by Ryann Jansen
Anna scrambled around, putting candles on every empty bit of counter space. I looked through the doorway to the living room. They were set around in there, too. Lighters lined the island in the center of the kitchen.
“Anna?”
She looked up. Her usually perfect blonde hair stuck to the side of her head, her eyes make-up less and wide.
“We have to get these all out before we lose power. Come and help me.”
“How do you know the power will go out?” She was adorable. It was tough suppressing the giggle threatening to escape.
“Oh, she always freaks out when it storms. You’ll get used to it.”
A lazy grin stretched across Caleb’s face as he leaned against the banister and yawned, clad only in a pair of gray sweats. His muscular chest was tan and smooth. Automatically, my mouth went dry and my toes curled. I didn’t feel like I was breathing, which was silly. I had to be breathing. But all I could think about was how perfect it had felt with those strong arms around me, with his face so close to mine…
“Caleb, will you hush. I do not freak out.” Anna stuck a hand on her hip. When she actually looked at Caleb for the first time she frowned. “Son. Go and put some clothes on, won’t you?” Her eyes rolled toward the top of the stairs.
He raised his eyebrows. “I have clothes on.”
“Well go put more on.”
They held one another’s eyes for a second. Caleb wrinkled his forehead while his mother shifted her eyes to me and back to him.
Anna won. Caleb turned and walked up the stairs, grumbling. “Geez, I don’t know what the big deal is.” If his mother heard him, she didn’t let it show.
“Audrey, there are flash lights in the desk. Will you bring them in here? Now, where did I put the extra batteries?”
I did as she said while Anna mumbled to herself, flying around the kitchen in her gray bathrobe. She finally found some batteries and put them on the table with the rest of her supplies. Caleb came back downstairs and sat at the table, his hands cradling his perfect blonde head.
“You know, a person can’t sleep with you two making all this racket. It would have been nice to get a couple more hours in before I had to get up for school.”
“I don’t think you’re going to school today, honey.” Anna told him.
“Why?”
Just as the word left his mouth the lights blinked, and then the kitchen was encased in darkness.
“I told you the power would go out.” A lighter flicked and Anna’s face was illuminated in the flame of the candle. She walked around the kitchen, the flames glowing in each jar once she passed them.
Panic stunted me. I had to go to school. How else would I see Sierra and Sadie? I needed to see them. Sadie needed to be watched like a hawk now that she was hanging out with little miss trouble. She might be completely ignoring me, but at least at school I could make sure she was okay. Being away for two days during the weekend drove me crazy enough.
Anna pressed a button on the small radio sitting at the table and the room filled with the voice of a local DJ. Thorne County was under tornado warnings, and several roads were already flooded. There were no injuries to report. All local schools would be closed for the day.
Irritation struck at my skin. Just great. So now I didn’t get to see my sisters, didn’t get to try and talk some sense into Sadie, and I was going to be closed up in the house with Caleb all day. I didn’t know what was worse. Maybe I could avoid him somehow. The last thing I needed was to say something stupid and let him know that I was tongue tied around him.
Anna handed us each a flashlight. “Why don’t you two go on back to bed? Maybe when you wake up later it will be a little lighter in here, and we can play a game or something.”
We nodded in unison and went toward the stairs. Once I reached my room, my tired body fell onto the mattress. It wasn’t like I would be able to sleep. Or at least, I thought I wouldn’t. Soon I drifted off, thinking of catfish ponds and moonlight.
...
“You are such a cheater!” I jutted my finger across the Monopoly board at Caleb. He stared at me, an innocent look on his face.
“Who me? I don’t cheat.”
“You most certainly did. I counted my money before I went to the bathroom, and now I’m missing hundreds.” My attention turned to Anna. “Did you leave the board?”
She bit her lip, looking from her wide eyed son to me. “Uh, maybe for a second? I only went to get some more water out of the cooler.”
“See! I knew you stole my money!” No matter how determined I was to be angry, as I pointed at Caleb laughter bubbled up in my throat and jumped out. He opened his mouth again, probably to protest, but he couldn’t contain his laughter any longer, and he fell over, clutching his stomach. Pretty soon all three of us were cracking up.
He pulled four fake yellow one hundred dollar bills from under the game board, directly in front of my seat. “Oh look. You must have pushed them under the board when you got up. Oops.”
My eyes narrowed at him but I still giggled. “Yeah. Uh-huh.” I snatched my money up and put it with the rest of my pile. “Just because you’re losing doesn’t mean you have to ruin my game.” I stuck my tongue out at him, and he winked at me. Shivers ran up and down my spine. His eyes crinkled at the side as he grinned, just like Anna’s. But on Caleb it didn’t look just cute. It was swoon-worthy.
I shook my head. Stop, stop, stop! I knew I might be blushing, imagining him kissing me, holding me, but I couldn’t get the images to leave my head. I willed my eyes to focus on the play money.
“You two are too much.” Anna said, pushing up from her place on the floor. She wore a wide smile. I knew she was happy that Caleb and I had been hanging out with her all day. First there was the game of charades in the afternoon, then we’d roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire Caleb built in the chimney. Now a rousing game of good old Monopoly. It was one of the best days I’d ever had. It felt like…something a family would do, warm and cozy and loving. My insides were practically bursting with happiness. Guilt threatened to take it all away, as the thought of family brought Mama’s picture into my head, as well as Sadie’s and Sierra’s. I pushed them aside. I deserved to smile, needed it even. There was nothing I could do about any of that right now, so there was no sense in wallowing in misery. I could think about it later.
“Where are you going, Mom?” Caleb stretched on the floor in front of the fireplace. The flames behind him made shadows on his bare calves, mesmerizing me.
Anna glanced down at her watch. “It’s nearly midnight.” She gestured toward the windows, rain still running down in a tiny flood. The storm hadn’t stopped all day, and the power was still out. “I know you don’t have school tomorrow, either, but this old lady is tired. I’m headed to bed.”
“What about our game?” Caleb asked.
Anna shrugged. “Y’all finish it. Just split my money and properties or something. Night.”
We both said goodnight and she went toward her room. It completely sucked that school would be closed tomorrow, too. But the DJ had reported the school had some water damage, and even if the power came on tomorrow it would take a whole day to clean it up. Even though I’d been able to speak to Sierra on my cell phone a few hours earlier, it was tearing me up not to be able to see them. Not to mention not even knowing how Sadie was doing. My blood zapped just thinking about what Tori could be talking her into. I pushed it out of my mind. That was the only way to keep from falling into some kind of funk. I just couldn’t think about it. Again, it would have to be tomorrow’s problem. There wasn’t anything that could be done right now, anyway.
“Do you want to finish the game?” Caleb asked, snapping me out of my own head.
I lifted my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. Do you?”
“We’ve been playing for about two hours now. I think I might be Monopoly’d out.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
We worked together to put the game up and he walked it
over to the bookcase, then came and sat back down next to me in front of the fire. His eyes flashed toward the kitchen. There were no sounds coming from upstairs.
“Do you want to talk?” He asked. His eyes concentrated on the fire.
“Talk?”
“I heard you on the phone with your sister a while ago. You sounded upset that you wouldn’t be able to see them today.” He looked at me.
Part of me wanted to close off again, to withdraw into my own pain and shut him completely out. But that wouldn’t do any good. Last night had convinced me I needed a friend, and if Caleb wanted to be that friend I should let him. The problem would be keeping it strictly at a friendship, when just being around him made my pulse go haywire. He wouldn’t want me, though. A guy like him couldn’t possibly like me. So, just friendship it would have to be.
It took me a second to find the right words. “I’m not worried about Sierra. She’s the one I talked to earlier. It’s my youngest sister that makes me nervous. She’s only fifteen. Her foster parents won’t even let her talk to us on the phone.” The words came easier than I’d expected.
“You’re the oldest?”
“Yeah. There’s only a year between each of us, though.”
“Your mama was busy.” Caleb grinned. He hadn’t meant it in a mean way. He couldn’t possibly know just how true that statement was.
“You’ve got that right.” The words were dry coming out of my mouth, and it felt like he picked up on it. Confusion and a twinge of humility crossed his face in a grimace.
“Is your youngest sister kind of wild or something? Is that why you’re worried?”
I sighed. “No. Not really. I mean, she’s been a little harder to deal with lately, but our life wasn’t exactly easy. But she’s never really been a trouble maker.”
“Then why the stress over her?” He pushed himself up from where he was leaning on the floor using his elbow. The move put him closer to me. So close that we were touching as we sat cross-legged in front of the warm fire. The bright orange flames sizzled and sparks popped out toward the stained glass screen covering it. My heart was doing the same thing, dancing with flames and popping in ten different directions.
“It’s the other foster kid in the house with her.” The words foster kid left a bitter taste on my tongue. “She’s trouble.”
“Who is she?”
I shook my head. “Her name is Tori. I don’t know what her last name is. She’s Sadie’s age, I think, so she must be a sophomore.”
Caleb watched the smoke billowing toward the chimney, his eyes taking on a faraway look. Suddenly he looked up at me.
“The girl who comes to school with all that make-up piled on her face? She wears a lot of black. And those hooker boots. She always has on those hooker boots.”
My insides tugged me in two different directions. Part of me wanted to laugh at Caleb’s description. The other part grimaced, thinking of how bad it was that he recognized who I was talking about, especially with so little information. And the term “hooker boots” made me instantly think of Mama. I winced, remembering how she used to dress before she’d walk down to the alley behind our apartment building.
“That sounds about right.” I told him. It was. There was no point in denying it.
He nodded. “I don’t know all that much about her. She doesn’t have like, a bad reputation with the guys around school, at least, not the ones I know. I do remember her getting caught out on the football field drinking and smoking after a game last fall, though. It was big news around school, because stuff like that doesn’t really happen at Thorne County. If we drink, we cover our tracks better.”
“Wonderful.” Sulkiness started at my feet and before long I was drowning in it. Just great.
Caleb bumped my shoulder with his. “Hey. Don’t worry. You said your sister was a pretty good kid. It would take more than some idiot like Tori to turn her evil.” He shook my shoulder and laughed. It was a valiant attempt to bring me out of my sour mood.
“I guess so.” Trying to smile felt like walking in hardening concrete. It just wasn’t working. No matter how hard I’d hoped to be wrong, my gut had been right about Tori. I knew she was bad news. Sadie was such a young fifteen year old, too. She’d always acted a little younger than she actually was. She might be able to be talked into almost anything, and that was scaring me the most.
“Tell you what. If it ever stops raining tomorrow, we’ll go over and check on her.”
I snapped my head up. Caleb’s face was the picture of kindness, those blue eyes open and inviting, his mouth spread in an easy smile.
“You would do that for me?”
“Sure. You said they wouldn’t let her talk on the phone. Well, if we just show up they might get pissed, but at least you’ll get to see her for a minute and it can make you feel better.”
My first impressions of Caleb couldn’t have been more wrong. Well, my first impression was that he was hot, but after that I’d been leaning heavily toward him being the sort that wouldn’t want anything to do with me. He was turning out to be the nicest guy I’d ever met.
“Thanks.” I said. My voice was barely above a whisper. It wouldn’t take much to lean in and kiss him, to feel those full lips on mine. My mind swam with the thought of it, and my chest felt light. I couldn’t do that. No way.
“You’re welcome.” Caleb smiled at me again. “Now, let’s go get some sleep, okay? We’ll go around lunch time if the weather changes. It’ll be good to get out of the house after being cooped up all day today.”
I nodded without thinking about it. He stood and held his hand out to pull me to my feet. When I slipped my palm into his, firecrackers went off in my brain and spots floated by in front of me, clouding my vision. Somehow I stood on my feet without falling straight back to the floor. Caleb stared at me. My mouth parted, but I didn’t seem to have any comprehension skills. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t move. Finally I forced myself to shake it off and walk past him.
When I finally made it upstairs my bedroom felt like a sanctuary. It was a welcome escape both from Caleb and the feelings rolling around in the pit of my stomach every time he was around.
Chapter Fourteen
My face and hands were drenched in sweat when I climbed into Caleb’s truck the next afternoon. The mugginess of the air after last night’s storm was thick and dense, sinking into my skin and clothes even on the short walk from the front door to my seat. I felt slimy after being outside for exactly two minutes.
We’d looked in the package Mrs. Anderson left for Anna and gotten the Gable’s address. Caleb knew the street, and I was sure it wouldn’t be hard to pick out the modest brick home I’d seen when Sadie was dropped off. My nerves were wrapped in tight bundles, itching to spread and run rampant throughout me, but I kept as tight of a lid on them as possible. Clarity would be a good thing right now. A fizzled brain would not.
Hopefully the Gable’s wouldn’t give us too much trouble when we got there. The thought crossed my mind that they wouldn’t even let Sadie come to the door and I wouldn’t get to see her at all. If that happened, I was calling Mrs. Anderson. Anybody who would hide her from me could not be good role models or parental figures. I knew I was behaving more like a parent than a teenager again, but I didn’t care. This was my baby sister, and I wasn’t going to let anything or anybody hurt her.
We rode along in silence. I didn’t feel like talking, and I figured Caleb probably picked up on it. My stomach ached already, no words would be able to make it feel better. It would only make it worse to try and make small talk when I was so worried about what the Gable’s reaction would be to our showing up out of the blue.
It turned out not to matter. When we rolled to a stop along the curb outside the house, neither one of the cars I’d seen before were in the driveway. Relief flooded my senses at the same time disappointment set in. They weren’t even home.
“Sorry.” I said to Caleb.
He gave me a quizzical look. “For what?” His
hands rested lazily on the steering wheel, his head tilted in question.
“For you having to drive over here, and they’re not even home.”
He looked at the house. “How do you know that?”
“The cars are gone.” Was he blind?
“But the lights are on. Didn’t you notice? And it looks like the door is open and only the screen is shut, but I can’t see it very good from here.”
I peered past his head and out the window. He was right. The wooden door seemed to be open a tiny crack. Great powers of observation I had.
“Oh.” I wished it were possible to jam my hands in my pockets. They sat on my lap, restless, my fingers traveling around and around each other.
“Aren’t you going to go see if you can talk to her?” Caleb prodded. He dipped his head down a bit to make eye contact with me. One eye was squinted as our gazes met.
The bundles of nerves exploded, racing through my stomach, my arms, my legs, anything they could find. Why was I so anxious? It was just Sadie! My sister. But deep down the thought of seeing her made me antsy. She apparently thought of Tori as her family right now. I felt like I was being slowly cut out of her life, and there was a part of me thinking if I tried to talk to her too much it would push her away faster. I felt silly for thinking it, but I couldn’t shake it.
Finally, I inhaled and put my hand on the door handle. Caleb lounged back into his seat and messed with his phone. It occurred to me that maybe having a friendly face would help. Who knew what it would be like in there. My imagination was already spinning out of control, picturing Sadie dressed in next to nothing doing drugs. An image of my mother hit me like a lightning bolt.
I turned and looked back at Caleb. “Will you come with me?”
He raised his eyebrows for a brief second, then nodded. “Sure,” he said, setting his phone in the cup holder.
The two of us got out of the truck and made our way up to the porch. It had looked welcome and inviting the day Sadie was dropped off here. Now it seemed dank and solitary, silence encasing it as wet leaves stuck to every imaginable surface. A chill lingered in the air. It was probably just because of the storm, but an eerie feeling settled over me as my finger reached for the doorbell. Before I could press it, the sounds of voices floated through the air from inside the house.