“Oh, come on, Jill. Do you think that would have stopped you?”
She glared. “Yes, Dan. I do. She could have told me true love waits, and it was all right to respect myself and Morgan enough to say no.”
Dan looked away. “So what now? You have this respect?”
Jill’s heart stabbed. “Trust me, Dan. There’s too much pain between us for anything to happen.”
“I trust you. Not Morgan Spencer.”
“Well, it isn’t your problem.” She hauled the bag off the bed and set it on its wheels.
“Jill, I meant it when I asked you to marry me.”
“I know, Dan. But we have no philosophical basis for that kind of covenant.” She walked past him. “I hope we can be friends when I come back.”
“If you come back.”
She closed her eyes and dropped her chin. “I’ll be back, Dan. And I’ll probably need a friend.”
She pulled the suitcase down the hall, saw Morgan through the window leaning against his car, waiting. “I need to lock up.”
Dan passed her with a final exhaled breath that said he’d done his best. He went out, glared at Morgan, then got into his cruiser and drove around to pick up Brett for their shift.
Morgan took her bag. “Everything okay?”
She sighed. “He’s afraid I’ll seduce you.”
Morgan slanted her a glance. “I can take care of myself.”
“Whew.” She passed the back of her hand across her forehead and gave him a wan smile. “Then I guess it’s fine.”
He closed her luggage into the trunk and walked her around to the door. “Everything’s covered at work?”
“Oh, definitely. It was even done for me.” Where was that cynically flippant tone coming from?
“Jill?” Morgan must have caught the edge.
She shook her head. “I’m ready. I won’t be gone that long, and my life”—she looked up at the townhouse before settling into the seat— “will be here waiting.”
Morgan joined her in the Thunderbird. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER
19
Jill’s stomach knotted as Morgan turned the car out of her parking lot and started down the street. The sky was a muted blue, but the forecast had said rain, and already the milky moisture was thickening. They might not have the top down long. Her stomach knotted again. Stormy days were hard on her kids.
Today her students would get the news that she was gone for more than just yesterday. Rascal would try to adapt to Shelly’s place, and Dan would grumble all day to Brett. She’d become the storm cloud in all of their lives, but she pushed the thought away and focused on her purpose. She was going for Kelsey, to be part of the cure for her daughter. She had dragged Morgan back into it, and the least she could do was walk through it with him.
The smell of cut grass wafted as they passed the droning mower and approached the corner where a bony-kneed scamp waved a lemonade sign their way. “It’s cold! Only ten cents!”
Jill smiled at the girls behind him, sitting at the plastic table, primly holding the pitcher and the stack of flowered Dixie cups as their front man jumped out at the car.
Morgan swung to the side and stopped. Before Jill could react, he climbed out of the car and squatted in front of the sign waver. “So you’re in business for yourself now.”
“Ten cents.” He couldn’t be more than six or seven.
“Well, let me tell you something. Ten cents doesn’t cover your costs.” He tipped the sign to see the back side. “You make a new sign and ask a quarter for that size cup.” He reached into his pocket for his wallet. “We’ll take two.” He took out a dollar and glanced at the girls. “If any of you can tell me at twenty-five cents a glass how much my change would be, I’ll let you keep it.”
The girl in braids who was already pouring their cups full said, “Fifty cents.”
Morgan clicked his fingers. “You got it.” He took the lemonades, gave the kids a wink, and got back into the car. Jill took the cup he handed her.
“Do not spill a drop.” He gave her a sidelong glance with the admonition and drank his glass in one long draught.
Cold, sweet, tangy. Jill closed her eyes and drank. It was just what her stomach needed after the Frappuccino and no breakfast. The knots eased. Five hundred percent profit on their first sale. Morgan had just made their day. Three little kids he’d never seen before, yet he’d be the topic of discussion over their peanut butter sandwiches.
Morgan always left an impression. She remembered the day after their first dance, sitting on the porch with Mom while Dad was still at the church for a deacons’ meeting. She had hardly kept her eyes open through the service, and every time they closed she saw Morgan. She was dreaming of him the moment Mom’s soft voice said, “Morgan Spencer certainly thinks a lot of himself.”
Jill had startled. “What do you mean?”
Mom shrugged her eyebrows. “Just the way he carries himself as though he’s got the world all figured out already.” She couldn’t believe how much it hurt that Mom would say something critical of Morgan after only meeting him once. But that had been her impression, and she never wavered from it. Looking at Morgan now, it seemed she’d been right. He did have the whole world figured out, while she was still floundering.
He nested her cup in his and headed for the nearest trash can, the gas station at the strip mall. When he reached I-80 west, he set the cruise control. Jill glanced over as Morgan slid in the CD that was resting in the player, and the strains filled the car even with the roof off. What had he paid for such a stereo? And the music …
She turned. “What is this?”
“Beethoven’s Last Night.”
She raised her brows. “Not exactly the Beethoven I know.”
“Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The story’s in the case there. It’s a modern rock opera.”
She picked up the case and pulled out the pamphlet paged like a book. As the music surrounded and filled her, she read the story of Beethoven’s last night, how in the last hours of life he was given the chance to change anything he wanted. But with each change, he would lose the music composed out of the pain of that situation.
She read, entranced, as Beethoven chose again and again to retain the wounded reality of his life rather than lose the music it had drawn from him. And the voice of the woman he had deserted, believing she couldn’t love him deaf, sang out her longing and confusion. Tears stung, and Jill blinked them away, reading how Beethoven realized in his last moments on earth that she would have loved him, had indeed continued to love him always, and he glimpsed what might have been.
She closed her eyes and dropped her head back as the music continued, strains of Beethoven and Mozart woven together and played as neither of them could have imagined. It was hauntingly beautiful and drew from her soul a response too full for words. When it ended, she sat in the silence, the world speeding past. But for his pride and misunderstanding, Beethoven could have had that joy he’d glimpsed.
Morgan said nothing, but she sensed his soul beside hers. Tears filled her eyes and she turned away, staring at the fields filled with corn as they passed. Why was she doing this? What pain would she awaken?
The music had laid him open unexpectedly. He’d heard it enough to resist, but he hadn’t resisted. Hearing it with Jill had shaken him— not that he let it show. His hand on the wheel was relaxed and easy, the wind of their motion catching his hair back from his face.
She seemed devastated, though, and he recalled the impact his first hearing had on him. He left her to her silence. She’d be all right once she finished contending with all the might-have-beens. If she didn’t want their baby, she could have given her to him, to his family even. But that would have kept them connected. That was what she hadn’t wanted.
After a while he reached for the radio, but she said, “Don’t.”
He left it off. “Powerful, isn’t it?”
“Haunting.”
He glanced over. “Are you okay?�
�
She nodded.
“Hungry?”
“No.”
It was nearer lunch than breakfast, and the lemonade had tweaked his hunger. “I am.” He’d seen a sign for the upcoming exit and its fastfood offerings. Normally he eschewed those places, but on the road they sufficed. He took the drive-thru of the Hardee’s and ordered a burger. “Get something, Jill.”
She ordered a chicken sandwich and iced tea and managed to eat most of it as he drove on. She collected their trash and folded it all into the bag, having obviously caught his concern for the interior of his car. They drove in silence for a while; then she said, “Tell me about Noelle.”
“Where did that come from?”
She shrugged. “You two are close.”
He stared straight ahead. “I was in love with her.”
She caught the hair back from her eyes cased in sunglasses. “But she married Rick?”
“That’s the short of it.”
“Tell me the long.”
He rested his wrist on the wheel and described Noelle’s arriving at Rick’s ranch. He pictured her standing in the breeze like a Dresden figurine, more statuesque, more classically beautiful than Jill. “I was seriously smitten. Rick, of course, was not. He doesn’t date his guests.”
“Then how …”
“Don’t rush me.” He told her about the summer he’d spent wooing Noelle, the hikes, the dinners, the dancing. “She was really something.”
“Then why—”
“What I didn’t know was why she’d come. There was some reason she resisted my charm.” He threw her a careless glance. “But I couldn’t break through and learn what. I got a contract and left, never dreaming that while I was gone Rick would make his move.”
“Did he? I thought you said …”
“He didn’t date her, didn’t actively pursue her. But he did what I couldn’t. He learned she’d been molested as a child and run away from the other jerk who beat her up.” Morgan’s throat tightened. “When I joined them at my folks’ place for Christmas, the damage was done. She loved Rick.” He laughed low. “I knew it, but I made it as hard on her as I could.”
He let that sink in. Jill should know how he really was.
“She seemed anything but resentful.”
“Well, the story doesn’t end there.” He explained how the exfiancé had found Noelle before the wedding, traumatized her so badly she’d run back to New York and left Rick devastated. “I’d never seen him like that. He just stopped living. He made the motions, but even his faith was shot.”
“I can understand that,” she murmured.
Morgan switched wrists on the wheel. “So I found her in New York and reminded her how much she loved him.”
“Him? You convinced her she loved Rick when …”
“When I loved her, too?”
Jill nodded.
“Well, I’ve done smarter things.”
Jill sat silently, then said, “So Rick married her.”
Morgan nodded. “Yep.”
“Would you have?”
He rubbed his temple. “Probably.”
“She loves you.”
“I know. Just not the way I wanted.”
Jill watched Morgan drive, letting his words sink in. She’d seen the story in their interaction, known there was more between them than the friendship of in-laws. But to hear Morgan say he’d loved her, probably loved her still … It should not hurt.
After this week when the transplant was over, they’d go their separate ways. She had to be careful, so careful. But she couldn’t stop herself. “Have there been others?”
He glanced sideways. “Others?”
The point was to get the pain up front, to know what she faced. “Just wondering.”
“If I need a date, I get one.”
No doubt. But that wasn’t what she’d asked. She studied his profile, then looked away. So he had his walls, too.
He asked, “What’s it like, teaching special ed?”
A safer subject under normal circumstances. But with her status up in the air … She sighed. “Mostly heartbreaking. This past year I was responsible for twenty-one students. They vary in type and degree of disability. The hardest is a boy named Joey. He presents with autistic behaviors, and we went with that label because it’s the closest we could come in order to get him into the program. But unlike a true autistic diagnosis, his condition is more likely due to the fact that he was kept practically caged inside the house until he entered kindergarten. He came to us more like a jungle boy than anything we could categorize.”
“Aren’t there laws against that?”
“He wasn’t abused or neglected as far as physical needs. His parents didn’t know what to do with a child who didn’t respond. Or ignoring him and allowing him to run wild taught him not to respond. Neglect and autism present the same ways, so my first inclination is to assume a medical condition. In Joey’s case I’m just not sure.” Her heart squeezed to think how he might be reacting to her absence.
“So what do you do for him?” Morgan sounded sincerely interested.
“Well, there are several schools of thought and new research all the time. We try one thing and if it brings improvement we build on that. When we started working with him, he had almost no language, though he could fixate on a computer for hours on end. Since then he’s learned two-or three-word phrases to express most of his needs.”
Morgan shook his head, no doubt thinking that didn’t represent much progress.
“Those phrases are hard won for a child who’s overwhelmed all the time by auditory and sensory stimuli. I’ve used applied behavioral analysis to give him structured ways to interact, so that if someone says, ‘Hi, Joey, how are you?’—he can do more than holler, ‘No, no, no.’”
“Wow.” Morgan breathed. “And I thought Todd was challenged.”
“Next year I want to try auditory discrimination therapy. I’ve been reading about results through that program. It uses music to teach autistic and ADD kids to differentiate phrases and notes and ascribe levels of importance to the sounds in order to filter out some of the overload.”
This was probably way more than Morgan needed to hear, but he’d opened the box. “There are also dietary connections between wheat gluten and dairy protein. I recommended Joey’s mother learn what she could about that, but it was too much trouble for them to change their eating habits. I still think it could help. Joey is nine and only conditionally potty trained.”
“Conditionally?”
“Under conditions he approves, he has marginal success. But if a broken routine or something else upsets him … well, we’re not sure yet if it’s actually a way to strike back or just stress. But I think there’s also a digestive strain that could be lessened with a change in diet.”
Talking about Joey churned emotions she hadn’t faced yet. How could she not go back and work with him? He’d been part of her life the last four years. Lord, can that truly be your will? Nothing was settled. She’d been elbowed out for the summer, but that didn’t affect next school year. “He’s made so much progress. I pray for him every day.”
Morgan made no response to that.
“Then there’s Angelica.” She told him about the child’s determination to learn and willingness to try, even in areas she would never succeed in, short of miraculous intervention. “I’ll have to call them when I get back. I should have done it before we left.”
Morgan nodded toward his cell phone. “Use mine.”
“It would be long distance from here. I’d need to talk to all the families.”
He reached down and handed her the phone.
She held it a moment, unsure she could make those calls now, on the road, next to Morgan, even if he could afford it.
“Or you could e-mail them tonight from my laptop.”
Jill smiled. “That would be great.” She would let them know she was out on a family medical emergency, but they could still reach her by e-mail. She had always
given her kids that access as well as her phone number. She could also pick up her mail, Kelsey’s letters especially.
Morgan replaced the cell phone. “Sounds like more than a professional concern.”
She nodded. “I don’t separate professional and personal very well. With me these kids are very personal.”
He didn’t answer right away but finally said, “You must be good at what you do.”
Jill sighed. “My principal would never concede that point. He’s trying to make me quit.”
Morgan turned. “Why?”
She explained their various altercations, religious and otherwise. “He’s already hired my replacement, though he can’t actually fire me. Not even he can fabricate cause for that.”
Morgan took that in silently.
“I’m just not sure where to go with it. Does God want me out of there? Is it His hand behind it? Those kids are my life.” Her voice broke as the emotion sneaked up and caught her. She hadn’t meant to say so much, and probably shouldn’t have, judging by the clench of Morgan’s jaw. She turned away and battled down the loss. Could the Lord really take her work and her kids away? What did that leave?
They stopped for gas and used the rest rooms, which were surprisingly clean for a roadside gas station. They bought a small bag of apples, and Morgan got coffee.
The thought of so much caffeine made her head swim. But maybe he hadn’t slept well. She said, “Do you want me to drive?”
He cocked his head. “Well … no.”
“No one touches your mean machine?”
“Nothing personal.” He opened her door.
“Suit yourself. I have charge of the apples.”
His eyes dropped to the bag in her lap. “I have ways of getting what I want.”
Her breath caught sharply, and she pulled one from the bag and handed it over. He tossed it lightly, then took a bite and started around to his side.
Jill chose an apple of her own, a little mushy inside, but sweet and juicy. “Do you have any music that isn’t heart-wrenching?”
He opened his CD case. “Take your pick.” Then he swung the car out and around, and they resumed their journey.
The Still of Night Page 24