Sweet Reunion (12 page)

Making an executive
decision, he picked up Amanda's purse from the floor below her feet on the
passenger side of the vehicle, rummaged around until he found her keys, got out
of the car, and then bounded up the front steps of the porch and unlocked the
front door. He then returned to the car, opened the passenger door, and lifted
Amanda into his arms as gently as possible, easing the door closed quietly behind
him.

Teddy padded in sleepily
from where he had been curled in his warm bed in the kitchen, and walked over
to Justin, rubbing his head against Justin's leg so that the top of his head
also rubbed against Amanda's back. Justin didn't think it was a coincidence
that the Lab took opportunities to snuggle in ways that he was touching both
Amanda and Justin simultaneously – he was happy to see the two people that he
considered both of his “parents” back together again. He wanted them to stay
that way, and so made little efforts to bond the three of them more firmly.

Justin smiled down at the
handsome, happy dog. “Let's get our girl to bed without waking her up, OK,
boy?” he whispered, and Teddy swished his tail back and forth in agreement.

Justin carried Amanda into
the house and laid her down on the couch, propping the couch pillows beneath
her head as smoothly as he was able, trying with each small movement to jar her
only slightly, so as not to wake her.

He moved ninja quiet to the
front hall closet, from which he took an afghan, the one he remembered was her
favorite, because her mother had made it before she died. Justin carried the
warm knitted blanket over to a sleeping Amanda on the couch and spread it over
her, sitting down next to her on the couch as he did so.

In a movement that seemed
almost beyond his control, he reached out and brushed a golden curl from her
forehead, stroking his fingertips through the silken swirl of her hair. Her
eyes opened slightly and she inclined her head slightly so that she was looking
up at him. He froze. All the trouble that he'd gone to not to wake her, and now
this.

“Oh, hi, it's you,” she said
sleepily, yawning, and it was clear to Justin from her tone and affect that she
was not really conscious, but was still in deep in slumber, “You should stay
this time I missed you...” she trailed off into a whisper and her head fell
back to the pillow as her eyes closed again. He stared at her, frozen, for a
few more moments.

Suddenly, he heard Karina's
whispered voice, coming from the stairs. He had been so completely entranced by
Amanda's sleeping form, and her unconsciously mumbled words, that he hadn't
heard Karina's soft footsteps padding down the stairs.

“So, if she's Joey, does
that make you Pacey or Dawson?” she whispered.

He turned and gave her a
puzzled look, not certain he had heard her correctly.

“Dawson's Creek? The WB?
Long running show? Launched the careers of Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes and
James Van Der Beek? Good God, people who have no cultural reference point are
impossible to deal with!” she smiled.

He shook his head
uncomprehendingly.

“Well, are you her
soul-mate, or are you the person she's meant to end up with?” Karina clarified.
After giving this a moment to sink in, she shrugged and, with a mischievous
half-smile, trotted back up the stairs, adding, “Food for thought.”

Justin looked back down at
the sleeping Amanda and brushed her golden hair back from her forehead. The
decision to stay and fight for Amanda, no matter how strong his inner instinct
to run and no matter what external obstacles blocked his path solidified within
him, and he whispered decisively, “Why can't I be both?”

Chapter 11

Justin stood in the kitchen, preparing to make coffee,
thinking about how happy he was that today was a new day, one that wasn't going
to be filled with the emotional roller coaster goings on which had been keeping
him on the edge of his seat from the moment that he had entered Hope Falls.

Nope. This was a new day. The morning looked to be
dawning clear and bright, and the plan was, in Justin's mind at least, that a
clear and bright day would follow it – and in more ways than just the weather.
Justin was determined that this day was going to be drama and incident free.

Justin reveled in the everyday routine act of making
coffee because it symbolized what his intention for the day was – a completely
normal and unremarkable day, just like any other. Well, not like the ones that
had been happening lately, but just like most of the days he had spent here as
a young man. Uneventful, routine – but oh so comforting in their
predictability.

In fact, if Justin were hard pressed to search his
memory, he would probably say that a good old-fashioned workday at Mountain
Ridge Outdoor Adventures was the closest thing he'd ever felt to something that
could be called “home.”

As he was carrying the bag of coffee grounds over to
the coffee machine, all of his ruminations on the normality that he so desired
were shattered, however, when he heard a terrified scream emanating from
upstairs in Amanda's house. Not just a small squeal, either, but the full-out,
ear-splitting, top-of-the-lungs kind of shriek that you would hear in a horror
movie.

He dropped the bag that he was holding, coffee grounds
spilling out across the clean kitchen floor like marbles suddenly released from
their bag, and heedlessly raced up the stairs.

As he rushed headlong up the steps, he tried to
imagine what could have caused Amanda to scream like her life was about to end.
Each footfall brought a new and horrific scenario into his mind. Axe murderers
fought for mental real estate with chainsaw psychos and silenced-pistol
wielding assassins.

When Justin reached the bathroom door, he frantically
took hold of the handle, turned it, and pushed – but the door would not give.

“Amanda,” he called urgently, “Unlock the door.”

“I can't,” she whimpered from within the bathroom,
increasing Justin's terror tenfold.

Not knowing where the key to the bathroom lock was
kept, Justin had to take matters into his own hands. With all his considerable
might, he shoved his shoulder hard against the bathroom door again and again
until it gave way. He burst into the room, crouched and ready for a fight,
scanning furiously to assess the danger. He was so worked up by this point that
he half expected to see one of the specters of his fevered imagination standing
casually over by the sink, but no axe murderers or chainsaw wielding
psychopaths lurked in the small bathroom.

No, the sole occupant of the room was Amanda Jacobs,
who stood pressed up as closely as she was able into the furthest corner of the
shower. She was looking down, terrified, across the shower floor toward the
drain, but that part was momentarily lost on Justin.

He was struck dumb and temporarily paralyzed by the
site of Amanda naked. And she was naked. Very naked. Gloriously and unabashedly
naked, her body pink from the steam of the shower, and her skin glistening wet
from the water.

Even through the rivulets of water which made their
way down the glass shower door which separated the two of them, and distorted
the image of Amanda's body slightly, there was absolutely no denying that the
sight of Amanda Jacobs in the buff was spectacular, truly a wonder to behold.

When Justin's senses returned to him, he realized that
he could actually use this situation to his advantage. With a crooked grin, he
began to unbutton his shirt.

“Need a little help in there, huh?” he asked teasingly
as he started to walk forward.

Without so much as looking up and acknowledging his
playful advance, Amanda pointed a terrified finger towards the drain and
squeaked, “Spider!”

Justin started to laugh as he walked the rest of the
way towards her. “Girl, you don't know what that scream had me picturing as I
ran up those stairs! And all of that was for a little old spider? You grew up
here all your life. You should be ashamed to call yourself a mountain girl if
all it takes is a little spider to make you scream like you're in a
horror...HOLY SHIT!”

This last expletive burst from Justin's lips as he
pulled back the glass shower door, stuck his head into the stall, and laid eyes
on the biggest, hairiest, gnarliest spider he had ever seen.

It was almost the size of a baseball all told, in
mottled shades of brown and black. It's golf ball size body hung heavily at the
hub of eight thick, tentacle-like legs, which were covered in hundreds of tiny
hairs, so that it almost looked as if the spider were covered in a coat of fur.

At the moment, it was being kept at bay by the steady
stream of hot water sliding toward it, which it seemed to want to escape.
However, every time it sensed movement at the other end of the enclosure, it
would try to brave the stream to go and investigate. This had kept Amanda
trapped in her corner, still, trembling, and too frightened to make a break for
it.

Justin was breathing heavily, and not just from his
close proximity to the nasty beast of a spider. No, he was now within arm's
reach of a creature that could prove to be just as dangerous to him – Amanda in
the nude. He needed to get control of himself so that he could show her the
version of him which he wanted her to see, and what he so desperately wanted to
be for her, as well – dependable, reliable, a strong shoulder to lean on. Even
when she was naked!

Justin reached past her to lean his hand against the
wet wall of the shower and then stepped carefully into the stall, giving not a
thought to the fact that he was fully clothed and was now being completely
soaked. He positioned himself in front of her, effectively shielding her from
the spider's range. To get to Amanda, the ugly arachnid would have to go
through Justin first!

“OK, Amanda,” Justin said soothingly, with far more
calm in his voice than he would have thought himself capable of mustering, “I
need you to slowly step out of the shower stall, keeping yourself behind me the
whole time. No sudden movements. I don't know if this guy is a jumper, and I
don't want to find out. Can you do that?”

He felt her head nod against his back shoulder, and
her warm wet body start to inch past him. He felt her feather fingers against
the side of his neck as she held onto his shoulders for support. He felt her
heavy breasts pressed against his back as she slid across him to safety, and he
felt her belly through his jeans, the skin firm and taut as it moved inexorably
across his ass.

The only thing that stopped him from sprouting a huge,
embarrassing erection right there was the sight of the squirming spider,
continuing to try to make its wriggling way toward them. The disgusting sight
of hairy, wormy, groping arachnoid legs in constant searching motion will tend
to kill a good arousal buzz, even when the source of it is as potent as the
sight and feel of the soft and supple naked flesh of Amanda Jacobs.

After he heard Amanda's feet patter across the tile
floor of that bathroom and he could tell she was on the other side of the small
space, Justin slowly extricated himself from the shower stall, never taking his
eyes from the gigantic beast of a spider. He then firmly slid the glass door
closed, trapping the spider inside.

“Eventually, we'll need a more permanent solution than
that, but it's a start,” he said, turning to face Amanda. To his enormous
disappointment, he saw that she had wrapped a towel around herself. He tugged
at the edges of it as he stepped closer to her and whispered, “Now, honey, this
thing was entirely unnecessary...”

Amanda backed up decisively and pointed at the shower,
“Kill the spider, Casanova, and then we'll talk.”

Justin took a step closer to the shower and studied
the monster through the glass door. “I feel like it makes sense to turn the
water off, but I'm kind of reluctant to,” he admitted.

“Really? And you don't feel ashamed to call yourself a
mountain boy? Shocking,” Amanda teased, her tone playful.

He looked chagrined. “OK, I can see now how that
little bit of commentary could be considered somewhat embarrassing, considering
current circumstances,” he admitted sheepishly.

Amanda handed him a can of Raid, which she had pulled
from the cabinet under the sink. “Try this,” she said.

Justin looked dubious. “I don't think this is going to
do much. He's a helluva lot bigger than an ant or a roach.”

“Well, use a helluva lot more of it,” Amanda suggested
pragmatically, “and besides, it should at least stun him, slow him down so you
can turn off the water and stomp him.”

Justin nodded, approving of the plan. He cracked open
the sliding glass stall door only enough to fit the nozzle through, took aim,
and blasted the horrid creature, who began to writhe. With his other hand, he
shut off the stream of hot water.

As the spider’s movements slowed and he seemed to be
weakening, Justin opened the shower door and took aim with his foot.

“Yes! Get him! Get him with your boot!” Amanda cheered
him on.

Justin brought the heel of his thick hiking boot down
squarely on the spider's body with a satisfying thud. He then raised his foot
about an inch off of the floor of the tub and brought it down again hard, three
or four times for good measure.

He stepped out of the shower, flipped open the toilet
lid, and laid his boot sideways on the seat so that he and Amanda could both
assure themselves that the dreaded creature was really and truly dead. Justin
unrolled several sheets of toilet paper and scraped what remained of it into
the toilet, which Amanda then flushed, and they watched the pieces of their
nemesis swept away in a satisfying swirl.