Chapter 6: Showdown

It was Sunday afternoon, three days after my arrival, when my phone rang and I flipped it open to see who was calling. I didn't recognize the phone number or the area code, so I decided to answer it.

"Hello?"

"You mind tellin' me just what the hell you were doin' runnin' off?"

I didn't have any doubt about the voice.

"I decided to visit my family. I hadn't seen them in a long time." It was a carefully rehearsed lie that I had not expected to have to use quite this soon.

"You mean to tell me that between breakfast and ten o'clock you suddenly had a desire to visit your parents and just took off?" He sounded angry, but not out of control.

"I left a note."

"It didn't say anythin' except thank you. That's not an explanation."

"I'm sorry. It was a spur of the moment decision."

"I'll say. Where are you?"

"At home. In Salinas."

"You plannin' to come back to work next week?"

"Yes ... assuming I still have a job."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I don't know. I thought you might be mad at me."

"Well, I am. But that doesn't mean I'm goin' to fire you. You and me have to have a long talk when you get back."

"Are you going back to Spokane?"

"Yes. I'll be there next Monday mornin', bright and early."

"I guess we can talk then," I said, resigned to my fate.

"I guess we can," he said, losing some of his indignant tone.

"I'll see you then."

"I hope so," he said in a completely different tone of voice.

"Bye."

"Bye."

And that was it. A few seconds of confrontation ending with a promise to meet in eight days. Now I could really sweat about what would happen. At least I knew what to expect. I just didn't know what to say.

I spent the rest of my vacation visiting friends, doing some sightseeing out on the coast, and generally trying to relax. It wasn't working. In the forefront was always the meeting Rance and I would have on Monday. After giving it some thought, I decided to leave for Spokane on Friday, a day early. It was nearly a thousand miles and I didn't want to be overtired when I came back to work.

I stopped in Klamath Falls Friday night, then pushed on to Kennewick on Saturday. From there to Spokane was a fairly short run. I would be rested for Monday morning, or so I thought. I didn't count on the restless night I spent in my apartment, wondering just what my encounter with Rance would be like the next day. I got very little sleep.

I crawled out of bed Monday morning with a sense of foreboding. It was bad enough that I didn't sleep well, worse again that I didn't know what to expect when I arrived at the office. I had a feeling I'd be looking for a new job soon. One way or another, I wasn't going to be able to work at Kleinhauser as long as Rance was there.

I forced myself to eat a proper breakfast, then picked up my briefcase and climbed into my car. In fifteen minutes I would be walking through the front entrance, perhaps for the last time.

I got a nice, "Hello, welcome back" from Lily at the reception desk and that picked me up a bit. I made my way to my office, key in hand to unlock the door. I needn't have bothered. The door was open and sitting in my chair was Rance, his feet up on the desk, and his hands linked behind his head.

"Good morning," I managed, although not sounding too sure of myself.

"Good mornin', Miss Sanchez," he growled in his now familiar rumbling voice.

Oh Oh! Miss Sanchez was probably code for "you're in trouble, girl."

He took his feet off the desk and stood from my chair. He held out his hand, indicating I should sit there. I slipped by him and put my briefcase where his boots had been, snapping the locks and opening it before I sat. Rance plopped himself down in a nearby chair at the front corner of the desk. Not a word had been said since our original greeting.

I sat, my hands folded in my lap, waiting for him. He sat, hands folded in his lap, apparently waiting for me. One of us had to break the stalemate. It might as well be me.

"I want..." That was as far as I got.

Rance decided to talk at the same time. "Julie, we need..."

Both of us sat there waiting for the other to start again. It was like some silly kids game. I tried again.

"I'm sorry, Rance. I should have been more polite, especially to your parents. I'll call them and apologize. I owe them that at least."

He nodded in agreement. "That would be nice. They were worried when you just disappeared. You and Mom were gettin' along great, so she especially didn't understand what happened."

"I know. It was thoughtless. I was brought up better than that."

"You want to tell me what happened?" he asked. I wondered why he couldn't figure it out by himself.

"I saw you with that blonde woman on Wednesday morning. I knew it must be Lisa. I saw you take off after her so that you two could get back together. You didn't need me around for that."

There, I'd got it all out.

Rance didn't do anything right away. He didn't smile or frown or jump out of his chair or anything like a reaction. He sat there and then slowly began to shake his head.

"You got all that information from a conversation and a little scene?" he asked, now a slight smirk on his face.

"It was pretty obvious who she was," I said.

"Was it really?" Now he was almost laughing. "How much did you hear?"

"Nothing. You were too far away."

"Figures," he said, looking disgusted. "The blonde woman as you described her is my sister, Caroline. She came to me to ask me to help that no-account brother-in-law of mine get himself out of another mess. When I reluctantly agreed, she threw her arms around me to thank me, and then took off back to town. I followed her because I needed to do what I said I would do.

"I owe you an apology, though," he continued. "I got so mad at Billy I forgot you were in the house waitin' for me. By the time I remembered, I tried to call you on your cell, but you weren't answerin'. At least now I know why."

I don't know what my face looked like at that moment, but I was sure my natural tan was a good deal redder. I had made a bad assumption and without thinking, acted on it. I couldn't have felt more foolish if I tried.

Rance must have seen the look and understood it. He stood, came over to where I was and held out his hands. I took them and he pulled me up out of my chair. I was inches from his face when he put his arms around me and pulled me into his body. The kiss that followed was so completely unexpected that I didn't know how to respond.

"I think this was long overdue," he said quietly. Then he kissed me again, and I knew exactly what to do.

This wasn't the time for explanations or excuses. I just wanted him to keep holding me. There was no time limit on it. It could go on forever as far as I was concerned. It was a light knock on the open door that got our attention.

"Looks like I might need to write a fraternization policy after all," Tim grinned.

I was ready to jump out of Rance's embrace, but he had no intention of letting me go. I'm sure my embarrassed coloring returned full blast.

"If it isn't urgent, can you close the door on your way out," Rance said with a smile.

Tim chuckled, turning and pulling the door closed behind him.

"Now ... where were we?" he said as he turned back to me, his face inches from mine, and his hold on my body unrelenting.

It was a rhetorical question. He leaned into another kiss, this one no less passionate than the first.

"I guess you have a right to have your doubts, girl. I've been tryin' to work up the nerve to do that for about six months. Big, brave Rance Cameron ... afraid of a beautiful woman. Some cowboy, huh?"

For once I wasn't at a loss for words. For once I could tell him what I'd been feeling all this time.

"It was worth the wait. When I thought it was never going to be, I didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't see myself working side-by-side with you. It would eat at me. These last two weeks have been horrible. You wouldn't believe how down I was."

"If you'd have answered your phone, you wouldn't have had to go through all that," he chided.

"I didn't want to know. I didn't want to hear you tell me that Lisa was back. I couldn't face it."

His response was to hold me more tightly, if that was possible. I didn't mind in the slightest. It was something I had longed for and now it was happening ... not a moment too soon.

We didn't talk. We just stood there, our arms around each other, not daring to let go for even an instant. It had taken so long to get to this place. At last, after what felt like several minutes, we separated.

"I guess we've got a lot to talk about," he growled quietly, looking at me intensely.

"I guess we do," I agreed.

"This isn't the best place. Why don't we go to my apartment?"

"Fine." If he'd asked me to walk across hot coals, I'd have agreed at that point.

We left my office and closed and locked the door behind us. We walked together out through the main office and past Lily at the front desk without saying a word to anyone. If anyone said anything to us, I didn't hear it. I was in my own little world at that point, and nothing could have distracted me.

Rance's apartment surprised me in that it was spotless, not what I expected. It was minimalist, with basic furnishings and little decoration, which wasn't as unexpected. Then again, I didn't get that much time to inspect it. After he'd closed the door behind me, he stood with his hands on my shoulders, shooting bursts of electricity through me.

I turned to him, wrapped my arms around him, tilted my head upward and met him with a deep, passionate kiss. There was little doubt about what came next. He led me to the bedroom and then stopped, as if questioning me whether this was what I wanted. Another kiss told him what he needed to know and he began to undress me.

I hadn't had a lot of experience with men ... mostly boys really. I'd had sex with a half dozen males since I became active at seventeen. Some of the experiences weren't very satisfactory, but a couple were at least pleasant and gave me some idea of what good sex could be.

Rance was a revelation. We didn't have sex, we made love. I could tell the difference. It was all in how he approached me. He wasn't in a hurry and wasn't thinking about his own satisfaction. He made it plain without saying a word that he was trying to please me, and my god did he ever. For a while, I thought I was the only woman in the world and he was the only man.

However long it was afterwards, we lay together under the sheets, quietly thinking about what had just happened and what it all meant. I knew what I wanted it to mean, but ... what about Rance.

"What now?" I finally ventured.

"I thought..." he began tentatively. "I thought maybe we should talk about how we wanted this to go. I know what I want. I want to marry you. But ... what about you?"

"Marry me! Like ... with a wedding?" I couldn't get my head around his simple statement.

"Yeah ... marry you. I love you, Julie. I have for some time. I just never got around to tellin' you."

"No ... you sure as hell didn't." I was a little put off by the casual way he talked about it. For months we hadn't even touched, now he wanted to marry me?