And there would always be small town gossips, with small town minds, glancing at her and tittering away every time she went shopping or to the movies. And she didn’t want to have to start dating again. She could imagine what it would be like. Every man in town would know about Miles, and wonder what was wrong with her.
And most of all, she didn’t want the kids laughing and making fun of her behind her back. No matter how much they seemed to understand the other day, and no matter how much they voted their approval of her with their applause, and no matter how glad they were that she was moving on to junior high with them, they were still children. They would laugh. It was only natural.
And she started to think about the dessert she had offered John Coffee earlier. She had wanted to go to bed with him in the worst way. Watching him move through the woods in front of her, she was starting to want him again. If only he was a little more rational, she thought.
And what about that monster of his that could change from an old woman into a wolf, or a bear, or any damn thing it wanted. What happened to this dark man to get him to believe in such a fairytale? Still a wolf did come crashing through her front window, and there were no wolves in these woods, at least there weren’t supposed to be. And the grizzly in the road. How could she explain that? She couldn’t, but neither could she accept werewolves or werebears or vampires in the night.
The breeze shifted, caressing her breasts and she found herself wishing it was his hands instead. I’m only human, she thought, and it’s only natural that I’d be thinking about sex. After all, I’m walking in the moonlight, nude, with a gorgeous man.
“ Can we rest a minute?” she said. She wasn’t tired.
Chapter Sixteen
“ Hey, Carolina, wake up,” Arty whispered across the gulf between the two beds. “It’s five-thirty, time to go.” He watched her roll over, rub her eyes, then open them.
“ Already?” she yawned.
“ I could go by myself?”
“ No.” She sat up and stretched, hands reaching for the ceiling. “I told you last night, I want to go.”
Arty had his shoes on and tied by the time she finished with the bathroom. He was ready to go and she surprised him when she pulled her nightshirt over her head, and walked over to her dresser, wearing nothing, but her panties. He quickly turned his head the other way.
“ For gosh sakes, Arty, there’s nothing to see. I’m only eleven,” she giggled as she pulled a sweatshirt over her head. “You can turn around now. I’ve got my shirt on.”
He turned his head.
“ Jeez Marie, Carolina, put your pants on.” He turned away again as she went to her closet for her jeans.
“ Okay, I’m dressed, except for my shoes, so maybe you better not turn around yet,” she giggled.
“ It’s not funny, Carolina.”
“ Okay, I’m sorry. I was just having a little fun. Don’t be a big stick in the mud.”
“ This is serious stuff, Carolina.”
“ Sorry.”
“ If you’re gonna come, you gotta be quiet and careful or we both might get dead.”
“ What if it doesn’t work?” she asked again.
“ Then we’ll probably both get dead anyway, so we gotta try.” He was halfway out before she was finished with her shoes, but he was having trouble finding the plastic milk crate with his foot.
“ What’s the matter?”
“ The crate’s gone,” he said, letting go and jumping down.
“ Who could have moved it?” Carolina whispered as Arty helped her to the ground.
“ Who do you think?”
“ Anybody could have come in here and moved it,” she said.
“ Sure,” he said, because he knew who’d moved the crate.
He led the way on his hands and knees, scooting through the bushes. He wished he had a flashlight, because he wanted to explore all the dark places between the two houses and see if he could spot the milk crate. The hair on the back of his neck stood up when he thought that maybe the wolf was back there with them, hiding in the bushes back by the fence. Watching and waiting. He felt better when he cleared the bushes and was standing up on the dew damp front lawn.
“ Ouch,” Carolina said and Arty jumped.
“ What?”
“ I scratched my hand,” she said as he helped her up.
“ Is it bleeding?” he asked.
“ I don’t think so. I wish they’d fix that streetlight, then I’d be able to see.”
Arty looked up and down the block. “I didn’t notice before,” he said, “but the only two lights working on your street are the ones at the corners. The two in the middle are out.”
“ Yeah,” she said, “it’s kinda spooky. I wish they would hurry up and fix them.”
“ Streetlights are never out more than a day. And you never see more than one out on a street. I oughtta know. When a light blows they fix it the next day, or the day after at the very latest. They’re real good about that. These lights have been off for three days.”
“ What are you saying?”
“ They were off Monday night, so they would’ve fixed ’em Tuesday or yesterday.”
“ Maybe they didn’t fix them?”
“ They fixed ’em. They never miss.”
“ Then why aren’t they working?”
“ The wolf lady,” he said.
“ The wolf lady,” she repeated.
“ Yeah.”
Carolina shivered and took Arty’s hand, a gesture that only a few days ago would have set his young heart thumping, but now seemed natural as rain. They drew strength and courage from each other as they walked the early morning streets toward his house.
“ There it is,” Arty said, pointing to a white house with a detached garage.
“ My papers aren’t here yet, so we’ll make the shells first.” He led her into the garage and turned on the light.
“ Kinda cold,” she said.
“ I got an extra jacket you can wear when we finish here.”
“ That it?” She pointed to a machine that looked like a combination food processor and meat grinder.
“ Yeah.” He opened a drawer under the counter and took out various sized boxes.
She watched as his expression turned serious. His fingers were nimble and it was obvious he knew what he was doing.
“ You’re supposed to weigh the powder,” he said, “but I never do. I’ve done this so many times I could do it blindfolded and asleep.” He dipped a tablespoon into the bag and shook the black powder off, till it was level on the spoon. Then he poured the powder into a brass shotgun shell with hands still and steady.
Arty had lined up ten empty shells along a wooden workbench in his father’s garage, although technically it wasn’t his father’s anymore, he thought, wondering if his dad was in heaven or hell, and betting it was hell. Anybody that could beat his wife and kids belonged in hell, ’cuz that’s why God made it.
He also wondered about Carolina’s father, and why he was in town secretly. Why had he shot the gun off in her front yard? Was he shooting at the wolf lady? Is that why he was here? To protect her? Was he the man in the tent at the end of the clearing, or was it someone else?
Arty picked up the first shell and set it under the machine.
“ It looks like a drill press,” she said.
“ How do you know what a drill press looks like?”
“ We had one in the garage in Atlanta. It belonged to the landlord.” Her teeth chattered a little and Arty noticed the goosebumps on her arms.
“ Want me to get the jacket now?”
“ No, I’ll wait.”
“ This is the wad column,” he said, talking to take her mind off the cold, “It’s used to separate the buckshot from the powder.” He inserted the plastic wad into the shell. “You gotta get a tight seal or else the pellets don’t get maximum velocity. That means they don’t go out of the gun hard enough to kill anything.” He was talking like a TV doctor during an operation.