July Thunder (17 page)

But she didn't know what to do. Should she offer him something to drink? Turn on music? Only minutes ago she had been feeling secure and safe with him, amazingly comfortable. But now all she could feel was awkward. What if he'd begun to regret their lovemaking? What if all he wanted to do was escape?

Time seemed endless as he stood there just inside the door. Longing to leave? Or feeling just as awkward as she?

But then he sat on the couch and patted the seat beside him. Feeling almost stiff, she sat, then felt everything inside her melt as he wrapped his arm around her and snuggled her to his side. It was okay.

For now. She absolutely refused to think about later until it shoved itself in her face.

Her ear was against Sam's chest, and she could hear his voice rumble deep inside as he spoke. “This has been a wonderful day.”

“Yes, it has.” Her heart squeezed a little as she wondered if he was working up to ending it now.

“And,” he said slowly, “I don't want it to end. How about you?”

She could have laughed from sheer joy. “Me, neither.”

“Good.”

She felt him brush a kiss on the top of her head, and a thrill raced through her. She wished he would drag her off to bed again right now. And yet…and yet she wanted these quiet, comfortable minutes,
too. Minutes that were making it feel as if this could last forever.

Making love with him had been an astounding experience, one that had lived up to her wildest youthful dreams, dreams that had been forgotten when her ex-husband had taught her otherwise. But with Sam it had been beautiful, passionate, almost exuberant. It had been an experience that she would carry as a touchstone for the rest of her days.

Part of her feared that if they made love again she would discover the first time had been a fluke. And part of her feared that if she shattered these peaceful moments in even the slightest way he would disappear like a genie who had granted his last wish.

That she could at once feel so conflicted and so peaceful amazed her. It was as if she were two people in the same body.

So she didn't move, except to snuggle closer. To wrap her arm around Sam's narrow waist and hug him back. How beautiful.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” he asked, echoing her thought. Lifting his other hand, he stroked her hair gently. “Like fire and mist.”

The poetry struck her. She hadn't thought of him as the poetic type. But it also seemed extravagant, and she felt embarrassed. “I'm just your basic Irish-American.”

“Really? I don't think there's anything basic about you at all. Not in the least.”

She squirmed a little, unaccustomed to such extravagant praise. “Sam…”

“Just say thank you,” he chided kindly. “That's all you have to say.”

“Thank you,” she said meekly.

He chuckled.

Then, feeling inexplicably impish, she added, “You're quite a stud.”

“Stud?” His tone held outrage that quickly dissolved into more laughter. “So I'm a stud, am I?”

She dared to steal a look at his face. “Absolutely.”

“Hmm. No one's ever said that about me before.”

“At least not to your face.” He was blushing; she could see it even in the dim light. She liked that.

Lightning suddenly brightened the room, so intense that Mary felt momentarily blinded. The crack of thunder that followed almost immediately made her whole house shudder. For long seconds all she could see was the afterimage of the flash.

“That was close,” Sam said, as the rumble died away and along with it the shudder that had passed through her house.

“Yes.” She held her breath, anticipating another flash. Or, worse, the sound of a siren that would indicate there was trouble. But all she heard was the rush of the wind and some car alarms.

“That's my alarm,” Sam said.

“Don't go out there.” Mary tightened her hold
on him. “Sam, that was too close for comfort. The alarm will stop in a few seconds, won't it?”

“A minute or so.”

“Then just leave it.” She could feel him hesitating, stiffening under her touch, but then he relaxed back into her embrace. “You're right. I tempted fate enough today.”

She wondered if he meant his standing in the water while he positioned his boat as lightning flashed overhead, or if he meant something else. Maybe something else. Because she, too, suddenly felt as if she were tempting fate.

Maybe she ought to stand up and call a halt to all of this right now. But she couldn't bring herself to do that. Couldn't tear herself away from the feeling of contentment his arms gave her. The house shook again with another flash and rumble, but not as bright and loud this time. The car alarm stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Then even the wind seemed to hold its breath. The curtains stopped stirring, and for a few minutes the air was as still as a tomb.

The sudden hush was incredible, as if the whole world had stilled, caught between heartbeats.

Then, with a whoosh that blew the curtains straight out from the windows, the wind roared down on them with another blinding flash of lightning and deafening clap of thunder. Moments later Mary heard the occasional plop of large raindrops on her roof.

“Oh, I hope it rains,” she said.

“Me, too.” But Sam eased away from her, leaving her feeling bereft, and went to look out the window. The day was dark green; the streetlights had even come on, visible over his shoulder. Not wanting to be so far away from him, Mary rose, too, and went to stand beside him.

Raindrops were indeed falling, but only a few, each plop stirring up a little dust as it fell. Lightning crackled across the sky, a fork that left its afterimage imprinted on Mary's retinas. And behind it, the sky glowed green for a long time.

“I've never seen that before,” she remarked. “That glow.”

“I guess the air is really charged.”

“It's going to start another fire, isn't it?”

“I hope not.”

“This has been the strangest summer.” The wind coming through the windows felt cold now, and Mary wrapped her arms around herself. The temperature drop was huge and sudden, the sign of a truly severe storm.

He wrapped his arm around her, drawing her close to his side, warming her and comforting her all at once as they stood and watched. The trees tossed violently, turning silver. Even a few fresh leaves were ripped away to skitter down the street. Dust was blowing now, clouding the air while the heavens eked out a few paltry drops of water.

“Let it rain,” Mary whispered, a prayer.

“Amen,” Sam answered. “Let it pour. Let it flood the streets and soak the woods.”

“At least the storms are starting to build again,” she said, trying to be optimistic. “Maybe the weather will come back to its normal pattern.”

“We can hope.”

Yes, they could, but she suspected they both knew better. It was going to take more than one good rain to make the world wet enough to be safe again. At this altitude the air was normally so dry anyway that the rain that fell would dry off quickly. At this altitude, water didn't hang around. It would run off quickly in all the brooks and streams that drained to lower elevations.

But her mind wasn't really interested in what the rain would or wouldn't do, nor was the rest of her. Her heart, she realized, had begun a slow heavy beating, and every last bit of her mind was acutely aware of how close Sam was.

Faintly she could smell his scent, and the aroma evoked sharp memories of their coupling on the boat. With those flashes of memory her insides clenched with hunger. With a thrill so deep it was almost painful.

She realized she was holding her breath, afraid even the slightest sound would fracture the spell. Then his arm brushed against hers, an accidental contact. But it reminded her of how good those arms had felt around her and awoke in her the deepest craving she had ever felt.

Common sense and reason fled, leaving her at the mercy of her most basic desires.

She turned to Sam, and in response he turned, too. They were face-to-face, only inches apart. Was she imagining it, or was he holding his breath, too?

Then their eyes met, and she knew she wasn't imagining it. He was feeling it, too. The magic. The spell. The hunger.

Reaching up slowly, she touched his face with her fingertips, tracing its contours with the lightest of touches. He drew a long, shuddery breath and closed his eyes.

Thus encouraged, she continued her exploration. She liked the sensation of his beard stubble beneath her fingertips and remembered it brushing her face when they kissed. His chin was firm, nicely shaped. She traced the fine crow's-feet at the corner of his eyes and found the soft skin of his earlobes.

Then her hands trailed downward, learning his strong neck, feeling the cords there tighten and relax under her touches. Then lower, down the throat of his shirt, to the sides, finding the tiny points of his hard nipples.

He drew a sharp breath, almost a moan. Feeling a bubble of happiness deep inside, she shoved her hands up under his polo shirt and found his naked nipples, brushing them lightly, pinching them gently, until at last a deep moan emerged from him.

Such a sensual man, she thought. Shoving her hands upward, she pulled his shirt over his head, and
he raised his arms to help her. Naked now, the expanse of his muscled chest drew her. Feeling deliciously wicked and insatiably curious, she kissed him there, finding his small nipples with her tongue. The shudders that ran through him excited her even more and emboldened her. Gently she nipped him with her teeth.

It was like throwing gasoline on a smoldering fire. Almost before she realized it, he swept her up in his arms and marched with her toward her bedroom.

She had always wanted to drive a man crazy. It seemed she had succeeded.

T
he storm growled outside, rain spattering the windows, and lightning occasionally dispelling the gloom, but Mary hardly noticed. Curled up in Sam's arms, she felt more content than she ever had in her life. Their lovemaking had been spectacular, and now every inch of her body felt languid.

Sam seemed to feel the same way, for he had hardly moved since he had cuddled her close to him. He wasn't sleeping, which surprised her a little. Chet had always slept afterward. But Sam was awake, breathing restfully, his eyes half open. His embrace hadn't slackened at all; indeed, he held her as if he wanted to be sure she didn't try to slip away.

The moment felt so beautifully luxurious, and Mary smiled into Sam's shoulder. Perfect peace. Why couldn't it always be this way?

Because, said a nasty little voice in her head, you haven't been honest with him. You haven't told him
about yourself. And you know when you do he'll bail out as fast as he can. Just like Chet did.

A sharp pang of fear pierced her, but she forced it away. Life had given her little enough joy, and she wasn't going to ruin what she was feeling now by worrying about the ultimate cost. Not over this. This was too precious, and it was worth every moment of heartache she was sure to face.

She wasn't often the type who refused to act according to perceived consequences, and it wasn't a behavior she was likely to indulge often, but when life handed her a bowl of cherries like this, she was going to eat as many as time allowed.

Sam stirred, turning toward her so they lay face-to-face, her head resting on his upper arm. He kissed her forehead softly, then gave her a gentle squeeze.

“You're beautiful,” he murmured. “And so passionate.”

Pleased, she wiggled against him. “You bring out the devil in me.”

He gave a throaty chuckle. “In this case, I'd say that's a good thing.”

“I think so.” She kissed his chest and looked up at him, but all she could see was his chin. Her own cheeks felt pleasantly tender from the rubbing of his beard stubble, and her body ached in delicious ways. If only this day would never end.

He spoke. “This is a perfect day for snuggling like this.”

“Cozy,” she agreed, listening to the rumble of
thunder and the splatter of rain. Not much rain, just occasional smatters of large drops against her windows. But dark and thundery, and nice to be inside with nowhere to go. Nice to be inside with a lover.

“Much better than being on the boat,” he said, a laugh in his voice.

“Oh, definitely. Much better than cleaning the cobwebs out of the garage.”

“Was that what you were planning to do?”

She giggled. “Yes. During the school year I'm so busy I fall behind on things. Summer is for catching up.”

“With cobwebs.”

“Among other things.”

“I'm glad I rescued you.”

“So am I.” Tipping her head up again, she found him looking down at her. Her heart caught, and a little sound escaped her.

“Yeah,” he said, as if he could read her mind. For an instant he seemed to go far away, but then, with a little movement of his head, he called himself back and smiled. “I need a shower, ma'am. May I?”

“Help yourself.” Even though she didn't want him to be that far away.

Apparently neither did he, because she found herself being drawn from the bed and guided into her bathroom. He didn't turn the light on, though, for which she was grateful. Even though he had touched every part of her body and had kissed many of them,
she still wasn't ready to stand nude before him in bright light.

He turned on the water in the tub and let it run to heat up. “You're not supposed to shower in a storm.”

“I know.”

“I'm feeling invincible right now. How about you?”

She could only laugh. A short time later they were standing under the hot spray together, using a bar of soap as an excuse to touch each other everywhere.

As arousing as it was, Mary also found it to be a tender, caring experience. He washed her hair for her, making her feel special. Loved.

But she warned herself not to go there. That was a dangerous way to start to feel.

Sam, however, was not about to let her run away so easily. He toweled her dry from head to foot, and she realized that she was forever going to think of these moments when a storm rumbled outside. Forever.

He didn't have a change of clothes, so he put on what he had been wearing before. She changed into fresh shorts and a cotton sweater, grieving inside over the apparent end of their day together. Now he would go home, and she would be left alone, wondering if he would ever come back again.

But he didn't leave. Instead he suggested they make a snack. She had some microwave popcorn, and he settled on that. They carried the bowl into
the living room and sat side by side on the couch, with the bowl on the coffee table.

It occurred to her that they weren't saying very much. The silence that had fallen between them was almost profound, as if they were both drifting away into their own worlds.

Of course they were, she thought sadly. He was probably thinking about his late wife, and she was thinking about a past that would forever make a future impossible.

He suddenly reached for the small black box that was clipped to his belt and looked at it. “I need to call in to work,” he said. “Can I use your phone?”

“Of course.” She tried to smile.

The bowl of cherries had just been plucked away.

 

The wind had carried embers over the top of the mountain into the valley north of Whisper Creek. There the embers had found plenty of dry pine needles to start a fire before the stingy drops of rain could put them out.

The flames skipped along the forest floor and began to climb tree trunks, dining voraciously on tinder that the dry spell had created everywhere. Pine pitch sent clouds of black smoke rising, but the air overhead was so cool from the storm that the cloud sheared and stayed low. For a while, no one saw it.

Then lightning struck a tall lodgepole pine a mile away, and it burst into flames. Squirrels and deer and even a mountain lion began to scatter, many
instinctively heading downward to the creek that ran most of the length of the valley and gave the town its name.

In between the two growing rings of fire lay The Little Church in the Woods.

 

It was Deacon Hasselmyer who discovered the fire. He was on his way out to the church to check the lost-and-found box for his wife's sunglasses. They were very expensive, with three kinds of coatings. Mrs. Hasselmyer was very concerned about the amount of ultraviolet light that reached her eyes, because her mother and father had both had cataracts. Never mind that ordinary glasses could be treated to protect the eyes, the missus claimed that the light was just too bright anyway, especially during the winter, when it bounced off the snow at her from every direction.

The glasses were a minor thing to the deacon. If they made Ina happy, then let her have them. But replacing them was an expense he would rather not have to bear just now, since their twelve-year-old daughter needed braces and they'd just made a big loan to his wife's brother to tide him and his family over until he could find a new job. Not that the deacon had much hope of being repaid. He thought of it more as a gift.

Either way, it would be a great help if he could find those glasses at the church.

He saw the smoke when he was still a mile from
the church, and his stomach lurched. Another fire. He could have turned around right then and gone to town for help, but he was determined to get those glasses. Besides, there was a phone at the church he could use, and he would be there in just a couple of minutes.

It wasn't until he was pulling into the church parking lot that he saw the second fire. And figured out what was going to happen to the church if they couldn't put those fires out. It was enough to make him forget his wife's glasses.

At the door, he fumbled with his keys, his hands starting to shake. His grandfather had helped build this church nail-by-nail. It had been built in the days when small congregations didn't hire the work done but did it themselves from start to finish. It was a simple church, with white clapboard and a steeple, and a bell that had been brought in from Chicago. Each pew had been hand carved, and every one had a family name on it. There was more to be saved here than just a small church and a parish hall.

Finally getting the door unlocked, he stepped inside and hurried to the back office where the phone was. There he dialed 9-1-1.

“We'll get someone right on it,” the dispatcher told him. “And you'd better get out of there right away.”

Instead of fleeing, though, he dialed the pastor's number. Elijah Canfield wasn't at home, so the deacon left a message about the fire.

That was when he remembered his wife's glasses. He had to look for them first, and he was sure there was plenty of time for that.

He wasn't so sure they would be able to save the church.

 

The fire engines were already racing out of town before Sam made it to the end of Mary's street. He sped home, ignoring the speed limit so he could change into jeans, work boots and a heavier shirt; then he headed out toward his father's church as fast as he could go. The healing burns on his legs twinged as if in memory.

He was supposed to help organize the volunteers who were expected to show up to build a firebreak around the building. Where these volunteers were going to come from, he didn't know. But he knew one thing about Whisper Creek: for all its human, small-town flaws, when there was an emergency, a good many folks could be counted on to help.

The dispatcher had said something about calling the mine. They could call people who were off work. Or maybe even release some of their on-duty crews to come help. The churches were going to be called. The local businesses. Word would get out soon. He hoped it got out in time.

The forest service was going to be called, too, of course, but he wondered if they had any manpower to spare, what with the fire across the divide.

God. He found himself praying again, praying as
hard as he could. Why? It wasn't just that the town might be in danger now, the homes of a lot of people who had built in the small, wooded subdivisions north of the village. No, it was because he knew his father was going to head straight for the church the instant he heard about the fire.

As he neared the church, he saw what the deacon had seen and felt his chest tighten. The two fires weren't too big yet, but if they didn't control them soon, it was going to be a mess.

The fire trucks were parked in front of the church, and a handful of volunteers had already gathered, people who had most likely followed the trucks from town. The wind was blowing, complicating matters, and the smell of smoke was growing thick. Rain still spattered, as if each drop were reluctantly squeezed out by a resentful cloud.

He recognized Carl Hasselmyer, who owned a small bookstore in town and was deacon at this church. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and looked as ready as anyone to get to work. The others were miners he knew more by sight than name.

The fire chief came up to greet Sam. “We need to stall this thing where it is now. But the fire service isn't going to be able to get us any tillers quickly. They're using all the ones we have. So I asked Bucky Jones if he could send us some back-loaders and graders. Even some snowplows.” Bucky was the manager of the local branch of the state highway department.

“Good. What did he say?”

“He's going to send everything he can. We need to carve our way back to the fire and start clearing.”

“We need to clear around this building, too.”

The chief nodded. “There are also some homes out that way.” He cocked his head to the northwest. “But the wind is blowing to the east. As long as it stays that way, our problem is here. We don't want these fires hooking up.”

“Right.”

Already more volunteers were arriving, and Sam started organizing them into squads. A few minutes later a pickup arrived carrying spades and shovels from the two hardware stores. Behind it came another carrying chain saws and other assorted equipment that might be useful.

“Okay,” the chief said. “For now I'm keeping the trucks here. We might need 'em to save structures. But I need some spotters to get out there and see if they can pinpoint where the fires are.”

“What about the fire towers?” Sam asked. “Aren't they reporting?”

The chief shrugged. “I don't know if it's the storm or something else, but we can't get any radio response.”

“Hell.”

“We're blind, Sam,” the chief said. “Blind as a bat. The ceiling's too low to send up a plane.”

Sheriff Earl Sanders arrived then, bumping over some ruts as he pulled his car up. He greeted Sam
and the fire chief. “I've got my deputies trying to triangulate the fires. We'll see what we come up with.”

“Radio contact?” the chief asked.

“Problematic. They're under orders to get out here if they can't get through by radio.”

“Good. Okay, here's what we need to do.”

The map was spread out on the hood of the truck. Sam went back to organizing the steadily arriving volunteers, handing out shovels and saws, explaining what everyone needed to do.

Then, after what seemed like an interminable wait, the heavy equipment began to arrive. Rumbling up in a long line like bright yellow dinosaurs aboard flatbed trucks, they were greeted with cheers. Behind them, as Sam had feared, came his father.

Elijah climbed out of his car and stood looking at the church, as if he believed it would be the last time he would see it. Deacon Hasselmyer joined him, and the two stood with their heads bowed in prayer, an island of quiet amidst the swirling uproar around them.

After what seemed like forever the deputies began to arrive, sharing what they had seen from various points around the north end of the county. The chief and the sheriff drew pencil lines on the maps until they felt they had the fires triangulated.