Ryan's Return, page 35
"Is that all right with you?" His question went way beyond the surface words, and Kara wasn't sure how to answer. She had prepared herself to say good-bye. She had promised herself a good cry. Now he wanted to stay.
"You do whatever you want to do," she said carefully. She would not ask him to stay. It had to be his decision.
"Then I think I'll stay."
She couldn't hold back the pleasure that his words brought forth. "Good."
"Maybe you can show me around, Ryan," Madeline said. "Introduce me to the right people."
"You've already met the most important person in this town, Kara Delaney," Ryan said, giving her a tender smile. "She's the president of the chamber of commerce and the heart of this town."
"Well, that's great," Madeline said. "When can we talk?"
"After breakfast," Kara said, touched by Ryan's respect for her, his faith in her. "You're welcome to join us."
"I'll just get my things. Warren, can you help me out?" Madeline asked.
Ryan turned to Kara as soon as they left. "I packed my bags, but I couldn't bring myself to carry them downstairs. I never thought it would be so difficult to leave."
"Because of the flood? Because of the news media arriving in town? Is that why you're staying? To capture the story on film for one of the magazines you work with? I mean, suddenly you have this great opportunity to -- "
"To what?" Ryan demanded, his expression turning suddenly angry. "To further my career? I don't need Serenity Springs to do that."
"You have to admit you're in the right place at the right time."
"To get a photograph, maybe. To get you, no. If this were really the right place and the right time, I wouldn't be leaving in a few days."
"You don't have to go."
"I do." His eyes filled with pain. "It's in my blood. I have to keep moving."
"That's just an excuse. You don't have to do anything. You can make a choice. You can make a decision to stay, but you're afraid."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I've been where you are, Ryan. I know how easy it is to drift in life, to keep doing what you're doing because it's just too damn scary to try something else."
"That's not it," Ryan said. "I like my life the way it is. I'm doing exactly what I want to do." Ryan wished he felt as strong as his words.
"Then there's nothing more to say." Kara paused. "Except this. You can travel around the world, Ryan, but I guarantee you will never find anything that's better than this."
Kara stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth with passion and persistence and determination, all the things he had come to love in her. And when she broke the kiss, when she walked away from him, he had a feeling she was taking his heart with her.
* * *
By noon on Monday, Ryan was more concerned with his aching arms than his heart. For three solid hours he had shoveled sand into bags, helping a grim line of volunteers place them around the lower parts of the city.
Although he had planned to shoot some photos, Ryan quickly realized that while there were more than enough photographers recording the events, there were not nearly enough active participants, and for the first time in a long time he chose to participate instead of observe.
By one o'clock the river had risen another two feet. By three o'clock heavy winds had knocked out some of the electricity in the downtown area, sending residents to the local stores to stockpile canned goods and bottled water. With the exception of the media, most of the tourists had gone home, leaving the townspeople to battle the river. This was no longer a game or an event. They were fighting for their lives, for their homes, for their memories, for their futures.
There was no more division in the town. The raging river brought both sides together. It no longer seemed to matter who wanted a Taco Tommy's on Main Street. There wouldn't be a Main Street if the river flooded. So they worked together, the men and the women, the old and the young, the Applebornes and the Woodriches and the Hunters. And Ryan stayed right in the middle of it, sweating, straining, living each moment.
At five o'clock Kara stopped by. Her face was as dirty as his, her eyes filled with worry and exhaustion. "Angel and I are going home for a while," she said. "Are you coming?"
"Later. I want to check on Jonas."
"Okay."
Ryan caught her hand and squeezed it, wanting to kiss her, to hold her tight, to erase the lines of worry that creased her face. But Angel was watching them as well as the rest of the town, so he let her go.
"I thought you'd be taking pictures, not shoveling sand," Kara said.
"I think I can do more good filling these bags."
"You do care about this town, don't you?"
"Maybe a little."
"I'm glad." Taking Angel's hand, Kara led her daughter away. Ryan watched them go, wishing he could go with them. But he needed to see Jonas. He needed to make sure his father was all right.
* * *
When Ryan arrived at Jonas's house, he found his father kneeling on the floor surrounded by half-packed boxes, holding his mother's fragile bud vase between his old, lined hands with an expression of intense sorrow.
As Ryan looked closer, he realized that the man was actually weeping. Ryan couldn't believe what he was seeing. The emotion on his father's face was so stark, so painful, and so utterly private. Ryan instinctively backed up to the front door and knocked.
Jonas covered his expression as soon as he saw Ryan in the doorway, but Ryan knew he would never forget the sight of his father on his knees, cherishing a bud vase. The intimidating man from his youth had vanished. In his place was a lonely, frail man.
Maybe Jonas deserved to end up this way, old and alone. He had been cruel and hard most of his life. It was no wonder that the townspeople feared him more than they loved him, and that his own sons felt more wary than warm.
But as Ryan faced his father now, he knew that he no longer had the energy or the desire to carry a grudge. He felt sorry for Jonas, for all that they had had and all they had lost.
Jonas set the bud vase down in a box and cleared his throat. "I thought you had gone."
"I decided to stick around a while. See what happens with the river." And with you.
Jonas continued packing, ignoring Ryan, but the silence wasn't as cold as it had been before. Ryan sat down on the couch. "So how are you?"
"Fine."
"Do you need anything?"
"No." Jonas shook his head.
"Where are you putting those boxes?"
"Upstairs."
"I'll help you."
"Why?"
Ryan counted to ten. "Because I want to talk to you."
"About what?"
"About Becky Lee and Mom."
Jonas stiffened. "I don't talk about your mother."
"Fine, let's start with Becky Lee then." Ryan handed his father the masking tape as Jonas pulled the corners of the box down. "Andrew said Becky Lee had a long talk with you just before she left him. I want to know what she told you, and more importantly what you told her."
"You think I remember every conversation I've had in my life?"
Ryan smiled. "Yes, I do. Did Becky Lee tell you I was the father of her baby?"
Jonas lifted his head, and after a slight hesitation he said, "No, she didn't say that."
Ryan let out a sigh of relief. "Then Billy really is Andrew's son?"
"Yes."
"But you never assured him of that fact."
"I didn't know he had any doubts."
"Of course he had doubts. I'm sure you did, too."
Jonas shrugged. "In the beginning I thought you were letting Andrew clean up your mess, the way you always did, especially when you left town so fast. It never occurred to me that she hadn't told you she was pregnant."
"Because you liked to believe the worst about me."
"It was easier that way."
Ryan read the truth in his father's eyes. Yes, it was easier to hate than to love, and much safer. Jonas set the box down on the floor and reached for his stack of fishing magazines on the coffee table.
"There's one more thing," Ryan said.
"I told you I won't talk about her."
"Angel thinks there's a ghost at the river. She thinks this ghost is Mom. In fact..." Ryan dug into his pocket. "Angel found this by Tucker's Bridge." He held up the Mickey Mouse watch.
Jonas stared at the watch as if it were a snake about to strike. Finally he took it from Ryan's hand and sat down heavily on the couch. "Angel found this?"
"Yes. I threw it in the river twenty-five years ago. Suddenly it's back."
"You're not telling me you believe this crazy story?"
Ryan sat down on the other end of the couch. "Is Mom dead?"
Jonas turned white at the word. "How the hell would I know? I haven't heard from her since the day she walked out on us. Why don't you ask Kara Delaney?"
"Kara doesn't know. She didn't even know her father..." Ryan stopped as he saw the look of discomfort cross Jonas's face. "Her parents split up right after the flood, and although she received occasional cards from her father, she never saw him. When he finally did come back into her life years later, he was alone, and he never mentioned Mom."
"So what? Maybe Isabelle realized he was an idiot and left him, too."
Ryan pressed his fingers together. "It doesn't add up. Where is she, Dad?"
"I don't know."
Ryan gave him a hard look, trying to get past the outer shell, and for a moment he did, when their eyes connected, when he realized that his father wanted to know the answer as much as he did.
"You tried to find her," Ryan said suddenly, hitting on a truth that was completely unexpected.
"Yes." Jonas leaned his head back against the couch. "About two years after she left. I couldn't come up with anything. I kept thinking that one day she would just show up again, or I'd see her picture in a story that came across the wire, or I'd hear from some long-lost relative of hers. But I never did."
"Maybe she is dead."
"That's possible. But she's not a damn ghost. And if she were, the last place she'd haunt would be the river. She hated it almost as much as you do."
Ryan smiled to himself. "Sometimes I think I hated it because you loved it so much. I had to compete with the river for your attention, except the river always won."
"The river didn't talk back to me."
"And I did." It made sense. Jonas liked things and people he could control.
"Ryan -- "
"What?"
Jonas stared up at the ceiling. "I never meant for you and Andrew to get caught in the flood. My heart just about stopped when I saw you two clinging to the roof."
"I never would have guessed. You yelled at us for not taking any drinking water up there with us."
"I didn't know how to tell you I was sorry. I knew you were scared of the water after that. But I wanted you to get over it, to see the river as I do, to feel its power, its magnificence."
"I never felt the river's power, just its anger. So much like your anger. I could never make you happy."
A second voice joined Ryan's. "Neither could I," Andrew said. He stood in the doorway, watching both of them. Ryan wondered how much he had heard. Maybe it was good that he had come now. The three of them needed to talk together.
Andrew walked forward with purposeful steps, looking more sure of himself than Ryan had ever seen. Even Jonas sat up straighter, waiting for Andrew to approach, to say what was on his mind.
"No matter what I did," Andrew said. "I either came in second to Ryan or screwed up completely." He looked from Ryan to Jonas. "And damned if I didn't try to please you. In fact, I'm still trying. But this is the end of the line, Dad. You can't run the paper anymore, so you either trust me with it or I walk away."
Ryan stared at his brother in amazement.
"You're walking out on me?" Jonas demanded.
"I don't want to, but I want control of the paper. I need to pay bills, which means I put my signature on the bank card. No one will talk to me. Everyone is waiting for you to come back and take charge. I'm tired of being treated like a child. I'm an adult, and I can run that paper as well as you can."
Jonas flushed a bright, angry red. "I ain't dead yet, Andrew. It's my paper."
Andrew's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "You will be dead if you come back to work. I spoke to your doctor this morning."
"You had no right."
"I had every right," Andrew said forcefully. "I'm your son, dammit. And I might just be the only one who cares two cents about you, so don't you think it's time you started reciprocating?"
Jonas's mouth dropped open. He was utterly speechless. Ryan felt much the same way, as if a sleepy bear had just come out of a thirty-seven-year hibernation.
"Your doctor told me," Andrew continued, "that if you don't stop working and start taking better care of your heart, you're a prime candidate for another heart attack, a big one this time. Now, I want the keys to the safe and I want your signature on these." Andrew set two bank release forms down on the coffee table.
Jonas refused to pick them up. Instead he looked at Ryan as if he wanted his support. But Ryan would not take sides against his brother, not this time.
"He's right," Ryan said.
"What do you care? You'll be gone by morning, or as soon as you get a better offer."
"Maybe. I like the outside world, Jonas. I like meeting people who speak other languages, listening to songs where I don't understand a word. That's who I am. I have to accept the fact that you're a grumpy old man who couldn't say 'I love you' if your life depended on it. Why can't you accept me as I am?"
Jonas didn't speak for several minutes. The air was thick with tension, with words that had needed to be said for a long time. "I didn't think you cared one way or the other," he finally said.
"That's not an answer."
Jonas tried to stare him down. Ryan refused to back off.
"You're a good photographer," Jonas admitted with a trace of grudging admiration in his tone. "You don't need me to tell you that. You got the whole world. And you -- " He turned to Andrew. "The Sentinel is the central point for news and information on the river. With the media swarming all over us, you won't be able to handle things alone."
"I can handle the writing and the other media, and -- "
"And I can handle the photography and whatever else needs to be done. I did spend every summer of my childhood working on that paper," Ryan finished, not sure where those words had come from, but now that they were spoken, he was pleased. Both Jonas and Andrew looked at him in surprise. "I'd like to help," he added.
"You two ganging up on me?" Jonas asked. He looked touched, taken aback, almost overwhelmed.
