She gave him a weak smile.
“Oh, you’re very tired,” Cal said. “I’m going to get out of here.” He gave Molly a pat and then watched as the dog got up on the bed beside Sierra, cuddling close. He just smiled and shook his head. “Be sure to call if you need me,” he said.
“It’s just a sprained ankle, Cal,” she reminded him.
“Call for any reason.”
“Just go home,” she said.
“Listen, stop moping and feeling sorry for yourself. You’re going to be fine. And in case you’re wondering, Connie is a good guy. He’s okay.”
She nodded and Cal slipped out the door.
“But I’m not,” she said to Molly.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
—Edwin H. Chapin
Chapter 8
CONNIE KNEW IT was going to seem a little obvious, but he went out to the Crossing the next three days. His first excuse was he had to pick up that backpack he’d hidden when he went to find Sierra, then he wanted to check on her, maybe give the dogs a little workout so they’d be less restless. Then he said he’d just spend time with her since she couldn’t go anywhere. The first day she was down—feeling bad about what her injury meant for other people. Byron, who she couldn’t help at the diner; Sully, who she couldn’t help at the Crossing; the dogs, who were being neglected by her. The next day she felt better, the swelling was down and after talking with Byron, she was cheerier. With summer so close, school would be out soon and he would have a surplus of waitresses and could cover the mornings. The third day, the campground wasn’t very populated and she was feeling better about taking a rest.
“Don’t you have to work?” she asked him.
“I’ve worked two days this week so far and was off one. I just took a couple of hours to come out and check on you,” he said. “It’s personal time.” And he was there every day to see how things were going. If he had a lot of time, he helped out at the store and grounds. If he didn’t, he spent an hour or so visiting and then left.
After a week had passed he drove her into town to see her doctor. The doctor told her she could drive as long as she didn’t put all her weight on that ankle. That cheered her up considerably.
“You don’t have to keep coming out here to check on me,” she told him.
“I check on Sully a lot anyway,” he said.
“Sully needs checking on?” she asked.
“No more than you,” he said. “If you don’t want to be friends, say so. I’ll make sure to only talk to Sully and the dogs.”
She looked at him with a crooked smile. “Friends?”
“We barely know each other, but if you want to consider something more than friends, we can keep that in mind. For later.”
“Ha,” she laughed. “You’re playing me!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
What he was doing was moving really, really slowly so he wouldn’t find himself falling for her and then ending up in the same bucket of shit like he had with Alyssa.
Since Sierra was getting around pretty well, he went to the Crossing a couple of times to find she wasn’t even there. She’d been running some errands, Sully said. She’d gone to Cal’s to check out the barn and to Leadville to poke around.
But when she was there, they’d stake out a piece of sunshine and talk for an hour or so. She asked him when he decided to become a fireman.
“That’s a little murky,” he said. “I wanted to be a firefighter since I was about four, but I also wanted to be a cowboy, an astronaut and a hobo.”
“Hobo?” she asked with an incredulous laugh.
“You know, just a backpack and the open road. But I was a very scrawny kid. I just didn’t grow for a long time and I got sick a lot—winter colds and stuff. I got teased a lot, picked on a lot. My dad was the worst—he picked on everybody. So, I wanted to be someone big and strong and someone everyone looked up to.”
“And here you are,” she said. “Everybody loves Connie.”
“Nah,” he said.
“Oh, they do, but never mind that. So, you were scrawny and picked on and then...?”
“Then finally I grew. Not a moment too soon, that’s for sure. But I hit fifteen and bam! Instant hormones. My mother said I grew six inches in one year and I don’t know about that, but my feet were awful big. I played sports, worked out a lot, and in my senior year I thought, yeah—I think I’ll be a firefighter. But you can’t do that at seventeen and it takes a lot of preparation. I worked all over the place, mostly physical jobs—I worked as a furniture mover, a trucker, ranch hand, you name it. I took a few college courses. Rafe and I did almost everything together—we got jobs together, went to school together, applied to the fire department together. And that’s it, really. The history of Connie Boyle.”
“That’s a work history. What about the other stuff. Did you go to prom?”
“Yeah, I went to prom. I was a football player, it was practically the law. Didn’t you?”
She shook her head. “My situation was a little different than yours. But let’s get back to you. How are things with you and your dad now?”
That one made him a little uncomfortable. He looked away for a moment. Then he met her eyes. “My dad was a dick. He was mean to my mother and me. My mom divorced him when I was six and even as a little kid, I was not sorry to see him go, even though my mom cried all the time for months. Then she did something I will never understand. She married another dick. Another mean, snotty, verbally abusive asshole. Why would she do that? She said I’d understand someday but I do not understand and hope I never do.”
“Sadly, I get it. People do it all the time. Not on purpose. I don’t know why we do it, but some of us are magnets to mean assholes. Luckily for you, when women are picking out their husband they should look at how that guy treats his mother, not how he was treated by his father. But I guess at some point all family relationships matter.”
“Did you have good family relationships?” he asked her.
“I did, actually. But there were...extenuating circumstances. Like the fact that my dad has struggled with mental illness his whole adult life. That’s a little hard to work around.”
“I guess so,” he said emphatically. “Wanna go out to dinner? Maybe Colorado Springs?”
“No,” she said, laughing.
“Too soon?”
“Way,” she said.
“Okay. Wanna go down by the lake?”
“Okay,” she said, starting to get up.
“Stay put,” he said. “I’m going to get a beer—I’m not working tonight. You want something?”
“Diet Coke?”