Chapter 1

Isn't it odd, how terror can strike in the middle of a wonderful, sunny day?

We were coming home from church, that Sunday in June. Heading for our home in the foothills of the Rockies, outside Golden, Colorado. As I recall, Sandy was commenting, in her wry way, about the soprano solo inflicted on us by the worst singer (but biggest ego) in our church choir. Rounding a sharp curve, on the cliff-side road, we were suddenly forced through the guardrail by a large van-a Ryder or U-haul, I can't remember which.

One moment serenely chatting-the next, rolling end-over-end, down a steep bank towards the tiny stream below.

There was darkness and pain. I tried to move and could not. I tried to cry out-but the best I could manage was a small moan.

My mouth was so dry, it was painful. Everywhere was pain. As I tried again to move, the pain rolled over me... carrying me with it... somewhere.

Later, a blurred image of movement and voices. And a bright light shining in each eye.

Fighting awake from the nightmare that gripped me, I groaned and tried to move. A smooth, cool hand stroked my forehead and a familiar, loved voice said, "Don't move, Daddy. It's OK. I'm here."

Sarah?

Where am I? What is going on? Why can't I move? Why do I hurt!?

WHERE IS SANDY?

When I woke next, the pain was manageable. Slowly opening my eyes in a dim room, I recognized the sterile 'warmth' of a hospital room. My eyes slowly tracked around the ceiling. Since that wasn't very informative, I tried to see what else I could discover. When my head moved, it felt like a drill had just tried to penetrate my skull from the rear. An involuntary moan escaped my lips.

Through the pain, I heard a rustle of movement in the room, then felt a hand grasp mine as another hand reached the call button by my pillow.

"Sandy?" I tried to ask. Just a croak came out.

"Relax, daddy," came Sarah's voice. "You're in the hospital. You've been hurt really bad, but you're going to be OK. The doctors told me you'll be 100 percent when they're done with you. Right now, you just need to rest. Don't worry. I'm here. I love you, daddy..." As her voice faded with my consciousness, I thought I felt a tear strike my cheek...

HUNGRY! Steak and eggs, with hash browns and a large jug of coffee-!

This time when I woke, my eyes opened normally and the pain was background noise. Looking around the room, I saw that it was kept dim by the opaque shades at the windows, but that the day outside was probably pretty sunny. Sarah was asleep on the other bed in the room.

When I tried to move my hands, I found that they were lightly bound to the railings of the bed. The reason was obvious-there were tubes in both arms.

Licking my lips, I tried to speak. At first, a croak was all I could manage. I swallowed, licked my lips and tried again. "Sarah?" I whispered. Again. "Sarah!" With all the force I could muster behind it, it came out a quiet, raspy whisper. But she heard.

Rolling toward me, she got to her feet and pressed the call button at once.

"What does a man have to do to get some breakfast around here?" I husked at her.

For some reason, the question upset her. "Oh, daddy!" she said. Crying uncontrollably, she leaned over me and put her face into my neck, hugging me as tightly as she could-considering I was still immobilized and had all those tubes to contend with.

In seconds a nurse appeared, saw that I was awake and asked how 'we' felt. Before I could reply, she'd popped a thermometer in my mouth and was taking a pulse. (I really wouldn't be surprised if this one woke me to give me a sleeping pill!) By the time she'd finished making her notes on my chart, Sarah had settled down a bit and was sitting on the side of the bed, holding my hand.

Seeing that I really was awake, the nurse informed us that the doctor would be in shortly to talk with me and left.

Sarah was looking at me through tear-filled eyes. In fact, I'd not seen her looking that 'bad' in years-since she was about 12 and discovered she was a girl. She had no makeup, her eyes were red and not just from her present tears. She was gaunt, like she hadn't eaten or slept properly for some time. Her lips were chapped. Her hair was, for her, a fright wig, with split ends and tendrils going everywhere. Generally a mess. Something was more important than appearance, so it must have been important, indeed. Still, she was incredibly beautiful and I loved her so much it hurt. The only woman in my life, besides Sandy.

"Looks like you've been here a while, honey," I remarked.

"Most of three weeks, daddy," she said, quietly.

"Where's Sandy?" I asked.

This started a fresh flood of tears.

"She's gone, daddy," Sarah sobbed.

With mounting anxiety I asked, "What do you mean, 'gone'?"

"Momma died in the wreck, daddy. She's gone."

I lurched against my restraints and wailed inconsolably. Sandy! My love. My life. My partner. My helper and other-truly 'better'-half. How could she be gone? Why wasn't I dead, instead? Oh, SANDY! Why wasn't it ME?

As I was starting to calm down, the doctor appeared. He wanted to give me a sedative, but I refused it. He was going to do it anyway, until I got angry and reminded him that it was MY body, not his, damnit! and as long as I was capable of deciding, the decisions about what would happen to it were mine!

"Wouldn't you be upset if you learned your wife was dead?" I asked him. "I need to grieve and deal with it. I don't need to be drugged out of my head."

With that settled, the doctor proceeded to explain my condition and what I could expect. I'd suffered a severe concussion. I'd been in a light coma for almost three weeks. And I was bruised all over-internally too, it seemed, as well as several fractures in my legs and ribs. However, the prognosis was for complete recovery when the last cast came off, in about two weeks.

Sandy, apparently, had suffered a broken neck when the car rolled. The airbags deployed, but that hadn't protected her on the third roll. They thought she'd died then. She hadn't lain there, in the car, in pain and fear anyway.

When the doctor finished his explanation, untied me and answered all my questions, including that I could leave in a couple of days, Sarah and I just looked at each other, then fell into each other's arms and wept.

It happened so fast, I still didn't remember much about the accident-except the rental truck that appeared out of nowhere and ran me right through the guardrail. Sarah said the police had some ideas but hadn't made any progress towards finding out who was responsible.

Three days later, whole but with my lower left leg in a 'walking cast', Sarah took me home.

I couldn't stand it. After the first night, I insisted that Sarah check us into a motel. Everywhere I looked, all I could see was Sandy. I just couldn't handle it. It's really disgusting for a grown man to burst into tears every time he enters his bedroom, or kitchen.

Sarah and I discussed it, she very gingerly-afraid of causing a 'relapse' or something, I guess. We decided that we'd sell the house-I offered it to Sarah, but she didn't want it. After a lot of thought, I decided to move to the coast. I wanted to get clear out of the area and start over.

To my surprise, Sarah insisted she'd come along. When I expressed the thought that maybe it was stupid for her to abandon her job; she said she'd done that as soon as she heard I was hurt. The only 'family' either of us has anyway, is the other-we love each other very much. So, why not? She said she'd be miserable if I left her and moved so far away.

While I arranged with a realtor to sell the house, Sarah arranged with a moving company to pack and ship everything.

As soon as the cast was off, we hit the road.

After the Rockies, we decided we wanted water. We wanted a view and we wanted to be able to have a boat nearby. We started looking in the Seattle area, but couldn't find what we wanted. The ocean shore in Oregon and Washington is spectacular, but VERY wet! So we thought we'd try Portland, since Puget Sound seemed too wet and too crowded, too.

A bit north of Portland, we found our home in a lovely old community called Columbia City. We were able to find a new house on a bluff, overlooking the Columbia river, with views of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. Several marinas nearby offered moorage at reasonable prices. We'd found a haven-a home.

My work involves consulting on international trade. So I can work anywhere I have a phone line my modem can plug into. Sarah had been just getting established in a marketing firm as a sales manager for a product line. She was learning that she had a knack for forming, staffing and motivating a sales team. She would take longer to get established, but neither of us doubted she'd be successful. She was certainly talented.

As soon as I could, I started to get myself back into the flow of the projects I'd contracted to do before the accident. (My clients were very supportive-most sent heartfelt condolences when they heard about Sandy.)

Meanwhile, Sarah was making a home for us. As soon as the moving van arrived and was unpacked, she set off to get new furniture, draperies and everything else a home needs, to fill in the blank spots. Money wasn't a problem, as the house in Golden had sold-home prices there are generally higher than in Oregon-and we had Sandy's life insurance money, too. Besides, I do well enough and am able to charge really outrageous rates for my time.

In a remarkably short time, Sarah had our house warm, cozy and feeling like home!

Maybe this would be a good time to tell you a bit about us. I'm Mike. Sandy and I had been high school sweethearts. I could never see why she chose me, though I've always been thankful. Somehow, she seemed to know we were 'a couple' long before I did. We'd 'hit it off' and were soon inseparable. As icing on the cake, my parents adored her and her folks seemed to like me a lot, too.

Besides being an honor roll student, Sandy could have been head cheerleader on looks alone if she hadn't been an athlete herself. Tall, willowy, but with abundant curves, aggressive as well as bright, Sandy had several scholarship offers, both for basketball-she was an 'all state' forward-and academics.

Me, I'm just six feet tall and kind of 'nerdy'. Though I enjoyed athletics and was on the football and track teams, I was never very good and participated solely for enjoyment of the sports and the competition.

When I got a merit scholarship, Sandy followed me to Stanford on a basketball scholarship. We were married after our sophomore year, though we'd been lovers for several years. Sarah followed almost immediately, to our joy. But Sandy then suffered an aborted pregnancy that resulted in her tubes and one ovary being completely ruined... Sarah would be our only child.

Having a wife and baby proved a stabilizing force during the remainder of my college experience. My 'social life' was limited, though my love life couldn't have been better. I had time and plenty of motivation to hit the books hard.

I didn't graduate cum laude, like Sandy, but my grades were plenty good enough when I went back for an MBA after my three years in the Marines. (We all did that, then. Remember the draft?)

Sarah was an easy child to raise. She has a sweet spirit, tries to please, but quietly goes her own way. Basically, she raised herself-and probably did a better job of it than I could have.

In appearance, she's almost a photograph of Sandy. In fact, pictures of the two of them as children are often hard to tell apart, unless there's a date on them, or other people can be recognized to place date and time. Grown up, the main difference is Sarah's a honey blonde, rather than Sandy's platinum. For sports, Sarah is more into individual events like golf and tennis, than team activities.

Although she dated, Sarah has never had a real 'boyfriend'. She's had several who would like to have been and she's always kept them coming back for more, but somehow she never met one who could turn her away from her own goals and directions. After college, she moved back home.

When we moved to Oregon, there was no one left behind for either of us.

We spent a little time on the weekends hanging around the marinas near our home. By the 4th of July, we'd pretty much decided we wanted our own boat. (The insurance company had just paid off the car, which was totaled in the wreck.) And we didn't want just any boat, we wanted something we could cruise on, even live aboard for a few days at a time, yet would be 'trailerable'-barely.

That long weekend, we spent our time looking at boats and yachts. We finally found just what we wanted. It's a hard-top cruiser, 30 feet long and 9? feet in the beam, with twin diesels. The cockpit isn't very big, but has plenty of room for two to fish. The main salon is spacious, with a nice galley and room to entertain in comfort. There is a wonderful stateroom, with a comfortable double berth in the bow. And the fly-bridge is very nice, since it takes up the whole roof of the salon-with not only seats for the helm and a passenger, but a lounge for other passengers.

A trailer came with it. Perfect! (Of course, I'd need a heavy pickup or van to tow this rig, but being able to move it to Puget Sound without running in the ocean was worth it.)

Meanwhile, my life settled down. I was back to work, conferring with clients by phone, FAX and modem; occasionally visiting them.

Sarah was very domestic. She puttered about the house, trying to get everything just the way she thought I wanted it. (She didn't understand that I didn't care, as long as she was happy.) She prepared our meals and did the cleaning and shopping.

And, though she was scrupulous about staying out of my sight and hearing when I was working, she was always there when I wasn't.

I won't say I didn't enjoy the attention-but I became concerned. It didn't seem that she was doing anything about getting a job, or finding friends of her own. When I asked her about it, she just laughed, threw her arms around my neck and gave me a big kiss. "Daddy, I just love you for thinking of me! But I'm perfectly happy, just as things are. I'm OK. Don't worry about me!"

This was all fine, but she needed some friends her own age. I finally persuaded her to start dating; but when she did, she'd come home 'down.' After the fourth or fifth time she came home early, with a long face, I resolved to have a 'long talk' with her. The opportunity came soon, on Labor Day weekend.

We'd agreed to take the boat, which we'd unanimously decided to christen Sandy, up the river at least to Wishram and farther, if we had time. That first day, we made Stevenson just at dusk and anchored off the park there.

After a simple dinner-she cooked, I washed up-I poured white wine for both of us and asked her to join me on the bridge lounge. It was a wonderful late summer evening; very warm, with just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes home. I was in shorts and Sarah in shorts and halter.

Sitting on the lounge, Sarah snuggled against me, placing my arm around her, hand on her flat, athlete's tummy, as was our custom.

For a time, we sipped our wine slowly and soaked in the tranquillity of the river and the beauty of the upper Columbia Gorge. Music from a radio in the park carried out to us faintly. Finally I asked, "Honey, why have your dates been such 'downers'? Are you having problems with the guys you date?"

Her big, luminous gray eyes looked at me for a long minute. I could see her deciding how she wanted to answer that. Very much her own woman, this one.