Shooting Starr (13 page)

“I'll take her,” C.J. growled, and he shot his sister a look to make it clear he considered that was his responsibility and nobody else's. “I was planning on showing her around whenever she figured she was ready.”

Then he said to Caitlyn, and it came out a lot gruffer
than he'd meant it to, “So, you want to go right now, or what?”

“Sure.” She pushed back her chair and stood up, and so did he. Then, of all things, she gathered up her dishes and was about to carry them to the sink when he moved to intercept her.

“What do you think you're doing?” he said, taking hold of the plate in her hands.

“Clearing my dishes. What does it look like?” She was hanging on to the plate, and there was a stubborn edge to her voice that matched the steely gaze she aimed at his chin.

“You don't—” C.J. began, but his mother interrupted him.

“Plenty of time for that later, hon'. Nice of you to offer. Right now you run along and let Calvin show you around the place. It's just a perfect time to be outdoors—the weather's so fine. This is my favorite time of year, Calvin knows. Yellow-flower season is what I call it.”

C.J. barely heard what she was saying. He was too busy trying to figure out the look on Caitlyn's face—several looks, really—different emotions that flitted one after the other across her face like images on a movie screen. A comical “So there!” look first, as if she was on the verge of sticking her tongue out at him. But then that vanished and he saw hope and wistfulness, sorrow and despair, but in such rapid succession he couldn't be certain he'd seen them at all. And finally, an almost angry sort of puzzlement as she realized that her hands, which had somehow gotten tangled up with him while he was trying to relieve her of her load of dishes, had come to be resting on his arms.

He realized it, too, about the same time she did. He looked down and saw them there, her fingers rubbing back and forth in a questing sort of way, burrowing down through the sunbleached hair to reach the tanned skin underneath, and he froze, rooted fast to the spot. Although
“froze” wasn't anything like the right way to describe what he felt, the heat that was suddenly pouring through his body, the electricity skating around under his skin, the heavy thumping in the bottom of his belly. Terrible things to be happening to a man while his mother and sister were standing beside him; put it that way.

“You two go on, now, I'll do the washing up,” his mother said, making shooing motions at them with the dish towel she was holding. “Calvin James, put on your shirt.”

Caitlyn had snatched her hands away from him and was rubbing them as if she'd touched something she didn't like. “It's warm out, isn't it? I won't need a jacket….” She sounded as if she didn't have enough air to breathe.

“You aren't gonna need a jacket,” C.J. muttered as he retrieved the T-shirt he'd left hanging over a vacant chair and pulled it over his head. He felt half-suffocated himself, his body blooming with heat and his heart pounding in a way it never did after the easy, one-mile run over from his place. He was good and angry with himself, and it came out in his voice when he snapped, “Are you ready? Well okay, then, let's go.”

He felt sorry and ashamed for his sharpness when he saw the eager look on her face, and the searching, almost childlike way she reached for him with her hand. He took it and placed it in the crook of his elbow the way he might have returned a lost bird to its nest.

“Okay,” he said with a more gentle gruffness, “this is the back porch. Watch your step, now….”

The screen door banged behind them. Caitlyn held her breath to contain shivers of delight…of anticipation and, yes, of sheer joy. At the bottom of the steps she paused, and C.J., obeying the tug on his arm, paused with her. She inhaled deeply, lifting her face to the sun's warmth. “Smells good,” she said inadequately. “Like fall.”

“Yeah,” said C.J. Then, as she heard the eager wuffs and snuffles and felt the bump of warm bodies against her
legs, he said, “Guess I better introduce you to the dogs.” He paused, then went on talking as Caitlyn gave a gurgle of laughter and dropped to her knees in a wriggling, licking, wagging pile of friendly canines. “The big quiet one's Bubba. He's a chocolate Lab and he's got yellow eyes—looks like a lion without a mane. He's my brother Troy's dog—you met his wife, Charly—but they live in Atlanta and he's a whole lot happier out here. Can't say I blame him. Anyway, he's getting up there—must be about ten, now, so he's normally pretty well-behaved. Also the brains of the outfit. The other one's Blondie. She's young and a golden retriever, and as far as anything not having to do with retrieving goes, dumb as a bag of rocks. Makes up for it by being pretty and sweet natured, I guess. Just don't count on her to bring you home if you get lost. She's as apt to lead you into a pond.”

The words startled her, though she doubted he'd meant the remark the way it sounded, or had any idea of the notion—the hope—of independence that flashed through her mind.
Could I? Could I walk out alone with the dogs to guide me? Do I dare try?

Before she could stop herself she jerked her face upward as if to look at him—an automatic response from a different life and futile now, of course—but it was to Blondie's advantage and utter delight. A huge tongue slapped joyously across her face, and Caitlyn was caught between laughter, the instinct to cry for help and mercy and the practical need at that particular moment to keep her mouth shut.

She heard C.J. shout, “Hey, Blondie! Come here—fetch!” then give a little grunt of effort. The tongue retreated with a happy “Wuff!” and a scrabble of claws on gravelly ground.

Abandoned, Caitlyn teetered off balance and would have collapsed in a breathless, laughing heap except for the solid, furry body that moved in close to steady her at just the right moment. Nudged up against her side, Bubba gave her
chin an encouraging lick as if to say, “You're okay, now.
I'm
here.”

Murmuring, “Good dog…what a sweet ol' boy you are….” she wrapped her arms around the big Lab's neck and gave him a fur-ruffling rub. Then strong hands were under her elbows, and instead of the dusty, warm dog smell in her nostrils, there was that familiar, clean C.J. smell again. As he helped her up, just for a moment she felt the brush of his cheek—slightly beard-scratchy—against hers and the feathery tickle of hair. Something jolted under her ribs, and she caught at her next breath as if it were about to be taken from her.

“You okay?” he asked gruffly, and she felt the warm breeze of his breath, scented with coffee and maple syrup.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” Back on her feet, she brushed at herself and pushed away from him, moving a few steps and covering her breathlessness with laughter.

“Ground's a little rough,” he said as he caught her hand and brought it firmly back into the crook of his elbow.

Caitlyn didn't reply. Her feelings were a jumble—confusing, distressing—and as they walked on she kept her head turned so C.J. wouldn't see them written on her face.
Caty, make up your mind! What is it you want? One minute you're dreaming of walking out alone, the next minute you're terrified that he's not touching you. You were scared when you let go of him. Admit it. You felt safe when he took your hand again. Safe!

But she knew safety that depended on someone else was an illusion. She'd learned from experience and example that no one could guarantee another person's safety, that the only real protection she had against the terrors and monsters of the world was inside herself. Her own inner strength—that was her armor. Without that she would be naked as a hatchling bird.

As she walked she chanted to herself, like a pledge, a credo, a prayer:
I must not lose my strength and my inde
pendence, no matter how good his arm feels here beneath my hand. No matter how nice it feels to walk like this beside his strong, warm body, I must not let myself like it too much.

“We're back a good bit from the road,” C.J. said as they walked slowly along, feet swishing through leaf-covered grass, then crunching on gravel—no doubt the same gravel she'd heard the tires of Eve's car drive over last night. “The house is surrounded by trees—some poplars, hickories and a few maples…but mostly oaks, so the leaves haven't really started to pile up yet. There's an old tire swing hanging from one of 'em. I played on that when I was a kid.”

The air did feel cooler now. They must be in the shade, she thought as she asked wistfully, “Have the leaves turned?” She'd always loved the colors of fall.

“A lot of 'em have. They're not at their peak, though. Farther north, up in the mountains, that's where they're pretty, right about now….” He paused for a moment, and when he went on there was an odd little break in his voice…another of those emotional nuances she hadn't yet learned to read? “There's lots of goldenrod along the roadsides and fences, with pink and purple morning glories mixed in. All sorts of grasses and other flowers, daisies, I guess, maybe sunflowers, mostly yellow—”

“Yellow-flower season,” Caitlyn murmured, smiling. Her throat ached with longing.

“Yeah…” C.J. gave an uneven laugh. The fingers that covered her hand were stroking back and forth in a consoling sort of way. His voice became a soft sweet murmur, and she remembered that she'd liked the way it sounded a million years ago. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah…there's fields over there on the other side of the lane—some farmer leases 'em out to plant crops on. Sometimes it's cotton, sometimes soybeans. This summer he had some kind of grain, but it's been harvested already, so
there's just stubble out there now. Birds like it, though. You can see them flyin' in and out, looking for the leftover seed. And the turkeys, of course—they love it. Wild geese stop over sometimes to feed.”

“Canadian geese?” Her heart gave a leap, and in her memory's eye she saw the undulating arrows against a pale, cold Iowa sky. Homesickness washed over her, prickling her nose and eyes.

“Yeah. I don't see any out there now, though. Sorry.” His voice was husky. “Maybe another time.”

He paused, while his fingers went on stroking the back of her hand, and out of the blue she found herself wondering what he looked like. Not in general, of course—she remembered him the way he'd looked that night, remembered his warm brown eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and the sweetness of that smile—but at this particular moment. Right now she couldn't hear a trace of that smile in his voice. She didn't know what she did hear—warmth, compassion, kindness…other things she couldn't sort out or identify—and she couldn't picture the face that went with the voice at all. Her face felt stiff and achy with the effort of trying to penetrate the blankness. Frustration was a fine vibration that ran beneath the surface of her skin.

She felt his body turn toward her, become a close and humid warmth, and the vibration inside her became a jumpy current of electricity.

“Okay. Over here—” his voice was a spine-stirring growl near her ear, and she felt foolish as she turned, clumsy under his guidance, as if she'd missed a step in a dance “—on this side is mostly woods, but there's some cow pastures and hay fields with those big round bales still lying in 'em, and a pond down there, and a creek, too. And beyond that, more woods.”

“No houses?” Her voice cracked.

C.J. gave a little laugh. “Told you we're out in the mid
dle of nowhere. No, actually, Jimmy Joe—that's my brother—”

“The one you work for, who owns the trucking company.”

“Right. His place is half a mile or so down the road from here. He used to run the business from there, until it got too big. Now he's got a regular terminal on the outskirts of Augusta. Then, just about a mile down the road in the other direction is my place. It's closer than that through the fields, but I like to come by the road so I can keep track of my time.”

“So you did really ‘run' over here this morning?”

There was a little pause, and this time when he spoke she could hear the grin. “Told you I keep in shape.”

“Yes, but
running?
” It was unexpected; such a town-dwelling, yuppie thing to do, she thought. It didn't fit the image of C.J. Starr in her mind, sweet Southern good-ol' boy truck driver who couldn't bear the thought of living in the city. But, she reminded herself, he's studying to become a lawyer, don't forget, and that didn't fit your image of him, either. Not even then.

You jumped to conclusions about this man once before and look where that got you.

“I got started running way back in high school,” he was saying, as if he'd heard her thoughts. “The way it happened was, I was playing football and, like all good Georgia boys, dreaming of being a Georgia Bulldog one day. Since I was built on the lean side and had some fairly decent speed, I was a running back. Come the end of the football season, my coach wanted me to go out for track to keep in shape. Work on my time.” He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had a distant sound, as if he'd gone into a private room and closed the door, leaving her outside. “I guess he thought I had some potential. Anyway, whether I did or not I never found out, but I got to like the running for its own sake, so I guess it wasn't a total loss.”

She walked on beside him, unconsciously in step, listening to what he'd told her and what he hadn't. Listening to the faint elusive sadness in his voice that reminded her of the way wild geese sounded, far away in an autumn sky. After a moment she asked, “Why didn't you? Find out about your potential, I mean.” And when he didn't answer she did for him, softly. “You never got to the University of Georgia?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He stopped walking, and so did she. She heard a dry, scuffing sound. He'd leaned against a tree trunk, letting her hand slide out of its nest in the crook of his arm. Distancing himself from her, she thought, and felt strangely bereft.