Mirror Image

remark.
    “Shut up, Jack,” Nelson snapped.
    Tate said crisply, “Just standing there staring might be all I can do for her, Jack, but it’s still my responsibility to do it. Didn’t I make that clear to you weeks ago?”
    With a long-suffering sigh, Eddy lowered himself into a chair. “I thought we had all agreed that Carole was better off in that private clinic than here at home.”
    “We did.”
    “She’s treated like royalty there—better than she was in the hospital,” Jack observed. “She’s looking better every day. I was just kidding about her eyes. Once the redness goes away and her hair grows back, she’ll look great. So what’s the problem?”
    “The problem is that she’s still recovering from trauma and serious physical injury,” Tate said testily.
    “No one is arguing that point,” Nelson said. “But you’ve got to seize every opportunity, Tate. You’ve got a responsibility to your campaign that can’t be neglected any more than you can neglect your wife.”
    “Don’t you think I realize that?” he asked the three of them.
    “You realize it,” Eddy said. “And so does Carole.”
    “Maybe. But she doesn’t do as well when I’m away. Dr. Sawyer told me she becomes very depressed.”
    “How the hell does he know whether she’s depressed or laughing her head off? She still can’t say a goddamned—”
    “Jack!” Nelson spoke in the tone he had frequently used during the course of his military career to reduce cocky airmen to groveling penitents. Every inch the retired air force colonel, he glared at his older son.
    He had rarely spanked his children when they were growing up, resorting to corporal punishment only when he felt it was absolutely necessary. Usually a single, quelling look and that harsh tone of voice would whip them back into line. “Have a little consideration for your brother’s predicament, please.”
    Parental respect silenced Jack, but he flopped back in his chair with obvious exasperation.
    “Carole would be the first to tell you to go on this trip,” Nelson said to Tate in a quieter voice. “I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t believe it.”
    “I agree with Nelson,” Eddy said.
    “And I agree with both of you. Before the accident, she would have been packing right along with me.” Tate rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out some of the tension and fatigue.
    “Now when I tell her I’m leaving, I see panic in her eyes. It haunts me. She’s still so pathetic. I feel guilty. Before I leave for any extended time, I have to take into account how she’s going to respond to my being away.”
    He took a silent inventory of their reactions. On each of their faces was an argument wanting to be spoken. Out of consideration, they were keeping their opposing opinions to themselves.
    He expelled a deep breath. “Shit. I’m going out for a while.”
    He stamped from the room and left the house. In under five minutes, he was mounted on horseback and galloping across one of the ranch’s pastures, skirting herds of lazily grazing hybrid beef cattle. No particular destination was on his mind; he just needed the privacy and peace that the open air afforded.
    These days, he was rarely by himself, but he had never felt more alone in his entire life. His father, Eddy, and Jack could all advise him on political issues, but personal decisions were just that—personal. Only he could make them.
    He kept thinking about the way Carole had touched him. He wondered what it meant.
    In the two weeks since it had happened, he had reviewed and analyzed it to death and still couldn’t get it off his mind. Because of his stunned reaction to it, it hadn’t lasted more than a split second—just long enough for her fingertips to rake gently through the hair at his temples. But he considered it the most important caress he and Carole had ever shared—more important than their first kiss, than the first time they had made love… than the last time they had made love.
    He reined in and dismounted beside a spring-fed stream that trickled down from the limestone hills. Scrub oak, cedar, and mesquite trees dotted the rocky ground. The wind was strong, out of the north. It stung his cheeks and made his eyes water. He’d left without a jacket, but the sun was warm.
    That touch had surprised the hell out of him because it was such an uncharacteristic thing for her to do. She knew how to touch a man, all right. Even now, after all that had happened between them,