Unspeakable (43 page)

Now, leaving his footwear behind, he went into the kitchen and relit the candle he'd left on the table when he went out. Upstairs, he saw flickering candlelight coming through the partially opened bathroom door and heard David's voice. He knocked on the doorjamb and poked his head around.

"It's okay, Jack, you can come in."

The boy had just gotten out of the tub. The floor was strewn with wet towels. He was putting on his pajamas. "I got to take my bath with candles." Two were burning on the dressing table, one on the tank of the commode. They cast dancing shadows on the walls and ceiling. "It was cool. The candles make the bathroom look like a cave, don't they?"

David would think back on this entire evening as one big adventure. It had probably been as much fun for him as the postponed trip to Six Flags would have been. He was naive to the danger he'd been in while inside the trailer. Jack shuddered to think about what might have happened to David if he had been only one minute later arriving.

"Where's your mom?"

"Waiting for me to say my prayers."

"Then you best get to them."

"Will you come?"

"If you want me to."

He and David entered the boy's bedroom together. Anna was turning down the bed and looked at Jack inquisitively as he followed David into the room. She also looked fresh from a bath. She was dressed, but her hair was wet. Not from rain. A shampoo. She smelled like flowers, which only made it more noticeable that he smelled like the corral.

He shrugged self-consciously and pointed at David. "He, uh, wanted me to hear his prayers." David climbed into bed, adjusted his pillow, arranged the stuffed animals he had chosen to sleep with, checked to make sure his dinosaur book was within reach on his night-stand, then folded his hands beneath his chin, closed his eyes, and began reciting his prayers." Jack bowed his head and closed his eyes. He wished Anna could hear the sweet purity of her child's voice as he asked God's blessing on those he loved. Of all the things she missed hearing—

music and crashing waves and the wind through cottonwood trees—this was perhaps the thing she would most love to hear, and Jack's heart broke for her that she couldn't.

"God bless Jack and make him not leave."

Jack raised his head. He looked quickly at David, then at Anna. She must have been reading David's lips because she looked at Jack at the same moment, and when their eyes met she quickly looked away. Bending over David, she kissed him good night and signed that she loved him.

"I love you too, Mom."

"Night, David."

"Jack, are you going to be here in the morning when I wake up?"

"Sure. I'm counting on you to help me see what kind of damage that storm left us."

"Cool!"

Anna blew out the candle on the nightstand. David snuggled down into his pillow and closed his eyes. He was almost asleep before Anna and Jack reached the door.

Out in the hallway, they faced each other across their lighted candles. "This is going to seem very presumptuous. Presumptuous." he repeated when she signaled that she hadn't understood.

"Rude." She nodded. "Would you mind if I use your shower?" She motioned him toward the bathroom.

"Because the trailer... The trailer..."

She tilted her head to one side, a listening posture for hearing people. But her eyes were on his lips and that distracted him. "Uh, best I could tell, you lost most of the barn's roof. Insurance should cover it. Some fencing was ripped up. Goddamn if the thing didn't pull sod right out of the ground. I've never seen a tornado do that before. The toolshed is a total loss. Tomorrow I'll do a more thorough check. Sort of hard to tell how extensive the damage is in the dark and with this rain. I might have missed some things."

He followed her fingers as she spelled out the word trailer.

He looked away from her for a moment, then, knowing she would see it for herself in the morning, told her, "Smashed flat like a tin can that has been stamped on." She stared at his mouth as he said the words, and even for a moment longer. Then she lowered her eyes and stared at nothing. The water dripping from the leaky ceiling into the pots and pans produced a funny, discordant percussion she couldn't hear.

Jack almost touched her, but pulled back his hand just shy of making contact with her forearm. She saw the motion, however, and looked up at him again. "We got lucky, Anna." She glanced into David's room. Jack watched her throat as it worked hard to swallow. On the verge of tears, her head came back around to him.

"Going back to what we were talking about before," he said, "I'd like to shower if that's all right. Unless you'd rather..." He was so taken with the play of candlelight and shadow across her face, that his request dwindled to nothing.

When his lips stopped moving, she raised her eyes to his.

"Unless you'd rather I didn't."

" Help yourself," she signed, spelling out the words.

"Okay, then. And I'll, uh, I'll rack in my truck. It won't be the first time, and it's not that bad." Before he even stopped speaking, she was waving her hand for him to stop.

"What?"

She made the sign for sleep and pointed downstairs.

"On the sofa? You sure?"

She nodded.

He shifted from one bare foot to the other. "Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea. With the power off and all, maybe I should stay—"

She nodded more emphatically and a little impatiently.

Jack quit while he was ahead.

"Okay, then, well..." He stood there a moment longer, at a loss for what to say or do next, only knowing that he didn't want to say good night and separate just yet. "Well, I'll, uh, take that shower now and let you, you know, get to bed. You must be exhausted. Good night." She signed " Good night," then turned and went down the hallway toward her room, using her candle to light the way, stepping around the pans that had collected a good amount of rainwater already.

***

Jack stood beneath the shower for a long time, letting the hot spray beat against his skull, then between his shoulder blades, massaging out the tension. He soaped and rinsed and soaped again, then continued to stand under the water until it turned cool.

After drying, he slipped on a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt, spares he kept in the toolbox of his truck for just this sort of emergency. He wiped out the tub, and gathered up his and David's wet towels, intending to take them downstairs to the utility room along with his wet clothes. But when he stepped out into the hallway, he heard quiet sobs coming from Anna's room. He debated it. For about half a second.

Dropping his wet bundle on the floor, he moved down the hall and peeked into her bedroom. She had placed the candle on the nightstand and turned down the bed, but she was sitting in a rocking chair near the window, staring out at the rain, crying.

She was unaware of his approach until she saw his reflection in the windowpane. Startled, she quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks, stood, and turned to face him. "I don't want to disturb you, Anna. I just wanted to see if you were all right."

For a long moment she did nothing except look back at him. Finally she formed the sign for the letter b with her right hand, raised it to her lips, moved it forward and down, as though blowing him a kiss. " Thank you. "

"For what?"

She gave him a retiring look, then signed David's name.

Huskily Jack replied, "For Godsake, Anna, you don't have to thank me for that." She shook her head stubbornly and formed the sign again. Except this time, her fingers remained against her lips, which began to tremble, and as Jack watched, tears overflowed her eyes again.

"Hey. Hey." He took the steps necessary to reach her and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Everything's okay now. You were scared. Hell, I was scared, but nothing really bad happened. David is safe. That's all that matters."

From there it seemed only natural to draw her against him. Placing his hand on the back of her head, he tucked it beneath his chin. Her tears were absorbed into his T-shirt. Awkwardly, he patted her back. "Everything's okay. This is a delayed reaction to anxiety, that's all. If it makes you feel better to cry it out, you go right ahead. Bawl your eyes out. You've earned a good cry. I'll stay as long as you want me to."

As before in the cellar, she wasn't reading his lips, but the literal translation of the words was unimportant. Their meaning was understood. She laid her fingertips against his larynx, listening to him through her sense of touch. He kept talking, whispering actually, conveying his reassurances through vibrations.

"David scared the living daylights out of you, disappearing like that. And to make matters worse you had a tornado bearing down on you. But it turned out all right, didn't it?" She kept her head down, but her fingers moved up to his lips and rested there lightly, barely touching. "I can't say as I blame you for crying. I've felt like crying several times this evening. I got real choked up listening to his prayers. So I know how you feel." He rubbed her back in a circular motion. "Let it out. I'll be right here."

He stopped speaking but her fingertips remained against his lips. He kissed them softly. Then again. She turned her hand horizontally across his lips and he kissed her palm. When her hand moved to brace his jaw, he dropped a light kiss on her temple, then her cheekbone. Where his lips remained.

Forever.

While his heart raced like a son of a bitch.

He tilted his head down and across as she tilted hers up and across, and their lips grazed each other. They reversed angles and glanced off each other a second time, only not as rapidly. His arms tensed, tightening the embrace. Then, pressing her lips with his, he kissed her. He thought Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, because her mouth was soft and so sweet and temptingly receptive.

Moments later, it was he who initiated the exchange of tongues, but she responded favorably. Everything else in Jack's world receded. Worries and regrets fell away like unlocked leg irons. A curtain was drawn cross his history. He existed only in the here and now, immersed in Anna. His senses were saturated with her. The flowery smell clinging to her skin and hair. The feel of her small body curving into his. The incredible taste of her mouth. Nothing in his lifetime compared to this.

When it was snatched away, he reeled from the abrupt loss.

He opened his eyes to see her backing away from him, her lips rolled inward, her chest rising and falling rapidly. And he cursed himself for a goddamn fool. Yeah, he was caught up in it. He was crazy with lust. That didn't mean she was. Why should she be? Look at them. She was gorgeous and he was... well, sure as hell not gorgeous. She had been married, but there was a quality about her that was almost innocent, and he wasn't even close to that. Women's intuition being what it was, Anna would know he was the last thing she needed in her already complicated life. He raised one hand imploringly. "Anna, I apologize. I—"

He ceased talking when she tugged her shirttail from the waistband of her jeans and rapidly undid the buttons. He was immobilized first by shock, then by the sight of that smooth strip of exposed skin. Her breasts were covered, but they held the fabric away from her body, and that was sexier than if she'd been naked. Maybe. He still wanted to see her naked. She stood taut as a wire. Holding her breath. Expectant.

He moved toward her and slid his hands inside her blouse. They bracketed her rib cage for a few seconds while his eyes probed hers, then he pulled her against him and resumed the kiss. Her skin was as soft as he'd imagined it, her body as responsive as he'd hoped, her appetite for him as strong as his for her. Her arms went around his neck, and in that locked embrace he walked forward until she came up against the wall. Lowering his head, he kissed her neck, her chest, her breasts. She made a sound low and deep in her throat and he kissed that arched column before returning to her mouth.

She angled her middle up and forward to rub against his. He dropped his hands to the rear pockets of her jeans and raised her higher against him, pressed her tighter. With her hands on his shoulders, she pushed against him aggressively, rotating their positions until his shoulder blades were against the wall. She raised his T-shirt and pressed open-mouthed kisses on his chest and belly. He felt her tongue against his skin and when it flicked one of his nipples, it nearly took the top of his head off.

He fumbled with the buttons of his fly, but when they were undone, it was Anna who reached inside. He hoarsely called her name on a sound that could have been a laugh, or a sigh, but was definitely caused by pleasurable surprise. Her caress was a gentle squeeze that milked a drop of semen from him.

"Ah, God," he groaned.

His wits seemed to flutter away from him on a million rising wings. Knowing he couldn't take much more before he embarrassed himself, he reached for her hand and pulled it away, managing to pant, "I don't want to spoil it. I want to touch you, too." She must have understood him, at least the essence of it, because she led him to the bed, where she removed her blue jeans. As she stepped out of them she also took off her blouse. He could find no flaw in her, and that seeming perfection intimidated him.

He stood there feeling gauche and awkward, but she showed no such timidity. She slipped her hands inside the seat of his jeans and eased them down, smoothing her hands over his buttocks. His penis jutted between them; she studied it with frank interest. Between her small hands, his sex felt full and heavy and hard. This rampant evidence of his virility restored his selfconfidence. In fact, he was suddenly drunk with vanity. She had lovely breasts. Perfect, in fact. The nipples tightened against his caressing fingertips and tongue. He sucked them delicately as he skimmed her tummy with the backs of his fingers. His knuckles brushed past her navel.