Capture the Wind for Me (28 page)

I grasped the fabric of his shirt, my eyes squeezed shut against the tears.

“You are not mad at me?”

“No,” I sniffed. “Just don't be mad at me.”

We stood there hugging, my throat all balled up. It occurred to me he'd had to comfort me three days in a row. What a baby he must think I was.

Not until we sat again on the blanket, hands clasped, did we realize the extent of the blessing Celia had bestowed upon me and Greg—telling us about her and Danny's special place. Greg and I talked quietly about what we'd heard of the past, piecing together details from his brother's life and Celia's, and my parents'. So much pain they'd caused each other. Still, they were now letting us be together.

“Danny only tells me so I will be careful,” Greg said. “He asks Celia first if he can. He knows I will face much, like him. He says, ‘You cannot take your eyes off Christ one minute.'” He smiled. “My brother likes to say that.”

I nodded. Now that everything lay out in the open, seemed to me it wasn't such a bad thing for us to know. “I'm so glad Celia shared her place with us. I'm glad I'm here with you.”

“Me, too.”

He gazed at me, warmth in his eyes. Then a thought flickered over his brow, and he turned to focus distractedly on the river. A few notes hummed deep in his throat. His eyes danced as he hummed it again, mouthing a few words.

I moved his hand gently, recapturing his attention. He shrugged as if I'd caught him at something. “What were you doing?”

“Ah. Sorry. I am . . . writing a song.”

“Oh. I see.” Not really, but what else was I supposed to say. “I've never seen you do that before.”

“Suddenly, it comes. I watch, pay attention to things. Then sometimes—I think something. Usually just words, and the tune comes later.”

I realized at that moment, even after all our talking, how little I knew about Greg's world. Soon he'd return to it—a world of singing and concerts and fame. Girls screaming for him. I couldn't begin to imagine it. And I wondered if he'd be the same person then as he was with me. Could he follow his brother's advice and keep his eyes on Christ?

As the sun set, ribboning bronze and red upon the river, we ate and spoke of easier subjects. I wanted to hear every detail of the songs they'd sing on tour, how some of them had been written since their CD had released. He told me about the special effects—the smoke, the laser lights, and the staging. He even pulled me to my feet and showed me some of the choreography to a song. I caught on to the steps quickly.

“Hey,” he said, “you are good.”

I tossed hair back from my face, pulling in deep breaths. Boy, was I out of shape. “No big deal, I was in gymnastics for years.”

He caught me around the waist and kissed me, both of us still breathing hard. “There is much I don't know about you,” he said. “I want to know everything.”

Darkness would fall soon. We packed up our stuff and trekked back to the car, my heart wanting to sing and wail at once. We had one more day, and I wanted a million. Four days of knowing Greg, and already I could not stand to think of life in Bradleyville without him. Other than his concert in Lexington—
if
Daddy let me go—when would I ever see him again? How could I just live as before in quiet Bradleyville, worrying about whether some boy at school would ever ask me out?

It wouldn't matter, I told myself. If I couldn't be with Greg, I didn't want to be with anyone.

He caught sight of my expression as we placed the blanket and cooler in the car. “What is it?”

I knew that he already knew the answer. He wrapped his arms around me, gentling his fingers into my hair. “I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you.”

“I don't want you to go either.”

Air seeped from his throat. “We will see each other tomorrow. Promise me.”

I promised. But never did I dream how it would happen.

chapter 31

K
atherine was still at our house when I returned, sliding a sheet of cookies into the oven. “Have a good time?” she asked, her sad smile betraying just how well she read the answer.
Hoo-fah for her if she can figure it out,
I thought as I threw away the trash from our meal. Did I have a good time? Yes, Katherine, it was wonderful and it was miserable, like falling into the perfect dream world, then being told you must leave.

“Where's Daddy?” I asked her.

“In Robert's bedroom, talking to him.” She punched in ten minutes on the timer.

“Why?”

“Robert seems kind of down. I think he's depressed about his leg.”

Poor Robert. I'd be willing to bet he was depressed about more than his leg. I wondered if Katherine had any idea how hurt he'd been after hearing the truth about her. I knew Robert would never admit it to Daddy or her, or even to me. He'd hold on to his pain in that place deep within himself, the place that guarded his emotions like a jealous lover.

I leaned down to pet Winnie. Her eyes closed in sheer bliss as I scratched around her collar. Sounds from the television filtered in from the family room. I stuck my head around the corner and spotted Clarissa splayed on the couch, her bare feet on the cushions, knees akimbo.

“Jackie.” Katherine laid a hand on my shoulder. “I'd like to talk to you. We haven't had the chance since Friday night, and I think we should get some things out in the open.”

Here it came. Her explanations, my expected forgiveness. My mind threatened to burst already with whirling thoughts of Greg and me. All I wanted to do was hide in my room and stare at his picture. Try to figure how to get my life back on keel once he left. “Okay.”

If she heard the reluctance in my voice, she didn't show it. “Um, where can we go?”

No place but my bedroom. My sacred room, with Greg's picture on the wall and the remembrance of Mama sitting upon my bed during our talks. I ushered Katherine in and shut the door, inviting her with a reluctant arm to take my desk chair, then perched on the edge of my bed, waiting. Telling myself she would not charm her way back into my heart.

She turned the chair around to face me, clasping her hands in her lap. The neckline of her white blouse contrasted against her tanned skin, oh-so-perfectly-subtle blusher glowing bronze on her cheeks. Katherine's presence fairly radiated in my room, making me feel plain and small. Greg's eyes stared at me from his picture, and suddenly I wondered what he saw in me. Surely he would forget me as soon as he'd gone, as soon as he found himself allured and wanted by girls as beautiful as Katherine.

She tucked her hair behind her ears and regarded me for a moment, as if not quite sure how to begin. I would not help her.

“Jackie, I promise I will be honest with you if you'll be the same with me. It's the only way we can get past . . . what happened Friday night.” She searched my face. “Okay?”

I nodded.

“Okay.” She focused on her hands. “I know you think I don't deserve your daddy,” she began slowly. “You're right. I don't claim to deserve him. I've made a mess of most of my life. He knows about it now—all of it. I don't want to dwell on my past; I just want to go on. But because my past slapped you in the face, slapped us all, I'm willing to tell you anything you want to know. As hard as it is for me, I think lingering secrets and doubts between us will only continue to hurt us both.”

I slipped out of my shoes and crossed my ankles, rubbing my feet together.

“Can you do this for us both, Jackie? For once, just come out and say what you're thinking?”

The question surprised me. Robert was the one who hid his feelings, I thought, not I.

So why did my mouth refuse to move?

Here's your chance, Jackie,
a voice inside whispered.
Let her have it.
Why not? She'd certainly asked for it.

“Okay.” I gazed at Katherine straight on, feeling my indignation rise. “I want to know if it's true that you had lots of boyfriends in a row, like that man said. I want to know why you left them. And why, in those eleven years that you were gone, you moved from one job and one place to another, like you just got bored.” My face warmed, but I pressed ahead. “Most of all, I want to know what's goin' to keep you from up and leavin' Daddy the way you did everybody else.”

Katherine had the decency to look ashamed. “Fair questions,” she said quietly. She pressed back and surveyed the ceiling with a sigh. “Do you know that my daddy, Jason King, isn't my biological father?”

Like this had anything to do with it. “Yes.”

She ignored my impatient tone. “My biological father left my mother before I was born. I grew up knowing it, but not until I was fourteen did I really start thinking about it. I love my daddy, and he loves me, too, as much as he does Derek. Still, I wondered about the man who would leave my mother and me and never look back. In my teenage years I felt rebellious and closed in, like there was this big, wide world out there just waiting for me to grab hold of it. I wasn't like most of my friends, and I blamed my thirst for adventure on this unknown man and his blood running through my veins. As I told you, I left when I was eighteen. And you're right, Jackie, I'd stay in one job for a while, and with one boyfriend for a while, and then go on to something else. Always thinking the key to my contentment would be around the next bend. Always afraid that the commitment wasn't quite right for me somehow. I . . .” She hesitated, then pushed on. “I partied too much and ran around too much. But a life like that gets tiring. Finally, I just wanted to come home.”

I eyed her, thinking of Greg's mama. “Did any of those boyfriends abuse you? Especially the one who came here?”

“No.” She pressed her lips together as though she almost wished for such an excuse. “He had a temper, as you saw. But then, I wasn't all that easy to live with myself.”

Live with.
The words pulsed. I could only glare at her, Trent Baxter's title for her echoing in my head. Katherine knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Jackie,” she ventured, “I'm not proud of the things I did. Shortly after I came back, God really spoke to me in that church service. I asked his forgiveness, and I turned my life back over to Christ, as I'd done when I was a kid, but then had walked away from it. I'm . . . I'm different now. I don't want my old lifestyle.”

I didn't doubt Katherine's sincerity. I didn't doubt she wanted to live as a Christian should. If she didn't, I knew my daddy would not have let himself fall in love with her, for Christianity lay at the foundation of his life. But, as much as a trip to the altar had wiped away her sins, I did doubt that it had cleansed her of all her angst. As events had so clearly shown, the past had a way of rising again to haunt us.

To put it bluntly, I saw her obvious pattern: Katherine fell in love, then she fled.

“Do you believe me?” she pressed.

I looked out the window, idly watching a car pass on the street. A part of me wanted to believe that she would do nothing except make my daddy happy, even if she would never be worthy of him. Another part wished she'd never come into our lives, for her coming had only made us vulnerable once more.

But then without Katherine, I may never have met Greg.

“I believe that you don't want to hurt us,” I said slowly. “But I don't totally believe that you won't.”

She drew back her head, her expression flattening. Something about the sudden stillness of her hands, the drift of her gaze to the floor, told me I'd hit the mark. Hit it right dead center. Katherine, apparently, did not fully believe in herself.

To this day I can almost feel how my nerves tingled, as if I'd just glimpsed a future nightmare. The thought frightened me so badly that I could only push it away. Surely I was wrong, I told myself. Katherine was trying to change. She loved Daddy. She loved Clarissa and Robert. If our family could help put the past behind her, we could make her want to stay. Daddy had already forgiven her, as had Clarissa. Robert would never let her know he'd been hurt. Only I stood in the way of Katherine's feeling truly safe with us.

No.
Not for the life of me would I take on that guilt.

I stared at the carpet, thoughts pounding me. Hadn't I always sacrificed since Mama died in order to take care of the family? Hadn't I always managed to help Daddy? It didn't matter how I felt about Katherine. What mattered was that my family wanted her, my daddy loved her. Now it fell to me again to make things work. To help Katherine rise above her lingering fears about herself—fears that I doubted very much she'd shared with Daddy.

Tiredness surged over me. It was too much. Just when I faced saying goodbye to Greg, I had to deal with this.

“Katherine.” I pushed myself from the bed to kneel beside her chair. “You wanted me to be honest. Here goes. So please listen. Daddy
can't
be hurt again, you get that? Neither can the rest of us, not after losing Mama. We've had all we can take. So please just . . . be happy here. Stay with Daddy.
Don't hurt him.”

My throat locked up.

“Oh, Jackie—” Katherine leaned over the arm of the chair to hug me. “I won't. I promise I won't.”

I hugged her, too, mouth trembling. But I didn't know if I fought tears for her and Daddy, or me and Greg. Or both.

After a moment, we stood, both of us sniffling. I fetched us tissues.

Katherine took a cleansing breath, ending the conversation. “So.” She wandered over to gaze at the LuvRush photo. “You really like Greg, huh?”

Instantly, I wanted to circle my wagons. Seemed to me we'd shared plenty for one day. But how would my pushing Katherine away now help her feel wanted?

“Yes.”

“He likes you, too. In fact, he's crazy about you.”

I blinked at her. “How do you know?”

Katherine cringed a little, just as Alison might upon telling me something she should not repeat. “I'm not sure I should pass it on, but . . .”