Say You'll Stay And Marry Me

The beginning? She wasn’t sure there was a beginning. When had her life with Greg began to seem like a trap rather than a marriage? When had the dishes and the laundry and the PTA bake sales combined to drag her down until she had no idea how to lift herself up any more?

“I guess things sort of came to a head when Laura graduated from college.” She took a firmer grip on the steering wheel as she tried to pick her way through the debris of the past. “My husband had been dead for two years by then, and I was still living in Denver. Most of our friends had really been Greg’s friends, it turned out, and I found myself alone a lot. All alone in that house.” Her voice tightened. “That house. Dusting that same damn china every week, vacuuming that mile-long carpet in the living room—vanilla cream carpet—washing those blinds with all those metal slats, row after row of them, catching every particle of dust—” She broke off as she saw Mac looking at her curiously. She consciously relaxed her jaw, which had tensed at the memories.

“Anyway, when Laura graduated from college, I said enough. I threw in the suburban-housewife towel. Sold the house, the lawn mower, the matching china—I had a yard sale you wouldn’t believe. Sold every last thing.” She found herself smiling. Just the thought of ridding herself of the shackles of her previous life could still make her breathe easier, more freely. Twenty-two years worth of clutter—all gone.

Mac saw the smile and couldn’t comprehend it. He still had his merit badges from Boy Scouts, Jacob’s first baby tooth, his father’s World War Two duffel bag. Those possessions grounded him, defined him, located him and his space in the impersonal scheme of things. They were the physical, tangible record of a life, and no one sold a life at a yard sale.

He said, “I don’t believe it. Not everything. You couldn’t have sold your daughter’s baby book.”

“Of course not!”

Aha! He’d known it.

“I gave it away.”

“What?”

“I gave all that kind of personal stuff to Laura. Passed it on to the next generation, so to speak. Those things are important to Laura. All I’ve got left is three pairs of shoes, a few pairs of jeans, enough dishes to fill a strainer, a CD player...” She paused and appeared to think for a moment. “That’s about it. Oh, and a spider plant.”

“A decadent luxury.”

Sara laughed. “I’m managing to keep it alive.”

The throbbing in his ankle reached clear to his hip by now, but he ignored it, concentrating instead on this woman beside him who’d pared her life down to an unrecognizable skeleton. “You mean there’s no dog to share the campfire with? No collection of matchbooks from places like Sweettooth, Texas? No knitting bag with a halffinished chartreuse pillow cover?”

She shook her head. “I read a lot.”

“Hmm.” He scratched the back of his neck absently. They came up on an eighteen-wheeler and Sara passed the huge truck without loosing speed. Smooth. Controlled. Crossing and recrossing the white line with practiced skill—two years of practice. The more she told him, the more he wanted to probe.

“So you sold everything, got into your truck and headed—where?”

“It didn’t matter at the time. I guess it still doesn’t. Into the sunset sounded good as far as I was concerned. I drove to the closest interstate entrance, and since I didn’t want to make a left into traffic, I took a right. And right was north.” She rested her elbow on the open window and drummed her fingers against the outside of the door, occasionally letting the force of the wind lift her hand and push her palm open. It was as if she caressed the air, savored the motion, as she described that first dash to freedom.

“It was the middle of July, blastingly hot, so I kept on going north. Seattle, British Columbia, then skirted the northern states, Minnesota, New York, Maine. I ran out of land in Bar Harbor and it was starting to get cold so I turned south. By November I was somewhere in Georgia. I spent that winter in the south avoiding the snow, then when it warmed up I headed north again. Sort of a big, looping circle.”

“Sounds like the way herds migrate.”

She smiled. “I guess.”

He tried to understand. “But herds follow the food, the grass. What did you follow? What do you follow?” He studied her as she kept her eyes on the road, the asphalt singing beneath the tires. What siren’s song did she hear?

“It still doesn’t matter. There’s no destination to this trip.” She sounded very sure. He knew she’d already asked herself the same questions. “As long as I never have to write another to-do list as long as I live, I’ll be happy. No schedule, no have-tos, no responsibilities, no one depending on me—”

“But what about your daughter?” Where was the room for family in a one-woman camper? he wondered.

“Laura.” Sara sighed. “She’s a grown woman. She’s got a college degree, a good job, her own apartment, her own life—but she considers the way I live some kind of personal affront.”

“She doesn’t approve?”

“That’s putting it mildly. She thinks I’m nuts, having some kind of mid-life crisis or something, and I’ll snap out of it if she badgers me long enough. Go back to baking cookies or whatever it is she thinks I should be doing.”

“Oh.” Mac tried to sound noncommittal. Obviously he failed.

“And what does that mean?” Her eyes were narrowed against the lowering sun, hair tangling in the wind, golden strands mixed with the brown. “You think I’m nuts, too?”

“I didn’t say that,” he hedged. “But you have to admit it’s not your run-of-the-mill life-style.”

“Haven’t you ever had days when you wanted to say to hell with it all—” she waved a hand to encompass the road, the land, all of Wyoming “—and just take off for the tropics?”

Had he ever wanted to bolt? Mac considered her question. There had been a time, those nights right after his wife had left, when he’d sit at the too-silent supper table looking at his boys over the charred pot roast, dishes from last night still piled in the sink, the boys ready to burst into tears or fights at the drop of a pin. Could he have walked out?

He shrugged. “I’ve lived in the same house all my life. My father and grandfather were born upstairs. My great-grandfather homesteaded the land I work today.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.”

Sara was silent a moment. “You’re lucky,” she said finally.

“I’m very lucky.” He knew he was. He might be tied to the land, but the ties were velvety soft and he willingly slipped his hands into the straps every time he plunged a shovel into the dark soil, every time he singed the Wallace brand into the hide of a bawling calf, every time he broke ice on a watering trough. Every time he dragged on his boots, tugged on his gloves, slapped his hat on his head and slammed the screen door, a door that had been slammed by four generation of Wallaces, he pulled the straps tighter, and more comfortably, around him.

“I’m not saying that ranching’s for everyone, either,” he felt compelled to add. “My ex-wife certainly didn’t think so. It’s hard work, the money’s lousy, and the winters are hellish.”

“But you love it.”

“I do.”

“She didn’t?”

“No, she didn’t.” He knew Sara waited for more, but he refused to elaborate. He didn’t like to talk about Ronda. He didn’t like to think about Ronda.

“Oh, so I’m supposed to tell all but you get to be the strong, silent type? Nothin’ doin’.”

“Ask me about something else then.” He saw the speculative look Sara gave him but was relieved when she dropped the subject of his ex-wife. His foot pounded in time to his pulse and he had to concentrate to keep his muscles relaxed. His marriage wasn’t something he could talk about without stiffening up until he was one big cramp.

“All right,” she agreed, “what does Mac stand for?”

“MacKenzie.”

“MacKenzie Wallace. A good clan name.”

“Quite a few generations back, but my father was proud of it. Being an only child, he made sure I’d carry on the name. Whereas you—” he looked at her carefully “—I’d say you’re from solid English stock.”

“And how can you tell that?”

His arm still lay along the back of her seat, and he reached up to trail a finger lightly along her cheekbone. “It’s that peaches and cream complexion of yours, like a rose petal settled right here—” He traced his way slowly up to her ear, suddenly unable to stop what had started as a casual touch. His blood quickened and he forgot all about the pain in his ankle. He wanted to let his finger slip down the curve of her neck, follow her collarbone, dip inside her T-shirt—

He jerked his hand away and curled his fingers around the back of the seat, gripping the padded upholstery tightly. The pain in his ankle roared to life, exploding from a dull ache to a white-hot throb, but the groan that welled from a place down deep inside came more from the unexpected and unwelcome feeling of desire than from physical pain.

He cleared his throat and tried to sound as if the touch of her silken skin under his fingers had left him unaffected. “You know, the English were bitter enemies of the Scottish clans. I bet my ancestors and yours were pretty nasty to each other.”

Sara’s cheeks were tinged a delicate pink, but her voice was calm as she said, “So I’ve heard. They wouldn’t approve of my aiding and abetting the enemy this way. Although I guess since it was my truck that injured you in the first place, I struck my blow for England.”