One summer, p.31
One Summer, page 31
Johnny didn’t say anything. The chief shrugged and headed toward where his gray Taurus was parked against the curb not far away. He opened the driver’s door while Johnny watched him. Then Wheatley looked at Johnny across the car’s roof.
“By the way, you got any old girlfriends left around here?” he asked.
“None living,” Johnny replied tightly. The chief appeared to consider that, nodded once, and got into his car.
Johnny stood there for a long time before he went back inside.
48
It took a long time to die. Jeremy discovered that, as the hours blended into each other with seamless horror. No food, no water, no light, no end to the awful stabbing pain that shot through his head every time he moved, but still he lived. How many hours, or days, or weeks had passed he didn’t know, but it seemed longer than a year that he had been locked in the cold smelly darkness, alone except for his mom’s voice.
He knew now that the voice was hers, and it comforted him. His fingertips were raw and bloody from where he had tried to claw his way out through the stone walls or through the iron door where the thing had stood. He knew now that there was no way out, and hopelessness increased his misery. He lay curled on the stone floor while his head pounded and colored spots flickered against the screen of his closed lids and his body shivered with chill. He drifted in and out of awareness, and when the pain or fear got bad, his mom talked to him. Jeremy pretended that he was safe in his own bed with Jake curled next to him and his mom in the rocking chair in the corner of the room where she always sat.
“Jeremy, do you remember when I let you play hooky from school and we went fishing in the creek?”
Yeah, Mom.
“Remember two Christmases ago, when Santa brought you that new bike?”
Yeah, Mom.
“Remember Halloween … Thanksgiving … your birthday?”
Yeah, Mom.
Sometimes she recited the nursery rhymes he remembered from earliest childhood, sometimes she sang to him, nonsense songs that he liked and lullabies for Jake, and sometimes she just told him that she was present. When thirst parched his throat, it was his mom who made him get up despite his aching head and feel around the walls of his prison for trickles of moisture that would keep him alive. When he found one, he licked greedily at the slimy stone wall and as the water soothed his dry tongue and burning throat he felt her jubilation. Though more and more he yearned to go to her, he felt that she did not want him to cross over to where she was. She wanted him to live.
Hunger was a gnawing pain inside him at first, but gradually it subsided into a dull emptiness that didn’t hurt anymore. He lay all curled up next to where the water trickled down the wall, licking it when he needed to, and listened to his mom. That was the best way to keep the terror at bay.
Because he knew that sooner or later, the thing would come back for him. And this time he was afraid that it wasn’t going to go away.
At the thought of that shiny silver knife, he sobbed aloud. And he kept on sobbing, even though his mom talked to him through the blackness to try to take away his fear.
“Be brave, son. Be brave.”
49
On Friday, Stan improved slightly, enough that both Elisabeth and Rachel felt that they could leave him at the same time. Becky stayed at the hospital—none of them would even consider leaving Stan alone—while Johnny drove Rachel and her mother to Walnut Grove in Rachel’s car. Elisabeth, sitting in the front seat with Johnny, was little more than a pale shadow of the woman she had been the Sunday before. She leaned her head back against the seat, eyes closed, hands resting quietly in her lap. For one of the very few times in her life, Rachel realized that she was seeing her mother less than perfectly groomed.
None of the three in the car spoke. Rachel and Elisabeth were worn out, and Johnny was quiet because he sensed that they needed to be. But the silence was comfortable. For the first time, Rachel was able to take stock of all that had happened since Stan had been stricken. She realized that one good thing had resulted from the nightmare: the last disorienting days in the hospital had done much to reconcile Elisabeth to Johnny. Crisis had forced her mother to rely on him, and Johnny had responded even better than Rachel could have hoped. He’d been there when he was needed, and in the process he had done much to endear himself to her family. By that odd alchemy that sometimes occurs in times of stress, Johnny had become one of them.
As they pulled into the gates of Walnut Grove, Rachel felt a lightening of her spirits for the first time since Stan had been stricken. The sun was shining, the air was warm, the foliage that was changing into its autumn colors was beautiful. Even the house seemed especially welcoming as they entered. Katie was singing a silly song with Tilda in the kitchen, and the child’s gaiety touched a chord in Rachel’s heart. A big pot of what smelled like vegetable soup bubbled on the stove.
“Just in time for lunch,” Tilda said, looking up with a wide smile as they entered. Katie ran with a screech straight for Rachel. Rachel scooped the child up, kissing her and never minding that her little hands were sticky from the candy stick that she had abandoned on the floor in her excitement.
“Where is everybody, Tilda?” Elisabeth asked. It was obviously an effort for her to speak at all. She was so tired that her words were faintly slurred.
“J.D.’s gone to fetch Loren from kindergarten, Lisa’s at school till three, and Katie-did and I are right here in the kitchen, aren’t we, Katie-did?”
“In the kitchen,” Katie corroborated with a nod.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down for a while, Mother?” Rachel asked with some concern.
“I think I will. I am bone tired.” Elisabeth kissed Katie, who giggled, then left the kitchen, moving like a very old woman. Never before had Rachel thought of her mother as old, and the notion frightened her.
“I think I’ll go help Mother get settled,” she said, and passed Katie to Tilda. The child protested, but Tilda distracted her with a pan and a spoon to bang it with. The noise followed Rachel up the stairs.
When she returned to the kitchen some fifteen minutes later, after having run her mother’s bath and laid out her robe and nightgown, she discovered Katie standing on a chair playing happily in the sink, Johnny leaning against the counter talking to Tilda, who treated him much like one of her own four sons, and Tilda slicing ham for sandwiches. That done, Tilda dished up two bowls of soup. She placed those and the lunch plates, which included potato salad and pickles and big glasses of milk as well as the sandwiches, on the round, polished oak kitchen table, then bore a protesting Katie out of the kitchen so that Rachel and Johnny could eat in peace.
Johnny tucked into his food with relish, but after a couple of sips of soup, Rachel pushed hers away.
“Something wrong with it?” Johnny inquired with a truculent look that told Rachel he knew very well there wasn’t. He had become very particular about how much and what she ate over the last few days, telling her that it was no wonder she was so tiny because a good-size mouse consumed more than she did. Rachel, in no mood to be force-fed, made a face at him. But in a compromise response to his hard-eyed stare, she ate the rest of her soup. More than that she simply could not do.
“It won’t help your father if you make yourself sick from not eating,” Johnny said as he downed the last morsel on his plate. Rachel watched him drain the last of his milk with loving repugnance. While stress made her stomach churn whenever she tried to eat, Johnny had never, in her experience of him, failed to enjoy his food, and his appetite was enormous.
“I have a headache,” Rachel replied with dignity.
“Do you indeed?” Johnny eyed her speculatively. Then he grinned. “Run upstairs like a good girl and put on a pair of jeans and some sneakers. What you need is fresh air.”
“You’re probably right.”
A walk did sound good, and Rachel did as he said. When she returned to the kitchen, he was just polishing off a brownie.
“If you keep eating the way you are, you’re going to be a fat old man.” She grinned teasingly at him.
“No way. My metabolism’s too high.” He wiped his fingers on his jeans and walked toward her.
“That’s what they all say.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on. It’s a beautiful day outside.”
Johnny grabbed her hand, and Rachel gladly went with him out the door and across the patio and down the path to the garage. His motorcycle was parked there, along with her mother’s car and the car Tilda used for errands. Breathing deeply, Rachel drank in the fresh scents of early autumn. Someone, somewhere, was burning leaves. The acrid odor of smoke was faint but detectable.
It was still warm enough that one didn’t need a jacket or sweater, but it was appreciably cooler than it had been in August. A rising wind rippled through Rachel’s hair and set the dark branches, clad in their autumn finery of rust and gold, moving high overhead like uplifted, swaying arms. Rachel drank in the sights and sounds and smells with a sense of renewal. Early fall was her favorite time of year.
“Here,” Johnny said, handing her a helmet. Rachel had been so caught up in her own thoughts that she hadn’t noticed that their walk had ended beside his motorcycle or that he had released her hand.
“Oh, I don’t think—” Rachel shook her head at what he obviously intended, backing away at the same time. With an admonishing cluck, Johnny came after her. He took the helmet from her hands and held it over her head as he looked down at her with a lurking grin.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good.” He pushed the helmet down over her head and fastened the chin strap. Then he silenced her protests with a quick, hard kiss.
“You’ll love it. I promise.” He pulled her against him by the simple expedient of hooking his fingers into the belt loops of her jeans. Her head tipped back as she looked up at him, and he kissed her again.
“Give it a chance?”
“What do I do?” Rachel capitulated with a sigh. Resisting him when he chose to exert that coaxing charm was impossible, she thought. Besides, she really did trust him, implicitly. She might not love riding with him on his motorcycle, but she could pretty much take for granted that she wasn’t going to come to any harm.
“Hop on.” Johnny, grinning, pulled on his own helmet, threw one leg over the seat, rocked the bike off its stand, and kicked the engine to life, all in less time than it took Rachel to adjust her helmet so that it felt reasonably comfortable and secure.
“How?” Rachel had to shout to be heard over the roar. The seat was a good way off the ground, and somehow it didn’t seem dignified to straddle it. It was all very well for him, but he was over six feet tall.
“Pretend the bike’s a horse!” he yelled back.
Rachel did, stepping awkwardly up on one foot peg while he braced the bike with both legs on the ground, then throwing a leg over at his instruction. All at once she found herself seated behind him, wedged in between his tall, broad back and the leather backrest, her thighs gripping his, her crotch pressed against his buttocks.
“Hang on!” he called over his shoulder.
Rachel gritted her teeth and locked her arms around his hard waist. He released the throttle and lifted his feet, and off they shot. As they flew down the driveway, kicking up tiny pebbles, Rachel thought that riding a rocket would be tame in comparison.
But Johnny clearly loved it. She could feel his exhilaration in his body as she pressed close against his back. She could see it in glimpses of his averted face. She could hear it in his voice as he shouted remarks back to her. So she clung to him without protest as they flew over bumps and careened around curves, even though she felt as if she were on the roller-coaster ride of her life. For Johnny, she would learn to enjoy this form of transportation if it killed her. He had made such an effort to fit into her world that she would do this one thing for him.
By the time he pulled into the garage again an hour and a half later, Rachel had even opened her screwed-shut eyes.
“Wasn’t it great?” He was grinning widely as he stopped the bike. Rachel, thankful to be alive, smiled and nodded as she removed her helmet, handed it to him, and slid to the ground. Then something funny happened. Her knees, in mutinous collaboration with her thighs, were shaky. Her bottom frankly ached. She rubbed it, wincing, as Johnny turned off the engine, put his beloved machine up on its stand, and balanced the helmets on the rearview mirrors.
“What’s the matter?” He turned to catch her rubbing her behind. Frowning, he looked her over. Rachel summoned a smile for him as her hand dropped to her side.
“I’m saddlesore,” she said, determined to make light of an affliction much worse than anything she had ever suffered on horseback.
“I kept you out too long your first time.” He sounded remorseful.
“First time?” she thought with an inward shudder but continued to smile as she turned to head toward the house. But she couldn’t control her instinctive wince as she took a step forward.
“Baby, I am sorry.” Johnny came up behind her and scooped her up in his arms before she had any inkling that he meant to do so. For an instant she stiffened, surprised, but then she relaxed as he walked off with her held high against his chest. This was the man she loved, and he could carry her off if he wanted to. She smiled at the sheer luxury of it and curled her arms around his neck.
“Forgive me?” He really did sound contrite. Rachel tweaked a curl that grew low on his nape.
“Yes, silly.”
“You’ll toughen up to it in time.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“You don’t have to ride if you don’t want to.”
“I know.”
Johnny stopped walking for just long enough to kiss her. When he finally lifted his head and got under way again, Rachel was surprised to find that he was heading for the woods.
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace where I can make the bad hurt all better.”
“Sounds exciting.” She smiled up at him.
“Does, doesn’t it?”
They were at the edge of the woods. Johnny carried her along the path to the foot of the climbing tree, then set Rachel on her feet. Her bottom still ached and her thighs still quivered, but she managed to climb up with no more than an occasional inward wince. When Johnny appeared through the opening, she was stretched flat on her back on the wooden floor, her arms flung over her head as she admired the fluttering orange-gold canopy overhead. Dressed in faded jeans and a rose-pink T-shirt, her hair tangled and her eyes bright and her cheeks abloom with color, she looked and felt about eighteen years old. When Johnny loomed over her, she grinned at him with gay abandon. He stood looking down at her for a moment, brushing back an errant lock of black hair from his forehead, then dropped to his knees beside her.
“Turn over.”
“Why?”
“I told you I was going to make the bad hurt go away. The cure for what ails you is a good massage.”
“Is it?”
“Uh-huh.”
Rachel turned over, folding her hands beneath her cheek to pillow her head. She felt the sure strength of Johnny’s hands as he began to knead her abused buttocks through the worn denim and gave herself over to sensation.
He was right—what he was doing was definitely easing the ache in her muscles. Or at least, transferring it to another location.
It was funny, when she thought about it, how swiftly and hotly he could awaken her need for him. No other man had ever had that effect on her. But when Johnny touched her, she wanted sex.
She was getting up the energy to turn back over and tell him so when his hands slid beneath her to seek and find the fastening of her jeans.
“What are you doing?” she asked lazily as he unzipped her fly and began pulling her jeans down over her hips.
“I think the massage would be more effective if there weren’t so many barriers between my hands and your skin.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yep.”
He slid her sneakers from her feet, then pulled her jeans off after them. Rachel still lay on her stomach, her head on her hands, dressed in her T-shirt and peach nylon panties and pink ankle socks with their delicate lace trim. The air felt just faintly cool against her bare legs. The titillating chill was quickly dissipated by the warmth of his hands as he ran them up her thighs to resume their task.
Rachel had to admit that his ministrations were infinitely more effective without her jeans. She arched her back like a cat being stroked when his hands slid beneath her panties, and for a moment she enjoyed the slightly rough abrasion of his fingertips against the soft skin of her behind. Then, summoning what determination she had left, she rolled over and sat up.
“Feeling better?” he asked, sinking back on his heels, his hands sliding around to rest on the front of her bare thighs.
“Infinitely.” Rachel smiled at him, looped her arms around his neck, and pressed her mouth to his in a sensuous, seductive kiss, which he returned with enthusiasm.
“I owe you one,” she said at last, pushing him away and shaking her head at him when he would have maneuvered her down onto her back on the floor.
“Oh, yeah?” He sounded interested as she reached for his zipper and worked it down. Leaning against the wall, he watched her efforts with a quirky smile.
“Yeah,” she answered, reaching through the opening she had made. His smile vanished and his breathing quickened as her hand burrowed beneath his underpants to locate its prey. He was already hard by the time her fingers closed over him and pulled him out into the open air. His erection was enormous, throbbing, burning hot and quivering in her hand, though she had done no more than hold it. Rachel squeezed experimentally and was rewarded by the sudden hot flare of Johnny’s eyes and the rush of dark blood to his cheeks. As she bent her head to him, he shut his eyes and clenched his fists. Then her mouth found him and took him inside, sucking. Johnny groaned.
