by Polly Becks
She pushed him up until his arms were straight on either side of her, took hold of the bottom of his shirt with both hands and slid it up over his chest, off his arms and over his head, then giggled with merriment at the feel of the satin skin over his muscles beneath her flat palms.
Imagining the thrill of how they would feel against her own chest once it was bare.
“I told you,” she said, leaning up and kissing his neck and throat in the same places he had on her, “the first night we met, that I didn’t trust you.”
“Yes, you did,” he said, straining to remain in control. “It hurt a lot.”
Lucy stopped. “It did?”
“No. I’m only kidding. Please don’t stop. I may die if you do. And I’m not kidding about that.”
She chuckled, returning her lips to his neck.
“I want to prove something to you, too—that I do trust you,” she said between kisses. “Completely. Let me prove it—I promise I will tell you if you frighten me. Otherwise—”
Her negligee was sliding rapidly up her body and off it a moment later.
A REMARKABLY LONG time and satisfaction in at least three positions later, Lucy fell back against the pillows on her simple department store mattress, sated and glowing as if she was in one of the famous mile-high feather beds at the Lake Placid Lodge.
Ace was stretched out atop her, still within her, breathing heavily, his heart pounding against her chest.
“Great re-do,” he said between breaths. “So—much—better than last night’s attempt. Thank you.”
“Copy that,” she said, grinning and stretching luxuriously in his arms. “I didn’t realize when you said there was a lot to you that you were also speaking anatomically.” She chuckled as Ace turned red. “I’m so blessed.”
“How do you feel?” he whispered in her ear. “Are you all right?”
Lucy looked up at him. Their lovemaking had been playful, romantic, intense, passionate, sensitive, athletic—funny, even. The red rose, little more than shredded petals now, had been utilized, gently, lovingly, thoughtfully to the point where she had shed blissful tears and he had needed a long time to recover, panting.
It had been amazing beyond her wildest notion of what making love could be, especially between two people who had only met forty-eight hours and a whole lifetime before.
And in an entirely different world from what they inhabited now.
But there was something that remained afterward, something warm and deep and meaningful that she didn’t have words for.
She took his face in her hands and brought his lips down to hers, clinging to them as if for life itself. Then she broke away from them and put hers next to his ear.
“I feel sought,” she said, her voice low and warm. “Like you came looking for me in the flooding school that was my world until you found me—I feel treasured.”
His hand caressed her face. “You are. You so are.”
“Are you all right? How do you feel?”
He exhaled so deeply she could feel it where they were still connected.
And kissed her gently.
“I feel home,” he said simply.
“You are, too.”
“Can I ask one more thing of you?”
Lucy nodded, love shining in her eyes.
“I know I have to get you back to Mrs. Caulfield’s by midnight—which isn’t long from now,” Ace said, humor changing a moment later to something deeper. “But I dreamt last night—and the night before, in fact, when I was still an objectionable, odious giver of comfort to the enemy—of holding you while you slept in my arms.”
“Really?” Lucy asked, amazed. “Even after that Board meeting?”
“Especially after that Board meeting. I sat in my car and waited until you got yours started again, you were so fascinating to me. I needed to be sure you got home safely.”
“You would have done that for anyone, being a gentleman. Admit it.”
Ace sighed. “All right, I admit it. But I think anyone else would have let me jump their battery. And I wouldn’t have dreamt of any of them sleeping in my arms—it turns out Colonel Genovese had car trouble that night, too.” He shuddered at the thought. “Only you have ever done that to my dreams, my love. So, what do you say? Can we take a nap? Will you let me hold you? Will you sleep in my arms, if only for a little while?”
Lucy giggled. “Well, when you ask that nicely, how could anyone say no?”
“I can’t reasonably imagine.” Ace rolled onto his back, grinning, and held out his gloriously muscled arms. “Come’ere.”
Lucy rested her head on his shoulder and put her arm around his waist as he drew her close.
“My alarm clock has no power,” she said drowsily. “You better have an internal one, otherwise Mrs. Caulfield is never going to let me see you again.”
ON THE WAY back through the dark side of town to the soft lights of High Street, they rode in contented silence.
When they were just past the end of the barricades, Lucy spoke.
“I think my mother likes you.”
Ace’s brow wrinkled. “Your mother?”
“Yeah. That wedding picture at the foot of my bed? My mom was smiling at you.”
“And your dad?”
“He’ll come around.”
Ace coughed. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with them watching us.”
Lucy sat up straight. “Oh, dammit!”
“What?”
“I meant to take the pictures off the wall. I got the stuff from my closets yesterday, but you kind of don’t notice pictures on the wall. It’s like they’re a part of the landscape.”
“Or part of the wallpaper,” Ace agreed. “Do you want me to go back?”
“Past the guard again? Not tonight. We’ll miss curfew.” She sighed. “I’m sorry that my living situation means we have to feel like teenagers again.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Ace said, taking her hand and kissing it. “You make me feel like a teenager again anyway. I can think of a lot of fun things we might do to make the most of that. And anyway, curfew is something I live with daily when my unit is activated or training. It’s no big deal to me.”
His smile faded.
“I’m not comfortable with you coming here alone,” he said seriously. “I agreed to meet here tonight because I knew I’d be with you, but it’s still a dangerous area.”
“What danger?” Lucy said, breaking open one of the sleeves of trail mix from his glove compartment. “There are guys with guns on the street.”
“There are also live wires on the ground, sparks everywhere, propane tanks exploding, rats, mold—it’s not a healthy environment. And besides—”
He stopped.
“What?” Lucy asked.
His words were soft, but they carried great weight.
“I need to know you’re safe. I recovered a disturbing number of bodies today and yesterday. I need to know that the next body I find isn’t going to be yours.”
Lucy nodded in understanding, then leaned over and kissed him. “I thought you found my body likeable,” she teased.
“I thought I’d made that pretty obvious.”
“That you did.”
He pulled into Mildred Caulfield’s slanted driveway, put the car in PARK and turned it off.
“Well, then, please keep it out of harm’s way. For my sake as well as yours.”
Chapter 27
‡
SUNDAY, 9:00 AM
ON THE SECOND day after the flood, those who were not dead, burying dead, searching for the missing, or tending to the wounded gathered silently on the slanted slope of Tree Hill Park, mostly close to the top, to take part in an ecumenical religious service and to see how their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family members were faring.
So soon after the disaster, with the floodwaters still present, the mood was not a joyful one.
Even though the observance was a somber one, however, it was meaningful to most of those in a
ttendance.
Father Charlie Minor, the pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic church, had been invited to participate in the more religious aspects of the gathering, along with the Reverend Benjamin Fuller, the pastor of Obergrande Community Church, itself non-denominational. In addition, Rabbi Sheldon Feist had graciously come in from Lake Placid, about twenty miles to the north, the only town in the Adirondacks with an active synagogue.
All three men had stood in silence together, facing one another, heads bowed in prayer, for about fifteen minutes before the ceremony began. As a result, the normal noise and banter that might occur before any type of public event was minimized by the sight of three holy men, their arms across each other’s shoulders, praying quietly for the lost.
Rabbi Feist had kept his remarks short, expressing the condolences of his congregation and noting that his Temple would be praying for those impacted by the flood, as well as offering kosher meals for anyone who needed them due to lack of electricity. He stood in silence while Father Minor read a passage from Psalm 69:
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my soul. I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched; my eyes fail while I wait for my God.
When Father Charlie looked up, he saw tears in the eyes of many of the assembled.
Finally, Pastor Fuller, one of Father Charlie’s best friends, stepped forward to speak.
Before he did, the carillon of the Catholic church played a hymn that was familiar to many from the Community Church, but utterly unknown to those who attended mass at Our Mother of Sorrows, causing a bit of confusion. The carillon played for a verse and a chorus, after which a pick-up choir from the Community Church joined in at the end:
When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Then Pastor Fuller went on to explain that the words of the hymn had been written in 1873 by Horatio Spafford, a successful lawyer who had lost his four daughters when the ship that they and their mother had been traveling on sank in the Atlantic.
“Shortly after the sinking, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife who had alone survived the disaster, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died,” Reverend Fuller said gently.
The members of the Community Church in attendance had looked at each other in horror. The hymn was one that they sang regularly, especially for fellowship, but they had no idea about its grisly beginnings, or why the minister had played it now, as they were all grieving for their losses in a water disaster.
“I asked Father Charlie if he could make the Mother of Sorrows carillon play this hymn of comfort, and for a short moment there was a conflict,” Reverend Fuller explained. “This hymn is not one used by Catholics, and so the carillon at Mother of Sorrows does not have it programmed. The organist at the Catholic Church, however, offered to play the hymn from the sheet music, so that the members of our church could have it at this ceremony. I believe this should be seen as an example of how we can reach across lines to people of other religions—or no religion at all—in a time of grief this widespread.”
He stepped away, leaving Ray Tibedeau, the mayor of Obergrande, standing in for Bob Lundford, the blowhard Town Supervisor who had been injured in the course of the flood.
Ray Tibedeau wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, looked around at the people of the town gathered there and below him on the hill, and spoke in a wavering voice.
“First, I hope you know that I am only speaking at all this morning because Bob Lundford, our Town Supervisor, is unable to do so,” he said nervously. “Please, if you are able, keep him and his family in your prayers. I know everyone has a very long list.
“When something of this—magnitude happens, the voice of any one person is insignificant by comparison, unworthy to try to make sense of the nightmare that has just been visited upon this—this—our—beautiful little town.” He had choked on the first few words, so he took a deep breath and a moment to become calm again. “I don’t want to even pretend I know what to say.
“The loss our families, our citizens, have suffered is profound,” he went on, “and in the face of profound loss, I think it’s wise to say as little as possible, and only what has to be said.
“This place we now gather is the place our ancestors have gathered for four centuries, in times of profound loss, as well as great joy. This epic tree, Obergrande, this national landmark, has seen great victory and terrible defeat, beginnings and endings, and through it all has endured, has stood as an example for our own endurance.
“This tree has witnessed the signing of peace accords between the Native peoples of this land and the French, Dutch, and British settlers who colonized it. It has seen the forging of a new nation one hundred seventy or so years later, and has seen that nation go into World Wars twice, each time its citizens standing beneath this very tree to hear the bells ring, announcing each war’s beginning, and its end.
“It has been the place high school seniors come to take a photograph that will grace the halls of the school through the years; it has seen countless marriage proposals, weddings, and bereavements, and still it stands, unbowed by all that life.
“And today, it stands as silent witness to this terrible event, a natural disaster that has taken such an awful toll on the people of the town that shares its name. I can only ask that we all come here, gather when the carillon bells ring, to hear important tidings, to grieve together, to work together, that one day, down the long road, we may gather together to celebrate life once more.
“I wish you peace and consolation. Thank you.”
He turned away and had started back toward the clergymen when a voice from the crowd below broke the silence.
“Now, now can you people see what waiting all this time has caused? We’ve been trying to tell you all along that the dam would fail, that the river was growing stronger. You people who have resisted dealing with nature have blood on your hands.”
The mayor turned back in shock as a low rumble began.
“No!” Ray Tibedeau shouted. “Please! This is a day of peace, of mourning—”
“All of which could have been avoided if—”
“It was a natural disaster, you idiot—”
“Liar!”
“You’re to blame, with your money and your manipulations—”
The gathering exploded, fueled by the misery of grief and the volatile history, into a fireball of anger.
The clergymen looked at each other in horror, while the mayor held his hands aloft, shouting words of calm that no one heard.
Parents hurried their terrified children away as the elderly attempted to flee the full-blown riot that took place, beneath the very tree that had seen so much life.
The Army National Guard, deployed to help rescue and rebuild, were quickly dispatched to Tree Hill Park, this time to put an end to the stupidity of violence taking place there.
Lucy, who had been standing about halfway down the hill, had been ushered away by Ace at the first moment that a shout went up, and so was several streets away before the actual donnybrook began.
As he hurried her along the streets toward the dry end of town, his hand clutching hers, she turned back to see the people of the town she loved dissolve before her very eyes into madness.
Chapter 28
‡
8:17 PM
High Street
ACE HAD BEEN called in for duty moments after he had delivered Lucy back to Mildred’s house on High Street, and had been deployed all day.
Shutting the riot down had actually taken less time that it might have, due the overwhelming exhaustion and despair that was gripping most of the populace. Ace was trying, not particularly successfully, to find the mood and outlook he had possessed for a
very long time, the sort of calm, casual acceptance that stupid things happened, and that people could not always be counted on to be reasonable, or rational, or even sane. He had seen this before, time and again, and had learned to have a passive, respectful attitude about sorting it out.
Only now there was a woman he loved in the thick of it, in harm’s way.
And it infuriated him.
The gentlemanly calm he had described to Lucy the night his own personal dam had failed, releasing the flood of words that had brought them together, was more or less gone. He had gone from the short-spoken, mono-syllabic, three-words-or-less-per-sentence Ace of the past to Alex Evans again, a man who had a woman he cared for more than anything else in his life.
And anything that put that woman in jeopardy was a problem.
Words from the past came back to haunt him. He had painful memories of the night in the emergency room after the evening he had described to Lucy, the first time he had intervened in the violence his stepfather had committed against his mother. His wrist had wrung with agony until it was set by the good-natured ER doctor in Albany, but even more painful was the expression on his mother’s face the whole time she was watching him being treated.
When the doctor had left to go about his rounds, promising to return with the X-rays shortly, his mother had risen from the chair in the corner in which she had been encamped and had come to the table on which he lay in the little treatment area curtained off by drapes of fabric.
She stood above him, tears in her eyes.
Alex, I’m so sorry.
Why? he could hear the fourteen-year-old voice in his memory ask her. Why do you need him? Why can’t we be rid of him? He’s mean to you, mom.
His mother’s words still turned his stomach.
I know you don’t understand this, honey, but I’m doing it for you.
His mother was still alive, still in his life.
Ace made a mental note as he was physically separating two arguing men in the street on the wet side of Tree Hill Park to talk to her soon and ask her why.
