Spring Rain (11 page)

Dumbfounded, Ted stared first at Matt, then at the Bible resting in Matt’s lap. If the Holy Spirit had punched him in the jaw, he couldn’t have been thrown any more off balance.

“Well,” Ted finally mumbled, “you’re getting too sick anyway.”

Matt shook his head. “I’m choosing. I chose to believe, and now I’m choosing to obey.”

Ted made an inarticulate noise, the best he could manage in light of the fierce anger and swirling guilt that swamped him.

“It’s funny, but I find myself thinking differently about things.” Matt slid the cap of his highlighter on and off as he talked, the click-click rubbing at Ted’s raw nerves. “I want to do what pleases God. Me, the guy who spent a lifetime scoffing at people who talked like they knew Him.”

He looked at Ted, his eyes concerned. “My biggest dilemma is that if I choose to make God happy, I think I’m hurting you.”

Ted flapped a hand through the air, hoping he looked unaffected by Matt’s comments when in actuality he was devastated.
And the rejection as partner was the least of the pain. “Don’t even worry about hurting me. I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t ever be purposely unkind—at least to me.”

Matt nodded acknowledgment at that reference to his often sharp tongue.

“You do what you need to.” Ted slid down in his chair and reached for the TV remote. He didn’t care what was on. Anything to halt this conversation. “I understand.” He barely flinched as he told the lie. In truth he couldn’t believe the depth of Matt’s commitment to the Lord. All the man was supposed to do was get saved, get a guarantee of heaven. He wasn’t supposed to become godly!

“Who’d have believed it?” Matt said, grinning, oblivious to Ted’s distress. “Me, choosing to make God happy and choosing to be celibate. Almost like a priest, huh?”

Ted threw the remote down and stalked to the door. This time it was he who went for a long walk, and when he came back, he was still wrestling valiantly with God, refusing to acknowledge any wrong, any guilt. But he did understand that Matt’s faith was the rock that would carry him through his final weeks, and so he carefully said nothing that would undermine the joy and hope his partner found in it.

Matt slipped into his final coma with a smile.

After that wrenching loss, Ted hadn’t cared when his own health began to slip; when his vigor, for years carefully tended with diet and exercise and the latest medical treatments, diminished; when he lost weight and even lost the vision in one eye to infection before they found the right medicine.

But he did care that today he had lost his dignity. His twin, his impeccable, perfect, you’d-better-salute-me brother had seen him too weak to eat Junket. He’d watched eagle-eyed as Leigh tended his personal needs. He’d looked down that long nose so like Ted’s own and barely avoided sneering.

“Judge not that you be not judged,” Ted wanted to yell at him. He didn’t, of course. It would have just made him look petty while Clay looked ever more the hero.

It wouldn’t hurt so much if he didn’t love Clay so much. They were twins! They’d been conceived at the exact same second, been born within minutes of each other, and shared everything for years.

Suddenly the little dog was on the bed again, and Ted smiled in spite of himself. He rubbed the dog’s ears and enjoyed the feel of the warm body pressed against him.

“Terror.” The dog smiled at him. “Stupid name for a cutie like you.”

The terrier wagged his tail so hard Ted was certain he was going to wag it right off. The whole bed shook under the animal’s delight. He licked Ted’s hand, and to his disgust, Ted felt tears clog his throat. He jerked his hand away. “I’m not so pitiful that I need to cry when a dog likes me!” His voice was low and mean. He hated the emotional vulnerability that came with severe illness. He’d seen it in Matt when the most unexpected things would move him and make him weepy. He wasn’t going to be like that. Clay’d enjoy it too much. “Go away, you mutt!”

Terror stood and cocked his head, not understanding the sudden change. He gave a little confused whuffle.

Ted felt ashamed. It wasn’t the dog’s fault his life was in the toilet. If he were honest, it wasn’t Clay’s either. Ted had made his own choices, no matter how much he’d felt forced to make them.

“I’m sorry, boy.” He held his hand out to Terror. “How about another kiss?”

This time when the tears came, he just sniffed them back and kept rubbing the terrier’s head.

He felt his mother’s presence before he looked up at her. He willed himself to look strong. “Hey, Mom.”

She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She reached out a hand to brush his hair back. “Hey, yourself.” Her hand fell and began to pet the dog.

“Cute little guy, isn’t he?”

“He loves you, Ted,” and he knew she didn’t mean Terror. “He just doesn’t know how to deal with everything.”

Ted knew his skepticism hurt her.

“He does,” she reiterated, her eyes pleading for his understanding, his agreement. “And you love him. You’ve got to set things straight between you.”

His back went up. “Me? He’s the one who’s cold and withdrawn and can’t stand being near me.”

She patted his hand lightly. “Pride’s one of the seven deadly sins, you know.” With that parting shot, she rose, kissed his cheek,
and left, taking Terror downstairs to let him out.

“Thanks, Mom,” he muttered to her back. “Now I’ll really have a good night’s sleep.”

But he knew she was right. He and Clay did have to make peace. He just didn’t know what to do about it, especially when pride was about all he had left.

L
EIGH STARED AT
her unlatched door while her heart beat double time. It was such a slight crack, a small breach, yet it signified great potential trouble.

“Billy, did you go inside and forget to close the door when you came back out?” she asked, the tension with Clay all but forgotten.

He was quick to shake his head. “No, Mom. I haven’t been home since before dinner.”

Leigh’s hand hovered over the knob.

Clay grabbed her wrist, startling her. “Don’t touch it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, pulling her hand free and tucking it behind her back. “I know. I wasn’t going to. Really.”

He raised that eyebrow. “Then what were you doing? Voodooing the opening away?”

She slanted him a look. “Funny.”

His quick grin slid into a frown as he studied the door. He reached out with his elbow and pushed against the door.

“What are
you
doing?” Leigh demanded, grabbing his arm.

He looked at her like that was the dumbest question he’d ever heard. “I’m going to check to see what’s wrong.”

“You’re just going to waltz in there?”

He nodded.

“What if someone’s up there?”

He shrugged. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“I’ll go with you,” Billy said, rushing eagerly forward.

“Not on your life!” Leigh released Clay and grabbed Billy as he tried to push past her.

“You are not going in there, champ,” Clay said sternly.

“Why not? It’s my house. And I can take care of myself too.”

Leigh made a disgusted noise. “I’m gagging on machismo here.” She moved in front of her door. “No one’s going inside but the police.”

Clay rolled his eyes.

“I mean it.” She glared at Clay for an instant, then lowered her sights to Billy. “Everyone to the main house. We’ll call the police from there.”

For a minute she thought Clay might move her bodily out of his way and charge in regardless. She looked at him, then at Billy, pleading that he understand her fear for her son.

Apparently he got her message because with an exasperated sigh, he turned and began walking. “Come on, Billy. We’ll make your mother happy and call the cops.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Leigh hurried across the lawn to the comforting light of Julia’s kitchen. She didn’t realize she had Billy by the hand until he pulled free.

“I can walk from here to there by myself, Mom.” He cast an embarrassed look at Clay.

“Sorry,” she muttered as she slid through the door that Clay held open. She grabbed the wall phone and dialed 911. She answered all the dispatcher’s questions but declined to remain on the line. She didn’t need electronic hand-holding.

Julia had apparently gone up to bed, and they didn’t call her or Ted. It made no sense to upset either of them and give them another reason to have trouble sleeping, especially since they didn’t know yet how serious the problem was.

The three of them waited on the back steps of the main house, Billy seated in the middle. In a town the size of Seaside, a response to an emergency was never long in coming—unless you were unfortunate enough to need the one off-season night patrol after someone else beat you to it. But tonight they apparently had first dibs.

The police car, metallic blue with a huge, swirling cream logo with red and black letters reading Seaside Police and Dial 911
pulled quietly up the drive and parked in the turnaround.

Billy watched their arrival in disgust. “My one chance to have the cops rescue me with sirens and flashing lights and excitement, and look what happens. They tiptoe! You drive wilder than they do, Mom.”

She bit back a smile. “This isn’t TV land, you know. It’s Seaside.”

He snorted.

When Greg Barnes climbed out of the driver’s side, Leigh breathed more easily. Given her family’s long and complicated acquaintance with the local cops, she never knew what any meeting with them might bring. A couple of the older officers who had dealt for years with her father tended to treat her as his extension, something she understood but chafed at. Like father, like son—or daughter—might work many times, but she was a distinct exception, thank God. Greg Barnes knew that and treated her as a person in her own right, not Johnny Spenser’s daughter.

“Hey, Leigh,” Greg said. “You have a break-in?”

Leigh stood, dusting off the seat of her jeans. “It looks that way. The door I left locked is slightly opened.”

“Back at your place and not at Julia’s, huh?”

Leigh nodded. “Weird, isn’t it?”

Greg scratched his head. “They must be after all that high tech stuff you’ve got up there. Or maybe it’s all the family heirlooms you’ve got stashed under the floorboards. Every smart thief knows seemingly innocent garage apartments are really storehouses for vast wealth.” He grinned at her, inviting her to enjoy his little joke.

Leigh accommodated him with a grin, and Billy actually laughed.

Greg Barnes was a nice guy and always had been. She’d met him the first day of kindergarten as she stood in the hall outside Miss Grover’s room, trembling with fear. All the other girls looked so pretty in their pink and purple outfits, and they seemed to know what they were doing as they walked in giggling clumps into the room. They carried colorful book bags that were clean and new and had Mickey Mouse and Barbie on them. All she had was a little case of pencils and a pretty pink eraser. Somehow she knew that wasn’t enough. And the jeans that didn’t quite reach her ankles and had big scuffs for knees weren’t right either.

She had thought school would be so much fun. She would learn to read and write, not just make squiggly lines that her mother made believe told stories, but write real words that she could read too. But everybody was busy, too busy to help a scared, skinny little girl who tried to disappear into the lime green wall.

Then Greg, a big third grader, had walked up, shirt pulled halfway out of his jeans and hair hanging in his eyes. He looked at her and frowned. She felt her stomach turn over and pressed even harder into the wall.

“Don’t be afraid,” he told her, smiling. “Miss Grover’s real nice, and she likes cute little girls like you.”

She stared in amazement at the big boy. He called her a cute little girl. Her daddy always told her she looked like the missing link. She didn’t know what the missing link was, but she knew from the way he said it that it wasn’t good.

“I’m Greg,” he said. “What’s your name?”

She wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t open her mouth. She was afraid she’d throw up.

“Cat got your tongue?” He grinned. “That’s okay, cutie. You can tell me later.” He took her hand and led her into the room. “I’ll take care of you.”

To the best of her knowledge he’d been taking care of people ever since.

He looked up at the windows of Leigh’s apartment, all dark except one.

She followed his sight line. “We always leave that one on. Living room.”

He nodded, adjusting his gun on his hip.

“No one’s come out since we saw the open door.” Clay stood behind Leigh.

Greg nodded, then seemed to register Clay for the first time. “Clay.” He put out a hand. “I’m glad you’re here. Your mom sure needs you right now.”

Clay reached around Leigh and shook hands with the man he hadn’t seen for years. “Filled out a little, haven’t you?” he asked with a smile.

Greg, who was four inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than he’d been at his high school graduation, just grinned. Greg nodded toward his young partner. “Pete and I are going to check
things out. Go inside Julia’s until one of us calls an all clear.”

Nodding, Leigh grabbed her son’s collar and pushed him inside ahead of her. She knew he’d follow the cops if he could. Clay closed the door behind the three of them.

“Get away from that window, Billy,” Leigh ordered as he ran to the windows over the sink. He turned and gave her a disgusted look. “I mean it. What if there’s shooting?”

“And what if I miss it?” he countered, but he moved from the window.

They sat at the kitchen table, listening intently, but they heard nothing. In a couple of minutes, Pete stuck his head in the door.

“It’s safe,” he announced. “Nobody’s there.”

“Thank goodness.” Leigh slouched in relief.

Pete’s young face puckered. “Don’t get too relaxed too fast.”

“What?” she demanded, straightening.

“There was definitely someone up there, and he wasn’t very respectful.”

Leigh shut her eyes. She was afraid she knew exactly what Pete meant.

“How bad is the damage?” Clay asked, obviously thinking the same thing she was.