Feels Like Summertime (6 page)

“
E
at your eggs
,” I say to Trixie. Getting her to eat anything healthy is like pulling teeth, and pretty much just as painful. She likes peanut butter and jelly and not much else.

“I don’t like eggs.” She props her elbow on the table and rests the side of her face against the flat of her palm. While she blinks down at the food she doesn’t want, Sally slobbers a big puddle of drool right beside her chair. He licks his lips.

“Alex, do you want milk or juice? Gabby?”

“Milk,” says Alex around a mouthful of bacon.

Gabby slaps him gently on the arm. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” She pours out some milk for Alex. “Juice for me, please.”

I turn away to get some juice and turn back to find that Trixie’s plate is now completely empty. “I do like eggs after all,” she chirps. She holds out her palm, and Sally gives her his paw like he’s giving her a high five.

“That dog has to go back to Jake today,” I mutter.

“Why can’t Sally stay?” Trixie asks.

“Because he’s Jake’s dog.” I sound like a whiny brat myself. I was up all night with an unborn kid sitting on my bladder.

“But he likes me,” she says as she feeds him a bite of egg off my plate. I actually got the dog some dog food when I got up early this morning and went to the store, but the dog won’t touch it. And why should he when–

A loud knock sounds on the door. Gabby jumps up quick as a flash and gathers the children and the dog, and they go into the bedroom.

My heart thunders in my chest. “Who is it?” I call through the door.

“It’s Jake,” he calls back.

I let out the breath I was holding and force myself to relax. Then I open the door and step to the side so Jake can come in as Gabby brings the kids back into the kitchen. She’s carrying Trixie, who suddenly won’t look up from where her head is pressed beneath Gabby’s chin.

I wish my kids weren’t so fearful. Hell, I wish
I
wasn’t so fearful.

“Is everything okay?” Jake asks, looking closely at my kids.

“Yes. We’re fine. What’s up?”

Jake fidgets. “I wanted to talk to you really quickly.”

“Okay…” I say slowly. “About anything in particular?”

He jams his hands into his pockets. “Can you take a walk with me?”

I turn off the burners on the stove. “Can you watch the kids for a minute?” I ask Gabby. She waves a hand at me, dismissing me totally. Teenagers.

“What do you need, Jake?” I ask, as I step carefully down the porch steps. He turns and takes my hand as I waddle. “Is your dad all right?”

“He’s as mean as ever.”

Jakes fingers linger in mine well after I’m down the steps, and my heart trips a quick little beat.

I
can remember very well
the second time I ever held hands with Jake Jacobson. He kissed me that night when we fell into the lake, but it was an awful kiss. It was all tongue and slobber and it really wasn’t anything I wanted to remember. I certainly didn’t go home and write about it in my journal.

We were at a camp cookout. Mr. Jacobson held them every Saturday night. He said it was an excuse to burn a hamburger, but really it was his attempt to bring all the people in the area together. The magic of being at the lake wasn’t in the solitude. It was in the community. It was in finding other kids your age, or getting to meet interesting adults, or the missionaries that came on Sundays to deliver the church messages. The magic was in the community.

So every Saturday night, Mr. Jacobson would cook burgers on the grill and everyone else would bring a dish to share. My dad and Uncle Adam brought key lime pie that Uncle Adam made from scratch. It was so much better than the icebox pies that my dad bought. But you had to eat it quickly or it would melt. For that reason, we left it in our tiny freezer until it was time to eat dessert.

Dad sent me back to the cabin to get it while he finished his burger. “Run and get the pie,” he said. “I think everyone is almost done.” He looked around. Uncle Adam was across the table from him, because when we were out in a crowd like this, they were my dad and my Uncle Adam, and not my two dads. It’s how it was back then. They had to be much more careful to conceal their love for one another than they are now.

I ran back to the cabin and got the pie from the freezer, only stopping briefly to let the cold air cool my face. When I ran back to the picnic area, I stopped short. Jake was sitting with my dad and Uncle Adam. He looked back over his shoulder at me and smiled. “Hey,” he said.

My belly did that fluttery thing that always happened when I was nervous. Times one hundred. Uncle Adam got up and moved to the other side of the picnic table, leaving a place next to Jake. “Hi,” I said to him. I set the pie on the table and sat down next to him.

Dad dished out some pie and passed the rest of it down the table to the others waiting. “So, you were busy today, huh, Jake?” Uncle Adam asked.

“Yes, sir,” Jake replied gruffly. “Pop had me cleaning the bath house. With a toothbrush.”

Dad snickered. Uncle Adam elbowed him in the side. He jerked a thumb toward Dad. “He’s laughing because he had to do that very same thing once or twice when he was young.” He grinned. “I vaguely remember
someone
borrowing Old Man Jacobson’s canoe and flipping it over. His tackle box sank to the bottom of the lake.”

“Old Man Jacobson turned ten shades of red, and then he went to my mom and told her what I did. She shoved me toward him and told him to do his worst. Five days of cleaning toilets and floors with a toothbrush. I never borrowed anything else. Ever.” Dad smiled about it though. “I learned my lesson,” he said. He leaned toward Jake like they were sharing secrets. “So, what did you do?” he whispered dramatically, wrapping his hands around his mouth.

Jake murmured out of the corner of his mouth, “I’d rather not say, sir.”

Uncle Adam laughed. “It wouldn’t happen to involve a six-pack of beer and a fall from the dock, would it?”

Jake’s cheeks turned pink and his gaze shot all over the place.

“Ha!” Dad cried. “I told you!” He held out a hand and Uncle Adam slapped a five-dollar bill in it. “Thank you very much,” he crowed as he shoved the bill into his back pocket.

“That doesn’t sound very fair,” I protested.

“No, I deserve it,” Jake said.

Dad and Uncle Adam’s eyes met and I saw something pass between them. It was either an “I like this kid” kind of look or an “I’m not sure how to feel about this kid” kind of look. I couldn’t tell which. And that part made me nervous.

“When do you get off restriction?” Dad asked.

“I’m free now.” Jake smiled as he ate the last of his pie. “I was wondering if I might be able to take Katie for a walk with me?”

Dad looked up at the setting sun. “In the dark?” He pointed toward the waning sun. “Absolutely not.”

“Dan,” Uncle Adam chided, “it’s not even dark yet.”

“Fine,” Dad conceded. “Have her home by dark.” He pointed a finger at Jake and I saw him wither. “I mean it.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He got up and held a hand out to me. “Take a walk with me, Katie?” He waited, holding his breath. I slipped my hand into his, and he gave it a squeeze, and that’s how I ended up holding hands with Jake Jacobson for the second time. And it was amazing.

He didn’t try to kiss me that night, but holding hands was better. My heart was all a-skitter, bouncing all over the place as we walked on the shoreline hand in hand.

M
y gut is
all a-whirl trying to figure out how to talk to Katie. I’m a cop, for Christ’s sake. I’ve interrogated men of all sorts. I should be able to talk to a woman. But for some reason, I’m skittish as a newborn colt when it comes to her.

“I saw Alex early this morning,” I suddenly blurt out.

“Alex?” she asks, her brow furrowing. “Where?”

“Pop sent me out in the old canoe to fix the floating dock, and I was out there, on the water, when I saw Alex on the dock.”

She points with emphasis to the ground under our feet. “
This
morning?”

“Yes.” I stare at her. “You didn’t tell him he could go?”

She shakes her head. “No. I went to the store for food and left Gabby in charge. The little ones were still sleeping.”

“He tossed this into the lake.” I hold out the note to her. “It was inside a plastic bottle.”

“Oh,” she breathes out. She sinks down on the bottom step. “I didn’t know he was still doing this.”

I sit down next to her. “You know what it is?”

She scrubs a hand down her face. “It’s probably a plea to God to bring Jeff home.” Her gaze finds mine. “Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he was done with that.”

“What’s that all about?” I ask. I watch her face. You can tell a lot about people by watching their faces.

But with Katie, it’s like someone has drawn the shutters. You can’t see in the windows. You can’t get a hint of what’s going on inside.

“The last time his dad left for a deployment, he told Alex that he could write a note, fold it into a paper airplane, and send it over the back fence. That way whatever he wanted to say to his father would get to him.” She heaves a sigh. “He’s still doing it, apparently.”

I stay quiet. For some reason, I don’t think my words are needed here.

“I used to go and collect the notes every day, and then I would take pictures of them and send them to Jeff by email. Then the next time he got to talk to the kids, he would mention them, so Alex would know that his thoughts and ramblings actually made it to his dad.”

“So, are you going to take a picture of this one?”

She groans. “What good would that do me? Or Alex for that matter?” She lumbers to her feet, pressing her belly forward. “Thanks for letting me know he’s doing it here. I wasn’t aware.”

“He asked for help, Katie.”

“I know that, Jake.” She stares into my eyes. And her blue ones are full of something I can’t quite pinpoint.

“What can I do to help you, Katie?” I ask, my heart in my throat.

“We don’t need for you to take care of us, Jake,” she says on a heavy breath. “I just need to be here. I need to stay here and not feel like someone is trying to jerk my soul out of me every time I take a breath.” She presses her fist against her chest. “I just need to breathe, Jake. That’s all I need. If you can’t let me breathe, then get the fuck off me and stay the hell away. I’m not leaving. Please don’t make me miserable.”

Then she stomps up the steps.

I sit there, absolutely stunned. And hurt. And angry.

My gut wants me to follow her, to find out what’s really going on. But my head…my head is telling me to take it slow, to let it unravel. My heart… That bastard is telling me that this is exactly how I messed everything up back home.

“Get a dog,” I mutter to myself. Because that worked out for me.

“Get yourself together, Jake,” I mutter again.

“
Jake!
” a voice yells from inside the cabin. The door flies open and Katie’s kids run out.

One of them screams. I step inside to find Katie standing on the center couch cushion. She has a frying pan clutched in her hand.

“What the hell?” I say. There’s no one in here but her. “What are we trying to kill?”

She points with a frantically shaking finger to the edge of the kitchen counter. “That! Get that.
That
.”

I look over and find a tiny little mouse nibbling on the corner of a piece of cheese. “That?”

“Yes! That!” she shrieks.

“I can get it!” Alex yells through the door.

“No!” Katie yells back. “Stay outside.”

“It’s just a mouse,” I say. I walk toward it, and take a bowl off the counter very slowly.

“It’s a
rodent!
” Katie shrieks, making my ears ring.

“It’s just a tiny little mouse. All he wants is a piece of cheese.”

“Get it out of here, Jake!” she screams.

“Okay, okay,” I say calmly. I slowly lower the bowl on top of the unsuspecting mouse until I have it safe within the tiny dome. The mouse doesn’t seem to care. He nibbles his piece of cheese.

“Now what are you going to do with it?” she asks. She steps warily down from the couch cushion.

Hell, I have no idea. “I’m going to…take it outside.”

Katie has a wide envelope lying on the counter. I pick it up and slide it under the edge of the bowl, slowly inching beneath the tiny little beast until I have him carefully trapped.

“He’s actually kind of cute,” I tell her.

She leans close to me, and the scent of her shampoo tickles my nose. She used to smell like Love’s Baby Soft. Now she smells like Love’s Baby Soft and comfort. She’s really, really pregnant, I have to remind myself. Because being this close is like shooting a lightning bolt straight to my middle. And lower. And that’s just wrong. Katie’s not available. Not by a long shot.

“He’s cuter now that he’s in the bowl,” she says, calmer now. She’s still leaning against me though, with her hand on my arm. “Thank you, Jake.”

“You’re welcome.” I have this irresistible urge to lean down and kiss her. “I really want to kiss you right now,” I whisper.

She looks up at me for half a second. “I really want to be kissed,” she whispers back. Then she takes her hand off my arm and rubs a tiny circle over her belly. “But I’m not quite ready for anything like that.”

“Can I kiss your forehead?” I ask, a grin tugging at my lips.

Her brow furrows. “You want to kiss my forehead?”

“Yeah, I do.” I hold out the bowl and envelope to one side. “I
did
catch the beast with the gnarly fangs that was out to do you great harm. Your kids too. I saved the day.” I shrug. “I think I earned it.”

She leans close and pulls her dark bangs back from her forehead. I bend down and press my lips firmly to her soft skin, lingering a bit longer than I should, but I can’t help it. It’s Katie.

“I won’t ask questions, Katie. I promise. If I don’t ask questions, can I still come and see you?”

Her eyes jerk up to mine. “Yes. I’d be mad if you didn’t.”

“Okay.” I kiss her forehead again. “I’ll stop asking questions you don’t want to answer.”

“Okay.” She breathes out and visibly relaxes. “Thank you for catching the gnarly beast who was bent on death and destruction.”

“I’m going to take it outside.”

“Don’t let it eat my kids.”

I chuckle. “I promise.”

“Do you want some eggs?” she asks. Then we look over and realize that the whole time we’ve been talking, Sally has been eating every bite from every plate, including every last egg on the serving platter. “Well, I can make some more.”

Sally gets down from where his big body was leaning across the table. Katie laughs. It’s the great big belly laugh that I remember from when we were kids. When Katie laughed, the world stopped to listen.

“He’s really a good dog,” she says, shaking her head. “I guess he just likes eggs.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I admit. I’ve seen him for all of what seems like five minutes since I got him.

“He slept in the bed with Trixie last night.”

“That’s nice of her, to share her bed.”

“She slept all night. No nightmares or crying. It’s been a long time since she’s done that.” Then she remembers I’m still holding the mouse. “You want to get that thing out of my house, Jake?” She nods toward the bowl.

“Yep.”

I go and take the mouse outside. Her kids help me by finding the perfect spot to set it free, but I don’t tell Katie that. Let her think her hero vanquished the monster. Then Katie makes more eggs, and I join them for the loudest, goofiest breakfast known to mankind.

But in the mania, there’s a sort of peace, too.