Sterling's Reasons (12 page)
“That’s not true. I see it in your eyes.”
Her sweet voice, the acceptance in her smile, was too much. “I don’t need this. I don’t damn well need this.” He turned from her and walked purposefully to his own cottage.
She stayed where she was for long moments after he had disappeared into his cottage. He snapped lights on as he went and she pictured him pouring himself a drink and then going about the routine of feeding the kittens.
She was in trouble. A new house or a new job wasn’t going to fix this man’s life. Walking over to his steps, she climbed them slowly. He had shed his jacket and kicked his boots in a corner. He was leaning over with both hands on the sink. She wanted to go to him—and what? Maybe things were better left alone for tonight. She turned to go and caught movement out of the corner of her eye between their two cottages. Looking again, she thought she saw someone duck back into the shadows.
Going down the steps, Sterling used the moonlight to guide her way up the sandy incline. Topping the hill, she saw a car pull away from the driveway with its lights off. Somewhere down the road, the headlights were punched on and the car drove away. Who would be snooping around? Kids, she decided. They were the only two cottages on this isolated strip of beach and probably some kids came down, cruising and into mischief. But she tried to shake off the uneasy feeling, remembering the car that had seemed to tail them the other day. It could all be a coincidence. She shrugged. It had to be.
92
Chapter Seven
Sterling woke to bright sunshine. Sitting up, she swung her feet to the floor.
A new day. Maybe she could forget about the fitful night. She stood and stretched her tired muscles. Moving to the mirror over her dresser, she studied her reflection. Her eyes attested to her fatigue. Grimacing, she forced her mouth into a smile and talked to the image in the glass. “Up! Bright! Happy!” She frowned. “Forget it.”
She dressed in pink shorts and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, then braided her long hair. She’d decided to start the day with a run on the beach. It usually gave her a better perspective and made her feel invincible. She needed that feeling. As much for herself as for Joe Timothy MacDaniels. She pulled on her yellow hightop tennis shoes and jogged down the steps, a new, stronger resolution in her mind. She had a job to do. She was usually so good at her work. She had to get her mind back on business and keep it there.
The first thing she noticed was that his Jeep was gone. She blinked and looked again. Gone! Now she’d done it. She ran to the bottom of his steps, taking them two at a time. She had been too harsh with him. She had acted like a crazy woman in Delaware, and then last night she had shown him too much about how she was feeling about him. He was right. He didn’t need this. So he had left.
Could she blame him? No. She had to blame herself.
She slid the door open and sprinted into the living room. It was then she heard them. The soft, begging mewing that said, “Feed me.” He had left the kittens? He was without a heart. Then she saw the normal things lying around.
Joey Light
His clothes were still draped over everything that would support something; the sink was still full of dirty dishes; the remains of the vodka bottle lay in a pile where he had swept it; the broom was propped against the wall.
Walking over to the box that served as home and mother to the orphaned felines, she stepped on a wet towel. Picking it up, she realized it was soaked with baby formula. Checking the trash can, she found the empty container. He had spilled it. She smiled when she pictured him, getting up, running his hands through his hair as he did so often, preparing little bottles…the ones lined up one, two, three on the sink and then dropping the can.
She could almost hear him swear, see him throw the towel over the mess, and then turn to search for his Jeep keys in the disarray around him. The relief that flooded through her surprised her. The job would have been over had he left, at least until she contacted Ramsburg to see if he wanted her to chase him around the country. She knew at that moment just how important Joe had become to her. She would have gone after him on her own. It was more now.
And that was something else she would have to contend with.
But not now. She would take advantage of his absence and tidy things up a bit. She filled the sink and squirted soap into it. As the bubbles built, she dropped in dishes, glasses, and empty ashtrays. Going over to the kitten’s box, she stroked them with a finger. “Soon Daddy will be home with your milk.
Daddy.” She laughed.
I’m sure he would appreciate that title,
she thought wryly.
She sorted clothes, dirty from clean, and dropped a load in the ancient washer. Taking his clean ones, she headed for his closet to deposit them on the shelf. A box was there. Just a simple cardboard box. His personal belongings, she guessed. Her hand moved to open it, but something stopped her.
She pushed the vacuum around, wiped the end tables clear of ashes and water rings, arranged his paperback books on a shelf and stacked the magazines 94
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beside them. Washing the few dishes took only minutes. After transferring the clothes from washer to dryer she turned to the curtain rod that hung by one nail.
Searching the drawers in the kitchen area, she found a hammer and rehung the curtains.
Sterling ran next door to her place to bring back her portable radio and turned on a country western station. She smiled. Everything looked so homey.
Maybe the little bit of order she had restored would ease him some.
She gave the bathroom a quick once-over, then ended up standing in the doorway to his bedroom. The table beside the window held an empty glass, several books, and two overflowing ashtrays. One pillow was on the floor. The sheet and light blanket were twisted tornado-like down the middle of the bed.
The bottom sheet was popped off one corner. It was then she noticed the small handgun on the night stand. It was positioned for instant reach. She walked over to it, ran her fingers down it.
It was cold. It was hard. She picked it up gingerly. Held it in the palm of her hand. It didn’t scare her as she thought it might. She wrapped her fingers around it making sure not to put any pressure on the trigger. Instinct told her it was loaded. She looked at it, then she looked at herself holding it. Sterling tried to imagine herself using it on a human being. She couldn’t. It had to take a special kind of person to do some things in life that were absolutely necessary. Or the right circumstances.
She was glad there were men like Joe and Red. Men who shouldered the responsibility, be it war, the protection and preservation of the rights of a free country, or the fight to protect innocent people from the madness and nastiness that existed in the world.
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She replaced the gun exactly and shrugged. He had his reasons for making it readily available. Habit. A gun had been an extension of his hand for a long time.
Why should he sever it now?
Sterling thought about making up the bed, but decided against it. There was something too intimate about that. The box in the closet struck her mind again.
She would be violating his privacy…but then again, perhaps there was something in there that would answer some of the questions she had about him.
No, she turned back into the living room. She couldn’t do it.
She hadn’t heard him drive up over the high volume of the music. She hadn’t heard him walk up the steps, across the deck, and into the living room.
But there he was with a bright green-and-pink boogie board tucked under one arm.
He looked at her and then around him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
That look again. She had seen it twice before. One that could accuse and shame, question, and cause doubt. Intimidate.
With her hands clasped behind her back, she smiled. “You can imagine my surprise when I saw your Jeep was gone… I thought you had just packed up and left. I couldn’t blame you, the way I ran on last night. But I came up here and you weren’t gone…just off to replace the formula you dropped. I was glad,” she rattled on. “So while I was waiting I figured I’d clean up a bit. I didn’t think you’d mind. You’ve not been in the mood to do housework and… What’s that?”
He had stood still, not smiling. He’d seen her come from his bedroom and wondered if she’d had fun snooping. “I don’t like my dirt moved. I go to great pains to get it where it is. When the clutter ticks me off, I’ll clean it. Leave it alone.”
Color drained from her face. He was serious. He must even wake up nasty.
Then she realized what was really bothering him. “If you’re wondering if I got 96
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into your personal stuff, the answer is no. But I did handle the gun on your nightstand. Just out of curiosity, and I was careful not to touch the trigger. It’s a nice little gun. I dusted it.”
“Don’t ever get into that box in my closet. You had no business doing any of this. And that ‘little gun’ is a Jennings .22 automatic and it’s loaded with stingers.
Hinkley shot Reagan and Brady with one exactly like it. Don’t handle that nice little gun.”
He was dressed all in black. Standing in the doorway with the sun to his back, the daylight shot out from all sides. She was reminded of a gunslinger.
Except for the boogie board he still held under his arm. In his other hand was a bag of groceries.
She shrugged. “Sorry.” She pulled one of her braids around to tug on it.
“Why did you get a boogie board?”
It was then he remembered it. He propped it on the couch and proceeded to the kitchen. Putting the bag on the clean countertop he said, over his shoulder,
“It’s for you.”
“For me?” She jumped toward it and picked it up. “How do you do it? Oh, that was so nice of you to buy me one. Want me to help you feed the babies before we go?”
He held the can of formula half out of the bag and turned to look at her.
“Before we go where?”
“Why, surfing, of course. You have to teach me.” She joined him by the sink and held up one of the bottles for him to fill. He looked at her for a moment and then, taking the can opener, split the top of the formula package. She filled the bottles as he unloaded the grocery bag.
Sliding the kitty box to the couch, she took one bottle and one kitten and handed it to Joe, who came to sit beside her. “You should name them, you know.
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Everything has to have an identity. How about Shadow? He’s so pretty and gray.”
“He’s a she and her name is Antoinette. After Marie.”
Sterling laughed, and held up the orange kitten poking the little nipple into its mouth. “Who’s this?”
“Elliott, T.S., and the other one is Chopin, Frederick.”
“Elliott, Chopin, and Antoinette. Nothing like giving them something to live up to. I think we should leave them in the living room for a while today, instead of in the darkness of your kitchen. What do you think?”
“I think you talk too much. But yes, they can have sunshine for today.” They settled back and continued the feeding. The silence was an easy one.
The kittens put down for a nap, she clapped her hands together and picked up the board. “Okay, first lesson.”
“Go home, Sterling.”
“But I thought…” She took one step back.
“Go home and change into your swimsuit first. I brought sandwiches from the restaurant and a bottle of wine. I found a nice cove a little way down. I figured we could have a picnic and you could ride the waves to your heart’s content.”
This abrupt change was par for the course and she should have been used to it, but it still took her by surprise. Her face broke into a grin. “I have a blanket we can take and a basket for the food if you need it.”
He nodded, a smile playing at the corners of his handsome mouth.
“Sometime during the night I decided I might be wrong about you. In any case, I think we’ll take today to get to know each other better. Then I’ll decide.”
“Will you now?” She squared her shoulders. “Prepare yourself for a day you’ll not soon forget, Joe MacDaniels. Because I’ve decided you are not going to 98
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leave the human race without a fight from me. The fact that I see a smile now and again is all the encouragement I need.”
She hoped he didn’t see the wave of guilt that washed over her. She hoped he didn’t see the surge of love that kept swooping in from nowhere. She hadn’t figured any of this out yet, and she didn’t want him to have even a hint that she was anything other than his self-imposed friend and neighbor.
“If I decided what I wanted was to leave the human race, there would be nothing you could do about it, Sterling.”
She slammed a smile on him and was out the door in a flash leaving him standing there listening to the echo of his own words.
When she returned she was dressed in the two-piece bathing suit she had forced herself into bringing at Ramsburg’s needling. It was black with a slash of orange neon. She felt self-conscious until his blatant appraisal of her told her she must still look all right in it.
Joe felt a tightening of all his muscles. She was a beautiful little imp. Bossy, overbearing, scatterbrained, and lovely. Always bright and never still, colorful and warm. He was reminded of candles on a cake.
Sterling watched Joe as he packed the basket she had brought back with her.
He was wearing cut-off jeans for a bathing suit. His legs appeared strong, roped with muscles, hairy…and white. His upper torso was tanned, but she could tell he didn’t get out of his jeans and into a bathing suit very often. “You sure look pretty,” she said.
He turned to glare at her. “Men are not pretty. They’re handsome.”
“Well, you look handsome then.” At his slow, devilish smile, she grinned back and changed the subject. “Did you pack any paper plates and napkins?”