“It’s okay, Terry-Joe, I can make it,” she said. He jumped to hold the screen door for her, but since it opened out, he had to stand with his back against the inner door, arm extended. She had to turn sideways as well, which meant they again pressed against each other as she passed. She sensed the heat of his body through her clothes, and the same distinctive tingle announced itself. She also thought she felt his erection through their jeans. Both looked anywhere but at the other.
Then she was outside, in the bright sunlight, looking down at the yard she’d grown up on. She dropped heavily into a rocking chair, and dragged another one over to support her leg. The pain of moving was still severe, but there was that added sensation, the itchy sense of the presence of strange metal things in her body. Did that mean she was, in fact, healing? Was Bliss’s timetable accurate?
“You’re looking perkier,” Deacon said as he came around the end of the house. He was dusty from the cornfield, and his shirt had big sweat rings soaked into it.
“Thanks,” she said. “I do feel better.”
“That’s not what I mean. Your high beams are on.”
She looked down at the front of her T-shirt, then blushed anew. “Dad,” she said, trying to sound scolding.
He tousled her hair. “Ah, your mom does the same thing whenever that Australian guy comes on the radio. Beats me how a foreign guy named Urban can claim to be a country singer, but hey, I don’t make the rules….” He went inside.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into the sun. Well, the hell with it. It had been nice to feel like a live human being again, even if it was for an instant, even if it was due to a jailbait boy three years her junior. He was cute, and sweet, and apparently good with his hands, if he was working on her wheelchair. Why not get a little horny from that?
Then she recalled the handsome young minister and sighed with renewed shame. She never had much sense of propriety to begin with, but had she lost it all now?
“Hey, Dad!” she called. “Could you bring me a cup of coffee?”
“Get it yours— Oh,” he answered. “Yeah, right, forgot. Sure thing.”
A moment later the door opened, only instead of Deacon, Terry-Joe appeared holding a cup on a saucer with both hands. It still didn’t keep the two pieces of porcelain from clattering. “Uh… here,” he said as he extended the cup to her. “Finished your chair, too. Should roll a lot smoother now.”
She placed it on the small table beside her. “Thanks. You’ve changed a lot in the past two years, Terry-Joe.”
“You, too. You didn’t have an oil rig on your leg last time I saw you.”
She smiled. “That’s a fact. So shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I graduated in the spring. Doing odd jobs until the fall, when I go to college at UT.”
“And Dwayne?” She tried to make the question innocuous, but there was no hiding the catch in her breath when she said his name.
“He’s still around. Out on parole, not that he’s acting like that matters. Want me to tell him anything?”
“No,” she said quickly. She felt far too weak, in every sense, to deal with Dwayne Gitterman. “I’ll catch up with him one of these days.”
Terry-Joe put his hands in his jeans pockets and seemed about to say something. Finally Bronwyn prompted, “What is it?”
He leaned close. “Bliss also wants me to, ah… teach you.”
“Teach me?” she repeated, eyes wide.
“Mandolin,” he added quickly. “Help you relearn how to play. She said you were having trouble with that.”
“She did.”
He nodded.
“I didn’t know you played.”
He shrugged. “I don’t talk about it much.”
“I never saw you at the barn dance.”
“Back then I didn’t want to go because Dwayne was around.”
She nodded. “That makes sense. Well, mine’s under my bed. Go get her and let’s hear you.”
He retrieved Magda, sat on the porch steps, and spent a moment getting the feel of the instrument. Then, with no introduction or warning, he launched into a blistering instrumental version of “June Apple.” He stared into the middle distance, not watching his fingering. He played with the certainty of instinct married to skill, and Bronwyn’s mouth dropped open in response.
In the kitchen, Deacon heard the music and smiled. Chloe came in the back door, and he swept her into his arms and kissed her passionately.
She responded, her arms twining around his neck. When his hands began to roam knowingly, she quietly warned, “There’s kids just outside.”
“Then we best be quick and quiet,” he said as he nibbled her neck.
She giggled. “You’re never quiet.”
On the porch, Terry-Joe finished with a flourish and looked up to see Bronwyn’s reaction. She clapped, genuinely delighted. “Wow, Terry-Joe, you’ve been hiding that light under a bushel, all right.” Then she made a gesture, fingers curled in a specific way, she hoped he would recognize. But his expression didn’t change.
He stood, dusted off his pants, and extended Magda to her. “Want to try?”
She shook her head. “Not now.”
“Bliss wants me to—”
“And I will, Terry-Joe, just… not now.” She looked away. “I’m supposed to get this monster off my leg this weekend. Come by next Monday and I’ll seriously try, okay?”
He nodded. “Okay. ’Scuse me while I put this away.” He went back inside.
She watched robins dancing across the still-damp lawn as they sought worms. She’d known Terry-Joe wasn’t a full-blooded Tufa; he was close, but that difference could be crucial. Why would Bliss send someone like him to teach her? She was a First Daughter, after all. But Bliss would have her reasons, and most likely they would become clear later on. All she could do was wait, and endure, two things the Tufa mastered long ago.
Terry-Joe returned, followed by Chloe. “See you Monday, then,” he said as he went down the steps, awkwardly stumbling at the bottom. He rushed to his dirt bike propped under the tree and zipped off down the driveway.
Chloe shook her head. “That boy has a crush on you, you know.”
Bronwyn nodded, frowning at her mother. Chloe’s hair was disheveled, and her shirt was now on inside out. “He has since he was fourteen and caught me skinny-dipping with his brother.”
Chloe took several quick, deep breaths, as if calming down after some exertion. “Have you heard anything from Dwayne?”
“No, and I don’t want to. I’ve seen enough combat to do me for life.”
“Good,” Chloe said as she sat down on the steps. “That boy was bad news on toast. I wouldn’t have swerved to miss him if I’d seen him lying in the road.”
“He wasn’t that bad, Mom.”
She looked up at her daughter with the clear, steady eyes Bronwyn always feared. “He’s wired backwards, Bronwyn. He smiles when someone’s hurt.”
“Well, he won’t be around anymore.” Then she took a deep breath and added, “And some people worry the same about you.”
Chloe nodded. “I know. There’s been some signs. But there’s two things to remember: One, a sign can mean more than one thing, and sometimes we read them wrong. And two, nothing’s set in stone. The night wind don’t blow the same way twice.”
Bronwyn nodded at the charm hanging inert in the still morning air. “And better safe than sorry.”
Chloe smiled and undid the tie holding her black hair. “I’ve seen you and Kell graduate high school. I intend to see Aiden. Like to see grandkids before I’m done.”