Take Care, Sara

remember what I said to you, after it happened?”
    Sara wasn’t prone to lying. She didn’t like being lied to and she didn’t like doing it to others. He was so intense, so still as he waited, like what she said mattered astronomically to him. Lie, Sara. For him. For you. Lie.
    She opened her mouth—
    “Yoo hoo! Mr. Walker!” a short, stout lady with graying blond hair called, waving from the barn entrance. She had on paint-splattered jeans and a blue flannel jacket.
    Lincoln sucked in a lungful of air, giving Sara a wry glance. “There’s the possible client. Better say hello.”
    He strode toward the middle-aged woman and Sara followed, frowning at the realization that she didn’t think she could lie to Lincoln. Not about something that seemed so important to him. Not about anything.
     
     
     

14
     
     
     
    She found him by the stream at the back of the house. It was still winter, but March was on the horizon and that let Sara think maybe the snow wouldn’t linger too much longer. Still, she was glad for her winter coat, gloves, and boots as she made her way through the foot of packed dirty snow. Spindly trees surrounded them, caked with white. The sun was behind clouds, casting grayness to the air that Sara imagined would resemble her heart if it were to be cut open. Icy, gloomy, numb; that was her. Broken. Splintered. Oozing sorrow like a shallow wound oozed blood. Only her wound wasn’t shallow; it was bone deep, right into the marrow.
    Lincoln’s head was uncovered and the gentle breeze played with his dark waves. He wore jeans, boots, and a black sweatshirt. His head was down and she wondered what he was thinking about. Her eyes drank in the sight of his strong frame. He was more muscular than his brother had been; taller.
    “Did you get the job?” Sara asked his back.
    He slowly turned, no surprise showing on his face at her presence. She was sure he’d known she was near; he always seemed to know when she was close. Lincoln’s eyes went up the length of her until they connected with hers. Heat swept through her and Sara crossed her arms, looking at the slowly trickling stream of water. Most of it was frozen, but there were patches where water weaved through the ice.
    “Of course I got the job.” His tone wasn’t arrogant, simply matter-of-fact.
    “So…what are you doing?” Sara asked, not sure what to say. Just his nearness had put a crack in the numbness that was her. Maybe that was why she’d ended up at his place when she’d decided to go for an aimless drive. Lincoln was able to take the emotionlessness away.
    “I’m wondering if I have it in me to swim across the massive body of water before me.”
    The stream was about six feet in width. Sara looked at it and couldn’t help the snort of humor. Lincoln was taller than it was long. “I don’t know, Lincoln. I’m not sure you’re up to it.”
    “Are you saying you doubt my masculinity?”
    “You could just lie across it and call it good.”
    It was his turn to snort. Lincoln glanced at her, a smile teasing his lips. “Now what would be the sport in that?”
    Sara took a deep breath of frozen air, the air so cold it was hot inside her mouth and throat. “I remember what you said.”
    He stiffened beside her, his expression giving away nothing. “What do you mean?”
    “On the river, two summers ago, what you said. A few weeks ago you asked me if I remembered. I did. I do.”
    Lincoln stared down at the ground. “It doesn’t matter.”
    “But it must. I mean—you wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise, right? Is it supposed to mean something? I don’t understand the significance of it. Or maybe I do, but I don’t want to. Or…not. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.” Sara sighed and faced the wood house.
    “It was nothing, Sara.”
    He was lying to her. Sara turned her head so she could see his profile. He didn’t move, he didn’t blink, as her eyes perused the side of his face. “It was something,” she clipped out.
    “You’re right. It was, but…” Lincoln sighed. “It doesn’t matter now.”
    “Why doesn’t it matter?” She waited for his answer, wondering why she was having such a hard time sucking air into her lungs.
    His eyes fixated on her; there was something about the endless gray depths of them; the way they smoldered like smoke from a fire, mysterious and magnetic. “I’m trying…so hard…to do the honorable thing, Sara,” Lincoln said, his voice harsh with