“No. I can’t close my eyes until I tell you. If I hadn’t been so self-centered and ambitious this might not have happened. I had no idea it was so beautiful.”
“Sweetheart, you’re not making sense right now. Just rest. We’ll talk later. Shh … hear that?” They both paused to listen to the steady thumping sound that was advancing toward them rapidly. “It’s them. You’re going to be fine, baby.”
“But, Joe. I have to tell you. It was me all along. I’m the one who destroyed the mountain. I need you to understand and find some way to forgive me.”
“I do. I forgive you. I love you. Now rest. Please.” Leslie got the distinct impression that he would have said anything to shut her up and settle her down again. The helicopter was soon visible, and Joe was wrapping her tightly in the blanket, covering her face with his body to keep the flying dirt away from her.
Leslie was tired. She’d tried her best to tell him, and it seemed to appease her conscience. Her eyes drifted closed, and she entrusted her spirit to the fates. She took comfort in the darkness that rose up to meet her.
Places, faces, and voices drifted in and out of her consciousness. Bright lights, her father’s voice, the hazy image of a stranger’s face came to her and then quickly were gobbled up in the darkness. At some point she woke to find Joe asleep in a chair beside her. The lighting was dim and gloomy, but she could make out his features. She drew comfort from his peaceful presence and closed her eyes once more to sleep.
“I called Beth again,” Leslie heard her mother saying. “As long as Leslie is going to be fine, there’s no reason for them to cut their honeymoon short to come home, is there? She won’t appreciate us making a big fuss out of this when she wakes up, you know.”
“No. No,” her father agreed. “I think you’re right. That was a good idea. There’s nothing for Beth to do here but get on Leslie’s nerves. She can do that after the honeymoon.”
Beth won’t get on my nerves, Leslie said in the back of her mind. Well, not the way she used to. And it’s okay if you want to make a fuss over me. I want you to. It’s your way of showing me your love. I need love. It makes life worth living. It puts a value on every second that passes. I love the both of you. And I love Beth. And from now on, you’re going to know I do. Because I’m going to tell you and show you in every way I can.
“Did the doctor say when she’d be waking up?” her mother asked. “I’m dying to find out what she was doing up in those mountains with that young man.”
“Now, Mother,” Stan Rothe cautioned his wife. “She’s a big girl.”
“I know, dear. I just can’t understand why she hasn’t opened her eyes yet.”
“Maybe she’s just lying there enjoying the sound of your voices,” Leslie said, a sleepy smile spreading slowly across her face as she opened her eyes.
“Oh, darling. You are awake. How are you feeling?”
“I’m not sure yet, Mother. Good, I guess. And I’m glad to see you.” She returned her mother’s kiss on the cheek and added a hug for good measure. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, honey.” He took his turn at Leslie’s cheek, then stepped back to study her intently as if he could sense there was something different about her. “Well? Are you going to keep us on tenterhooks, or would you like to tell us how you came to be bitten by a snake?”
Leslie smiled wryly. “It’s not exactly something you’d expect to happen to me of all people, is it?”
“No. You’ve always been the original hothouse orchid in my book. When did you develop this interest in unpasteurized air?”
“Didn’t Joe explain it to you? You met him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, dear, we met him,” her mother said. Leslie picked up on a hesitation in her voice and instantly was wary.
“Where is Joe?”
Her parents looked at each other meaningfully, and Leslie’s heart began to skip beats. “Where is he?” she asked again.
Stan Rothe shook his head, searching for words. “We don’t know, honey. He called us last night and told us what happened. Everything seemed fine when we met him here. We had dinner together downstairs in the cafeteria. We talked. He talked. It got late, and he told us to go home, that he’d stay with you until morning. But by the time we got back, he was gone. The nurse gave us this to give to you.”
Leslie took the envelope her father pulled out of his breast pocket, staring at it in confusion and dread. Intuitively she knew that it was all she had left of her time in the mountains, in the little cabin, in Joe’s heart. Something had gone wrong, or he would still be at her side.
“What did the three of you talk about?” she asked, sounding almost indifferent. She was filled with a sense of foreboding, she knew in her heart what they had talked about.
“You mostly,” her mother said cautiously, knowing how protective her daughter was of her privacy. “He seemed to know so much about you already that we assumed he was special to you and that it was okay to talk to him about you.”
Leslie smiled weakly at her mother, realizing what a difficult daughter she’d been for so many years. “He is someone special. And it was okay.”
Mrs. Rothe relaxed visibly and went on. “We talked about how strange it was for you to be in the mountains. And he didn’t seem to know why you were there either, so then we told him what a peculiar creature you are with all your do’s and don’ts. He seemed to think them very funny and even knew about some of them. We talked about your job, and Dad and I told him how proud of you we are. Honestly, dear, I can’t think of a thing we said that might have upset him. He seemed fine when we left, and the nurse said he stayed until he knew you’d be all right.”
Leslie shook her head, looking at the envelope in her hands. “It wasn’t you, Mother. It was me.”
Her fingers automatically tore at the paper that covered the fate of her hopes, her dreams, and the love Joe had given her. The missive was short:
TenThe reason history keeps repeating itself is because no one was listening the first time. I can’t afford to make the same mistake twice. One liar in my lifetime was more than enough.
T
HREE WEEKS LATER
, Leslie Rothe, data-research analyst for the Darby Development Company walked into a conference room in the state government building in downtown Denver. Her high heels clicked loudly on the old stone floors, announcing her arrival. She stood tall and proud. Her linen suit was flawless and wrinkle free. Every dark hair on her head was curled to perfection. Her face was shrouded with an expression of indifference. For every intent and purpose, she appeared to consider this hearing before the forest service review officer a trifling inconvenience.
Appearances were, indeed, deceptive. Inside she was racked with pain. Her makeup covered the dark shadows under her eyes caused by weeks without adequate sleep. She had all but begged Nathan Darby not to send her to the hearing, especially after being informed that it had been moved from Jack Sullivan’s office to a conference room to allow for the large group of protesters they were expecting. Joe Bonner was bound to be one of them, and the mere thought of having to face him again was pure torture to the lacerations that still lay open and raw in her heart. For days now she had labored under the misery and torment of knowing that she would see him once more and that he would look at her through the eyes of a man who hated her.
She couldn’t bring herself to pick him out of the crowd as she walked to the table at the front of the room. Nathan Darby was already there. A clean-cut, smooth-talking business tycoon who considered the hearing a bothersome nuisance, he looked up and smiled at her when her briefcase came to rest beside his on the table.
“I can think of at least a hundred different places I’d rather be than here listening to these nature lovers complain about all the money this project will be bringing into the state. Can’t you?” he asked in a low tone of voice, obviously not wanting the protesters behind them to overhear.
Leslie shrugged and took the seat beside him. “It’s still a free country, Nathan,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, wishing the day was over and gone forever. She could feel her employer’s puzzled stare as he tried to evaluate her changed point of view. The old Leslie Rothe would have been angry and punishing to anyone who questioned the rightness of her reports or her final recommendations. The old Leslie was a gung ho, get-it-done girl. She’d had little tolerance for the opinions of others once she was certain she was correct in her own mind.
Jack Sullivan was the last to arrive. He took his place among the four other high-level forest-service officials at a long table facing the two dissenting parties. Jack and Leslie had worked together often over the years. They had developed a friendly rapport and respected each other’s opinions. Rarely had they sat on opposite sides of an issue, and Leslie felt quite certain that if she spoke. Jack would listen attentively.
He read aloud the formal proposal submitted by Darby Development Company and touched briefly on the complaint submitted by the environmentalists, then he asked them to present their cases. Nathan’s was short and sweet, outlining the project and the state revenue estimates projected to the year 2010. He frequently made reference to the report compiled and submitted by Leslie Rothe, and every time her name was mentioned she shuddered with shame and cringed with regret as she felt Joe’s gaze boring into her from somewhere behind her.
When it was their opponents’ turn to plead their case, Joe’s own report was touched upon briefly, and they had just as many facts and figures to back up their arguments as Leslie had gathered for hers. But most of their data came straight from the heart. One impassioned plea after another was made. The protesters wanting the ski resorts and park lands confined to those areas already in use and to the periphery of the mountain range and the wilderness in the heart of the Colorado Rockies left as a gift to future generations.
As noon approached, there were still several more speakers to be heard on behalf of the environmentalists. A recess was called, and the hearing was adjourned for lunch. Leslie declined Nathan’s offer to share the, next ninety minutes together. She found herself to be poor company these days and already was feeling short tempered with him because of her own guilt. She wanted to be alone.
Filing out behind an orderly group of protesters, she kept her eyes lowered, afraid they would chance to meet a pair of sharp green ones that would instantly see the pain and misery she was harboring deep within her. Deception was never to be her ally, it seemed. Two feet outside the chamber doors, Joe stepped out in front of her, impeding her escape.
“Hi,” he said, his voice low and tentative.
“Hi,” she said, torn between self-righteous anger and the pain of his rejection and the condemnation she felt for her own actions. She could hardly bring herself to look him in the eye. Her throat was tight, and the air was warm and thick. She could barely breathe.
“Are you well now? No problems from the snakebite?”
“I’m fine. Thanks.” She stepped out to go around him, but he reached out and took her arm to stop her.
“Leslie. I want to apologize.”
“For what?” she asked, her confusion giving her the courage to look at him.
Joe looked around to make sure they were as alone as possible in the crowded corridor, then turned back to study her face in detail. “I shouldn’t have left that note the way I did. I should have faced you, called an end to it face-to-face. But I wasn’t sure I could. I’m sorry for that and, well, I’m sorry things didn’t work out. I should have called for help that first night, I guess.”
Leslie observed the tips of her shoes for several seconds, allowing him to finish while she tried to rein in her temper. It was a futile effort. “Mr. Bonner. If you’ve stopped me just to put an end to our affair for a second time, I can assure you, I got the message the first time. I don’t appreciate your wasting my time in this manner.”
“It wasn’t a waste of time, Leslie. Not the time we spent in the mountains together. It just wouldn’t work between us now. I’m not sure I could trust you again.”
“Fine.” This time she half pushed him out of her way so she could leave, although it was hard to tell where she was going. Tears blinded her, and her mind was a jumble of broken dreams and despair. She got a good ten yards away before she was overcome by one of those weird impulses that being in love seemed to produce in her. She turned back around and in an unLeslielike voice shouted down the hall, “You know, Joe Bonner, I hope that if you ever make a mistake, you remember to punish yourself as severely as you punish others for theirs. Maybe then you’ll know what it’s like to be human, and you’ll realize what you’re throwing away now.”
The hearing resumed precisely at one-thirty. Leslie had met up with Nathan in the hallway and had used him as protection against another run-in with Joe. She found that his company hadn’t been necessary. She didn’t see Joe on her way back into the conference room. And once inside, she didn’t bother to look to see if he had returned. She didn’t care if he was there or not. And she kept on telling herself that, until a very interesting speaker rose to address the review board.
The woman, Ruth Collins, was tall and thin with a long, lean face. Her skin was darkly tanned by the sun as if she’d spent many hours out-of-doors.
“Mr. Sullivan, I’d like to bring to this board’s attention the problem of the American bald eagle as a vanishing species in this country. It has been brought to my attention by a reliable source that there is a pair of eagles nesting in the area Darby Development plans to destroy. I can’t believe that this board, in good conscience, would risk the loss of these severely endangered birds for any amount of money.”
Jack Sullivan was frowning. His gaze met Leslie’s. “I’m sorry,” he said, with genuine concern. “I don’t recall any mention in your report of eagles in the area, Ms. Rothe. Were you aware of this?”
“No, I wasn’t aware of their existence at the time I filed the report. However, I, too, have recently received this information. I understand this is their second year in the same nesting place.”
Jack was thoughtful for several seconds, then he again turned to Leslie. “In the past, under circumstances such as these, the developers have made provisions for the birds, building around them and giving them a great deal of space until they migrate and build elsewhere. Does this seem like a possibility in this case?”