“Oh, my God, oh my God, ohmyGod!” Faye swept into the curtained cubicle in the emergency room in a flutter of red fingernails and a streak of copper hair. She threw herself onto the hospital bed, across Benny’s chest, arms circling his neck, forcing Lily to take a step back or be knocked down. “Are you all right?” Faye raised up and framed his face with her hands. “Let me look at you. Dear God, look at your eyes, your beautiful eyes!”
Beautiful eyes?
Lily stood watching from the corner of the room with her mouth hanging slightly open. She waited for her dad to give a terse response, as he had when Faye had tried to boss him in the bar, but it didn’t come. To her amazement, his hand came up and touched the woman tenderly on her shoulder.
“No need to carry on. I’m fine.”
Tears slipped from Faye’s eyes. “Brownie called. Damn man, waited ’til now to call me! You could be dead!” She swiped the tears away. “I just don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”
“Nothing’s happened. Nothing’s gonna happen.” Now even her dad didn’t seem to notice Lily was in the room.
She felt like an intruder, like she was the one who didn’t belong. She slipped out of the cubicle and went in search of some coffee. When she stopped at the hospital cafeteria, she ran into Fire Chief Jeffers.
“How’s your dad doing?” he asked as he filled a paper cup of coffee for her. “Take anything in it?”
She shook her head. Her mouth was dry. She didn’t want to talk about coffee, or the weather, or even how her dad was faring medically. She wanted to ask him if he knew about her dad and Faye. In fact, the words were ready on her tongue when she realized how that would look. The daughter asking the local fire chief about her dad’s love life.
“He’s okay,” she finally said. “They’ll probably let him go after one more inhalation therapy. They said he was lucky to have been exposed for such a short time.”
“Well, there’s one man to thank for that. Bud went in and got him before any of us could get organized. Against all procedures, of course, but it got the job done.” He shook his head, as if to marvel at the bravery. “With a lightning strike like that, Benny should have had plenty of time to get out. He called the fire in. Dispatch told him to get out. But you know your dad, he thought he could fight the thing himself. Bud found him on the floor at the top of the stairs.”
“Bud… Winters? He was there?” Would the surprises of this day never end?
“Yes, ma’am. He’s the best volunteer we’ve got. The man’s not scared of the devil himself.”
Lily’s world slipped another notch on its well-organized axis. In this whole drama, it seemed she was the only one who didn’t have a vital role, who didn’t belong.
Jeffers went on, “Course that can play havoc sometimes. Lucky for me he’s not a hotshot hero looking for headlines. The guy really knows how to handle himself. Said he never had any firefighter training. Must just come natural to him. Some men are like that.” His voice reflected the admiration that showed on his face.
She closed her eyes for a second and rested the paper cup of hot coffee against her temple, hoping to reduce the throbbing there.
He noticed her distress, even though he couldn’t begin to imagine the far-reaching reason for it. “You should head on home. I imagine Faye’ll insist on taking Benny home with her when they cut him loose. The woman can be bossy as an old hen, Benny won’t stand a chance. She’s so protective of him you’d think they’d been married for fifty years.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “They’re not, are they?”
He raised his eyebrows, causing dark creases in his forehead where the grime from the fire still clung. “What?”
“Married?” She could barely get the word out. It couldn’t be. But then again, all of her conversations with her dad in the few days since she’d been home had been centered around Riley. And apparently she was as receptive as a stone not to have picked up any indication whatsoever that there was anything between Faye and her dad.
“Well, not to my knowledge—but then, I’m not always in on what goes on around here.” He chuckled as if she were in on the joke, but it just made her feel stupid. Stupid and self-centered.
Lily looked back toward the emergency room. Part of her wanted to go in and give her dad the third degree, find out just what was going on. Another part of her wanted to slink out the door and slip into the first hiding spot she came across.
The chief put a hand on her shoulder. “Go home. He’s in good hands.” He looked out the window. “It’s almost morning, your son will wonder what happened to you.”
Lily followed his gaze. The eastern sky was streaked with pink and orange. “You’re right. I’ll just go and say goodbye, make sure he doesn’t need anything.”
Chief Jeffers nodded. “Tell him I’ll be along shortly.”
Walking back to the emergency room, she felt like she was ready to rip the curtain aside and discover there really was no Wizard of Oz. Once she went back inside that cubicle, she’d have to acknowledge Faye—and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that just yet.
She should be the one taking her father home. It was the right thing to do. She hadn’t figured on this little kink in her world. Well, that was really the crux of it, wasn’t it? she asked herself. She hadn’t figured on anything. Not on how differently people of this town were going to look at her. Not on how her infrequent, abbreviated visits affected her father. Nor had she even considered that his life might have changed in these past years. She hadn’t imagined that Riley would end up in trouble before the car engine cooled from the trip from Chicago. And she certainly hadn’t figured on the complication of seeing Clay Winters again.
God, her head hurt.
When Lily pulled into the marina to drop Riley off for work, it was eight-fifteen. Clay was standing in front of the office, feet apart, arms crossed over his chest. He looked pissed.
The little groan that accompanied Riley’s indrawn breath made Lily cringe.
“Don’t worry. He knows about Gramps’s fire,” she said. “I’m sure he expected you to be late.”
Clay honed his narrowed gaze in on Riley as he got out of the car, and she began to doubt. She lowered her window and made like she was looking for something in her purse. She’d planned on doing the adult thing and getting out, thanking him for saving her father, but the look on his face made her hesitate.
“Work here starts at seven. You’re late.”
“Mom was at the hospital with Gramps.”
“Were you?”
“Was I what?” Riley’s words were more quiet than Clay’s; he had his back to the car.
“At the hospital?”
“No. I was home in bed, Mom didn’t wake me.”
“Got an alarm clock?”
“Huh?”
“An alarm clock. You’re old enough to get your own ass out of bed.”
“Jeez, get off my back.” Now Riley’s voice was loud and clear. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. She just got home. I didn’t have a way here.”
“Then you should have gotten up even earlier. A two-mile walk never killed anybody.”
Lily jumped out of the car. “It was my fault. He didn’t even know I was gone.” Then she looked him in the eye. “Were you here at seven?” If he’d even gotten two hours of sleep, he couldn’t have been here on time himself.
“Six-fifteen. The fish bite early.”
“Well, I’m sure you understand this is a special circumstance—”
“My guess is, every day has some ‘special circumstance’ for Riley. He’s to be here, ready to work, at seven. No exceptions.” He turned from Lily to Riley. “Better get a move on. You’ve got two over there beside the shed.”
Lily looked at the boats. Both hulls were green-gray with dried algae. Then she looked at Riley’s hands, still raw from yesterday’s work. When she glanced at his face, he looked ready to cry.
“Maybe he could do something else today,” she
suggested. It took effort, but she was pleased with herself in managing a sweet tone. “Look at his hands.”
Clay took one of Riley’s hands in his and Lily’s heart stepped right into her throat. Clay’s hands were strong-looking, she’d forgotten how strong. Riley’s fingers were long, like Clay’s; she wondered if they would grow into hands with that kind of strength.
“Bet those babies sting,” Clay said.
Riley nodded.
Clay dropped his hand. “Maybe you should forget the acid today, just use soap and water.”
“He’ll never get through that muck without—”
“Go on,” Clay said to Riley.
With slumped shoulders, Riley scuffed toward the shed.
“Well, at least give him some gloves!” Lily kept her voice low enough that Riley couldn’t hear, uttering the words between clenched teeth.
“We had the glove discussion yesterday.”
“Goddammit, Clay! Don’t make his life hell”—she thrust her finger toward her son, now beside the boats—“just because you have issues with me!”
For a moment he looked like he was going to explode. He leaned closer to her face and said, his voice low but trembling with restrained fury, “Issues?… Issues? What a nice, bland term. Is that what they call it in your social circle? My, God, woman, you are a piece of work.”
For a long moment Lily was speechless. Then she found her voice and her anger. “You bastard! What happened between us was a hundred years ago. It’s over and done. I’ve let it go. Maybe you should, too.” It felt surprisingly good to see the pain that flashed in his eyes.
Clay couldn’t fight the wild urges inside him. His anger was a beast too long restrained. He got so close to her face he could see the soft down on her cheeks. His fisted hands shook. “Never.”
He spun around and walked away. If he stayed there one more second, looking into those pale blue eyes, he was going to touch her—and he didn’t know if it would be to snatch her off her feet and kiss her, or to wrap his hands around her throat.
Chapter 6
It took all of Lily’s willpower to walk away and leave Riley in Clay’s unforgiving hands. She felt anything she said would be a further detriment to her son’s treatment. So she stopped talking. Besides, Clay’s last statement stole the breath from her lungs. The way he’d said “never” sent a chill up her spine. There was something so deep, so dangerous, in his tone that she actually felt a prick of fear. And that was something she would never in a million years have expected. It was clear Clay wasn’t the man she remembered, but how changed was he? Could he actually be unstable or violent?
If he showed the slightest indication that he’d use more than words against her son, she’d go to the sheriff and ask for an alternative arrangement. As much as she’d like to avoid seeing Clay ever again in this lifetime, such a thing would be a last-ditch option. The gleam in Riley’s eye when he had sensed she was going to intervene spoke volumes about how far the child had to go in his journey toward accepting responsibility.
She drove from the marina toward the hospital, following the curve of the road around the lake, back toward town. The winding road climbed the hills that ridged the eastern side of the lake. As she finished the S-curve, it came into sight. The fire watch tower on Fiddler’s Hill. Her gaze was drawn to it, as if it emitted an unseen yet intense mesmerizing power. How many times had she awakened from dreams and worked to scrub the image of that tower from her mind? Now here it was. Although the years had worn on her, the tower looked as if time had surrendered its hold, leaving it to bask in bygone days.
It sat off the road about a hundred yards, rising a dozen or more feet above the treetops, looking a little like an oil derrick with a tiny house on top. It had been erected long before Lily was born, before they used helicopters to monitor the lands surrounding the Hoosier National Forest. The metal stairs zigzagged back and forth until they reached a roofed platform. That platform was surrounded by a half-wall so a person, or two people—the thought actually caused a hitch in her breath—could be up there, completely hidden from the rest of the world.
Now that Clay had been thrust back into her life, the memories, those she’d managed to keep stored so deeply inside they never saw the light of day, were working their way to the surface. She pulled into the small graveled spot where forestry workers parked when monitoring from the tower. It was so seldom used that weeds sprang up almost as thickly in the gravel as they did on the side of the road, but it provided a level place to park. Shutting off the car, Lily sat back, closed her eyes and let the memory flow over her, washing the present away.
Soon she was there, back on that night that first signaled a change in the wind.
* * *
It was Friday night. The whole crew gathered at the edge of town, at the park just beyond Kingston’s Market. Lily could hardly believe she’d finally finagled her way in. Luke never allowed her to play “slips” with the high school kids—even though she was fourteen and going into high school herself. Lucky for her, Luke wasn’t here tonight. He’d had to drive Great-Aunt Minnie to her sister’s in Louisville. He’d griped about it all week long and Lily had pretended to feel sorry for him. Deep inside she was jumping for joy.
Slips was a lot like hide-and-seek, but played at night, spread over a huge area, and you were free to move at will. Once found by the “searcher,” you had to join in the hunt for the others. Since not many sixteen-year-olds in Glens Crossing had cars, entertainment without prying adult eyes was hard to come by.
Peter and Clay had laughed at the idea of playing a kids’ game, but once they’d started, it became a regular thing for them, too.
Boundaries had been set, and the playing field was the same each week, the woods beyond the park playground, down to the creek that ran in a ravine toward the reservoir. Since the grounds never changed, it was more and more challenging to find an undiscovered hiding spot. Caves were strictly off-limits, as was the fire tower. The very thought of being out there crouched in the darkness while someone was looking for her made Lily’s stomach tighten with anticipation.
When it came time to start, Lily was surprised that everyone divided up into pairs. Boy-girl pairs. She hadn’t expected this. God, she was such a dummy. She stood uncomfortably at the edge of the group, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. No one was going to want to be her partner. Several couples peeled off without waiting for partners to actually be chosen. Lily noticed these were steadies, kids she knew were “an item.”
Peter said he’d take Karen Kimball, who looked pleased as could be when he took her hand and they walked into the darkness.
Three other guys picked girls. The crowd was thinning.
Daring a glance up, she saw Tad Fulton was looking her way. He was the biggest hunk in Luke’s class. A couple of times he’d yelled at her from a passing car window. She could never make out what he said; she always assumed it was something she wouldn’t want repeated.
Oh, God, was he going to make fun of her? She looked at her tennis shoes and prayed he wouldn’t say something to embarrass her in front of all these kids.
If Luke was here, he’d send her home. She almost wished he was. It was okay to be humiliated by your older brother, kids expected that.
She could barely breathe. Why had she come?
Feet scuffed through the grass.
Shit, he was going to come right over here and say it. Insults hurled from twelve feet away had time to lose momentum before they hit their target. But Tad was going to aim from point-blank range. She felt like a cornered rabbit—she was willing to bet she looked like one, too.
If she hadn’t been so mortified, she might have spun around and sprinted into the night before he spoke. But it felt like the rubber soles of her shoes had fused to the ground.
She felt Tad stop in front of her.
She didn’t look up. She wanted to. She really did. She wanted to be the kind of person Luke was, someone who would look a guy in the eye and dare h
im to insult you. But it just wasn’t in her. She guessed Lily was a fitting name for her—Lily-livered.
“I’ll,” Tad began, and Lily’s muscles tightened, “take Lily.”
Did she hear him right? He wanted her to be his partner?
Her doubt evaporated when he took her hand.
With a mouth too dry to say anything, she allowed herself to be led away.
As they passed a couple of the other basketball players, he said, “Hey, somebody had to take her.”
One of the guys gave Tad a manly punch in the shoulder. “Eehhh, you go, man.”
Just before they broke away from the rest of the crowd, Clay stepped into their path.
Tad jerked to a stop. Lily, a half step behind, bumped into him.
“Lily goes with me.” Clay’s voice was quiet, but resounded like a steel sword drawn from a scabbard.
“Back off, Winters. I said I’ll take her.”
Lily didn’t see Clay’s feet move, but suddenly he was much closer, leaning right into Tad’s face. “I said she goes with me.” His voice slid down to a whisper. “Now, you can just let go of her hand and pick another girl, or you can go home with a bloody nose.”
Was Clay serious? Her gaze shifted from one shadowed face to the other. The hard line of Clay’s square jaw told her he was dead serious.
Her mind screamed for her to speak up and not let these two treat her like she was a toddler who couldn’t make decisions for herself. But what would she say? Tad was the coolest guy in school—and he’d picked her. It was beyond imagining. Yet, something always pulled her to Clay. Even when they were with Peter and Luke, which they were all of the time, she felt close to him. And sometimes, when he looked at her, she believed he actually thought she was more than a kid sister tagging along. To have Clay all to herself for an entire evening…
Tad let go of her hand. He and Clay stood nose to nose. For a long moment neither moved. Tad was a couple of inches taller than Clay, but Clay was broader, solid muscle—basketball guard verses quarterback. It wouldn’t be a contest easily decided.
The Road Home Page 9