Shooting Starr (14 page)

Needing to maintain some kind of contact with him but not wanting to admit to that need, she put out her hand and found the tree trunk instead. Splaying her fingers wide, she pressed her palm against the rough, crisp bark and tilted her head to listen as somewhere overhead a squirrel began to scold in outrage at the intrusion into his domain.

C.J. stared up into the bronzy-gold leaves of the hickory tree and located the squirrel, perched on the broken-off stub of a dead branch, tail held up behind him and fluffed out like a brush. He thought about describing it for her, but it suddenly seemed impossible, utterly beyond him. The truth was, no matter how hard he tried, he wasn't going to make her see.

The hurt that knowledge left inside him was a solid thing, like a fist in his guts. All in all, the vague ache of long-ago disappointments and failures seemed easier to deal with.

He drew a breath. “Preseason practice, start of my senior year. We were having a scrimmage and I got hit from the side—clipping, they call it—there's a good reason why it's illegal. Tore up the cartilage in my knee. They told me I'd be out the whole season, so there went my hopes for a
scholarship to just about anyplace. I figured, the hell with it. I dropped out.”

“Out of
school?
” He understood her horrified tone; she was a teacher's child, like he was. In families like theirs, such a thing was almost unthinkable.
“Why?”

He laughed softly at the look on her face, intent and fascinated but frustrated, too, as if he were a puzzle she couldn't solve. Welcome to the club, he wanted to say. I've had some trouble figuring me out, too.

Then he thought about it and he realized that wasn't true; there were quite a few things about himself he'd got figured out, but he just hadn't ever wanted to share them with anybody before. Why he wanted to now—
that
was something he couldn't figure out.

“Why?” He scrubbed a hand over his face. His grin flickered briefly before he remembered she couldn't see it. “Oh, hell, what can I say? I was a kid. Spoiled. The baby of the family. Things had always come easy for me, and I guess I expected they always would. When I got hurt, from where I was standing it looked like my life was over. My dreams of football fame and glory, my easy-ride college career right down the tubes. I was mad, disappointed…it was easier to say the hell with it than to come up with a whole new set of dreams.”

“‘A
new set of dreams…'” She whispered it, staring into nothingness. The bleakness in her face hit him like a body blow.

Turning so he couldn't see her face, she leaned her back against the same tree trunk that was propping him up and said in a not-quite-steady voice, “That's ridiculous. You could still have had your dream of going to the University of Georgia if you'd wanted to. If you'd worked at it. Even playing football—you might have gotten there by a different path—”

He shrugged, then sucked in air as their shoulders touched. It shocked him to realize how much he wanted to hold her. More than he wanted his next breath. His voice wasn't steady, either, as he retorted, “Yeah, well, maybe that was a dream that wasn't meant to happen. Maybe I wouldn't have been good enough to play college ball. How do I know? Like I said, things had always been easy for me. I'd never been tested, I guess you could say. And except for football, I didn't have the first idea what I wanted
to do with my life. Without that, who knows, I might have squandered a whole college education and graduated still not knowing. Maybe dropping out of school at that point was the best thing I could have done.”

He heard a soft laugh and leaned over so he could see her face. A smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Providence,” she murmured, angling her head toward him slightly.

“‘Providence'?” The word tugged at his memory and he frowned, trying to place it. But the top of Caitlyn's head was right there, just below his nose…those waving tufts of golden hair would tickle his lips if he leaned over just a little bit.

She tilted her face upward, and he caught and held his breath. Couldn't let it go—she'd know how close he was. Her lips quivered with her smile. “Something my dad used to say.”

The memory snapped into focus, and he flattened himself back against the tree trunk and let out a shaken breath. “Ah—your aunt, right?”

Surprised eyes reached upward toward his face as she turned fully toward him, her smile a hairsbreadth from where his lips had been. “My dad's
great
-aunt, actually—she lived to be over a hundred. How did you know?”

His heart pounded; he fought to keep his voice even. “Your dad told me—back there in the hospital. Said something about getting hurt and as a result of that, being where he needed to be to save your mother's life. And that your—
his—
aunt said it was Providence.”

“My dad told you that?” The watermark frown had appeared in the center of her forehead, and her eyes flickered as if they were trying to search his face in the darkness.

“Yeah, he did. Is it true?”

“Oh, yes.” She relaxed, sagging back against the tree. “The way it happened… Dad was a marine. He was stationed in Bosnia, and he'd stayed on there even after he
left the corps, helping out with one of those humanitarian groups, driving a truck—” a startled look flashed across her face for an instant “—um, bringing in food and medical supplies. He was injured when his convoy was shelled. Broke both his legs. So they sent him home for rehab. Mom was his physical therapist, and it just so happened that at the time she was being stalked by her ex-husband. He'd have killed her if Dad hadn't been there—or maybe she'd have killed him, I don't know. Either way, Dad saved her life, and he was in a wheelchair at the time.”

“Amazing story,” C.J. murmured, and there was a swelling warmth inside his chest he recognized as envy. “Your dad's a real hero.”

“Yes, he is.” She pushed restlessly away from the tree, then halted…trapped, it occurred to him, on her own private island. “Mom was one of the lucky ones.” There was anger now in her voice, and he didn't know whether it was because of what they were talking about or her frustration at her own limitations. “That's how I—”

He'd moved up beside her, to give her a point of reference, maybe, or walk with her if that was what she wanted. And she turned and reached out to him impulsively, the way she'd done that night in the abandoned gas station. That night her hands had landed on his folded-up arms with a touch light as leaves falling. Now since his arms weren't folded, it was his chest she touched. He looked down into her eyes, and for the first time in a long time saw that breathtaking flash of silver.

“C.J.,” she said, earnest and intent, “do you know what I
do?
I mean…have you guessed, or figured it out?”

“I think I've 'bout got it figured out, yeah. But why don't you explain it to me.” His voice was harsher than he'd intended. Whether it was that or she'd felt the way his heart was knocking against her fingers, but she took her hands away from his chest. Regret swept through him, intense as a shiver.

“Well, that's what started it for me—my parents' story.” She was looking away from him now…far, far away. “Mom and Dad were always open with me about what had happened to her. She'd been abused by her father when she was just a child, and finally the only way she could find to escape him was to get married, when she was barely sixteen. That was just as bad. Her husband was a violent, controlling man, and when she left him he tracked her down and, as I said, would have killed her if it hadn't been for Dad. I used to think about that. What about the ones who aren't lucky enough to have someone like my dad? Things are a lot better now than they used to be. At least there's more awareness of the problem of domestic violence…laws are tougher. But there are still so many cases where—” She paused, shaking her head, and the look she threw at him was one of cold, bitter fury. Then, though he had nothing to say to her, she held up a hand as if to stop him—or was it herself?—and went quietly on.

“I went into social work, first, thinking that was the way to help. It didn't take me long to realize that Social Services can only do so much. Social service agencies have to operate within the confines of law. And the law—okay, the law means well, but sometimes it seems like it protects the wrong people. Then there are some people who don't know about the law and others who don't care. And some—” her voice and her eyes hardened “—who believe they are a law unto themselves.”

“Like Vasily…” He said it on an exhaled breath and it sounded like a hiss. Even the name seems evil, he thought.

She gazed at him for a long moment without speaking, and the healing bruises around her eyes seemed to shimmer. Then she said softly, “I'm not going to tell you how I found the group I work—” her mouth twisted “—
worked
for. It's too important that the work they do be allowed to go on.” Her lips relaxed and quivered into a half smile. “Dad says it's like the Underground Railroad—you know,
like during slavery?—but actually it's probably more like a witness protection program, only not sanctioned by any government agency. We get people who are in imminent danger to safety, then help them…disappear.”

“Is that what happened to Emma Vasily? She just…disappeared?” His voice was gruff. He didn't mean to be judgmental, but he was thinking about the little girl with the big black refugee eyes, the way she'd leaned against him, wanting so badly to trust somebody. He wondered if she was happier now, living among strangers.

“C.J….” It sounded like a sigh of regret.

“I guess I can't blame you for not trusting me,” he said. And he couldn't, but that didn't keep him from feeling hurt in some strange, illogical way.

She looked sideways at him. They'd begun walking again, swishing their feet through the leaves on his mother's lawn. “It's not that I don't trust you,” she said, still wearing that little half smile. “The funny thing is, you know, I do. I trust you to behave exactly as you have been, with honor and integrity….” C.J. snorted. Why didn't he feel complimented? “The problem is, you and I are on opposite sides of the fence, C.J.”

“I don't think that's true—” The denial was automatic and held no conviction at all.

She shook her head. “You still plan on being a lawyer?”

“Yes, I sure do.”

“Well, then? As a lawyer, you are bound as an officer of the court to uphold the law. And there's no getting around the fact that I—” her smile wavered “—for the best of all possible reasons, am often, shall we say,
forced
to circumvent it.” She shrugged as if to say, That's the way it is—what can you do?

What
could
he do? What could he say? The answer to that was: not a damn thing.

“I think I'd like to go in now,” Caitlyn said softly, and
she gave a shiver that was only perceptible because his arm happened to be touching hers.

“Getting cold?” he asked, and she shrugged.

It did seem cooler there in the shaded yard, or maybe it was just the chill he felt deep down in his insides…of loneliness, maybe? Of regret?

All he knew was that a few moments ago he'd felt so close to her it had seemed to him one good puff of wind could have brought her into his arms. Now she was a million miles away. On opposite sides of the fence, she'd said, and he couldn't think of any way to tell her she was wrong. And if she wasn't, he wondered how in the world he was supposed to help her, whether that meant make things right for her, be a hero to her, save her life or just
be
there if she needed comforting. How was he supposed to do any of those things with that fence between them?

 

“Hey, hon', how're you doin' out here?” The screen door creaked, then banged shut. Jess's footsteps scuffed on the planks of the front porch floor.

It was late afternoon, coming to the end of Caitlyn's third day in the Starr household. She was becoming more comfortable there and less fearful, gaining confidence as she learned her way around. Her days were already developing a routine: in the mornings, breakfast; then, while Jess went off to her shift at the hospital in town and Betty to her shopping or volunteer work for the church day-care center, long, leisurely walks with C.J. and the dogs. During those walks, C.J. tried, rather touchingly, she thought, to describe everything for her in great detail, while she tried very hard to keep from him the fact that she was counting footsteps and memorizing the locations of trees and fences.

Later, after C.J. had gone home to study for his bar exams, she would help Betty with the housework or in the garden. She was learning how to water by hand with the
garden hose during the autumn dry spell, and to tell the difference between crabgrass and vegetable plants by feel.

The hardest times were the quiet times, like now—what could she do if she was too restless to nap? Reading and watching TV were definitely out. She wasn't accustomed to being idle, but so far, sitting on the front porch listening to the cassette tapes Betty had found for her was the only activity she'd been able to come up with to combat the loneliness of those empty hours.

“You got a minute?”

Caitlyn had nothing
but
minutes, but thought it would be self-pitying to say so. She stilled the rocking chair, felt for the Off button on the portable tape player in her lap and pulled off the headphones, then turned toward the voice with a welcoming smile. “I was just listening to these ‘Lake Woebegon' tapes your mom gave me.”

“Garrison Keillor? Oh, I remember those.” The rocker next to hers gave a groan and Jess's voice came from a new level. “It's been a while since I've heard them, though.”

“My parents always put them on in the car during long trips.” She leaned over to put the tape player on the floor, and her foot nudged a large furry body that twitched and emitted a patient sigh. “Sorry, Bubba,” she murmured.

“He sure has adopted you,” Jess said.

“Yeah, I know.” Caitlyn settled back in the rocker with a short laugh. “It's funny…it's almost as if he
knows.
”

“Dogs have a sense about 'em. The intelligent ones do.” There was a pause and then a laugh—a dry, soft stirring, like the rustling of leaves. “The day I found out my husband had been shot down, ol' Bubba, there, wouldn't leave my side. Came right in the house and would not be put out…and Bubba is
not
a house dog. That night and for a long time after that he slept on the rug beside my bed.”

“Shot down?” Caitlyn sat forward, frowning. She had a vague memory of C.J. telling her something about that, but
she rather thought she'd dreamed it. It had occurred to her to wonder why Jess and her daughter were living with Jess's mother, and what had become of the husband and father, but she would never in a million years have been so rude as to ask. “You mean…”

“Yeah…as in killed.” It was a gentle exhalation. “Didn't C.J. tell you? Tristan's officially listed as KIA, although they never did find his remains—and how they could
know
anything, considering he went down in Iraq….”

“I'm so sorry.” Such a loss seemed beyond imagining.

Jess let out another of those careful breaths. “That's okay. It was a long time ago—God, eight years. Sometimes I can't even believe it. But I have accepted it.”

“But you haven't remarried, or…”

“Or…?” The rocking chair's creak seemed to accent the question mark. “No, but it's not because I didn't—that I wouldn't have, if—” The chair creaked again, more like a protest this time.

“I'm sorry,” Caitlyn said quickly. “It's none of my—”

“No, no, it's okay—it's just that I haven't thought about it in a while, is all. It's not that I wouldn't have, if I'd found anybody I wanted.” She hesitated, then, “Problem is, Tris is a pretty darn hard act to follow.”

As she nodded her understanding, in her mind's eye Caitlyn pictured a smile, poignant and sad. Jess's, she wondered, or her own? She could imagine…had grown up in the shelter of such a love…could readily understand why someone who had known that kind of love would never settle for anything less. She couldn't imagine, for instance, either of her parents remarrying, should anything—God forbid!—happen to the other. She could understand…but would she ever
know?
Looking ahead at her own prospects for finding love like that, she saw only a vast and hopeless emptiness.