By the Book (12 page)

“I wasn’t really looking for him. I was upstairs visiting a friend. I saw you bringing him in.”

Felix swore colorfully, then added, “Arrest me!”

“Hush, Felix.”

“Don’t hush me. I hate being hushed.
You
hush once in a while. See how you like it.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.”

“Arrest me! Arrest me! Arrest me!” he said, when Bobby was called from the room by his partner.

“Felix!”

“That junkyard dog is going to eat me alive if you don’t. You want that? You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?” he asked Ellen. “Just let him get me. Sweep old Felix under the carpet and get him out of your way. Well, if you don’t make them arrest me, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Your wish will come true. The junkyard dog is gonna get me. He’ll hunt me down and get me.”

“What junkyard dog?”

“
The
junkyard dog. The only junkyard dog in the only junkyard in town.”

She frowned, confused. Tom Krane owned the only junkyard in town. And he had a dog that would hunt Felix down and ...? No. Tom Krane
was
the junkyard dog. And Felix’s moneylender? That’s who Felix was so afraid of? Tom Krane?

“Felix. Calm down. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

By the time the last word was out of her mouth, Felix was screaming deliriously at the top of his lungs, pulling at his restraints, and thrashing his legs. Over and over she tried to get through to him, but fear fueled by alcohol made him unreachable.

“Okay, fine,” she said, about the time Bobby and his partner and a nurse came into the room. “Arrest him. Take him off to jail. Throw away the key.” Only part of her was being facetious.

“Ellen, he hasn’t done anything.”

“Are you kidding? Listen to him. He’s disturbing the peace. He’s a public nuisance. He’s drunk and disorderly. He’s intoxicated in public. He’s dirty. He’s a pain in my ...” She stopped when she realized she might be going too far. She let loose a big sigh. “Look, Bobby, maybe arresting him would be good for him. He shouldn’t be allowed to wake up in my mother’s guest room every time he does this. He should wake up uncomfortable and spend time in jail, with nothing to drink but water. It might do him good.”

“He’d only be there overnight.”

“Then what happens? You just turn him loose?”

“Pretty much. We write him a ticket with a fine attached to it. He can contest it in court if he wants to, but most of them don’t.”

“What happens if he can’t pay the fine?” she asked, thinking a few days in a sobering situation like that might be just what Felix needed to make a rehabilitation center a little more appealing to him.

“We let him go anyway, on his own recognizance. He has sixty days to pay the fine.”

“What if he still doesn’t pay the fine?” She was just curious.

“Then, if we want to make an issue of it, we can haul him up in front of a judge, who can either throw him back in jail or sentence him to rehabilitation, if he thinks it would do any good. People his age,” he motioned with his head toward Felix, “they usually get sentenced to rehab if they express a desire to go and a willingness to give it try. But ... well, when they go that route, it’s on their record. Permanently. He’s awfully young—”

“He’s awfully sick, Bobby.” She looked back at her brother, who was now quietly flirting with the nurse. “And I don’t know how else to help him.”

Bobby had been right earlier, about high school being a long time gone for them. She watched him consider the pros and cons of arresting her brother and didn’t notice even the slightest remains of the boy he’d once been. Still tall, but lean now instead of skinny, he had a serious, self-assured countenance that didn’t seem at all affected by what he’d once felt for her. His attention was focused on Felix and his job and the best solution for both.

“At least he wasn’t driving,” he said, finally. “If we tap him for drunk-and-disorderly, it won’t be so bad.”

“Thank you, Bobby,” she said, thinking it a stupid thing to say when he was about to arrest her brother. But all in all, it seemed like the best course for everyone involved—
except
Bobby, who now had to make an arrest and do all the paperwork. Felix, in his present pickled state, would feel safer. Her mother and her sister wouldn’t need to hear or worry about it until morning. And she would have time to work something out with Mr. Krane.

“Bobby, you’re a good man,” Felix was saying, delighted to be going to jail. “Thanks for arresting me on such short notice like this. You can untie me now. I’ll go peaceably. I won’t even try to escape. You won’t regret this. I’ll be a model inmate.”

“Shut up, Felix,” she and Bobby said in unison. Bobby moved to untie the restraints.

“I hope you’re happy now. You’ve embarrassed both of us here tonight,” she hissed at him.

“Well, don’t you worry about me,” he said bravely. “I can handle it. And Krane will never think to look for me in jail.”

“Krane?” Bobby asked, frowning and showing concern as he worked on the knot. “Are you in trouble with Tom Krane?”

“No, no,” Felix was quick to reassure him, narrowing his eyes at his sister as a warning to be silent. “No trouble. Just a little misunderstanding. Nothing serious.”

“Stay away from him, Felix,” Bobby said, removing the last restraint. “He’s bad news. Steer clear of him.”

Felix rolled his eyes and wagged his head. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do here all night?”

“Ellen?”

“What? Oh. I’m sorry,” she said a while later, sitting next to Jonah in a small booth at a fast-food restaurant. “What were you saying?”

He smiled his forgiveness. “I was saying that you’ve been awfully quiet and distracted since we left the hospital. Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said automatically. “What could be wrong? I ...” Her gaze met his, and she was instantly lost in time and space. In the back of her mind she knew he had (he strength to break her in half if he wanted to—but there was such a gentleness about him. She wasn’t sure if it was because she knew his history or simply sensed it, but sometimes she had the feeling he had an inexhaustible reserve of this same gentleness, and so much more, all wrapped up with a shiny ribbon, ready to give—but not to just anyone. To her alone. It was as if he’d traveled through time, eon after eon, waiting and searching for her, specifically. It was a huge responsibility and a comfort at once. Exciting and soothing in turn. Empowering, yet it was his blind acceptance of her worthiness that she valued the most. “I’m here with you. And to tell you the truth, nothing else seems to matter much. We barely know each other, but I feel as if ...”

“As if we’ve known each other forever?”

“No, not at all,” she said, with a small laugh and a look of surprise. A feeling like that would have been so simple and easy to explain. She slipped her hand between his and the tabletop in front of them. His fingers curled around it instantly, warm and secure. “You’re not like anyone or anything I’ve known before. You’re not even ... what I dreamed of. You’re ...”

There were no words. She looked into his eyes and prayed he could see in hers what she was trying to say. She’d never known someone like him even existed, much less imagined the possibility. Maybe she’d simply never allowed herself the hope of finding someone who would speak in places deep in her heart, places that she had always assumed would remain hollow and empty, echoing throughout time, unnoticed and unappreciated.

A raging forest fire couldn’t come close to generating the heat in his expression, or cause such devastation in her heart. He moved closer, kissed her tenderly, seeming to understand—to accept that there was no real explanation for why or how one loved another, it simply was.

“Thank you,” he said, his face still close enough for kissing.

“For what?”

“For tonight. For last night. For being you.” He punctuated each phrase with a kiss. “I don’t know if I believe in fate, but it wasn’t just my father who brought me to this town.”

She smiled, recognizing the thought. “I know.”

Because she knew, because she made it all so easy for him, and because he needed to, he kissed her, deeply and greedily. This time there was no holding back, no deferring to the newness of the relationship or the qualms of revealing all he truly was—possessive, forceful, demanding. A tiny helpless moan of surrender aroused his killer instincts. He was poised to move in for the kill when he heard it again and reined himself in. With the small smacking noise of their lips parting ringing in his ears, he held her away from him. She was so beautiful, and so
his ...
his heart contracted painfully in his chest, his lungs seized. There was nothing more he wanted from the world than to take her, devour her—except to cherish and indulge her.

This might have been the time, but it wasn’t the place.

“I better get you home,” he said, swallowing hard.

“Back to your place?” Such a wild feral light came to his eyes that her breath caught in her throat. In one of those unreal moments that didn’t have anything to do with anything, she recalled hearing that the tiny little hearts of chipmunks and squirrels were known to beat so hard and so fast in times of great excitement or fear that they sometimes exploded, and wondered vaguely if that same phenomenon could or had ever happened to a human. Unconsciously she reached to calm hers. “My car. It’s at your house. I followed you home.”

He closed his eyes, then chuckled silently at himself. “Yes,” he said, smiling back. “Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, you did. Yes.”

They both knew and rejoiced in the fact that a deed half done wasn’t done at all. Their time would come.

Whether you think you can

or think you can’t, you’re right.

—Henry Ford

The power of positive thinking far exceeds that of a hydrogen bomb. It cures diseases, discovers new worlds, takes pictures of Mars, and, in general, makes you feel just fine. Try it. Be that Little Engine that could. Think you can, and you will.

S
HE WOKE UP HUMMING
. She had her whole day planned before she had her eyes open.

Ellen figured there were good points and not so good points to every season that passed through Quincey—hence she had no favorite. Winter was cold but beautiful, peaceful. Spring was fresh and new; unpredictable and soggy at the same time. Fall was busy and dying at once. And summer was hot and hotter with a scattering of days that were so perfect, they renewed the soul and made life a pure joy.

It was one of those days—the pure joy kind. The sky was a bright, bright blue with fluffy white cotton clouds drifting slow and lazy from west to east. Pushing them was a cool soft breeze that kept the
t-e-r
from connecting with
hot,
as it rustled the leaves in the trees. Birds sang and flowers perfumed the air. Felix was safe and sober, albeit hungover, in jail. Her mother was planning to bail him out at noon and take him home while Ellen straightened things out with Tom Krane. But best of all, she was in love—and she and Jonah had rescheduled their dinner for that night.

All in all, a perfect summer day. Felix was safe, her heart was full of love, and the little green book predicted success—she was thinking that a little artful seduction was in order. Either that or she was going to start gnawing on the furniture. She’d tossed and turned the whole night through, waking fully once or twice to wonder if her restlessness was due to Felix’s imbroglio or the titillating dreams she incurred whether her eyes were closed or not.

She hadn’t actually done much seducing in the past. Too-nice people tended not to be vamps. But she’d been to the movies and had a general idea of the concept, and with the looks Jonah had given her the previous night, and the kisses ... well, how hard could it be? Besides, Jonah was taking too long. If she’d kissed any other man the way she’d kissed him, at the very least some serious groping would have occurred by now. But not with Jonah. Oh, he wanted her, a doorknob could see he wanted her. But despite the intimacy of his kisses and the controlled passion in his eyes, his hands and his manner had been nothing but gentle and tender and respectful.

She buttoned the button and zipped the zipper on her dark moss-green slacks and didn’t miss the cunning grin on her face when she stepped in front the mirror to check the fit. She hadn’t missed the I’ve-had-sex-around-the-world-in-eighty-days-and-you’ve-never-been-outside-Indiana disposition he’d displayed either. An excited giggle escaped her. Experience wasn’t everything. He’d have a whole new perspective and a different kind of respect for her after tonight.

She was going to love him so hard and so well, he’d blank out every other encounter he’d ever had. She was going to love him so deeply and so generously that he’d forget every moment he’d ever spent alone and lonely. She was going to love him so totally, he’d be able to feel her in every cell of his body and he’d never again know where he ended and she began ... or vice versa.

With the matching dark moss-green jacket hung over one arm, she was dumping the contents of one purse into another when she thought she heard a soft rapping at her door.

“Mrs. Phipps,” she said when she opened the door, a strange mix of surprise and alarm washing over her. She rarely came to her door, because Ellen spent a great deal of time in Mrs. Phipps’s apartment, but also because climbing stairs was hard for her. “What are you doing up here? I thought we agreed you wouldn’t use the stairs unless someone was with you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” the old woman said, smiling a bit. She didn’t look fine, she looked ill at ease. “We just wanted to thank you for leaving our things by our door when you came in last night. We were still up, we heard you. We guessed you just didn’t want to disturb us at that hour.”

To save time, Ellen fastened up her purse and slipped on her jacket while she asked, “Are you having trouble sleeping?”

“None at all. We were just awake.” She watched as Ellen held Bubba out of her apartment with one foot while reaching for the door to close it. “We brought you a warm muffin,” Mrs. Phipps said, an uncommon timidity in her voice. She held up a dishcloth-covered plate that Ellen hadn’t noticed till then. “Blueberry. Our favorite.”