Homing (8 page)

Kids! What the hell were they coming to? If he'd ever spoken to his grandfather the way Kevin had just spoken to him, his father would have given him a licking he'd never forget.

Knocking back the second shot of whiskey as quickly as the first, he refilled the glass once more.

Maybe he'd just get drunk.

And maybe he'd just give Kevin the whipping he deserved, too!

"Julie?" Kevin stepped into the shadows of the barn, pausing to let his eyes adjust from the bright sun outside.

"Julie?" he called again. "Where are you?" He listened carefully, but at first heard nothing other than the normal sounds of the barn. In their stalls, the horses were snorting softly, and a few chickens were scratching at the planks as they searched the floor for stray strands of food. Then, from the loft, Kevin heard another sound.

A sob.

Going to the foot of the ladder, he started to mount it, but stopped short when he heard Julie's voice from above.

"Don't come up!" she called, her words strangled by the sob he could hear in her throat. "Just leave me alone!"

Kevin hesitated on the ladder, then climbed up until he could see into the loft. Julie was sitting on a bale of hay fifteen feet from the top of the ladder, and as Kevin's head and shoulders came through the hatchway, she turned her back to him, her shoulders hunching defensively. "Didn't I just tell you not to come up?" she demanded.

"I came anyway," Kevin told her. He climbed into the loft and moved tentatively toward her. "I just wanted to-I don't know - .." He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and stared at his feet. "I guess I just want to apologize," he mumbled. "I mean, I never meant I thought Molly wanted to wreck the wedding, and I guess it was a really dumb thing to say. Jeez! I like Molly. She's really neat.

And Grandpa shouldn't have said what he did, either. I don't know why he says things like that."

"Well, maybe he's right," Julie said, still not -turning around, but shifting slightly as her shoulders relaxed "Maybe we shouldn't have come. it sure wasn't my idea."' Though the pain in her voice caused Kevin's stomach to tighten, he resisted his sudden urge to move closer to her.

instead he sat down cross-legged on the floor of the loft and picked up a piece of straw, which he twirled nervously between his fingers as he spoke, "You mean you didn't want to come here?"

"Why would I?" Julie demanded, still not looking at him. "Why would I want to leave all my friends and change schools to come here? I mean, do you know how boring this town is?"

Kevin's jaw tightened, and if Julie had been looking at him, she would have seen-just for an instant-an eerie resemblance to Otto. But then Kevin carefully checked his anger. "I-I guess I never thought about it," he admitted, choosing his words carefully, not wanting to make Julie any more miserable than she already was. "I guess just because I love it here, I thought everyone else did, too. That was kind of stupid, huh?"

Julie nodded, but said nothing.

"Well, anyway, I'm sorry," Kevin said. "I'm sorry Molly got stung, and I'm really sorry she has to stay in the hospital. And I'm sorry Dad and Karen's party got wrecked, too." He hesitated. "And I really didn't mean to hurt your feelings." He waited a moment, hoping Julie might say something. When she didn't, he got to his feet, embarrassed at having exposed his feelings, and started back down the ladder. "I guess I was just really stupid, and I don't blame you for not wanting to talk to me." His head was about to disappear through the hatchway when Julie turned around.

"Kevin?"

He paused on the ladder, waiting.

Running the fingers of her right hand through her long dark hair, Julie tried to smile. "I-I guess-I don't know-it's just that everything's different here, and I don't have any friends, and-"

Quickly, Kevin climbed back into the loft and went to her, crouching down on the floor next to the hay bale on which she sat, "You've only been here a few days," he told her. "And I know lots of kids. I was going to introduce you to them at the party, but you were hiding in the kitchen."

Julie felt herself blushing. "I-I was worried about Molly," she stammered. "What if she dies?"

Kevin took her hands in his own. "She's not going to die, Julie. People don't die of bee stings. They'll just give her a shot and she'll be fine. You'll see. Now come on.

Let's go meet some people."

Still Julie hesitated.

Her worry about Molly hadn't been the only thing that had kept her in the kitchen.

First there had been Carl Henderson. She had caught him staring at her at least three times before he'd left to fly Molly to the hospital, and each time she'd felt even more disturbed by the intensity of his gaze. Should she ask Kevin about him? But she already knew he was a good friend of her new stepfather's. If she asked if he was some kind of pervert or something, Kevin would just think she was trying to make trouble.

But avoiding Carl Henderson was only one reason she had retreated from the party. The truth, which she knew she would rather die than admit to Kevin, was that the three girls who'd clustered around Kevin almost the the minute their parents had taken off with Molly had totally terrified her. How could she tell him she'd been afraid he might not introduce her to his friends, or even notice her if she tried to join the group?

"There's something else, isn't there?" Kevin asked.

Julie hesitated, but in the end she shook her head, unwilling to tell him what was wrong. Better to just keep it to herself, she decided.

When she said nothing, Kevin stood up and pulled Julie to her feet. "Then come on," he told her. "Molly's going to be just fine. Let's go back to the house." He glanced out the open door to the loft to the yard below. "There're still some people here, and there's lots of food, and if our folks aren't here, shouldn't we be taking care of things? I mean, it's kind of like we're the host and hostess now, and our folks did get married today."

Julie's eyes drifted toward the house. "I can hardly even remember anyone's name," she began.

"I'll be right beside you, and I'll introduce you to everyone who's still here," Kevin told her. "Now stop worrying, and brush the hay off your dress."

Julie gazed down at the skirt of the beautiful blue dress that had been brand new only a few hours ago. Now it was a mass of wrinkles, and covered with flecks of straw. "Oh, God, I look awful!" she moaned.

For the first time since he'd come into the barn, a grin played around Kevin's lips. "No you don't," he said. "You look great. You're a lot prettier than any of the other girls."

"But my dress," Julie began.

"People will just think we've been making out up here," Kevin said, starting to laugh as Julie flushed a deep red.

"It'll be great for me! Every guy down there will be totally pissed off! They've all been begging me to introduce you.

"But we haven't been making out!" Julie protested.

Kevin's grin broadened. "I won't tell if you won't tell," he offered.

"But everyone will think-" And then she realized what he was really saying, and for a moment felt herself floundering. Her hands instinctively tightened in his. "I'm sorry I got mad at you," she said softly. "I just" Again she had that strange feeling of confusion, and when she felt his fingers pressing her hands, her heart fluttered. "I don't know what happened."

"Well, it's okay now," Kevin told her. He chuckled. "Or anyway, you're not mad at me, and I'm not mad at you.

But Grandpa's totally pissed at both of us."

"Both of us?" Julie repeated. "Why should he be mad at you?"

"'Cause I told him to cut out what he's been doing," Kevin replied. He shivered as he remembered the fury in his grandfather's eyes as he'd left the old man standing on the porch. "He looked like he was ready to give me a licking." Still holding Julie's hand, he started once more for the ladder that led down to the barn floor. "We'll just stay out of his way, and he'll cool off. He gets mad real fast, but he gets over it almost as fast. Come on-let's go find you some friends. But if any of the guys tries to hit on you, they'd better watch it!"

As he stood aside to let her start down the ladder first, Julie wondered exactly what he'd meant by his last words.

Did he mean they'd better watch it because he was sort of like her older brother now?

Or did he mean it another way?

To her own surprise, she realized with clear certainty that she hoped he meant it another way entirely.

The last thing she wanted right now was for Kevin Owen to start acting like her brother!

Karen Owen stood frozen with terror in the emergency room at the hospital in San Luis Obispo, her eyes fixed on her daughter. Talking to Julie on the phone, she'd forced herself to sound calmer than she really was, but now, as she gazed at Molly's unnaturally red face and her grotesquely distended leg, she felt panic rise in her again. The little girl's breathing was still coming in heavily labored gasps, her face so swollen that her big blue eyes were reduced to slits.

Why wasn't anyone doing anything?

Why was the doctor talking to Ellen Filmore instead of doing something to help Molly?

"Does she have a history of allergic reactions?" she heard someone ask, then realized that the resident had turned his attention to her.

Though his name badge identified him as Dr. Paul Martin, he looked barely old enough to have graduated from high school, let alone from medical school. "Never," she replied, shaking her head.

Martin frowned, then began what seemed to Karen to be an absolutely endless process of duplicating the same examination that Ellen Filmore had already given Molly back in, Pleasant Valley. A nurse stood at his elbow, taking notes, but just as Karen thought she would scream in frustration, the resident finally murmured something that sounded to Karen like it might be an order for some kind of medicine. The nurse left the room, returning a few seconds later with a vial and a hypodermic needle.

"What is it?" Karen asked, her voice sounding unnaturally loud. "What are you giving her?"

"It's a new kind of antivenom," the doctor replied. He jabbed the needle into Molly's arm, then pressed the plunger, injecting clear liquid into Molly. A moment later he pulled the needle out of Molly's flesh, dropped it in a wastebasket, and carefully dabbed at the tiny wound with a cotton swab.

"I'll do that, Doctor," the nurse immediately said. Martin made no objection to the nurse taking over the swab, but neither did he move back from the bed. instead he leaned over and gently peeled one of Molly's eyes open.

"I-Is something wrong?" Karen whispered. Before the doctor could reply, Molly's hand twitched, and a second later her color began to change, the bright red starting to ease. "What's happening?" Karen gasped, uncertain whether Molly was responding to the medicine. "Isn't it working?"

"Give me a hand with the airway," Martin told the nurse, still not replying to Karen's question.

While the nurse held Molly's head firmly in place, preventing her from instinctively moving away from the doctor's hand, Martin gently drew the plastic tube out of her throat. Karen, unconsciously gripping the back of a chair so hard her fingernails were cutting into its vinyl upholstery, found herself holding her own breath as she waited Molly to begin breathing without the aid of the tube.

Only when the little girl's chest heaved did Martin finally glance at Karen, smiling.

"The swelling in her throat's already down enough for her to breathe, and her color's almost back to normal.

She's going to make it." As if in response to the doctor's words, Molly's eyes fluttered, then opened, and an almost inaudible word escaped her lips. "Mommy?"

"I'm here, darling," Karen replied, moving quickly to the head of the examining table and taking one of Molly's hands in both of her own. "I'm right here, and you're going to be fine. Just fine!"

Molly glanced around, then frowned deeply. "Where am I?"

"In the hospital in San Luis Obispo," Karen explained.

As her mind began to clear, fragments of what had happened came back to Molly. Her frown deepened. "I wrecked the wedding, didn't I?" she asked. "Is everybody mad at me?" Tears of relief ran down Karen's cheeks, and she kissed Molly's fingers. "Of course no one's mad at you. You just got stung by a bee and had a bad reaction to it, that's all.

It wasn't your fault. Everything's going to be fine.'

Molly, still not satisfied, tried to sit up. "Where's everybody else?" she asked. "Is Julie here, too?"

Karen shook her head. "Just me and Russell and Dr. Filmore. There wasn't room for anyone else in the plane."

"The plane?" Molly echoed, looking puzzled.

"Mr. Henderson flew us over," Karen explained. "He works for a company called UniGrow that helps Russell raise better crops."

"And I'll fly you home, too," a voice said from behind her.

Karen turned to see Carl Henderson, along with Russell, standing just inside the door.

"They told us we could come in," Russell said, moving across to lean down and kiss Molly on the cheek. He made as if to tickle her ribs, a game he and the little girl had discovered early on. "How's my favorite girl?"

Molly giggled and wriggled away from his fingers. "I thought Mommy was your favorite girl!"

"Next to you, she is," Russell replied. "Feeling better?"

Molly nodded. "Except my leg still hurts."

"That should go away pretty soon," Dr. Martin said. He turned to Carl Henderson. "That's some stuff you guys are making. She responded to it in less than a minute." As Henderson's brows rose questioningly, the doctor looked confused. "Didn't you say he works for UniGrow?" he asked Karen.

Before Karen could reply, Henderson nodded. "I do, but what's that got to do with Molly?"

Martin's look of confusion deepened. "You don't know what your pharmaceutical division's doing?"

Henderson's questioning look cleared. "I don't have anything to do with them. I'm an entomologist, specializing in agricultural insects. It's a big company, and most divisions don't know what the others are doing. And I'm lucky. I work out in Pleasant Valley, pretty much by myself."