“Bull hockey!” Wooter growled.
“Listen to me,” B.J. insisted, glaring at the old man. “If Hunter had died at the Renfros’, he’d be buried in that graveyard, wouldn’t he? Well, he’s not!”
“How can you know that?” Wooter argued. “The ranger just said his marker got stole.”
“His whole grave’s gone—like it was never there.” She turned to Cluney for support. “Free told me Mary Renfro told him to start digging Hunter’s grave. Is that so?”
Cluney, fighting for control, nodded her head. She could still hear the awful sound of Free’s shovel scraping at the hard earth.
“I begged Mary to make him stop digging,” Cluney said quietly. “It was too horrible to hear the sound … to have Hunter hear his own grave being prepared.”
B.J. turned a triumphant face to Wooter. “Well, that proves it once and for all! Free showed me the spot where he dug. There’s no grave there!
Wooter went to scratching his beard. His face was screwed up with puzzlement. Neither he nor Cluney said anything. They just stared at B.J.
“Don’t you see what this means? Hunter didn’t die trying to cross the moonbow. And Mary must have nursed him back to health. Otherwise, he’d be out there with the others.”
Cluney still wasn’t convinced. “What about the diary? It ended the night I went back in time. If he’d lived, why weren’t there entries after that?”
B.J. couldn’t answer that one. But she had to make Cluney believe as she did. Surely, there must be a way, if only she could think how.
Just then, Free and Sonny came back in. The ranger’s eyes immediately lit on the woman with silver-blond hair. She was real pretty, but her face looked tired and strained. And she was so pale.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked Cluney.
She nodded. “I think so. I’m just so very tired.”
“Well…” Sonny glanced from one to another of them. “I reckon I can let you go. I can’t see as you’ve done any real mischief. Besides, I got another problem to take care of this morning first thing. We may really have someone missing in the area now. That yellow car’s been out in the parking lot all night. I’ve got to run a check on it and find out who owns it. Then I reckon I’ll have to get it towed down the mountain and impounded till we find the owner.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” B.J. cried. “That’s my car, my way home.”
Sonny looked relieved, then frowned. “Can you prove it’s yours, ma’am?”
Moments later, B.J. had produced both her driver’s license and her registration. Satisfied, Ranger Taylor let them go, but not before one final stern warning about sleeping out by the falls.
Cluney was so tired by the time B.J. and Free dropped her off that she didn’t even invite them in. All she wanted was a hot bath, a cup of real coffee, and then her own bed.
“If I’m lucky, maybe I can sleep right through the next month,” she said as she peeled off her grubby clothes. “Then I won’t have to deal with what’s ahead.”
She walked over to Jeff’s picture and picked it up. He smiled at her from inside the frame. How well she remembered that cocky, confident grin—like he owned the world and knew all its secrets. His eyes seemed so alive and loving as she gazed into them.
“You are alive!” she said, trying to make herself grasp the fact.
Suddenly, Hunter Breckinridge and Larissa’s love for him seemed like some distant, bittersweet story she had read long ago. There was still pain when she thought of them, but the tragic pair no longer seemed to have any intimate connection with Clair de Lune Summerland. Instead, Jeff Layton was once more her whole life, her lover, her soul mate. In some way, he seemed almost an extension of Hunter. Her love for the two of them intertwined in the deepest part of her heart.
“Oh, Jeff.” She set the picture back on her bedside table and sighed. “If only I knew how to reach you. Maybe I could make a difference.”
On impulse, she looked up the area code for Jeffs home base, then picked up the phone and dialed Virginia information. After a seemingly interminable wait, the operator answered.
“What city, please?”
“Virginia Beach,” Cluney said.
A few clicks and buzzes, then a voice asked, “What party, please?”
The operator wanted a name, of course, but Cluney had none to give her. Instead, she answered, “I need the Naval Air Station Oceana.”
“What party, please?”
“I don’t know. Just tell me how to reach the base operator.”
A moment more and Cluney had the number she’d requested. This might work. It just might! She dialed and held her breath, waiting for someone to answer. Surely, the squadron’s home base communicated regularly with the ship. And certain emergencies were bound to arise while the men were deployed—births, deaths, illnesses back home. If she could only get them to transmit a message to Jeff for her…
“NAS Oceana,” came the woman’s businesslike voice at the other end of the line. “What extension, please?”
The question threw Cluney for a moment. “I’m not sure. I need to reach someone who is deployed to the Mediterranean. His ship is at sea now. Is there a number I can call to send a message?”
“Is this an emergency, ma’am?”
“I think it is. I mean, yes, of course it is!”
“A death in the family?”
“No.”
“A life-threatening illness?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Well, then, ma’am, I’m sorry. The Navy has strict rules regarding emergencies. Nothing else qualifies, I’m sorry.”
Cluney wanted to reach through the phone and strangle the bland-voiced operator. But she managed to hold her temper.
“This is a life-threatening situation. The threat is to an officer on that ship. I have to get in touch with him immediately.”
“I’m not sure I understand, ma’am.”
“Look! We’re wasting precious time. I must reach him! Right away!”
“The fastest way to send an emergency message is through the Red Cross, ma’am. I can give you that number, if you like.”
“Oh, yes! Thank you!” Cluney all but kissed the phone.
She hung up and dialed the new number she had written down. This time a man answered with the usual offer to help.
“I hope you can help me. The Navy operator suggested I call you. I need to get a message to someone on a ship in the Mediterranean. It’s an emergency,” she added.
“Are you a family member?”
Cluney almost admitted to being only Jeff’s fiancée, but caught herself in time. If anyone other than family members could send messages, the man wouldn’t have asked, she reasoned.
Crossing her fingers behind her back, Cluney said, “Yes, I’m his mother.” She’d never met Mrs. Layton, who lived in California. But she was certain the woman would want to help save her only son’s life.
“I need the name of the officer, his unit, and the name and relationship of the deceased, ma’am.”
“I didn’t say anyone had died.”
“Oh! Sorry, ma’am. I simply assumed.” He paused a moment, collecting his composure after making such a blunder. “Then the name of the family member who is ill and the relationship.”
“No one’s ill either.”
“Ah!” He seemed to brighten. “Then you want to send word of a new baby. Congratulations, ma’am! You must be the grandmother.”
“No,” Cluney answered with a frustrated sigh.
“Well, I’m sorry, then, ma’am, but we can’t help you. Any other messages will have to go by the normal route.”
“What is the normal route?” Cluney demanded.
“Fax, regular mail, or by phone once the ship reaches port.”
Fax! Why hadn’t Cluney thought of that herself? She thanked the man, then quickly hung up. There was a fax machine at the college she could use. All she needed was the s
hip’s number. She hurriedly dialed the Virginia base again.
She received an answer quickly. “I’m sorry, ma’am. We are not allowed to give out that information.”
Discouraged beyond all hope, Cluney hung up the receiver. For a long time, she just sat there staring at the phone. She’d never liked telephones much. Right now, she hated the useless instrument.
She would try again later. Maybe she’d even phone Jeff’s mother. If Mrs. Layton called, surely the Navy would be more helpful.
She picked up her towel and headed for the bathroom, weary, discouraged, and frustrated to the marrow of her bones.
“Maybe a hot shower will soak the ache out of my heart.”
Cluney had shampoo foaming all over her when she heard the phone ring.
“Oh, drat!”
Blindly, she reached out of the shower for a towel, but soap got in her eyes, stinging, and blinding her. Before she could get one foot out of the stall, the ringing stopped.
“It was probably B.J.” She went back to her leisurely lathering.
But the more she thought about it, the more she knew it wasn’t B.J. Her friend had her own important agenda for the day. She and Free had much to catch up on. And Free had a lot of adjusting to do, fast. No, the caller had to be someone else. But who?
The answer came to her with such a rush of love and longing that she knew she had to be right.
“Jeff!” she cried. “Oh, my God, it must have been Jeff!”
He had promised he’d call the minute the ship reached its first port.
Cluney hurriedly rinsed her hair, then toweled herself partially dry. She could live with being damp as long as she was sitting by the phone, waiting for Jeff to call back. And he would call again—she just knew it!
And maybe, when she heard his voice, she would finally be able to believe that he was really alive—that he would, in spite of everything that had happened, be here to marry her on the last day of June.
Chapter Seventeen
Cluney sat staring at the silent phone until her eyes grew heavy. Forty-five minutes crawled by and then an hour. Finally, she gave up her battle against fatigue and stretched out on the bed. Instantly, she fell asleep.
Once her eyes closed, a collage of assorted dreams filled her head. She was a tightrope walker, precariously balanced on a slender beam of silvery rainbow. At one end stood a tall, solemn-faced soldier, begging her to come to him. At the opposite side of the moonbow, a handsome, laughing aviator winked at her and beckoned. As she turned this way, then that, trying to make up her mind which call to answer, a pair of pesky raccoons climbed onto her thin blade of light and commenced chasing each other, threatening to throw her off, into the deep, black gorge far below.
Suddenly, the two masked creatures ran into Cluney. Her feet flew out from under her. Down and down and down she tumbled. People and things shot past her as she fell through the dark spiral of her dream. She saw her mother and father, the brother she had never known. Mary Renfro was there, along with Wooter, Miss Redbird, B.J., Free, and Jordan Breckinridge. Cluney paused in midair to wonder what ever happened to him.
“No matter,” she said in her dream. “He’s gone now, just like all the others. All but Jeff.” Then she went right on falling, calling Jeff’s name until the sound spiraled up behind her like the funnel cloud of a tornado, sending out echoes in all directions.
Cluney watched a smile light her own face. “He should certainly hear that,” she said, watching the cartoonlike corkscrew of echoes that her dreaming mind fashioned.
She came out of the nightmare still calling his name.
“Jeff … Jeff … where are you, Jeff?”
Nearly two hours had passed and again the phone was ringing. Cluney reached for the receiver and managed to drag the whole thing off the table. It clattered to the floor beside the bed with a complaint of rattles, rings, and dings.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly.
“Cluney?”
Her mouth moved, but as hard as she tried to force them, words refused to come. Was she still dreaming? Most likely. Otherwise, how could she be hearing his voice?
Her glance caught the calendar on the wall over her desk. “February 26,” it read. She hadn’t yet turned it to bring it up to date since she got home. Today was the twenty-seventh and she knew it. She also knew that this flashback in time was how she was able to hear Jeff Layton’s voice at the other end of the phone after she had already endured the pain of his death.
“Darling, is that really you?” she finally managed.
“Oh, Cluney, it’s so great to hear your voice! I called earlier, but there was no answer.” His statement neither accused nor questioned. He was simply giving her information.
“I heard the phone, Jeff. I was in the shower with soap in my eyes, so I couldn’t hurry to answer it. I was so mad—before I could get to the bedroom, it stopped ring-ing.”
She heard Jeff’s deep laugh at the other end. “Oh, Cluney, you’re a riot! Why don’t you get an answering machine, darling? Then when you get calls, but have soap in your eyes, the machine can take the message and you can call back later.”
“No, Jeff! You know how I hate all those modern contraptions. I despise talking to answering machines, and I will not subject my friends to a machine version of myself. If I’m not at home to answer my phone in person, I don’t want it answered—period.”
Suddenly, Cluney realized that Jeff was calling from somewhere in the Med and that his call must be costing him an arm and a leg while she chatted away about trivial nothings. After his death, she had thought of so many things she’d wished she could tell him. Now here she sat, arguing about a stupid answering machine. The two of them had far more serious topics to discuss—like the fact that he was alive.
“Jeff,” Cluney said, her tone urgent now, “I have to tell you something—something really important! Listen to me, and please don’t argue. It’s imperative that you not fly anymore and that you get off that ship as soon as possible. Your life is in danger!”
He chuckled at the other end of the line. She could tell he wasn’t taking her seriously. “And just how am I supposed to do that, sweetheart?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you could get your mother to write your commanding officer a note, saying she wants you excused from flying for the rest of the cruise because it’s too dangerous.”
Now, he roared with laughter. “The Navy isn’t run quite like a prep school, Cluney. I’m afraid an excuse from Mom wouldn’t carry much weight. But maybe someone in Washington could write me a note.”
“I don’t care who writes it, Jeff, as long as you stay out of the air. Promise me you won’t fly!”
“Hey, Cluney, if you’ll stop talking for a minute so I can get a word in edgewise, I have a surprise for you.”
“What?” she asked. “Tell me, Jeff.”
“First, how about you telling me whether or not you still love me?”
“Of course I do! More than ever. I never knew how much!”
“That’s more like it. Then we’re still getting married?”
“I’m certainly planning on it. I’ve even been looking at wedding gowns.”
She was telling the truth. She had been, before Jeff’s fatal accident. She glanced down at her bare left hand. She’d taken off her engagement ring before she went across the moonbow. Now she reached into her jewelry box for the diamond solitaire and slipped it back on her finger. She held it to the light and smiled when it flashed a rainbow around the room.
“A wedding gown, eh?” Jeff continued. “I hope it’s something real old-fashioned, honey. Something with lots of lace and seed pearls and little satin roses. Victorian! Yeah, that’s what I like.”
“Why, Jeff!” Cluney exclaimed. “I guess I don’t know you as well as I thought. I figured you’d prefer something simple, modern, and classic.”
“Nope! I’m an old-world guy, through and through, darling. Besides, I ha
ve a reason for wanting an old-fashioned bride.”
“Tell me!” Cluney begged.
He chuckled mysteriously. “I can’t right now. It’s a surprise, sweetheart. You’ll find out soon enough. Right now, we need to talk about a wedding date. Cluney, what are you doing on May eighteenth?”
Instantly, Cluney’s mind grasped the ominous significance of that date, but she hesitated to say to Jeff, “That’s the day I’m supposed to leave for California to share my grief over your death with your mother. But I won’t make it. You see, I’ll get detoured over the moonbow, back to the time of the Civil War and into the arms of another man.”
No, she couldn’t tell her fiancé that. Instead, she said simply, “I’ve no plans that I can think of.”
“Great! Marry me, then.”
“That soon? But your ship won’t be back by then, will it?” Suddenly, she gave an excited cry. “Oh, Jeff! That’s the surprise, isn’t it? You and your squadron are flying home early.”
“You might say that,” Jeff answered cryptically. “You’re sure you don’t mind changing the date, sweetheart? I don’t want to rush you into this.”
Cluney was grinning from ear to ear as happy tears squeezed out at the corners of her eyes. How could Jeff possibly think that she would have the slightest objection?
“Of course, I don’t mind, darling! The sooner the better! It won’t take much planning. A small ceremony in the college chapel with a reception in the social hall afterward—that’s what we’d talked about before you left.”
“That’s what we talked about. But I’m afraid you’ll have to forget those simple pleasures, darling.” Jeff sounded hesitant, his tone guarded. “You see, Mom’s flying in from the coast in a few days. Actually, she’s the one with the surprise in store for both of us. And you can bet it has to do with our wedding.”
Once Upon Forever Page 25