The Thunder Rolls

by Bethany Campbell

  She’d hate him. She’d want to scratch his eyes out.

  Then her emotions, like a pendumlum, swung in the opposite direction. What if something was wrong with Bubba—what if he was seriously sick and didn’t want to tell her? He really hadn’t been himself last night. He’d been jolly on the surface, but underneath, something had seemed to gnaw at him. What? Was he ill? Was he in trouble of some kind?

  If it was anything she could fight, she would fight it with all her jealous heart. She considered Bubba to be her Bubba, and any enemy of his that she could smite, she would. She would crush that enemy without mercy—and without a second thought. She was a desperate woman. And her patience had been worn dangerously thin.

  IT WAS slightly after midnight. Gordon was across the Mexican border. During the border check, his flesh had crawled the whole time, as if it wanted to detach itself from his body and creep wetly off into the night.

  He’d gotten the sweats again, and his muscles kept contracting so jerkily that he could hardly hand over his papers. The guards had looked at him and then exchanged loaded glances with each other.

  One of them had told Gordon to get out and stand free of the truck. Gordon still wasn’t sure how he had managed to do so without being sick. Then the guard had walked around him, slowly, looking him up and down with suspicious eyes.

  Gordon had taken a deep breath. He could feel the acid stripping the lining off his stomach walls. He hadn’t known what to do, so he’d silently prayed. The only prayer he’d been able to think of was this:

  Mathew, Mark, Luke and John,

  Bless the bed that I lie on.

  He’d known there was more to the prayer than that, but had been too nervous to remember, so he just kept repeating the same two lines.

  The guards had muttered to each other in Spanish so rapidly that Gordon’s head felt as if it were full of chattering squirrels. He had no idea what they were saying.

  Finally, after it seemed that he’d twisted in hell for an eternity, the guards gave him a last suspicious look and waved him through.

  He’d driven just out of sight of the checkpoint, then stopped the truck. He’d staggered from the cab. His legs barely carried him to the highway’s edge before they collapsed beneath him. He fell down in a sitting position and threw up.

  Finally the retching ceased. He buried his face in his shaking hands and wept. He wept because he’d been so frightened. He wept because he was still frightened. He wept because he’d made it across the border. He wept because he still had to make it to Monterrey. He wept because he was exhausted. He wept because he had no beer.

  He cried, great, dry, choking sobs, until he could cry no more. Then he sat, spent, staring up at the starless Mexican sky.

  He had to move on. He reached into his shirt pocket, uncapped his pills and took two more uppers to give him strength to get to Monterrey, and half a downer to keep him from flying out of his own skin.

  Then he forced himself to get to his feet. He moved around the truck, his gait lurching slightly, and got in. He was so weary that he bowed his head against the wheel and prayed again:

  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

  Bless the bed that I lie on.

  He felt he was going to cry again, but he steeled himself against it. He was, after all, a man. He straightened, rubbed his aching eyes, blew his nose.

  God, he thought, staring out at the strip of Mexican highway leading to Monterrey, was this what it was like to be in a war?

  Was he a veteran now that he had crossed that border bearing his dangerous cargo? He had succeeded, though, he told himself. He’d done it. What did they call it? Was he blooded now?

  Yeah, he thought, he was blooded. He’d been tried by fire. And he was almost to Monterrey. He was almost free of the stinking guns. He was almost safe.

  Then he would go home. Where his mother waited for him. Where she’d been waiting all this time for him to come home. She’d always known he would someday, and she was right. That was what a mother was for, to know such things.

  And his wife. His pretty little wife that he had saved from that lecherous old hog, Bubba Gibson. Nora was back home, probably asleep by now. Asleep and alone. But she wouldn’t be sleeping alone for long. Oh, no.

  Gordon was almost ready to start back to her. His loyal mother. His little Nora. His. His.

  NORA PUT RORY to bed. Ken waited downstairs for her. She dawdled with the boy, half-afraid to face the man again.

  “I can’t sleep,” Rory insisted, fighting a yawn. “I’m afraid I’ll have another nightmare. I want to stay downstairs and have cake, too.”

  She knelt by his bed to refasten his pajama top, which he’d buttoned crookedly. He’d fallen fast asleep in the truck on the way home, but didn’t remember.

  “You won’t have another nightmare,” she told him. “And you can have cake tomorrow. You ate enough pizza for an army tonight. You’d get a stomachache. Lie down.”

  “It was the best pizza I ever ate,” Rory said, sinking back into his pillow. “Maybe I ate so much I got the nightmare. Could that be?” This time the yawn overpowered him. His mouth stretched open in a small, dark O, but he remembered to cover it.

  Nora drew the sheet up to his shoulders and gazed at him fondly. “Just what was this terrible nightmare? Bears? Monsters?”

  He finished his yawn and blinked sleepily. “Dad,” he said and rubbed his eyes.

  Nora’s heart went cold. Her hand tightened on the sheet. “You—had a nightmare about your father?”

  He nodded and yawned again.

  Her heartbeat took a hobbling, painful pace. “What was it? Your dream?”

  He shook his head, his eyelids lowering. His lashes were dark against his cheek. “Don’t remember,” he muttered. “He was coming after us. Or something.”

  “Well, he’s not,” Nora said, although the thought shook her so much she felt half-sick. “So don’t worry. Sleep and dream something nice instead.”

  “Pony,” he said softly. “Pony.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, bending over him. “Dream of the pony.”

  She kissed his cheek. His lashes gave another sleepy flutter, then went still. His breathing grew slower and deeper.

  “Oh, Rory,” she breathed, “don’t have bad dreams. Please don’t, honey. I’ll take care of you.”

  She rose, her emotions tangled in all the old knots. Gordon, she thought helplessly, will you haunt us all forever?

  Slowly she descended the stairs. When she entered the kitchen, Ken stood next to the stove, holding a mug of coffee. She looked away. She knew what questions lay in his eyes. They were both the most primitive and most intimate questions a man could ask a woman.

  “Want a cup of coffee?” he asked, although she knew coffee wasn’t what was on his mind.

  “No.” She shook her head and moved to the sink. She braced her hands on the counter and stared out the window into the darkness of the backyard. “Dottie made a cake. Can I cut you a piece?”

  She said it in a tone that she hoped told him that she wanted him to go home. Tonight he had taken her to extremes of feeling that she knew were but a first frontier. Not only had he frightened her, she had frightened herself.

  “Thanks. I’m not hungry—for cake.”

  She stiffened slightly and kept staring out the window. She thought again of Rory’s nightmare.

  What would Gordon do if she fell in love with someone else? Would he hurt Ken? Her? Rory? All of them? How could she think of that—along with everything else?

  “Nora?” His voice was quiet, as always.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, taking a deep breath and bowing her head slightly. “I guess I’m tired, that’s all.”

  She felt him move behind her. The tingling that prickled along her spine warned her of his nearness.

  He said nothing for a long time. Then he put his hand on her upper arm. His touch sent an almost painful physical awareness of him jolting through her system, like a shock of electricity.
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  She tried to move away from his touch, but she could not. She could only stand, confused and torn, as motionless as an animal paralyzed by fright.

  He turned her around to face him. She did not protest, but she refused to look at him. She stared stubbornly, unseeingly, at the white expanse of his shirtfront.

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “What I feel for you,” he said slowly, “and what—you seemed—to feel for me, it ain’t—it isn’t wrong.”

  She could not help herself. She sank against his chest and rubbed her forehead against the crisp whiteness of his shirt. The warmth of his hard flesh radiated through the cloth and seemed to soothe her.

  He held her. And she held him, her arms tentative and cautious around his waist.

  “I—I was never—with any man except Gordon.” She paused, for it was difficult to go on. “It wasn’t good. I got so that I hated him to touch me. I’ve never thought—never believed—I could ever feel what it is I’m supposed to feel for a man.”

  She felt his arms tense around her, almost imperceptibly. But they tensed. She wanted to press nearer to him, but felt it wasn’t right. “And maybe I can’t. Maybe at the last moment, I’ll always pull away, always hate it. I don’t know. I can’t know. I—I’m afraid to find out.”

  His hand moved up her back. He pressed her nearer to him. Without volition, her arms tightened around his waist.

  He said nothing. He asked her nothing. He merely held her. One hand moved up to cradle her head more firmly against his chest. Once more she felt the dependable beat of his heart against her cheek.

  She realized he could have done a hundred things. He could have made a hundred sorts of promises, plain and fancy. He could have vowed a hundred sorts of vows, all high-sounding. He could have tried to kiss her into excitement or caress her into submission, but he did none of them.

  He simply held her, tight and protected, in his arms.

  Oh, she thought, as terrifying as it is, I have to take the chance. How can I not, when he makes me feel the way he does?

  “I scare you,” he finally said against her hair. He gave a broken sigh and pulled her even more securely into his embrace.

  For a moment she leaned against him, holding him almost as tightly as he held her. But then she drew back. Now she wanted to look him in the eye. His face was serious and troubled, but strong. She thought it might be the most beautiful male face she’d ever seen, because it was his.

  “Yes,” she said with total honesty. “You scare me. But I scare me worse. Because—I think I want you. Oh—I’m afraid I want you. And—I don’t understand these things.”

  They looked into each other’s eyes and, without saying anything, they both understood.

  Yes, she thought, I do want you. I really do. It’s like something was broken in me, but the longer I’m with you, the more it heals. Be gentle. Be slow. Be patient. Help me. Show me. Yes.

  She would go with him to the lake house this weekend. He wanted to make love to her, and she wanted it, too. At least, she hoped she did, because she cared so much for him.

  He was not a foolish man. He wasted no time on words.

  He bent and kissed her. He kissed her the way a woman was meant to be kissed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WEDNESDAY DAWNED hot and cloudless. Just outside the Longhorn’s door was a thermometer. By midmorning its mercury had climbed until it was a solid red stripe, filling the tube from top to bottom, as the temperature sweltered at well over a hundred.

  “It’s too hot to live,” Shirley Jean Ditmars said.

  She was on break from the telephone company, and her round face was flushed with heat from her walk to the coffee shop. “It is simply,” she said, “too hot to live.”

  Dottie smiled wanly. Everyone in the coffee shop looked slightly crushed by the heat and humidity outside. Everyone, that is, except Nora. She moved briskly and cheerfully, as if she were sheltered in a private bubble of coolness.

  Shirley eyed her suspiciously. “Why’s Nora so perky?” she asked. “I feel like a limp tea bag. Is it true she was out with Ken Slattery again last night? They’re becoming quite the item. I don’t know that I approve of things happening that fast. There is a child involved.”

  “I don’t think it’s up to anybody to approve or disapprove,” Dottie said dryly. “And Ken’s quite good with the boy.”

  Shirley cocked her head. “You honestly wouldn’t mind Rory having another father? Instead of Gordon? Honestly?”

  Dottie’s lips thinned. Sometimes she had the very real urge to brain Shirley with a coffeepot. She tried to keep her tone even. “Honestly. Nothing would make me happier than for Rory to have a real father. Nothing. I’d be a completely happy woman if I knew he had that.”

  “You’re very hard on your own boy,” Shirley said, lifting her nose. “Very hard.”

  A sudden wave of weariness swept over Dottie. “I’m not a hard woman,” she said. “I just face facts.”

  She turned away. She didn’t want to talk to Shirley any longer.

  “Speaking of facts,” Shirley called after her, “is something wrong with Bubba Gibson? Hardly anybody’s seen him lately. Do you suppose he’s called it off with Billie Jo? Or maybe he’s sick?”

  Dottie shrugged and kept walking. She had no interest in Bubba Gibson. None whatsoever. He had nothing at all to do with their lives.

  BUBBA WASINDEED SICK. He had heartburn so intense he felt as if his chest was full of hot rocks. He kept unplugging all the phones. Mary kept plugging them back in.

  Just as soon as he thought maybe the torture had stopped, Gordon would call again. He was starting to sound as crazy as a slaughterhouse rat.

  Bubba wished he could escape into Billie Jo’s sweet arms so he could forget his multitude of problems.

  But his stomach hurt too much, and quite frankly he felt unmanned by all this loco business. He had a deep-down secret fear that his ill health and his tension might make him unable to, well, perform.

  The thought of failing Billie Jo in that department terrified him so much that he was putting off seeing her. He didn’t even have the nerve to talk to her in person. He just left excuses on her answering machine.

  He shook his head in sorrow. He’d always thought of himself as a stallion of a man. That he should sink to this—it was tragic, sure enough.

  And it wasn’t even fair. He wasn’t even interested in Nora Jones. But now he had a jealous ex-husband on his hands, and woman trouble besides. Billie Jo would be losing patience with him soon—he knew it.

  What he needed to do was to talk to someone, someone sensible, understanding, tolerant. But who? Most of his friends had been cool to him since he’d taken up with Billie Jo. He figured that deep in their hearts they were jealous of him, even though they’d never admit it.

  But surely, somewhere, there was one friend old enough and good enough to turn to. Bubba hated suffering alone and in silence. He was the sort who needed sympathy in large amounts, and these days he wasn’t getting it anywhere, from anyone.

  NORA TOOK her lunch break at one o’clock, and she and Rory went to the park to meet Ken. She and Ken could each spare only an hour during their workday today, but they wanted to spend it together.

  Rory was too young and energetic to be slowed by the heat. And Nora was so full of soaring emotions, she didn’t notice it at all.

  The pavement was hot, but her feet hardly touched it. She hurried toward the park as effortlessly as if carried on a lovely, cool cloud.

  When she saw Ken, tall and lean, standing in the shade of the elms by the picnic table, her heart made a crazy, happy bound so strong it hurt.

  He wore his usual low-slung jeans and again had on his belt with the ornate buckle. His immaculate white shirt had the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. His straw Stetson threw his face into shadow, but she could see his shy smile and found herself smiling back with all her heart.

  What if I can really love him? she thought with a sense of dazzled wonde
r. What if I can love him in all the ways a woman can love a man? In mind and soul—and body, too? What if I can?

  Ken gave her a chaste, short kiss on the mouth—Rory was, after all, watching and not missing a thing. Then Ken picked the boy up and whirled him around once, making Rory squawk with delight, and set him on the picnic bench.

  Ken had brought them ice cream sundaes from the Dairy Bell Ice Cream Stand, Rory’s favorite. Rory wolfed his down, then went to play on the swings.

  Ken and Nora kept forgetting to eat. They talked of seemingly inconsequential things, but every word seemed freighted with such sweetness and excitement that Nora felt intoxicated.

  Then they noticed their ice cream had melted and laughed sheepishly. Nora accidentally got hers all over the fingers of her right hand. Ken smiled, picked up her hand and started to lick the vanilla from her fingers. His tongue flicked over her flesh, lazy and teasing and savoring.

  Nora was astonished at the surge of sensual pleasure that swept through her. It seemed to flood every part of her body, shaking her. Oh, my, she thought, as he nibbled at her knuckle. Oh, my.

  Then he took a paper napkin, scrubbed the last of the stickiness from her hand, raised it to his mouth again and kissed her on the inner tip of each finger and her thumb.

  At last, he simply locked his fingers through hers, and with their elbows resting on the table, he and she sat that way, wordless, staring into each other’s eyes.

  He gave her his slight, quiet smile. “I love you.”

  Nora’s lips parted. “I—” she said, then paused. She took a deep breath. “I love you, too,” she said, amazed at her own words. She had never before uttered that simple sentence to a man. She had wanted to be able to say it to Gordon, once, years ago. But he hadn’t wanted to hear it. He said only sissies talked about love. What he wanted from her was sex. But this was different. So different.