Bridge to Haven (37 page)

He kept his word. He didn’t hurt her. He didn’t move her, either.

When it was over, he held her close. “I wanted to wait. I wanted to take more time.” He sighed, relaxed. “Next time will be better.”

Next time.
Abra knew there would be no going back.

Dylan had always moved away after he’d finished. Franklin held her close. When he went to sleep, she tried to get up. He awakened and pulled her down again. “Where are you going?”

“To my room.”

“This is your room from now on.” He slipped his arm under her neck and put his leg over hers. “I love you.” He nuzzled her neck. “Hmmm. You smell so good.” He sighed. “Go to sleep, Lena.” She fought the urge to free herself from his embrace and forced herself to relax. He loosened his arms so she could turn onto her side and use his arm as a pillow; then his other arm came around her possessively.

She lay wide-awake in the darkness, listening to his breathing, feeling the heat of his body against her back.

Life would be perfect if she could fall in love with him.

She would try.

First, she’d have to forget Abra Matthews ever existed.

Life settled into the old routine for Joshua—work, enjoy time with his friends, read his Bible, hike up into the hills on his days off—but he felt a restlessness growing in him, a feeling that there was more to life and more to God’s plan for him than this.

Dad left a note that he had a board meeting and would be home late. Joshua warmed up leftovers for supper. Edgy, he decided to go to a movie. He didn’t know what was playing, but he drove downtown anyway. Cars had filled the spaces around the square and he had to park around the corner. The Swan’s marquee announced
Dawn of the Zombies
in big red letters. He grimaced and headed for Bessie’s, giving a cursory glance at the glass-encased advertisement in passing. He went hot, then cold. He stepped back and looked again.

Joshua never expected to see Abra advertised as the star of a horror movie. She had long black hair now, not a mass of red wavy hair. The advertisement depicted her screaming and fleeing in terror from a zombie with outstretched arms.

He read the credits.
Lena Scott.
Dad had said she’d changed her name. He had told him about the movie magazine Priscilla had
shown him. Joshua went to the ticket office and recognized one of the teens from church. “What time does
Dawn of the Zombies
start?”

The kid looked shocked. “Started ten minutes ago.”

“One ticket, please.”

“You sure? It’s not your kind of movie.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Yeah . . . well . . .” He blushed. “Three times, actually.”

It was a Friday night and the Swan was packed. He found one seat in the back row between two couples who didn’t look happy he was sitting with them. He ignored them and fixed his eyes on the big screen. It was Abra, all right, dressed in a crinoline with a cinched waist and a scoop neck that revealed far too much.

The story, set in New Orleans before the Civil War, moved slowly. Her fiancé had a plantation and slaves who practiced voodoo. A wedding took place, Abra dancing happily with her dashing groom, who died tragically when he fell from his horse a few days later. While she grieved, her mother-in-law went to the slaves, who performed a ritual that guaranteed her son would be raised from the grave. And arise he did, as a zombie who strangled a prospective suitor of his buxom young widow before he disappeared into the bayou. Later, he came back on a rampage, lurching out of the darkness to grab one victim after another. Thankfully, the producers left the feasting to the imagination, though whenever someone screamed on-screen, a dozen girls in the audience screamed right along with her.

The music changed, warning the audience that the dead scion’s beautiful bride—attired in a flimsy, frothy chiffon and lace gown and asleep in the canopy bed—was in danger. Twice before, the zombie had stood on the lawn gazing up tragically at her window. This time, he opened the creaking gate door of the mausoleum and began his slow, clumsy, plodding walk toward the mansion. The girl tossed in bed and then sat upright, her nightgown barely covering her ample breasts.

Joshua felt a jolt seeing her in such dishabille. The heat spread and centralized when she swung the sheets aside, revealing slender, shapely legs. How many other guys in this theater were feeling what he was?

The girl called out for the servant, who was at that moment being attacked downstairs. Pulling on a flimsy robe, she ran to the window, looking out into the moonlit night. A wolf howled.

Joshua rolled his eyes, wondering if a werewolf was about to come bounding out of the woods to save the day.

The zombie climbed the stairs. It opened the door and moved sluggishly into the lamplight. The girl would have to be deaf as a post not to hear the thud and drag of those feet coming across the wooden floor of her bedroom, but there she stood, leaning out the open window, yearning for something, or someone, her black hair in waves down her back. She turned. Of course, it was too late.

Abra’s scream went right through Joshua. It sounded so genuine it raised goose bumps all over his body.

The funeral scene was held in an old cemetery. The casket was open, Abra playing dead in a white wedding gown and veil, bougainvillea blossoms scattered across her breasts like dark drops of blood. Her brothers wept as they slid her casket into the shelf of the family mausoleum and then locked the door behind them. Fade out to night. Moss hung from the trees. Mists rose as the moon rose. The zombie stood at the mausoleum gate. He broke the lock with his bare hands and entered. In the next scene, he had somehow managed to extricate his bride from her casket. She had turned into a zombie, too, of course, but unlike her ghoulish on-screen husband, she was exquisite, though her facial expression and eyes were devoid of life, her face death-white in the moonlight. When the zombie took her in his decaying arms, she moaned in ecstasy. In the last scene, the couple walked hand in hand through the mists of the bayou. Together. Forever.

Joshua thanked God the movie was over.

A boy sitting two rows in front of Joshua snorted loudly. “Man, was that ever dumb!”

“There’ll probably be a sequel.”

“The movie stinks, but did you get a load of that girl? Va-va-voom!”

“Oh, yeah. She’s worth the price of another ticket.”

“When she leaned out that window, I thought she was going to fall right out of her dress.”

The boy laughed. “Let’s watch it again.”

Feeling sick, Joshua went outside to get some air. The sun had set while he was inside the theater. He got in his truck and drove out of town. He parked where he always did and hiked into the hills. Sitting with his back against a boulder, he looked up at the stars. He wanted to drive down to Hollywood and find her. He wanted to make her come home. Then what? Hog-tie her?

His heartbeat slowed, but his thoughts still tumbled. Abra looked so different. Only someone who loved her and knew her well would recognize her. Others might think Lena Scott looked remarkably like Abra Matthews, but they would dismiss the very idea that a Haven girl could ever become a movie actress, let alone one who oozed sex like a practiced courtesan.

Maybe Lena Scott was Abra’s doppelganger.

Joshua raked his hands into his hair and held his head. He was a man and he wasn’t blind. She’d grown up and filled out over the last three years. She was no longer a red-haired, dewy-faced teenager, but a raven-haired, sultry woman who played innocence with worldly eyes. It wouldn’t just be teenage boys lusting over her. And those two boys weren’t the only ones who wanted to watch her again.

Abra was a B movie star.

But that scream. The look in her eyes. Was that acting?

Joshua grabbed a rock and heaved it into the dark shadows on the hill below. Letting out his breath, he stopped and looked up at
the night sky, the stars cast across the heavens like sparkling dust particles. He’d wait. He’d keep on waiting until he felt the nudge to do something more than wait. Even if that never happened.

Joshua parked on the side street. Dad was still up. The kitchen light was on. Joshua came in the back door and found him sitting at the table. “Sorry I’m so late.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“Have you eaten?” Joshua pulled sandwich fixings from the refrigerator. “I could fix you something.”

“I had dinner at Bessie’s.”

His dull tone made Joshua glance at him. “You saw the movie poster.”

“Yes.”

“I went to the movie.” He took out a butter knife, opened a jar of mustard, and smeared some on a slice of bread.

“And?”

“She’s a good actress.”

“She always was.”

Franklin poured himself a glass of Scotch and sat on the couch with a script. “Play something.” Abra moved to the piano bench. “Not scales.” Franklin looked irritated. He’d been reading scripts for days, looking for the right vehicle for Lena Scott’s next sojourn into the celluloid world of make-believe. “Something soft.”

She played quietly, humming like Mary Ellen.
“I’m pressing on the upward way, new heights I’m gaining ev’ry day; still praying as I’m onward bound, ‘Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.’”

She hadn’t realized she’d begun singing until Franklin spoke. “The voice lessons are helping. I like that piece you’re singing.” He’d set the script aside. “Sums up our quest, doesn’t it? Trying to reach higher ground.”

Abra lifted her hands from the piano, realizing she’d been playing a hymn medley Mitzi had put together as a prelude. She got up and stood at the windows looking down over the busy street. Franklin hated ragtime and she hated the blues. She hadn’t intended to play hymns, but they seemed to come out of nowhere. Was God playing some kind of cruel joke? “Can we go to a music store so I can pick out some sheet music?”

“You haven’t got time for that. We’re trying to make you into an actress, not a concert pianist.” Franklin picked up the discarded script, tossed it on the coffee table, and patted the space beside him. “Come here.” His tone raised her hackles, but she went like a dog called to its master. Franklin draped an arm around her. “You’re far away today. What’re you thinking about?”

Franklin controlled too much of her life already. She didn’t want him inside her head, too. “Is the script good or bad?”

“Forget the script.” He tipped her chin and kissed her. She fought the desire to draw back, get up, and move away. He’d be hurt or angry; one always led to the other. He’d say things that would make her feel even guiltier. “Hmmm, you smell so good.”

“Murray’s trying some new products on me.”

“Tell him I approve.”

She wasn’t in the mood for what he had in mind, and she tried to distract him with business. “Tell me about the script.”

“Pretty good Western.”

“Can you see me riding a horse and shooting a gun?” He’d probably arrange more lessons to make sure she could do both, if he thought the script good enough.

“You’d play a prostitute with a heart of gold like Miss Kitty Russell on
Gunsmoke
.”

Nice. Right up her alley. “Miss Kitty is a saloon proprietress, not a prostitute.”

“Two years with Dylan and Lilith and you’re still naive.” He got
up and went to the bar. She followed, watching him replenish his glass with Chivas Regal. He mixed rum and Coke and slid it across the counter to her. He always gave her a drink before broaching unpleasant subjects. Like acting. He was beginning to realize she might never be comfortable in front of cameras. It took two months to shoot
Dawn of the Zombies
and she had been sick every day of it. She’d never get used to people watching her through a lens. She felt like a germ under a microscope. Everything was studied, criticized.

“Did you ever see
Stagecoach
?” Franklin clinked his glass with hers. “This is down that same dusty road.”

She sipped. He’d made the drink strong. “I hate acting, Franklin.”