“How’s your dad doing?” I asked her, once we had ordered.
“He’s well,” she replied. “He was really worried about me, as you can imagine.” Then she smiled softly. “He was glad to know that you are still alive.”
“He’s not half as glad as I am,” I replied, and she laughed softly. I looked at her. “And it would be very, very hard for him to be happier than me that you are alive, too.”
Kelly glanced up at me, but her eyes went down again. She seemed a little uncertain. Whether she was or not, I wasn’t. At least about what I wanted. I wasn’t sure what she wanted, so that made me a little uneasy as well. She said, “Thank you…for coming after me. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.”
She looked back at me. “Why, Rob?”
I started to answer, but just then our food came. “That was quick,” I said. The Gold Dust made a good steak and that was what I was having. I dug right in.
Kelly didn’t seem to be quite as hungry as me. She ate a bean or two, sawed half-heartedly at her steak, and generally seemed to be preoccupied with something. I had a few things on my mind, too, most of them related to her. I still didn’t know, for sure, if she had meant what she had said when dangling over that cliff. As I noted before, people will say desperate things at desperate times. I may have been desperate, too, at that moment, but I had told her the truth. I had to find out, of course, if her words were desperation or actualization.
And then she spoke almost the same words she had spoken in Prologue Two of this story. I remembered them well.
“You’re leaving Clearwater Valley again, aren’t you.”
I had just put a nice, juicy piece of steak in my mouth and my momma had always taught me not to talk with my mouth full, so I had to wait a few seconds to reply. “Well, that depends,” I said, once I felt propriety had been satisfied.
“On what?” Kelly was staring down at her plate, picking at her food.
“Kelly.”
She looked at me. I read…what?...in her eyes. Uncertainty? Hope? Fear? I wasn’t sure, and I don’t guess it really mattered because I had to say to what I had to say.
“It depends,” I said, “on whether you meant what you said when you were dangling from that cliff a few days ago.”
Her eyes got wet, and she looked back down. It took her a few seconds to speak. I watched her. Kelly Atkins was a beautiful woman and I knew I couldn’t live without her, and my heart ached because I still wasn’t totally sure what she wanted. Or if she even knew. I looked her over as she was gathering whatever thoughts she wanted to say. She was wearing a red dress, and it just then hit me—I bought her that dress the first time I was here. (See Whitewater, Book Three, Chapter Eight).
“That’s a pretty dress you’re wearing,” I said.
She glanced up at me briefly and tried to smile. “Do you recognize it?”
“Yes,” is all I said.
A slender strand of her raven hair had fallen over her right eye. “I only wear it on special occasions,” she replied.
“And this is a special occasion?”
She looked at me again. “I…I don’t know. Is it?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you meant what you said when you were dangling from that cliff a few days ago.”
She searched my eyes. “What if I did?”
“Then I’m not leaving Clearwater Valley.”
Kelly looked down again as the wetness appeared in her eyes once more. “Just because of what I said?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
I reached over and took her hand. She looked up at me, tears filling her eyes. “That,” I replied, “and because when I was hanging over that cliff, I never spoke truer words in my life.” I paused a moment, then said, “And I’ll say them again. With an addendum. I love you, Kelly. Will you marry me?”
Kelly Atkins dropped her head and started crying in earnest. “Oh, Rob…” she managed.
I think that meant “yes.” At least, I hoped so. Because that was the reason for my...Return to River Bend.
The End
If this is the first of my stories that you have read, then you might want to know that Rob Conners first appeared in Whitewater and was also in River Bend. That should be obvious from the contents of Return to River Bend. Allie Summer was only in River Bend, though both of them are in the short story, The Lady With The Dark Glasses.
If you enjoy the westerns I've written, then I'd enjoy hearing from you, your comments, suggestions, corrections, and general well-being. But more than anything else, Rob and Allie and Ben and Kelly and Kelly--and I--appreciate you spending your time with us. I do have more stories coming up with Allie Summer and Rob Conners and I hope they will be worth reading as well--providing this one was. God bless.
Mark K. Lewis
mklewis929@msn.com