No Ordinary Day (25 page)

The proprietor of the store, John Grimes, was a long-beloved fixture to the people and especially the children of the town. His store contained virtually any houseware or dry good that was needed, as well as many things no one could ever recall seeing before. And he could always be counted upon to produce a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum if a child wanted one, as long as that child could locate him within the insanely crowded aisles of his store.

Lucy knocked lightly on the glass window in the front door.

A moment later, the tall, slim man appeared, wearing his work apron, carrying a mop. A slight smile came to his face.

“Good morning, Lucy,” he said, leaning on the mop. “Glad to see you made it.”

“You too,” she said sincerely. “That’s what I really came to find out.”

Mr. Grimes nodded solemnly.

“I had hoped to get to speak to you on the way out of the Town Board meeting the other night,” he said, drying up a few small pools of fetid water with the mop. “I thought your commentary was insightful and very well spoken. Thank you.”

“Well, thank
you
,” she said, feeling awkward. “Was that really just the day before yesterday?”

“It hardly seems possible, doesn’t it?” Mr. Grimes twisted the mop handle in his hands. “Odd, don’t you think, that the flood took down the very areas of town the Board was discussing drowning?”

Lucy’s eyebrows drew together as silence thudded against her eardrums.

“Well, yes,” she said after a long moment. “But, as impressive as they think they are, the Town Board can’t command the weather.”

“No, no, they can’t, can they?” said Mr. Grimes. “There are some who would think this is an act of God, endorsing their plan.”

Lucy shuddered, feeling suddenly colder.

“You—you don’t think that, do you, Mr. Grimes?”

John Grimes smiled.

“Goodness, no,” he said. “But I don’t think in this case He is necessarily on our side, either. Stay well, Lucy—look after yourself. I hope you will stay in Obergrande—in the Adirondacks. You’re a wonderful teacher, and a wonderful townsperson. Every special place needs special people to live in it. Have a good day—as good of one as is possible to have on a day like today.”

He went back to mopping the floor.

Lucy stood in the street for a few moments longer, watching him. She cast a glance up Heavenly Street at the beautiful little shops and restaurants, including Charlie’s on the corner, the place Glen Daniels had considered for their first date, all closed and dark now.

Then turned around to make her way back to Tree Hill Park, the eastern half of which had been largely under water the day before.

And was cheered to see that it was drying out.

She looked up at Obergrande, standing tall and upright against the lightening clouds, its enormous trunk straight, the heavy limbs steady, the slender branches waving the spring leaves in patterns in the wind.

The iconic tree under which historic events had occurred.

Where treaties of peace had been signed.

Where lovers met.

Her cheeks grew warm at the thought, her heart beating faster in the knowledge of the one she would meet that night.

We will live through this after all,
Obergrande,
she thought.
You, and the town you have always protected.

She closed her eyes, listening for the music of the tree, and heard it singing.

The song of the town, on the other hand, was silent.

‡

8:23
PM

A
ce parked his
car a few streets west of the controlled flood zone and sighed.

The day had been a fairly miserable experience all the way around, the sadness and the horror inescapable. But he had determined to take the chance that Life had finally offered him and make the most of it.

So he got out of his car with the long-stemmed red rose he had managed to find in Newcomb, the last one available at the mini-mart that sold them singly, and hurried down the dark streets, flashlight and flower in hand.

His heart pounding increasingly each step of the way.

He was allowed almost without notice into the zone; the privates and corporals patrolling the place now routinely saluted and allowed him entrance, largely owing to his superior rank.

When he came around the corner of Marshall Avenue, a cross street to Second, he noticed lights flickering in the air on her side of the street, in contrast to the complete darkness everywhere else in the neighborhood.

Puzzled, he came closer.

They were glowing beyond the drapes in the windows of Lucy’s tiny house.

Along the curb in front of her house, black garbage bags sat neatly, the only place on the street where any were.

He jogged to the fence, walked through the broken gate, hurried up the steps and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” a muffled voice called beyond it. “Ready for your re-do?”

Ace turned the handle, choking back his irritation at finding it unlocked.

Beyond the door a candle was flickering in the hall in front of the staircase. Ace walked up the stairs.

At the top more light appeared, flickering on the wicks of a dozen or so lighted candles lining the hallway to Lucy’s bedroom.

He took a few deep breaths to cleanse his mood of worry, then spoke as he approached her door.

“Babe, you’ve gotta be more careful,” he said as passed the bathroom and headed toward the front of the house. “You can’t leave the door unlocked like that.”

He had reached the doorway.

The master bedroom was full of small spheres of glowing radiance, hovering above the wicks of even more candles, carefully placed in the windows, atop her dresser, and on the bedside tables. It seemed to Ace that he was looking through the doorway into a land from a fairytale, a forest full of magical spirits in the devouring darkness of the now-dead neighborhood.

Standing with her back to him, looking out the window into the night, was a figure in a long, sheer nightgown, the type of which Ace could not possibly have thought to name, though he could see it had a matching robe, equally translucent.

Her long blond hair had been carefully swept up atop her head, with tendrils of soft, light curls cascading down from it at the base of her neck, which was much more willowy and long than he had realized. He could not tell what color the negligee was in the candlelight, but it seemed to glow like a candleflame itself, and it clung to the gentle curves of her body, narrow shoulders that tapered to a slim waist blossoming out to a backside the outline of which made his heart pound and heat rise within every muscle of his own.

“ ‘Babe,’ huh?” Lucy said, still looking out the window, her back to him. “Is that what you intend to replace ‘ma’am’ with, Sergeant?”

“Only with your permission, ma’—Lucy,” Ace answered. He was not surprised at the weakness in his own voice. “I will call you anything you want me to—although a new idea came to me just this afternoon.”

She chuckled, still not turning around. “Something other than ‘babe’?”

“Yes.”

“And what would that be?”

Ace cleared his throat, which had suddenly gone dry. “How do you feel about—‘my love’?” he asked quietly.

He saw Lucy’s back stiffen, her head raise up.

Slowly she turned around.

For a moment, Ace didn’t recognize the woman standing in front of him.

The hair that had caught his attention at the Town Board meeting from the moment she came into the room was gleaming in the candlelight, pulled back from her face for the first time since he had known her. The face revealed by the updo was far more beautiful than he had even remembered in his dreams, high cheekbones and an elegant jaw line that had always been swallowed by her curls. Her lips were smooth and soft in a way that made every part of his body recall what it had felt like to kiss them yesterday.

But the eyes were the element he could not pull his gaze away from.

Lucy’s eyes had been what had really captured his interest the night before last, large and long-lashed, taking up a substantial part of her fair, heart-shaped face. They were absolutely transparent, clear as the sky above the atmosphere, full of light and warmth and openness, transmitting any emotion she was experiencing—anger, sadness, vulnerability, joy—all of them were clearly seen the instant they entered her eyes.

He stared at them, utterly entranced, trying to decide what emotion he saw in them now.

They were gleaming, soft, with a hint of tears making them even more gorgeous.

She returned his stare, but with a look that made his knees tremble.

“Does that mean that you love me?” she asked, her voice trembling as well.

Ace swallowed again in the hope that his voice wouldn’t shake.

“Yes. Yes, it does. I realized it when I couldn’t stop worrying about you today.”

Lucy pursed her lips and nodded. The expression in her eyes changed.

Ace would have guessed that what he was looking at was relief.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was afraid I was going to have to be in love alone. Because today I discovered the same thing.”

Ace held out the rose to her, stretching his other hand out to her as well.

“Come to me,” he whispered. “Come to me, my love.”

A smile came over her lips, and into her eyes as she shook her head. She slid the outer robe of her negligee slowly over her alabaster shoulders and let it drop to the ground behind her.

“No, soldier,” she said, “you come to me.”

Before she could take another breath the rose was in her hands and she was in his, both of them spanning her waist, lifted from the ground and being carried to the bed, trembling with passion.

And something else that felt very much like joy, though she was not certain she had ever experienced it before.

As much as she had contemplated what her eyes had seen in him over the past few days, it was a totally different experience being in his grasp.

The muscles of his arms were stronger than she could have imagined, his shoulders wider, his back broader, his scent more clean and masculine as well. She ran her free hand through his hair and felt a thrill shoot through her, each tiny nerve in her body on fire.

Feeling small, vulnerable in his grasp.

And loving the feeling.

He was kissing the hollow of her throat as he laid her gently down, his hands lifting her arms over her head alongside her ears, which were ringing now in time to the pounding of her heart.

As his sensuous lips continued up from her throat to her neck, one of his calloused hands, a soldier’s hand that had seen the steel not just of weapons but of tools, the tools of his profession, flattened against her palm, so big atop her small one. He gently slid his fingers down between hers until they were entwined together.

His mouth was now just outside her ear.

“I told you yesterday that there was a lot to me,” he whispered, sliding his other hand behind her waist and drawing her close, pressing his chest to hers. “An intensity when something matters to me—I don’t want to frighten you—”

“I want it,” she whispered, forestalling his question. “Reach deep inside me. Wear me out. Take me up mountains and to the bottom of the ocean. Give it all to me, Alex.”

At the sound of his real name, Ace raised his head and looked into her eyes.

“I want to be important to you,” she whispered.

He was on fire now, his skin burning. “Believe me,” he said, his voice husky with arousal, “you are. You’re the most important thing in my life.”

Lucy smiled impishly.

“Prove it,” she said. “Give me everything you got.”

She pushed him up until his arms were straight on either side of her, took hold of the bottom of his shirt with both hands and slid it up over his chest, off his arms and over his head, then giggled with merriment at the feel of the satin skin over his muscles beneath her flat palms.

Imagining the thrill of how they would feel against her own chest once it was bare.

“I told you,” she said, leaning up and kissing his neck and throat in the same places he had on her, “the first night we met, that I didn’t trust you.”

“Yes, you did,” he said, straining to remain in control. “It hurt a lot.”

Lucy stopped. “It did?”

“No. I’m only kidding. Please don’t stop. I may die if you do. And I’m not kidding about that.”

She chuckled, returning her lips to his neck.

“I want to prove something to you, too—that I do trust you,” she said between kisses. “Completely. Let me prove it—I promise I will tell you if you frighten me. Otherwise—”

Her negligee was sliding rapidly up her body and off it a moment later.

A remarkably long
time and satisfaction in at least three positions later, Lucy fell back against the pillows on her simple department store mattress, sated and glowing as if she was in one of the famous mile-high feather beds at the Lake Placid Lodge.

Ace was stretched out atop her, still within her, breathing heavily, his heart pounding against her chest.

“Great re-do,” he said between breaths. “So—much—better than last night’s attempt. Thank you.”