Spring Rain (7 page)

But a romantic interest? She couldn’t help but grin at the absurdity of it all.

On that first visit a couple of months ago when Ted first came home, David talked briefly, very briefly, to Ted, rose, and waited for her to walk him to the door. Instead of leaving like she expected, David turned to her.

“Walk with me?” he asked. “I need to know how you’re coping.” He took her arm and turned her toward the narrow path through the dunes to the beach. He held her arm close to his side until they were walking along the edge of the water in the wet, packed sand left by the receding tide. Then he let go with what seemed to her reluctance.

It wasn’t until he released her that Julia realized that aside from her sons’ hugs, that was the first time a male had touched her in so personal a manner since Will’s death. It was a disconcerting thought. Even more disconcerting was the fact that she’d liked the comfort and warmth of his touch.

Careful, woman
, she cautioned herself, twirling her wedding band as they walked.
You’re vulnerable.

And more so every time he came around. The loneliness she felt somehow became more lonely. And was that special look in his eyes when he saw her just her unruly imagination, or was it real? And how could she resist his kind and understanding manner as he tended Ted’s pain, or his commitment to faith that matched hers?

She sniffed. As if someone as wonderful as he would be interested in her with her hot flashes and varicose veins and sagging bosom.

She shook her head as she wiped down the kitchen table. So how come she hadn’t felt this alive since Will’s death?

L
EIGH REACHED BEHIND
her for the door as she flicked her paper towel toward the trash, hoping for a three-point swish.

“Michael Jordan Spenser, basketball champeen,” she murmured. She blew a raspberry when she missed.

Her hand reaching for the door missed too. She turned to see where the door had moved and bumped hard into a very solid, very warm body.

“Wha—?” She bounced like a tennis ball off a racket and felt herself begin to fall. Her arms wind-milled wildly, and she gave a garbled cry. An arm whipped around her waist, stopping her descent, and she grabbed a handful of blue shirt to steady herself.

“Thanks, David,” she began as she found her footing, then stared, appalled, into the face of the man she had spent more than ten years carefully avoiding. Her fist clenched more tightly in the fabric of his denim shirt.

Most times when she thought of Clay, she saw in her mind’s eye the eighteen-year-old who had graduated with her, undeveloped but promising, thin—no, make that skinny, very skinny and bony, with a beak nose too big for his handsome face. But he was no longer that boy in spite of the same sharp blue eyes that looked down at her. His beak of a nose finally fit his face, and his jaw was hard and lean. His shoulders were
broad enough to handle any problem.

“Hello, Leigh,” he said, his voice sounding strained and unnaturally husky. “Or should I say Michael Jordan Spenser?”

A flush crept from her neck to her forehead, and she glared at him.

Lord, did I have to begin this awkwardness looking like an idiot?

She needed to move from his embrace. Yes, she did, and she would, just as soon as she was able. The problem was the paralysis, hopefully temporary, that kept her ignominiously clutching the fistful of material. The struggle to gather her scattered wits was surely only a minor glitch in the unruly computer that was her brain. With something akin to panic she realized that even her involuntary systems seemed on the blink as evidenced by the trouble she was having breathing.

“Clay!” Julia’s joyous cry broke the spell and released Leigh’s mind. She dropped her hand and pulled back so hastily that she all but tripped over her feet. Her waist felt branded.

She turned her back, trying belatedly to hide her flushed face and still her hammering heart, as Julia flew into her son’s arms. For years whenever she pictured facing Clay again, Leigh saw herself as an ice princess—cool, aloof, scorning, spurning, totally in control.

Instead, I end up hanging on him like some dithering antebellum Southern belle! Oh, dear Lord, get me out of here!

She grabbed a laden tray, ignoring the clatter as all the pie plates slid to one side under the force of the sudden motion, and headed for the door to the hall. She would deliver the dessert to Ted’s room, grab Billy, and leave by the front door. Then she would go home and lock the two of them in for the rest of the week. Or two weeks. Or however long Clay was here. Anything to stay out of his way.

What a wonderful plan! What a stupid plan.

She risked a glance back as she left the room and found Clay staring at her over his mother’s shoulder. The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. Her face flamed anew. He was laughing at her! She knew it. She turned and ran.

Halfway up the stairs she stopped, leaning against the banister. Her heart still pounded, and her mouth was dry. In contrast her hands were so moist and clammy it was all she could do to keep a grip on the black lacquered tray.

This is ridiculous! Get hold of yourself, Spenser.

But what if he figures things out about Billy?

Panic rolled through her like a hurricane surf, battering, surging, drowning her. For a moment she literally could not think. She forced herself to take several deep breaths. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale.

How could he possibly figure it out? No one else had in all these years. Here she was, literally in the bosom of his family, and they’d never suspected. Why should he? Billy didn’t look enough like anyone but himself to arouse suspicion. Surely she was safe; they were safe.

Oh, Lord, please, keep us safe!

She closed her eyes, willing her heart to stop crashing against her ribs before it split them. It was better this way, she tried to convince herself, bumping into him unexpectedly. She had been spared the long uncertainty of waiting, wondering when he’d come. That agony would have been terrible.

It’s like a tooth extraction. It’s better for me to get it done today than have to come back tomorrow and worry all that time.

Hah! That may be the theory, but in real life it still hurts just as much today as it would have tomorrow.

She looked at the tray with the plates crowded at one end, overlapping and askew. The pie wedges were dented and squished, the beautifully scalloped edge of one piece of crust broken completely off. Normally she would have felt compelled to straighten the mess. Given the current situation, she couldn’t find the energy to be concerned about a few pieces of pie, even if they were from Julia’s prize-winning kitchen.

They look fine. Well, they look adequate, and they’ll still taste exceptionally good. Nobody’s going to complain.

What Julia would think when she saw them was another thing, crunched and broken as they were. She’d just have to hand them all out before Julia saw the damage.

She sighed. Julia was downstairs reveling in Clay’s return. In a couple of minutes she’d be coming upstairs to sit with her dying son. The least Leigh could do was treat her pie with respect even if she couldn’t manage it for the returning prodigal.

With one hand she balanced the tray on her hip, and with the other she straightened the plates. She noted with hope that
her hands weren’t shaking too badly.

Inhale. Hold it. Exhale. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale.

All you have to do is act naturally
, she assured herself.
That’s the key to surviving the next few weeks. Act like he doesn’t mean a thing to you, which, of course, he doesn’t. Act like he didn’t irrevocably change your life, which, in reality, he did. Act like his arm on your waist didn’t feel as wonderful today as it did all those years ago, because it didn’t.

It didn’t!

In other words, Spenser, act like an adult. You aren’t eighteen anymore! You aren’t that pathetically lonely daydreamer in love with Prince Clay Charming.

You aren’t! His presence will make no difference whatsoever in your life.

Yeah, right.

Oh, Lord, help me. Please!

She lifted her chin and took a deep breath. She would show him how much she’d changed, grown. She was no longer that naïve little girl flattered by the attention of the school hero, that socially inept outcast in awe of the class’s most popular boy. She wasn’t that nobody in secondhand clothes thrilled by the attention from the son of one of Seaside’s leading families. No, she wasn’t even if she suddenly felt like it.

She was Leigh Wilson Spenser, a strong woman, God’s woman. She was a college graduate with her master’s just around the corner. She had survived single parenthood for ten years and had a delightful son as proof that she was doing a fine job. She had a satisfying career and a decent income. She had friends. She had Julia and Ted. And she had Jesus.

No, by the grace of God, she wasn’t that girl at all.

She climbed the rest of the way to the second floor and walked to Ted’s room on a spurt of confidence.

Billy was “sitting” in the comfy chair next to Teddy’s bed. He was curled against the chair back, his ratty sneakers slung over one padded arm, his head resting on the other.

“You’re my favorite uncle,” Billy was saying.

Ted smiled. “I’m your only uncle, kid.”

Billy shook his head. “You’re forgetting Clay.”

Ted raised an eyebrow in a typically Wharton expression.
“He’s not around enough to count.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So that makes you my favorite only uncle.” He beamed at Ted who beamed back.

“Pie’s here,” Leigh said.

“Yes!” Billy pumped the air and ran to Leigh. He grabbed a piece and raced back to the chair, now sitting tailor fashioned. Leigh gasped as the pie plate canted far to the left as he settled himself.

“Careful, Billy. You’re going to lose it!”

Billy looked at her in surprise. “Never. Too precious.” Then he looked, really looked, at the pie. “But what happened to it? It looks like it got in a fight.”

“I tilted the tray, and they sort of smushed together,” Leigh confessed. “But they’ll still taste good.”

“Of course they will. Grandma Jule doesn’t cheat.”

“What?” Ted and Leigh said together. They studied him, ten-year-old energy crackling in the air around him.

“He makes me ache simply by comparison,” Ted said, curling on his side, trying to find a comfortable position.

Leigh looked at the wasted body making barely a rise under the blanket and nodded. “I know what you mean, especially at the end of a long week.”

“I wish you were mine, kid.” Ted smiled at the boy and his half-empty pie plate. “I wish you and your mom were both mine.”

Billy nodded enthusiastically, for once not talking with his mouth full.

Leigh smiled into Ted’s sad, weary eyes and felt her own fill with tears. She never knew what mood she’d find Ted in. Tonight he was obviously melancholy and lonely. “Thanks, Teddy. That’s the ultimate compliment.”

She set the tray down on a stack of sheets and towels on Ted’s dresser and brushed futilely at her wet cheeks. “You’ve got to stop being so complimentary, you know? Tears are falling as often as spring rain around here.”

“That’s okay. Spring rains bring life,” Ted said. After a pause he added, “And death.”

Life and death, she thought. Or is it death and then life? First the pain, then the joy. Did it hurt the bulbs and seeds when they burst their jackets and pushed against the soil, seeking the sun and life after months of death? It certainly hurt people to be forced
by circumstances to grow in ways they didn’t seek. At least it hurt her. And scared her.

“I love you, Leigh,” Ted’s voice was soft, barely audible, as he reached for her hand.

“And I love you, Teddy.” She leaned over and kissed his pale forehead. Then she grinned cheekily. “But you’re just saying that because you’re too sick to marry me. Why, I’d have to carry you across the threshold.”

He grinned at her and let his eyes slide shut. The afternoon sitting on the deck outside his French windows had tired him.

She sat on the arm of Billy’s chair and shook her head in an attempt to fling off the sorrow, lessen the tears.

Billy’s hand touched hers. “Have a piece of the pie, Mom. It’ll make you feel better.”

She smiled at his serious little face, a fleck of meringue caught in the corner of his mouth. How she loved him. “Good idea, sport.”

She turned toward the tray to help herself and saw Clay leaning against the doorway, arms folded across his chest. Listening. Watching. Watching her. Their eyes met and held, and Leigh felt her breath go shallow and her heart expand painfully.

Act naturally.

“What is it?” asked Ted, trying to look over his shoulder.

“Shh,” she whispered to him, patting him gently. “It’s only Clay.”

“What?”

“It’s Clay. He’s come for a visit.” She signaled for Clay to come closer. He took the smallest of steps forward.

Ted rolled onto his back, staring in disbelief at his twin. Clay stared back impassively, but Leigh saw his hands clench into fists. It couldn’t be easy for him to see his twin so ill. Ted had gone downhill dramatically in the past month, and his appearance must be terribly alarming to someone who hadn’t watched the progressive deterioration. It was difficult enough for her watching the gradual, daily decline.

“It’s been a long time,” Ted said, his voice cool.

Clay nodded but said nothing. He cleared his throat once, twice.

“Quite a shock, aren’t I?” Ted asked, all cocky and cheeky. Gone was his soft melancholy mood of a moment ago.

Clay cleared his throat a third time and held out his hand to Ted. “It’s good to see you.”

Ted nodded curtly as the brothers shook hands.

They stared at each other for several seconds, Clay’s face scrubbed clean of all emotions, Ted’s defensive. Abruptly Clay turned.

“Hello, Billy.” He held out his hand to the boy who had been watching with a frown as the brothers greeted each other. “It’s good to see you again.”