Ever Faithful. Carolyne Aarsen

“This is the only holiday you’ve taken for a long time.”

      Stacy nodded. “I know all that, Paul, but I won’t be able to relax knowing a customer’s system is down. It’s not really a small crisis. We just started up, and we can’t afford to lose any business. I can’t leave customers waiting.”

      “What about a boyfriend?” Paul stroked her hair, his tone light, but his frustration just below the surface.

      “I guess I’m hoping he’ll understand.” Stacy smiled up at him, but Paul wouldn’t be cajoled.

      For the past months he had eagerly anticipated showing Stacy the place where he grew up, the hills he wandered through as a child. He wanted to show her that part of himself. He had planned riding trips, picnics and long, leisurely drives. Now, with one phone call from Vancouver, it all disintegrated.

      “Phone someone else to take care of it,” he said, his voice clipped, hands resting on his hips.

      “Paul, I’m the one who set up the system. I’m responsible for fixing the glitch.” Stacy reached up and cupped his face with her hands. “I know how much you’ve looked forward to this. I’ll try to come back as soon as it’s fixed. You’re going to be here another couple of weeks, aren’t you?”

      Paul couldn’t help it. He pulled away. It had taken her months to arrange this particular holiday. He knew once she was back in the office another crisis would keep her there, then another and another.

      Stacy tilted her head, taking a step towards him. “Paul please don’t be like this. If it was Bruce who needed help, wouldn’t you go?”

      Paul looked down at her, trying to imagine the reverse situation and he knew he would have stayed. “When do you want to leave?” was all he said.

      Stacy smiled her thanks. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

      Paul nodded and watched as she turned and ran back up the stairs to her bedroom. He glanced at his mother who frowned at the egg carton she had pulled out.

      “I guess you won’t be here for breakfast.”

      Paul shook his head. “We’ll probably grab something along the way. Sorry.”

      “Doesn’t matter, Paul. I was only going to make some bacon and eggs.”

      “With homemade bread and farm-fresh eggs.” Paul sighed, thinking about the rubber food they would pick up from a drive-through. “I’ll have to wait for that until tomorrow.”

      “You’re coming back aren’t you?”

      Paul winked at his mother. “I’m only going to be in Vancouver long enough to drop Stacy off, kiss her goodbye and head back here.”

      He waited outside, leaning against his car. His eyes drifted over the hills, appreciating the emptiness of the country, the space that let you stretch your arms out. This was real, solid.

      Stacy had tried to get him excited about staring at a computer screen, sending e-mail around the world with a click of a button, looking at things that moved on the screen, but he never picked up on her enthusiasm. He preferred dealing with people face-to-face. Cell phones, pagers, intercoms and fax machines were bad enough.

      He sighed as he thought of the long drive down the Coquihalla and the even worse one through the oppressive bumper-to-bumper traffic of the heavily populated Fraser Valley. If he hurried he could be back here by late evening.

      Stacy was even better than her word, and ten minutes later he stowed her elegant luggage in the trunk of the car. He started the engine while Stacy bid his mother a hurried goodbye and got in. The door barely clicked shut when Paul took off in a cloud of gravel and dust, disregarding the paint job of his car.

      His impatience translated into speed and he barreled recklessly down the road, slowing only momentarily for an old one-ton truck lumbering down the road, a dilapidated plywood stock box on the back. He swerved around it, fishtailed, corrected and left it behind.

      “I do want to get home in one piece, Paul,” Stacy joked, glancing over her shoulder at the truck that shrank by the second.

      Paul tried to stifle his impatience with his girlfriend, her job and the life-style that demanded constant work to maintain. With a self-deprecating shake of his head, he glanced at the speedometer and slowed down.

      He flicked on the radio, hitting the CD player. Music instead of conversation filled the silence.

      Stacy glanced at him, shrugged and pulled out her briefcase.

      Paul knew he should try to be more communicative, but it would mean ignoring all that had passed between them, and he wasn’t ready to do that.

      It was going to be a long drive, but hopefully a peaceful return trip.

      Amy clenched the steering wheel of the truck, her heart pounding. The fancy car flashed past her out of nowhere. Though it was almost obscured by the cloud of dust, it wasn’t hard to identify the vehicle.

      Paul Henderson’s. Heading back home already.

      Amy didn’t understand her own disappointment. It shouldn’t matter to her that he had left four days and two weeks earlier than planned. It was typical of Paul. Even Elizabeth had wondered if he could stay away from Vancouver for three weeks.

      But she certainly hadn’t expected his visit would be this protracted.

      The old truck rocked as Sandover threw his weight over, trying to break free of the rope that tied his head to the front of the truck’s box. Not for the first time Amy wished they had a stock trailer to move their horses around instead of this cumbersome one-ton truck with its home-made box. Two horses fit easily in it, but the truck had no shocks, and each bump in the road knocked the horses around which, in turn, rocked the truck.

      She turned her attention to the road, preferring not to think about the rope that was the only thing keeping Sandover in a box with no back.

      She had enough on her mind without having to cede any head space to this wild horse. In a couple of weeks the heifers Rick bought would come, and she and Rick needed to get the loading chutes and corrals ready. Fortunately she had enough materials. All she needed now was for her shoulder to heal quickly. A quick glance at her watch showed her that she was right on schedule. She had enough time to drop Sandover off at the auction market and get to work.

      Another quick glance over her shoulder proved that Sandover had finally settled down. Amy relived the moment in the Hendersons’ yard. It had scared her, and she realized she didn’t need an animal around that was just going to cause trouble. She had to be ruthless.

      The trip to town went peacefully. Amy dropped him off at the auction mart, then hurried back to the truck and her job at the grocery store.

      Chapter Four

      Clouds drifted in overnight, and Sunday morning Paul woke to a low gray sky. A slow, steady British Columbia rain drummed against his bedroom window. He turned his head and glanced at the face of the old metal clock beside him as it ticked off the seconds with a heavy, no-nonsense sound. Six in the morning. Church didn’t start until ten o’clock.

      His parents still slept, and he knew if he got up, he would wake them. Sunday was literally a day of rest for his family. He knew they wouldn’t be up for an hour and a half.

      He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling of his former bedroom. The fluorescent stars he stuck up there as a young boy still hung, forming the constellations—the Big Dipper, Orion, Cassiopeia. He remembered reading at night and shutting off the light just as his parents’ feet hit the bottom stairs. They would come to tuck him in, and the still-glowing stars would betray him. How he devoured books then. The only thing he read regularly now were stock market reports and blueprints. Hardly the stuff of relaxation.

      Paul flipped restlessly onto his side, wide awake. He wasn’t used to lying in bed. In Vancouver once he woke up, he was out of bed and running.

      You’re