Spring Rain

by Gayle Roper

  LEIGH STARED AT her unlatched door while her heart beat double time. It was such a slight crack, a small breach, yet it signified great potential trouble.

  “Billy, did you go inside and forget to close the door when you came back out?” she asked, the tension with Clay all but forgotten.

  He was quick to shake his head. “No, Mom. I haven’t been home since before dinner.”

  Leigh’s hand hovered over the knob.

  Clay grabbed her wrist, startling her. “Don’t touch it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said, pulling her hand free and tucking it behind her back. “I know. I wasn’t going to. Really.”

  He raised that eyebrow. “Then what were you doing? Voodooing the opening away?”

  She slanted him a look. “Funny.”

  His quick grin slid into a frown as he studied the door. He reached out with his elbow and pushed against the door.

  “What are you doing?” Leigh demanded, grabbing his arm.

  He looked at her like that was the dumbest question he’d ever heard. “I’m going to check to see what’s wrong.”

  “You’re just going to waltz in there?”

  He nodded.

  “What if someone’s up there?”

  He shrugged. “I know how to take care of myself.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Billy said, rushing eagerly forward.

  “Not on your life!” Leigh released Clay and grabbed Billy as he tried to push past her.

  “You are not going in there, champ,” Clay said sternly.

  “Why not? It’s my house. And I can take care of myself too.”

  Leigh made a disgusted noise. “I’m gagging on machismo here.” She moved in front of her door. “No one’s going inside but the police.”

  Clay rolled his eyes.

  “I mean it.” She glared at Clay for an instant, then lowered her sights to Billy. “Everyone to the main house. We’ll call the police from there.”

  For a minute she thought Clay might move her bodily out of his way and charge in regardless. She looked at him, then at Billy, pleading that he understand her fear for her son.

  Apparently he got her message because with an exasperated sigh, he turned and began walking. “Come on, Billy. We’ll make your mother happy and call the cops.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Leigh hurried across the lawn to the comforting light of Julia’s kitchen. She didn’t realize she had Billy by the hand until he pulled free.

  “I can walk from here to there by myself, Mom.” He cast an embarrassed look at Clay.

  “Sorry,” she muttered as she slid through the door that Clay held open. She grabbed the wall phone and dialed 911. She answered all the dispatcher’s questions but declined to remain on the line. She didn’t need electronic hand-holding.

  Julia had apparently gone up to bed, and they didn’t call her or Ted. It made no sense to upset either of them and give them another reason to have trouble sleeping, especially since they didn’t know yet how serious the problem was.

  The three of them waited on the back steps of the main house, Billy seated in the middle. In a town the size of Seaside, a response to an emergency was never long in coming—unless you were unfortunate enough to need the one off-season night patrol after someone else beat you to it. But tonight they apparently had first dibs.

  The police car, metallic blue with a huge, swirling cream logo with red and black letters reading Seaside Police and Dial 911 pulled quietly up the drive and parked in the turnaround.

  Billy watched their arrival in disgust. “My one chance to have the cops rescue me with sirens and flashing lights and excitement, and look what happens. They tiptoe! You drive wilder than they do, Mom.”

  She bit back a smile. “This isn’t TV land, you know. It’s Seaside.”

  He snorted.

  When Greg Barnes climbed out of the driver’s side, Leigh breathed more easily. Given her family’s long and complicated acquaintance with the local cops, she never knew what any meeting with them might bring. A couple of the older officers who had dealt for years with her father tended to treat her as his extension, something she understood but chafed at. Like father, like son—or daughter—might work many times, but she was a distinct exception, thank God. Greg Barnes knew that and treated her as a person in her own right, not Johnny Spenser’s daughter.

  “Hey, Leigh,” Greg said. “You have a break-in?”

  Leigh stood, dusting off the seat of her jeans. “It looks that way. The door I left locked is slightly opened.”

  “Back at your place and not at Julia’s, huh?”

  Leigh nodded. “Weird, isn’t it?”

  Greg scratched his head. “They must be after all that high tech stuff you’ve got up there. Or maybe it’s all the family heirlooms you’ve got stashed under the floorboards. Every smart thief knows seemingly innocent garage apartments are really storehouses for vast wealth.” He grinned at her, inviting her to enjoy his little joke.

  Leigh accommodated him with a grin, and Billy actually laughed.

  Greg Barnes was a nice guy and always had been. She’d met him the first day of kindergarten as she stood in the hall outside Miss Grover’s room, trembling with fear. All the other girls looked so pretty in their pink and purple outfits, and they seemed to know what they were doing as they walked in giggling clumps into the room. They carried colorful book bags that were clean and new and had Mickey Mouse and Barbie on them. All she had was a little case of pencils and a pretty pink eraser. Somehow she knew that wasn’t enough. And the jeans that didn’t quite reach her ankles and had big scuffs for knees weren’t right either.

  She had thought school would be so much fun. She would learn to read and write, not just make squiggly lines that her mother made believe told stories, but write real words that she could read too. But everybody was busy, too busy to help a scared, skinny little girl who tried to disappear into the lime green wall.

  Then Greg, a big third grader, had walked up, shirt pulled halfway out of his jeans and hair hanging in his eyes. He looked at her and frowned. She felt her stomach turn over and pressed even harder into the wall.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he told her, smiling. “Miss Grover’s real nice, and she likes cute little girls like you.”

  She stared in amazement at the big boy. He called her a cute little girl. Her daddy always told her she looked like the missing link. She didn’t know what the missing link was, but she knew from the way he said it that it wasn’t good.

  “I’m Greg,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  She wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t open her mouth. She was afraid she’d throw up.

  “Cat got your tongue?” He grinned. “That’s okay, cutie. You can tell me later.” He took her hand and led her into the room. “I’ll take care of you.”

  To the best of her knowledge he’d been taking care of people ever since.

  He looked up at the windows of Leigh’s apartment, all dark except one.

  She followed his sight line. “We always leave that one on. Living room.”

  He nodded, adjusting his gun on his hip.

  “No one’s come out since we saw the open door.” Clay stood behind Leigh.

  Greg nodded, then seemed to register Clay for the first time. “Clay.” He put out a hand. “I’m glad you’re here. Your mom sure needs you right now.”

  Clay reached around Leigh and shook hands with the man he hadn’t seen for years. “Filled out a little, haven’t you?” he asked with a smile.

  Greg, who was four inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than he’d been at his high school graduation, just grinned. Greg nodded toward his young partner. “Pete and I are going to check things out. Go inside Julia’s until one of us calls an all clear.”

  Nodding, Leigh grabbed her son’s collar and pushed him inside ahead of her. She knew he’d follow the cops if he could. Clay closed the door behind the three of them.

  “Get away from that window, Billy,” Leigh ordered as he r
an to the windows over the sink. He turned and gave her a disgusted look. “I mean it. What if there’s shooting?”

  “And what if I miss it?” he countered, but he moved from the window.

  They sat at the kitchen table, listening intently, but they heard nothing. In a couple of minutes, Pete stuck his head in the door.

  “It’s safe,” he announced. “Nobody’s there.”

  “Thank goodness.” Leigh slouched in relief.

  Pete’s young face puckered. “Don’t get too relaxed too fast.”

  “What?” she demanded, straightening.

  “There was definitely someone up there, and he wasn’t very respectful.”

  Leigh shut her eyes. She was afraid she knew exactly what Pete meant.

  “How bad is the damage?” Clay asked, obviously thinking the same thing she was.

  Pete shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

  Now there’s a statement that offers me great comfort.

  “We need you to come check for missing stuff.”

  They were moving toward the door when Clay laid a hand on Billy’s shoulder, drawing him to a halt.

  “Just how serious is this?” Clay asked Pete again.

  Leigh realized what he was really asking was whether Billy should be allowed to go with them. She didn’t know whether to cry or get very angry at this show of concern almost eleven years too late.

  “I’m not staying here,” Billy said with more than a touch of defiance. “It’s my house.”

  “You’re staying here if your mom says you are.” Clay’s voice was crisp and commanding, his military background very clear. Even Pete looked impressed.

  “How bad is it?” Leigh asked.

  Pete waved a hand dismissively. “Messy but not violent. I think it’s okay.”

  Billy started for the door, but Clay held on. “Leigh?”

  She looked through the window toward the apartment. “It’s okay, I think.”

  Clay nodded and released his grip on Billy’s shoulder. The boy bolted for the door, before his mom changed her mind, and glued himself to Pete’s side.

  “Thank you,” Leigh said as she walked across the lawn beside Clay.

  He grinned at her. “Your kid, your call.” He stepped back to let her precede him up the stairs.

  As she climbed, she pondered how his one act of consideration and respect had undercut her previous anger. She was still very confused about how she should feel toward him, but she no longer wanted to punch him. If only she weren’t so afraid of the consequences of having him around.

  She bumped into Billy who had stopped abruptly at the top of the stairs. As she looked over his shoulder, she understood why and groaned along with him.

  The living room was a shambles. Books littered the floor while empty bookshelves gaped. Sofa cushions were thrown about the room, and two philodendrons lay on the floor on their sides, soil leaking like blood. The desk had been emptied onto the sofa, and her school papers tumbled from the canvas carryall onto the floor.

  Her eyes sought the one good thing she had, a Royal Doulton figurine that had been her mother’s. Two Regency era ladies sat on a sofa gossiping, their delicate features serene and lovely. Where her mother had gotten the beautiful piece, Leigh had never known. She just knew her mother cherished it, and for that reason so did she. If it had been harmed …

  But there it was, sitting on the floor beside the end table with the drawer in it. Or usually in it. The drawer itself had been pulled out, and its contents, an assortment of pens, pencils, rubber bands, a deck of cards, scraps of paper, directions for games and warranties for appliances, littered the carpet. But the china ladies in their crimson and teal dresses were fine.

  Her relief brought tears to her eyes. She blinked furiously, for some reason unwilling to let all the men see how emotionally vulnerable she was feeling. It was unbelievable that someone could invade her home and in that one uncaring act rip her small secure world to shreds, or rip what was left of it after Clay’s invasion.

  But why her apartment? Anyone with any sense knew there was nothing worth stealing here. People with things worth taking didn’t live over garages. They lived in big houses with electronic security systems and very large dogs.

  God, what’s going on here?

  Of course there was no answer. She reached for the Royal Doulton ladies and saw that her hands shook. She set the ladies back on the end table and stuck her hands in her pockets.

  Her bedroom and Billy’s had suffered the same casual contempt as the living room with no real damage but lots of disturbance. In the bathroom the commode was full of toilet paper, and the sink was a masterpiece of modern art worked in toothpaste. She felt exposed as she thought about someone rummaging through her medicine cabinet and, even worse, pawing through her underwear. Some things were just too private for anyone to see!

  The kitchen fared the worst. Syrup, peanut butter, and flour had been smeared together and used to coat the counter and the table. Most terrible of all, the sink had been stoppered, and the water left on to overflow. The floor was a shallow lake, the water contained by the metal strip that separated the vinyl kitchen floor from the hardwood of the living room. The little throw rug that sat before the sink floated like a low pile life raft.

  “The water was on in the bathtub too,” Greg said as they stood in the doorway surveying the kitchen flood, “but it hadn’t gotten to the point of overflowing.” He looked at the amount of water in the kitchen, then at Leigh. “He left fairly recently.”

  She shivered. What if she and Billy had come home while he was still here? She felt Clay’s hand rest on her shoulder, doubtless offering sympathy or support. She shivered again.

  “Don’t let it bother you, Leigh. I’ll mop up here,” Clay said. “You go with Greg.”

  She nodded and moved from under his hand into the living room.

  “Paperwork,” Greg said. “Pete, get the information we need, please.”

  Pete sat in her rocking chair and set his clipboard on his knee. His pen was poised over a form.

  “Your name?”

  “Leigh Wilson Spenser.” Her answer was absently given as she righted a philodendron. She tried to pick up the scattered dirt with her fingers, but it was useless. She needed the vacuum.

  “S-p-e-n-c-e-r?”

  “No, it’s L-e-i-g-h S-p-e-n-s-e-r.”

  “S-p-e-n-s-e-r?” Pete looked at her with sudden interest. “As in Johnny?” It was obvious that he had just made the connection.

  “As in Leigh,” she said coldly.

  “Right, but are you the daughter of Joh—”

  Greg cut him off. “Did you know that Leigh was my daughter’s teacher last year, Pete?” He smiled sweetly at Leigh. “She was Jenn’s favorite teacher by far.”

  Leigh nodded her thanks for his turning the topic.

  “Jenn’s in my class,” said Billy, who appeared from the bathroom with a wad of paper toweling full of mopped-up toothpaste. “For a girl she’s pretty cool.”

  Leigh looked at him closely. Had he heard that reference to his grandfather? She wouldn’t be surprised if he had and was helping Greg derail Pete’s unpleasant, unprofessional prying.

  “Jenn’s okay for a girl, huh?” said Greg. “You have a quarrel with girls?”

  Billy thought for a moment. “Not a quarrel. I just don’t know what they’re here for.”

  Greg shrugged. “They grow up to make good moms.”

  Billy glanced at Leigh as she tugged the vacuum out of the closet. “That’s true.”

  “And they’ve got to be in fifth grade on the way to growing up, don’t they?”

  Leigh watched Billy frown over that thought as she flicked the vacuum on, effectively ending any conversation, good or bad. She swept long after the rug was clean, ignoring Pete and his partially filled-out form. Finally, Greg tapped her on the shoulder.

  She flicked off the sweeper and looked at him.

  “Just answer the questions, Leigh.” Greg gave his young
partner the evil eye. “He won’t ask anything improper.”

  Pete made no more comments about Johnny, but he followed her movements with an avid and discomfiting curiosity. What did he think? That she was a criminal just like her father? That she’d done this to her own home, maybe for the insurance? Or that she just wanted the attention?

  She’d known when she let Will and Julia talk her into coming back to Seaside that people here would always connect her with Johnny. History died hard in small towns. She’d considered the stigma of being recognized as Johnny’s daughter a small price to pay for the benefits of being loved by Will, Julia, and Ted and being treated as part of their family, however fragile the connection.

  Over time, though, most people learned to separate her from her father. She was Leigh Spenser: teacher, friend, fellow congregant, and Billy’s mother. But new people were invariably intrigued or titillated. She doubted that would ever change or that she’d ever get used to it.

  When Greg finally left, dragging his partner behind him, Leigh heaved a sigh of relief. She stood at the top of the stairs until the door below shut firmly behind them. Then she sagged against the wall and rubbed the spot above her eye where a headache hammered. All she wanted was to fall in bed and sleep forever or until the problems went away. She sighed. With her luck, forever would probably come first.

  Maybe if she went to the kitchen and helped Clay finish mopping up the water, she’d forget her headache. Or at least the pain wouldn’t swamp her. It felt too much to ask that it go away, especially since the main cause was the man in the kitchen as opposed to the one who had broken in.

  There might not be much she could do about Clay, but she could at least help him. It was, after all, her kitchen he was mopping up, and the faster it got mopped, the faster he’d leave. She turned, and for the second time that evening she bumped into the solid wall of his chest.

  The dam broke.

  It wasn’t that she hurt herself crashing into him. It was just that the collision was the culmination of one of the worst days of her life. She sobbed and sobbed, first into her hands, then into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. She was humiliated and comforted at the same time.

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on people!” she managed when she was finally able to draw a shaky breath. “It’s not nice.”