Ghost of Summer

by Sally Berneathy

  "He resented the fact that Seth had the woman for two years, even though she left him, while he never had her at all." Luke shook his head. "I guess it's the old, Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

  And why, Kate thought, had Papa wanted her to be there to hear?

  So you could see the parallel between Seth and Homer with Luke and you. So you'd know that some people who've never had such great love in their lives would be jealous that you had your mother and a wonderful friend all those years even though you lost them both for a little while.

  So you'd know you should trust your heart the way you used to...the way you want to now.

  The voice was so strong this time, Kate turned and looked behind her, half expecting to see someone there.

  Half expecting to see Mama there.

  Oh, boy! She was losing it for sure!

  "Katie?"

  "What?" She whirled at the sound of Luke's voice. Papa and Luke were looking at her strangely.

  "Let's go. Jeff and Mom are waiting for us up the street."

  "Okay." No. "No."

  "Okay, no?" Luke repeated. "Is this multiple choice?"

  Kate could feel the perspiration breaking out on her forehead. Well, it was a hot day.

  But that wasn't it. This heat came from inside, from fear and confusion and the struggle to figure out what was going on in her own mind. "I've got to check on something."

  "What?"

  "I don't know." She spun away and ran the four blocks to where she'd parked her car.

  Without a clue as to where she was going or why, but with an irresistible urge to be there, she got in her car and drove.

  And wound up at the cave.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kate's palms were damp on the steering wheel as she sat looking out the windshield and wondering what on earth she was doing there.

  You think your friendship thorn has disintegrated? Then go find out.

  Kate's head swung toward the passenger seat. The voice was so strong it was almost audible.

  For a moment, from the corner of her eye just as she turned, she thought she saw the outline of someone in the seat beside her. But it was only the sunlight glaring off the hood of her car. That's all it could have been.

  She was stressed and tense and hot and carrying on conversations with herself, but she was not seeing ghosts.

  She got out of the car and walked down the slope, taking the circuitous route to the cave where she and Luke had played and pledged their friendship a lifetime ago. Tufts of grass and weeds impeded her progress in her sandals, and her steps disturbed a few loose rocks that tumbled down to splash in the creek.

  She was nuts to be doing this. What possible purpose could it serve? She was not going to dig in the dirt and try to find that silly thorn they'd buried no matter what some psychotic voice in her head told her to do.

  The cave was just as she remembered it. When she stepped inside, the temperature immediately dropped as it always had when she and Luke had played there. Once when they'd heard about the concept of earth homes, she and Luke had proudly informed Papa that they already had an earth home.

  Just as the temperature was cooler inside, so the outside sounds were muffled. The chirrup of a cicada seemed to come from far away. The whole world seemed far away.

  For a moment, time itself seemed unstable, seemed to be slip backward as she smelled the damp earth and stones, a scent that seemed somehow to be laced with lilacs.

  Kate frowned. She'd forgotten how the scent of lilacs had permeated everything even when she was a child. It had to be coming from her. Her clothing, her hair, her nostrils had to be carrying the scent from home. That was the only explanation of why a cave would smell like spring flowers.

  She sat on one of the big rocks along the side, rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists. The place had always had an eerie quality, had always inspired Luke and her to make up fanciful stories. Like the one about having a friendship that would never die.

  Was Jeff's story about the Indian princess and her lover true? Probably not. But inside the cave, Kate could almost believe it.

  Right in the middle of the dirt floor was the spot where she and Luke had buried their thorn. For a long time after Luke left, there had been a slight mound marking the spot.

  But no more. The floor was uniformly flat. All evidence of that young boy and girl was gone.

  She reached down and picked up an arrowhead, turned it over and studied it. Was this one of the arrowheads she and Luke had used to dig their hole?

  Not likely. She laid it back down and stood.

  What the heck was she doing there, anyway? She should get back to town before Papa, Francine, Jeff and Luke thought she'd lost her mind completely. Besides, she was being rude. This was the last day she'd have to visit with Francine and Jeff. Spending that day in a cave by herself was dumb.

  She took a step toward the entrance, stopped, picked up the arrowhead and started to dig in the middle of the floor.

  Okay, she'd dig around a bit, but if she didn't find that old aspirin box really soon, she'd leave and go back to the real world.

  She struck a hard object and, against her will, her heart rate accelerated, anticipating. She scraped away the dirt and found that it was only a rock.

  What had she expected? That plastic aspirin box had probably splintered into a hundred pieces. She'd be lucky to find one splinter, especially since she had no idea if she was even digging in the right place.

  Better to stop wasting her time and leave.

  She kept digging as if her will was no longer her own.

  Again she struck something solid. Again she scraped away the dirt, expecting to find another rock.

  Instead she saw one end of the yellow and white aspirin box.

  She sat for several moments staring at the faded plastic. Emotions...too many of them to identify...welled up inside. She shoved them down determinedly even as she ordered herself to get up, walk out of that cave and stop acting like an idiot.

  Dizziness washed over her as she reached down to try to get the box out, and she realized she'd forgotten to breathe.

  Using her arrowhead to pry up the other end, Kate extracted the small, rectangular item, stood and set it in her palm. It lay there, cool to the touch, dirty, faded...nothing special, nothing magic.

  Wasn't that what she'd expected? No magic?

  So why was she disappointed?

  The sound of footsteps crunching outside, sending more rocks tumbling down the slope, drew her attention to the mouth of the cave.

  Luke walked in carrying a blanket draped over one arm. He had to stoop slightly. He was now too tall to stand upright very far back in their cave. Nothing was the same.

  "I thought I'd find you here," he said.

  "Why would you think that? I'm not even certain how I got here."

  "It's where you always used to go when you were upset. I'm not sure what happened in that bar to upset you, but I could tell it did. What have you got there?" He peered more closely at her hand. "Oh, my God." His voice became hushed and reverential. Good grief. It was only an old plastic box. "Have you opened it yet?"

  "No." To her dismay, her voice sounded the same as his.

  He laid the blanket on the floor and motioned for her to sit. She did, and he sank down beside her.

  "Open it," he said quietly.

  She shook her head in slow motion, her gaze fixed on that absurd little box. Why couldn't she just open it and get this over with?

  Because she didn't want to see tangible proof of the deterioration of her relationship with Luke, of the inevitable deterioration of all relationships.

  Love never deteriorates. You never really lost Luke or me. We're right here and we love you. All you have to do is open your heart so you can see that love.

  Kate's head snapped up. It was one thing to hold nonverbal conversations with herself, but to reassure herself that she loved herself was going one step too far.
>
  "Katie?" Luke's audible voice drew her back to reality.

  She looked down at the white and yellow plastic in her palm. With a swift motion, she grasped the end with her other hand and yanked it open.

  The lid crumbled as it moved.

  The thorn lay in the bottom of the box, intact.

  She shrugged. "With the plastic and the dirt around it, it was sealed. That's why it didn't deteriorate."

  "No, that's not why." In the dimness of the cave, Luke's eyes were dark and vast as the night sky.

  "What? You think it's magic or something?" She tried to sound jaded and realistic, but even to her own ears, her words came out breathless.

  "I don't think that thorn is magic. I do think what we have is magic."

  Kate knew him so well, she knew what he was thinking, what he was going to say, and she didn't want to hear it, didn't want to go there. Nevertheless, she couldn't take her eyes from his, couldn't protest, could only wait.

  He took the box with the thorn from her and set it on a rock beside them then lifted one hand to cup her cheek, her chin in his palm. "Are you going to marry Spencer?"

  "No." The answer was out of her mouth before she could think about the question. When had she made that decision? When she'd danced with Luke on the lawn? When Spencer had called Thursday night? When Luke had kissed her at her condo? She wasn't sure, but she was sure she couldn't marry him. Too much had changed. She'd changed too much.

  The corners of Luke's mouth turned up in the familiar smile she knew so well and didn't know at all. This smile was lazy yet alert, the smile of a man alone with a woman he desired and suddenly sure he was going to possess that woman. "I've loved you since we wore matching diapers. You know that, don't you?"

  She'd known he was going to say those words.

  "As a friend." She whispered the words, knowing that wasn't what he meant but needing him to contradict her.

  He lifted his other hand to her other cheek and gazed directly into her eyes. "Yes. As a friend. And more. I've been kidding myself, trying to believe we could just be friends. I was—I am so afraid if we cross the line and become lovers, I'll lose you. But hearing those crazy old men in the bar made me realize something. I have to take the chance. I don't want to end up eighty years old and thinking about all the might-have-beens."

  He touched her lips with his, tenderly, the way best friends would kiss, then drew back and looked at her. As if he could tell...and he probably could; he'd always been able to read her mind...as if he could tell the way his touch thrilled her, sent her blood rushing and her heart pounding, his hands slipped to her waist and he pulled her to him and kissed her again. This time his lips on hers demanded far more than friendship. This was the way he'd kissed her in her condo and on the lawn, the way lovers kissed.

  She responded, her arms reaching around him, pulling him closer against her, pressing her body to his, her breasts to his hard chest, her thighs to his, her heart to his.

  This was crazy, completely insane, but incredibly right and wonderful.

  She wasn't going to marry Spencer. She knew that for a certainty. She was free to kiss Luke, even to have an affair with him if she chose. She could satisfy these wild cravings, get them out of her system, give her body to Luke but keep her heart separate and safe. Once satisfied, maybe she'd be able to go on, free of this all-consuming passion for him.

  She had a vague notion she was lying to herself, trying to justify her desires, but it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered right now was kissing Luke.

  His lips on hers were familiar and new, bringing poignant memories and promises of unexplored, undreamed of delights. His arms around her were strong, the arms of a man, yet with the tenderness of the boy she'd once known.

  Gently he eased her back on the blanket, his lips trailing kisses along her throat, his tongue teasing the sensitive hollow. The sound of his breathing in the quiet of the cave seemed an echo of her own.

  His fingers fumbled with the buttons of her blouse, and she felt a rush of cool air on her stomach followed by Luke's warm breath as he kissed the tender flesh.

  Her body was exposed to him. She ought to feel vulnerable, embarrassed, something besides comfortable and right, as if the world had shifted into place. The man bending over her was the same person she'd known all her life, and he was somebody entirely new and different.

  He unfastened the front hook of her bra and pushed it aside, and even that felt as natural as breathing, as natural as his mouth on her breasts. Her back arched upward, pushing her bare breasts toward him, yearning for more of his touch, but he stopped, lifted his head and looked at her.

  "Katie, I don't want us to do anything you're going to regret," he said, his voice husky with desire, his eyes narrow, smoky slits of passion. "You say the word and we stop right here."

  She was barely coherent enough to wonder if she would regret this, if she really could keep her heart separate from her body. She wasn't coherent enough to know the answer, though. Her mind and body were consumed with the need for Luke's touch, his skin against hers, this bonding that was so long overdue. She couldn't say no, not even if she knew this would ultimately end in pain and loss. A part of her had been missing for a very long time, and having it back felt so good and so right.

  For answer, she unbuttoned his shirt and ran her fingers through the mat of coarse hair then pulled him to her for a deep, sensuous kiss, her breasts pressed against his naked chest, their hearts pounding against each other in perfect rhythm, just as they must have been beating in rhythm all these years even while they were apart.

  When he slid down again, his hands cupped her breasts and his lips closed around one nipple, sucking and teasing, sending jolts of electricity spiraling through her body, taking her to a place she'd never been before, increasing her urgent need for him until it was completely out of control. She moaned at the exquisite pleasure as his mouth moved to the other nipple.

  With one hand, he found the button on her shorts, and she reached to help him, to rid herself of the barrier between their bodies. There had never been barriers between Luke and her. There should be none now.

  He tugged down her shorts as she lifted her bottom to help him, then he yanked off his own clothes, and finally their bodies were together, skin to skin, nothing between them. With his hands and his mouth, he explored every inch of her, and she did the same to him.

  "This scar—" His fingers on her thigh, tantalizingly close to her center, stopped their explorations and traced the scar she'd almost forgotten. "It's from the time we were stealing peaches from Leonard Goggans' tree and he caught us. You slipped and fell and caught your leg on a broken branch." He stroked the scar again, his fingers reaching higher. "I don't know who was more scared, you, me or Leonard Goggans." He kissed the scar, his lips and tongue stirring sensations she hadn't known—wouldn't have believed—existed.

  On his body she found the old scars from bicycle wrecks and falls along with the new ones from football injuries and an appendectomy. Each one she kissed and recalled or learned about.

  Finally when they had each covered every inch of the other's body, he knelt between her legs, his hardness centered and pressing against her, then stopped again.

  "Katie, are you sure?"

  She groaned. "I'm sure. I want you. I love you." She bit her lip. She hadn't meant to say she loved him. She didn't. She only wanted him.

  But as his flesh slid into hers and their bodies were joined in the ultimate union, she knew she'd been lying to herself. She did love him. With all her heart and her soul and her body. Later, she'd have to deal with that revelation, but right now her entire consciousness was filled with the sensation of Luke's hardness moving inside her.

  "I love you, too, Katie," he whispered against her ear. "I've always loved you and I always will."

  Together, the way they were meant to be, their bodies surged upward, spiraling to new heights, the sensation obliterating all thought until they reached the crescendo, peaking at t
he same moment...together.

  ***

  For a few minutes or an hour...time had lost meaning and consistency...Kate lay cradled in Luke's arms, savoring the afterglow of their love making.

  But slowly reality crept over her with a cold, déjà vu quality.

  It wasn't quite the same as before, of course. She and Luke had certainly not made love before he moved away seventeen years ago. But they had sat in this same cave, holding each other and promising always to be friends.

  The terror rose in her throat, threatening to choke her if she didn't get away from it.