Count on Me (Bayview Heights Trilogy) (12 page)

o0o

“I CAN’T GO to Down to Earth,” Ashley told Evan when he presented her with the permission form given out in class today. She’d been too nauseated to go to school. The pregnancy test had been positive.

“Why not?”

“You’ve seen the videotape of that weekend, Evan. It’s climbing trees and crossing logs and limbs and high wires. I could—” she laid a hand over her stomach “—hurt the baby.”

He gave her the standard jock shrug. Insolent and insulting. “So what?”

Ashley dropped the glass she was holding and it shattered to the floor. “What did you say?”

“You’re not gonna have it, anyway. Goddamn it. Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying all week? We’re not gonna have a baby. We’re too young. It’ll ruin our lives.”

“But I’m pregnant.”

He watched her coldly. “That’s what abortions are for.”

“Evan, I told you—that’s a sin.”

He rolled his eyes. No longer was he the sweet wooing boy she’d taken off her clothes for. He was a man today, dark and dangerous. “So is premarital sex, according to you. Grow up, Ash.”

Battling the ever-queasy feeling in her stomach, she stared at him. “You don’t mean this.”

“Not only do I mean it, but I want you to talk to those Planned Parenthood people you volunteer for and find out how to go about it. Sammy’s girlfriend had one last year, but I’d just as soon the whole soccer team didn’t know you’re in trouble.”

“Jenny did?”

Disgusted, he dropped into a chair. “You’re so naive. Most of the guys on the team have been through this.”

She bit her lip. She was just another girl who got knocked up. A terrible thought hit her. “Did this...has this ever happened to you before, Evan?”

“No, of course not.”

“I wasn’t your first, like you were mine.”

“So what? I’ve never been careless in my life.”

Left unspoken was,
like you
.

She didn’t say anything else.

He glanced at his watch. “Look, I gotta get to work.” Standing, he shoved the paper into her hands. “Sign this and find out how to take care of the other problem.”

Still she didn’t answer. Tilting her chin up with a finger, he raised her face to him, then bent over and kissed her. Gently. Tenderly. Like the old Evan, not the Mr. Hyde he’d turned into for a few minutes. “It’ll be okay, Ashley. After you fix this, we can go back to like it was.”

He turned then and sauntered out the door.

She scanned the kitchen. Everything looked normal.
Like it was
. But her whole world had changed. And in her seventeen-year-old heart, she knew no matter what she did, nothing would ever be the same again.

CHAPTER SIX

“DOWN TO EARTH is all about cooperation, self-confidence and trust building.” The manager of the site, Franz Hoffman, spoke in a deep bass that matched his burly appearance—longish hair, slightly graying beard, sturdy build covered in denim and flannel. Kurt had heard the kids label him Paul Bunyan.

Having inspected the sleeping and eating areas and toured the grounds, the Bayview Heights contingent had gathered in the open grassy area in front of the lodge for instructions about the weekend to come. The sun had just set and the wind blew gently around them, turning the warm late-October afternoon into a cool evening.

“I’ll conduct the physical activities tomorrow,” Hoffman continued. “And Ms. Caufield will handle the psychological part.”

Along with the school counselor, Kurt knew, who would be here tomorrow morning. The one who looked like Elizabeth. He wondered if Zoe had noticed.

The director smiled. “Get a good night’s sleep. You’ll need all your energy in the morning.” The kids grumbled at his words. “Meanwhile, the fixings for dinner are ready. Your first lesson in cooperation is to cook together.” Zoe, who stood next to him, held up an envelope. Hoffman continued, “These are the chores. Everybody take one and head to the kitchen.” More grumbling. Just as they’d complained when they’d seen the rustic sleeping accommodations.

Kurt’s gaze strayed to Zoe, who was passing out the jobs. Dressed in jeans and a red BVH sweatshirt, with sneakers on her feet and a smile on her face, she bounced from person to person offering a pleasant comment to each of them.

He’d sleep on a dirt floor if he could share it with her. He smiled, remembering how she’d cuddled into him at night, and how he’d awaken with her wrapped around him They’d manage just fine on one of the cots—or anywhere else.

Zoe approached Alex Ransom. Kurt scowled, as he had when the young vice principal had shown up at the front of the school to leave on the bus with everybody else…

 What’s he doing here?
Kurt had asked.

Turning. Zoe had followed his gaze.
Alex oversees the health program. Besides, it’s good to have an administrator along. It helps him bond with the kids.

Did you ask him to come?

She’d given Kurt a scathing look and hadn’t answered, which had been confirmation enough. Damn.

Now he watched the big guy lean over and whisper something in her ear. She giggled girlishly.

It was going to be a long weekend.

When she reached Kurt, she raised her brows and said lightly, “One job left.” She smelled fresh and clean, like soap and the outdoors.

Giving her a phony smile, he drew it out of the envelope. “What’d you get?” he asked.

“Dishwasher.” Her gaze dropped to his paper. “You?”

He looked down. Well, the god of the woods must be watching out for him. “Dish dryer.”

She shrugged, as if it didn’t mean anything to her. “I’ll see you then.”

The group trekked back into the big lodge. The place resembled a ski chalet, with a big stone fireplace and stuffed couches and chairs. To the right were the three bedrooms that had been assigned to the girls. Above was a loft where the guys would sleep. The kitchen was in the back. The cooks—Ashley, Erica, Shondra, Alex Ransom and two guys from the class Kurt didn’t know—started back there.

Julia, lounging at the huge trestle table that would seat the twenty of them, watched the kitchen helpers go. “The blind leading the blind,” she called after them. “Only Ashley knows her way around a kitchen.”

Ransom, having heard her comment, turned to the girl. “I resent that, young lady. My mama raised me good.
I
can cook.”

Kurt mumbled under his breath, “Anybody can do spaghetti sauce.”

Zoe froze on her way past him to the bedrooms. He cursed his tongue.

They’d been making dinner at his place…

 Here, taste this
. He’d held out the wooden spoon. She’d leaned over the counter and licked it. He’d gotten hard, watching her.

 Hmm. Needs more salt
.

He’d lifted the spoon to his mouth and closed it over the spot where her lips had been.
It’s perfect
. Holding her gaze, he’d ditched the spoon and circled the counter. Fast and furious, he’d picked her up and set her on the table, knocking off papers and assorted paraphernalia; he’d had her horizontal in no time.
So are you
, he’d told her before he claimed her…

It had been cataclysmic. Neither had been able to mention spaghetti sauce again without conjuring up the memory. Swearing to himself, he sought out his bunk.

Dinner was a lively affair. The food was a bit heavy on the garlic and missing the hot pepper Kurt liked, but Zoe praised each and every bite. When most of them were done, she said, “All right, take your plates to the kitchen and then give us a half hour to clean up. We’ll meet back here at eight for the first exercise.”

“Anybody want to shoot some hoops?” Ransom asked, bounding off the bench.

“I do.” Dan Caruso got to his feet.

Julia frowned. “When did he turn into Mr. Jock?” she asked when Dan left.

Shondra and Erica exchanged a look.

“What’s with you and that guy?” Erica asked, tapping her fork on the table in a nervous staccato. “You’ve been picking on him for weeks.”

“I keep getting paired up with him.” Julia stood. “Can’t you do something about it, Ms. Caufield?”

“Can’t do much about the pairings, Jules. Just like in class, they’re either assigned according to your volunteer groups or they’re random. The point of this weekend is to work well with everybody.” She was careful not to glance at Kurt.

Once the dishes were under way, he thought she’d relax. But she didn’t. At the sink, her posture was stiff. She’d taken off her sweatshirt, beneath which was a plain white T-shirt. He could see the lacy outline of her bra beneath it.

“Switch some music on, will you?” Her hands delved into the water, chasing soap up her arm.

“Why? So we don’t have to talk?”

She shot him a sideways glance. “I’m not sure we have a lot to say to each other.”

He stared at her. “This is hard for me,” he finally confessed.

“What is?”

“Being around you.”

“Then stay away.”

“As you said, we can’t pick our partners.” He lifted plates and began to dry them. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for me to come.”

Her shoulders sagged, but she didn’t look at him. “No, it was a good idea. All the other supervisors came.”

“They don’t have the history with you that I do.” He set a plate down on the shelf a little too hard; it clattered into the others. “Except maybe Ransom.”

“Jealousy doesn’t become you, Kurt.”

“Well, excuse me if I hate seeing another man touch you.”

She stiffened even more and said cuttingly, “If we’re going to cast stones in that area…”

He swore. After a tense silence, he flipped on the boom box. The most godawful heavy metal blared from the speakers.

But it precluded any more conversation.

o0o

“ALL RIGHT, who’d like to explain to our adult participants what ‘reaction sheets’ are? You’ve all done them in class with me.”

Shelley raised her hand. Zoe nodded to her. “They’re open-ended statements where you fill in the blanks. Their purpose is to get a discussion going about what’s on your mind.”

“Thank you, Shelley,” Zoe said. “Tonight, we’ll start out with small-group discussion. We’ll work first in our volunteer groups. Day-care people together, elementary-school people together, et cetera.”

“Where’ll you and Mr. Ransom be?” Erica asked.

“Mr. R will work with the peer helpers, since Rob and Evan aren’t coming up until tomorrow.” The boys had a soccer game tonight and were driving to the site with Barb Sherman in the morning. “I’ll drop in and out of groups this first time to see how you’re doing.”

Zoe distributed the sheets to group leaders. “All right, ten minutes to fill these out. Remember, you have to be honest or it won’t work. And don’t worry, if you write something that you don’t want to share, you don’t have to.”

Everyone smiled at that.

“But at least half of your answers should be shareable.”

After the kids got to work, Zoe sank onto a pillow in the corner as far away from Kurt as possible. He’d taken a seat at the picnic table and was hunched over his reaction sheet, his face a study in intensity. Left-handed, he scribbled on the paper. His forest-green thermal shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, and she tried not to notice the muscles in his forearms and chest.

She forced herself to concentrate on her reaction sheet.

 The five most important people in your life are…

Zoe swallowed hard, heard herself admonish the kids to be honest. She wrote Cassie, Lacey, Seth. Who else was she really close to? Erica.

Be honest. She wrote,
Kurt
.

Next question.
One professional goal you have is
…

 That was easy. Keep the electives going
, despite the Jerry Boscos of the world. He’d made an appointment to observe some of her classes next week, and she groaned inwardly at the thought.

 One thing I’d change in my life is
...Unfortunately that was easy, too.
Forget Kurt. Get on with my life
. Damn, she’d been doing a good job with that until he’d come back to Bayview Heights.

Ten minutes later after everyone had filled out their sheets individually, Zoe directed them to form groups. When assembled, she wandered around as they talked about who was important to them.

“My mother.”

“Evan, of course.”

“My little brother.”

The kids’ most important people echoed through the room.

“Mitch,” she heard when she passed Kurt’s table. In spite of her resolve, she wondered who else he’d put down. His daughter, Lauren? Was Elizabeth on his list? Was
she?

Finally Zoe joined a group. She smiled at Alex when he asked, “What’s one thing you think is a waste of time, Ms. Caufield?”

She glanced down at her paper. “Regrets.”

“We should live life for today,” one of the students said.

“Yes,” she said glancing in Kurt’s direction. “We should.”

o0o

BLINDFOLDED, KURT STUMBLED on something in the yard. A surprisingly strong hand gripped his arm.

“Don’t like this, do you, Doctor.” Erica sounded amused.

“Not one single bit.”

A pause. They moved in baby steps to the campfire. “Is it ‘cause of me or the activity?” Amazing what you could hear in a person’s tone when you couldn’t see her. Erica’s question held a quiver of insecurity.

“It’s the activity, Erica.”

“You mean you trust me not to let you fall flat on your face?”

“Absolutely.” He hoped, anyway.

She held on to him. “Hmm.”

He smiled. Her response reminded him of Zoe. Whom he was glad he couldn’t see. Luck of the draw paired her with Ransom. He bet the guy had his hands all over her.

Kurt could feel the heat of the campfire as he neared it. Mid-October nights in the woods were cold, and though they’d dressed in heavy layers, he was glad for the fire’s warmth. He heard the director’s voice. “For those of you who can’t see, I’m roasting marshmallows now. They’ll be ready for s’mores in a minute.”

Every blindfolded person groaned. Kurt heard the good-natured quips: “Just wait, Starr. You’re gonna smear that sucker all over that pretty face.”