She'll Never Know

by Hunter Morgan

  * * *

  Two nights later, Jillian sat on the steps of the cottage front porch. It was already dark out, but still warm and humid. It had been a hot day. She'd had it off, so she had spent the morning on the beach near Ty's lifeguard stand, reading a new book she'd picked up at a used place off the boardwalk. When she got too hot, she'd taken a dip in the water. To her surprise, she discovered she was a strong swimmer and knew several strokes. Ty had told her it didn't surprise him. Kung Fu chicks always knew how to swim, he said. It was the only way they got the parts in the movies.

  Jillian heard the now-familiar sound of the Chief motorcycle approach, and a minute later Ty sauntered up the wooden sidewalk, barefoot, still wearing sunglasses despite the fact that it was after eight and there was no sun.

  "You shouldn't go barefoot on that bike. You're going to get hurt," she said.

  "Yes, Mother." He walked up the steps, planted a kiss on her lips, and continued into the house. "Got a beer?"

  "You left most of a case last night."

  He came back out carrying three bottles. He twisted the top off one and handed it to her. Settling on the step beside her, he twisted off another bottle top and took a drink.

  She eyed the extra beer on the step between his bare, sandy feet.

  "Spare." He winked and took another swig from the bottle in his hand.

  She sipped the beer and deliberated on how good it was. Cold. Sharp. Ty had good taste in beer. He said that was why he never had any money. She turned to him. "You know, considering the circumstances, that's not funny."

  He propped his elbows on the porch landing and leaned back, his hip pressed against hers. "What?"

  "Calling me your mother."

  "So don't act like it." Despite his words, he didn't sound the least bit upset. "You ready to go?" He jumped up and offered his hand to pull her to her feet.

  "Let me lock up." She reached through the doorway, flipped off the kitchen light, and then turned the lock on the doorknob and pulled the door shut. The screen door slammed behind her as she ran down the steps.

  Ty tucked his spare beer in his shorts pocket and took her hand in his. They walked over the dune and down to the waterline, heading north up the beach.

  "You sure this is okay, bringing me?" Jillian asked, swinging his hand as they walked.

  "It's cool. I'm telling you, no one cares about how old people are except old people." He cut his eyes at her and she laughed.

  "Your mom still upset that you didn't come home the other night?"

  "I moved out of the house four years ago. She knows she's not my keeper."

  She studied the imprints her feet were making in the wet sand as she walked, and took a drink from her beer bottle. "She's your mother. It's her job to worry about you."

  He gave her a look that was all too easy to read.

  "I can't say that either?"

  He shook his head.

  "Makes me sound old?"

  He lifted the green bottle to his lips. "Yup."

  "For a guy with no rules, you have quite a few."

  He laughed and shrugged. "Seriously. Don't worry about Alice. She's doing that menopause thing. Dad says we're just to ignore her any time she goes off the deep end. He always reels her back in." He pointed with his beer. "Up there. See the fire?"

  One of Ty's friends had gotten a permit to build a bonfire on the beach in front of the house that he and twenty or so of his best friends had rented for the summer. At first, Jillian had been uncomfortable with the idea of meeting Ty's friends. She knew she wouldn't fit in. But now that she was sleeping with the guy, she decided so what if she didn't fit in? They probably wouldn't fit in with her friends, either. If she knew who they were...

  "Jason," Ty called as they cut across the beach toward the dune.

  "Hey, man." Jason looked like a duplicate of Ty except his hair was darker and he wasn't nearly as good-looking.

  The two shook hands, fingers clasped, thumbs up the way only those born after 1980 did.

  'Jason." Ty pointed to his buddy in introduction. 'Jilly." He hooked his thumb in her direction.

  Jason tipped an imaginary hat. "Hey."

  She nodded. "Hey."

  "So come on up." Jason motioned, walking up the beach toward the bonfire. "We've got clams we baked in the sand. Joey swears they won't poison us. Drinks in coolers. Just be cool about the beer. We're not really supposed to have it on the beach, so use a cup and get rid of those. "Jason pointed toward the beer bottles Ty and Jillian were holding. "McCormick catches me with beer on the beach again, and he swears I'll spend the night in the clink."

  Jason wandered away, and Ty turned to her. "You want to try some clams?"

  "Sure."

  For the next two hours, Ty and Jillian wandered around the bonfire, talked, laughed, and listened to the music blaring from the front porch of the old house Jason and his friends were staying in. She recognized some of the music—Marley, the Rolling Stones—and some she didn't. She had three or four beers which, she decided when she sat down in the sand in front of the fire, was at least one too many.

  Sitting alone while Ty left her to wander off into the dune grass to pee, a guy about his age plopped down beside her.

  "Someone said you don't know you are," he said, taking a sip from the red plastic cup in his hand. He'd been smoking marijuana, or weed, as Ty called it. She could smell the sweet scent.

  She laughed. "That's pretty accurate."

  "Cool." He nodded thoughtfully. "So you could be like the president, or that crazy Arab king everyone keeps trying to assassinate?"

  She laughed again. "I don't think either of them is missing."

  He nodded again. "But if they were."

  She motioned with one hand with amusement "Could very well be me."

  Again, the nod. "So, you still here with Ty?"

  She glanced at the young man, even more amused now. "Yeah. He'll be back in a second."

  "Okay. Hey, that's cool." He sipped from his cup. "Just asking."

  "Hey." Ty walked up behind her.

  There was just enough light from the bonfire for her to notice how sexy he was when he was covered in sand, had had way too many beers, and needed to brush his hair. "Hey." Jillian leaned back against his hairy shins and looked up at him. "This guy here is asking me if I'm still with you. Am I?" she teased.

  Ty glared at the young man seated beside her in the sand. "You hitting on my girl, Jones?"

  "No, man." He looked at Jillian, then up at Ty. "Just making conversation, that's all."

  Several guys with their girls across the bonfire must have overheard the conversation. Most of them were snickering. Someone was laughing pretty loud.

  "Get lost, Jones," Ty ordered.

  "Hey, it's cool. It's cool." But as Jones spoke of how cool the situation was, he scrambled up and walked away. "Nice talking to you, Mr. President."

  Jillian laughed and Ty kneaded her shoulders and leaned over to kiss her. "What's so funny?" he asked against her lips.

  "Nothing."

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, swinging her into his arms. "I can't believe Jones was hitting on my girl. He's got nerve."

  He had called her his girl. That was a pretty big commitment for a guy his age. She wrapped her arms around his neck, flattered, and leaned against him. She knew she was going to have a headache in the morning. She'd be sure to take some ibuprofen before she went to bed and drink a couple of glasses of water to rehydrate.

  "So what you want to do now?" Ty nibbled on the corner of her mouth.

  "I don't know." She teased his lower lip with her tongue. "What do you want to do?"

  "I'm twenty-three and male, what do you think?"

  She tipped her head back and laughed. "I'm not doing that in the sand with your friends watching. Besides, you know what sand can do to a woman's plumbing?"

  Laughing, he took hand and led her into the dark, scooping up someone's beach towel. "So how about a little grope session, inste
ad?"

  On her feet and walking, she was pleasantly dizzy. Someone had brought an acoustic guitar down to the campfire, and he was playing a fair rendition of a song she thought was familiar. "That song..."

  "Jack Johnston. You know it?"

  "Vaguely," she mused.

  "And the doctors are sure you're over thirty?"

  Far enough away that she knew those gathered around the fire couldn't see her in the dark, she grabbed the towel from him and shook it out. They both dropped onto it, laughing, and he pushed her back into the sand and kissed her. He tasted delicious; beer and hope.

  Ty came up for air and kissed her again. He stroked her breast, and she wriggled under him. "I told you—"

  "I know," he whispered in her ear. "I just want to keep your motor running 'til we get back to your place."

  She laughed and lifted her head to meet his lips with hers. "Oh, my motor's already running. Have no fear of that."

  As Ty, lying on his side beside her, lowered his head over hers again, Jillian caught a glimpse of motion. Something... someone was in the dark. She turned her head, grabbing his shoulder. She was suddenly completely sober. "Ty," she whispered.

  "Yeah?" He tried to nuzzle her neck.

  She nearly felt incapacitated, she was suddenly so inexplicably afraid. "Ty, there's someone out there."

  "Just one of the boys takin' a piss."

  She squeezed both his forearms. "No, there in the dunes," she breathed. "Watching us."

  He picked up his head. "Where?"

  She started to turn her head and point when Ty leaped off the towel and took off running across the beach.

  "Ty!" Jillian called.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing, you perverted asshole?" Ty shouted into the darkness.

  Jillian sat up, then came to her feet. She didn't want to be alone. Didn't want Ty to leave her. "Ty, come back!"

  He disappeared over the far side of the dune. Several girls and guys from the bonfire came running toward Jillian. They must have heard her cry out.

  "You all right?" someone asked.

  The first face she recognized was the kid who had tried to hit on her. Jones. "There was someone watching us from the dunes," Jillian said. "Ty went after him."

  Jones ran his hand over her arm. "You okay?"

  She nodded.

  He picked up the towel, shook the sand from it, and handed it to her. Despite the condition he had appeared to be in only a short time ago, he, too, seemed to have sobered up. "Go on back to the bonfire with the others. Jason and I will check it out."

  Everyone was talking at once. As they walked back toward the bonfire, a girl the same age as the guys offered Jillian the joint she was smoking, but Jillian shook her head.

  This was not her imagination this time; someone had been watching her. Ty had seen him, too. He had to have. You couldn't chase someone's imagination.

  At the bonfire, Jillian sat down and pulled the towel around her shoulders. Someone brought her a bottle of water. The CD player on the porch came back on, but the music was quieter, mellower. It was a full ten minutes before Ty reappeared.

  Jillian got up, the towel still around her shoulders, and went to him. He put one arm around her. "You all right?"

  She nodded. "I just want to go home," she whispered.

  "Okay. That's cool. We'll go."

  "You didn't see who it was, did you?" She pressed her cheek to his chest.

  "No."

  "But there was someone there?"

  "Yeah. Someone who ran like hell. I lost him over a fence around a condo pool down a couple of blocks. We ran into McCormick on our way back." Ty was now speaking to the entire crowd. "Sorry, guys, but he'll probably be by. You better take the coolers up to the house."

  Someone muttered a half-hearted protest, but no one seemed particularly upset. A couple of guys grabbed each end of the coolers and headed up the path to the house.

  "We're going to take off," Ty called to Jason.

  "You want to borrow my car so you don't have to walk back?"

  "No, we're fine." Ty looked down to Jillian. "Unless you want to?"

  She shook her head, her voice barely a whisper. "Let's just go."

  They walked along the water back to the cottage in silence. On the porch, Ty found the key under the seashell and opened the door. He flipped on the kitchen light for her before stepping aside to let her in.

  "You want me to stay a while?"

  "Nah," she said, trying to be brave. In the light of the bright yellow kitchen, the darkness, the mysterious Peeping Tom, or whatever the hell he was, seemed far less dangerous. More a nuisance than a threat. "I'll be fine." She went to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water for each of them, turning her back to Ty. "Go home and appease your mother. She—"

  Jillian turned from the refrigerator, a cold bottle of water in each hand, and froze. The refrigerator door swung shut, smacking her on the hip. She stared at the kitchen table. "Someone's been in here," she whispered.

  Chapter 7

  Ty reached for one of the bottles of water in her hand, glancing around the kitchen. "What do you mean?"

  "Someone's been in here," she repeated, her gaze darting from one object in the kitchen to the next. Everything looked the same; the flowered china behind the glass panes, the kitchen towel hanging from the closed utensil drawer, the roll of paper towels hanging from below a cabinet, the peanut butter jar that now served as a vase, filled with flowers Ty had picked for her from his parents' yard. Even Ty's cell phone that she knew he had left in the kitchen looked right, and yet she knew something was different. "I'm not crazy. Someone's been in here since we left."

  "Nobody said you were crazy."

  Ty twisted the top off the water bottle, the sound deafening in Jillian's ears.

  "What makes you think someone's been in here?" He continued to glance around as he sipped the water. "Nothing looks messed up to me."

  "The list." She zeroed in on the table. "When you came in for the beer and to leave your phone, did you move it?"

  He glanced at her grocery list written on the back of a receipt from a previous trip to the store. It read, mustard, lemons, dish detergent. He shook his head, still sipping from the water bottle. "No."

  She stared at the simple objects, almost afraid to touch them. "The notepad was turned at an angle when I left it. The pen was beside the list, not above it."

  Ty made a face. "You're sure? How can you remember something like that?"

  Jillian, realizing she had been holding her breath, exhaled heavily. She was dizzy, but she didn't know if it was from all the beer, her fear, or lack of oxygen. She took a deep breath, exhaling again, forcing herself to be calm. There was something inside her, though just a glimmer, that told her she had to fight this time.

  This time? What did that mean?

  "I know because I always write at an angle," Jillian told Ty firmly. "I like objects at angles, not perpendicular."

  "Now you are beginning to sound a little crazy. How many beers did—"

  "Ty, listen to me," she snapped, dropping her bottle on the table. She grabbed her grocery list and shook it at him. "I'm telling you, someone was in here. He read, then straightened my list, and put the pen above it." She turned around toward the sink. "And that magazine, open to the recipe for crab cakes. I was going to try and make some. It's been straightened, too."

  He stared at the magazine. "You think it was my mom, come to tidy up the love nest?"

  "This isn't funny."

  His demeanor changed at once. "You're right. I'm sorry." He put down his bottle, coming to her to pull her into his arms. "Why don't you let me walk around the house, look under the beds, in the closets and shit. You wait here."

  She pressed her cheek to his chest. His T-shirt smelled of beer and the beach. "You can look, but he isn't here," she murmured. "I would know if he was here."

  He closed his arms tighter around her and smoothed her tangled hair. "Want me to call the police? I'm sure
McCormick could swing by."

  "And tell him what? Someone broke into my house, moved my grocery list, and then let himself back out again?" She squeezed her eyes shut. She was caught between the feeling she was unraveling and that fierce stubbornness that she hadn't seen in herself before tonight. "No, thank you. People around here are already offering me a spot in the freak show at the carnival. I don't think I want anyone thinking I'm crazier than they already think I am."

  He chuckled, but tenderly. "Ah, sweetie, nobody thinks you're crazy."

  She held on to him tightly, as if the sheer strength of his young body could shield her from the world beyond the cottage walls. "No? Your friend Jones asked me if I thought I was the president of the United States."

  "He was wasted."

  She looked at him, into his blue-green eyes. "I hate to ask, considering Alice's position on this, but do you think you could stay tonight? I feel like such a baby, but—"

  "Shhh," he hushed, hugging her against him. "Of course I'm going to stay. And if Alice doesn't like it, she's just going to have to have herself another hot flash."

  Jillian laughed, though she knew it wasn't funny. Ty really wasn't being very understanding of his mother's position. It was subjects like this that reminded her that she really was much older than him, more mature. He had the selfish rashness of a young man who had not yet had his fair share of lumps in life, or known real responsibility. It was a wedge she knew would eventually drive them apart, but she didn't want to think about it. Not right now.

  "I'll call home," he said. "At least she can't say she was up all night waiting to hear from the morgue. Why don't you get a shower?"

  She nodded and lifted her chin to let him kiss her. It was a warm, loving kiss, not of sexual desire, but a different kind of intimacy she desperately needed right now. He made her feel like he cared.

  Ty scooped up his cell phone from the counter. He punched the buttons as he went down the short hall in front of her, flipping light switches. "I'm still checking under the beds and in the closets," he told her. "Just to be sure." Then, "Mom?" he said into the phone. "What are you doing up so late?"

  Jillian heard Ty pause as she stepped into the bathroom.