“Okay,” I answered my lips pursing in a pout. It hurt to think he didn’t want to kiss me. That wasn’t really the issue but it still hurt. Scooting around on his lap to get more comfortable I stared out of the steamed up windows.
A moan from deep inside his chest bubbled out and his face scrunched up in pain. I started to jump off him. He clamped his strong arms around me and said, “Don’t move, Please for the love of god, don’t move.”
I can occasionally be dumber than a rock. It took me a moment to realize what was going on. A secret thrill washed through me as I thought about the effect I was having on him. It might have made me a bit of a tease but it was such a sweet empowering feminine feeling. It made me giggle and wiggle a bit more than I should have. He groaned again and gently pushed me off his lap. “You have a mean streak Katie Rivers.”
The giggles wouldn’t stop as I looked at his face. “No I don’t, not really. You caught me by surprise. I can’t believe that the great Scott James is embarrassed by little ol’ me.”
“I’m not embarrassed, I’m frustrated.”
A serious pall settled over us. His eyes got big and his pupils dilated. Quickly I held his arm to let him know it was all right, he hadn’t upset me. “I know you’re frustrated, I am too.” The silence dragged on for a moment more.
“I’m scared about taking things further. This has been the most wonderful two months of my life and I don’t want to do anything to ruin it. I want it to go on forever. I want it to get better every day.”
“I’m not pressuring you Katie. I don’t want to be that guy. I love you and I’ll wait until hell freezes over if I have too. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to obsess about it in my brain. I’m a human male. It’s been proven that we think about little else.”
I laughed and sent a silent prayer of thanks that some higher power had seen fit to bring this man into my life. It was unbelievable that we were sitting here calmly talking about sex. If somebody had told me that I’d be sitting in a truck with Scott James talking about making love with each other. I would have thought they were three cards shy of a full deck. The fact that we had already shared our deepest darkest pains made all other subjects easier to breach.
The radio started a new song, it was “AT LAST by Eta James, the first song we slow danced too. It was quickly becoming our song. We looked at each other and broke into huge smiles. The tension was gone and we were okay again. I snuggled into the crock of his shoulder and said “I Love You.” He draped an arm around my shoulder and said “I love you more,” as he kissed the top of my head.
Chapter Seventeen
Scott
Walking next to Katie always made me feel bigger, stronger, and more powerful. It was a feeling a guy could get used to, almost addicting.
Holding the door open for her she entered her library ahead of me and deposited her backpack behind the counter. I tossed mine up on my regular table. Mrs. Johnson waived hello then ignored us. She had long ago given up any hope of getting work out of Katie when I was around. I think she was happy for us.
We sat and I pulled out a Trigonometry worksheet I needed to finish. Katie watched me for a minute and unconsciously pulled my dad’s lucky penny out and started to rub it. She did that whenever she had a quiet moment to herself.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. It was always impossible for me to read her deepest thoughts.
She startled for a moment then smiled. “I was wondering about my father. I wish I knew him so I could introduce you. Is that weird or what?
“No it’s not weird. I wish my mom was still here. She’d have loved you to pieces. My dad would have been jealous.”
She smiled and a tear gathered at the corner of her eye. “That is the sweetest thing you’ve ever said.” She buried her head in my shoulder and sobbed. It made me feel weak and useless and I wished she’d stop. Obviously she had a problem and I needed to fix it now.
“You know, maybe we could figure out who your dad is. Your mom had to have gotten pregnant when she lived here. You told me you were born six months after she left.”
Katie pulled back from my shoulders her eyes sparkling with unshed tears and a brief flash of hope. “How?” she asked, her voice catching with a weak hitch.
“I don’t know but there’s got to be a way. I’ve already asked Grandfather, but he doesn’t have any idea.”
Katie blanched. “Oh my god, Oh my god,” she said, her hand going to her mouth in shock. “Your dad dated my Aunt Jenny, you told me what your Grandfather said. That means he knew my mother also. What if….Oh my god!”
“What if what?” I asked, confused and getting a little scared. Something had really upset her.
“What if your father got my mother pregnant? That’d mean….”
I busted out laughing. It was one of those deep down belly laughs.
“Why are you laughing, this is serious. What if we are brother and sister?” The look of fear and terror on her face was priceless.
I laughed again. “There is no way you are my sister. Believe me, I’d know. I have a sister. I wouldn’t feel like this if you were my sister.”
“You don’t know. Those are social morals established by early religions. You don’t know how you would feel about someone you didn’t already know you were related to,” she said, her face had gone stark white. All of the color had drained away and I worried about her fainting.
“Katie, I’m positive. You are not my sister. My dad would have been about four years older than your mom. He’d have already graduated before she started her freshman year. There is no way he did that, especially not with your Aunt Jenny’s kid sister. You didn’t know him. He wouldn’t have dishonored our family like that. And if he had, he sure as hell would have married your mom. There is no way.”
She looked off into the distance and I knew her mind was running a thousand miles a minute thinking of all the possibilities of how things could go wrong. Shaking my head I stood up and walked towards the book shelf in the back. “Here, let me prove it to you.”
“How are you going to prove it? We may never know. Oh my god, what if we have this hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives.” Then another thought exploded in that brain of hers. “Thank god we didn’t do too much,” she said and her stark white face started to grow pink then red as she thought about how close we had come a few times.
“Katie, settle down, here look at these.” I returned from the stacks with four different year books. All of them were different versions of the same thing. Red and white coves with some kind of tiger on the front. I found the right year and flipped through the pages until I found what I wanted. Setting it down I pointed out the picture and slid it to her.
She looked at me with terror filled eyes then slammed both hands down on the book, covering the picture of my dad. “No, let’s not look. Let’s pretend we didn’t think about this.”
“Katie, come on, listen to me, you can trust me. Look at the picture. My dad doesn’t look anything like you. Different hair, eyes, everything.”
Slowly her hands slid away from the book as she looked at the picture. She studied it for several seconds then let out a huge sigh as her shoulders slumped in relief. “That’s not my father,” she said with a shaky voice.
I studied her as she ran a finger over the picture of my dad. “He looks like you,” She said. “He has your eyes. I wished I could have known him.”
My heart lurched at the pain in her voice. I’d do anything to make her happy. She looked up with glistening eyes and a weak smile.
“Come on,” I said. “Maybe we can find your father in here.”
We started going through the yearbooks. She squealed when she found her Aunt Jenny with long brown hair and a shy smile. When she found her mother’s sophomore picture she froze and stared at it for several minutes.
“She looks so young, innocent, with no idea of what life has in store for her.”
I glanced over her shoulder at the picture. I saw a bit of
a wild girl with wavy blond hair and too much make-up for a girl her age. She looked into the camera with a challenge and glint in her eye. This was a girl with dangerous written all over her. She looked so different than Katie. Her jaw and forehead were the same. But the blue eyes had a hard knowing look that Katie lacked.
.o0o.
Katie
My stomach was settling down after the scare of thinking Scott might be my brother. The idea had stopped my heart and terrified me so much I thought I was going to be sick right there in my library. Blessed relief had flowed through me when I saw Scott’s dad. I knew immediately he wasn’t my father. A little pang of regret had flittered across my thoughts. I was ecstatic but also wanted to know who my dad was. An envious feeling of jealousy towards Scott bubbled up. He may have lost his father, but at least he knew who he was. Knew his history. Grew up knowing where he came from.
I started going through the year books. Why didn’t we think of this earlier? The fashions had changed over the years. Their hair used to be bigger and they wore a lot more pastels. Quite a few of the boys had perms. I laughed, the guys today wouldn’t be caught dead with a perm. I looked at Scott and shook my head, I couldn’t imagine him in a perm. Continuing to go through the pictures I looked for my eyes looking back at me.
Would I know it if I saw it? I wondered. Each picture was different yet the same. High school kids trying to look cool. Full of potential and excitement about the future.
What were their teenage years like? Was it the best time of their life. Had they peaked in high school and everything afterwards been a letdown? Had they hated high school, fighting to make it through years of embarrassment and not belonging? How many of them had felt bullied, how many of them were the bullies.
I continued to flip pages, my fingers running down the pictures. My stomach kept turning over in worry. What would I do if I found it? What if I didn’t? Scott stood behind me looking at the pictures, his calming presence giving me the strength to keep going.
A face jumped out at me. A boy in his senior year. It wasn’t any one thing but a combination that froze me in place. The boy wore glasses that looked a little too big for his face. He had brown auburn hair with a reddish tint. Green eyes looked back at the camera with a cocky attitude. It was the facial bone structure, the chin and cheek bones. It was a masculine version of my face to the Tee. It felt like I had seen that face before. I looked to the side of the page to put a name to the picture.
Steven Carrs. Danny’s dad. My insides hardened into stone as I gasped. No! Scott’s enemy. I looked again, cataloging each feature. Studying the picture trying to find some way to deny the evidence in front of me. Scott saw what I was looking at and started to rub my back. I looked at him with raised eyebrows. Did he see it? He nodded and gave me a weak smile.
I looked back at the picture. Torn between fearing he was my father and hoping like hell that I had finally found him. It was hard to breath, Scott’s soothing caress kept me grounded.
“Do you think…?” I asked him.
“It makes sense of something Danny said to me a couple of months ago.”
“What, you didn’t tell me you talked to Danny.”
“I didn’t think it was that important. He confronted me in the parking lot. It sounded like he was trying to warn me away from you…”
“Why would he do that?”
“I think he knows you’re his sister. Maybe he was afraid I’d see it and tell everyone.”
“Is being my brother such a bad thing,” I asked as I looked back at the picture. A brother, the thought had never really occurred to me.
“For Danny it would be,” Scott said. “His family is one of those that believes appearances are important. His dad owns the John Deere dealership and is a town councilman. He’s always cared what people thought about him and his family.”
The picture was mesmerizing. Steve Carrs was wearing a beige suit and skinny black tie, it reminded me of a nineties movie about high school kids. “That isn’t proof, this picture isn’t proof,” I said.
Scott was quiet for a moment letting me think, “You know it’s him. Look at it. What are you going to do?”
It was unbelievable, this might be my dad. “I want to meet him, I have to know.”
Scott nodded his head and put his jacket on. “Okay, no time like the present.”
“What? Now?” My heart stopped and my palms began to sweat. This was going way too fast. No way was I ready for any of this, I hadn’t prepared myself. What if it turned out to be wrong? What if he didn’t want me coming back into his life? A thousand things could go wrong. Why did we ever go down this path? Life had been great, I had Scott. I didn’t need anything more. Putting the genie back in the bottle was impossible. I knew who my father was, I had to deal with it.
Scott got my jacket and helped me slip it on. He squeezed my shoulders and kissed my neck. “It’s going to be alright Katie, I promise.”
He meant it I’m sure, but I also knew that even Scott can’t control everything. A daze descended as I let him lead me to his truck. We were going to meet my father. Maybe?
.o0o.
The John Deere dealership was located on prime real estate at the intersection of Main Street and First Avenue. The large parking lot was covered in green and yellow tractors and giant combines. These machines were what make this community work. Without them we would be a dry prairie supporting a bunch of buffalo and Native Americans. With them these people grew enough food to feed half the world.
Scott parked on the street and held the glass door open for me to go in first. The showroom had smaller tractors and riding lawn mowers with pictures of waving fields of grain on the walls. A salesman jumped up then seemed to deflate when he saw a couple of high school kids coming into his place of business. “How can I help you?” he asked.
My mouth chose that moment to forget how to work, I stumbled over the words. Scott, being Scott stepped in and said “We’d like to see Mr. Carrs please.”
The Salesman’s eyes jumped to his forehead. “Uhm, is there anything I can help you with, Mr. Carrs doesn’t usually meet with customers.”
“He’ll meet with us. Tell him Scott James would like to talk to him.” The man’s eyes narrowed in thought then he nodded to himself and asked us to have a seat and he’d go check. The waiting room had some chrome and green vinyl chairs begging to be sat in. Scott led me in and got us situated. I pulled out my last handy wipe. I should have gotten more from my locker before we left school. After I’d wiped off my hands I looked for somewhere to throw the wipe and its packet away. Of course there wasn’t a trash can in sight. I started to obsess about the trash in my hands, worrying about putting it in my pocket, what if it fell out while I was talking to my dad.
Scott read my expression and chuckled then held out his hand for the papers. I placed them in his palm. He scrunched them into a ball and put them in his pocket. Nothing ever fazed him. I thanked my lucky stars that I’d found somebody to put up with my many idiosyncrasies.
“What if he doesn’t like me,” I said.
Scott chuckled again, “I’ve known Steve Carrs my whole life, and he is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
Chapter Eighteen
Scott
Mr. Carrs’ corner office reminded me of a bank president. A big oak desk dominated the center floor space. With two brown leather chairs arranged in front waiting for big spending farmers looking to lay down hundreds of thousands of dollars for some new farm equipment. A credenza behind his chair was covered in pictures of Steve Carrs with important people. A picture in a gold frame held pride of place in the center showing him shaking the governor’s hand, both of the politicians posing for the camera.
A silver frame on the corner showed him with one arm around Mrs. Carrs and the other around Danny. I remembered when that picture had been taken. A couple of years ago I had gone with Danny to the lake for the weekend. It turned out to be a meet and greet
opportunity for a bunch of state people looking for the next state representative. Mr. Carrs had spent the evening hobnobbing with the politicians. Danny and I had spent it dancing with the girls from the Lake District.
Katie sat and placed her hands in her lap. Her eyes had been drawn to the family picture and I could almost feel her lose her will to go on. I gently touched her knee with mine.
Mr. Carrs cleared his throat. He didn’t look happy. Our eyes locked for a moment. “You have some nerve coming here Scott.” He said with that town leader voice. The condescending bastard was in for such a surprise.
“Actually sir, we’re not here about me. I’d like to introduce Kathrine Rivers. I believe you knew her mother Margaret Rivers in high school. Or at least she was in High School, you would have been in College by then.”
The color drained from his face like a thermometer in the arctic. I actually watched it drain. His forehead went white first followed by his cheeks then his neck until he looked like a shut in ghost. His eyes grew three sizes bigger and his jaw dropped open. It was priceless and I had to work hard not to clap my hands in glee.
Katie stiffened and waited.
.o0o.
Katie
My heart wouldn’t stop racing and my palms felt like they were pumping out gallons of sweat. I secretly wiped them on my pants. Studying his face didn’t help. He was older than I expected. His hair was starting to turn gray at the temple and he had wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. My heart couldn’t tell. You’d think a person would know if the man before her was her father or not.
There was no hints in his office. The picture of his family made me scan Danny again looking for any similarity. Maybe, I thought.
“… knew her mother,” Scott said.
I drug myself back into the conversation and realized what Scott had just told him. No leading up to it. He’d dropped it like a bomb right there in the middle of his office. I watched the color drop from Mr. Carrs face and my racing heart came to a screeching halt as our eyes locked and I saw recognition. He knew I was his daughter I could see it in his eyes. Maybe.
Certain Rules Page 13