Lightning Storm

by Anne McAllister

  Groaning, she flipped over on the narrow bed and pressed her cheek against the cool dampness of the plaster wall. Through the window she could hear the surf pounding, bringing with it memories of that earlier summer when she would have given her most prized possession for the amount of attention that Jake had paid her tonight.

  ‘Smarter at eighteen, ha!’ she muttered aloud in the stillness of the room. At eighteen she had been bewitched by a sexy grin, silky thick black hair, and stunning blue eyes. His brooding intensity one minute balanced against a devil-may-care impetuosity the next intrigued and attracted her. What she didn’t know about him (and it was boundless) she could invent, and did. But the Jake she encountered on their fateful day failed to measure up to the hero of her dreams. So much for instant attraction, she thought, shifting restlessly again. How much more satisfying her relationship with Paul had been.

  She smiled slightly, thinking of Paul with a fondness that she couldn’t imagine ever feeling about someone as provoking as Jake. Some day maybe someone would come along who would fill her life the way Paul had, someone she could trust, share her hopes and dreams with, count on. And she would find him, she was sure, the way she found Paul—slowly, comfortably, easily. And they would know—as she and Paul had—that, sooner or later they were meant for each other. She sighed and closed her eyes thinking reluctantly, meanwhile there’s Jake Brosnan to deal with.

  The ringing phone woke her. How long it had been shrilling was debatable, but the frantic sound of her mother’s voice when she finally answered made Torey think that it must have been quite a while.

  ‘Are you all right?’ her mother demanded.

  ‘Fine,’ Torey mumbled, prying her eyes open and reaching over to open the back door and let Maynard out into the yard. The sun was streaming in, making patterns on the linoleum.

  ‘I thought you’d been mugged! Kidnapped!’

  ‘Nooo...’ Torey managed, still trying to focus in the bright midmorning light.

  ‘What happened?’

  Torey’s brow, furrowed. ‘To what?’

  ‘Heavens, Torey, you sound like you’ve been drugged.’

  Torey laughed. ‘No, I’m just waking up.’

  ‘It’s nearly noon!’

  Torey squinted at the clock. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Well, even so, you should be up.’ Her mother sounded annoyed, and Torey thought the shoe ought to be on the other foot. Who woke whom up after all? ‘Did you want something?’ she asked politely.

  ‘To know you got there. I thought you’d call.’

  Torey rolled her eyes. When would her mother realise she was an adult? She managed a non-committal grunt that must have appeased her mother, for the next words she heard were,

  ‘What’d you think of Jake? Is he as gorgeous as Gran says?’

  Torey straightened up immediately. Since when had Gran said Jake was gorgeous? All anyone had said to her about Jake was that he would be wearing a red shirt. More plotting afoot no doubt. Gran had probably said, ‘I’ve got just the man for her,’ and Mother had let Torey volunteer to take care of Gran like it was all her own idea. She wanted to grind her teeth. And what a man, for heaven’s sake! If only they knew what they had done! ‘If you like that type,’ she said flatly, the implication being that she didn’t.

  ‘Oh.’ Her mother sounded disappointed, but brightened quickly, saying, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. I saw Peggy Lawson at the supermarket yesterday, and I mentioned you were in LA and she said their nephew Adam lived in Torrance, and I...’

  ‘Mother!’ Torey wailed. ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘Well, I’m sure any nephew of Tom and Peggy Lawson is a very nice young man,’ her mother said defensively.

  They all were. Even Vince and Harlan were nice young men. But they weren’t Paul. And she didn’t need people finding her men, thank you very much. When she wanted to, she could find her own. Anyway, she had quite enough on her plate just dealing with Jake Brosnan, and she didn’t know now whose fault he was—her grandmother’s or her own.

  ‘Well, I gave your address to Peggy,’ Torey’s mother went on. ‘So you might hear from this Adam ...’

  ‘Terrific,’ Torey muttered. ‘I have to go now, Mom. There’s someone at the door.’

  A lie, she thought. But a small one. But no sooner had she said it than it was true. In fact it was worse than true, for one second there was a shadow on the back porch and the next Jake was opening the door and stepping into the room.

  ‘Go away,’ she hissed, wrapping her thin nightgown more tightly around her until she realised that it was even more provocative that way than if she left it hanging loose. ‘I’ll talk to you later in the week, Mother.’

  ‘Who is it, dear? Don’t let in strangers.’

  ‘I’ll try not to,’ Torey said, hopping self-consciously from one foot to the other wishing herself invisible. Jake was looking at her figure silhouetted through the pale yellow gown with a hunger that suggested that he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said to him, and her mother demanded.

  ‘Who is it, dear?’

  ‘Mr. Brosnan, Gran’s tenant,’ Torey said, trying to inject a little formality into the situation with minimal success because Jake was grinning at her, all tanned and sexy, with far too much bare skin showing for her liking. He wore only a pair of faded denim cut-offs, low-slung and hip-hugging, and she couldn’t decide who she would most like to put her bathrobe on—him or herself!

  ‘Oh, let me speak to him, dear,’ her mother said in a breathless, fluttery tone that Torey didn’t like at all. It smacked too much of the noises her mother made around Vince Liebfried.

  ‘He doesn’t want to talk to you now, Mom,’ Torey began, only to have the ‘phone wrenched from her grasp. ‘Jake!’

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ he said blithely, holding her at arm’s length while she flailed at him ineffectually. ‘Mrs. Stuart, isn’t it?’ he said into the ‘phone, dodging Torey’s kick. ‘Yes, yes she is,’ he said grinning. ‘Every bit as lovely as Addie said she was ...’

  ‘Oooh!’ Torey grabbed a dish towel and flicked it at him, hitting his rear end.

  ‘I’ll be happy to keep an eye on her, Mrs. Stuart,’ Jake went on, moving out of range of the dish towel. His eyes roved over Torey so blatantly that she felt as though he was touching her. She strongly doubted that even her matchmaking mother meant ‘keeping an eye on’ as literally as that. Flinging the dish towel into his smirking face, she flounced out of the room and banged her bedroom door with a ferocity that made the windows rattle. Wretch! she fumed, grabbing the nearest pair of jeans and a scoop-necked eyelet blouse that would, she hoped, cool her off. Between her mother and Jake the morning had certainly got off to a smashing start. If Jake didn’t know he was being served up as matrimonial material before, he certainly knew it now. And if that wasn’t enough, her mother had tossed in someone called Adam for good measure. God, even California wasn’t going to be far enough away apparently. She wanted to scream.

  Glancing at the mirror she wondered momentarily what Jake had seen that was worth hungering for. Dark hair cascaded in a dishevelled tangle almost to her waist. Her face, completely devoid of any make-up, was pale. Only her deep green eyes might possibly be conceived of as very attractive—and a man would have to be very hungry indeed, she thought, to overlook the rest and settle on those. She tugged a brush resolutely through the snarls, finally plaiting it and pinning it in one long plait in a coil on top of her head. It was an improvement all right. She looked much more in control of the situation now—if not regal and detached, at least competent and non-hysterical. Much more capable of dealing with the presence of Jake Brosnan.

  A good thing, too, for at that moment Jake tapped on the door and opened it before she could utter a sound. ‘Your mother sends her love,’ he said, the grin still lurking on his face.

  Torey rolled her eyes. ‘That’s not all she sent, believe me.’

  ‘Well, no, you’re right. It’s not.’ He came in
and shut the door, moving across the room with catlike grace to stand in front of her. Tipping her chin up and looking into her wide green eyes, he murmured, ‘She also sent this,’ and his lips touched hers, gently at first. A motherly kiss, Torey thought bemused and a tiny bit pleased with herself for standing up under it so passively. But almost imperceptibly the kiss changed, deepened, sought an entrance that she could not deny. His tongue probed, tasted, stroked against her own, and Torey felt herself slipping. She grabbed for his shirt front and encountered only a bare, hair-roughened chest, hard and muscular beneath her fingers.

  ‘J-Jake?’ she stammered, wondering where all that self-control she was so proud of had gone.

  ‘Hmmmmm?’ The kiss ended as slowly as it had begun, and Jake stepped back and cocked his head quizzically. ‘And what does she usually send?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘Men.’ Torey could barely say the word. Her voice was no more than a breathless whisper. Snap out of it, she commanded herself. A kiss is a kiss. Even Vince Liebfried kisses. But not like that! she couldn’t help but think.

  Jake shook his head, chuckling softly. ‘She doesn’t need to,’ he said. ‘Not when she’s got me on the spot.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned you’re not on the spot,’ Torey said, silently congratulating herself for having got her feet back on the ground once more. She moved quickly towards the door, anxious to get away from the intimacy of her bedroom. ‘I’m about to fix breakfast. I suppose you’ve already eaten,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘I fed Scott,’ he answered, following her into the kitchen with the tenacity of Maynard when he thought a can of dog food might be in the offing. ‘But I could stand more than cornflakes myself.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ she said ungraciously, and Jake grinned, making her remember his comment about her lack of hospitality last night. He was obviously recalling it too.

  ‘An omelette, maybe,’ he said. ‘There are mushrooms and cheese in the fridge. Also some bacon?’ He looked at her hopefully. If he had a tail he’d wag it, she thought glumly.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Great. How about a swim first?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s go for a swim before breakfast. Good for the appetite.’

  Torey gave him a hard stare. ‘You already have a good appetite.’

  ‘A man has many hungers,’ Jake said easily, a teasing light in his eyes. ‘A nice cold swim might assuage a couple of mine.’

  ‘By all means, let’s swim then,’ Torey said sarcastically. ‘I’ll meet you down there.’

  ‘I don’t mind waiting while you change,’ he said, and dropped into one of the oak, spindle back chairs, stretching his feet out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. ‘Hurry up, though.’

  Torey made strangling motions with her hands. Damn him, why didn’t he just leave? Then she could bolt the door and have a nice, quiet breakfast in peace—alone. ‘Hurry up, though,’ she fumed as she rummaged through her suitcase and came up with a serviceable but hardly elegant two piece swimsuit. Serve him right, she thought, stripping off her jeans and blouse. Used to the all but non-existent bikinis that dotted the beaches of southern California, Jake would doubtless find her modest suit, appropriate though it was for swimming in Apple River Canyon or at the ‘Y’ in Dubuque, to be a joke here. Perhaps, she thought, hooking the bra and gazing critically at the vivid blue and green floral pattern of the suit, it will stun him so much that he will go off me altogether! She could but hope.

  ‘Nice,’ Jake said when she reappeared, and he didn’t look put off at all.

  Keep your eyes to yourself, she thought, hastily wrapping a bath sheet around herself sarong fashion. ‘After you,’ she said, and followed him out the door.

  ‘Where’s Scott?’ she asked, catching up to him as he opened the gate and waited for her to go out.

  ‘Playing at a friend’s. I’ve had to make other arrangements since Addie’s been gone.’

  Torey bristled slightly. ‘She’s your babysitter?’

  ‘Yeah. Most mornings anyway. Usually she fed him breakfast, too.’ He didn’t seem at all reticent about discussing it.

  ‘Must be nice for you,’ Torey said shortly. Sleeping in after hard nights, recovering from hangovers in peace. Seven years ago that sort of behaviour had been confined to weekends because he had had to be at the ad agency the rest of the time. Now, apparently, he could carouse all week.

  ‘Suits us both,’ Jake said amiably, and nodded in greeting to a couple of young women in bathing suits who were roller skating along The Strand.

  ‘Coming again Saturday night, honey?’ the blonde one asked him as she whizzed past.

  Jake grinned. ‘Of course, I’m a fixture. You know that.’

  ‘I’ll be looking for you,’ she called over her shoulder and blew him a kiss.

  Torey looked at him sourly. ‘Friends of yours?’ she asked trying to keep from wrinkling her nose and attempting a casualness she was far from feeling. Why couldn’t she just feel supreme disinterest where Jake Brosnan was concerned?

  ‘Acquaintances,’ Jake said easily as he stepped over the low wall to the sandy beach and offered her a hand. She took it, wishing that his touch didn’t sear her.

  Shades of adolescence, she chided herself, and withdrew her hand immediately when she got her footing in the sand. Jake quirked an eyebrow but didn’t say a word. Damn, why had she told him that she had had a crush on him? Now he would be interpreting her every move in light of that juvenile infatuation.

  The sand was barely warm underfoot now, but by mid-afternoon she knew it would be so hot she would want to wear thongs. Now it was comfortably gritty and soft between her toes. Jake was striding on ahead, and she couldn’t help feasting her eyes on him, watching the play of the morning sun across the tanned expanse of his back, the way the towel slung around his neck ruffled up the hair on the back of his head. He was still every bit the virile male animal she had known seven years ago—and, she thought grimly, still as attractive as ever to the opposite sex. Those two women on roller skates—hardly more than girls really—had been the only women they had met and Jake had known them. Probably he knew thousands. Seven years and a five-year-old son hadn’t slowed him down any! Not when he had Addie to babysit for him too.

  Jake stopped just before the high tide mark and dropped his towel. ‘Suit you?’ he asked, turning to watch her cross the sand towards him.

  ‘It’s fine.’ She laid her towel out carefully and was about to sit down, when Jake said.

  ‘I thought we were going swimming.’ His hand went to the fastener of his cut-off jeans and, mesmerised, she watched as he slid down the zipper and the faded blue denim slithered down his hips leaving only equally worn, formerly navy blue trunks in their place.

  She had been going to say, ‘I’m not hot enough yet,’ but suddenly she was burning. She turned and darted past him, running towards the breakers, hoping to drown once and for all the desire she felt. Splashing through the surf, she dived under the first wave, shattered, then numbed by the cold water on her burning skin. She came up gasping to be slapped in the face by an oncoming wave. Bobbing to the surface, she struck out in a head-up breast stroke due west putting, she hoped, plenty of green water between herself and Jake Brosnan.

  Swimming was wonderful, exhilarating, like a sudden rebirth after months of being overwhelmed by the petty concerns and worries of everyday life. God, how much she had forgotten! She laughed aloud feeling the power of the water surging beneath her as an unbroken wave rolled in towards the shore. Out beyond even the surfers now, she turned back, expecting to see Jake’s dark head bobbing amidst the waves far behind her. Instead he was scarcely six feet from her, the black hair plastered to his forehead, a fierce scowl on his face.

  ‘You’re out too far, Torey,’ he growled. ‘Come on back, now.’ He looked like he was biting back several more things he would rather have said to her, and Torey stared, remembering the daredevil surfer she had known as J.B. Th
e satisfied smile slipped from her face.

  ‘Come on.’ He was adamant, and from the look of him she thought he might knock her out and drag her shoreward if she didn’t turn back, so she obediently began to paddle towards the beach, letting the incoming surf do much of the work for her.

  ‘I thought you wanted to swim,’ she said as they moved along side by side through the glassy water.

  ‘Not to China.’ His voice was still gruff but some of the tension seemed to have eased. ‘It’s been a long time since you’ve been in the ocean,’ he said, obviously feeling a need to explain his demand that she return.

  ‘Yes, but I still swim a lot. Paul and I went to the “Y” in Dubuque a couple of times a week. I kept it up. I used to swim a mile every time I went. You needn’t have worried.’

  He made a wry face and flicked a wet strand of hair out of his eyes. ‘Maybe. But it shocked me to see you take off like that. I thought it might be a burst of girlish enthusiasm or ...’ his voice trailed off and she replied curtly,

  ‘I told you, I’ve grown up. Bursts of girlish enthusiasm—all kinds of girlish enthusiasm—are a thing of the past.’

  Air whistled slowly through Jake’s teeth and a grim look flickered over his rugged features. ‘So you said,’ he muttered, and glancing over his shoulder, he said, ‘Here comes one.’ Before she could make a move, he had dipped his head and taken two powerful strokes, fitting himself neatly into the flow of the wave and, while she bobbed helplessly above it, he shot away, his body dropping over the crest and surging along with the breaker until he stood up far away in knee deep water and shook his wet hair. He walked straight up the beach to their towels and dropped down face first never once looking back.

  Torey stared after him, puzzled, caught in a riptide of emotions. Jake blew hot and cold, infuriated her and attracted her, chased her and then swam away. Which one was the real Jake? Or were any of them? And why did she care? There was no more future in being interested in Jake Brosnan now than there had been seven years ago. He would only want now what he had wanted then—a one-night stand, a warm bed, some good sex. It certainly wouldn’t be called ‘making love’. She doubted Jake even knew what real love was.