Lightning Storm

by Anne McAllister

  Torey shook her head in dismay and, glancing at her watch, turned and headed back into the evening sun. Shading her eyes she looked back along the beach towards the pier. Two figures were playing catch near the volleyball posts—one tiny and blond, the other tall with dark hair. As she watched Jake leapt with athletic ease and speared a wild throw, then hoisted Scott on to his shoulders and strode back up the beach towards The Strand. A knot of desire grew in Torey’s stomach as she watched them disappear. Would they be at Addie’s when she got back? Lord, help me bite my tongue if they are, she thought. Another confrontation with Jake tonight she did not need.

  He wasn’t there when she returned however. But Scott was in the kitchen making popcorn with Addie. Maybe Jake had a date, too, Torey thought with a mixture of scorn and jealousy. Maybe foisting Scott off on them all day wasn’t enough, maybe he was going out at night, too! Well, if Gran wanted to be taken advantage of, that was her problem. ‘Having fun?’ she asked with forced gaiety as she passed through the kitchen on her way to change for her date.

  ‘Lots,’ Scott said, mouth full. ‘Want some?’

  ‘No thanks.’ She went into her room and undid her hair, combing out her plait and leaving it cascading freely down her back, constrained only by a bright red hairband. Then she put on pristine white jeans bought specially for her California trip—imagine wearing them for ten minutes on the farm, she thought with a grin—and a red top with spaghetti straps under which, of course, she could not wear a bra. She smiled approvingly at her image in the mirror. No, she was definitely a hayseed no longer. She suspected Tony would approve. But she added gold hoop earrings for good measure, twitching her lips at the alluring woman who grinned back at her. Take that, Jake Brosnan!

  ‘I’m off,’ she called to Gran as she headed towards the front door.

  Jake sprang out of the chair where he was sitting. ‘We won’t be late,’ he added, following her and taking her arm as she went out the door.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she demanded, stopping abruptly on the porch and jerking her arm away from him.

  ‘Going out for a beer?’ Jake said hopefully with a smile that should have melted her, and would have if she weren’t furious at him.

  ‘Not with me!’

  Jake shrugged. ‘All right.’ He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and hunched his shoulders so that he looked rejected and forlorn.

  Torey gave a snort of disgust and stalked away out ,of the yard and up the hill, purposely not looking back. How dare he invite himself along like that? she fumed as she walked. She turned the corner on Manhattan Avenue and glimpsed Jake following. Damn! He was ambling slowly up the hill, stopping to stare in a shoestore window, then studying a display of scotch whisky with the care of a liquor inspector. She hurried on, dashing across the street against the light, hoping to reach the bar before Jake saw which one she entered.

  Tony was already there, nursing a pitcher of beer at a tiny table across the crowded room. Relieved Torey wove her way to his table. ‘Hi, gorgeous,’ he greeted her, his beer-laden breath reaching her clear across the table. He grasped her hand and pulled her down across from him so that they were staring into one another’s eyes and their knees touched. His hand skimmed up her arm almost touching her breast. A shiver of apprehension coursed through her. Above the chatter and clink of glasses and the wail of a jazz trumpeter, she heard Tony say, ‘I’ve been thinking of you all day,’ in a voice that would have put Hollywood’s latest heart throb to shame. His basset hound eyes devoured her as though he hadn’t eaten in days. Torey edged back and grasped the pitcher, pouring herself a glass and taking a quick gulp for fortification.

  ‘This is good beer,’ she mumbled, feeling as inadequate as she had seven years ago with Jake.

  ‘Not bad,’ Tony agreed. He winked. ‘I’ve got better at home though. I make my own,’ he added in a low whisper. ‘We can go there after a while.’ He gave her a warm, slow smile calculated to melt her. Unfortunately she felt more frozen than ever.

  ‘Well, er, my grandmother ... I ...’ It didn’t take Jake now to tell her that this had been a bad idea. Tony obviously had expectations she had no intentions of fulfilling. She glanced around for the nearest exit and caught sight of Jake lounging against the bar. He held a beer to his lips, but he wasn’t drinking, just staring at her from beneath hooded lids. He looked like a panther about to spring. She straightened up swiftly as Tony’s foot slid up her calf. ‘I—the ladies’ room,’ she stammered, pushing her chair back.’

  ‘Hurry back,’ Tony said in a throaty whisper that made her skin crawl.

  Not a chance. She took as long as she possibly could in the cloakroom in the faint hope that he might give up waiting and pick up a more amenable girl. But when she finally squared her shoulders and ventured back out into the crush of the bar, determined to tell Tony that their whole date had been a mistake, he was still there. But he was no longer alone. He was deep in conversation with Jake!

  ‘You’ve met Jake,’ he said sourly when she got back to the table.

  ‘Torey,’ Jake acknowledged, hooking over a chair so she had to sit next to him. ‘Enjoying yourself?’ His eyes glinted mockingly in the light from the red glass lanterns.

  ‘Enormously,’ she lied, downing the rest of her beer as quickly as she dared. ‘But I should be getting back. Gran might need me. You don’t mind do you, Tony?’ she added.

  Tony smiled somewhat feebly, and Torey wondered what Jake had said to him. ‘Sure you won’t go dancing later?’ he asked with the air of a man who already knows the answer.

  ‘Not tonight, thanks.’

  ‘Not any night,’ Jake muttered ominously.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll see you again at the beach though,’ Torey continued, giving Jake a harsh glare. ‘I’ve really enjoyed this.’ She stood up.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Tony said glumly. He was already eyeing the unattached females at the next table. ‘See you around.’

  Jake swallowed the rest of his beer and got up to follow her.

  ‘Don’t rush off, Jake’ she said saccharinely. ‘I’m sure I can find my way home.’ She practically bolted out the door, taking a gasp of the passing car exhaust and thinking how much fresher it was than the atmosphere in the bar. It would have been heaven, she thought, if only Jake Brosnan were not right on her heels!

  Happily, though, he didn’t say a word, but shortened his stride to match hers, keeping pace while she fumed inwardly about what an idiot she had been. So much for not being a hayseed.

  ‘All right. Go ahead. Say “I told you so”,’ she snapped finally when he showed no signs of speaking and she couldn’t bear the smug silence any longer.

  Jake grinned. ‘I don’t have to. You did it for me.’

  ‘I could have handled him myself,’ she went on doggedly, digging herself in an even deeper hole.

  ‘Uh huh.’ It didn’t take a hearing aid to catch the scepticism in his voice.

  Torey muttered under her breath, feeling as foolish and humiliated as she had the last time they had walked together on The Strand seven years ago. Why, every time she made an idiot of herself, was Jake Brosnan there to witness it? Damn it all anyway! It would be a whole lot easier if she didn’t find him so cursedly attractive. As much so now as she did then.

  But the similarity to their first walk back to Addie’s house ended in the front garden. Then Jake had bid her a gruff goodnight and had strode away without once looking back. Tonight he followed her into the living room and flopped down on the couch, leaving Torey to hover in the doorway as if she were the one who didn’t belong.

  ‘Sit down,’ he invited, patting the space next to him.

  ‘No thanks.’ There was no way she was going to spend the rest of the evening sitting next to Jake, even if Addie was there to intercede.

  He shrugged as if it made little difference to him, and Torey gnashed her teeth as she walked into her bedroom. If he didn’t care, why had he bothered to trail her like some hired bodygu
ard just an hour earlier? She flipped on the light and discovered Scott asleep on her bed again. Quickly shutting it off, she groped for her nightgown and then barricaded herself in the shower. It was the one place she could go in the house where she could get away from Jake or his family! But even there she couldn’t get away from her thoughts of him, and when she finally dried off and put on her robe to go back out into the living room, she thought she still heard voices and wondered, Good grief, doesn’t he ever go home? It was nearly ten. Addie should be in bed.

  Cane in hand, Addie was just going. ‘I left the TV on for you,’ she said. ‘You found Scott?’

  ‘I certainly did.’ Torey’s voice was dry.

  ‘Jake will pick him up later,’ Addie said, hobbling towards her room.

  ‘You just put him on the couch when you want to go to bed. Jake will come in and carry him home.’

  ‘Where is Jake?’

  ‘Oh, he went to pick up Lola. He never gets back until late. Don’t wait up,’ Addie counselled her.

  Of course not, Torey fumed. Just babysit his kid while he’s out with some girl! No wonder he objected to her going out tonight. He wanted her ‘services’ himself. ‘Gran,’ she mumbled in strangled tones, but Addie went on, ‘Good night, dear. Sleep well.’ She paused in the doorway to her room. ‘You never said, Victoria. How was your date with that young man?’ Something glinted in her eyes that made Torey suspicious.

  ‘Ask Jake,’ she said drily. ‘He invited himself along.’

  Addie stifled a smile. ‘He’s concerned about you.’

  ‘Humph,’ Torey snorted. But there was no point in arguing about Jake with Gran. He kept all his failings well hidden from her. ‘Good night, Gran,’ she said, leaning over and kissing her grandmother’s papery soft cheek. How different it felt from the weathered roughness of Jake’s.

  Was Lola feeling the roughness of his whiskered jaw right now? she wondered later as she curled into the big overstuffed couch where Jake had sat at dinner. There was still a faint hint of his shaving lotion in the air, and Torey drew a deep breath. Damn it, what did she care if Lola had her hands all over him? She had no need of philandering playboys, men who couldn’t even accept the responsibility of caring for their own children, who just palmed them off on other people instead.

  She left Scott where he was, knowing there was no way she could sleep. Her anger at Jake grew as the night wore on. She fed it intentionally, allowing her imagination to run rampant, urging it on, picturing Jake in the worst terms possible, compromising Lola and every other female who was willing. When he got home, she vowed, he was going to hear exactly what she thought of him, starting with his irresponsibility towards Scott and carrying over into his blatant use of other people (namely her and Addie), and dwelling especially on his wanton interference in her own life! She shifted irritably on the couch. Over thirty years old and last upholstered when durability, not fashion, was the watchword, it looked and felt like steel wool and did nothing to improve her frame of mind. It was almost a relief when the ‘phone rang.

  Expecting Jake, she was surprised to hear instead a soft, hesitant female voice. ‘Mrs. Harrison?’

  ‘No. This is her granddaughter. May I help you?’

  ‘Does she have a tenant named Jake Brosnan still?’ the woman asked.

  Torey sat up straight and brushed her hair out of her face. ‘Yes.’ Another of his women? she wondered. God, he must draw them like flies!

  ‘Oh.’ There was a pause, as if the woman couldn’t decide whether to go on. Then she said quickly, ‘This is Christy Brosnan, his former wife. I’ve been trying to reach him.’

  Torey felt as if the other shoe had just dropped. If there was ever a night that Jake’s former wife would call up out of the blue, this had to have been it. ‘He’s not around tonight,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Well, I have to talk to him.’ This Christy was sounding agitated. ‘I’ve sent him four letters and they all came back unopened. I thought he might have moved.’

  ‘No.’ Would that he had!

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ the woman went on. ‘Why would he send them back? Is there something wrong with Scott?’ There was a note of near panic in her voice now. Clearly she wasn’t indifferent to her son.

  ‘No, no,’ Torey reassured her. ‘Scott’s just fine.’ Jake, on the other hand, was getting worse by the minute! How could he be so cruel as to deny this woman access to her son, to return her letters as if he and Scott no longer existed on earth?

  ‘I want to see him,’ Christy said. ‘I’ll call Jake. Oh no, I can’t. His number is unlisted. Do you have it?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Torey said. ‘I’m sorry.’ If she had she would have dialled it for the woman herself!

  ‘Tell him then,’ Christy said, her voice wavering slightly. ‘You’ll tell him I called?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ When she was reading him the riot act tonight, she would be only too glad to add another page.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘So that was Jake’s ex-wife That was the determined career woman? Torey shook her head. Unbelievable. She had sounded so wistful and lost somehow. No wonder Jake had run roughshod over her. She didn’t sound like she had the backbone of a jellyfish. Torey jumped off the couch and paced back and forth across the room, her fists clenching inside the pockets of her yellow robe. Too bad he didn’t show his face right now, she thought. I’ve got enough back-bone for both of us! She growled and muttered and kicked at the floor pillows, wishing they were the rear end of a tall, dark haired devil she knew.

  ‘He is,’ she said to Maynard, ‘the most insufferable bastard I have ever had the misfortune to meet.’

  Maynard thumped his tail in agreement.

  By two-thirty in the morning Torey had added more adjectives and several nouns to her description of Jake’s character. It couldn’t, she decided, sink much lower. Then she heard the truck pull up, the doors slam and, a few minutes later, instead of the door opening, the telephone rang.

  ‘Torey?’ he said when she answered, ready to let him have it.

  ‘What do you want? Why aren’t you over here? What’d you do, help close the bar?’ she snapped at him for starters.

  ‘Yes,’ he said after a brief pause. ‘Listen, keep Scott tonight, will you?’ he went on in a rush. ‘I’ve got Lola up here.’

  Torey stared at the receiver as if it had sprouted wings. Keep Scott while he entertained some floozie all night? All night? He’d just hit rock bottom. Her fingers clenched around the receiver.

  Jake seemed to take her silence for acquiescence, not stupefaction, for he went on hurriedly, ‘Thanks a million. See you tomorrow.’

  Torey stood transfixed for a full minute before she hung up. See you tomorrow? You’d better believe it, buster, she thought savagely, letting the pillow have another swift kick as she strode through the living room to the kitchen where she stared unblinking at the dim light in Jake’s living room. I’ll see you tomorrow at dawn with pistols, she thought grimly. The slender silhouette of a woman moved past the window. Jake followed. Torey gripped the edge of the sink, stiff with anger. Then the light in his apartment went out, and with it the pain centring in her chest grew. And grew.

  The night lasted a lifetime. Maybe two. But shortly after seven, just when she was beginning to doze on the ironhard couch in the living room, she heard a door bang and she tore into the kitchen to see Jake and a pretty young blonde-woman come down his stairs. Puzzled, Torey flung open the door, gathering her wits and her anger and descending the stairs to do battle. She hadn’t imagined he’d be up for hours yet. But then maybe he had wanted to get rid of his bedmate before Scott woke up and went home. ‘Jake!’ she yelled as he was about to follow Lola into the garage.

  He stopped and turned to look at her. She didn’t doubt that she looked like a hag, hair dishevelled, robe askew, sleepless eyes red-rimmed with anger. But Jake didn’t look much better. Too bad he’d had such a hard night, she thought savagely, taking in the d
ark shadows under his eyes, the nick on his chin from shaving, the uncombed hair. He was wearing red trunks and he had a towel slung around his neck. Surely he wasn’t intending to jaunt off to the beach again! And who did he mean to stick Scott with now? ‘What is it?’ he asked impatiently.

  ‘I want to talk to you,’ she said. Scream at you. Yell at you.

  ‘What about?’ Jake looked pointedly at his watch.

  ‘Last night. And Scott. And you taking advantage of...’

  ‘Look, save it, will you?’ he cut in. ‘I’ve gotta get Lola home now or I’m going to be late for work.’ Without giving her a chance to object he turned on his heel and stalked after Lola to the truck. Torey stood fuming, mouth open, in his wake.

  Save it she did, with interest. She accepted Gino’s invitation to go sailing that afternoon, leaving Scott with Addie. ‘If you want to be taken advantage of, be my guest,’ she told her grandmother. ‘I am going out.’ She wished she could have removed Jake from her mind as easily as she did herself from the premises. But all day long she wanted to have it out with him. To tell him off. For seven years resentment had been building, and tonight she was going to do something about it. If she’d entertained any doubts, they were banished the moment Gino brought her home and she found Addie exhausted and playing what might have been her fiftieth game of Snap with Scott. Torey felt fleetingly guilty and angry with herself for sticking her grandmother with him all day, but she immediately transferred that anger to Jake. Scott wasn’t her son after all!

  ‘Where’s Jake?’ she demanded when she came in the living room.

  ‘I don’t think he’s home yet,’ Addie said, but just then Torey heard his truck.

  Scott jumped up, but Torey forestalled him. ‘You wait here,’ she commanded and stalked out to confront him at the foot of the stairs to his apartment.