Kathleen Creighton - One More Knight

But he didn’t think she heard him, or would have believed him if she had.

Cutter was sitting on a picnic table, the same one he and Charly had been sitting on that morning, when she’d told him about Colin, and how all this had come about. He had his back to them, although Troy knew very well he’d already marked their arrival.

Charly reached for the door handle and yanked it open. Bubba was already on his feet, whining and chompin’ at the bit to get to that water, so Troy got out and opened up his door and let him go. The pup went galloping by Charly, who was making her way across the sun-dappled gravel with the diary hugged to her chest. Troy got Bubba’s leash out of the back of the Cherokee and then followed, hanging back far enough to give her room, but close enough so she’d know he was there if she needed him.

The dog went galumphing by Cutter and splashed his way into the stream, making it pretty hard for the kid to go on pretending he didn’t know they were there. He turned to look over his shoulder, impatiently frowning, and muttered, “What do you want?”

From where he stood, Troy could see Charly’s shoulders lift, and he knew she must be trying to pull in a breath, one that probably felt like shards of broken glass. When she spoke, though, her voice was steady and strong, and he felt an unheralded glow of pride.

“I’m glad I found you-Dobie told me you might be here. Look, I just wanted to tell you I’m going to be leaving soon. They’re bringing me a car either tonight or in the morning.”

Cutter grunted something Troy couldn’t make out and turned his back to her again. She took a step closer.

“Cutter, listen.” Her voice was so low, so vibrant with emotion that it seemed to Troy he could feel it in his bones rather than hear it. “I understand my coming here was a shock to you.” She gave a soft huff of laughter. “Finding you here was a shock to me. Look, I don’t want to upset you-that’s the last thing I ever wanted. I understand you don’t care to have me be a part of your life right now. But maybe someday-” she took a deep, unsteady breath “-maybe someday you’ll have…questions.” She held out the diary, a quick, jerking motion. “Dobrina wanted me to give you this. It’s, um, it’s my diary. I kept it the year…the year everything happened. The year before you were born. I thought-she thought maybe you should read it.”

Cutter twisted toward her, tense and shaking. “What do I have to say to you to make you understand? I’m not interested in anything you’ve got to say. If Pop and Dobie want you back in their lives, that’s their business. I don’t want you in mine, okay? Can I make myself any clearer? And you can take that book with you-there’s nothin’ in there I need to see, nothing you can say I want to hear.” The young voice cracked. He hauled in a breath and pulled himself up, clutching desperately at his pride. “Now, I’d be obliged if you’d leave me alone.”

Listening to that, Troy felt a strange sensation, like a cold wind blowing through him, chilling his body, drowning thought. He had no real sense of how long it was before Charly finally turned around and started back toward him, walking as though the ground underneath her feet were rocky. He didn’t hear anything except for the rushing in his ears as he guided her to the truck with one hand on her elbow. He whistled for Bubba, opened up the door for him when he came running, and it never even occurred to him to mind the mud and water he was bringing in with him. Something primitive in him was wanting to kill the kid for doing this to the woman he loved, even while the reasoning part of him was telling him nobody in this world was hurtin’ any worse than that boy was right then.

Except, of course, for Charly.

Troy helped her into the passenger’s side of the Cherokee the way he would have if she’d been old, or disabled. He shut her door and went around to his side and got in and started up the engine and backed slowly out of the clearing. And all the while she didn’t say a word, didn’t make a sound.

He waited until he’d pulled out onto the highway, then cleared his throat and said, “Well, we probably should’ve expected somethin’ like this. It’s awful early yet. He’ll come around.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said softly, “he won’t. You saw his face.” Troy was getting ready to argue with her when she suddenly gave a sharp little laugh. “He’s got too much of me in him. Lord, it took me twenty years to forgive my father. And I’m expecting him to do it in two days?”

She looked down at the book in her hands, slowly shaking her head, her voice going soft again, tired and sad. “Look, I tried, okay? It’s no use beating my head against the wall. All I’m doing is hurting myself. I don’t need this. I don’t need it .” She caught herself, then went on in a whisper, “At least…I know now. I know he’s okay. And he’s with people who love him. That’s all I wanted…”

“Well,” said Troy, easing his own aching chest with a breath, “maybe what you should do is leave the diary with Dobrina. If anybody can bring that boy around, she-Hey, what are you doing?”

What Charly was doing was rolling her window down. And before he could even think about stopping her, she’d already done it. She’d thrown the diary out of the car.

Troy gasped as he watched the little green book go arcing through the air, over the side of the embankment, to land somewhere in the underbrush below.

“What’d you do that for? ” he yelled as he tromped reflexively on the brake, looking wildly around for a place to pull over.

“Just…get me out of here,” she said tersely, rocking herself with her arms folded across her waist, as if she had a bad bellyache. She sounded like her jaws were wired together. “Just…get me away from this town. God …” She leaned back suddenly, lifting her hands to push her hair away from her face in a gesture that was becoming familiar to him, then gave her head that little shake that settled everything back into its proper place. He couldn’t help but think how symbolic that was. “I can’t wait,” she said in a voice that was rough with passion, “to get back to L.A. Back to civilization .”

“Lady,” Troy growled, “you’ve got a pretty peculiar idea of civilization.” He wasn’t sure whether he was mad at her for what she’d done-throwing her diary away-although he was still jangling from the shock of that, for sure. Or the people-the fates-that had hurt her so badly. Or whether it was just the accumulation of everything he’d had to deal with over the past few days. Either way, it had finally happened. He’d reached the end of his rope.

And Charly knew it. She felt the sudden coldness of fear-not of him , not of Troy, she knew he’d never hurt her, not in a million years-but of losing something she hadn’t known was hers until that moment.

“Okay, maybe that was a bad choice of words,” she said, glancing at him uneasily. “I just meant-you know, some place where life is a bit more sophisticated. All this soap-opera stuff is getting to me.”

“Sophisticated.” He said the word, then snorted. “You know, Mirabella says that about you-‘Charly’s so confident, so funny and smart. So cool and sophisticated’-like it was a compliment. Well, hell, lady-let me ask you this-What does that mean, anyway? Can you tell me that?” He threw her a look, but she didn’t reply, and he went back to watching the road while she sat hunched and cold, watching a muscle work in the side of his jaw.

After a while he went on, in the slow, measured way people do when they aren’t used to making speeches. “All I know is, folks who live in small towns, particularly Southern small towns, are supposed to be un sophisticated. And folks who live in big cities are supposed to be sophisticated . So, what is it? Huh? You tell me. Some kind of dress thing? Knowin’ what wine to order? Bein’ in on who’s hip, who’s hot and who’s not? Does it mean big-city folks know more’n small-town folks?”