Kicking Eternity (16 page)

What would it feel like to hold Drew’s morning-whiskered face in her palms
?  It was a tactile curiosity.

#

Drew struck off toward the jetty a hundred pounds lighter after Rainey surgically removed his guilt. She only said the truth, and it wasn’t anything he didn’t already know. But sometimes you needed someone
to
say it.

Thanks, Lord.
He slurped up Rainey’s comfort in great gulps like he hadn’t had any in years—and maybe he hadn’t. What would it be like to have a friend like that in your life all the time? Had Sam been that kind of friend? He couldn’t remember. Maybe there hadn’t been any crises while they were dating.

Rainey was God’s C-clamp, inching him toward marriage, with every twist of her wrist. And she didn’t have a clue. Maybe it was her family’s fault for assuming he and Rainey were dating. Maybe the prospect of holding her in his arms again was too enticing.

He knew what he had to do. He just didn’t want to do it. Track Sam down. Ask to meet. Find out once
and
for all whether she was willing to revisit their relationship. If she said yes, then God
had
told him to marry her, and he better give it all he had. If she said no, he’d have the closure he should have gotten years ago.

For the first time he was more worried about Sam’s yes than her no.

#

A downpour sheeted against the classroom windows cutting Cal and Raine off from the world. He
heard
water running in the tin drainpipe on the corner of the building. The room was dark except for the shop light he’d clamped to his easel and the lamp bathing Raine in amber.

He dipped his brush in the white smear of paint on his pallet and added faint smudges of light to her face. She was staring at the window behind him—praying, he was certain. There was an other-worldly glow about her. What if it was Raine’s spirituality that attracted him? But Raine had sexual
ity
, too. Maybe one didn’t rule out the other.

He concentrated on her face, making sure he captured the freckles dusted across her nose and the tops of her cheeks—so tiny
,
most people wouldn’t know they were there. He moved the easel closer to Raine. 

The lashes that framed her eyes were lush, hiding the person he almost missed under the homeschool-Bible college banner.
His mind flicked to
Aly’s spare, pale lashes
which
hid nothing.

Forest green shaded with lime had worked for Raine’s eyes. He would add sparks of maize later. Now, he dotted pinpricks of white on her irises, the light that came from inside. What was it? Purity? He couldn’t label it, but he could paint it.

“Painting Raine in the rain.” His voice felt rusty from not talking all evening.

Her eyes found his. “Cute.” She went back to staring at the water he could hear sluicing down the window behind him.

The rain beat down relentlessly. It didn’t sound like it would let up till morning. For a little while he would stretch a sheet across the future so he couldn’t see the impossibility of loving Raine—
a girl with fire for God and Africa when
he was a guy
with fire for neither.
 

His gut reached out to Raine, bonding with her in the silence—almost against his will. He wanted to touch her.

Funny. He’d finally held Aly, something he’d wanted to do the first few years he knew her. The steam had gone out of the experience like a hot iron on a damp cloth. After the steam quit, you had to get out of there before you got scorched.

Would Aly laugh at him if she knew he was a virgin? It was probably
Mom
’s fault.
The
chastity pep talks she gave him with annoying regularity. She’d married Dad when she was eighteen. Why was he twenty-two and still buying her rhetoric? He was a carton of milk four years past expiration. But a guy didn’t
have
those kinds of thoughts about a girl like Raine—at least not ones that made him feel good about himself.

Her dark hair flipped up and away from her face. He wanted to get the Godiva dark chocolate color right, the strands of
black, and deep henna when the sun caught it.

“Do you mind?” He reached for her hair and rubbed it between two fingers. Coarse, like corn silk.

He stood and crossed the small space between them. “May I?” He splayed his fingers at her hairline around her face.

Her chin tilted up toward him, her eyes wide with questions he didn’t know the answers to.

He ran his fingers through her hair toward the nape of her neck. Part of his mind registered strands of her hair spoon
ing
together like couples at the beach
. Other strands
struck out alone,
each
with its own kinks and bends unique to itself. But mostly, he was caught by her full, dusty rose lips he’d taken such pains to translate into paint. They were slightly parted now as she sucked in a breath. Her cheeks filled with color, and he wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to breathe. He cupped her face in his hands. He leaned closer and stopped, waiting to see if she was a girl with rules against kissing.

Raine eased her chin from his grasp and he let his hands fall, disappointment weighing him down like a chest full of medals he didn’t want to wear. He sat back on the edge of the table. The drum of the rain softened, moved on.

“You’re beautiful.” He let the air out of his lungs. “That’s the artist talking.” His eyes bored into hers. “And the man.”

Her color deepened. She looked down at her lap and back up at him. He reached out and stroked her cheek with
knuckles
. “Ever think about staying?”

Unshed tears sheened her eyes.

His hand dropped to his side “What are we going to do, Raine?”

The lodge screen door banged and heavy footsteps came down the hall. Drew walked in reaching for the light switch. He stopped with his hand in the air. “Oh. I thought somebody left the light on.”

Drew glanced at him. His gaze traveled to Raine and stopped. Then, he looked at the painting that was facing the doorway. He could feel the seconds tick off while Drew stared at the portrait. Like someone reading over your shoulder, he didn’t want Drew looking at Raine’s painting—ever. But it was too late now.

Drew turned around without saying a word and left. His footfalls moved down the hall, then nothing, not even the banging of the screen door against the door jam.

The sound of the rain stopped and, with it, the sense of intimacy.

Raine stood and stretched. “Let’s clean your brushes.”

#

As Cal put the last of his brushes and paints into the cupboard in his classroom, Raine stared hard at the back side of her portrait. Cal said this was the last sitting he needed, and she could see the painting next week. If she didn’t die of suspense first. And what was she going to do about that almost-kiss?

She heard a tapping on the window and looked toward the sound. Eddie. Cold fingers of fear slithered across her shoulders, down her arms, clamping like a vice around her chest, making her breath come in short gusts.  She could feel the blood draining from her face. Her fists clenched at her sides.

Cal came up behind her and hefted the window. “Hey man. Long time no see.”

“Dude.” They slapped hands.

Raine’s mouth dropped open. Her thoughts scrambled and tumbled over each other to get out. They knew each other? Eddie was on camp property. What did he want?

“Hey, sis.”

It was Cal’s turn to be shocked. “No way!” His tone said her real estate had gone up fifty thousand dollars. Imagine, someone thought being related to Eddie was a plus.

Cal leaned against her teacher’s desk. “So, where are you hitting the waves these days?”

As the minutes ticked by, their surf talk lulled her fear. Now she only heard a string of words—pipeline, curl, inlet, swell—punctuated by rad and über.

She drifted to Cal’s almost kiss. How much longer could she resist him, now that he had feelings for her?
Lord?
God forgive her, but she’d wanted to kiss Cal with every fiber of her being. But now, she was oddly relieved that she hadn’t.

She sighed, and they glanced at her and returned to their conversation.

What was nagging her about Cal and Eddie turning up best buds? Eddie all but hated Drew on sight. Drew was the, “One of these things is not like the other ones,” in the Sesame Street ditty. Cal and Eddie were both surfers, but it was deeper than that. How?

The darkness Eddie always left in his wake hovered over her. She shivered. How had he found her? She’d been so careful not to tell him where she was working this summer. What if Eddie decided to lurk around camp?

Cal stood. “Later, man.” He turned to her and gave her a long look. She knew he was thinking about
the
kiss they almost shared
.

She looked away, her face heating.

“See you, Raine.” He walked out the door.

Raine looked at Eddie sitting on the window sill like he was ready to hop out at any moment. He wasn’t afraid of her. He’d proven that all too well the night he
gave her the scar
. No, he was afraid of being caught—for what she didn’t want to know.

She glanced at the classroom door, an old habit—knowing the way out. “After you almost got shot, you said maybe to Teen Challenge—”

Eddie cracked his knuckles, scratched a sore on his arm, stood up, blinked. “Things have calmed down. Look, I said September First. But I need a little cash to get by.”

“Of course you do.” Disgust laced her voice. She crossed her arms and stared hard at him. “When are you going to
man-up
and take care of yourself?”

She pulled the ten dollar bill out of her back pocket she’d meant to buy a staff T-shirt with earlier. She tossed it on the table. “It’s all I have.”
On me.
“And don’t ask for more.”

She stood. “Someday, are you going to ask how
I
am?” She stalked out of the room without looking back. For once anger beat out fear.

#

Raine watched Drew strum his guitar in the firelight. His voice soared over the others as he led the teens in worship. This was the first time Drew had taken over campfire for Jesse. Raine was having trouble staying with the song. She kept remembering junior high, how she and her friends had fallen in love with Drew when he was worshipping.

His voice had matured since he was a teenager. Confidence had replaced his tentative guitar playing. Drew was a man who was comfortable with himself and with God. Raine shook her head to clear it. She shifted so the girl in front of her blocked her view of Drew. “God, You are so beautiful to me,” she sang with the others.

The last song quieted, and Drew read from Jeremiah twenty-nine. His voice washed over her. “God made you for a specific purpose that He’ll show you. He has a good plan for you. Trust Him. It’s a myth that if you submit to God He’ll send you to Africa—unless you’re Rainey. And she
wants
to go!” The kids laughed.

Now the entire camp was going to call her Rainey. Good thing she was moving to Africa.

Inside, she felt like she did when Eddie made a soccer goal when they were kids—proud to be associated with Drew. Something had changed after she comforted him.

A reflection of firelight caught her eye and she turned her head. Cal. Yellow light played on his loose hair that had fallen in his face when he bowed his head for Drew’s prayer. Cal was at campfire for the first time all summer. He was praying. Which was more than she seemed capable of doing at the moment.

The prayer ended. Cal looked up at her. All around them kids stood and stretched. Chatter sputtered, then swelled around the campfire.

She crossed the sand to where he stood.
“What are you doing here?” A girl with a hank of pink hair jostled between her and Cal.

Drew caught her eye.
She wanted to tell him she was proud of him, but Cal
signaled
her to come with him.

#

T
he play of firelight on
Raine’s
skin
distracted Cal from her question
. Why did he come to campfire? She
waited
for
his
answer.

“What? Can’t a guy hook up with God?”

Her dark brows shot up another quarter of an inch.

“Yeah.” He’d wanted to impress Raine, but once he got here, the cadence of
the
waves crashing and ebbing behind the music lulled him into détente with God. Somehow he didn’t think that would be enough for Raine.