Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

Eighteen

The drive down the mountain from Snowbird seemed to take three times as long as the drive up, even with gravity in their favor. Sarah stared out the window the whole way. She curled and extended her toes under the warmth of the floor vent, replaying how nice it felt to have Joe’s big, warm hands rubbing them.

Replaying the sensation of his lips on hers.

Then blinking hard to clear the image from her mind, even though it didn’t work.

When they returned to the hotel, Joe asked her if she needed anything, and when she said no, told her good night. Even though there was still plenty of daylight left outside.

He was gone before she remembered he had her key. She stopped by the front desk and showed her I.D. to get another one.

Maybe she didn’t forget he had it, she admitted to herself as she rode the elevator. Maybe she hoped he would still use it.

When she opened the door to her room, she saw that he had: his laptop was gone. Her key lay in its place on the table.

Sarah sank onto the couch.

“You need to decide how you want things to be.”

Making it her problem, not his.

Or, if she wanted to feel generous about it—which she didn’t—giving her all of the power.

He kissed her.

In the midst of everything else, he might have thought she forgot it, or didn’t notice. It had been very quick, after all. But even if Sarah had been as anesthetized as some of those other patients, she felt certain she would have noticed Burke’s mouth on hers for the first time in six years.

And the way he looked at her when he gripped her arms in the parking lot.

And the shock she felt when he explained that everything he’d been doing all week, taking care of her, was his version of an apology.

“What if I don’t want it?”

“Then that’s your choice. I’m just doing what I think I should.”

Damn it, Burke, Sarah thought. Don’t act like you’re the innocent victim here. Like I’m the one being cruel and unreasonable. I was there for you, I would have been there for you, I never would have left your side.

She had played back that image often, seeing him and his brother and father off in the distance at graduation, huddled together all alone. She could have been part of that group, her arms around Joe or holding tightly to his hand, comforting him on what she knew had to be a very hard day. But he didn’t want that, obviously. Although she noticed none of his other girlfriends had been around to fill that void, either.

So what was there to decide now? she wondered. Whether to be polite to him during the next three months of depositions? It wasn’t as if there were anything else on the table. They weren’t lovers anymore, they weren’t even friends. Even her relationship with Mickey Hughes had survived the peculiarities of law school, enough so that they got together for lunch once or twice a year, and Mickey had found her this current job.

Was that what Joe wanted, a few lunches every year? A “Hey, how you doing, how are things, what are you working on these days?” kind of friendship where neither of them ever said what was really on their minds, because then they’d be right back where they were now in this kind of stalemate of anger and guilt and yes, a little too much leftover lust for Sarah’s comfort, if she had to be entirely honest with herself?

She stretched out on the couch and lay with an arm draped over her eyes. Mickey hadn’t done her any favor, she realized. Yes, she appreciated the money and getting back to work again, but this had turned out to be a much more hazardous assignment than she knew when she took it. Look at her now, she thought, laid up in a hotel room, wearing hotel gift shop sweats, rehashing a day when she and Joe had kept their hands and mouths to themselves in a Walmart, and ended up sharing a chaste kiss in a mountain medical clinic.

The only thing she needed to decide right now was whether to watch a movie on cable while she ate her dinner from room service, or just eat in silence while she watched a mental repeat of the day. Because either could be equally dramatic.

***

The Salt Lake City airport was busier than she expected for Thanksgiving morning—she assumed most people traveled the day before—but she passed through the security line fairly quickly and headed for her gate.

There was no sign of Joe. She hadn’t seen him since he left her in the hotel parking lot the afternoon before. She wondered if he would even be on her flight after all.

But then she saw him in the distance, looking less like a hardy lumberjack now and more like a person who had slept as badly as she had. His face was unshaven, which was a good look as far as she was concerned, but he also seemed haggard, worn out. And unhappy.

He saw her, too, gave her a quick nod, then found a seat somewhere else.

So he really was going to stick to that “we should keep our distance” thing, she thought.

“I can take some of this, but not all of it.” She’d thought about that statement a lot.

Take what, exactly? she wondered. The sniping and the fighting, or the rare moments here and there when they were actually friendly to each other—maybe too friendly—forcing her and maybe him, too, to remember why they’d been attracted to each other in the first place?

“I just wanted you to remember it wasn’t all bad.” Damn it, Burke, she thought, looking at him now across the gate area, why did you have to stir it all up again? She’d been maintaining—they both had. Why did they suddenly have to drop all the pretense of being Henley and Burke and go back to being Sarah and Joe again?

The gate agent called for boarding, and Sarah waited for Joe to go first. If he wanted his distance, she could give it to him. Fine. Gladly. Take it.

She sat crowded into her window seat by a mother and child, the child way too bouncy and excited about seeing Grandma. Normally Sarah didn’t mind having a few Cheerios spilled on her lap or a sticky hand messing with the armrest between them, but what she really wanted right now was the peace and quiet of a row all to herself, or of the Joe from the previous day—the one who brought her hot chocolate and carried her to the clinic and warmed her toes in his hand—that one, sitting beside her now, offering up a broad shoulder for her to lean against as they both flew home together.

Stop it, Sarah scolded herself. Joe was right. All of this sentimental crap was bad news.

“Seeing family?” the woman with the child asked.

“Yes,” Sarah said, feeling no need to tell the woman she was actually heading home from work.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Us, too. I hate the holidays. Nobody ever comes to us, we always have to go to them.”

Sarah nodded sympathetically.

Nobody ever comes to us, we always have to go to them.

You need to decide how you want things to be.

She wanted things to be easy—that’s what she wanted. But it didn’t seem possible anymore.

***

This is stupid, Sarah thought, watching Joe walk ahead of her through LAX. She wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t know him.

She lengthened her stride until she caught up.

“So . . . have a nice Thanksgiving,” she said.

“Yeah, you, too,” he said.

“Are you going to your dad’s today?” she asked.

Joe nodded. “Your folks?”

“Yeah.”

They walked in silence for a few moments more, then Sarah finally took the hint.

“Okay, see you on Monday. Montana, right?”

“Montana,” he agreed.

Thank you, was on her lips. Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for everything you did for me this week.

But he’d already moved on.





Nineteen

Dinner at her parents’ house wasn’t until late afternoon, so Sarah used the time in her apartment to catch up on her life. Unpack, do a load of laundry, hand wash a few items, spot clean her suit since it would be a week or so before she could drop it at the cleaners.

She fixed herself a green smoothie with half a bag of prewashed spinach and enough berries, bananas, and orange juice to disguise the taste. She appreciated the effects of all the added greens in her diet, she just didn’t always like the flavor.

She answered a few e-mails, then repacked her bag. This time she filled it with jeans, T-shirts, and the kinds of slouchy, stretchy, comfortable clothes she knew she could overeat and relax in.

At the last minute she pulled her Utah sweatpants and sweatshirt out of the dryer and added them to the bag.

Fontana, California was only a few hours away from Los Angeles and Culver City, traveling inland away from the sea. Sarah listened to music the whole way, not bothering to keep up on the traffic reports. She missed a lot of things about the Mercedes her old firm leased for her, but on long drives like this, what she missed most was the sound system. It was easier to sing along and feel like she was in tune if she couldn’t hear herself too well over the music.

But she still sang every tune. Anything to keep from thinking about Joe.

She wondered what Thanksgiving would be like for his family. Just Joe and his brother and his dad. Did any of them cook? Did they go out somewhere? Was it a sad event, spent reminiscing about Joe’s mother, or did they do the man thing and sit around watching football all night and talking to the TV instead of each other?

She turned the radio up louder. Stop thinking.

Finally she began passing the landmarks of her childhood: the high school, the library, the grocery store. When she turned off onto her old street, she slowed the car. The houses looked the same, just maybe a little more tired. Still bikes left out front, cars with flat tires left at the curb, a few kids skateboarding on the asphalt.

Sarah pulled into her old driveway and parked next to a car she’d never seen. It was obviously her dad’s current project. She wondered if all mechanics brought their work home, or if some of them had seen enough of engines and transmissions by the end of the day that they preferred to find some other hobby.

Her mother must have heard the car, Sarah realized, because she came out of the house right away, still wearing her apron, the smells of the kitchen clinging to her hair and her clothes so that Sarah got a her first whiff of Thanksgiving just by hugging her mother close.

“Let me look at you, sweetheart.” Her mother drew back and studied Sarah’s face. She tucked a misbehaving lock of hair back behind Sarah’s ear, then hugged her again. “It’s so good to see you. We miss you.”

“Hi, Dad.” Sarah’s father was a few steps behind. She moved into his embrace, enjoying the sensation of one of his bone-cracking hugs. Even when she was a little girl, he never treated her like she was delicate.

“Come on,” her mother said. “You hungry?”

“Of course,” Sarah answered.

She followed her parents back into the warm kitchen, where Sarah found the oven and all four stove burners fully employed. Potatoes boiled, gravy bubbled, turkey roasted, rolls baked.

“Mom, it smells wonderful. Can I help?”

“No, you sit down,” her mother said. “You had a long drive. Dinner’ll be ready shortly.”

Sarah took her customary seat at the table, across from her father. Her mother always sat between them. It all felt so normal, so regular, so exactly the same as ever, Sarah found it hard to believe how much had happened since the last time she had been home for Thanksgiving, right after her promotion. She’d been bursting with the news then, anxious to share it with the two people she knew would be as thrilled about it as she was. Becoming a partner in one of Los Angeles’s most prestigious law firms just days before her twenty-ninth birthday. What a thing to celebrate.

So much could happen in the space of a year, Sarah thought. Or a week.

Or one day on a mountain with Joe Burke.

“Where’d you just come from?” Sarah’s father asked.

“Salt Lake City.”

“Never been,” he said.

“It’s pretty,” Sarah told him. “You two might like it. Cold, though.”

She knew that would be enough to keep her father away from there forever. The man could never abide the cold.

While Sarah’s mother busied herself at the stove, Sarah couldn’t help noticing how worn out she seemed. Both her parents always looked tired to her these days. She wondered if they had always looked that way, and she just never saw it when she lived at home. But now that months went by between her visits, she could see how they aged. It was one of the reasons she was so happy when they finally started accepting money from her. She had visions of helping them both retire within another few years. It was just one more dream she lost on April 6.

“How’s the car running?” her father asked.

“Really well. No problems. That was a good find, Dad. Thanks.”

“I’ll tune it up for you again over Christmas,” he said. “Don’t take it to any of those L.A. shops. They’ll ruin that car if they touch it.”

“I won’t let anyone else near it,” Sarah promised.

Her father nodded and went back to reading the paper.

“So, how’s it going with Joe?” Sarah’s mother asked.

Sarah knew that question would come. Ever since she told her parents who her opponent was, Sarah’s mother acted particularly protective.

“It’s fine,” Sarah said. “It’s not a big deal. We’re all so exhausted all the time from the travel, no one even bothers talking to each other very much.”

She knew she should feel bad about lying that way, but it was better than the alternative. If her mother had any hint of what happened with Joe the day before, she would have lectured Sarah for hours about how untrustworthy he was, how maybe he was trying to take advantage of their relationship so he could win his case, how Sarah was too good for him back then and far too good for him now, and of course he realized that, but too bad, he’d had his chance and thrown it away, he never should have treated her like that . . .

Only some of which Sarah agreed with.

“I don’t know how you’re doing it,” her mother said, taking the potatoes off the stove and draining them over a colander. “If your father ever left me, I’d never forgive him. You remember that, Gene.”

“I’ll remember,” he said, winking at Sarah.

“I don’t know how I’d ever be able to sit in a room with him even once,” Sarah’s mother said, “let alone over and over, week after week. I’d be so angry I couldn’t stand it.”

“Oh, come on,” Sarah’s father said. “Work’s work. You can’t always choose who’s on the job with you.”

“That’s right,” Sarah said, grateful that her father was always so practical. “I’m just glad to make money again. I should be out of debt by the middle of next month. Then I’m going to start sending you some again. Yes, I am, Dad,” she said before he could argue. “When’s the last day off you had? Either of you?”

“We’re both taking the whole weekend off,” Sarah’s mother said.

“Good. That’s progress,” Sarah answered.

“What do you think will happen when your five months are up?” Sarah’s father asked.

“I’m hoping they’ll offer me a permanent job there. If not, at least I have something new on my résumé. I’ll be fine. Things are already so much better.”

Sarah got up from the table before her mother could steer the conversation in the wrong direction again. “Want me to mash those?”

“Sure, honey. Butter and milk in the fridge.”

Sarah and her mother had reached a compromise about her food: Sarah wouldn’t eat any meat—not the Thanksgiving turkey or the Christmas ham or any of the other standard meals her mother made for every holiday, including the meatloaf Sarah used to love to have any time she came home—but Sarah also wouldn’t be such a stickler about butter and cream and other dairy products her mother insisted made every dish of hers as rich and delicious as it was. So she accepted the milk in her mashed potatoes. And the butter dripping on the rolls. And every other off-limits item her mother depended on in her cooking.

Sarah could have another green smoothie when she got home. Until then, she was in her mother’s work-worn hands.

“Bet that Joe Burke wishes he could see you right now,” Sarah’s mother said. “Look how beautiful you are. He probably hates having to take a few days off. I’ll bet he wishes all the time the two of you were still together.”

“He doesn’t,” Sarah said, wanting to shut down the topic once and for all. “We’re opponents, Mom, that’s all. It’s business. Lawyers have to deal with this all the time. Sometimes you get along with the attorney on the other side, sometimes you don’t. But everyone’s just working their cases and trying to win. I’m sure Joe and I will never even run into each other after this is all over. It’ll be like it never happened.”

Sarah’s mother humpfed, but then went back to tending her turkey. She could speculate all she wanted about what was going on in Joe Burke’s mind at that very moment, as long as they didn’t have to talk about it anymore.

Sarah mashed the potatoes, wishing she weren’t wondering the same thing.