She easily imagined him outside surrounded by wide-open spaces. He'd be as confident and as at home there, she thought, as he was in a courtroom. She did have trouble imagining him lounging indolently against the steps of a porch while he watched a sunset. He seemed to have too much energy, too much drive. It was easier to imagine him running or finishing up that last chore of the day before the daylight was gone. The thought made her smile.
Cole touched the corner of her mouth. "What's this about?"
"You. Being lazy enough to watch a sunset."
"I can be lazy with the best." He took an affronted tone that broadened her smile.
"That's what we did at my grandmother's farm, too," she said. "We'd sit on the porch at sunset. Nonna always had something to do. Beans to snap or corn to shuck."
"What about when you were with your parents?"
Cole instantly felt the change in her. Where there had been softness, she became rigid.
"I don't remember." Her voice was carefully neutral. "The Colonel-he's not the kind of man to notice a sunset."
"Once I thought the same thing about my dad," Cole said.
Her glance encouraged him to continue.
"I was supposed to inherit the farm. Dad had it all mapped out. I'd go to college. I was supposed to
major in horticulture or agricultural economics." Cole smiled. "Actually, I almost did that one. Thoseag economists are sharp. I just knew I didn't want to be a rancher."
"I loved my grandparents' farm," Brenna said. "When it had to be sold, it was awful."
Cole nodded. "Since I won't be around to take care of my parents' farm, I suppose we're looking at that someday, too."
"Don't you care?"
Cole met her gaze. "I care. But ranching is damn hard work. Unpredictable, with one certainty-if the weather can do you in, it will." He paused and looked at her. "And I couldn't ever quite figure out how to have what I wanted and please my dad, too. We had some terrible fights." Cole tucked Brenna more
firmly against him as they strolled through the park while the evening dusk gave way to night. "Once Ieven walked out on him. Told him I wouldn't be back." Brenna's hand tightened around his. "You fought with your dad?" Cole asked, sensing he had struck a nerve. "All the time," she admitted, glancing up at him. "I left, too." Cole didn't have to ask when. He knew.The worst year of my life was when I was fifteen.
"Damn all those pictures," she said softly. "Damn him for bringing it all back now."
"What, Brenna?"
"I don't want to remember," she whispered.
"Maybe it's the only way you can forget. Just get it up and out and gone," he returned, his voice as soft
as hers. She glanced at him, and the torment in her eyes made him gather her close. Within his arms, she felt small, feminine, and fragile as a newborn lamb. Within his arms, she felt ... perfect. "You can talk to me, fair lady." Surprisingly, she did. "I never measured up to his standards. The night I left home, it all started because I stayed out too late at a girlfriend's house."
* * * "Brenna, get in here." Her father's imperative command had come from the living room. She sighed and adopted a relaxed don't-give-a-hoot posture. She'd rather die than let him know she bled a little inside each time he spoke her name in that particular tone. She sauntered into the living room and leaned casually against the doorjamb.
"Hi, Dad. Where's Mom?"
"She's gone to bed." He folded the newspaper and set it aside. "Stand up straight and come here, young lady."
Brenna moved away from the doorway and stood in front of him, but she kept her posture deliberately slouched.
"Where have you been this time? You're an hour and twenty-seven minutes late."
"I've been at Sally Peterson's." She met his gaze, then added, "Studying."
"Studying?" He picked up an envelope from the table and withdrew her report card. "Here are the results of your studying, Brenna James. English F, history F, phys ed, A, algebra D, science F, homeec C. I shudder to think what your grades would be if youdidn't study."
Brenna folded her arms across her chest and waited for him to finish. These "talks" followed a pattern that had varied little since she was in the first grade. Her gaze fixed on the wall behind him, and she let his angry words wash over her without hearing anything, simply knowing Michael was valued and she was worthless.
Once Brenna had overheard an argument between her parents as her mother tried to explain the constant comparisons did neither child any good.
"Brenna's a normal child-not gifted like Michael. Just a child," her mother had said.
"Neither of my children arejust children," her father had answered. "Brenna is capable of doing anything, anything , that Michael is. She'sjust lazy."
That hurt. Brenna pushed aside the memory and waited for the next part of the Colonel's talk-the part where he told her excellence counted. Lives depended on excellence. It wasn't enough to do your best if your best didn't keep other people from dying.
He surged to his feet and slapped her. "You'll show a little respect when I'm talking to you." He grasped her arms and forced them down her sides. "Youwill pay attention. Youwill stand up straight," he commanded, one of his hands at the small of her back and the other on her shoulders. "Now, do I have your attention?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
Rather than give him the "yes, sir" she knew he wanted, she remained stubbornly silent.
"I've had it with you, young lady," he said, giving her a shake. "You're disobedient." He grasped her arms with one hand, unbuckled his belt with the other.
"What's all the shouting in here?" her mother asked from the doorway.
"Tell her," the Colonel commanded Brenna. "Go ahead, tell her."
"I'm lazy," Brenna said dully, watching her father. "And disobedient. May I be excused now?"
"No, you may not be excused!" He pushed her toward the kitchen, where he expected her to obediently
bend over the table.
For years it had ended like this. Brenna closed her eyes as she stumbled forward.
In a little while, it would be over. Just a little longer. Years of tension snapped.
She whirled around. "No! Not this time."
"No? You tell me no?" His face twisted with fury.
"John, stop!"Brenna's mother cried.
He struck with the belt. Brenna lifted her arms. Too late! With a snap, the tip stung against her cheek.
She ripped the belt from his hand and threw it across the kitchen. He grabbed her. She slipped past him
and ran toward her room.
His voice followed her. "I never wanted you."
"John!" her mother cried.
"It's the truth. Not from the day you told me you were pregnant."
"You don't mean that. You can't."
"We'd be better off without her. My God, Michael doesn't give us a bit of trouble and she gives us
nothing but."
Better off without her. The words echoed through Brenna's head as she slammed her bedroom door. Never wanted you . Without conscious thought, she pulled a suitcase from under the bed.Better off without her . Tears blurred her vision as she opened the suitcase and began throwing clothes and belongings inside.
The door opened, and Brenna flinched. Escaping the Colonel in the small room would be harder. But, she would not submit to another beating. Not now. Not ever. Instead of her father, her mother stood in the doorway.
"Oh, Brenna. Oh, baby, no."
Brenna wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. "I'm not staying, Mom."
"You can't just leave. Where would you go?"
"Nonna's," Brenna replied with sudden decision. The farm had always been her favorite place.
Brenna's mother stared into space, then nodded. "Okay. Maybe that is best." She left the room.
Her reaction puzzled Brenna. She assumed she'd have to fight both of her parents. She stared at the contents of the suitcase a moment longer, then began organizing more neatly. A quarter-hour later her mother returned.
"Nonna is expecting you," she said. "I called Greyhound, and a bus leaves for Philadelphia in an hour. You can get a connecting bus in the morning." She touched Brenna's cheek. "Are you sure this is what you want, baby?"
Brenna nodded.
Her mother helped her finish packing while they both cried, then drove her to the bus station. During the last moments before the bus came, her mother tried to give her a passbook for a savings account.
"This was for your-for college. But you need it now."
Brenna looked with blurred eyes at the insignia on the outside of the book. College? Right. She had as much chance of going to college as Michael did of flunking out of school. Another reminder that she had failed. She hadn't come close to the excellence the Colonel demanded. Hadn't even tried. For the first time in a long while, she wished she had.
Tears filled her eyes as she shook her head. "I can't, Mom. Dad would..."
Her mother's eyes welled with tears. "I wish I could do more for you." She shook the passbook for emphasis. "This is yours. Any time you want it, you call me." She gave Brenna a fierce hug. "I've made so many mistakes. I can't take away what I let happen. I wish..."
Brenna returned her mother's hug. "Me, too, Mom."
"It was the last time I saw her," Brenna finished, her eyes feeling gritty from unshed tears. "Two months after I went toNonna's , Mom was killed in a car accident." She swallowed and gripped Cole's hands. "Six months after that I came home from school one day. Nonna always took a nap in the afternoon. That day, she never woke up."
Dusk had given way to darkness, and sometime during Brenna's story, Cole had directed her to a bench beneath a huge silver maple tree. He had wrapped his arm around her and kept her close while she talked. She'd never felt more vulnerable-or safer.
She risked looking at him. His gaze was focused unseeingly on the night, his expression pensive. She held her breath, waiting. For what, she could not have said.
He finally looked down at her, and a sad smile touched his lips. "You make me feel like my dad was a saint," he said. "I think you'd like him."
Relief whispered through her. She wasn't sure what she wanted from Cole, but she knew she couldn't have borne his pity.