Sharon was a climber. She used her claws to scale her way out of the mundane life that had been ordained by her parents and her religion. She had gone after what she thought would make her complete. She was no dummy. She had seen the TV shows, read the books. Sharon understood—though everyone denied it—that money can buy happiness.
With Mike Fuller, she was bored, bitter and broke. With Perry Nelson she was only broke.
Over Cokes and potato chips with a friend, Sharon once tried to put it all in perspective.
“With a minister for a husband, you don’t have to grab on to any kind of resources, all you have to be is this little china doll on display. For the doctor's wife you have to be a little classy if you’re in the right society. You have to be smart enough to pick up the lingo of his profession, to keep the books, to do the ordering, fashion-conscious enough to help people with frames that they are really happy with. That's not who I am inside. I think I always did what everybody else wanted me to do.”
Maybe, some would ask later, Glen Harrelson was merely a stop on her way to get what she wanted?
Chapter 25
IN SHARON’S WORLD SOME THINGS WOULD never change. She would never really be a blonde, no matter how often she bleached her hair. She would never have a reputation as a woman of class and dignity. She would never look as lovely as she had envisioned herself to be. She would never be younger.
But she would always have Gary Adams.
Their love should have been a tattoo, so indelible had it become. Their love was the song on the radio that stayed in the listener's mind all day long. Their love was undying.
Their love was a prison.
Sharon had married Glen, but she had not forgotten Gary. She never got over the sex. Never got over the fact that Gary somehow preferred Nancy to her. How could that be? Why wouldn’t he leave that mousy little wife for her? Didn’t he love her? Didn’t she please him in bed? In the woods? On the shores of the lake?
He was the Mountain Man and she was his Lady.
Things were stable at the Dude Ranch below Cougar Ridge, so when Gary Adams had heard Sharon had moved back, he didn’t go see her right away. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to or that he wasn’t curious. He just knew that like an alcoholic on the wagon, one sip of Sharon and he’d be gone again. To taste her “secret sauce” was to consume a drug.
A chance encounter along the country road where Sharon and Danny and Misty waited for the school bus brought the lovers back together. In an instant, the two were kissing while Sharon's son and daughter looked on.
Sharon told Gary two things. She missed him and she was married.
Gary told himself to stay away. Special sauce or not, the relationship with Sharon was nothing but trouble.
But he couldn’t stay away. As the air threatened to drop to freezing and the wind howled from down the canyon, Gary Adams made his way up Cougar Ridge to Round House. He knew Sharon was grading the driveway, and he told himself he was going up there to see if he could lend a little help. There she was. Sharon was driving the four-wheel drive with a makeshift I-beam grader pulled behind to make the road less than the bumpy stretch it had been since she and Perry first had it cut.
Sharon was, as he always contended, the most desirable woman in the world. She was a wildcat in bed; a vision of beauty in the light of day. Gary couldn’t shake her from his memory. No matter what they had done.
“How's married life treating you?” he asked.
Sharon made a disgusted face. “Terrible,” she said. “It isn’t what I thought it would be.”
“What's the problem?”
Sharon complained that Glen was too demanding. He was always telling her what to do. He wasn’t nice to Misty and Danny. He didn’t treat her like Gary had. Gary, she said, knew how to please a woman.
“Let's go in the house and talk,” she said.
It was against his better judgment to go up to the house. He knew once inside, they’d be back in bed.
He was right.
Sharon tugged her Mountain Man to the bed and wrapped her legs around him, pushing her tongue into his mouth. Gary could not resist. He tore at her clothes; the breasts that he admired as the most beautiful he had ever seen were released from her bra. Though Sharon begged for him, something was wrong.
Gary Adams couldn’t maintain an erection. Just as had been the case the first time the two tried to make love, he couldn’t get it up.
Sharon did everything she could to get him to stand at attention, but to no avail. Two hours later, she gave up and rolled over.
On the bedroom wall was a picture of Glen and the children. Another framed photograph was the image of Perry.
“Get that off the wall!” Gary said, pulling his jeans back on. “I don’t want to come up here and see Perry's face.”