The Borrowed Bride by Susan Wiggs Page A

had promised to report back to her. With panic clawing at her insides, she paced the cool, antiseptic corridor, then finally stepped outside to lean against the cinder-block building.
    She thought about praying, but no words would form. She thought about cursing, but that seemed so useless, like throwing stones at the moon. And so she covered her face with her hands and shuddered, wishing hard, wishing with all her might, that he would recover.
    “Isabel?” A man’s voice penetrated the swirling panic.
    Her eyes flew open. “Anthony.”
    “Hey, I’ve been hanging around waiting for over an hour.” He did not look angry. She had never known Anthony to get angry. He looked pleasant and smooth and artlessly handsome as always.
    “Are you about ready?” he asked.
    “I…” Her mouth felt like sawdust. “I can’t go anywhere, Anthony. There’s been an accident.” She practically choked on the word. “I have to wait and see if—” She broke off and regarded him helplessly. “I can’t go with you.”
    He raked a hand through his abundant dark hair. “Look, Isabel, this is getting ridiculous.”
    “I know,” she said softly. “I know. You don’t deserve this. You go back to town, Anthony. Never mind about me.”
    He held her lightly by the shoulders. “Babe, I’ll wait.”
    Juanita Sohappy joined them, hurrying to Isabel. “Is there any news?”
    “No,” Isabel said faintly. “Not yet.”
    “I hope the white-eyes doctor knows what he’s doing,” Juanita said, using the language Isabel had never quite forgotten. She squeezed Isabel’s hand, then went inside the clinic.
    Anthony stared after her for a moment. “A friend of yours?”
    “Yes. We just met, but she reminds me of the past, of people I used to know.”
    “This is really wild. People you used to know? Native Americans?”
    She blinked. Her thoughts seethed and scattered like storm clouds. “I’m half-Indian,” she said simply.
    His hands dropped from her shoulders. He stared at her as if she had just sprouted antlers.
    “Is that a problem?” she asked.
    “Of course not.” But his voice was taut, strained. “The problem is that you never told me.”
    “No. No, I didn’t.”
    “Why in the world—” He made a fist and pressed it against the gray cinder-block wall. “What is it, Isabel? Did you think I’d find you weird or something?”
    “I guess I didn’t think much at all. I never told anyone.”
    “This is insane. We’re supposed to be married Saturday. And here I am finding out things—important things—about you that you should’ve told me months ago. What else haven’t you told me?”
    Ah, so much, she thought sadly. About her father, her mother, all the things that had turned her into what she was when she had first met him—a bashful woman frightened of her past, intimidated by passion, seeking a way to belong.
    And she wondered—she made herself wonder—if it was fair to expect Anthony to answer all those needs.
    And that, after all, was the key. Neither Anthony nor Dan nor anyone could give her happiness. How naive she had been to think they could.
    “Anthony,” she said, her voice more steady than she could have wished. “I’m sorry. After I hear about…” Her voice broke. “About Dan, we’ll talk.”
    “I’m not sure we need to.” His lips thinned, and she could tell he was annoyed, but to the core of his being, Anthony Cossa was a kind and patient man. Kinder and more patient than she deserved.
    A moment later, Juanita pushed open the clinic door.She did not say a word. She did not have to. The expression on her face said it all.
     
    His grandfather would have called it a “true dream.” Wispy images and sensations in Dan’s head pulsed with vivid color. Drumbeats sounded in his ears, and he felt the heavy thud at the base of his neck.
    Right where it hurt the most.
    A coldness seized him, and he tried to dive back into the dream, into the colorful oblivion behind his eyes. But he could