The Still of Night (5 page)
“Einstein’s?”
“Sure.” She locked the door behind her.
“Let’s walk.” He had locked his bike to her maple tree.
“Okay.” The morning was warm and a little humid and smelled of dew.
“So the way I see it, you’re set on a platonic relationship, no matter where it might go.”
Jill rolled her eyes. “You know, Dan, sometimes prevarication is a good thing.”
“Pre …what?”
“Beat around the bush a little, and not with your nightstick.” She nudged him with her elbow.
“Sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
Idle conversation seemed to stump him, and they walked quietly for a while. Then he turned his blunt face to her, and the breeze caught the brown hair, thinning a little at the top. “Is it just a religious thing?”
She leaned over and sniffed the flowering hydrangea along the sidewalk, calming the tension his insistent questions brought. She could say yes. Her belief system did not condone premarital sex. She’d been raised in a Christian home with committed parents, taught right from wrong. But the truth was, that hadn’t stopped her before. Morgan’s love had overpowered her limp beliefs, and the consequences were a far, far more painful deterrent than all the convictions she held now.
She looked at Dan’s sincere face. “Mostly.” He was trying to understand, and maybe she owed him some explanation.
“I know a thing or two about safe sex, Jill. I teach it, remember?”
Sure he did, a virile, healthy man who believed sex an inevitable part of any serious relationship. He brought the message to the high schools and was wildly applauded. She knew people at her church who felt the same way, in spite of the pastor’s sermons to the contrary. But she also knew from personal experience the devastating consequences of having a sexual relationship without that lifetime commitment. She could not make him understand without telling him more than she intended.
He stopped on the walk outside Einstein’s Bagels and turned. “How do you know a relationship can work long-term? If you’re not willing to give it a trial period, how can you commit to a lifetime?”
“Maybe I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because I know what it is to lose it
. “We’ve been over this already. I thought we were working out terms of friendship.”
With a sigh, he pushed open the door and held it for her. She ordered a potato bagel with cream cheese and green tea. He ordered the seven-grain and coffee. They took their respective bagels to the table and sat down.
Dan rested his forearms on the table edge. “Okay. Let’s set the parameters.” He picked up the bagel and took a bite, chewed to one side and went on. “No intercourse, obviously. What about kissing?”
“No.”
“That’ll be hard.” He swigged his coffee.
“We’ll get used to it.”
He took another hearty bite. “What about doing things together? Like this?”
Jill felt tears coming. “I don’t know, Dan. Sometimes, maybe.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
The tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
He reached out and took her hands. “I wish I could just … well, we’ve already ruled that out.”
She laughed and reached for her tea, sipping it while he munched his bagel.
Dan studied her as he ate, then swiped his mouth with the napkin and said, “Really, Jill. Can you handle it if we still do things as a four-some? You and Shelly and Brett and me?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Can you?”
“Yeah.” He tucked the last quarter of his bagel into his cheek. “I’d rather do that than nothing.”
She sniffed. “So, we just, um, go back to … well, not actually back to the beginning because …”
“I kissed you on our first date. Do you think that’s what jinxed it?”
Jill covered her face with her hand. “I think I’m just bad luck all around.”
“Aw, Jill.”
“Want another bagel?” She pushed her plate his way.
“I guess. If you’re not hungry.”
She sipped her tea, and it settled her stomach. “What’s important here is for Shelly to know there are no hard feelings between us. There aren’t, are there?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m happy about things.” He started on her bagel.
“But you do understand. You’re not going to start a campaign of parking tickets against me?”
He cocked his fingers like a gun at her. “That would not be professional, my dear.”
“I think once we work through the emotions of it …”
“Yeah.” He chomped down on the bagel and dabbed the cream cheese from the corner of his mouth. The rest of it disappeared in three more bites. He drained his Styrofoam coffee cup and crushed it with his napkin. “So. Buddies?”
“Ohh …” She grimaced.
“Come on. We’ll ride it off. Nothing like exhaustion to numb the emotions.” He stood and took her elbow. “Leg it, lady. The day’s a-wasting.”
M
organ sauntered up to the boy sitting on the cabin porch, scratching the post with a nail. The kid didn’t stop scratching or turn, though Morgan guessed he knew he had company. Rick would not be pleased with the word taking shape in the post. Morgan stooped, and at last the boy turned from his graffiti long enough to use the phrase he’d been carving.
Morgan rested his forearms on his knees. “Why should I?”
“Cuz I told you to.” The kid fit the word in that sentence, too.
Morgan shrugged. “It’s a free country.”
Agitated now, the boy gouged a deep line into the post.
Morgan could grab the nail, stop its damaging progress, but instead he asked, “You have a name?”
“Why should you care?” There it was. So far he’d gotten it into every sentence.
“Ever tried a complete sentence without that word?”
“Ever tried to go—”
Morgan raised a hand. “I got the gist.”
The kid gripped the nail and dug an ugly curve into the post, then surprised him with “Todd.”
“Well, Todd, don’t you have anything better to do than vandalize that post?” Morgan wasn’t too concerned. Rick could sand it off and stain it up good as new.
“Like ride a horse in a line?” He got it in twice that time. Some kids were afflicted with the word
like
. Couldn’t stretch three words together without it. Todd’s choice was a little more grating.
But Morgan listened around it. Rick must be taking the family on a ride. Morgan brushed away a brilliant blue-green fly darting in front of his face. “Your folks went riding?”
“Yeah. They thought this dude ranch would be like Disneyland.”
“You’d rather be in Disneyland?”
“Take a flying—” Todd started back on the wood, digging in the nail.
“And if they weren’t riding in a line?”
Todd turned. “You mean if I could take a horse by myself?” A complete sentence with no profanity.
Morgan shrugged. “Not by yourself. But you could lead the way.”
Todd lowered the nail. “Who are you?”
“Morgan.”
“I mean who are you on this ranch?”
Morgan quirked his mouth sideways. That was a better question than Todd knew. He waved to the holding corral beside the barn. “A couple of horses right there.” It had been years since he’d sat a saddle, but he’d grown up on the same ranch as Rick.
Todd eyed the animals warily, turned back to him with narrowed eyes. “You don’t look like a—cowboy.” Not a complete cure then, but the word was coming less frequently.
“I’m not. Haven’t ridden in years.”
Todd formed a sly smile. “Is that your convertible?”
Morgan sent his glance to his Thunderbird parked outside the house. He was lucky Todd hadn’t chosen it for his carving. “Rather ride that?”
“Rather drive it.”
Morgan moistened his lips, altitude and climate making him dry. “We can take it for a spin.”
“I can drive?”
Morgan didn’t ask how old he was. Even if Todd were small for his age, he was no sixteen. Morgan dug for his keys. “Why don’t you ride.” Todd dropped the nail, and it rolled through the crack in the planks. He stood up. “Let’s do it.”
They climbed into the car and Morgan started it up. Great engine. He reached his arm between the bucket seats, looked over his shoulder, and backed out in one swift arc. Then he left the ranch, the gravel road trailing behind in a cloud of dust. He spun around at the intersection in Juniper Falls, and they flew back up to the ranch.
Todd’s eyes were electrified. He used his favorite word with awe.
“You know, Todd. It wouldn’t hurt to develop your vocabulary.”
“What should I say? Cool?” But he was grinning.
“In my circle we’d say
excellent
.”
“Excellent. Can I drive it?”
Morgan shook his head, “No.”
“Why not?” The smile faded and the scowl returned.
“You’d need your dad’s permission.” Morgan felt fairly certain the kid’s dad wouldn’t give it. His machine was safe.
Todd swore. “Like that would ever happen.” He got out and slammed the door, turned, and kicked it.
Holding his temper, Morgan climbed out and walked around, looked from the shoe smudge to the kid who had stopped in the middle of the apron, breathing hard.
Todd’s shoulders rose and fell. “You gonna beat me up?”
Morgan pursed his lips. “Should I?”
Todd glared. “I messed up your car.”
Morgan eyed the smudge again. “Nothing a chamois and polish won’t take care of.”
“Are you rich?” He said it like someone might taunt
Are you fat? Are you stupid? Are you ugly?
Morgan faced him squarely. “Yeah.”
Todd wasn’t sure how to take that honesty from an adult. His face showed it. “How rich are you?”
“Nowhere close to Bill Gates.”
Todd turned away and stared at the meadow that gradually rose to a stony crag.
Morgan joined him. “Does that bother you?”
“Why should it?”
“It shouldn’t.” No reason this adolescent time bomb should care one way or another.
Todd picked up a rock and threw it at the creek that ran down the meadow and behind the cabins. “My dad’s in jail.”
“I thought he was here at the ranch.”
“That’s my foster family.”
Morgan nodded. “What did he do?”
“Killed a guy in a bar fight.”
“Where’s your mom?”
He shrugged.
No wonder the kid had anger issues. Morgan drew a slow breath. “Life can be ugly.”
“What would you know?”
Morgan eyed him sidelong. Why did every kid think he had a corner on the misery market? He said only, “I’d know.”
It seemed to sink in. Maybe Todd’s mind was receptive to the melancholy that had seeped out with the words. At any rate, the boy didn’t argue.
Morgan said, “How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
A shiver went down his back. This kid was almost the same age as … Was that why he’d fixated on him, some latent desire to parent someone in place of the one he couldn’t? He walked back to the car, opened the trunk, and took out two small bottles of Dasani water. He carried one back to Todd, then opened his and chugged half the bottle. “Do you see your dad?”
Todd drank, too, then shook his head. “Don’t want to.”
“Because he screwed up?”
“Cuz he’s a—jerk.” Anger definitely triggered the word.
Morgan nodded. “How ’bout your foster dad?”
Todd scowled but said nothing.
“How long have you been with them?”
“Few months.”
“Other kids?” Morgan took a long draw that drained his water bottle, then twisted the cap back on.
“They got three.”
“Older or younger?”
Todd drank his water. “Both. One’s off in college, one in high school, one almost my age.”
“Is that the girl I saw?”
“She’s stuck up.” Todd crushed the half-full plastic bottle and started to heave it, but Morgan caught his hand and removed the bottle from his grasp.
“They can be at that age.” At any age, really, though he enjoyed notching down the ones who really needed it. Especially in the professional world. If they deserved their position, great. He’d work with a woman as easily as a man. It was the ones who’d clawed their way into power through sheer vixen nastiness that brought out his dark side.
“If a stuck-up girl is the worst you have to deal with, you might lighten up a little.”
He expected Todd’s favorite word, but the kid only glanced up. “If you’re so rich, how come you’re not out on a yacht or something? How come you’re here?”
“I like it here.”
Todd kicked the dirt. “That’s stupid. There’s not even a TV anywhere.”
From the trees at the edge of the meadow came the string of horses with Rick in the lead. Mom, Dad, and their dimpled blond daughter came next. Beside Morgan, Todd tensed, then turned around and slunk back to the porch of their cabin. Morgan tossed the water bottles into the barrel beside the barn.
At the end of the yard, Rick stopped the horse parade outside the stable and helped the woman and daughter dismount. They seemed a decent enough family for all the stories you heard about foster care. The dad might be a bit of a milquetoast, but he wrapped his daughter’s shoulders with his arm and ambled toward the cabin. Todd was watching through the corner of his eye but averted his face as they approached. The woman spoke to him, but he didn’t answer.
Morgan joined Rick. “Hey.”
Rick jerked his chin toward Todd disappearing around the back of their cabin. “What was that all about?”
He must have seen their interaction, if you could call it that. “Just getting to know him.”
“Good luck.”
Morgan grinned. “He is a little prickly. What’s the deal?”
Rick heaved the saddle off the mare. “Not sure. He’s been in the foster program awhile. Stan’s only had him a couple of months. He’s flunked out or been kicked out of every school he’s attended.”
“How’d you get hooked up with them?”
“Stan’s a friend of my neighbor. He’s trying to keep Todd out of trouble. Needed a place of refuge.”
Morgan nodded. “I’m starting to see a pattern.”
Rick stripped the blanket and sent the mare up to pasture. “They have the cabin as long as they need it.”
“The guy’s not working?”
“He’s a schoolteacher. Off for the summer.” Rick uncinched the last saddle. No doubt he’d given Todd’s family the same sort of deal he’d given Noelle when she appeared at his door, wounded and needy.