Kiss

by Ted Dekker

  “Why are we here?”

  Wayne looked confused. “You knew we were coming to the estate.”

  “I mean the bungalow.”

  “Oh. Your father’s idea.”

  “I see.”

  “He thought you would have more privacy this way.”

  “Right. My old room is too close to home.”

  “Pam’s in your room now.”

  Of course she was.

  “There are three bedrooms here, so I’ll be close. If you don’t mind. The senator has set up a housekeeper for you in the third room. Full-time, at your service. If it’s necessary, it will be easier for people to visit you here—doctors, therapists.”

  “All I see is a place where Landon can keep me under his thumb.”

  “It’ll be good for you here. All that security? No media, no pressure.”

  Wayne exited the truck, then helped Shauna out, ducking in the rain. She stomped, heavy with the weight of her new life, up the steps to the shelter of the porch.

  That dull but precise pain that had irritated her at the courthouse flared in her side again. Appendicitis would be timely and maybe poetic. Ironic even. She could survive being catapulted into an icy river and avoid brain damage and pass through a drug trial with flying colors, then be taken down by an inflamed and useless organ.

  But the pain passed.

  The screen door squeaked.

  A pretty but expressionless woman held it open—the Asian woman Shauna saw in the dining room of the main house last night.

  The slight-built woman let the door slap back into its frame. She held a hand out to Shauna. “I’m Luang Khai, your housekeeper.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Call me Khai.”

  “Rhymes with sky?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Shauna McAllister. I guess you know Wayne.”

  Khai nodded, curt. “Mr. McAllister said you might come. The third room is ready for you.”

  Getting a better look at Khai now, Shauna decided the housekeeper was in her mid- to late thirties. Shauna studied the mismatched eyes for one moment longer than was polite.

  “I’ve lost my contacts,” she said, and then she opened the door to invite them in.

  Shauna stepped into the main sitting room, which was set up something like an elaborate hotel suite—two bedrooms and a shared bath off one side of the living area, a stand-alone bedroom off the other. A kitchenette and break-fast nook behind a two-way fireplace overlooked the river.

  Other than the furniture that had been here for years—the suede camel sofa, a tattered Morris chair that needed refinishing—the room was full of brown boxes stacked three high.

  Shauna tried to take it all in. Were these her things?

  “These just arrived,” Khai said. “When you are rested I’ll help you unpack them.”

  Shauna opened the closest box. Books: accounting law, textbooks, reference books. Stacks of newspapers. A few magazines.

  Clothes in the next, thrown in, not folded. Everything would have to be washed and pressed.

  More clothes.

  Shoes. Linens and towels.

  “Maybe you will come eat something first?”

  Shauna tipped back the flap of a fourth box.

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Do you like tom yam? Soup?”

  “I love that soup,” Wayne said. “Thai food.” He headed into the kitchen.

  Shauna lifted trinkets out of this box. Her iPod, a sequined jewelry case, a hand-blown glass vase, a sleek wooden elephant.

  This wasn’t hers. Or was it something she couldn’t remember acquiring? The animal posed with one foot forward and his trunk high, tusks up, as if he was trumpeting. The wood was dark, cedar maybe, and lightly lacquered. A decorative line cut into the wood ran from the elephant’s mouth all the way around the shape of his ear, then down his back. She traced it with her forefinger before returning it to the box.

  “You eat,” Shauna said. “I have something I need to do first.”

  She snatched up her iPod from the box and dropped it into her coat pocket. Her fingers brushed a piece of paper. She withdrew a small red note folded in fourths. How had she not noticed this earlier? Unfolding it, she saw an address printed in neat letters diagonally across the square. An address in Victoria, Texas.

  Did she know someone in Victoria?

  Shauna wasn’t even sure she knew where Victoria was.

  Wayne popped back out of the kitchen, holding a steaming bowl.

  “What is it you need to do?” he asked her.

  “Rudy.” She refolded the paper and dropped it back into her coat pocket.

  “I need to see Rudy.”

  Corbin Smith shuffled to the phone on the kitchen counter, lifted the receiver, and hit the speed dial. Number three, after voice mail and the office. He took a chug from a Gatorade bottle and turned to take in the panoramic view of downtown Austin while the phone rang. He’d never get tired of this place. When the time came to give it back to its rightful owner—and he had faith that day would come—he’d have to think twice about handing it off.

  Nah, not really. As it was, he was convinced that he’d made the right decision to jump on the place when it went up for rent and keep it ready for her. Even if it did put a dent in his bank account.

  His best friend answered the phone. “If you call me again, I’m going to change my number.”

  “Good to hear your voice, man.”

  “Have I not explained to you what will happen if—”

  “A thousand times. Old story. Got a new one for you today.”

  “I’ll read it in the paper.”

  “Not this one.”

  “Just tell me then, so I can get off the line.”

  “She’s up. Walking on her own two feet. Out of the hospital.”

  That shut him up. Smith heard breathing over the line. He pounced on the silence.

  “Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say? You know she’s a fighter.”

  “I never said she wasn’t.”

  “I saw her today. Talked to her.”

  “You stay out of her way! Am I going to have to come up there myself, strangle you with my own two hands? You don’t have any idea what you’re doing, Corbin.”

  “Oh, I’ve got a very clear idea. You, now you walked away from this, and I don’t understand it, but you are the one who doesn’t have the clear idea anymore. I’m the bloodhound now, don’t you know. I know way more about what’s in this stew than you ever did.”

  That at least earned Corbin a chuckle. “Whatever you say.”

  “You’ve gotta come back. Today. Let me bring you up to speed.”

  “No.”

  “You’ve gotta see her. She needs you.”

  This time his refusal hesitated.

  “No.”

  “If you don’t do it, she might come looking for you. I gave her your address.”

  “Corbin, this is no game.”

  “I’m not playing with you. You think this situation is forever, and I’m telling you we can turn it around.”

  “How?”

  “I’m working on it. Have a little faith.”

  “I have faith that seeing me will get her killed, which is a disaster I could not survive. And that about sums everything up.”

  Corbin reached into his arsenal of persuasion for his biggest gun, the shot that would hurt the most but might set the man in motion. The bloodhound was actually a mule! “She doesn’t remember. She didn’t know me. She doesn’t know a thing.”

  Corbin took another swig of the cherry-flavored sports drink, hoping for a fight instead of a dead line.

  “That’s for the best, then.”

  He inhaled the juice and took ten seconds to cough it up. “Idiot! She needs you now more than she ever did.”

  “Don’t call me again.”

  Then he got the dead line.

  Corbin threw the cordless handset across the kitchen and swore as it skittered into the
back of the sofa.

  7

  It was time to end these games.

  Shauna stood, fuming, on a shaded footpath behind her father’s house. She had been denied entry to her family’s home by three different people on Landon’s security detail.

  “Mrs. McAllister’s orders, ma’am.”

  Patrice. This was the most insulting, unimaginable position Shauna had ever found herself in.

  They had a lot of issues, she and her father’s wife, issues that went way back. On Landon’s wedding day, Shauna told a reporter who managed to crash the reception that Landon and Patrice were marrying for political ends rather than for love. When the journalist pressed for details, Shauna made up a story about overhearing a conversation between the couple. The gist was how important marriage would be for Landon to advance his career and that Patrice had her own political goals in mind.

  Shauna was eleven years old. And she didn’t know the guy was a reporter. Mostly she was upset with Patrice for not letting her wear Mama’s ruby earrings. Patrice had called them gaudy and said they clashed with Shauna’s dress—a frilly Southern belle thing that Shauna hated, hated, hated. They were in Texas, after all, approaching the twenty-first century.

  She needed someone to understand how unhappy she was, and this man, unlike anyone else at the party, seemed genuinely interested.

  The next morning, so was the rest of Texas.

  Patrice sold her mother’s earrings on eBay years later.

  It was the first of many escalations between the women, though Shauna had never caused another so intentionally. She could not say the same for her stepmother.

  Shauna faced the east corner of the property and stormed across the scrubby open space. It was time to make her father participate in this mess.

  She reached the fitness center in five minutes, winded and weak-kneed. But outrage propelled her through the main double doors and into the sky-lighted weight room at the heart of the building.

  A tall man dressed in an unimaginative suit glanced her way. The senator sat on the lat machine.

  Landon McAllister’s weathered skin endeared him to his constituency, even though he knew next to nothing about ranching. The truth was he hated sunscreen, and the Irish in him wrinkled under the Texas sun. The lined-hide look was convincing, though. His bushy eyebrows and wide mouth suggested competence; his mostly gray hair, wisdom; and the scruffy hairstyle, down-to-earth likability.

  She shouted at him while she was still yards away. “What do you think you’re doing, locking me out of the house? You invited me here, didn’t you?”

  Landon did two more reps before bringing the weight stack to rest.

  “You locked me out.”

  Landon sighed from the very bottom of his lungs. “Patrice locked you out. You can’t go meddling in her business, Shauna.”

  “It’s our business, not hers.”

  Landon stood and wiped the sweat from his face. “Maybe later, I’ll talk to her about it. When Rudy improves. But not now. Not yet.”

  “What in the world does this have to do with Rudy?”

  “You upset him.”

  “Patrice upsets him! Us fighting upsets him!”

  “Then why is it that there isn’t any fighting except when you’re around?”

  “I don’t want to fight, Landon. I just want to spend time with my brother. Is that a crime?”

  “If you break and enter, yes.”

  Landon moved toward the showers.

  “I don’t understand why you think shutting me out will be good for Rudy!”

  “That’s the problem, Shauna. You don’t understand much. You go flying through life with one eye closed and then act surprised when you crash into a tree. You are going to take this whole family out, every one of us, one at a time if you don’t grow up and get yourself straightened out.”

  Grow up? Get herself straightened out? Her mind reeled from the verbal battering. No matter what she did, her father would tell her she was wrong. Worthless. Undeserving.

  When she failed to retort, Landon McAllister threw the whole weight of his body against the swinging door and separated himself from his daughter once more.

  Shauna spun on her heel and screamed her frustration.

  It only took a few minutes for her offense to melt into tears. She rushed outside and stepped directly into Wayne, who caught her.

  He wrapped his arms around her, the most natural move in the world. The pleasing scent of his shirt, fabric softener mingled with cologne, gave Shauna the fleeting thought that he paid attention to details and might treat her with similar care.

  Maybe she would remember something, some place where rejection couldn’t touch her, leaning just so against his chest.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

  He did not let her go. And he did not try to tell her what to do. He simply held her up.

  “I don’t deserve your support in all this,” she said. “What I’ve done is . . . unforgivable.”

  “Everybody needs someone.”

  “Why are you so willing to help me?”

  Wayne didn’t answer right away. He rocked her gently. “Maybe I need you too.”

  “For what? I’m a public fool, a criminal nobody, with no past, no job, no friends, nothing worth—”

  “Stop.”

  She stopped.

  She tilted her head back to look at him. His eyes frowned at her, not the way her father’s always did, condemning. This frown struck her as wounded. Why would you say those horrible things about yourself?

  “You’re going to pull through this,” he said.

  Where did his faith in her come from?

  She wished she could remember the history they shared. It was so unfair to him that she couldn’t.

  Because he believed in her, she would remember.

  She kissed him before deciding that kissing him was the right thing to do.

  He took one step back and released her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, not sure whether she felt foolish or amused.

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “Didn’t what?” She matched his step and lifted her arms around his shoulders. His muscles relaxed.

  “Nothing.” He smiled. “You’re full of surprises.”

  Wayne bent his head, tentatively enough that she didn’t have to stretch. He pulled her closer and touched his lips to hers softly, lightly, demanding nothing. He tasted like ginger, sweet and spicy.

  Shauna felt so safe, so protected, that her simultaneous disappointment came as a shock. Had she been expecting electricity, familiarity? Some sudden restoration of all her lost files?

  Even so, all the awful realities of her awakening stood aside for a few seconds as he held her. She would take that gift.

  Wayne broke their connection first and pulled her into a slow squeeze. She felt his breath at the nape of her neck.

  “Brought you a present,” he said, reaching into his jacket and withdrawing a cell phone.

  “What’s this?”

  “A phone.”

  “You know what I mean, smart aleck.”

  “New number. The media got hold of your old one. Some guy from the Statesman was calling daily after the accident. Scott Norris, I think. And people claiming to know you. Some shrink even. Probably has plans to use you to become the next Dr. Phil. I stopped answering pretty early on.”

  It was just a phone, but somehow Shauna saw it as a declaration of his faith in her. “That was really nice of you. Thanks.”

  “Mr. Wilde is going to take care of the bills until you’re back on your feet. And I programmed my number already. In case you need anything. Though I plan to stay close. Speed dial number two.”

  She tried it. His phone rang in another pocket, and she heard it as nothing less than a lifeline.

  She kissed him one more time. “You just keep saving me,” she said.

  The relative peace of Shauna’s evening with Wayne did not last into her dreams that night.

>   Football field: offensive forty-yard line. Shauna leaned forward, ready, waiting for the quarterback’s call, less than two yards from a sweating, focused defensive back.

  “Blue fifteen! Blue fifteen! Set! Hike!”

  She lunged left in a fake before cutting right, then straightened out and slipped past the defender without touching him. Her cleats found purchase in the short turf and she pushed off for the X-post pattern, straight over the middle of the field, strong and fast.

  Faster than any other player on the Sun Devils’ team. She was, after all, a sprinter first, football player second.

  She loved this play. Loved the adrenaline kicked in by the risk of aiming dead center, where getting hit was almost always a given.

  She flew, barely touching the grass, propelled by the huffing of that committed defensive back.

  One one thousand . . .

  “Step it up, step it up! Get a move on, Spade!”

  The crowd was on its feet.

  Two one thousand . . .

  The DB was fast, but not fast enough. Her breathing flowed in sync with her heartbeat. She looked up, right, over the shoulder. The corner of her eye detected the free safety coming at her from ahead. She was the hot read.

  This pass would come early.

  Three one thousand . . .

  She focused on the arcing pigskin and reached out.

  The pebble-grained ball connected with her arms like a desert burr.

  And the defensive players connected with her, the DB catching her high in the ribs, the free safety hitting low on the back at the hips.

  She heard an electric crack and the backs of her eyelids lit up with streaks of falling stars. She heard the crowd wince in unison. Tingling nerves shot out around her waist and began to squeeze her breathless.

  Don’t drop the ball.

  She held tight with both hands as her rubber torso unfolded from its unnatural S shape. Her legs went out from under her, and she hit the turf face first, smelling and tasting damp dirt through the mask. Gravity, velocity, and the great weight of another hulking body crushed her.