Wheels (Tabor Heights Year Two)

by Michelle Levigne

  Four… three… two…

  "Nat, duck!"

  Natalie twisted her arm free and hit the floor, wrapping herself around Sammy as they rolled out of the way. Tommy flung the crutch like a spear. When Chuck twisted aside, distracted, he shoved hard on the wheels, making his wheelchair lunge forward so he barreled into Chuck, hitting him just under the ribs with his head lowered like a battering ram. The move worked like he had meant it to work that afternoon. Chuck slammed against the wall and dropped the knife. He slid down to the floor, gasping, while Tommy rebounded off the wall, almost knocked out of his chair.

  Tommy spun his chair around and reached for Natalie and Sammy, who still clung to each other and struggled to get up.

  "You okay?"

  "Bad man gone now, Uncle Tommy?" Sammy whispered loudly.

  "Yeah, he won't hurt you anymore."

  "What about the other one?" Natalie demanded. "Where's Claire?"

  "Right here." Claire stepped out and let out a gasping sob as she scooped Sammy out of Natalie's arms. "Are you two all right?"

  "Mommy, Uncle Tommy was better than Spider-man!"

  "I'll say," Natalie said, her voice strained. "Tommy!" She lunged, reaching for the fallen knife as Chuck threw himself across the floor to snatch it.

  Tommy launched from his chair, landing on top of Chuck and grabbing at his hand just as he grasped the handle of the knife. Chuck snarled, cursing, and bucked, rolling over onto his back and knocking Tommy loose. He scrambled to his feet and ran down the hall toward the gym, but he left the knife behind.

  A clacking sound erupted in the hall. There was a thud and Chuck wailed. The clacking grew louder, then Puck erupted from the darkness.

  "I got him!" Nikki called. "Are you all right?"

  Jennifer followed Puck from the darkness. The big Dalmatian ran three circles around the four of them, then darted over to the closed kitchen door. He let out one massive bark that made the hairs stand up on Tommy's arms.

  "Where's the other one?" Jennifer said.

  Claire gestured at the kitchen with her chin, both arms wrapped tightly around Sammy.

  "All tied up with duct tape," Tommy said. "Where are the cops?"

  "Looks like we're not needed," Mark Donovan said, stepping into the moonlit lobby from the other hallway. "Anybody hurt? Just the two of them?" He gestured down the gym hallway and two officers stepped from the darkness and headed down the hall.

  "Just the two of them," Natalie said.

  "Two is more than enough," Tommy said. He pressed both fists to his temples. His neck hurt, and the inside of his head felt even more bruised than the outside. How come the action hero movies and books never mentioned the after-effects of using his head like a battering ram? "Hey, anybody got any aspirin?"

  Sunday, September 20

  "Okay, I guess it's time to talk," Tommy said.

  Natalie skidded to a stop on the sidewalk in front of her temporary apartment house. She was so intent on getting out the door and reaching church early -- with the intention of catching up with Tommy and Claire and finding out how they were feeling -- she hadn't seen him sitting in the middle of the driveway until she almost tripped over his wheelchair.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Uh, hello? Waiting for you?" His smile was only a ghost of his usual cockiness.

  "Why aren't you at church? I mean, waiting for me at church."

  "Maybe this is something we need to take care of without any witnesses. I figure, a leisurely walk -- or roll -- to church from here will get us there with about ten minutes until the service starts, and just the right amount of time for talking." He gestured for her to precede him down the sidewalk.

  "You're mad, aren't you?" Natalie didn't feel too safe, putting her back to him. What was to stop him from barking her heels with his footrests, and claiming it was an accident? Or worse, just running her over, knocking her into the grass and sending her sprawling?

  "Dogs get mad, stomachs get upset, people get even," he said in such a calm voice, she was afraid to look over her shoulder and see his expression.

  "I should have told you who I was -- I mean, that I was the Natalie Schaeffer you were talking about, that first day. But I figured, you didn't really remember me and I was… I don't know, kind of embarrassed. I certainly remembered a lot more about you than you did about me." She shrugged and finally turned to look back at him.

  "Nobody likes feeling like a total maroon." He gave his chair an extra-hard push and caught up with her. "How could I talk about you, to you, and not recognize you?"

  "That's not what's really bothering you, is it?" she said, after they had moved along for a few moments in silence.

  "I did a lot of thinking last night. I mean, what else was I going to do after the day we had? I sure couldn't go to sleep, and I didn't want to think about my sister and niece being in danger, so I had to think about it…" He sighed. "I remembered a lot more about everything falling apart, when he -- when da -- when my father left us. And I remembered that your family left our church." Another sigh. "That was my fault, wasn't it?"

  "No, it was my father's choice to take offense at your father choosing not to act like a Christian. Just like it was your father's choice to ruin a lifetime of service and witnessing, and to destroy your family. But your accident wasn't to blame, so it wasn't your fault. If you hadn't been hurt, there would have been something else that would have made your father blow up and fall apart and my father find an excuse to leave the church."

  "You've thought about it a long time, haven't you?" he said quietly.

  "Way too much. I didn't feel like sleeping much last night, either."

  "Sammy wanted you to come sleep over. She said you'd be scared of the bad men, too."

  "She's incredible."

  "She's calling you Aunt Natty, did you know?"

  "No." Her heart gave a funny little thump.

  "Do you mind?"

  "No. I kind of like it."

  "Got to warn you, when Sammy gets her heart set on something, you might as well give up. She's got this faith that moves mountains. Or she just knows how to pester God with these cute little prayers nobody can resist."

  The funny catch in his voice made her look at him again, and Natalie was surprised to see Tommy blushing, and fidgeting a little in his chair as he rolled along.

  "Warn me about what?" she asked, when he didn't continue.

  "Well, it's your fault, you know, so you have to deal with it."

  "What's my fault?" Vaguely, she was aware that they had passed up the first driveway entrance to the church.

  "You told her you had a crush on me and planned on marrying me. Sammy thinks we're engaged."

  "Sorry."

  "The thing is… well, I was kind of a stupid kid, way back when. I didn't see what a good thing I had going. But if you don't want to be stuck with a gimp, we can think of a story to tell her."

  "What do you mean by 'stuck'?" Natalie caught hold of his shoulder, stopping him. The agony on his face when he looked up at her stole her breath. "Are you… interested?"

  "Might be."

  "You've got a pretty rough road to travel here. I mean, dating a girl who's constantly on the move, tracking down stories."

  "Dating?" His voice wobbled a little, but his grin was almost his normal, wide, bright cockiness. "So we're not engaged? What do I tell Sammy?"

  "Tell Sammy to get her own boyfriend."

  "Boyfriend? Aren't you moving kind of fast? I mean, there's a lot of stuff we have to get settled, first, before we start slapping labels like boyfriend and girlfriend on each other."

  "Yeah, you're right." That giddy thumping slowed, and the pressure like a soda bottle shaken up and ready to burst faded out of her chest.

  They kept walking, past the second church driveway, hanging a right at the post office, going down to Main and then settling in at the Perk & Perch to nibble on pastry and drink coffee and talk. About her father's spiritual journey. About how Tommy and Claire an
d their mother had managed to make new lives, and Jarod's selfish, demanding choices, and the new life Tommy and Claire made for themselves after their mother died. And last, about his father's life. His changed life. She guessed how Tommy struggled to accept what she was saying, her impressions of his father in those few moments they had met, and the things her father had told her about his father's reformation. She didn't tell him about his father's illness -- that was something she didn't have any right to reveal -- but she did warn him that Jonas Donnelly knew where he and Claire were, and that he might appear out of the blue someday.

  "Great. We get rid of one set of spies and brace ourselves for someone else to drop into our lives." Tommy shrugged and bowed his head over his mug. They had shared three decadent cream-and-fruit pastries and had worked through two flavored coffee drinks each, heavy on whipped cream, and the Sunday school and worship hours had rolled past. "I remember him chewing out the Jerk for getting so dramatic, always trying to be the center of attention, so maybe that gives me some hope he won't swoop down on us for a big, emotional, sloppy reunion with the whole town as witnesses."

  "So, are you going to tell Claire?" Natalie said.

  "Yeah. I have to. Just don't know when." He pushed away his tall mug. "There's been an awful lot going on around here lately, and she's under a lot of stress, and it's kind of a shock with the baby and all and…" That teasing, wicked smile returned.

  Natalie's heart skipped a few beats, terror and anticipation mixed together, knowing he had a witty, ripping little comment or three buzzing around in his brain.

  "And what?" she finally said, when it was obvious he wasn't going to complete the sentence without prompting.

  "And it just occurred to me that we'll have to get married at your folks' church, and my father will be there, even if he doesn't show up here, so it'd be kind of cruel to Claire, not to warn her before we show up for the wedding and all."

  "Who said we're getting married?" she finally managed to say. Natalie glanced around the café, face burning. Fortunately, they had that section to themselves.

  "Sammy says. And what Sammy sets her heart on, she gets." He swallowed hard. "Lucky for me."

  "Yeah?" There went her heart again, tripping like a dozen syncopated woodpeckers.

  "Yeah." He caught hold of her hands. "It's not going to be easy for us. But I'd sure like to try. I mean, heck, I'd be pretty stupid to let my childhood sweetheart get away from me a second time."

  "Does it count that you didn't even know it at the time?"

  "Yeah, I think it does."

  A Box of Promises -- Coming September 2014

  About Michelle Levigne

  Michelle has been a book addict since her Dr. Seuss days, graduating to The Happy Hollisters (juvenile detectives) and The Black Stallion at an early age. In junior high, she became a "pusher" – creating her own stories from her favorite books and TV shows, "rewriting" the unsatisfying ones. A recovering Trekker, she has many short stories written in fanzines for such universes as Star Trek, Stargate, Highlander, Stingray, Beauty and the Beast, Starman, and the Phoenix, as well as a short stint publishing her own multi-universe fanzine, Starwheel. Her academic background includes degrees in theater/English and communications, focusing on film and writing. Her first professional publication was in conjunction with the Writers of the Future Contest in 1990, where she won first place in the fourth quarter. Writing in romance, science fiction and fantasy, she has been an EPIC Award finalist nearly every year since 2004, winning in 2006 with Lorien, and with The Meruk Episodes in 2010. A native of Northeast Ohio, she is a freelance editor by day, writing novels, short stories and scripts by night.

  Learn more at http:// www.Mlevigne.com

  Visit her blog at http://www.MichelleLevigne.blogspot.com

  And learn more about Tabor Heights and its companion series, Quarry Hall, including sneak peeks at upcoming books at:

  www.Tabor-Heights-Today.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  About Michelle Levigne