Jennifer Greene - Conquer the Memories

“You have something against following the doctor’s orders?” Charlie wondered idly. “What exactly is so wrong with room and board here for the week?”

“I want Sonia home.” Away from every memory of the night before, away before the story could break in the newspapers. In the country, at home, he could ensure that she would forget the horror of their Walpurgisnacht. And back in Cold Creek, he would try to make up to her for what he had let happen…

The color had drained from his face; his friend apparently noticed. Charlie’s hands left his pockets, and he buttoned his old cord jacket. “I got orders only to stay in here for no more than fifteen minutes. I’ve already been here more than an hour. I’ll come back for visiting hours tonight.”

“Don’t go yet,” Craig said wanly, and hated that weak sound in his voice. Dammit, how long was the headache going to last? “There’s a man. Peter Farling.”

“Never heard of him.”

Charlie worried about Craig dealing with people Charlie didn’t know.

“He’s a jewelry designer. I need a necklace.”

“Today?” Charlie said blandly. “Sure you do. Now be a good boy and lock the door so no one else sees you looking like a punching bag.”

“Charlie.”

He would do it. Craig relaxed when his friend left, and closed his eyes again. Peter Farling had designed the original opal-and-onyx necklace. And Charlie was the kind of man who didn’t ask why Craig needed a necklace in a hurry.

For a long time, Craig lay with his eyes closed. Sleep wouldn’t come. The new necklace would make up for nothing. Oh, in his rational mind, he knew Sonia would be all right. She was resilient and optimistic by nature, and he knew that, given time, she really would forget the details of the incident. Once he had her home with him, around places and things they both loved, away from pressures, he would see to it that the open wound scarred over quickly.

Whether he could forget it-and forgive himself-was another thing. The irrational part of him was well on the way to becoming obsessed with a memory.

Sonia set down the watering can and wiped her damp, grimy hands on the seat of her cutoffs. Tight velvet buds were just starting to form on the rose stems. Her favorite was the rich apricot-colored one, the one she had grafted herself and the one she had never really believed would work.

Absently, she brushed the trail of moisture from her forehead with her sleeve. Her shoulder just slightly protested the movement with a twinge of stiffness, but not much. Two weeks had made a difference.

Just being home had made the real difference.

Even with the slanted windows open, it was unbelievably hot in the narrow greenhouse. As much as she loved her roses, they refused to thrive under Wyoming’s baking sun and endless, driving winds. Charlie and Craig had put the building up two years before, over her repeated protests that she and Craig were away too much for her to spend the time with her favorite hobby. The two men had ignored her-their favorite pastime-and now they were both clearly to blame for the dirt under her fingernails, the hair curling wildly around her cheeks and the luxurious relaxation she felt after digging in the rich black dirt for the past two hours. Bending down, she scooped up the puppy that had cheerfully untied her shoestrings twice.

The tawny golden retriever pup stared at her with limpid eyes. “You’re a disgrace,” Sonia informed him affectionately. “All wrinkles. Clumsy. Your paws are just about bigger than your whole body. And I’m supposed to sell you as the pick of the litter?”

The pup’s soft pink tongue lapped lovingly at her neck. “And I’m never going to be able to give you up. Craig did remark that I was the last person alive who should try to raise dogs.” She set the pup down, tying her canvas shoes for the third time. With help.

From the open windows, Sonia could just barely hear the sound of voices from the yard. Smiling, she put away the trowel and small spade, then rinsed her hands. A burst of feminine laughter outside made her chuckle.

Some husbands disliked their mothers-in-law. Perhaps because Craig had lost his mother so young, he had taken on Sonia’s mother like a second chance. The Rawlingses had lived in Cold Creek for generations, and though Sonia and Craig had spent the past few years more or less hopping around with his work, Cold Creek was where they’d built their home. Both valued those roots, and her parents had become his adopted ones.

With the pup in her arms, Sonia checked the temperature in the greenhouse and pushed open the door. Forest smells assaulted her nostrils. Craig’s land was nestled at the fingertips of the massive Tetons. The really high peaks were miles away, but most of Craig’s ranch sprawled out in a valley nestled among the foothills, verdant and green and rolling. “Their” river was also a gift from the mountains, clear and always cold, winding lazily in and around the property like a silver ribbon.

South of them was a much more arid rolling prairie, where most of the ranchers around Cold Creek made their living. And many miles farther southeast was the Green River Basin, where some fifteen years ago the government had gotten all excited about shale oil. Craig’s ranch worked horses, not oil, but the south end held some of that shale. Enough for one brash young man with a faint mustache to experiment with, as pretty much everyone else in the area had rushed to experiment. The kid in oversized cowboy boots had had the sense to patent his oil extraction process, and the rest of his story was the history of one bankrupt ranch’s evolution into a successful enterprise dominated by a man who expected to work hard for everything he had. Those boots more than fit him these days.

The ranch was still home to both of them, no matter how far they traveled. Sonia knew exactly what the land meant to Craig. Roots, privacy, quiet, the memory of just how hard he’d fought to save it…She drew strength from their home as he did, was renewed by it as he was.

Except-not this time. The phone hadn’t stopped ringing since they’d arrived. The rest Craig needed so badly hadn’t been given to him. After the weeks of trying to browbeat him into taking it easy and still feeling foolishly jumpy herself whenever she heard a strange sound, Sonia had capitulated that afternoon and called in the troops.

June Rawlings was a very capable one-woman army, a trim, attractive woman in white slacks and top, with her daughter’s dark hair and long legs. She grinned as Sonia approached. “Good Lord. Look what the pup dragged home this time,” she drawled to Craig.

“Thanks,” Sonia told her mother wryly, and made her way to Craig’s side. She was delighted to see her overworked husband stretched out on a chaise longue. Just an hour and a half of sitting still had put the mischief back in his dark eyes. Not that she particularly appreciated their focus at the moment. His eyes skimmed deliberately over the smudged dirt on her knees, noted the way her halter top stuck provocatively to her slim curves, and sparkled at the errant curls full of their own ideas about hairstyle. “And you can just stop looking at me that way. I’ll take a shower just as soon as I’ve had a drink,” she scolded him.

Settling the puppy on his lap, she leaned over for a kiss. Under her mother’s watchful eye, a mere peck was protocol, but there was enough time for a solicitous inventory. The bruises and swelling were gone from his face; the bump on his nose wasn’t, but she was growing very fond of that odd bump. Bumps didn’t matter; it was that tense broodiness she caught too often on his face that worried her. She relaxed. Even her most critical eye could see he was for once relaxed. In fact, Craig was looking a ton healthier each day. He also tasted delicious.

Sonia was suddenly hungry.

“I hope you didn’t take that outfit with you when you went to Chicago,” her mother said wryly.

Between the two chaise longues was a small metal table with a pitcher of iced tea. Sonia poured herself a glass. “You could ask me how the roses are going,” she suggested to her mother. In several long gulps, she finished half the tea, and lazily collapsed in the grass between the two lawn chairs. Immediately, the pup bounded down from Craig’s lap to pounce on her, causing the glass to tilt and iced tea to dribble on Sonia’s knee, in no way contributing to her dignity.

“That’s her father’s daughter, you know,” June told Craig. “I can’t tell you how often we thank God you took her off our hands. I never could figure out what you saw in her.”

“The legs, Mom.”

June shook her head at him. “Those knees are her father’s, too. Not mine.” She catalogued the parts of Sonia’s body, dividing them up genetically and blaming all physical and character deficiencies on her father’s genes. What her mother failed to point out, Craig inevitably discovered. Used to such teasing, Sonia ignored both of them. And weary of retying her tennis shoes, she simply pulled them off and arched her hot feet in the soft, cool mat of grass. The puppy promptly lost interest in shoestrings and decided to teethe on her toes.

Before long, a half dozen more wrinkled, scampering puppies attacked her. Their dam, Tawny Lady, having led out her brood, trotted briskly to Craig’s side. His arm went around her, stroking her fur, while Sonia was assaulted unmercifully by their champion retriever’s offspring.

“Come over here and do your own babysitting,” she ordered Tawny Lady, laughing.

The dog turned her head and closed her eyes, clearly uninterested in leaving Craig’s side. Though she was basically obedient and gentle, there was still no question she was Craig’s dog.

“You could always keep them penned,” her mother suggested dryly. “Particularly since they’re going to be sold eventually-they’re not just pets.”