July Thunder

by Rachel Lee

  “How would you have answered it?”

  “That a rich man necessarily has more of an obligation to do good than a poor man.”

  She smiled. “I like that.”

  “It’s true. But that probably would have been interpreted as Communist.”

  She laughed then, that beautiful sound that seemed to send sparkles running along his nerve endings. He could listen to her laugh by the hour.

  “Basically you’re saying you’re in trouble no matter what.”

  “For a preacher, that seems to be the case. Dad tried not to knuckle under too much, I guess. Which is probably why we moved every few years. And I didn’t like that, either.”

  “That’s very hard on a child. So you’re putting down roots here?”

  “You better believe it.”

  She reached for her glass and took a sip. “Is being a cop better than being a preacher?”

  “By a long shot. I still get to help people, but they’re not as likely to argue with me.” He said that with a smile, and again she laughed, as he’d hoped she would.

  Hoping she would laugh again, he added, “I also get to swagger.”

  She did laugh again, her eyes sparkling. “How do you guys learn that swagger, anyway?”

  “They put these gun belts on us. Then you have to hold out your arms when you walk so they don’t keep banging on your gun or whatever, and pretty soon you’re walking like the king ape.”

  Her giggle was a delicious sound, every bit as good as her laugh. And right now he felt more at peace than he could remember feeling in a long time.

  Which meant it was time to go. If he hung around too long, he would get addicted. But he didn’t budge, just smiled back at her.

  Then her laughter trailed away, and she reached for the flier. “Do you think fire is going to be a problem around town?”

  “I hope not. But the danger is awfully high, and there’s no rain in sight.”

  “Plus,” she said quietly, “they can’t stop the fire in the valley. It might come over the pass.”

  “It could. The damn thing’s been leaping firebreaks like they don’t even exist.”

  “That’s what I’ve been hearing. People are starting to get frightened.”

  “Fear’s a good thing. Folks really need to gather up anything they can’t replace, like photos and family Bibles and important papers, and be ready to run. It’s just one huge tinderbox out there now.”

  Mary sighed. “My neighbors were complaining last night that they’re not even allowed to grill with charcoal.”

  “Not right now.”

  “I can see why, but I guess they can’t.”

  “I hope folks don’t ignore the restrictions.”

  He liked the fact that she didn’t even bother to say they wouldn’t. Of course someone would think they knew better. It never failed. A lot of people seemed to live in a world of “it won’t happen to me.”

  “I’ve got the day off tomorrow,” he said, before he even knew the thought was forming. “Would you like to go boating on the lake?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Her acceptance was unhesitating, but it seemed to him that behind the smile in her eyes a shadow lurked.

  What the hell had happened to this woman in the past?

  14

  The following morning, getting the boat ready to take out proved to be an unnerving experience for Sam. He hadn’t been out on the lake since Beth’s death. Oh, he’d taken it to the lake and put it in the water so he could run the engine and change the gas and keep things in working order, but he hadn’t cruised in it.

  The idea had hurt too much. Beth had loved to pop out in the boat before dawn and fish, or go out in the twilight of the long summer evenings. The boat and Beth were as inextricably linked in his mind as night and day.

  So what had possessed him?

  He pulled the cover off and climbed aboard, glad to see that no mice or rats had taken up residence. There was a little dust that had managed to sift through the canvas, but not much.

  It wasn’t a big boat, but it did have a below-the-deck galley, and a vee-berth that he and Beth had never used. Beth had been into fishing, not spending hours on the water sunning or just enjoying the day. She’d certainly never wanted to spend a night on the boat. It was too confined.

  Sam, on the other hand, had often wished they could spend nights on the lake, snuggled up in the small cabin while the waves rocked them to sleep. It had never happened. Now it never would happen.

  Oh well.

  He checked out the galley, put some ice in the icebox, along with some cold drinks, made sure he had coffee, and hit the store for some sandwich fixings.

  He must be out of his mind.

  But at least they weren’t going out at dawn or dusk. He was taking Mary out at the height of a warm, sunny day. No memories there.

  Mary was ready for him. He’d barely gotten out of his SUV before she was locking her front door and coming to join him with a basket in hand. She smiled and held up the basket.

  “I made us some lunch,” she said.

  “Super. Thanks.” He smiled, taking her in, and decided she looked good enough to eat herself, in matching emerald-green shorts and a T-shirt. On her head she wore a white ball cap, with her hair spilling out the small hole in the back. The sun seemed to set it on fire. He wanted in the worst way to run his hands through it and feel its warmth.

  “I haven’t ever been boating before,” she confided as they drove up to the lake. “You’ll have to tell me what to do.”

  “Other than wearing a life jacket, you don’t have to do anything except enjoy yourself.”

  “But I can swim.”

  “Good. That water’s really cold, though. Or if you fell over, you could knock your head. So when you’re on the deck, wear a life jacket, okay?”

  After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “That was a really stupid remark, wasn’t it? ‘I can swim.’”

  He glanced her way and saw her smiling with self-deprecating humor. “You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.”

  “Ah, but I pride myself on my intelligence. And that was a stupid remark.”

  That was food for thought, but he hadn’t quite worked through it by the time he backed the boat down the ramp and set them afloat on the lake. Besides, for a while there, he’d been overwhelmed by his memories. At one point, when he’d been backing the boat down the ramp, he’d looked into his rearview mirror out of habit and been shaken when he didn’t see Beth.

  He’d hit the brake and wondered if he was going to be able to do this at all. But then, as quickly as it had come, the moment passed. He was once again in the here and now, and he was about to go boating with a truly beautiful woman. And he was entitled to do that.

  The last thought surprised him. It was so alien to his way of thinking that it seemed to come from somewhere else. He was entitled to enjoy himself? Never in his life had he felt that way.

  But that was another thought that had to wait for now, because minutes later he and Mary were motoring out across the lake, the wind in their faces, and Mary looked as if she was having the time of her life. Her head was thrown back, soaking up the sun and the breeze, and her hair tossed wildly behind her. Enjoying her reaction, he stepped up a bit on the power, and soon they were zooming across the water, the boat slapping again and again on the small waves.

  He took them on a full circuit of the lake, enjoying the power of the throttle beneath his hand, enjoying the way the boat skimmed over the waves for the first time in forever. Passing other boats, he waved, and their occupants waved back. Some of them he remembered well from times when he and Beth had been out here fishing. Others, most others, were visitors, people enjoying a vacation break.

  But he couldn’t keep speeding around the lake forever. Which meant he had to find a place to stop.

  And stopping meant the two of them would be alone together. For the first time it s
eriously occurred to him that this invitation had been a dangerous one. A really dangerous one. Because they would have nothing to do together except talk. If he really couldn’t resist being with her, he should have invited her to a movie. That would have provided two hours of entertainment, followed by another hour of talking about the movie. It would have been safe.

  Out here it was silent except for the murmur of the breeze and the slapping of the gentle waves against the boat. And there would be nothing to do except talk.

  He was afraid of where that might take them.

  He was afraid of the vee-berth below. He was afraid of the paths his thoughts were going to have to follow if all he had to do was look at her.

  He was flirting with catastrophe, and he had no one to blame but himself.

  Nonetheless, he throttled back and found them a quiet, sunny spot not too far from shore, where they could look into the shadows beneath the pines or stare out over the lake and watch the other boats. It was the most private of public places, and he wondered why he’d ever flapped his jaws.

  But Mary seemed comfortable and content. When they stopped, she smiled and leaned back against the cushions on the stern bench, looking as if she wanted nothing more than to soak up the sun. He threw the anchor over the side, then resumed his seat, trying not to stare at her.

  She looked like an Irish goddess, he found himself thinking. An Irish goddess wrapped in an international-orange life vest. Her long, slender legs were stretched out, her skin the color of cream, so delicate and soft looking it might have been the petal of an orchid. Her arms were above her head, and for the first time in his life he noticed how vulnerable the soft skin inside the upper arm looked. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed oblivious of his gaze.

  Good. Because he needed to drag his gaze away, to stare at the sunlight as it splintered on the water, to stare at the dark depths beneath the trees, to remind himself that reality was reality and dreams were dreams.

  And that, as beautiful as dreams were, reality was painful.

  Except that this morning it didn’t seem painful at all. Not at all. It was as if dreams were bleeding over into reality and making everything misty with yearning.

  She spoke, her voice quiet, without stirring a muscle. “This is wonderful,” she said. “So peaceful and relaxing. I don’t think I’ve unwound this much in years.”

  He was unwinding, too, but not into relaxation. Once again he dragged his gaze from her, but the woods and the water stayed in soft focus, as if they’d slipped the bonds of reality.

  The boat rocked gently beneath him, making him feel drowsy, but an internal awareness kept him on tenterhooks so that he couldn’t have fallen asleep even if he’d been able to stretch out.

  She was right; it was peaceful out here. Away from everything. Another world.

  Until the wind shifted and the sky began to darken again from the fire in the valley on the other side of the mountains. The smell of smoke seemed to rouse Mary, and she sat up. Reality was back again.

  “That’s scary,” she said, looking up at the graying sky and smudged sun. “No matter how many times I see it, it’s still scary.”

  “The forces of nature are terrifying.”

  “The hand of God.”

  “One way to look at it.”

  She arched her brow at him. “How do you look at it?”

  “Nature’s method of renewal. We just happen to be in the way.”

  She nodded slowly, seeming to hesitate, then asked, “Sam? Are you a religious man?”

  Now it was his turn to hesitate. This wasn’t something he thought about often. In fact, for many years he’d tried to avoid thinking about it, because every time religion came up in his head, so did his father.

  “I don’t know,” he said presently. “I don’t belong to any particular denomination.”

  “Because of your father. He gave you quite a distaste for it, didn’t he?”

  “I guess so. Or maybe I’m just a weird fish, swimming upside down and upstream.”

  “How so?”

  “Well…” Well, how so? Good question. “It’s like…I’m spiritual, I guess. I believe. I’ve read the Bible more than once, cover to cover. It’s just that…I seem to have a different take on it than most people. Or at least a different one than the church I was raised in.”

  She nodded encouragingly. “Tell me?”

  That wasn’t as easy as it should have been, which told him how little he’d formulated his ideas over the years. He had to search for words, and as he did so, he kept his gaze trained everywhere except on Mary. She was a bigger temptation than the apple in the Garden of Eden.

  Finally he said, “I see the Bible as a romance.”

  “Between whom?”

  “Between God and his people. The tribes of Israel in the Old Testament, the whole world in the New. It’s as if…well, as if God wants our love desperately. And no matter how many times we get wrongheaded or turn our backs, he keeps coming back to us. Keeps calling us to him.”

  “I like that.” Her smile was soft, thoughtful. “I can see that.”

  “And Jesus. Jesus preached to the outcasts. The unwanted. The poor. Did you know that in those times, if you were sick you couldn’t enter the Temple? Sickness or birth defect or deformity…all those things were considered a sign of God’s judgment against a sinner. And sinners couldn’t enter the Temple. Yet time and again Jesus healed the lepers and the lame and the blind, the people who were barred from the Temple, then sent them to the Temple to make an offering. He was speaking up for those people, telling them they were loved by God, too.”

  She nodded. “That’s so true. But I never thought of it that way before.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking of it that way for a long time. And I got a great distaste for churches of any kind that turn their backs on the poor, the outcasts and the sinners. I think they’re missing the point.”

  “Your dad’s church is like that?”

  “A lot of them have been. He’s been part of it, too. I used to get so angry at that phrase, ‘love the sinner but not the sin,’ because they used it as an excuse to judge and turn their backs, claiming that if they associated with sinners they were condoning sin.”

  “But Jesus associated with sinners.”

  “Exactly. Prostitutes, tax collectors, the lame and sick. Seems simple to me. Just like it seems obvious to me that if you’re not a sinner, you have no need of a church.”

  Mary nodded, and a little laugh escaped her. “I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s not the saints among us who need the guidance. But not all churches are like that, Sam.”

  “Maybe not. I don’t know. I had my fill and hit the road.”

  “I can understand that.”

  He looked at her. “Are you religious?”

  “Very.”

  Another problem, he told himself. He wasn’t going to get caught up in that morass again. But there was something about the way she’d heard him out, the appearance of a truly open mind, that made him wonder if that would really be a problem at all.

  She let the discussion go, as if she had merely wanted to confirm something she had already thought. A bit of uneasiness nibbled at him, because for some reason he didn’t at all like the idea that Mary might have found him wanting.

  But he didn’t know how to pursue the subject, to find out what she was really thinking of him and what he had said, without getting into areas that were apt to make him sound as harsh as his father on a tear in the pulpit.

  As the sky darkened with soot haze, the day became chillier. It wasn’t exactly cold, but the warmth seemed to have deserted the air, and the lake, which never got truly warm, seemed to suck up everything that was left.

  Mary pulled off her life vest and reached into a canvas bag for a sweater. Like everyone who lived hereabouts, she was prepared for the changing mountain weather.

  Sam thought about the fishing poles still stowed in the locker below but decided that was a journey too close to old m
emories. Besides, it wasn’t the best time of day to fish, even with the hazy sky. At least that was a good excuse.

  After a few more minutes Mary tugged a pair of sweatpants out of her bag and pulled them on over her shorts. The view was diminishing in more ways than one. Maybe he should just head back to the ramp, cut this outing short.

  But Mary didn’t seem to be impatient. In fact, she leaned over the side and looked down into the water, no longer the deep blue of morning but a steely gray.

  “It looks so clear,” she said. “Like you could drink it.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it.”

  She laughed and straightened. “I know. I’ve been warned about all the parasites in mountain water. What a shame, though. It’s hard to believe when we’re so close to the tops of the mountains it all comes from.”

  “From the sublime to the ugly.”

  She glanced his way in surprise, then laughed delightedly. “You’re right. From God to parasites. We do cover some territory, don’t we?”

  It struck him then how different she was from Beth. Beth, God bless her, had been a young man’s dream: cute and interested in fishing, camping, hiking and hunting. Like that old joke: Seeking good woman with boat and motor. She’d been a buddy. A pal. A great friend. A great wife.

  But he’d changed. He was more contemplative these days, more given to thinking about the issues of life and less given to being a sportsman. And he enjoyed the way Mary seemed to be able to talk about many different things. Beth had been right there in every moment as it turned up. She hadn’t given much thought to yesterday or tomorrow.

  Mary was different. She was in the here-and-now, too, but she kept a perspective about it, seeming not to lose track of the flow of life.

  Beth, for example, had dismissed anything he said about his father with, “Well, he’s not here right now.” At the time that had seemed a healthy attitude. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Because if there was one thing recent days had made him acutely aware of, it was that he needed to deal with his past. To deal with the anger and hurt he had nursed all these years. Otherwise he was never going to get past it.