The Thunder Rolls

by Bethany Campbell

  “What’s wrong, sugar?” he said. His warm breath tickled her ear and stirred tendrils of her hair.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, looking up at the stars. The dark sky was hot and cloudless. “Something’s bothering you. I can tell.”

  He was silent. He kissed the nape of her neck, a long, tingling kiss that made her shudder with pleasure. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “It’s Gordon.”

  Pleasure fled. She stiffened. “Gordon?”

  His embrace grew almost fierce. “I’m going to take care of you. I promise that.”

  She knew he meant what he said, but she was still alarmed. She twisted so that she could peer up at his stern, shadowy face. “What’s he done? Gordon?”

  “He’s threatenin’ Bubba Gibson. To stay away from you. I talked to Wayne. To the sheriff.”

  “Bubba?” Nora put her hand on Ken’s shoulder in concern. “But why? It makes no sense.”

  His muscles flexed beneath her touch. “Because of what happened Saturday at the Longhorn. Gordon’s got it into his head that Bubba wants you.”

  Nora made a sound that was half laugh, half gasp. “Bubba Gibson and me?”

  “Look, sugar, I talked to Bubba. He didn’t like talkin’—not at all. But, yeah, Gordon’s been callin’, hasslin’ him.”

  Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. “But—what about you? What if he—when he finds out about you?”

  Ken’s hands fell to her waist, holding her possessively. “The last thing you have to worry about is me. I can take care of myself.”

  “But—”

  “I mean it,” he said almost savagely. “Don’t worry about me. You worry about yourself and Rory. Wayne Jackson knows the problem. If Gordon shows up, the sheriff’s department’ll have its eye out for him. If he comes near you and I’m not here, you call them—immediately—you understand?”

  She nodded numbly.

  “Bubba won’t file a formal complaint against him,” Ken said. “I don’t know what his problem is—Mary, maybe. He says he doesn’t want his name dragged into it. Still, Wayne says he’ll do everything he can. You’re going to be taken care of, Nora. And the McKinneys will help. Cal said he and Tyler will watch out for you, too. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Nobody.”

  She was frightened, not for herself, but for him. “But you—when he finds out about you—”

  “He’s not going to hurt me. I told you. I can take care of myself.”

  “But he’s—so unpredictable. Oh, Ken—you should stay away from me. I’m just getting you in trouble.”

  His hands tightened on her waist, almost hurting her. “Stay away from you?” he said with disbelief. “No way. No way. Ever.”

  The passion in his voice made her put her arms around his neck and hug him, her face pressed against his chest. He held her as tightly as she held him. He kissed her hair.

  “This is terrible,” she said, closing her eyes. His starchy shirtfront scraped her cheek, but she couldn’t bring herself to break from the embrace. Haltingly, she told him what Rory had said about the pills and the threats of hitting.

  “I’m going to see Martin Avery,” she said. “I’ve made an appointment.”

  “I’m goin’ with you,” he said. “We’ll take care of this together.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Together,” he repeated from between his teeth. “From now on—from here on out—everything is together.”

  He raised her face and kissed her so fervently that she clung to him helplessly, dizzied by how impassioned, how ardent he was.

  Her lips opened beneath his, and with a surge of joy, she suddenly understood she no longer feared the coming weekend. She loved this man and she wanted him. She wanted him as wholly and completely and intently as he wanted her.

  FRIDAY DAWNED hot and humid, but wisps of cloud sulked on the far horizon. A strange electricity seemed to shimmer in the air, as if a storm were struggling into being, but had not yet focused and gathered itself.

  Nora drove Dottie to the Austin airport, Rory hanging over the seat between them, chattering about what he would learn at camp. “Bird study,” Rory said, enjoying his own list. “Canoeing. Orienteering. Wood carving. I’m gonna be an Eagle Scout someday.”

  She and Rory kissed Dottie goodbye and watched her board her plane to Dallas. Then they drove back to Crystal Creek, and Nora helped Rory pack his duffel bag and roll his bedroll. He put on his official Cub Scout shirt and his official Cub Scout shorts and fastened his official Cub Scout knife to his official Cub Scout belt. He put on his official Cub Scout hat, and gave himself an official Cub Scout salute in the mirror.

  Nora watched him, hiding a fond smile. Then she drove him to the church where the vans would pick the boys up and take them to camp. She waved goodbye to him, knowing better than to try to kiss him in front of his friends.

  He looked so happy and excited that it gave her a stab of complex emotion. He was her baby and he was leaving. Then she drove to Martin Avery’s law office. Ken was waiting outside, parked in his white truck.

  She stepped out of her car, and he was there, on the sidewalk, holding out his hand to her. Gratefully she took it. He looked so tall and handsome that she felt another pang, this time of pride. He gave her his slow, one-sided smile. Hand in hand they walked into the attorney’s office to see what they could do to keep Gordon away.

  BILLIE JO DUMONT was in a bad mood. She showed Ken and Nora into Martin’s office, saying he would be with them in a minute. Before she shut the door, she gave Nora a glance of undisguised jealousy.

  Billie Jo didn’t know what Nora Jones, of all people, had done to deserve Ken Slattery. Billie Jo had pursued him herself several years ago with all her considerable persistence. All she’d gotten for her pains was the surprising discovery that he was the best kisser in Claro County. But she’d had few kisses to enjoy. He’d been polite, but firm. He was not interested in Billie Jo.

  Nobody was interested in Billie Jo this week. She was as lonely as if stranded in the center of the Sahara. Her emotions swung erratically between anger and depression.

  She hadn’t seen Bubba since Monday night. She hadn’t even talked to him. He left messages on her answering machine, but kept saying he couldn’t come see her; he wasn’t feeling well.

  Was he lying? (She would kill him if he was lying.)

  Was he telling the truth? (She would die if he was really sick and she couldn’t go to him.)

  Billie Jo fretted—what was going on? Was Bubba finally going to leave his wife for good? Or was he about to reconcile with the little frump, shutting Billie Jo out of his life forever?

  She wanted to call him up and demand answers, but she could not. She had no rights—none—and that was the poisonously bitter thing about being the Other Woman. She could make no demands at all. She was at Bubba’s mercy, and although she loved him in her way, she hated him, too, for keeping her so powerless.

  Oh, she thought unhappily, what was wrong with her? She was pretty enough; she’d always known that. Billie Jo was a cuddly, affectionate person who liked sex and who loved men—why couldn’t she get one of her own that she could keep?

  She glanced at Martin as he opened the door and entered the office where Nora and Ken waited. Martin treated Billie Jo as casually as if she were part of the office furniture. She might be a big, enormous zero as far as Martin was concerned. The air-conditioning was fixed now, and he pulled the door shut behind him, shutting Billie Jo off from the sanctity of his office and from any sight or sound of Ken and Nora.

  Oh, there was no question that a wedding was in the air, Billie Jo thought enviously. Martin had had her pull the file on Nora’s divorce and the custody agreement regarding Rory.

  Yes, Ken Slattery was going to the altar, sure thing, and it didn’t even bother him that Nora had a half-grown child. Imagine! Picking a woman with a child! How could you make whoopee with a child always underfoot?

  Oh, it wasn’t fair, fumed Billie Jo. How c
ould a quiet, brown-haired little waitress like Nora Jones get herself two husbands, when Billie Jo couldn’t even get one? It wasn’t right, wasn’t right, wasn’t right.

  Today Billie Jo just hated Nora Jones. She hated Ken Slattery, too, just on general principle.

  And she hated Bubba, as well, and loved him and hated and loved him in such a dizzying circle of emotions she wanted to rage and weep. She felt as explosive as an atomic bomb.

  “DO YOU FEEL BETTER?” Ken asked Nora, after they’d left Avery’s office.

  She nodded, even though she was disappointed. Martin said the custody business should be easy enough if Gordon would cooperate, but the protective order would be more difficult, especially if Bubba Gibson refused to be brought into the case. He was, after all, the one Gordon had repeatedly threatened.

  “Billie Jo gave me an absolutely hostile look,” Nora said worriedly. “Do you suppose she knows about this business with Gordon? That she blames me?”

  “Don’t worry about Billie Jo, sugar,” Ken said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “She don’t—doesn’t have a thing to do with you or me.”

  Nora tried to give a philosophical shrug and an equally philosophical smile. Both failed.

  “Hey,” he said, giving her an encouraging squeeze, “cheer up. If you don’t, I’ll have to go kissin’ on you right in the middle of Main Street.”

  This time her smile was shy, but real.

  He looked down at her, his own face growing serious. She knew it was the thought of kissing—and more than kissing—that brought the familiar look of quiet intensity to his face.

  “Nora,” he said hesitantly, “about this weekend—at the lake. You haven’t changed your mind? Because if you have, I under—”

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” she said. She rose on tiptoes and gave him a quick, demure kiss on the cheek. “I just have to go home and get ready. To get my things. Will you pick me up at six? Like you said?”

  He stared down at her with such a mixture of hunger and affection that she went warm and shivery at the same time.

  “I’ll be there,” he said, not taking his eyes from hers.

  THE VACATION HOUSE, owned jointly by the McKinneys and Carolyn Townsend, overlooked Austin’s Lake Travis, a blue jewellike body of water that was Texas-large and Texas-spectacular. In some places its shoreline was rolling and verdant, in others cliffs of pale limestone rose like towers.

  J.T.’s house was on a grassy slope that led to a dock, but directly across the lake was a view of cliffs, great layered slabs of stone so impressive they made Nora think of castles and kingdoms.

  The two-story house was beautiful, a yellow clapboard in Victorian style. A broad, roofless porch ran around three sides, ornamented with white railings.

  “It’s beautiful,” Nora breathed, half intimidated. She felt as if she were a country mouse about to enter a palace.

  Ken swung open the door and picked up her overnight case. Nora gave it a quick, furtive glance. Once more shyness and guilt flooded her. The overnight case seemed a symbol that she was about to become a fallen woman. Maybe she couldn’t even fall successfully. Maybe she really was still frightened of sex. That old worry had resurrected itself, too, now that she and Ken were actually here, actually alone.

  He must have sensed her rising nervousness, for he took her by the hand and drew her into the living room. His hand felt so warm that she knew hers must be snow-cold. She swallowed and laced her fingers more tightly through his.

  Then she gave a little gasp of awe. Dominating the center of the room was the biggest fireplace she had ever seen, a two-sided one. Of rose-colored stone, it towered the whole two stories, for the house had a cathedral ceiling, and instead of a true second floor, a loft arrangement ran about the upper level.

  The wall of the lake side of the room was all glass, large windows that framed the sliding door leading to the porch. A couch upholstered in nubby blue-gray fabric and matching easy chairs formed a cozy group on one side of the fireplace.

  On the other side were an antique round oak dining table and pressed oak chairs. Paintings and family photos filled the walls.

  “I’ve never been in a house like this,” she said in a small voice.

  “Well, it ain’t—it’s not like mine,” Ken said wryly. “Mine is just an empty old house.”

  Nora’s fingers tightened around his. “It doesn’t seem empty when you’re in it.”

  “This one doesn’t seem so pretty when you’re in it. You put it to shame.”

  She smiled and her shyness evaporated as he bent to kiss her. But no sooner had his lips brushed hers than his own shyness, or at least some sort of fierce restraint, seemed to reassert itself.

  “I don’t mean to rush things,” he muttered. He set her suitcase beside the fireplace and went back to the truck for his own things.

  He returned with a battered duffel bag that was like a well-used version of Rory’s and set it beside her case. He stuck his thumbs in the hip pockets of his jeans and stared at the high ceiling. He cleared his throat. “Cal said not to worry about supper. He and Serena’d fix something up. He said just to look in the kitchen.”

  He shrugged and nodded to himself, not looking at her.

  Why, he really is having a fit of shyness, Nora thought, touched. And he wants to do everything exactly right. Oh, I love him. How could I help it?

  “I told ’em not to bother,” Ken said, his tone almost grumbling, “but Cal said I can’t cook nothin’ but water, and Lord knows that’s right. Let’s see what mischief they’ve done.”

  Slowly, almost tentatively, Nora linked her arm through his. He looked down at her and slowly smiled. She understood and he understood. They loved each other, it was their first time together, and they were both nervous about the newness of it all. The sweetness filled Nora with a tremulous warmth.

  “Yes,” she said, squeezing his arm. “Let’s look.”

  The kitchen gleamed, all polished oak, blue and white tile, and copper. There was a brace of roasted pheasants in the refrigerator, a casserole of wild rice and two bottles of white wine from the vineyards of Tyler McKinney’s fiancée. A bowl of salad sat on one shelf, mixed greens sprinkled with halves of cherry tomatoes.

  There was a note propped against the salad bowl.

  Slats:

  Put two teaspoons of water in the rice and nuke it at medium for 312. Do the bird-guys at medium for 7 minutes. Don’t nuke the salad. Or do even you know that?

  King of the Cowboys

  Nora laughed and Ken looked wry. “The smart aleck thinks he’s at home even on the kitchen range,” he said. “Serena told him that stuff. It’s all he can do to unwrap his own moon pie.”

  A large wrought-iron table stood on the porch, and they ate there, watching the evening sun tinge the water gold and gild the cliffs across the way. The sky had filled with clouds for the first time in days, and mounds of them banked the wide sky, slowly changing colors.

  Nora watched how the light gleamed in Ken’s hair and bronzed his high cheekbones. “You and Cal McKinney,” she said, twirling her wineglass stem, “you’re such good friends. But you don’t seem alike.”

  Ken raised his eyebrow ruefully. “We aren’t alike. There’s times I wanted to whomp the tar out of him. But he’s the most generous son of a gun alive. When he was a kid he used to tag after me, wantin’ to learn to rope and such. And Miss Pauline—well, she asked me to look out for him, kinda.”

  Nora smiled with admiration. “Because he looked up to you, didn’t he?”

  Ken gave an embarrassed shrug. “He’d listen to me. Don’t ask me why.”

  “And Miss Pauline,” Nora said, “you admired her, didn’t you?”

  “She was a lady.”

  “I know. I thought she was wonderful. She used to loan me books. Most people never even knew I was there or what I was like. But she did. I cried when she died.”

  Ken nodded solemnly. He set down his glass and stared at the sunset. “She was a good
woman. You remind me of her. In ways.”

  “Me?” Nora said, her eyes widening. “I remind you of Miss Pauline?”

  He nodded again.

  “But—she was a great lady. A strong lady. And so educated—”

  “Yeah. You remind me of all that.” He turned to face her again. “Don’t you know that, Nora? That you’re a lady? And strong? And bright? And—educated, too?”

  “But—but I hardly know anything. I’m just starting. I don’t want you to see me as something I’m not.”

  “I don’t. You know who else you remind me of?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You’ll think it’s dumb.”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  He set his jaw and pushed his empty wineglass away. “All right. I’ll tell you the truth. You remind me of me.”

  She blinked in surprise.

  He went on with the sober, pained expression of a man who didn’t like speaking of his past. “You didn’t have much of a childhood. Me, either. You sorta—got kicked out of the nest early. Me, too. You had to make your own way. You had to kind of make yourself up as you went along. You had to find what you wanted and make it happen. I did, too.”

  He paused, a muscle in his jaw working. “That probably sounds real conceited like. Like I think I’m something—or something.”

  Emotion swelled in her chest, fluttered in her throat. Impulsively she reached across the table and put her hand over his. “You are something. You’re something wonderful. You never talk about yourself. Do you know that people think you’re a little mysterious?”

  He gave an embarrassed laugh, but he took her hand and held it firmly.

  “They do,” Nora insisted, smiling. “You seemed to come out of nowhere and make yourself absolutely indispensable to the McKinneys. You’re the best foreman in Central Texas, and everybody knows it.”

  “Oh, now hell, Nora, I’m not the best—”