See Jane Fall (42 page)

Five months. Like an albatross. Five
months.

She ground her teeth together and turned
onto her side, away from where Lars had been lying beside her,
toward the door and raised her knees to her chest, wrapping her
arms around them. The stark reality of the situation leeched hope
out of her heart like a syringe. No matter how strongly they felt
for one another now, what they had was way too new to make it for
five months apart. Especially if he wouldn’t come to see her.

It hurt her when he said that he wouldn’t
come. But what he said had made grudging sense to her. She didn’t
love her life in New York, and she understood why he didn’t want to
support her decision to return to it. She was only going back out
of obligation, because she didn’t see a better alternative.

Could she live without Uncow? Could she turn
her back on him? Could she refuse him, begrudge him a mere five
months of her time? Just because the timing was bad for her
heart?

Jane swallowed against her confusion and
increasing hopelessness. No matter which decision she made, she
would hurt and disappoint someone she loved.

Lars stalked back into the room, depositing
a glass of water on the bedside table beside her, then squatting
down beside the bed until he was eye-level with her.

“Heya, Minx.”

“Heya, Lars.”

“Don’t go.”

“I’ll come back.”

“Don’t go.”

A tear rolled over the bridge of her nose,
and he caught it with his calloused thumb, raising the thumb to his
mouth and pressing the wetness to his lips.

“Move over,” he whispered.

***

He stroked her curls off her forehead, loving
the weight of her head over his heart, hating how long it would be
until he felt it again. His still-racing heart throbbed with
yearning, his mind desperately tried to find a loophole that would
allow her to stay. Nothing in his life had ever felt as intimate,
as visceral, as satisfying, as making love to Jane. Letting her go
went against everything he felt, everything he wanted.

But, she was leaving. In a few hours. He
couldn’t shake the aching sorrow of her impending loss. His mind
kept circling back to it.

“What will you do?” she whispered. “While
I’m gone?”

“Is there anything I can do to convince you
to stay?”

“I have to do this. I have to try to make
things right with him. How can I convince you I’m coming back?”

He stopped playing with her hair and laced
his hands behind his head. “You can’t, Jane.”

“If Sara’s friend Laney will take the job, I
can start training her immediately. Maybe I can come back for a
weekend in November once she’s found her footing.”

“November.” He didn’t realize how much he’d
been pinning his hopes on her return until he heard her say the
word November. He had assumed that when she said she’d go back for
a little while, she was talking about a couple of months. Now, she
was talking about a
visit
in November. “Jane, when you talk
about coming back, what’s the timeframe?
When
will you come
back?”

“I don’t know for sure…it depends on how
quickly I can find a replacement and train that person…and
then—”

“
When, Jane
?”

She leaned up on her elbow. “After the New
Year. F-February.”

He nodded at her, quickly, silently, holding
her eyes. He knew they must look angry, furious even. “Five
months.”

“I think so,” she whispered.

She stared at him with those huge green
eyes, and he could see her hope, her longing, beseeching him to
wait for her, to trust her. He wanted to reassure her. He wanted to
lift her up onto his chest and hold her and tell her five months
was nothing, but he couldn’t do that. Five months wasn’t nothing
and he couldn’t act like it was.

“What are you thinking?” she asked him,
stricken.

“I’m wishing…I wish…”

“What?” She reached up and wiped her wet
cheeks with the backs of her hands.

I wish you’d tell your uncle and cousin to
go fuck themselves. I wish you’d realize that people wait a
lifetime for what we found over the course of a week. I wish you’d
see that something this new and this tender needs our protection. I
wish you’d see that I will love you enough that you will survive
saying good-bye to them and we will figure out how to win them back
together. I wish you’d stay. Damn, Jane, I just wish you would
stay.

“I wish things were different.”

“Will you—” Her voice broke. “Will you hold
me?”

He wished he could say no, but he couldn’t.
He loved her. He lowered his arms from behind his head and put them
around her, pulling her back up against his heart, where he wished
she could stay far longer than tomorrow. He held her in heavy,
desperate silence long into the night until they both fell
asleep.

CHAPTER 15

He hadn’t made love to her since last night
before they fell asleep and was unusually quiet as they woke up. He
didn’t reach for her. He barely looked at her. He finally swung his
legs over the side of the bed with his back to her.

“I can’t take you to Bozeman, Jane,” he said
softly. “My father or Nils will have to do it. I—I can’t. I can’t
watch you walk away from me.”

“Please come and visit me in New York,” she
asked in a timid whisper.

She watched as his shoulders slumped and his
head bent forward. She heard him sigh, and he looked at her from
over his shoulder, furrowing his brows, then looked away.

“Have to shower.”

While he showered, she dressed, folding
Maggie’s things neatly into a plastic laundry bag pilfered from the
motel. Hopefully she’d find a moment to return them before leaving
today.

“I hate the way we’re leaving things,” she
muttered, sitting at his kitchen table as he made them coffee. Each
time he moved, she could smell his soap or shampoo or deodorant.
Whatever it was, it smelled like him and made her want to cry.

“
You’re
leaving things, Jane.”

“I’m hurting as much as you are.”

“I highly doubt that. You’re calling all the
shots. You could make a different choice.”

She winced. “You’re being really mean.”

“
I’m
being mean? That’s rich.”

“If you want to hurt me, it’s working.”

He squatted in front of her, putting his
hands on her knees, and she looked up into his sad face, focusing
on his tight lips. She watched as he clenched and unclenched his
jaw before meeting his eyes.

“I don’t want to hurt you, I…I…” He looked
away, shaking his head.

“You what?” she asked softly, her eyes
watery with tears.

“It’s killing me that you’re leaving. And it
makes it worse that you don’t want to. This thing between us, Jane,
it’s special. I’ve never, ever felt like this before. Never.” He
swallowed, looking down at his hands on her knees, and she covered
them with hers. She watched as he turned his hands so they were
palm to palm with hers. “I know you say it’s not for long, but I
feel like this is it for us. I’ll drive you to your cousin’s, and
you’ll leave, and you’ll be gone. This’ll just become a memory, and
eventually we’ll get over each other, but in the meantime, it’s
going to hurt.”

“I’ll come back,” she whispered, squeezing
his hands.

He lifted his eyes to hers, and she saw the
pain there, the sadness and confusion. She hated herself for what
she was doing this to him. She leaned forward and he tilted his
head to meet her, sealing his lips over hers with precision, with
perfection.

As they pulled into the parking area in
front of Sara’s cottage, Jane had turned to him. “Think about
coming to see me. I know you don’t want to. But I want you to. I’m
going to get out of there as soon as I can.”

He took a deep breath and it was shaky as he
exhaled. He sniffed through his nose, but he didn’t look at
her.

“I’ll miss you,” she continued, unbuckling
her seatbelt and sliding closer to him. “I’ll miss everything.”

“Yep. Me too.” His voice was ragged and his
tone was clipped.

She slid a little closer, facing him,
wishing he would turn to her. “Wait for me.”

He turned to her and her chest hurt from the
ache in his glassy eyes. “I’m not good at good-byes, Jane.”

She swallowed and nodded, placing one hand
on his cheek and pressing her lips softly against his as tears
coursed down her cheeks. She leaned back from him, sliding toward
the passenger door, putting her camera on her shoulder.

“I love you,” she whispered to his stark
profile, which stared straight ahead, and she thought she saw him
nod almost imperceptibly through the blur of tears.

Standing alone in front of Sara’s cottage,
Jane wiped her eyes, watching his truck pull away, watching him
go.

I’ll come back. I’ll come back.

She swallowed, her eyes burning from sadness
and worry and lack of sleep, her body aching from use, her heart
raw from regret. Her head raced as the finality of her decision set
in, and she closed her eyes against the pain of knowing that there
was no guarantee she would ever see him again.

You’re making a mistake.

The words ran through her head on a loop
like one of the news feed screens in Times Square, and she felt the
pulling in her heart, the terrible pull to race after him and never
let him go.

She stood in the dusty parking area in front
of Sara’s cottage and watched until she couldn’t see him anymore.
Until he was gone.

She took a deep breath, and in the quiet of
the morning she heard music playing—classical music. From inside
Sara’s cottage.
That’s unusual.
Sara hated most music except
pop, and this wasn’t just classical. It was…opera. She wiped at her
eyes then fished the key out of her pocket and trudged to the door,
letting herself in, curious to find out why Sara was listening to
opera.

Jane opened the door and her jaw dropped to
the floor.

Sara stood in the kitchen, barefoot, in
jeans and a simple white t-shirt with her hair in a ponytail, her
back to Jane. She stood at the stove, moving something around a
frying pan with a wooden spoon, and Franco sat on a stool at the
kitchen bar watching her.

Now, Jane had known Sara her entire
life.

Jane had never seen Sara cook. Anything. For
anyone. Not a piece of toast. Not microwave popcorn. Nothing. If it
wasn’t made by someone else, ordered as takeout or unwrapped and
eaten, Sara didn’t want it.

“I don’t-a like ’em burned, so keep ’em
moving like I show you,
Dolce
.” He sipped a cup of something
then noticed Jane out of the corner of his eye. He turned his face
to her without a word, a broad, confident smile showing his white
teeth. He put his index finger to his lips, beckoning Jane with his
other hand.

“I won’t burn them. I’m being careful.”

“Turn around,
Dolce
. Say hello to-a
Jane, then finish my eggs, eh?”

Sara turned to face Jane and smiled
pleasantly, if not enthusiastically. “Oh. Hi, Jane.”

Jane’s bags slipped off her shoulders into a
noisy heap on the floor. Sara had no makeup on, nothing. But, Jane
had never seen her look so beautiful, so young and radiant and
happy. Not ever. Not since she was a very little girl.

“Eggs, S.” Jane watched as Sara smiled at
him then nodded once, moving the eggs around the pan. His soft
Italian accent made the “S” sound like a caress, like,
“Eh-sah.”

“M-morning,” murmured Jane, wondering if
she’d suddenly been transported to an alternate universe in which
Sara was a pleasant, caring, appropriate person who
was—apparently—adept at taking direction from her beefy trainer and
made eggs for his breakfast.

“Jane, you want espresso? Eggs? What can we
offer you?”

Jane blinked at Franco, trying to get her
head around the meaning behind his words. Was
Sara
going to
make her eggs? Coffee? “No! I mean, no, thank you. I mean, I’ll
help myself.”

“As-a you like.” He gestured to the coffee
machine then picked up his phone, scrolling through messages.

Jane took a cup out of the cupboard and
poured herself a coffee. She backed up, flicking her eyes back and
forth between Franco and her cousin, waiting for one of their heads
to pop off to reveal short-circuited wires underneath.

She watched as Sara picked up the pan and
awkwardly pushed the bright yellow pile of scrambled eggs onto a
plate. She opened several drawers before finding a fork, and then
she placed both items in front of Franco, smiling at him eagerly,
thrusting out her chest and rocking slightly on her bare feet. He
didn’t look up from what he was doing on his phone for a good ten
seconds, holding up one thick index finger, telling her to wait.
Which she did. Jane forced herself to blink. When he finally looked
up he smiled at Sara tightly, with a curt nod of approval, and then
he picked up his fork and began to eat.

“So…um, how was Jackson Hole?” Jane asked,
wondering if she had missed the news about aliens abducting
tourists from the Amangani over the weekend.

“S, you tell-a your
prima
how you
like the Jackson Hole.”

Sara turned to Jane and Jane noticed a
slight hint of annoyance that she was being directed to make
conversation with Jane
. Being directed
. Why? And why in the
world was she complying? What the hell was going on between these
two?

“It was fine, Jane. As it turned out, I
didn’t need you after all. In fact, you would have just been in the
fucking way and I—”

Franco looked up from his eggs, shaking one
finger back and forth, reminding her in a singsong tone. “Ah, ah,
ah. Civility, S.”

He spoke slowly but firmly. It sounded like
“Cee-vee-lee-tee, Eh-sah.”

Sara looked at him, wide-eyed, and then took
a deep breath, as though re-setting herself. She turned back to
Jane, speaking through a sigh.