Lightning Storm

by Anne McAllister

  Torey didn’t know whether to be comforted by that revelation or not. Obviously Jake liked Lola and was concerned about her welfare. It made believing that he had taken her to his apartment and ravished her rather difficult, but it still didn’t explain what she was doing there all night. For once, though, Torey didn’t want to undermine Addie’s opinion of Jake by asking her. ‘Oh,’ she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else.

  ‘Jake doesn’t date much,’ Addie volunteered, and Torey’s ears pricked up. ‘He spends all his time painting and doing things with Scott.’

  ‘What happened to his wife?’ Torey asked, feeling like she was about to step into a mine field.

  ‘They got divorced when Scott was two. They were together when they first rented the apartment. But she wasn’t around much even when they were married. She’s a stewardess, and I believe she wanted a career, not a child. So Jake raised him. Eventually she left for good. That’s when I got to know him a bit more.’ Addie was staring off into space, her pan full of carrots forgotten as she recalled her early meetings with Jake and his former wife. Then, shaking her head sadly, she picked up the knife again and sighed, ‘She was a fragile little thing. Kind of lost. Young and confused when I knew her. A lot like Jake was actually. They looked like they didn’t know what hit them.’

  Torey couldn’t believe they were talking about the same Jake. She couldn’t envision him confused or lost. He had always seemed so totally in control of every situation. Even the night she had so clumsily refused his lovemaking, he had only been disorientated a few seconds. Then he was in command again, cold and distant but controlled. ‘I can’t quite imagine that,’ she began, and Addie interrupted,

  ‘Of course you can’t, my dear. You and Paul had something wonderful. Something to be envied. Even after Paul died and you were alone, I suspect Jake envied you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your relationship was beautiful, positive. It was obvious in every picture you sent, pictures he saw. Even after it was over, you still had good memories. Jake doesn’t even have that.’

  ‘Surely he must have some,’ Torey argued. ‘He must have loved her when he married her.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Addie replied. ‘He never said.’

  Torey wished he had. How he felt or didn’t feel about his wife nagged at her. But regardless of what he felt, he was a very different person in her mind that night than he had been in the morning. Her defences towards him had softened, melting away in the face of visions of him lost and confused, hurt by his broken marriage, struggling to provide for his son and caring for his elderly landlady.

  Don’t go overboard, she warned herself. You had him on a pedestal once before and look what happened. But that time she had seen him as a romantic hero, the man of her dreams. Now she saw him as a flesh-and-blood person. A man with strengths and weaknesses, talents and blind spots. And she knew that she wanted to know that man. She only hoped Jake would give her a second chance.

  After three days Torey knew that any chance she got would be of her own making. Jake was giving nothing away. He had apparently taken her words to heart for Scott was notable by his absence. Addie was bereft, Torey plagued with guilt.

  ‘I’ll apologise,’ she promised Addie, explaining what she’d said. But apologising meant confronting him, and Jake was about as easy to confront as a cottontail rabbit. The most she saw of him was his thatch of black hair or the sight of his broad shoulders going in the opposite direction. Deciding finally to face him in his own apartment, she waited until after dinner one night when she knew the truck was in the garage and, heart in her throat, she mounted the steep stairs.

  ‘Is, um, your dad home?’ she asked Scott, scanning the room behind him but seeing only a thick, chocolate-coloured carpet, two leather armchairs and a sand-coloured sofa. No Jake.

  ‘He’s surfin’,’ Scott said. ‘Wanta watch this show with me?’ He nodded at the television which Torey saw flickering in the background.

  ‘Addie’s watching the same show,’ she said, hoping it were true, ‘and I made a cherry pie this afternoon. Why don’t you come down?’

  ‘Dad said to stay here.’

  Guiltily, Torey nodded. She knew why. ‘I’ll tell him where you are,’ she promised. ‘I want to talk to him.’ She waited while Scott shut off the television and saw him into Addie’s before setting off for the beach.

  Jake wasn’t hard to spot. He was sitting astride his surfboard a bit apart from the others who had gathered for an evening of wave riding. As she stood on The Strand he caught a wave, coming to his feet immediately and edging up towards to tip of the board. The wave curled cleanly and Jake was in a perfect position. If she had ever wondered what the phrase ‘poetry in motion’ meant, she knew now. The fluid joining of man and nature mesmerised her and she stood unmoving until he had finished his ride and turned to paddle out again. Then, realising she had missed her chance to catch him, Torey began to run. By the time she reached the water Jake was in position to catch another wave, but instead he looked shoreward, then turned and paddled out beyond the breakers before sitting up and trailing his hands in the water.

  Obviously he had seen her and had decided to wait. Dropping her towel on the sand, Torey ran into the water, the shock of it hitting her like an icy January morning. Now all she needed was for him to catch a wave in past her. If he meant to avoid her, he could do it without trying. But he didn’t move, straddling the board easily, his black hair clinging like a cap to his skull as he watched her with hooded eyes.

  A wave rose between them and Torey lost sight of him as she dived beneath the bottle green water. Then, as she cut through to the surface, she saw his bare toes before her eyes. ‘Hello.’ She flicked wet hair out of her face and squinted up at him, offering a tentative smile that he didn’t return. He stared at her stonily as she bobbed in the water beside him. Since he clearly wasn’t going to respond, she plunged on, ‘Scott’s at Gran’s and ...’

  ‘I told him to stay—’

  ‘I know,’ she said quickly. ‘He was. But I thought that if it weren’t for my big mouth, he’d have been at Addie’s. So I sent him down.’

  Jake looked annoyed. ‘You said—’

  ‘I know what I said. I was wrong. I came to apologise. I’m sorry.’ She looked up at him guilelessly, her heart in her eyes. ‘I think maybe you were right.’

  For a second Jake didn’t move. Then a grin touched his mouth. ‘You mean you did want me to take you to bed?’

  Torey’s cheeks flamed. ‘Not that,’ she spluttered. ‘I mean, I think you were right about my basing my opinion of you now on who you were, or who I thought you were,’ she amended, ‘seven years ago.’ She met his eyes, trying to read his expression, but he wasn’t giving anything away. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry,’ she said again.

  Jake frowned as though he didn’t know what to say. Maybe he was more offended than she knew. ‘You swam all the way out here to tell me that?’ he asked finally, his brow dark.

  Torey nodded, then giving a little shrug, she turned towards shore. What else, after all, could she say?

  ‘Wait!’ He leaned over and took two strokes, reaching down to touch her shoulder. ‘I—I apologise too.’ He gripped her shoulder tightly or she would have sunk from astonishment. ‘I had no business yelling at you.’

  Torey offered him a smile. ‘I think I’m glad you did,’ she confessed. ‘If you hadn’t, I might really have convinced myself you were “the world’s greatest villain” after all.’

  ‘Why?’ Jake demanded. He drew her towards him, then, balancing carefully, lifted her so she sat facing him on the board. ‘Why did you want to?’ he repeated, his eyes intent.

  Torey looked down, unable to meet them staring instead at the few inches of slick fibreglass between them. But then her eyes strayed to his tanned, muscular thighs plastered with wet dark hairs, and the faded blue swim trunks that did little to hide his masculinity. ‘Because of Paul,’ she choked.

  Jake stiffened. ‘
I can’t be Paul,’ he said, his voice remote. Then he grasped her chin with his hand, lifting it so that she was forced to look at him. ‘You have to let go, Torey,’ he said softly. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘I know.’ She closed her eyes, unwilling to face so starkly that the only features she could see in the flesh or in her mind now were Jake’s. Besides, she wasn’t the only one who had a past. ‘What about Christy?’ she wanted to know, her voice quavering slightly.

  Jake’s hand dropped. ‘It’s not the same,’ he said.

  Did you love her? she wanted to ask. Do you still? But their tentative gropings towards each other were too new, too fragile. It was enough that they were angry no longer. ‘All right,’ she said, but she knew he could still hear uncertainty in her voice. She trailed her hand in the water, avoiding his gaze.

  ‘Shall we bury the past and start again?’ he asked. She looked at him then, and his eyebrow lifted speculatively. ‘Can we?’

  ‘Of course.’ He made a mock bow, tipping the surfboard precariously. ‘How do you do, Miss. Or is it Ms.? My name is Jake Brosnan. I was just sitting here on my surfboard when, much to my surprise, who should swim by but the prettiest mermaid I’ve ever seen.’ He grinned and offered her his hand.

  Giggling, Torey took it and wondered if it was pure electricity shooting through her or if the fish really were nibbling her toes. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Brosnan.’ Then, beginning where she should have years ago, she asked, ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Iowa. A little town north of Des Moines. My father runs the furniture store and funeral parlour there.’

  ‘Really?’ She hadn’t ever imagined him as a smalltown boy. ‘Why didn’t you stay?’

  Jake snorted. ‘Are you kidding? I’d have ended up painting signs for feed stores. If I was lucky my dad might’ve let me do the make-up on the people he embalmed!’

  Torey giggled at his pained expression. His opportunities there sounded no more vast than hers had been in Galena. ‘You’d rather do dragons?’ she ventured.

  ‘I’d rather be free to do dragons or windmills or whatever I want.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘You do?’ Jake looked doubtful. A ground swell rose beneath the rocking the board and he leaned towards her to keep them from tipping over.

  Torey caught her breath. ‘Of course. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Swimming?’ He was breathing faster, his eyes darkening as he looked at her.

  ‘Not here, stupid. In California. Here I’m free to choose my own husband.’

  Jake’s brows shot up. ‘Are you holding auditions?’

  She trembled. ‘Of course not! I’m not planning on remarrying at all—or at least not soon.’

  ‘Oh.’ His expression was shuttered, and Torey felt suddenly cold, as if he had shut her out on a snowy winter morning. She shivered. The board tipped.

  ‘Don’t rock the boat,’ Jake whispered, his expression softening slightly. He edged closer so their knees touched. Then he reached for her, his large hands holding her gently and drawing her towards him. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m auditioning,’ he rasped, ‘but I want to kiss you badly. Now.’ The last word was as urgent as any she had ever heard, and the moment he uttered it his lips came down on hers, parting them to delve within. Instinctively Torey wrapped her arms around him, clutching the sleek damp skin of his back, revelling in the heady mixture of salty air, lime shampoo and the indefinable essence of Jake that assailed her. They floated, rocked, tipped.

  ‘Heads up!’ The shout came from far off as the board lurched under the force of Jake’s passion, and Torey raised her eyes to see a wall of green water rising behind him and heading their way.

  ‘Jake!’ She dragged her mouth away from his. ‘Jake, look!’

  Jake looked. ‘Jesus. Lie down,’ he ordered.

  Torey did, flipping over on to her stomach, feeling Jake drop down flat on to her back, paddling madly to get in position before the wave broke over them.

  ‘Dig in!’ he shouted as the water surged around them, lifting and drawing them into the curl, then hurling them downward with mindblowing force. Torey paddled furiously, aware only of streaming cold water on either side and the heat of Jake’s body on hers. There was no question of standing, of being clever, but Torey didn’t care. She would rather ride this way, with Jake’s chin on her shoulder, his mouth by her ear, his legs tangled intimately with hers.

  ‘Some ride!’ A teenager in baggy Hawaiian print trunks whooped as they came alongside him. ‘Fantastic, huh, Jake?’

  Jake stopped paddling, lifting his arms to let them tighten briefly around Torey before dangling them loosely in the eddying foam. ‘Fantastic,’ he murmured for her ears only, moving his hips against her so there was no doubt what he meant. Then, nipping her earlobe, he slid off, water streaming down his thighs as he stood, taking the board under one arm and slinging the other around her.

  ‘Wave of the day, right?’ the boy chortled, hopping around on the sand.

  ‘Damn right,’ Jake said and hugged Torey to his side.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She felt as if she were walking a tightrope—a giddy, precarious sensation compounded by the fact that Jake was inching his way towards her from the other end. Or, at least, she thought he was.

  Outwardly nothing much changed during the next three days. Scott reappeared in her life, Addie’s exercises went on without fail, Jake turned up for dinner and an evening swim. But the antagonism was gone, replaced by an almost electrical awareness charging the atmosphere between the two of them. Their eyes sought, probed, and slid away. Their fingers brushed, their voices caressed, and their silences spoke more than words would allow them to say. Was it possible that love was happening again? Torey wondered as she sat on the beach watching him swim, his body cutting through the waves like a shark. He caught a rolling breaker and rode it in to where Scott was jumping in the waves. Then lifting his head, he shook himself like a wet spaniel and ambled towards her, grinning.

  ‘Come with me to the tidepools tomorrow.’

  ‘Where?’ She’d go to the moon if he asked.

  ‘Palos Verdes. I’ve been sketching there this week. It’s great dragon country. We can take Scott. All right?’ He gave her a boyishly hopeful grin.

  She nodded happily, and he beamed. ‘Be ready by seven.’

  Like a kid on Christmas morning, she was ready far before that, making a big lunch and then sitting like a kid waiting for the school bus, just inside the back door. Fortunately Jake was prompt. At seven she heard Scott’s childish chirp in the yard, followed by Jake’s peremptory knock on the back door. She straightened her T-shirt and shorts and opened the door.

  ‘Ready?’ He was leaning against the porch railing, a sleepy smile on his face that made her heart turn over.

  ‘All set,’ she said, proffering the wicker basket. ‘I brought yogurt, salami, rolls and strawberries,’ she explained.

  ‘Good.’ He took the basket in one hand and her arm with the other. ‘We won’t starve.’

  She might, Torey thought, if the effect he was having on her appetite was anything to go by. She was much too busy feasting her eyes on him to bother with mundane things like food. Scott wanted to sit by the window again, so she found herself pressed against Jake, his thigh hard against her own, his shoulder brushing hers whenever he shifted gears.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled as he brushed her for the fifth time. She tried to move over, but there was nowhere to go. Besides, she liked the feel of his arm.

  ‘I’m not,’ Jake said, slanting her a grin.

  Torey suddenly felt about twenty degrees warmer. ‘Jake?’ she warned, but he only slipped his arm around her and squeezed her. ‘Keep your eyes on the road.’

  ‘It’s not as easy as you think,’ he grumbled. But as they wound their way up the tree-shaded road that led along the cliffs of the Palos Verdes peninsula, he had plenty to keep him occupied. And Torey, while she would rather have watched him, was p
ersuaded by Scott to keep an eye out for whales.

  ‘Have you ever seen a whale along here?’ she asked after ages of futile searching.

  ‘Nope,’ Scott said, undeterred.

  ‘Never,’ Jake added. ‘I’ve seen them up Santa Barbara way, but not here.’ He slowed the truck and turned on to a narrow winding road that almost disappeared amidst eucalyptus trees and some low dense foliage that a midwestern Torey couldn’t put a name to. They went slowly down the bumpy one lane road and halted near the edge of a cliff.

  ‘Everybody out.’ Jake hopped out and went around to the back of the truck, opening the hatch and removing the lunch basket and his case of art materials. Scott scrambled out too, and Torey brought up the rear looking sceptically over the edge to where the ocean roared beneath.

  ‘Are you serious?’ she asked, her heart clambering up into her throat.

  Jake took her arm. ‘Trust me.’ His voice caused a shiver down her spine and she clutched at his shirt to save herself from slipping. ‘I won’t let anything happen,’ he promised and she thought, that’s what you think. There was plenty happening already and he was responsible for it all. But she took the basket when he handed it to her and let him slip his arm around her waist, holding her against him as he made his way carefully down the crumbling trail on the face of the cliff.

  ‘Hey, look! C’mon!’ Scott, part mountain goat obviously, was already skipping around on the rocks below, the waves lapping over his plimsolls as he pointed at something in a rocky pool.

  ‘Hold your horses!’ Jake called back as they skidded the final few feet to the narrow rocky beach. He set down the box and spread out the large blanket he took from inside it. ‘There you are,’ he said to Torey. ‘All the comforts of home.’ His eyes told her it was the bedroom he had in mind and she swallowed hard.

  ‘Dad!’

  Jake looked up helplessly,, obviously torn between Torey and his son.