Magnolia Sky

by Susan Crandall

  He shrugged. “Ah, it wasn’t so bad.”

  She waved and walked back to Luke, who was chatting with Dick Baker.

  “Get that magnolia in, Mr. Baker?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “And it didn’t show a sign of shock. You know how to pick’em.”

  “Glad to hear it’s doing well.”

  They parted company with Mr. Baker. Analise said, “Looks like we can just go on home. Mrs. Baker’s taking the kids out for sundaes and bringing them back.”

  Luke’s gaze cut quickly to her. “Cole’s letting a teacher drive him home?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Nothing. Just surprised is all.”

  The way he said it made her think he knew something he wasn’t telling her. That slid under her skin like a thorn from a sting weed; just another nettle that said he knew more about what was going on with Cole than she did.

  She was about to press further when Luke said, “I thought you said you were going to buy me a beer.”

  “You’re right, I did,” she conceded. “Still want one?”

  “Is the Pope Catholic?”

  About halfway to the Boxcar, Luke asked, “Sure you don’t mind going to the same place two nights in a row?”

  She raised puzzled eyes to him.

  “Tomorrow is Saturday,” he prompted.

  “Oh, yeah.” She waved away the cobwebs. “I’m so tired, I can’t even remember what day it is.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder and began to massage the knot of muscles there. She sidestepped until his hand fell away.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  She smiled shyly at him. “That’s okay. As long as one of us remembers.”

  They walked in awkward silence from the circle of one streetlight to the next. Thank goodness someone had finally taken down those depressing Christmas wreaths. It seemed to have been a standoff between the street department and the city council to see who would buckle first and tackle the job. Obviously someone had hollered uncle. Or perhaps a frustrated citizen took it into his or her own hands—Liv had threatened to often enough.

  When they reached the Boxcar, Luke held the door for her. It was almost as busy as Saturday night, since everybody had been drawn into town for Rib Fest. She spotted a cramped table with two chairs shoved against the wall and snaked her way through the crowd toward it.

  When they sat down, the table was so small, their knees bumped under it. People jostled around, pressing close, making it impossible to pull the chairs out any farther. Although ashamed to admit it, Analise enjoyed the contact.

  Luke ordered a draft beer. Analise decided to stick with Coke; too dangerous to let anything impair her judgment while alone with Luke.

  There was no live band, except on Saturday night. The jukebox played sporadically. In general, the noise of dozens of conversations filled the place. Analise and Luke had to lean their heads close together in order to hear one another talk.

  “Olivia said you made most of the metal sculptures for sale at the shop,” Luke said as he methodically wiped the sweat down on his beer glass with the finger and thumb of his right hand.

  Analise had been so fixated on his fingers, she had to think a moment to register what he said. If a simple action like that had her thinking things she shouldn’t, it was a good thing she’d decided not to drink. “Yes. I made the bench in the yard, too.”

  The instant she said it, she wished she hadn’t. That bench was a link to an intimacy that was forbidden.

  He looked thoughtfully into the bubbles in his beer for a moment. “I suppose that was a craft you picked up after you moved here. What made you choose metal?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Our winters are short, but they can get pretty boring when you’re in the landscape business. We sell Christmas trees at the holidays, but other than that there’s not much to do. We used to purchase the metalwork from someone else. One winter I decided to try my hand at it.” She didn’t say that was the winter when she’d realized she was going to have to create a full life for herself without Calvin, or go crazy.

  “You’re really good. I noticed the display the first time I pulled up in front of the shop.”

  She saw him glance at the narrow burn on the back of her hand. Self-consciously, she slid it under the table—that scar just another link to forbidden intimacy.

  “I’m getting better at it,” she said. “Some of my first stuff was horrible—like student engineering experiments gone horribly awry. I just refused to give up.”

  He leaned closer and looked in her eyes. “I admire that in you. You refuse to give up on anything you love.”

  Suddenly she felt as if he’d sucked the air from her lungs, as in the old stories of the cat in the cradle. Oh, if you only knew.

  When she recaptured her breath, she dragged the conversation back to her work. “There’s a half-finished fountain upstairs for the garden we’re putting in at the park. I’m making it in sections that we can transport, then I’ll assemble it on location.”

  His eyes brightened and he leaned closer. “A children’s fountain?”

  She nodded, wondering why he looked so intrigued.

  “What I’ve seen of your work has been really good—but with you applying that to a children’s theme . . . it’s got to be fantastic.”

  She grinned and leaned back in her seat. “Well . . . fantastic might be an exaggeration. . . .” Then she added, “It has been fun.”

  “Does it have dragonflies and whirligigs?” He looked like a kid asking if there was chocolate cake for dessert—and it shot straight to her heart.

  “Dragonflies, whirligigs, a couple of kites, cattails, toadstools and a giant bullfrog.”

  “Can I see?” he asked eagerly.

  She tilted her head. “Maybe. I have to work on it over the weekend. You see, since it’s in a hands-on environment and children are the main users, I’ve had to modify several of my techniques to make certain there aren’t any sharp edges that could cut. It’s been interesting. I just wish I had more time.”

  He looked perturbed as he nodded and said, “The penalty clause.”

  “There’s that. We bid the project low so we could get the county to commit. Any penalty would really hurt us. But since this is our first project of this kind, we need it to go smoothly so we can use it as a selling point for others.”

  Luke said, “We’re already working Saturdays, but I’m not opposed to putting in time on Sundays, too.”

  “This Sunday I need to work on the fountain. But you might just find yourself drafted for the next two.”

  “If you give me enough direction, I can work the site alone on Sunday.”

  The willingness in his voice made her admire him all the more. Except for this evening, she’d been squeezing every possible hour of daylight out of him, and here he was ready to give more. “We’ll see. Forecast is for rain Sunday.”

  He finished his beer.

  Reluctantly, she said, “We’d better be getting home. I want to make sure we’re there before Cole.” She hated for this evening to end. It had been the most relaxing she’d had in a very long time. Her life seemed to be falling back into some sort of order; she felt like her old self at the barbeque tonight. And sharing a drink alone with Luke topped off the evening nicely. At first she’d been afraid it might be awkward, but her worry had been completely unfounded. She’d like to linger here until they closed the Boxcar.

  Luke started to get out his wallet.

  “Hey! I said I’m buying.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He raised his hands. “Force of habit.”

  She grinned. “Gotta watch those habits. Some of them are hard to break.”

  “And some are worth picking up,” he said seriously.

  She ignored the innuendo in his tone and paid the tab. She had no doubt in her mind, Luke Boudreau would be a habit with many benefits. Too bad those benefits all had negative side effects.

  Cole slid the last folded table into t
he delivery truck. He pulled the roll-up door down as he climbed out and jumped to the pavement. His shoulders ached and his hands were raw, but he hadn’t felt this good inside for a long time. He felt like he’d spent the last months with a buzzing static tormenting his brain, and now silence had finally descended. The feeling that he was about to jump out of his skin was beginning to subside.

  He stood there with his hands on his hips for a moment, taking in the quiet of the courthouse square. The tents remained, but the lights had been shut off. Somewhere not too far away, a dog barked. Everyone was gone, except Mr. Baker, who was driving the rental truck, Mrs. Baker and Becca. Suddenly Cole realized he didn’t want to go home. What if, in the dark quiet of his room, the buzzing came back? He didn’t think he’d be able to stand it.

  If someone had told him two weeks ago that he’d have spent an entire evening working with Mrs. Baker and not hated every minute of it, he would have laughed. Even now, if his friends caught wind—and with half the town here tonight, they were sure to—there would be hell to pay. Normally that would bother him, but for some reason he felt ready for the ridicule. They could say what they wanted and it really wouldn’t matter.

  “Mrs. Baker has to finish counting the cash box, then we can go,” Becca said, surprising him with her silent approach.

  He turned to face her. She looked as wiped as he felt. “Wanna sit down while we wait?”

  She looked around.

  He pointed to an old stone bench near the courthouse that was nearly overtaken by a couple of crepe myrtles. She walked toward it and Cole followed. When they sat on the short bench, made shorter by the encroaching foliage, their elbows rubbed. Becca took a little scoot toward her end. Cole was sorry she did. He liked the way her skin felt against his.

  Now, there was another factor of this evening he never would have believed two weeks ago. Becca. If his life had been running like always, he probably wouldn’t have given her a second thought. Ashamed as he was to admit it, he wouldn’t have made much of an effort to be friends with someone as “uncool” as Becca Reynolds. In fact, at a football game last fall Steve Watters had made an offhand comment that he thought she was hot. After all of the hazing he took, Steve never even looked her way again. Cole was just as stuck-up as the rest of them.

  How could they all have been so blind, so stupid?

  “Bet we made a bunch of money tonight,” he said.

  “It was a good turnout.” She looked out over the trampled grass of the courthouse lawn. “It probably won’t be enough to do everything they need at the shelter, though. The county is threatening to close it down.”

  “What’ll happen to the strays if they do?” he asked.

  She gave her head a slight shake. “They’ll kill them.” Then she raised a palm in the air. “Oh, pardon me, they’ll euthanize them. So much kinder and more civilized.”

  “No shit? Just like that. No looking for owners or anything?”

  “Nope. No place to keep them, so they’ll go straight to doggie and kitty heaven. No passing go. No collecting two hundred dollars.”

  Cole thought about all of the animals around his house. They were all strays. Even Rufus had been dumped at the end of their driveway as a pup. He couldn’t imagine someone just killing any of them—well, maybe with the exception of Pandora.

  “My mom will never let the county close down the shelter.” He said it with heartfelt confidence.

  Becca laughed, but it was a bleak sound. “Oh, Cole, unless she has a bucket of money she’s going to throw at it, I can’t see what she can do.”

  “You don’t know my mom.”

  Becca sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

  They sat there for a while, just listening to the crickets. Cole thought how nice it was simply to sit in the dark with her. Then he thought of Travis and was ashamed for enjoying anything.

  “I’m going to go see Travis at the hospital tomorrow.” He didn’t know why he said it, it just fell out of his mouth.

  “That’s good.” She fidgeted on the bench, seeming suddenly restless. She started fiddling with the silver ring on her right hand. “I did something that I shouldn’t have.” She paused. “Something that might have kept you from getting in that accident.”

  “What are you talking about? What could you have done?” Even as he said it, he sat up a little straighter.

  “I took your name off the absent list Friday.” She kept her gaze on the lawn and wiped her palms on the thighs of her jeans.

  “How could you do that?”

  “I pick up the attendance slips and take them to the office. I erased your name.”

  They took attendance in first and fifth periods—first thing in the morning and right after lunch. Becca must have taken his name off twice. He said, “That explains why I didn’t catch hell.”

  She nodded solemnly. “If you’d caught hell, you’d probably have been grounded and not out on Saturday night.”

  He didn’t tell her that he was grounded and had gone out anyway. Instead he asked, “Why’d you do it?”

  She pursed her lips, making her look way hot with the light from the street lamps filtering through the leaves. He moved a little closer to her.

  Then she shrugged. “I felt sorry for you.”

  That floored him. Becca Reynolds, daughter of the junkyard man, Miss Goody, felt sorry for him, class president, captain of the soccer team—sorry enough to break the rules.

  Even stunned as he was at her turning of the tables, he suddenly had the urge to kiss her. Almost more than he’d ever wanted to kiss Darcy; he wanted it in a different way.

  Then she looked at him and his heart sped up. He touched her cheek and leaned close, brushing his lips gently against hers.

  When he pulled back slightly, he left his hand on her face.

  She whispered, “What was that for?”

  After a couple of heartbeats, he whispered back, “I’m not sure.”

  Her exhaled breath teased his lips, then she closed the space between them, kissing him. Her kiss was less tentative than his, amazingly self-assured. He could hardly react because he was so surprised by her confidence. He never imagined Miss Goody could kiss like that.

  Just as a fire broke out in his belly, she backed away, yet held his gaze. “Don’t look so shocked.”

  “I—I . . .” Jesus, stop stuttering.

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” Then she got up and walked away.

  It took a second for him to make his legs move. He sprinted after her. “What the hell does that mean?”

  She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. “I know jocks like you don’t go for girls like me. I won’t ruin your reputation by telling anyone—and I don’t expect anything from you. It was just a kiss—don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  What? Did Miss Goody just blow him off?

  Mrs. Baker called, “There you children are! Ready for some ice cream?”

  Cole was just realizing a brand-new form of frustration. He wanted to tell Mrs. Baker to buzz off. Becca Reynolds had just given him the kiss of his life and Mrs. Baker was talking to them like they were in kindergarten! Besides, he wasn’t done dealing with Becca and could hardly discuss anything in front of his chemistry teacher.

  Becca said, “I need to pick my car up at school.”

  “We’ll swing back by there and get it on our way to the Dixie,” Mrs. Baker said.

  Car? If Becca had a car, why in the hell had she walked into town?

  Chapter 14

  “Are you sure you feel up to helping us at the park today?” Analise asked Cole when he walked into the kitchen at seven the next morning. “You don’t look so good.”

  He didn’t feel so good. The ice cream he’d forced down last night had landed like a rock in his stomach. Becca practically ignored him the entire time they were at the Dixie. Then she’d gotten in her own car and he’d had to ride home with Mrs. Baker chattering constantly, when all he wanted was some quiet to think about wh
at had happened with Becca. Once he did get to his room and some privacy, his thoughts didn’t allow for sleep. Everything in his life seemed to be so upside down. When he did doze, he had dreams about Becca that he only used to have about Darcy or Anna Kornakova.

  But he kept all that to himself. “I’m fine. Can we stop by the hospital on our way in?”

  Analise stopped pouring her orange juice and looked at him. “Isn’t it a little early? Visiting hours don’t start until one.”

  He lifted a shoulder and picked out a box of Honey Nut Cheerios from the cabinet. He really didn’t want to have to see Travis’s parents; going early was the only way he could see that would reduce the chances of that happening. “I’ll be too dirty later. And I don’t want to make somebody drive me back after work.”

  “We could stop when we go back in to the Boxcar,” Analise said.

  Cole was scrambling to come up with a counter to that when Luke said, “We’d be late for Olivia’s reservation.”

  Cole’s gaze snapped to Luke, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Thank God someone around here understood.

  “We won’t be that late,” Analise said. “It’s not like they’re going to give away our table.”

  Luke looked at Ana and said pointedly, “Don’t you think it’d be just as easy to stop on the way this morning?”

  After a moment in which she looked like she was going to argue, a change came over her. “Oh,” she said with a lifted hand, “I suppose you’re right. We’ll stop on the way in.” Then she said to Olivia, “Should we bring Cole back here to help in the shop this afternoon? It’s likely to get pretty busy.”

  Olivia sipped her coffee. “That won’t be necessary. Richard said he’d come by and give me a hand today. Said he needs the exercise.”

  Cole wasn’t sure how he felt about Reverend Hammond’s increasing interest in his mom. It wasn’t like they were dating or anything—and they were way too old to have sex. He just couldn’t understand it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so weird if he wasn’t a minister. As Cole glanced at Ana, it was clear she didn’t know what to make of it, either.

  He threw out half of his cereal. His stomach was still funny; he felt like he was about to take a final he hadn’t studied for. What was he going to say when he saw Travis? Their usual adversarial greeting of, “Hey, dickhead,” didn’t seem quite appropriate. It’d be easier if he just didn’t go. But for some reason, he felt he had to. He didn’t know why, exactly; it wasn’t like it was going to change anything.