Katy smiled and ran her fingers over the sleek surface, leaving faint trails in the dust, almost feeling a contact with her father through this prized possession. “I wonder why I didn’t take one of the cars when I left,” she mused.
“I don’t know, Sweetie.” Mrs. L hesitated before adding, “I keep thinking about you being found alone on that beach and I’ve wondered if . . . well, maybe you had some disagreement with your friends and left them and were hitchhiking and got in with the wrong people. I think you had quite a lot of cash with you.”
Cash. Yes, that would explain why she hadn’t written checks or used her credit cards, and robbery could well have been the motive for what happened to her. But the possibility of hitchhiking astonished Katy. “Would I do that?”
“Maybe. You’ve always been such an unpredictable free spirit. You didn’t know a soul in New York when you took off all alone to get into modeling there.”
Unfortunately, Kathy thought wryly as she fingered the scar line across her scalp, this latest jaunt had been less successful than her original career move.
Her father’s cluttered workshop on the far side of the garage was just as he had left it the day he and Mavis climbed into his private plane for a trip to a conference in Denver, according to Mrs. L. His work still covered the long counters and a central island, everything from ideas in the whimsical drawing stage to half-finished projects that offered little clue to what usage he intended for them. A clever, multilevel bird feeder he’d designed so he could watch the birds while he worked hung outside one window, and purple elephants danced on a wind chime at another window. A big sign on one wall proclaimed, “No batteries!”
“Thornton never invented anything that needed batteries,” Mrs. L. explained. “He especially hated battery-operated toys. He said kids should play with things they made work themselves, not just sit and watch a toy do something.”
A sweet and playful man, Katy decided, but also wise, and again a pang of loss tangled with guilt and frustration. It seemed such a betrayal of her parents not to remember them, a feeling intensified when she started reading one of the children’s books her mother had written. She couldn’t manage the stairs to her mother’s upstairs studio yet, but Mrs. L. brought down an armload of books about an adventurous trio of girls who shared ownership of a horse, and Katy read in bed until almost midnight. Next morning, over fresh-baked cinnamon rolls in the sunny breakfast nook, she asked Mrs. L. about a feeling that still nagged her.
“Do you know of something important I should have done before I left, or perhaps intended to do when I returned? Something connected with my parents, perhaps?”
“Nothing I know of.” Mrs. L. gave her a quick, sharp glance. “Are you starting to remember?”
Katy shook her head regretfully. “No, it’s just that I keep having this something-unfinished, something-undone feeling, that I’ve forgotten something very important that I must do.”
Mrs. L. also shook her head as she wiped the kitchen range. “I’m sure you and the lawyer had Thornton and Mavis’s affairs all wrapped up. But there could be various things you intended to do, I suppose. Sell the ranch, perhaps, or embark on a new career? I know you were interested in acting.”
Acting. Katy remembered payments to a drama coach among her expenses. Yes, that made sense. Was there some important appointment or contact that prompted this nagging feeling? Then another thought occurred to her. “How do you feel about my selling the ranch, Mrs. L.?”
“I’d miss it, of course. I’ve loved it here. But I’d also like to be closer to Evan. He’s up for promotion and won’t be traveling up this way much if he gets it.” She smiled, her pride in her son obvious. “Maybe I could ferret out some nice girl for him since he seems too busy to do it himself. If he isn’t working, he’s at his health club or out running five or ten miles a day to keep in shape.”
Katy smiled at Mrs. L.’s motherly fussiness. “I’d love to see him. Maybe it would stir some of my lost childhood memories. Maybe by then I can even get out and run with him.”
“I’ll tell him.”
***
Jace hadn’t said what time he was taking the boys to the river, but, with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation, Katy parked herself on the front deck right after lunch to be ready when he arrived. Mrs. L., assured that Katy would be in good hands, had left a few minutes earlier to attend her quilting circle at a friend’s in Wilding.
Katy had found pink shorts, a scoop-necked T-shirt, and sunglasses in the cartons, and she was also wearing the new hat to protect her exposed scalp. Wearing it as well, she had to admit, because the big, frivolous hat was more flattering than her skimpy “hairdo.” Not that she cared how she looked to Jace Foster, of course, but she didn’t want to alarm the boys with her strange appearance. When she saw a pickup start down the driveway at Damascus, she picked up her crutches and hobbled down the three steps from the deck, determined to show her self-sufficiency.
Yet when the pickup loaded with paddles and orange life preservers pulled up beside her, she knew she couldn’t possibly climb in it alone. She had enough trouble struggling in and out of Mrs. L.’s Honda, and the big pickup was much higher. This was a really dumb idea, she muttered silently as Jace came around the pickup to open the door. She was not going through the awkwardness of having him push and pull her as if he were trying to load a stranded whale. She’d just tell him she’d changed her mind about going after all.
She didn’t get a chance to open her mouth.
In one smooth, seemingly effortless gesture he simply picked her up, supporting the cast with a muscular arm, and deposited her on the pickup seat. He tossed her crutches on top of the life jackets.
“This is really great for the boys,” he said, standing inside the open door. He wore faded jeans and old sneakers, baseball cap pushed back on his dark hair, sunglasses hiding his eyes. “I was sorry they got caught in the middle of our . . . differences.”
Again Katy had the odd feeling that their “differences” went beyond problems about the ranch, but the sight of a strange procession turning into the driveway distracted her. “What is that?”
Marching single-file down the driveway came what looked for all the world like a dozen large, pointy-ended, overturned orange bugs, each propelled by a pair of human legs. Leading the procession was a longer-legged bug, and all the bugs were singing lustily.
Jace laughed at her astonishment. “Inflatable kayaks,” he explained. “Each boy has to take one to the river, and putting it on top your head is the easiest way to carry it. That’s Mac, our chaplain and history teacher, there in front. You remember him, don’t you?”
Katy didn’t remember the long-legged African American, of course, and she was too slow in concealing her blank response for Jace not to notice.
“He conducted the memorial service for your parents in our chapel.”
“Yes, of course,” she murmured, still watching the strange procession. Several moments later she was surprised to realize Jace was still standing beside her, an odd expression on his face. Reflective? Puzzled?”
“You’re not wearing much makeup these days.”
The unexpected personal comment, with a faint undertone of approval, startled her. Had she always gone in for heavy makeup before? She’d unpacked a cosmopolitan variety of cosmetics scattered among the cartons shipped from New York, but it hadn’t occurred to her to apply more than sunscreen and a touch of lipstick for an outing such as this.
“No, perhaps not.” Then, feeling flustered by his continuing appraisal and nearness, she added lightly, “But I am hiding under this big hat.”
“I guess I’m surprised you’re not hiding in the—” He broke off as if suddenly embarrassed she might interpret this as his thinking she should hide somewhere.
“I just meant you’ve never been one to—” Again he floundered and broke off. He lifted the cap a fraction of an inch, as if it were suddenly in urgent need of adjustmen
t, and smoothed his hair.
“Never been one to tarnish my model image by doing something such as appearing in public almost bald?” she filled in lightly.
“Something like that,” he admitted. He smiled, and his eyes were a tantalizing blend of brown and green-gold flecks, and good humor. “I like it.”
He tilted her floppy-brimmed hat at a more rakish angle, and for a moment Katy’s breath caught as she thought his fingertips were going to brush her face. But all he did was close the door lightly.
Jace detoured the marching procession and followed an overgrown lane through the woods, stopping once to take a chain saw out of the back of the pickup and efficiently buzz through a couple of fallen trees blocking the way. He’d apparently anticipated a need for repair work after the old dirt road hadn’t been used for months.
Katy breathed deeply of the earthy scent of the thick forest around them, everything so vibrantly alive and green and growing, as if, should the pickup pause too long, some eager vine might twine around it. Branches brushed her elbow hanging out the window, and off to one side neon pink ribbons fluttered on the survey stakes Mrs. L. had mentioned. Once a trio of deer bounded down the lane ahead of them, the height of their leaps belying the slender fragility of their legs. Oh, how Katy wished she didn’t have the cast tying her down, that she, too, could run and leap. Did she really plan to sell this wonderful piece of heaven-on-earth and dash off to the tinsel glitz of Hollywood?
“Would you like to get out?” Jace asked when they reached the river. “There’s a log by the fire pit where you can sit.”
The narrow strip of main current ran fast and wild on the far side of the river, white water spraying around exposed rocks, but on this side the water lapped on a wide, shallow, half-moon of sandy beach. The calm, almost lakelike stretch of green water didn’t actually feel threatening to Katy, but it did make her want to keep her distance. “I think I’ll just watch from here, thanks.”
“I’ll get a fire started, then. We always get soaked on these excursions and need to dry off and warm up. The water’s cold.” He started away from the pickup, then paused and looked back. They’d both been cordial so far, even cautiously friendly for a few moments, but now a hint of hostility resurfaced. “Although our agreement didn’t cover building fires.”
“Just do what you’ve always done.”
She watched as he gathered twigs and larger pieces of wood, moving with the easy grace of an athlete, and starting the fire with the competence of an experienced woodsman. The flames crackled briskly by the time the procession of boys and kayaks arrived. Katy couldn’t dredge up any happy memories of campfires, yet she found the scene inviting. If it weren’t that she’d have to ask for Jace’s help to get out of the pickup, she’d have gone to sit by the fire.
First came the donning of life jackets. Jace’s cardinal rule was that no one got near the water without one. He unloaded his own kayak from the pickup, paddled out about fifteen feet, and from there coached the boys on shore in proper use and handling of their equipment. When they were allowed to try it on their own, he stood waist deep in the water with them, moving from boy to boy to correct the holding of a paddle or balance of weight or show how to dig deep to make a turn. Mac, in his own kayak, took up a farther-out position, guarding against any accidental or intentional run toward the dangerous rough water.
Boys being boys, a couple of the more rambunctious ones quickly dumped themselves in the water, but Jace maintained a nice balance between lessons in technique and safety and letting them have fun. Within minutes, the boys were scooting around like so many noisy orange water bugs, and Jace waded out to warm and dry himself at the fire.
From the shadowed interior of the pickup Katy watched him curiously. He had so much patience with the boys, and they obviously respected and liked him. If she could only come right out and ask him about what had happened between herself and him. Then she had to laugh because, absorbed in watching the boys, he let his steaming backside get too close to the fire and jumped away with a yelp.
She didn’t think he could have heard her laugh, but suddenly he turned and stalked toward the pickup. Without a word he yanked the door open and scooped her into his arms.
“What are you doing?” she yelped.
“I decided you’d like to sit by the fire but were just too stubborn to ask for my help.”
That observation was so accurate that Katy couldn’t even think of an appropriate put-down for the high-handed, macho way he carried her to the fire. He deposited her on the log and asked if she’d like something to drink. “There’s Pepsi and 7UP in the pickup.”
“No, thank you.”
“Looks as if I got you a little damp. Sorry about that.”
She was indeed a “little damp” along one side, soaked actually, from being clamped against his wet clothes, but it was difficult to maintain an aloof air of injury when she was so pleased to be sitting there by the crackling flames, wrapped in the fragrance of wood smoke and feeling the pleasantly rough bark of the log beneath her. “I’m fine.”
He carefully selected a long stick from the pile by the fire and solemnly handed it to her. “I can’t sit beside a campfire without wanting to poke at it.”
Katy couldn’t either, she realized, and with delight she jabbed and watched the sparks spiral upward. Yet she also couldn’t help clinging to a huffy attitude for the way he’d high-handedly hauled her over here like a sack of cement.
“Isn’t this a school day?” she asked in a deliberately challenging tone. “How come your students are out here rather than in a classroom?”
“The boys who come to Damascus are mostly urban, from troubled families and usually in trouble themselves. Their closest contact with nature has probably been loitering on a street corner. We aren’t the type of school that specializes in teaching rigorous outdoor survival techniques, but we try to teach the boys something about various types of life survival, from the physical to the intellectual, with the foundation of a spiritual connection with God. We want them to learn the basics of work and play and worship, how to be both team players and independent thinkers so they can resist the wrong kind of peer pressure back home. And not all that can be learned in a classroom.”
Jace started out simply explaining, but a fierce passion rose in his voice as he spoke, an urgent sense of purpose and strength of dedication coming through that deeply impressed Katy.
“These twelve boys are all the students you have?”
“No. We average about fifty, all in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, but we usually take no more than twelve or fifteen boys on outings such as this. We hope to expand the school to include older boys later, but expansion takes money, of course. And we need to upgrade the facilities for some of our current classes, especially in the area of computers. I’m hoping for a corporate donation to buy new equipment in the near future.”
“Did you come from a Christian home? Or were you also a boy in trouble from a troubled family?” Katy asked impulsively.
He gave her an odd look, and it occurred to her they may have had this conversation sometime in the past. A sudden splashing from the water made him look in that direction where at least half the boys were now involved in a spirited waterfight.
“Okay, you guys, knock it off,” he called. “We’re going to run some races in a few minutes.” His tone was good natured but authoritative, and the boys “knocked it off.” He turned his attention back to Katy, but instead of backing her into a corner about her faulty memory as she’d expected, he said skeptically, “You were never interested in my background or family before.”
She wasn’t? How odd. “I am now.” When he didn’t immediately offer any information, she approached from a different angle. “Jace. That’s an unusual name.”
“My father was something of a gambler and wanted to name me Ace. My mother wanted Jock. So perhaps I’m fortunate they agreed on nothing worse than Jace.” He smiled wryly. “It was proba
bly the only thing they ever agreed on.”
“So it wasn’t exactly a Brady Bunch childhood.”
He shrugged lightly. “I was never into gangs or drugs, but I was always a troublemaker. I had a chip on my shoulder and a temper to go with it. My mother abandoned us before I started school. My dad was a good mechanic, but he was also a drinker and brawler, so we bounced around a lot. I remember going to four different schools one year.”
“That couldn’t have been easy,” Katy said sympathetically, catching a glimpse of an always-the-outsider boy behind this confident man.
He shrugged again, this time in dismissal of what had to have been a bumpy childhood and adolescence. “But I managed to get a football scholarship to college and went professional when I graduated. I bounced around some there, too, and eventually got my right knee pretty well messed up.”
“So then you decided to quit football and start the school?”
He shook his head emphatically. “No. I wasn’t a Christian then. And leaving football wasn’t what I wanted. But between my injured knee and my ongoing temper problems, I hadn’t much choice. For a while I tried to get into sportscasting or coaching.” He smiled a little grimly. “But I wasn’t exactly deluged with offers. I was bitter and angry and resentful and envious, and I started going downhill, fast.”
He didn’t offer details, but Katy could guess, especially with the role model he had in his father.
“But a friend . . . well, not really a friend,” he amended. “At least not at the time, because I steered away from ‘religious’ guys, but a Christian guy I’d played ball with, saw what was happening. He literally hauled me off to backpack in the mountains in Montana. It was more isolated and wild than anything I’d ever seen, barely a deer path in the wilderness, and I was mad, really furious with him for dragging me out there. For the first two days all that kept me from stomping out was a head-pounding hangover, plus the fact that I was pretty well lost.”
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