Across the Creek (2 page)

“Look at you. You look just like your mother. You’re too skinny. Too sensitive. Hell, even your hair’s too pretty. Everybody always said how much you looked just like your whore of a mother.” Rex took a few steps closer.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Robbie rising to his feet. Like Rex but in miniature, he stumbled forward, one hand on the side of his face, the other in his pocket.

Rex took another step closer to Jesse and grabbed him by the arm. Jesse tried to pull away, but his arm couldn’t escape the bear trap grasp.

Then Robbie unleashed a mighty roar. “Get away from him!”

“You stay out of this, boy,” Rex said without taking his eyes off of Jesse. “I’m just having a chat with your little brother. Man-to-man,” he said. “He forgets how little he
really
is.”

“Touch him and you’re dead.” Robbie pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing a knife.

Rex released Jesse and turned to face Robbie. “Are you a tough guy now?” He smiled. Crow’s feet spidered from his eyes, spreading across his cheeks. Tequila emitting from his breath and pores made the ulcers in Jesse’s stomach scream with pain. “You must be tough. You’ve got that fancy blade. But you and I both know that you don’t have the stones to use it.”

Robbie looked at Jesse and gave him a get-out-of-here look, but Jesse couldn’t move. “Don’t you worry about Jesse,” Rex snorted. “I’ll take care of him once I’m finished with you.”

“You’re nothing but a drunk.” Robbie’s hand trembled as he raised the blade.

Rex squared up to Robbie, leaving Jesse to his back. He towered over his eldest son, casting a long shadow over him. His potbelly, swollen from years of driving truck, hung over his belt and stuck out just beneath his blood-stained t-shirt. “You ready to find out if you’re man enough to handle me?” He raised hands as large as bear claws. “Let’s find out.”

Jesse wanted to run, wanted to leave, wanted to go back to the willow tree with Sarah. Where it was nice, where it was safe. He didn’t want to see what would happen if the monster got a hold of Robbie, or worse, Robbie’s knife. It wouldn’t be good, not for any of them.

A sledgehammer pounded in Jesse’s chest with each beat of his heart. Then the storm outside sent a cold breeze through the front door, chilling the tears resting on his cheeks. He wiped them off with the sleeve of his jacket and readied himself. The monster’s back was to him now. The spider on his neck stared at him, daring him to move. It was time. Time to stop running. Time to stop the monster.

“You need to leave,” Jesse shouted. “Now!”

“Now, Jesse, you don’t have to cry,” Rex said, still staring at the blade in Robbie’s hand. “This will all be over soon.”

The monster smiled, raised his hands, and lunged.

Sarah

Ten years later

The phone rang once, then a second time.

“Don’t you dare answer it,” Kevin said, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.

Sarah’s hand froze on the phone. “What if it’s my father?” Her stomach wrenched into knots as she tilted the phone to read the caller ID, hoping today wasn’t the day she’d receive the call she’d been dreading for weeks now. But it was only Rachael’s name that lit the ID, and her insides uncoiled.

“Not your father?”

She shook her head. Rachael could wait. Right now she had a gorgeous man in need of her attention. “No,” she said, smiling. “Now where were we?” She slid a hand down Kevin’s chest, settling at one of the buttons that still needed undoing. She paused and absorbed the passion shooting from his chocolate brown eyes.

Kevin leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck. His lips moved from her shoulder to her ear, sending goose bumps down her arms. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t answer the phone?”

“Definitely,” she said, biting her bottom lip. She finished the last of his buttons and slid his collared Armani shirt off of his shoulders. Her fingers walked down his firm chest, making a path for her lips to follow. It had been a week since the last time she’d seen him. The thought of his strong and safe arms wrapped around her and his lips kissing the side of her neck sent her hands to the front of his pants. She felt his muscles tighten.

Then, as if destined to ruin the moment, the phone rang again.

She reached for it.

“Leave it.” He grabbed her hand and placed it back onto his chest. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

She leaned in, closed her eyes, and gently slid her tongue across his lips. “Are you sure about that?”

He closed his eyes and let go of her hand. The phone rang again, this time flashing STANLEY RAMSEY on the caller ID.

“I have to get it. It’s my father this time.”

Kevin’s shoulders slumped. He let out a sigh and nodded. “To be continued. Tell your dad I said hi.”

She nodded.

Kevin flipped his shirt back onto his shoulders and dropped down on the sofa. He picked up the remote control and began flipping through channels. How could she have gotten so lucky? Gorgeous, intelligent, funny, and he wanted to be with her.

She took a deep breath before hitting the TALK button. “Dad, are you okay?”

“Yes. Of course I am.”

“Are you sure? You sound winded.”

“I’m sure. Just working on the fence.”

She covered her other ear to block the sound of a police shootout blaring from the television. “Fence? Why are you working on your fence?”

“Not my fence. Your fence.”

She opened her fridge and removed a cold bottle of water.
Oh dear
, she thought.
He’s losing it
. “Dad, I don’t have a fence. I live on the second floor, remember? Downtown.”

She heard a chuckle and then silence. “Dad?”

“Sarah, I’m working on your fence at the nursery.”

“There isn’t a fence at the nursery.”

“I know. I’m building one.” A noise like wood landing on something solid sounded in the background.

“Why? That wasn’t part of our plans.”

“When I stopped out here yesterday I noticed some animals roaming the place. We’ve gotta keep ’em out.”

She ran a hand through her hair. The plant nursery had been a constant headache ever since she decided to start her own business. First, all the trees had to be cleared; then there was the business of how to dispose of all that wood. After the clearing came the drainage issues. Nothing had seemed to go as planned. “Oh,” she said, opening her balcony door. Pedestrian sounds wafted up and muted the television’s blare. “You shouldn’t be out there lifting heavy stuff.”

“Foolishness,” he said. “The doctor said that I should be getting some exercise. Said it would be good for me.” Another twisted interpretation of the doctor’s orders. It was something he had grown quite good at.

“Exercise, yes. But I don’t think he had building a fence in mind when he told you that.”

“When are they breaking ground on the greenhouse?” Subject change. Typical response every time his health was the topic of discussion.

“It should be soon. I’m just finishing up the plans with the contractors.” She hated lying, especially to her father, but she knew the truth would be more than he could bear right now. Besides, he had plenty on his plate—ignoring doctor’s orders was keeping him plenty occupied.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to have a talk with them? They don’t seem to be on the ball with things. And I doubt they’d have the slightest problem taking advantage of a young woman just out of college.”

In the twenty-two years that she’d grown up with him, she hadn’t heard him raise his voice more than four times. “I’m sure, Dad. I can handle it.”

“All right.”

She thought about him lifting large planks of wood and wished there was something she could say that would send him home where he could rest. “How’s Kevin?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“He’s fine,” she said, walking outside to her patio. The air held a slight chill, but the morning sun felt good on her skin. If Kevin had been more like her father, he’d be there now, making sure her father didn’t get hurt. Of course, she’d yet to meet a man who was like her father. Strong, quiet, and into plants. “He’s been working a lot, but that’s nothing new.”

Her pause was met with silence on the other end, followed by another crashing sound. “Dad, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. “I was just calling to see when they were going to break ground on the greenhouse. And to see how my little girl was doing.”

She hadn’t been his little girl for a long time now. Her mother leaving them when she was just twelve years old had robbed her of a childhood. But that didn’t matter to her father. She could be fifty-two and he’d still see her as his little girl with bouncing blond curls playing in the garden while he harvested vegetables. “Are you sure you’re okay, Dad? You sound—” she paused—“strange.”

“I’m fine. I’ll be better once I stop these animals from getting on our property.”

She walked over to her potted plants that hung from the balcony above. She spun the cap off the water bottle and took a sip. Then she shared it with her plants. Her gaze drifted to the wilting leaves of her lilies. “Damn it,” she said.

“What is it?”

“It’s my potted lilies. They’re still not doing well.”

“How’s the dirt? Dry?”

She pushed a finger into the earth. “No. Well, a little, but not enough to cause this. They’re dying and I can’t seem to save them.”

“Have you tried worms?”

“Worms?” Her eyebrows knitted together. “Dad, do you want me to stop by? I can go with you to see the doctor if you want me to.”

“Will you stop it with that?” he said gruffly. “I’m
fine
.”

“Okay. Okay. But you have to understand—”

“Sarah, sweetheart,” he interrupted, “You can’t do this every time I cough or sneeze or go a day without calling you. We both know the reality of my situation. But it’s
my
situation. Not yours.”

But you’re
my
father, she wanted to say. The one who taught her how to ride her first bike, who chased away the monsters from her closet, and who took her to buy her first prom dress. Instead, she ran a hand through her hair and let out a sigh. “I can’t help worrying about you.”

“You’re so stubborn,” he said. “You didn’t get that from me.” A moment of silence passed between them. “I didn’t mean that you should feed your lilies worms. Worms are good for the soil. They burrow and allow for oxygen to get to the roots.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish. Had she not been so distracted by her father’s health she might have remembered that. “No, I haven’t tried that.”

“You should go to a pet store and get some.”

“All right,” she said. “I’m bringing you dinner later. Don’t forget.”

“Sounds good, sweetie. I’ll see you then.”

Sarah hung up the phone and sat back in her chair. A cooling wind breezed through her hair. The memory of the dreaded doctor’s appointment rushed over her like the cool breeze, bringing with it a chill that even the sun couldn’t soothe. A small dose of helplessness settled in, reminding her of her father and his last doctor’s appointment.

Tinseltown always depicted the scenes in the movies where doctors delivered bad news as devastating, but until you were actually there, you didn’t really understand what it meant. Sarah did. Another lesson in growing up she had received too soon in life.

She remembered the defeated look in Dr. Bradtmiller’s eyes as he laid a hand on her father’s shoulder.
I’m sorry, old friend. It’s worse than we thought
. Her father’s head sank.

It’s cancer.

The doctor’s news knocked the wind from Sarah. But her father didn’t blink. It was as if he had known before the doctor told him. Instead, he placed his hand on Sarah’s and told her how sorry
he
was. How sorry he was. Her father, Stanley Ramsey, the most selfless person she had ever known, had proven once again what a great father, what a great person, he was.

The wind turned into a gust and knocked over the bottled water. Sarah took one last look at the wilting lilies. “You poor babies. What on earth is going on with you?” The weight of helplessness felt like a thousand pounds resting on her shoulders, breaking her. The plants, her father, and the inability to fix either left her in a maze of uncertainty, wondering if the next call she’d receive would be the one that the doctor had warned her about when her father asked him his next question.
So how much time are we looking at?

Tears welled in the doctor’s eyes, transforming him from physician to friend.
Six months to a year.

*

A Google search gave her the address to a pet store in Old Town, which was just a few miles from where she lived. “Sam’s Pet Shop. Sounds cute.” She noted the address, grabbed her purse and headed outside. Kevin had offered to take her in his car, but she preferred her bicycle, especially on a sunny day like today.

The streets of Chicago bustled with pedestrians talking, cars honking, and construction crews hammering. Moving from New Haven, Indiana, to the big city required quite an adjustment for Sarah. It wasn’t until she was in high school that she started to feel like she was an actual Chicagoan.

Old Town quickly became one of Sarah’s favorite neighborhoods. It was like being in a completely different city. The recently remodeled buildings on Webster Street across from Oz Park were an architectural marvel. She often wondered what it must be like to come home here every day.

Miniature hedges lined the sidewalks, dividing the brown stone buildings and houses from the streets. Old fashioned lamp posts added to the ambiance, which the neighborhood loved to advertise. Each building had a tiny set of steps that led up to a large wooden door framed by a stone archway. This place felt real and solid, invincible even to time.

She parked her bicycle at the park and then crossed the busy street. Shoppers walked the sidewalks, walking from store to store carrying their purchases and enjoying the gorgeous day. Sarah moved along with the crowd, reading signs and looking for Sam’s Pet Shop.

She smiled at a couple who appeared to be in their seventies, holding hands and eating ice cream cones. She stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the walking signal.