“That’s a pretty good thing to do on a day like today,” he said, wiping at the sweat that stung his eyes.
“Why don’t you come?” Spence asked, all lit up from the inside. “It’ll be fun. Sam said there’s a rope swing.”
He knew about the rope swing. He’d climbed that big oak five years ago and tied the rope in place because, in his mind, every pond in the South should have something like that.
“I don’t think so, Spence,” he said, not even bothering to look at Sam. He rolled his shoulders and repositioned his grip on the old wooden handle. “I want to finish—”
“Come with us, J.D.,” Sam said.
He met her gaze, surprised to find it so steadfast. Buried in those familiar brown eyes was an invitation and an understanding that made his skin too tight.
I told you, he thought, feeling his heart beat fast. I told you what I am.
“I want you to come,” Sam said, unrelenting. Then, as if hearing her words she gestured to Spence who was bouncing. “We all do.”
“Come on,” Spence wheedled.
“It’s way too hot to do anything else,” Christina added, fanning her face with her hand.
He glanced at Sam again unable, really, to look away. He’d wondered what she’d say to him this morning. How, after a night’s sleep, she’d come to her senses and ask him to leave, thank him for his time politely, but insist that things would be better without him there.
He’d expected that.
What he got was her beautiful face graced with a tentative smile.
“I packed ham sandwiches,” she said, holding up a bag.
“Lots of them,” Spence said. “Come on, come on.”
J.D. was stuck, trapped in mud. Concrete.
“Please,” she said, and his heart lurched.
“Well, if ham sandwiches are involved—” he said, giving up the fight. “I’ll be right back.”
He took the scythe to the shed and locked it, wondering what in the world he was getting into.
Sam led them down the narrow trail that was in grave danger of being eaten by kudzu and he brought up the rear, the two kids between them.
He imagined this was the way other families walked. Real families, going on trips. Doing family things.
Not a family, he reminded himself. Sam’s optimistic insanity must be spreading.
“Hey, J.D.,” Spence said, turning to walk backward.
“Careful, kid,” J.D. said. “You could trip.”
“I won’t.” Then he did.
J.D. fought back a smile and helped Spence up. “You all right?”
“Fine,” Spence said, shaking the dirt off his shorts. “Can I ask you some questions?”
“I guess,” J.D. said tentatively.
“Do you have a history of cancer in your family?”
Sam’s laugh brought them both up short. “What’s so funny?” J.D. asked Sam, who had stopped and was looking at them over her shoulder. Her smile was wide, her eyes bright, her hair a wild pile on her head and he felt his throat constrict.
“You’ll see,” Sam said and winked at Spence. She started walking again.
“Do you?” Spence asked.
“Nope.”
“Heart disease?”
“What is this, kid?”
“Just a couple of questions.”
Good God, in the fifteen minutes it took to get to the pond, J.D. gave the most thorough medical history he’d ever given. Spence seemed a bit bummed that there wasn’t more life-threatening heart disease running rampant in his genes and J.D. was tempted to make some stuff up to give the kid a thrill.
But they finally broke through the woods to the small hilltop around the pond.
“There’s no beach,” Christina said, sounding peeved and out of breath.
“Where’s the rope swing?” Spence said, practically plowing into Sam.
“Here,” he said, moving on ahead of Sam, who was looking at the pond as though she’d never seen it before. “You’ve got to walk to the other side. There’s a little clearing. Not much of a beach. And the rope swing is tied to that big oak over there.” He leaned down and pointed to the tree across the pond, nestled up next to an eroded section of the bank.
“Let’s go,” Spence said, hopping on ahead. Christina groaned and followed.
Which left him standing next to Sam.
“I haven’t been here in years,” she said.
“Five years?” he asked, thinking of that night tying the rope to the tree and making love in the water.
“I guess so,” she murmured, shaking her head. “There’s something wrong with that, isn’t there?” she asked. “I live right here and never find a chance to go swimming?” Her brown eyes seemed baffled, as though she was figuring something out.
“You’re asking the wrong guy,” he said. “I’m no authority on what’s right.” He stepped forward to catch up with the kids and she grabbed his arm.
“J.D.,” she said, and the contact of her sweaty palm on his forearm zinged through his body.
“We need to talk,” she said. “About—”
“No, we don’t,” he said, stepping away from her touch, not wanting to talk about it at all. “I’m not one of the women in your shelter, Sam,” he said, looking right at her, hoping she got it. Needing her to get it. Needing her to leave him be. “I’m no victim of circumstance. There’s nothing more to the story. I am what I am.”
J.D. took off toward the kids because he had to get away from Sam, from her bleeding heart and easy forgiveness.
“How does this work?” Spence asked, holding the frayed end of the thick rope.
“Well,” Sam said, not at all sure how the rope swing worked and all too aware of J.D. behind her. Everything in her was hypertuned to him, hyperaware. She felt his gaze like a touch, could feel his breath, the hot air he moved when he walked past her. She could smell him—sweat and J.D.—a combination that used to knock her right off her feet. She was a little dismayed to see that it still did.
He was a brick wall. Unwilling to talk, casting off her pathetic efforts to help like she meant nothing.
Maybe they’d done too much harm to each other. Lied too often. Perhaps there was no way for him to see past what he’d done as a kid. Who was she to think that she could change him. Now? It was ridiculous.
“Don’t you just hold on to the knot?” she asked, turning slightly to J.D., not wanting to look directly at him because it hurt so much to see him standing right there, but seeming a million miles away.
His lip quirked. “You really haven’t been out here,” he said and stepped forward to take over the instructions. “You stand on the knot.”
Spence turned white at that, looking down past the edge of the embankment they stood on to the water below.
“It’s really easy,” J.D. said.
“What if I fall?”
“You won’t,” J.D. insisted. “You hold on until you get over the water and then you let go.”
Spence still wasn’t sold and Sam smiled. Feeling like a third wheel, she walked back to the dirt beach where Christina sat.
“How you feeling?” Sam asked the girl, dropping the backpack of lunch next to the fallen log the girl was sitting on.
“Like a whale,” Christina said, drawing stars in the dirt with a stick. “But it’s good to walk around. The baby seems to like it,” she said with a small smile, pressing a hand to the side of her belly.
“Wait until you go swimming,” Sam said. “When I was pregnant, I went to a pool in town once and Spence—” She felt that strange sensation of her world shrinking. In her mind, she’d been pregnant and there was Spence; the two weren’t entirely the same thing. But now every detail of the pregnancy flooded her and she was struck dumb by the stupid simple realization that it had been Spence kicking her. “Spence loved it,” she whispered.
“Are you sad you gave him up?” Christina asked.
Sam sucked a deep breath. “I don’t really know how to answer that,” sh
e said honestly. “Yes and no, maybe. I never thought about it before he came here to visit. But it’s obvious I made the right choice.”
“You think?” the girl asked, her eyebrows crinkling in teenage disbelief.
“Yeah.” Sam nodded. “He’s had a rough go of it lately, but his dad loved him. His mom loves him. He’s smart and cared for and as much as he’s curious about J.D. and me, it’s obvious who he belongs with.”
Christina went back to drawing, changing her subject material from stars to houses, and suddenly Sam realized what the girl was really asking.
“Are you thinking of giving your baby up for adoption?” she asked and Christina stopped drawing but didn’t look up.
“I’m sixteen,” she whispered and Sam nearly fell off the log. “My boyfriend is seventeen. And I just don’t think we can handle it. I mean—” She sighed. “I thought we could, but since we told my parents, everything has gotten so weird. You know?”
More than you know, sweetheart.
“Do you think it’s time to call your parents?” Sam asked, because now that the girl had admitted her age, Sam had a responsibility. “They must be freaking out.”
“I’m sure my mom is,” Christina said, wiping the side of her face on the shoulder of her T-shirt. “When I left…” Her bottom lip trembled before she bit it. “I miss my mom.”
Policy dictated Sam hike Christina back to the shelter right now to contact her parents. Sam looked up at the sun then over at Spence and J.D. at the tree and again at the girl beside her. Policy had dictated too much for her. A few hours in the sunshine would do all of them some good. “Maybe we should give them a call later,” Sam said, stroking the girl’s shoulder. “Maybe that would make you feel better.”
Christina just sat there, every muscle tense as if she would break with an inhale.
“Breathe, honey,” Sam said. “You’ve got to breathe.”
Christina’s breath hitched and she smiled briefly and wiped her eyes.
Sam watched J.D. wave his arms out over the pond as if showing Spence the mechanics of swinging.
“Are you going to have more kids?” Christina asked.
The world tipped under her or maybe she was floating, watching everything from a distance, from suddenly so far away.
Across the water J.D. hung his head, then took off his shirt and kicked off his boots. Spence hooted and J.D. wrapped his hands around the rope, every muscle along his back flexing and shifting under skin that gleamed like copper. He took off, arching over the water and at the height of the swing, as all his momentum slowed, he let go, falling backward in the water with a tremendous splash.
Spence cheered from the banks as if J.D. had just saved the free world. When the rope swung back to him, the boy reached out, his thin white arms stretched wide and he grabbed for the rope, but missed, nearly falling in the water.
J.D. laughed and splashed him.
I’m a fool.
Thinking she had a choice about loving J.D.?
It simply was, like breathing. Like this pond and their son. Her feelings were a truth. A reality.
She loved J.D.
“Do you want more kids?” Christina asked again.
“Yes,” Sam whispered, finding the truth without having to search. It was simply there, floating on top of everything, so light it was no wonder she’d never realized it was there before.
Sam called everyone to the fallen log for ham sandwiches and J.D. stretched out beside her in soaking-wet jeans and bare feet.
He was so gorgeous. So sexual to her that she thought maybe she should shield Christina’s eyes, but the teenager didn’t seem to notice.
Everything in Sam started to hum at the sight of damp denim clinging to muscles. She wanted to peel those pants off him, dry him with her skin.
Her feelings were raw with her new understanding of how tied she was to J.D. To feel so much for him and to be so unsure of how he truly felt about her made her slightly dizzy. Slightly sick to her stomach.
“Hey,” Spence said, taking a ham sandwich, and Sam jerked her eyes away from J.D., her cheeks on fire. “Can I ask some more questions?”
Everyone, even Christina, groaned.
“No,” Sam said, looking at the boy, happy for a good distraction from J.D.’s appeal. “You can’t. I want to ask you some questions.”
Spence blinked at her then shrugged. “Shoot.”
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked.
“Green,” Spence said.
“Mine, too,” J.D. said and ate a third of his sandwich in one bite.
“It is?” she asked, shocked. Green, really? She had him pegged as more of a black fan. Maybe blue.
He shrugged and leaned against the log. “It’s a nice color.”
“Okay,” she said, thinking. “What’s your favorite subject in school?”
“Social studies,” Spence answered and her heart sparked. That had been hers, too, all the way into college. “This is fun, ask more.”
“Favorite TV show?”
“The Simpsons.”
“Oh,” Christina said, “I love that show.”
“Favorite food?” Sam asked.
“Fried mushrooms,” he said.
“Gross,” J.D. said, wrinkling his nose.
“No, it’s not.” Spence laughed, smacking J.D. in the shoulder. “My dad and I used to eat them all the time.”
“Well,” J.D. said, “that’s nice. But it’s still gross.”
“What’s yours?” Spence asked.
“Ham sandwiches,” J.D. and Sam said at the same time. Everyone laughed, while Sam avoided J.D.’s eyes.
Everyone went back to their sandwiches, taking sips from pop cans that had grown warm in the heat.
Christina started tossing rocks into the water and Spence joined her, trying to throw them farther, without much luck.
Sam wiggled her toes in the damp dirt and felt everything in her brain go quiet. This was one of those perfect moments. Slightly strange, she thought, looking at her former lover with the terrifying past, their son, loaned out to them for four days, and the pregnant mafia princess who somehow rounded out the group.
Sam started to smile and caught J.D.’s eyes, where she saw a similar humor sparkling.
“No one would believe us if we told them,” he said to her and she laughed, loving that he’d practically read her mind.
“Believe what?” Spence asked, chucking a big fat sinker into the pond.
“The question I have for you,” J.D. said, changing the subject with total grace. “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Spence said and crouched in the dirt to think.
“I’d read people’s minds,” Sam said. God, wouldn’t her life be easier then. She’d know the rest of J.D.’s story, she’d know what he was thinking as he watched her from that log, his eyes hooded, his face serious.
“I’d be invisible,” Christina said.
“I was going to say that,” Spence groused.
“You can have the same power,” Sam said.
“No, we can’t,” Spence said and Sam wondered when the rules had been established. “Oh, I know. I’d fly. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
“Totally awesome,” J.D. agreed.
“What’s yours?” Spence asked, all damp, eager puppy.
“I’d fly, too,” J.D. said.
“Can’t be the same as mine, you have to pick another one.”
J.D. tossed the rest of his sandwich toward the trees, where it was quickly snapped up by squirrels. “I’d be able to go back in time.”
Spence’s face screwed up. “And do what?” He clearly didn’t understand the cool factor of J.D.’s power. But Sam understood and the significance almost paralyzed her.
“I’d fix things,” J.D. said, his eyes boring a hole right through Sam.
12
“I’m going to bed,” Christina whispered, waking up from where she’d fallen asleep on the
couch twenty minutes ago.
J.D. nodded and watched the girl shuffle out of the common room. Spence was passed out cold against J.D., his head against his ribs. Sam was curled up and lightly snoring in the big chair while The Incredibles just got good and the pizza got cold on the floor in front of them.
What a day, J.D. thought, staring blindly at the cartoon flickering in the dark room. The kind of day he never thought he’d have again. Not that he’d had them when he was a kid, but in the past ten years, every day he’d had with Sam had felt this way.
A day playing hooky.
Spence rearranged himself and J.D. shifted his arm so the kid lay flat on the couch, his head resting against J.D.’s thigh.
Holding his breath, he pressed his hand to the boy’s red curls.
What a day.
“What time is it?” Sam’s sleepy, rough voice reached out through the dark and stroked J.D.’s skin, went right to his bloodstream the way it always did.
How many times had he called her late at night from someplace, just to hear her sleepy voice across the miles that separated them. Just so he could feel close to her. Not many was the answer. Things had to be really bad for him to give himself that kind of treat.
“About eleven,” he answered, being careful to keep his eyes on the TV screen. He knew what she would look like, rosy and stretching like a cat in that chair, her delicate body uncoiling.
He heard her yawn and groan a little. “Wow,” she finally said. “It’s late. I should—” She stopped. “Wake him up? I guess? I don’t think I can carry him.”
“I can carry him upstairs,” he volunteered. I can carry him upstairs, he thought. Into those dark, rose-scented rooms. I can put him to bed then crawl under your covers and we can end this perfect day right.
“That would be great,” she said and turned off the television, plunging the room into sudden blackness. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust but there was plenty of moonlight streaming in the big front window.
Enough that he could see Sam.
And want her more than he should.
His whole body started to ache, like a fever had him. And not surprisingly, after the day they’d had, he wasn’t angry about it. He wasn’t angry about her. Carrying his son upstairs and wanting her seemed about the two most right things in the world.
The Story Of Us: A Secret Baby Romance (Serenity House Book 1) Page 14