After Midnight

by Lynn Viehl

  “I borrowed it,” he said as he poured a bottle of iced tea into a cup and handed it to me. “He won’t mind. James is very good friends with my parents.”

  “That makes it worse, not better.” I looked at enough food to feed me and my brothers for a week. “You couldn’t have just walked into his house and helped yourself.” When he gave me a blank look, I added, “You’re kidding. Wasn’t he there? He didn’t try to stop you? What about his wife?”

  He shrugged. “I would have asked first, but they were sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb them.” He frowned at me. “I left a note. My parents will pay for everything.”

  “If the sheriff doesn’t stop by the island in the morning to arrest you for burglary.” I sank down beside him. “Jesse, you can’t just break into people’s houses and help yourself to their stuff. It’s rude. It’s a felony.”

  “I didn’t break in.” He showed me a key. “James gave me this and said I could stop in whenever I liked. He won’t be angry, Catlyn, I promise.”

  “Okay.” Maybe rich people had a different set of rules than the rest of us. Maybe the sheriff was a much nicer man than I’d thought. Maybe I’d be brought in as an accomplice. “Do you do this a lot? Borrow things?”

  “No. In fact, this is my first picnic.” He looked around at the food. “Did I forget something? I have napkins.”

  “You have stolen napkins,” I pointed out. “Sheriff Yamah’s stolen napkins.”

  He studied my face. “I’m not a thief, Catlyn. I would have gone to one of the shops in town and bought the food, but none of them are open after sunset.”

  Now his arrangement with the sheriff made a little more sense. “You’re sure this is okay, and he’s not going to be mad at you?”

  He nodded. “Eat something. Please.”

  I felt a little self-conscious as I tried the iced tea and picked up a sandwich, so I looked over at the old rusty trunk. For some reason it drew my gaze like a magnet. “My brother used to have a trunk like that. I think it belonged to my parents. It got lost during one of our moves.”

  “No, it didn’t.” At my blank look he added, “It’s under an old horse blanket in the back of the hayloft in your barn.”

  My head ached as I recalled my own voice saying almost the exact same words to Trick, and then Jesse saying them to me before. “How do you know what’s in our hayloft?”

  “I sat up there one night and watched you.” He frowned. “I told you about it before, don’t you remember?”

  I thought I remembered everything that he’d said to me, but nothing like that came back to me but a shaky, startled feeling that I didn’t like at all. I shrugged to cover my confusion. “Sometimes I forget things. So what was I doing?”

  “That night you were brushing out Sali’s mane and tail. This was before we met.” He smiled. “I enjoyed how you spoke to your horse. You kept apologizing to her for pulling her hair.”

  I knew I talked to Sali as if she were a person, but I still felt a little embarrassed. “You shouldn’t spy on people when they’re grooming their horses. Why didn’t you just come by the barn and say hello?”

  “I wanted to.” He folded one of the napkins into a triangle. “I didn’t know if you would welcome me.”

  “I always have time for guys who bring me food.” I admired the feast again. “This is really nice, you know. I haven’t been on a picnic in ages. When I was little Trick used to take me and Gray to a park to have cookouts on the Fourth of July, but then he started having them at home.”

  “What did he cook out?” Jesse asked.

  “Oh, anything he could burn,” I said as I eyed a pint container of ripe red strawberries. “My brother tries, but he never thinks anything is done, so whatever we get is usually triple well-done. Is your mom a good cook?”

  “She was, once.” He refilled my glass. “Mother doesn’t cook anymore. The servants do.”

  “Must be nice.” I offered him the container of strawberries, but he only shook his head. “I know it takes a lot to keep a mansion tidy, but isn’t it a little creepy, having strangers in your house all the time?”

  “It was in the beginning, when we came here,” he admitted. “I didn’t know some of them very well, so I didn’t trust them. I thought they might try to take advantage of us.”

  I frowned. “You mean, like steal from your parents?”

  “Steal from them, betray them, hurt them.” He handed me a big chocolate chip cookie. “My father is cautious, but my mother still believes that there is good in everyone.”

  I thought of Boone. “I don’t know if I buy that. There are a lot of selfish people in the world. Some of them don’t care who they hurt in order to get whatever they want.”

  “You are not like that,” he said.

  “Me? I can be just as selfish as the next girl.” I looked around the room. “If I were really a good person, I wouldn’t be here with you.”

  His brows rose. “Why do you say that?”

  “Jesse, I had to sneak out of my house to see you,” I reminded him. “If my brothers knew I was here, alone with a boy at night … ” I stopped as I realized what I was saying. “Not that I think you brought me here for anything but a picnic.” I glanced at his empty hands. “Which you are not eating.”

  “My condition strictly limits my diet,” he explained. “But I enjoy watching you eat.”

  “Yes, my chewing and swallowing being so attractive.” I held out the cookie, but he shook his head again. “Come on, you can’t even have one bite?”

  His expression turned wistful. “I could, but it wouldn’t stay down very long.”

  “That’s just not fair.” I put down the cookie. “Can’t your parents do anything about this? Take you to a specialist or something? Maybe there’s something on the internet—”

  “No, they’ve done what they can.” He looked at the food. “I did bring far too much, didn’t I? Stupid of me.” He stood up and went to the window.

  I followed him. “You’re not stupid. Actually, you’re pretty amazing.”

  His broad shoulders went rigid. “You think that now.”

  “No, I’ve thought that from night one.” I touched his arm. “I’m not perfect, either, Jesse. This past week, I’ve felt like the biggest loser on the planet. I found out that after our parents died, my brother Trick had to fight for us in court. I never knew that. He gave up his life to take care of us, to protect us. And what do I do in return? I lie to him, I keep things from him.” I looked at our picnic and felt a twinge of regret. “I sneak out of the house at night.”

  “Would your brother let me see you if I came to your house?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know.” But I did. I knew if my very over-protective big brother found out about my friendship with Jesse it would be very bad. “I don’t think so. He’s kind of antisocial.”

  “Now I should say that I understand, and that I won’t try to see you again.” He reached out and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. “But I am too selfish for that.” He glanced out the window. “It will be sunrise in a few hours. I’d better take you back home.”

  “Do you really want to see me again?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Tomorrow night. I want to ride with you. I want to talk with you. I want to know everything about you, Catlyn.” He smiled. “Will you meet me at midnight?”

  “By the moonflowers?” I didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

  After Jesse brought me back to the house, he insisted on standing under the pine tree while I climbed back up to my bedroom window. As soon as I was safely inside, he put his hand over his heart, and then lifted the palm toward me. I didn’t have the nerve to blow him a kiss in return, but I waved back and watched as he disappeared into the shadows.

  I never got the headache I was expecting but went to sleep at once, and woke up the next morning feeling so rested and content I practically skipped downstairs.

  “Good morning,” I said to my brothers as I breezed over to the table. Life was
so wonderful that I didn’t even mind seeing the bowl of oatmeal waiting for me. “Anyone want some fruit?” I went to look in the fridge. “Do we have any strawberries?”

  “No, thank you, and no,” Trick said from behind his paper.

  Grayson only grunted.

  I took out a cup of the mandarin oranges I usually packed in my lunch bag and brought it over to the table. “So what’s up with you guys today? Anything interesting in the paper?”

  “I can’t tell.” Trick squinted. “Your glow is blinding me.”

  “Grump,” I chided as I emptied the orange slices into my oatmeal and stirred them around before taking a big spoonful. “Do you have practice today?” I asked Gray after I swallowed. He just stared at my oatmeal. “If you do I’ll take the bus home so Trick doesn’t have to come pick me up. Unless you’re not busy, Trick. I wouldn’t mind a ride on the Harley; it’s been ages.” Neither of them said anything. “What?”

  “You just put oranges in your oatmeal,” Gray said.

  “Yeah, so?” I took another bite.

  “Your maple-flavored raisin oatmeal.”

  I stopped chewing for a second and then shrugged. This morning even raisins didn’t seem so bad. “The oranges are a strategic addition. They disguise the taste of the evil wrinkled grapes.”

  Gray eyed Trick. “You ever see her eat a raisin before? Voluntarily?”

  He shook his head and peered at me again. “Maybe I should make a doctor’s appointment.”

  Gray nodded. “She probably rolled out of bed last night and cracked her skull.”

  I sighed. “Can’t a girl wake up in a good mood without everyone thinking she has a head injury?”

  My brothers looked at each other and then me. “No,” they both said at once, making me laugh.

  That was the beginning of the happiest three weeks of my life. Seeing Jesse again fixed something inside of me that I hadn’t known was broken. I didn’t have a single headache, and being with him began to change my attitude, too. All the problems I had worried over so much suddenly seemed so trivial and meaningless. I had more important things to think about now.

  After our midnight picnic at Conac Ravenov, I went to school feeling completely different; as if overnight somehow I’d grown taller and stronger and prettier. I felt more alert, too, as if the world had come back into focus after being fuzzy for so long. As the weeks passed and the temperatures gradually grew cooler, everything seemed crisper and more alive. Colors seemed brighter; on cold mornings the air still smelled of sunlight. Even the shabby old shops in town we passed on the way to school acquired a new kind of quaint charm in my eyes.

  Jesse and I met every night at the patch of moonflowers. At first we just rode over to the house where we’d sit and talk, but then we started exploring the old riding trails. There seemed to be a million of them, hidden all over his property. We even found one that led to a small lake surrounded by rushes and sea oats. The surface of the lake was so still that it glittered like a mirror in the moonlight.

  “How could you not know this was here?” I asked him as we stopped to water the horses.

  “I’ve never ridden down this trail.” He looked out over the lake. “It is beautiful. I’m glad I own it.”

  We were at least four miles from the manor, and I’d been on the lookout for No Trespassing signs. “This can’t be yours.”

  He glanced around and nodded. “All of this land is.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “Jesse, just how much property do you own?”

  “I don’t know. My parents gave me seven or eight hundred acres, I think.” He grinned at me. “I have three other lakes, too.”

  “You own four lakes.”

  He made a causal gesture. “They aren’t very big.”

  “Four little lakes. Yes, of course, that makes all the difference.” I rolled my eyes. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is that you own the state of Florida.”

  “No, only a small part of it. The land and buildings in the downtown section of Lost Lake belong to my family. Some of the houses on that side of the lake are ours, and the fire department, the police department, the water works, the power company … ” He paused and thought for a moment. “We built the marina and the yacht club, too.” He saw how I was looking at him. “My father enjoys sailing. It’s a matter of convenience.”

  I shook my head, laughing helplessly.

  My favorite nights were when we let Prince and Sali race each other down a long, wide clearing behind the old manor house. Prince almost always won, which annoyed me and Sali, but occasionally I rode close enough to bump shoulders or legs with his rider. That always seemed to divert Jesse’s attention long enough for Sali and me to sprint ahead.

  “You’re distracting me,” he accused after we beat him to the finish line. “On purpose.”

  “I have to. Your horse is bigger and faster than mine.” I dismounted and took an apple cookie out of my jacket pocket as a reward for Sali. “We girls have to use whatever tactics we can.”

  He gave Prince a consolatory rub on his strong neck. “You mean, you have to cheat.”

  “There are no rules against accidental bumping,” I informed him.

  “There should be,” he muttered.

  While we were together Jesse and I talked about everything: his family, mine, life at home, things that had happened in the past and what we looked forward to in the future. I learned that when Jesse was younger he had traveled with his parents all over the world, and spent months exploring countries like Spain and France and Germany. He’d even gone to Egypt and seen the great pyramids.

  I started to feel a little jealous until I told him about all the places where we had lived. Despite trekking all over Europe, the only part of the U.S. he’d seen was Central Florida.

  “You have to go to California someday,” I told him after describing the place we’d rented outside Napa Valley. “It’s like the best of the whole country packed into one state. There are mountains, beaches, deserts, valleys … ” I sighed. “One time my brother took us all the way down the Pacific highway, from Eureka to Baja. The sea is on one side, the mountains on the other, and every now and then you see a house up on a cliff or a sailboat gliding across the waves.” I sighed. “I think I miss California the most. I loved so many places out there.”

  He watched my face. “Maybe someday we could travel there together.”

  I couldn’t imagine the logistics involved with making travel safe for someone like Jesse, who could never be exposed to sunlight. “You’d take a vacation with me?”

  “I would go anywhere with you,” he assured me.

  Fourteen

  The only time I couldn’t get away to see Jesse was on Friday night, when I went with Trick to Gray’s weekly football game, either at Tanglewood or at another area high school.

  I knew Trick didn’t approve of Gray playing football, although when we went to the first official game of the season he outwardly behaved as if nothing were wrong. When we arrived at the field, he told me to go and find us some seats while he went to the concession stand to buy us some hot dogs and sodas.

  I didn’t know whether to sit as close or as far away as we could, so I picked a spot in the middle of the center section of the bleachers. While I waited for my brother, I saw the seats to the right and left filling up with students wearing Tanglewood jerseys, T-shirts and ball caps. A couple of the rowdier guys had painted their faces with brown and white stripes, and one blonde girl sported spray-on brown streaks in her hair.

  “Looks like the kids are infused with school spirit,” Trick said as he sat down next to me and handed me a hot dog. “Why didn’t you paint your face?”

  “After you’re six it stops being cute.” I scanned the field looking for Gray, who trotted out to the sidelines a few minutes later with the other players. “There he is.” I pointed toward him. “See? Number three.”

  “He looks like a professional in that uniform.” Trick didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

&nbs
p; “I had no idea the pants high school players wear would be so tight. They look like they’re painted on.” I leaned forward. “Did you know his butt was that shape? I didn’t.” I tilted my head. “Kind of looks like an upside-down heart, doesn’t it?”

  My brother didn’t say anything, but I felt him relax a little.

  After playing the national anthem, the announcer introduced the teams as they took the field. As the visiting team kicked off I got to my feet and started cheering for our players along with everyone else. By the time Gray made his first successful pass, Trick was on his feet and yelling, too. We got the first touchdown two plays later.

  The visiting team wasn’t a pushover, however, and Gray and the Tigers had to fight for every yard. I saw my brother get tackled repeatedly, and a couple of times he went down hard. But he always threw the ball before anyone touched him, and the Tigers started racking up points.

  When he was on the sidelines, Gray would take off his helmet and go down on one knee. Once he turned around and spotted me waving at him, and grinned.

  The only time I got worried was when one of the opposing team threw a punch at my brother after the play had ended. Gray added insult to injury by ducking and avoiding the blow, but the officials saw it and penalized the visiting team. As Gray was walking back to take his position, the penalized player shoved my brother from behind, knocking him flat on his face.

  I grabbed Trick’s hand as he started to stand up. “Wait.”

  Gray pulled a piece of turf from the faceguard on his helmet before he stood and turned around. Instead of hitting back, Gray said something and held out his hand. The other boy rudely turned his back on him, but everyone had seen it, and began clapping for Gray. A minute later the penalized player was ejected from the game.

  “Way to go, Grim,” I said, loud enough for Trick to hear.

  When the whistle blew on the final play, the score was 42–17 Tanglewood. The screaming, jumping and hugging in the stands didn’t stop for a full ten minutes.

  Trick kept an arm around me and looked down at the Tigers, who were trotting across the fifty yard line moving opposite the visiting team. As each player passed another, they slapped hands.