the door swing open.

“Claudia?”

Andy. She sank back into
the straight-back kitchen chair. He would insist on coming in, no matter what
she said, so there was no point in trying to talk him out of it.

She’d dreaded seeing
him at the hospital. Bea, for her part, kept mum on the subject, not mentioning
Andy at all. But then Bea hadn’t had a lot to say today about anything.

When the hours passed
without his appearance, Claudia began to hope that she might not have to deal
with Andy again today.

No such luck.

“Hello, Claudia.”

Andy’s large frame
filled the kitchen doorway, and he hesitated. Claudia’s hands went to her hair,
smoothing, twisting, before she became aware of the gesture and forced her
hands back on the table, crossed awkwardly like some defendant in a courtroom.

He had been right
earlier: there was still something powerful between them. Looking up at Andy,
Claudia felt overpowered, disadvantaged. She tried to distance herself, look at
him critically, anxious to isolate exactly what it was that drew her with such
irrational attraction. If she could understand it, she could overcome it.

And so she searched. A
day’s growth of beard only sculpted the planes of his face further, giving him
a sort of devil-may-care appeal that contradicted the exhaustion apparent in
the deep circles under his eyes. Even his hospital scrubs couldn’t dilute his
unconscious sensuality. Andy Woods moved like a tiger, quietly, deliberately,
with a coiled power simmering below the surface. As he leaned on the door jamb
just a few feet away from her, Claudia felt his draw on her as powerfully as
that first time she spotted him through a cloud of powder as she swooshed into
a tight stop at the base of the lift line.

“Sit down,” Claudia
said warily, motioning to the chair across the table from her. “I’m afraid I
don’t have much to offer in the hospitality department. Shall I heat up another
Lean Cuisine?”

That earned her a
short, mirthless laugh. “Thanks. That’s even right off my usual menu, but I
think I’ll pass.”

He slid into the chair
across from her. The tile-topped table was small, and his knees nearly touched
hers. Idly he removed his plastic hospital ID card and flipped it back and
forth over his fingers. Claudia watched, grateful for the diversion.

“You’ve been working
hard,” Andy finally said, after an uncomfortable silence stretched between
them. “I barely recognize the place. I can’t imagine where you’ve hidden all
the junk. And it smells a hell of a lot better in here, too.”

“Lysol, Windex,
Pledge, Comet,” Claudia ticked off on her fingers. “With a liberal dose of
potpourri. I couldn’t find the good stuff, like Bea makes from her flower
garden, so I had to settle for that fake pine stuff.” She wrinkled her nose,
but in truth it was such a huge improvement over the musty smell she’d driven
out that she felt a little surge of accomplishment. And pleasure that he’d
taken note.

“And you got the
windows open. Nice breeze.”

“Yeah. They’re saying
it won’t get below sixty tonight, and so I thought...”

Claudia let her voice
trail away. Even silence was better than exchanging banal pleasantries with
Andy. Twelve hours ago she’d writhed in his arms. Eleven hours ago they’d faced
off over a chasm of history and hurt.

And now they were
chatting at the table like a pair of housewives.

“Well.” Andy reached
for the briefcase he’d placed on the floor, drawing out a thick sheaf of
papers, which he dropped on the table with a heavy thud. “I understand you
spent some time with Bea today.”

“Yes. I was there for
most of the afternoon and through her dinner. She, um, dropped off for the last
half hour or so.”

Andy nodded, shuffling
some pamphlets at the top of the stack. He cleared his throat and drummed his
fingers lightly on the papers, but still didn’t meet her eyes.

“She...didn’t look
very good,” Claudia added. It felt awkward, talking to him like this, but he
was Bea’s doctor. The rest of it—whatever it was between them—was
unimportant. Ridiculous to focus on it at all, when she would soon be gone,
Lake Tahoe relegated for a second time to her history.

“How so?”

“Oh, tired, I suppose,
and thinner, more lines than I remember around her eyes. And she was so quiet. I
kept trying to come up with conversation but I couldn’t seem to keep her
interest. In fact I was still talking when she fell asleep.”

Claudia felt a catch
in her voice and cleared her throat. She stood and busied herself scraping out
the untouched meal, then rinsing her utensils in the sink.

“She was tired,” Andy
said. “I’m sure it cost her quite a bit to keep up appearances yesterday for
you.”

Claudia stilled,
holding a fork in the running water.

“What do you mean,
appearances? Yesterday Bea was herself, every bit as witty and wonderful as she’s
always been.”

“Yes.” His tone was
patient, professional. “I noticed. It was nice to have her back with us, even
if she was directing her sharp tongue in my direction. Look, this is what I’ve
been trying to tell you. Yesterday was an aberration. Her affect in the last
couple of months has been flat, even before her injury. The pain is always on
her mind. I think that to pull it together for your benefit drained her.”