Wild Cat and the Marine

by Jade Taylor

  “No, I’m not crying. I have something in my eye.”

  “Oh.” Joey looked dubious. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Cat swiped at her eyes. “There. All better, now.”

  “Who’s the boy, Mommy? How come his name isn’t here, too?”

  Cat stared at the slender teenager. In the picture, his hair blazed as fiercely as the necklace of ruby crystals hanging around Joey’s neck. She didn’t intend to answer with the truth, but the words slipped out. “That’s Jackson Gray, Joey.”

  “I like him. I was really high when he held me over his head, wasn’t I?”

  “Wonderfully high.” Cat turned her head away from her daughter.

  “I wish he was my daddy, don’t you? He’s lots of fun.”

  Cat braced herself, pushed away the pain and observed calmly, “Last week, you wanted Luke Anderson for your daddy.”

  Joey considered. “Yeah, but then Tommy Karl would be my brother and I couldn’t marry him when I grow up. I think Jackson would be better.”

  Cat’s chest tightened. She stood. “Time for bed, Joey. I let you stay up too late tonight. It’s past ten o’clock.”

  “Mommy, why didn’t my daddy love me?”

  The squeezing sensation in Cat’s chest hurt. She drew in a deep breath of air. “He would have, if he’d known you, but he had to go away.”

  “I don’t love him, either.” Her small voice was petulant.

  “You’ll understand better, when you’re older. Go brush your teeth and put on your pajamas.”

  Obediently, Joey got up and went to the bathroom. Now Joey knew the boy in the picture was Jackson, but the words had slipped out before Cat thought. She hoped Joey didn’t mention her desire for a father to him. Jackson Gray might worm his way into her daughter’s heart, the way he had done with hers.

  Cat stood in the middle of the living room, thinking about Jackson and Joey together. It couldn’t happen. Joey must forget. Cat shook her head. Joey would forget. Maybe as soon as the next day.

  It would never be that easy for her.

  IN THE LAST HOUR BEFORE DAWN, Jackson crept out of the house to avoid waking his father. He let Pop’s Ford roll down the driveway as far as it would, so the noise of the engine starting wouldn’t disturb him. He turned on to the gravel road. Instead of taking the left turn toward town, some inexplicable urge caused him to turn right toward Cat’s place.

  He parked a hundred and fifty feet from the house, left the motor running, and sat for several moments, staring at its dim outline. Thinking about Cat was fast becoming a risky occupation, one he indulged in too often. Behind the outline of a window, he saw a flickering light. Cat must have left it on through the night. Was she nervous about being alone here, with just the child for company? He wouldn’t mind keeping her company. The dangerous thought jarred him from his reverie.

  He put the truck in gear and started to turn around. An uneasy memory caused him to hit the brakes. He’d looked at Cat’s house last night before going inside. There’d been no lights on then. For a tense moment, he watched the flickering.

  Fire! He drove toward the house as the light flared brighter. He threw the truck into park, switched off the engine, jerked open the door and jumped out. Racing toward the house, a terrible moment of déjà vu enveloped him, as he remembered the searing heat of the forest fire outside Richmond and the burnt body of a fire-fighter trapped by a sudden shift in the wind’s direction. God, no! Don’t let me be too late!

  Jackson vaulted the rail fence in front of the house instead of pausing to open the gate. He stopped in front of the window where the flickering light blazed out of control. So quickly it had become a threatening thing instead of what he’d presumed was the reassurance a woman alone might need.

  He stood for a second, wrapped in indecision, his thoughts jumping from one alternative to the next. The light leapt in the window closest to the front door. If that were the only way, he’d go through flames to save Cat and Joey, but the sickening memory of the dead fire-fighter made his guts churn. There had to be another way to get in. He ran around the side of the house to where the bedrooms were.

  The window ledge was nearly five feet from the ground. That made rescue harder. He needed to get inside, and quickly, before the fire spread out of control. He rapped sharply on the window framing, hoping this was Cat’s bedroom and not Joey’s. The child would be frightened out of her wits by an unexpected noise outside her window. Jackson called out, “Cat, wake up!”

  No answer.

  He rapped again. A surge of nausea choked him. “Cat, dammit, wake up!”

  The window slid up, and Cat stood there above him, coughing, the puzzled look on her face quickly turning to alarm. “Jackson, what’s wrong? There’s smoke in here! The house is on fire, isn’t it?” Realization dawned. “I’ve got to get Joey.”

  “No!” he yelled. He had to shout to penetrate her confusion. “I’ll get her. You come out this window. Now, Cat!”

  “Joey!” she said, starting to turn away.

  He swung his fist through the screen, ignored the ripping of wire against the back of his hand, the knife-sharp pain, the swift welling of blood in the furrows, then grabbed the edges with both hands and tore the storm window from its frame.

  “Cat, dammit, come out now! I’ll get Joey.”

  She looked back at him, then came over to the window. “I’ll get Joey first.”

  He grabbed her arm and urged her toward him. “Cat, you can’t do that! The smoke could knock you out—”

  “Stop yelling. You’ll wake her up.” The absurdity of her reply hit her.

  She tried to get away from him again. He wrapped both strong arms around her and forcibly dragged her through the window.

  For a brief, almost unnoticed second, he cherished his teenage love, her warmth, her safety, then Jackson set her on her feet and looked around desperately for something to stand on. It was not so dark now, but still hard to see. Nothing…no…wait. There’d been an old sawhorse in the front yard, near the porch, last night. “Get the garden hose and bring it around front,” he yelled to Cat.

  Sprinting to the front of the house, he almost tripped over the sawhorse. He grabbed it and ran back to where Cat still stood. “The garden hose, Cat,” he said, trying not to shout. She looked as if she were in shock, her face ghost white in the early morning light.

  “Not ’till Joey’s safe! I don’t care about the damn house!”

  “We might need the hose to reach her, Cat! If the fire is too hot to get close enough…. Calm down, Catherine, I know what I’m doing. I’ll get her out. Please don’t put yourself back in danger. I can’t save both of you at the same time.” His words ran together in his haste to make her understand. He could see nothing penetrated her panic, not thought, not reason, not the urgent need to act. He said the only words she could hear. “Okay, okay. I’ll get her.”

  He ran to the window past Cat’s bedroom. Rapping on the frame drew no response. Neither did repeated shouts. “Joey! Answer me! Joey!” No sound came from the house, not even the crackling of the fire. Beside him, Cat trembled, chanting her daughter’s name like a litany, her voice rising with each repetition.

  Desperate, Jackson lifted the sawhorse and swung it at the window. He hoped Joey wasn’t near it. No time to waste. Fire killed, but so did smoke. An image of the little girl’s lifeless body formed in his brain, sending panicky messages to limbs already shaky with foreboding.

  The legs of the sawhorse smashed through screen and glass, shattering the dawn air with an explosion of noise. Jackson grabbed the edge of the screen and ripped the storm window free. He started to climb on the sawhorse, then realized that one leg had broken off. “Shit!” he swore. Propping it against the side of the house, he used it as a takeoff point, jumping to propel his body onto the windowsill. Carefully, he reached through the broken shards of glass, inside and upwards. Bracing all his weight with one arm on the sill, he unlatched the window lock, then pushed t
he frame up.

  “Jackson, please!” Cat’s urgent words catapulted him through the window and onto the bedroom floor where he landed in splinters of broken glass. Wisps of smoky blue haze filled the room, swirling with the sudden breeze from the window. Jackson’s chest spasmed and he coughed. The room seemed too warm. His forearms stung from deep scratches and cuts. Rivulets of blood tracked down his hand and left a half-finished palm print on the carpet.

  He looked toward the bed. Empty. His heart sank. Damn! Had she left her bed and entered the living room? He had to find her for Cat’s sake and— He stopped thinking as an overpowering smell filled his nostrils with the stink of something plastic melting. He coughed again and forced his burning lungs to take only small shallow breaths.

  Where the hell was she? “Joey?”

  He started toward the hall, then stopped, remembering something he’d heard once. Kids hid from fire, not knowing it would find them anyway. He dropped to his knees and peered under the bed. There was enough light now to show that no one hid in the smoky shadows beneath it.

  He stood, coughing, holding the tail of his shirt to his face. Looking around, fear made his heart pound like crazy. Not fear of the fire, though he was afraid, but fear he would fail. Outside, Cat waited for him to bring her child to her. Cat’s lovely smile would be stilled forever if he didn’t come out that window with Joey unhurt. He couldn’t bear never seeing her smile again. Jackson’s lips tightened in a thin, hard line. If necessary, he’d put the fire out with his hands. Anything for Cat. Anything. God, don’t let that little girl die!

  It was all the prayer he had time for. He spotted the closet, its door slightly ajar, and hurtled toward it. Slamming the door open, he dropped to his knees. Joey huddled against hanging clothes, her knees tucked up to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them. She looked at him with frightened, wide green eyes, exactly like her mother’s.

  His heart leapt with joy. “Thank you, God,” he whispered. Keeping his voice calm, he held out his arms and said, “Come on, Joey. I’ll take you to your mother.”

  Just for a second, she looked as if she didn’t know him. Then recognition dawned. Trustingly, she nodded and reached out to him. Just as before, when she’d allowed him to toss her high in the air, she gave up fear for the safety of his arms.

  With her small body held close to his chest, her face buried in the security of his neck, her own arms wrapped tightly around him, he stood. She smelled of lilac dusting powder and smoke. The lilac powder smelled like little girl and the smoke smelled like danger. The combination caused relief and dismay to sweep over him. A different outcome might have been only minutes away.

  “Where’s Mommy?” the small voice whispered in his ear.

  “Waiting for us,” he answered, then hurried to the window. Cat stood on the broken sawhorse, clinging to the edge of the windowsill, looking as if she intended to climb into the room with them. At the sight of her daughter safe in Jackson’s grasp, her expression changed to overwhelming relief.

  Jackson’s broad grin mitigated his sharp order. “Get back on the ground before you fall, Cat. I’ll hand her to you.”

  Obediently, Cat jumped back to the ground, then reached up, eagerly waiting.

  Jackson had to pry Joey’s arms from around his neck. She was surprisingly strong for such a waif of a child. He put her gently into Cat’s waiting hands, then climbed out and dropped to the ground beside them.

  Cat held Joey in a viselike grip, rocking back and forth, kissing her daughter repeatedly on the face and arms, making funny choking sounds as she did so. A long moment later, she took a deep breath and relaxed her hold. Her runaway emotions in check, she said in an almost-calm voice, “It’s okay, honey. You’re safe now. Jackson saved you. You’re okay.”

  Jackson hated to interrupt the reunion, but there was no other way. The fire would quickly spread to the rest of the house. “The hose, Cat,” he reminded.

  Cat looked up at him and nodded, still clutching her daughter. He reached for Joey and she came readily. Reluctantly, Cat let go of the little girl. “I’ll put her in my truck where she’ll be safe, Cat,” Jackson said. “Get the garden hose.”

  Cat turned to go. She looked back once, her lovely eyes huge, her face stark white, then she ran.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JACKSON CARRIED Joey to his truck, enjoying the warm weight in his arms more than he would have thought possible. He was intensely glad he’d decided to drive past Cat’s home before continuing his errand, no matter what reason had prompted him to turn right instead of left.

  He deposited Joey on the front seat of the truck and admonished her severely to stay there and not touch anything. He started to leave, but her frightened look touched some place inside of him that tightened up in response. He reached across her to where he’d left his jacket, picked it up and carefully draped it around the child’s thin, shivering shoulders.

  “It’s okay now,” he whispered, touching her cheek. He smiled his most reassuring I’m-a-Marine-and-nothing-will-ever-hurt-you-when-I’m-around grin, waited a moment for the fear to leave her eyes, then returned to the broken window and climbed back in.

  He groped his way through the thickening smoke to the kitchen door and unlocked it. Cat wrestled with the weight of a metal bucket and a hundred feet of awkward garden hose, trailing its length behind her from the spigot near the garage. He took the hose from her and pulled it toward the living room as she ran to the kitchen sink and filled the bucket.

  Although smoke polluted the entire house, the fire appeared to be confined to one corner of the living room where flames licked eagerly at the drywall. Wielding the garden hose, Jackson played the barely adequate stream of water back and forth across the hungry blaze. Cat, choking and coughing from the thick smoke, frantically tossed buckets of water on smoldering embers.

  Finally, Jackson grabbed her arm as she started to throw another bucket of water into the corner. “That’s enough, Cat. The fire’s out. You don’t want to fight a flood, too, do you?”

  “It’s out? Are you sure?” She looked around, seeming only now to see how much the fire and smoke had damaged the room. Her soot-darkened face paled beneath the shadow of ashes and smoke.

  “I can see the sky through the roof. It’s burned through.”

  Her forlorn voice brought an ache to his throat that had nothing to do with the smoke. “Go get Joey out of the truck. You two wait on the front lawn. I’ll open up some windows and clear the smoke out of here. No point in all of us breathing this stuff.”

  As if suddenly awakened, Cat turned to him. “Oh, Jackson, what if you hadn’t passed by at the right moment? We’d both have—”

  Jackson wanted to reach out to her, but his father’s words came back to him. He couldn’t give Cat the wrong impression and still call himself an honorable man. With no intention of staying in Engerville, tasting Cat’s sweet lips was out of the question. He turned away, unable to face the light in her eyes without wanting to feel her against him. His voice ragged, he ordered, “Go get Joey before she decides to start the truck and drive it into town. The keys are still in the ignition and she is your daughter, you know.”

  After he opened every window and door, the smoke began to clear. Jackson’s raw throat burned as if he’d swallowed some of the fire. Ignoring the pain, he worked at clearing debris. The sofa, one arm consumed by the fire down to its wood frame, had created most of the smoke, he realized. The twisted burned wires of the lamp’s electrical cord gave him a clue as to how the fire might have started. Jackson wrestled the water-soaked sofa out the front door, then dragged it into the yard.

  “When can we come in to help?” she asked.

  What damage the fire had done was nothing compared to the dirty mess the smoke had made of every room in the small farmhouse. It would shock her and scare Joey. He hesitated. “In a little bit. I want to clear out the worst of the garbage first. Can’t have Joey deciding that stuff would be great to play in, can we?”

  C
at studied his strong, purposeful air of command. This side of him definitely wasn’t the old Jackson. Had the Marines made a man out of the rebellious youth she’d fallen in love with? Did the love she held for the youth carry over to this stranger?

  She’d been on her own a long time. Maybe Jackson was too used to giving orders and she was too used to acting on her own. Probably the two of them wouldn’t have much in common now. She glanced down at the warm weight burrowed into her side. They had Joey, but Jackson didn’t know. She felt the sharp stab of guilt sweep over her.

  Although Jackson had no idea that Joey was his, he’d risked his life for her as casually as if it meant nothing. Maybe all the change in Jackson was on the surface. Down deep, he might be the same reckless teenager who’d joined her in the committing of youthful folly. If he’d really become the thoughtful, considerate, brave man he seemed, how would he react to her having kept his daughter from him?

  Cat shuddered as she pictured Jackson’s anger. Beside her, Joey twisted free of her arm and looked up at her. “Mommy, are you still afraid?”

  “We’re safe now, honey, and that’s all that matters. Thanks to Jackson.”

  “I like him. He found me in the closet and picked me up. He’s so big.”

  Cat’s throat tightened at the remembered image of Jackson leaning out of the window, Joey safe in his arms, to hand her a miracle. “He’s about the biggest guy I know,” she agreed.

  “I think he’s bigger than Tommy Karl’s dad, don’t you?”

  Cat smiled. “Maybe a little taller,” she admitted.

  “I like him,” Joey said, firmly repeating her previous statement.

  And there was another danger, Cat thought. Jackson would be leaving in a few weeks. Would her daughter’s fragile heart be broken?

  “Teddy Bear, Jackson won’t be around forever. It’s okay to like him, but don’t go thinking he’ll be here a long time. He’s leaving as soon as his father is well.”