The owl had edged back, causing Leo to lunge after it. It all happened in a flash. He lost contact with the ladder, tried frantically to regain his footing, and the next moment was plunging to the ground.
After Dallas Selena’s next move should have been to Abilene, where she’d always done well. But by giving Abilene a miss she was able to head back to Stephenville, and the chance to see Elliot.
She’d formed a bond with Jeepers that went deeper than she could have believed possible. But Elliot was her family. He’d been with her through the times when she didn’t have two cents to rub together. The way she saw it, he’d introduced her to Leo.
She didn’t quite admit to herself that it was also a chance to see the Hanworths, and talk about Leo. She was working on being strong and sensible about that. Since she’d made the decision to cut him out of her life it was pure self-indulgence to revel in talking about him.
But if the subject happened to come up it would do a little to ease the ache in her heart that was with her, night and day. The temptation to stay with him had been overwhelming. She’d fought it as much for his sake as her own. To be with him year after year, failing him, never quite understanding the things that mattered in his world, and to see the disillusion appearing in his eyes-these things would have been unendurable.
He would have been kind, she had no doubt of that. As the dimensions of his mistake became clear to him he would have become increasingly gentle, determined not to blame her for the disaster he had urged on her. And it would have been his kindness that broke her heart.
Several times she started to dial his number, but she always managed to be strong in time, and hang up with the number incomplete.
It was nearly dark when she reached the Four-Ten, later than she’d intended because she’d stopped twice on the way, trying to decide if she was really going or not. There were lights on in the house, but at the sound of her engine a dozen more came on. The front door was thrown open and Barton came hurrying out to greet her.
‘Get inside fast,’ he said tensely. ‘Leo’s brother’s here.’
‘Barton, has something happened?’
‘Guido will tell you. Hurry!’
She didn’t know how she got inside. Guido was there. He rose to his feet as she appeared and her heart nearly failed her, for she had never seen a face so pale and distraught.
‘Guido, what’s happened?’
‘Leo had a fall,’ he said, and stopped as though he couldn’t bear to go on.
‘And?’ she repeated in agony.
‘He was up high in the barn, chasing after a hurt owl-you know what he’s like-and he missed his footing and fell-best part of forty feet.’
‘Oh, God! Please Guido, tell me he’s alive.’
‘Yes, he is, but we don’t know when he’ll walk again.’
Her hands flew to her mouth. Leo, the man who never sat when he could stand, never walked when he could run; Leo in a wheelchair, or worse. She turned away so that Guido couldn’t see that she was fighting not to cry.
‘I came to take you home,’ Guido said. ‘He needs you, Selena.’
‘Of course. Oh, why didn’t you just telephone me? I could have been on my way.’
‘To be honest, I didn’t think you’d be willing. I came here to take you by force if I had to.’
‘Of course she’ll come,’ Barton said, entering from the hall. ‘You leave everything here, Selena. Elliot and Jeepers will be just fine with us. Get going, girl.’
He drove them to the airport himself. Guido already had her air tickets.
‘I told you I wasn’t going to take no for an answer,’ he said with a wan smile. ‘I meant it.’
‘You really thought I wouldn’t come if Leo needs me?’
‘I don’t think you’d have believed a phone call. It’s just words coming from a long way away.’
‘But you came all this way for me,’ she said, softened.
‘I had to. I don’t know how he’s going to be, but I do know you’ve got to be there.’
He dozed most of the journey, and Selena didn’t care to talk. Too many thoughts were confusing her all at once. She wouldn’t know what she thought until she saw Leo again.
From Pisa Airport a car conveyed them to the hospital. Selena’s nails ground into her palm. Now the moment had come she was terrified at what she would find. The last few yards to Leo’s ward seemed endless.
His door was just in front of them. Guido opened it and stood back to let her go in.
Her eyes went swiftly to the bed, and then she stopped, frozen.
There was nobody there.
‘Selena?’
The voice came from the window. She turned and saw a man standing there supported by crutches, one leg in plaster.
‘Selena?’ He made an unsteady, hobbling step towards her, and the next moment she was in his arms.
It was an awkward kind of kiss, holding each other up, not daring to clasp too tight, but it was the sweetest they had ever known.
‘How do you come to be here?’ he managed to say at last, when he could speak.
‘That-brother of yours-’
Leo gave a shaky laugh. ‘Has he been up to his tricks again?’
‘Well, he can’t walk,’ Guido said innocently. ‘That’s why he’s got crutches. He broke his ankle.’
‘He broke-?’
‘Any other man would have been killed by that fall,’ Guido added. ‘But the devil looks after his own, and Leo landed on a bale of hay.’
He vanished tactfully.
‘You came back to me,’ Leo said huskily. ‘Hold me tightly.’
She did so and he immediately winced.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘All that matters is that you’re back, and you’re staying. Yes, you are-’ he said it quickly before she could argue. ‘You’re not going to leave me again, I couldn’t bear it.’
‘I couldn’t bear it either,’ she said fervently. ‘It was so dreadful without you. I kept trying to believe I’d done the right thing, then I’d weaken and decide to follow you, but then I’d be afraid of embarrassing you because you’d probably found somebody else-’
‘You stupid, stupid woman,’ he said lovingly.
He winced again at he spoke.
‘Come on,’ she said tenderly, ‘you should be in bed.’
With his arm around her shoulders he hobbled the few steps to the bed, where she helped him off with his robe. Beneath it his chest was bare, except for some strapping, and she gasped at the multitude of bruises, blue, black, red, overlapping each other.
‘It’s all right, they’re getting better,’ he said.
Clinging to her he eased himself down onto the bed and lay back, exhausted.
‘If you could pull the sheet up-Selena? Don’t cry.’
‘I’m not crying,’ she wept, trying to brush back the tears that flowed down her cheeks.
‘You’re not?’ he asked tenderly.
‘No, I’m not. You know I never cry, and don’t you dare try to suggest-oh, look at you! Oh, my darling, darling-’
He held her as close against him as he dared, kissing the top of her head.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ he reassured her. ‘Just a few bruises-well, OK, a cracked rib or two, but nothing to what it might have been.’
Guido slid out of the door, unnoticed by either of them.
‘I never thought I’d see you again,’ Leo said. ‘It’s like a dream come true. How could you leave me?’
‘I don’t know. But I never will again.’
He was home in a week, promising the doctor to go straight to bed, and spending the first day in the car while Selena drove him over his lands.
