Feels Like Summertime

by Tammy Falkner

  “Hey, you forgot your sandals,” Jake says. He looks from me to Cole and back, his brow furrowing. Then he sticks out his hand. “I’m Jake,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Who are you?” Cole inquires.

  “I’m an old friend of Katie’s. I’m staying with my dad up at the big house.”

  “Swanky,” Cole says. He doesn’t look toward the big house on the hill. He just stares at Jake, until he finally takes Jake’s hand and shakes it.

  “Yeah,” Jake says. “Swanky.” He looks hard at Cole. “Your name’s Jeff, right?”

  I wince. Cole hates to be compared to my husband. “No,” Cole bites out. He doesn’t say any more, but his hand slides under my hair to cup my nape. He squeezes painfully. “Have you known Katie long?” Cole asks.

  Jake smiles. “Only eighteen years or so.”

  “So you two have been catching up.” Cole’s hand grows ever tighter, until I can’t stand it and I step away. Cole reaches for my hand and grabs it instead. Then he pulls me in to his side and wraps his arm around me. “That sounds nice.” He glares at Jake. “You had better run along. I haven’t seen my girl in a while. We have some catching up to do too.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Jake says easily, nodding his head.

  “Oh, wait, Jake,” I say, stalling. It’s not fair to Jake. Not fair at all. “I have that pie dish your mom left here the other night.” I go to the kitchen and rumble around in the cabinet until I find a dish that will work. Then I walk back to the door where Jake is waiting. “Cole, his mom makes the most amazing pie. You would love it.” Jake’s eyes search mine, so I avoid his gaze. “Will you tell your mom thanks and that the pie was delicious?”

  He doesn’t even hesitate. “Yeah, of course. She’ll be thrilled you liked it.” He waves the dish at us as he turns to leave.

  Then the door closes and I’m left alone with my worst nightmare.

  31

  Jake

  I need my gun. I’m afraid to leave Katie, but I need to call the police, and I need to get my gun. My heart thunders in my chest as I hop on the golf cart and take it back to the house. I let myself in, my hands shaking as I unlock the gun safe in my dad’s closet. I take out his Colt .45 and check to be sure it’s loaded. Pop says an unloaded gun is worthless. I stuff it into the waistband of my pants at the small of my back. Then I grab my own gun, which I’d locked up when I first arrived. This one I hold in my hand.

  I hear gravel churning as I walk back outside, and I see my truck pulling up to the house. Right behind it is Dan and Adam’s car and I know they have the kids with them. I flag them down, waving my arms frantically to get them to stop.

  “What’s wrong?” Pop asks as he gets out of the truck.

  “Take the kids inside.” I nod toward the other car. “Take them too. Lock the door. Don’t come out unless you hear my voice.”

  Dan and Adam get out of their car. “What is it?” Dan asks.

  “Who is Cole?” I ask without preamble.

  Dan runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “The father of her baby. Is he here?”

  “I thought her husband’s name is Jeff.”

  “Her husband’s name was Jeff.”

  “Not important,” Adam interjects. “We’ve got to get Katie away from him before–”

  “Before what?”

  “Before he kills her.”

  Dan shakes his head. “He’s not going to kill her as long as she’s still pregnant.”

  “That doesn’t mean he won’t hurt her. It’s his favorite game. Teasing, taunting, and pain. He’s a cold, sadistic bastard.”

  I had run into quite a few of those while on the force and it wouldn’t be the first time I brought one down. “Drugs? Alcohol?” It’s best to have as much information as possible going in. An abusive ass is one thing; someone hopped up on something is twice as dangerous.

  “No, nothing like that. Just mean as hell.”

  “Cole is who she’s running from? He’s why she’s here?”

  “He won’t give her up without a fight, or unless he’s dead.”

  “I can do dead.” It can be arranged. Easily.

  “Jake.” Adam grabs my sleeve. “I’m going with you.”

  “You’re staying here.” I look him in the eye. “Someone should have told me,” I say as I turn toward Katie’s cabin.

  “Jake,” Pop calls.

  I look behind me and see Pop shooing all three of the kids into the house. He turns back to me. “Be careful,” he says.

  “You too.” If there’s anyone I could leave those kids with and not have to worry about them, it’s Pop.

  Dan grabs my sleeve. “You’ll take care of her?”

  “Yes.” I nod toward the house. “Keep the kids inside. Stay with Pop. He’ll keep them safe. Stay here,” I warn. I point at Pop, because I know I can trust him to keep a level head. “Call the police, Pop.”

  I am the police. And someone who is very dear to me is in trouble. She told me the only way she knew how. Now I have to get back to her.

  Dan tries to follow me but I jerk him back. “You stay here. Watch the kids.” Gabby is sobbing at the window, and she has Alex and Trixie standing in front of her. “Get them away from the windows. Do you understand?”

  Dan nods and runs up the steps. “Jake,” he calls back, his voice frantic.

  “What?” I check my gun. The clip is full. I only need one. The rest are insurance.

  “Take care of her.”

  I will.

  I’ve faced a lot of bad stuff in my time on the force. But I have never been so scared in my whole life as I am right now. The door is open when I step onto the porch. I hide behind the edge of the door and look inside. I see no one. Then I hear a scream from the bedroom and my blood runs cold.

  I steady my gun and use all the training I’ve ever received. I walk quietly to the bedroom, trying not to clomp my feet, but it’s damn hard. I need to get to Katie.

  I push the door open slowly with one hand while pointing my gun with the other, and I find Katie standing facing me, directly in front of Cole. He has a knife at her throat and his hand is clenched in her hair, pulling so tightly that her eyes are bulging. There’s a fresh handprint on the side of her face.

  “Put it down,” Cole says, his voice as cold as his heart.

  I lower the gun very slowly and lay it on the floor in front of me, holding my hands up in surrender.

  “Kick it over here,” he says with a jerk of his head. Katie winces and I see his grip on her hair tighten.

  “You know I won’t do that,” I say. If I give him the gun, he’ll kill her. He might kill her anyway. I kick it under the bed instead. “Why don’t you let her go so we can talk?”

  “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?” he snarls.

  “Oh, if only it was that easy,” I say with a levity I don’t feel. “Whole lot easier than finding a woman, fucking myself. God, why didn’t I think of that?” I knock the heel of my hand against my forehead.

  “You think you’re funny?” he says, and he pushes the knife a little harder against Katie’s throat. A drop of blood wells up and runs down her pale skin. She closes her eyes. “Step back,” Cole says.

  I do as he says, walking backward all the way across the room. He comes forward, pushing Katie in front of him. “Out on the porch.”

  I open the door and step outside, all the while holding my hands out at my sides.

  “We’re going to go get in that car and leave, and you’re going to step aside.”

  “If that’s what you want.” I step gingerly down the stairs, walking backward.

  I know, though, that if I let him take Katie to a second location, I’ll never see her again. I will kill him before I let that happen.

  Suddenly, I feel a rush of air beside my legs and a big brown beast runs up the steps, all fangs and hair standing on end. “Sally, no!” Katie screams.

  I reach to grab for the dog, but he’s quick and fast. He’s gone from lazy and slow to d
angerous and quick. Sally snarls and leaps, grabbing onto the arm that’s holding the knife against Katie’s throat. Sally jerks down and thrashes his head back and forth, and Cole screams.

  The knife clatters to the porch. Cole lets Katie go so he can shake the dog off his arm, but Sally isn’t letting go. Cole screams and curses, and I grab Katie, shoving her back into the cottage. I pull the hidden gun from my waistband, ready to shoot the man, but he and the dog are one big blur.

  Sally pulls Cole into the yard, and Cole scrambles free. I fire off a shot as soon as the dog is out of the way, and then another, but I refuse to shoot into pitch-black darkness, and I’m afraid I’m going to hit something aside from the asshole. “Sally!” I call. Sally comes toward me and sits down at my feet, staring up at me, his big, goofy body smeared with Cole’s blood. He looks up at me like “Anything else I can do for you?” He licks his bloody lips, his great big tongue lolling out of his mouth as he pants.

  The police and ambulance arrive at exactly the same time. I identify myself and present my weapon. I need to get to Katie, but know I have to explain quickly about Cole, the dog, and the shots that I fired, but I don’t even know if I hit him. Now it’s up to the cops to find that bastard. After all that, I finally get to go inside to check on Katie.

  Katie’s clutching her middle. “Hey, Jake,” she says softly.

  “Hey, Katie,” I say back. My eyes fill with tears, because I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

  “I think I’m having a baby,” she whispers. Her eyes meet mine. Then I notice she’s standing in a puddle of clear liquid.

  I rush toward her and lift her into my arms. “It’s okay. We got this.”

  “We do?” A tear tracks down her cheek.

  “Oh hell yeah,” I say. I walk onto the porch, carrying her all the while. “We totally got this,” I tell her. But this time, it’s more for me than for her.

  She points behind her. “Get the dog, Jake,” she cries. “He’s a good dog.”

  “The best dog ever.” I kiss her forehead as the paramedics take her from me. Her parents rush forward and her kids flank them.

  “I’m keeping that dog, Jake,” Katie says.

  “You can have the dog. But I get visitation.”

  “Deal,” Katie says, and I finally get a grin out of her.

  They load Katie into the ambulance.

  “We need to go,” the paramedics say. “In or out?”

  “In,” Katie cries. She wants me.

  I climb in with her and she takes my hand in a grip so tight it hurts.

  “We’ll follow you in the car!” her dad yells. “The kids are fine! And we got the dog!”

  Katie finally takes a deep breath. “Did you kill him?” she asks.

  “I don’t think so.”

  She lies back against the gurney and heaves out a breath. “I was hoping you did,” she says on a tired sigh.

  “Me too.”

  32

  Katie

  I can still remember vividly the day I was notified that my husband had died. I was sitting at the kitchen table supervising a game of Monopoly the kids were playing with a few of their friends. Gabby was playing too, so I didn’t have to pay a ton of attention. She’d partnered with Trixie, who was too little to do math or read the cards, but she loved the camaraderie. She also loved to heckle her brother and his friends.

  I took a sip from my glass of wine and hitched a hip on the corner of the counter. I was the luckiest wife on the face of the planet. After our youngest two children were born, we’d decided that only Jeff would remain active in the military. I still was in the reserves, and I had to give one weekend a month to my country, but I didn’t get deployed the way Jeff did. He was on his second tour, and it got harder every time he left.

  I walked to the calendar on the wall and marked off another day. Jeff would be home in two weeks. I couldn’t wait.

  I bent over to take a baking dish loaded with chicken nuggets out of the oven. I started to flip them all over with a fork and would have to put them back in for a little more cooking.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Gabby said as she set Trixie on the chair they both had been occupying.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  “Mom!” Gabby yelled a moment later. She was always so composed. She’d grown up way too fast. It was the bane of having two younger siblings and a parent who was absent; she’d taken on way too much responsibility, but she always handled it gracefully. Until now. “Mom!” she yelled again, and I heard her feet pounding down the hallway. “Mom…” Her voice quivered. “There are two men at the door.”

  I kept flipping nuggets. “What do they want?”

  “They’re military,” she said. “In class A’s.”

  My hand suddenly felt numb. I dropped the fork I was holding and it clattered to the floor. “Stay with Trixie and Alex,” I said quietly to Gabby as I walked past her.

  She grabbed onto my arm. “What do they want, Mom?”

  “Probably nothing,” I said soothingly. “Just wait here. Watch your brother and sister.”

  One of the officers introduced them. “May we come inside?” the chaplain asked. I identified him by the insignia on his uniform and the Bible he carried in his hand. I stepped to the side and they walked past me.

  “I have been asked to inform you that your husband has been reported dead. He was wounded by a roadside bomb and died en route to the hospital. We regret having to impart this news to you. On the behalf of the Secretary of Defense, I extend to you and your family my deepest sympathy in your great loss.”

  I wanted to drop to my knees and sob, but I had three kids who had just lost their dad. They’d lost their hero. They’d lost their future as they knew it. There would be no father to walk my girls down the aisle; there would be no father to straighten Alex’s tie before he stood at the altar. He wouldn’t teach them to drive a car. He wouldn’t be with me to supervise dates. He wouldn’t teach Alex to carry a handkerchief or to open doors for ladies. He would never arrange Trixie’s hair in uneven pigtails again.

  He would never call me in the middle of the night just to say hi. He would never hold me again, because his body was being shipped back to the United States. His dead body.

  “Is there anyone we can call for you?” the uniformed officer asked.

  “I can do it.” I needed to call my parents, and I needed to call Jeff’s parents and his sister. They needed to know. But first, I had to tell my children.

  The officers left me a few minutes later with a packet of information and details about the retrieval of the body. They would fly Jeff home with honors, and we could be there when he arrived. We could watch as they lowered the flag-draped casket. We could only wish he was getting off the plane and running toward us, like he normally did. He’d scoop the kids up first, and then he would grab me and spin me around. He’d whisper sweet words of love to me and my heart would swell with pride at the way he served his country, and the way he still served us. The way he loved us was pivotal. It was moving. It was perfect.

  And it was no more.

  Jeff was dead. He was never coming home again.

  I walked into the kitchen on shaky legs. “Hey, kids,” I said quietly. My voice squeaked. I cleared my throat. “Kids,” I said again. “Let’s clean this up. Unless your last name is Stone, you need to go home.”

  “But Mom,” Alex complained. Then he saw the look on my face. “Go home, guys,” he said. He was only seven, but he was so grown up in that moment. He looked over and saw Gabby standing by the stove and there were tears streaming down her face. She was fourteen the day we got the news that Jeff had died. But she may as well have been two. My stoic daughter was grieving, and I hadn’t even told her yet that her father was dead. Somehow she already knew.

  Trixie slid her hand into Gabby’s. Gabby held it tightly, but she couldn’t stop the tears.

  Once the other kids had gone home, I walked over to Gabby and pulled he
r against me. “You know,” I said. She nodded into my neck, her sobs nearly choking her.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered.

  “Yes.” I laid my forehead against hers.

  “Did he suffer?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Okay.” She steeled her spine and pulled her shoulders back. Then she picked Trixie up and set her on her hip. Alex took my hand.

  “Who were those men?” Alex asked.

  “They came to give us some really bad news,” I said. Then I took a deep breath and told my children that their father would not be coming home. I had to tell them that life as we knew it would never be the same.

  We did watch the casket as it was removed from the airplane when they brought Jeff’s body back to the United States. It was almost as though time stood still. Soldiers who were there slowly saluted, their arm movement so precise that it looked almost like someone had slowed time. The airline employees doffed their caps, and when I looked up toward the area where passengers patiently awaited their flights behind a solid glass wall, they too were honoring my husband’s life. With their tears, with their reverence, and with all the feelings in their hearts, they paid their respects to my husband and to our family.

  After the casket was loaded into the hearse, we followed it to the funeral home, where I would undergo the worst and best two days of my life. Family and friends showed up in droves, their fear and their worries thick enough in the room that it could choke a mortal person. But I was no longer a mortal person. I was the widow of a soldier. I was no longer a wife. I was a widow. I was suddenly super-human. But beneath it all, I was also flawed. Though I didn’t find that out until much later, a little more than a year, when the loneliness consumed me and someone new entered my life.

  Cole was confident and charming. He was nice to my children and they had fun with him. He brought me flowers, and more important, he took me out of my grief and made me feel like a woman again.