I remembered my little “act of courage” from earlier in the day. Holding Donovan’s hand. It was nice, but it was nothing like the courage he’d shown in the face of so many challenges and losses. I could do better, be braver, too, even in the face of mine.
We were laughing about something we’d seen on TV and eating Good & Plenty candy from the box before I finally worked up the nerve to talk with him honestly about my feelings.
“We met each other a long time ago, Donovan,” I began. “But, until we went to Crescent Cove together, I didn’t know you very well. I sort of thought I did—” He grinned at that. “But I really didn’t,” I continued. “You’re not the guy I had that girlish crush on two years ago. You’re someone I really care about. Someone I’ve been really lucky to have traveling beside me through all of this craziness. I’m so grateful to you for being the talented, generous, honest man that you are.”
Tears began to well up in my eyes as I spoke. I felt them there, but they weren’t out of sadness. So, I blinked them away, patted his left shoulder gently—above his bandaged wound, which was healing but it still had to hurt—sniffled once and stepped back from him.
He set the box of pink and white licorice candies on the side table and flipped off the TV.
Then he came back and stood in front of me.
For too many seconds to count, we just looked at each other. Body heat radiated off of him and warmed my skin without him even touching me. But then he broke through. He reached out, pulled me to him and bent down to kiss me.
There was not a drop of alcohol involved this time. No taste of grief either. Just pure emotion, and the happy oneness you feel when you live for a moment in the actual present. Not in the past, with all of its has-beens and regrets. Not in the future, with its expectations and projections.
Just here. Just now. Just us.
He wrapped me up in his kiss, cradled me in it, like a cactus leaf holds a precious droplet of rain. And afterward, we walked outside in the dark, hand in hand, as the clock raced its way to midnight and June turned into July.
“Happy birthday, Aurora,” Donovan whispered as we wound our way back to our motel.
I smiled, pleased he’d remembered.
He’d already given me a gift, of course—the beautiful ruby ring from Santa Fe, which I never took off my finger—but the real present was him telling me in words what his actions had already shown. That he liked me a whole lot, too. That, in fact, he’d been attracted to me for far too many years, but had just considered me off limits, mostly because of my age and because of the friendship between our brothers and because of his concern that I might want or need a different type of man. One who was more academic and bookish than he’d ever be.
“You asked me in the car, after we left Amy Lynn’s, what those two things were that I knew I was right about,” he said. “Do you remember the first one?”
“You told me, ‘Disco sucks,’” I said with a laugh.
“That’s right! Disco does suck and we can’t get rid of it soon enough.” He wrapped his arms around me and leaned me up against the door to our motel unit. “But I didn’t tell you the second one. It’s that I knew from the day I met you, Aurora Gray, that you’d grow up to be a beautiful, strong and extremely intelligent woman. Someone who’d be irresistible to me someday.” He paused. “I really didn’t want to think about that when you were twelve, though.”
I kissed him first this time, giddy as I was with happiness and unable to contain it. “But I’m eighteen now,” I told him.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, you are.”
***
We finally fell asleep sometime after three a.m., having spent the wee hours talking, making out and confessing the little things that had attracted each of us to the other. The qualities we appreciated. The times we were driven a little nutty with jealousy, too. (This applied more often to me than to him, but I was pleased to hear that my flirting with the Cute Librarian Guy in Joplin had ticked him off.)
“Oh, good,” I said. “I’d been trying so hard to irritate you.”
He laughed deeply at that and acknowledged he’d had fun teasing me with all the waitresses on the road and especially with Vicky from St. Cloud. “She wasn’t even kind of my type, Aurora.”
So, of course, we were exhausted. We woke up late the next morning, and only because the phone was ringing.
Billy Neville.
“The good news,” he said, “is that we’ve taken several positive steps in the right direction. This case has been on the FBI’s radar for years, so they were ready and eager to start making arrests—they just wanted to be able to do it in three states at once.”
The police detective told us that Ronny Lee Wolf squealed on his contacts and sources like a trapped pig when he was busted for his part in the storage and distribution of the pipe bombs. The selling of illegal fireworks was a lesser charge, but he’d be facing that, too, thanks to the involvement of the ATF.
And, between Ronny and the crooked police officer, Paul Earling, the manufacturing leg of the bomb operation—which had taken place in the basement of a fireworks factory several miles outside of Ashburn Falls—was exposed as well, implicating a number of Vincent Leto’s other associates in the process.
“The FBI’s got quite a number of additional witnesses and pages of evidence against Leto,” Billy said. “Enough to detain him for a while, but he’s been clever about distancing himself from the actual bombings. The Feds are confident, though, that they’ll be able to get him one way or another now, indirectly if necessary, through tax and real estate records or through knowing the direction of the money trail and some of the people he paid off. Like William James.”
Turned out, our hometown cop also squealed pretty fast when facing charges of bribery, tampering with evidence, hindering an investigation and colluding with his cousin on three homicide attempts and one murder.
William admitted that his snazzy yellow VW Bug had been given to him as a “gift” from Leto for his help two years ago in masking Gideon and Jeremy’s whereabouts from the other Chameleon Lake police officers and for telling Sebastian James that the boys were headed to Texas in Ben Rainwater’s car. William had expected Sebastian and Leto to produce another comparable present for the information William had given his cousin regarding the location of Aurora and Donovan.
“He didn’t know Leto had been apprehended and was facing a life sentence in prison,” Billy told us. “And he also didn’t know his cousin was dead. Which may be very good news for the two of you.”
The police detective explained that William James might not have realized that Sebastian had found us in Amarillo or that we’d figured out the connection between the two of them.
“We think Sebastian might not have even told any of Leto’s people in Chicago that he was searching for you in Albuquerque,” Billy said. “I’d intercepted Sebastian when he got into town, told him my partner and I had been following you and gave him enough insider information to convince him we were all on the same side. I think he wanted to present his discovery and silencing of you two to Leto as a done deal.”
Billy said the bad news was that he still didn’t want us to leave Flagstaff yet. There were plenty of mob men waiting to jump into Sebastian James and Vincent Leto’s shoes, and he wanted to make sure we’d be reasonably safe before driving out of town.
But he told us he’d give us another call the next day. Said it looked promising that we might be cleared to head home by the end of the weekend, so we could be back in Minnesota for the Fourth of July.
Donovan and I both noticed that the Albuquerque cop didn’t mention yet what we’d be able to disclose—or not disclose—to our families. The burden of the information I’d been carrying and keeping from my parents was weighing on me a lot, and I knew Donovan had to be thinking similar thoughts about his mom.
However, we pushed those worries aside for a while and spent the rest of my official birthday ambling around the NAU campus, which was stil
l pretty charming and lively, even for a Saturday in summer. Then we hung around downtown Flagstaff, had a cozy dinner at a tasty Mexican restaurant near the Orpheum Theater and strolled along one of the tree-lined trails, hand in hand. Eventually, we wound up at the motel again for an evening of Starsky & Hutch followed by The Love Boat.
The ABC television lineup had me chuckling to myself a little. So, the crime drama needed to be solved first before we got to enjoy an hour of romance, huh? Not that TV Land was usually anything like my real life but, tonight, I decided to make it so.
I clicked off the tube after the second show ended, put my arms around Donovan’s neck and kissed him, holding nothing back. Finally allowing myself to get lost in the beautiful contradictions of him. Hardness and softness. Darkness and light.
We ended up on the bed, which wasn’t difficult since it was right there, next to us. And we continued kissing but, unlike last night, we didn’t break apart every few minutes to chat or laugh about something. And we didn’t eventually just fall asleep.
It was getting more intense by the minute. I could almost count the number of seconds ticking until I knew Donovan would play the gentleman card and pull away. When that happened, I was ready for him.
His breath came in ragged puffs as he jerked back from me and stared at my lips, my cheeks, my eyes. “This is…um, we’re…I mean, it’s too—”
“Passionate?” I supplied. “Powerful?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that.” He swiped a few beads of sweat off his brow. “We should really cool it, or else…”
“Or else?”
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean,” he said with a laugh. “Believe me, it’s not that I don’t want to. I really want to. But, we shouldn’t. You’re still—”
“I’m still what? A kid?” I shook my head. “But I’m not anymore, Donovan. I’m eighteen. A legal adult. And I know exactly what I’m doing. Here. With you.”
“That’s bullshit, Aurora. You do not know.” He smiled at me, his heart and soul in his dark brown eyes as he reached to push a few strands of hair away from my face. “Maybe someday you’ll really want to, but I don’t think tonight’s the night.”
“You don’t think so, so it can’t be true, huh?” I teased him. “Tell me something—is your only fear that you don’t think I’m ready?”
He nodded. “But it’s a valid fear. I’m five years older than you. A few months from now, maybe you’ll go off to college in the Twin Cities or somewhere, and you’ll meet someone else…and wish you’d waited for him.”
I listened to what he was saying, and I could see those possibilities for what they were: The excitement of the unknown. The daydreams we have of a shiny future, untarnished by the pain of the past. The promise of an uncomplicated romance.
But I didn’t want the unknown.
I didn’t crave girlish daydreams or anyone else’s vision of my future.
And I didn’t trust anything just because it was uncomplicated.
I rested my head against Donovan’s chest, and he held me there for several long moments, thinking—I was sure of it—that I’d come to my senses. That I agreed with his reasoning.
Well, he was wrong.
I pulled back and smiled at him. Confident I knew my own mind. Prepared to take responsibility for every one of my own actions.
“If you don’t want to sleep with me tonight, Donovan, just say so. But let it be your decision about how you feel, not a projection about my choices and my emotions. Because I already know what I want.” I paused to make sure he was listening. “I chose you a long time ago. I’m not going to regret anything, no matter what happens after we leave here.”
He swallowed a time or two and studied my expression for what felt like an eternity. “I think you’re maybe a little on the insane side to care about me so much, Aurora Gray.”
“Maybe I am,” I said lightly. His wallet was on the nightstand, and I reached over to grab it. He watched me with interest as I rifled through a few of the leather folds until I found what I was looking for. I held up the foil packet with the rubber inside. “Had a feeling you might have one of these.”
“Oh, yeah? Your intuition tell you that?”
I shook my head. “I had an older brother, remember? I learned a thing or two about guys from him.”
“Ah,” he said. I heard him draw in an uneven breath. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Because I can only keep fighting you—fighting us—for so long.”
“Donovan, I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” And I meant it.
He slipped away, turned off most of the room lights and, finally, climbed back into bed next to me.
Then he half grinned and said something I truly hadn’t expected.
“I’m putting my heart in your hands tonight,” he whispered. “Be gentle with it.”
***
I awoke on Sunday morning to find Donovan’s arms encircling me. I snuggled closer to him, enjoying the scent of his very warm, very male body beside mine. Remembering the way he’d touched me, skimming his fingertips against the side of my neck and down my shoulder. And then further still—between my breasts, my thighs. Pulling me nearer. Holding me tighter. Pressing into me, our bodies joining together in a union that felt destined. Magical.
My stomach growled, disrupting the memory and breaking the spell.
Donovan blinked open his eyes and laughed. “I’m starving, too,” he admitted.
And, so, reluctantly, we began the day.
As Donovan showered and shaved, I smiled to myself, reliving even more images and sensations from the evening before, as if it were a romantic movie playing on a continuous loop in my brain. As long as I lived, I knew I’d never be able to explain how much being with him last night meant to me. Truly, I was happy...contented in a way I hadn’t thought possible. A near miracle, actually, for someone like me who lived so much of her life in her mind, rather than in her body.
I wriggled and stretched in bed, slowly working my way up to a sitting position. Still, I wasn’t quite ready to step out of my cozy cocoon or leave the afterglow of the night completely behind me yet.
So, I reached for yesterday’s newspaper, which was on the side table, trapped underneath our half-eaten box of Good & Plenty. I nibbled on a few licorice candies to quell the hunger pangs as I thumbed through the pages of the paper, at least until I came to my favorite section—the puzzles.
Growing up, Gideon and I used to fight over who’d get first crack at this page in our daily newspaper. I often got to it soonest because I tended to wake up earlier than my brother did. Sometimes I’d start with the crossword, other times the cryptoquote. If I really wanted to annoy him, I’d tackle the word jumble. That one was Gideon’s hands-down favorite.
For old time’s sake, I began unscrambling the individual words in the puzzle before me, rewriting the clues into a disordered constellation of letters on the edge of the page and trying to imagine them anew. As words that were surely familiar but, as yet, unseen.
And, suddenly, I did see something. Something that made me bolt out of bed.
I couldn’t say for sure which of my word doodles was the one that sparked my insight, just that I wrote and rewrote a completely different pairing of words in the newspaper’s margin. A duo that had nothing at all to do with the puzzle on the page.
Then, with my pulse sprinting, I reached for the phone.
“I’m sorry for calling so early on a Sunday,” I said to Billy Neville, “but I need to speak with your partner, Andy. It’s important. Could you please ask him to give me a call here?”
“I can try,” the police detective said. “What’s this about, Aurora?”
“I think you know,” I told him. “And thank you—for all you’ve done.”
Not even ten minutes later, the motel phone rang.
I smiled and said, “Hello?”
Then I listened to Andy Reggio’s heavy Texas drawl as he told me that he’d just gotten a call from Billy. “Said you wa
nted to speak with me?”
“Yes,” I replied. “You know, you almost fooled me with the anagram. Same ten letters, just jumbled into a different name. I hadn’t expected that, but I guess I should have...considering you were involved.”
Suddenly, the faux accent disappeared and I heard a rueful chuckle on the line.
“I think you did really well figuring out so much, Sis,” my brother said. “And, by the way, sorry to be a little late with it, but happy birthday.”
11:14 a.m.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Pasadena, California ~ Sunday, August 17, 2014
I remembered the surrealism of talking with Gideon on the phone that morning in Flagstaff. He was alive and had existed the whole time—he’d never really been gone, just elsewhere—but it was strange to hear his voice again for real on the line since, for the two years prior, I’d heard it only in my head.
How long would it take before I started to forget the exact timbre of my own son’s voice? It made me shudder to think I ever could and, yet...I was human. Just another flawed, scared human, who couldn’t have felt more frightened and alone if I’d lost the acuity of all of my senses, not just my hearing. They seemed worthless to me now anyway.
The morning had been spent making a series of new calls.
To Jay, just to check in. No, he still hadn’t heard from his brother, but he was willing to drive down to Pasadena to be with me, if I wanted. I said I was “okay for now.” (Of course, I was lying.)
To my husband, who was between flights in Salt Lake City and would, thankfully, be home soon.
To Gloria, the little busybody, who assured me she’d let me know if Charlie finally left a message on the office voicemail system or logged into his company email account. She tracked those things, didn’t I know...and she wasn’t one to fail to deliver on her word. The bitch.
Road and Beyond: The Expanded Book-Club Edition of The Road to You Page 33