Cal rubbed the fabric of her short sleeved jacket between his fingers. “Man, Aly, you look all grown up this summer. Fancy duds. I’m used to little Aly in shorts and T-shirts.”
Pretzeled into the small space, she still managed to elbow him in the ribs. She was only two years younger. “You see me stuck at fourteen when we met.”
Cal laughed, and she felt his chest rumble against her. “Maybe, but you sure didn’t
look
fourteen when we met
.
I had to keep reminding myself you were only in eighth grade.”
She swiveled her head so she could see his eyes in the shadow. “Really?”
“Let’s see,” Cal ticked off on his fingers, “freshman year you went with Grant Fallon—”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Soph it was Geoff Ramirez and Jon Archer. Then, I graduated and tried not to know who you were going out with.”
“You
liked
me?” Warmth bubbled up in her like a pan of homemade fudge on the stove. “—when you were painting me?”
“Duh.” Cal’s smile was lopsided.
And now he was painting Raine. She
closed her eyes and leaned her head against Cal’s arm. It was firm under her neck. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“So I could get in line?”
She didn’t move. The back of her head pressed against the desk. “Maybe there wouldn’t have been a line if you’d told me.”
The howl of the wind startled her alert. A shutter banged on the outside of the office. Then, rain pelted the building with the force of a pressure sprayer. She curled into Cal and he held her. The fear crept out of her body. She could stay here forever.
The rain eased off
first
, then the wind, until everything w
ent
eerily quiet.
She crawled out from under the desk and crossed herself. Thank God they were okay. Nothing like a twister to turn a girl religious. Raine would laugh at that.
Cal stretched, tugging his T-shirt taut across his chest.
Her breath caught. Something had changed for her during the twister. She’d always known Cal was an attractive guy. But Cal’s searching for her and protecting her in his arms had woken up emotions that had been sleeping on the floor of her soul for a very long time.
“Come on. Let’s go check out the damage.”
“Cal.”
He looked back at her.
“Thanks for telling me. It means a lot.”
“Sure, kid.” He flashed her a grin, threw an arm over her shoulder and moved them through the doorway.
Ancient history to him. Today to her.
#
Drew and Keenan were the last to leave the beach, digging their heels into the soft sand as though they were running in slow motion. The wind whipped around them blowing sand in their eyes. The last of the boys were already on the blacktop speeding away from them.
He pumped his legs harder. His bare feet hit a
sphalt. He took off for camp at a dead run, Keenan matching his strides step for step. Tree branches crashed in the distance. The wind howled behind them as they flew past the
Welcome to
New Smyrna Beach Surf and Sailing Camp
sign.
The camp
looked
vacant
, like it had been closed for the season—minus the boards
. He heard nothing but wind, then a shout through the dining hall screen. Bubba Franks’ crazy red head and one arm poked through the doors waving them in. They tore up the steps and through the swinging doors. Bubba jammed chairs against the doors while he and Keenan hurtled into the room.
“Drew!” Raine motioned him toward where she huddled under a table with the girls from her cabin. Keenan ducked under another table. Drew skidded to a stop and tumbled up against Raine. He dropped his head against his bent knees and sucked in air, his lungs feeling like fire. As his breathing slowed, he felt Raine’s hand rubbing circles on his back. Nice.
Wind filled the room causing the building to shudder. The swinging doors broke loose and smacked hard against the walls. Leaves and twigs flew up against the screens and in through the open doors. Water sprayed at them through the screens on three sides of the building.
And then, quiet. He melted against Raine in boneless relief. For a moment he felt nothing. Then guilt
for disobeying Jake’s order
rushed in like a mouth full of fluoride he couldn’t spit out.
As everyone crawled out from under the tables, Jesse raised his fist in the air, the signal for silence. He bowed his head. “Thank You
,
we’re all safe. We don’t know what we’ll find out there, but right now, we’re grateful for life! Amen.”
“Amens” echoed around the room. Jesse raised his fist again. “Elementary cabins clean up the dining hall and porch, the gazebo and the grounds between here and there. Junior high cabins…”
Drew glanced at Raine whose attention focused on
Jesse. He scanned the room looking for Jake
and spotted him moving
through the doorway—probably to assess damage to his baby, the
Smyrna
Queen
. He went after Jake. Best to get his apologies over as soon as possible.
#
In the split second of quiet after the wind left the dining hall, Raine felt Drew slump against her. He smelled like sweat and sea, and she realized somewhere along the way she’d become okay with sharing personal space with Drew. Then he was gone in the pandemonium of the kids climbing out of their cocoons.
As she scooted out from under the table, a hand reached out to her. She looked up.
Cal stood looking down at her. “You okay?”
She took the hand he offered. It felt thick and foreign, and she realized that this was the first time she’d held his hand. “Yeah. You?” She stood and he immediately let go.
Wariness flashed through his eyes and was gone. “I’m good.”
His gaze bore into hers, swirling with emotions
that
sucked her toward him
. What was he thinking? Around them counselors shepherded their charges into groups.
She cleared her throat. “Now you’re the one not saying five hundred words.”
“I—you’re beautiful, Raine.” He turned and threaded his way to the double
doors and out onto the porch.
#
“Jake!” Drew shouted. Remorse rose in his throat. What an idiot he’d been.
Jake stopped at the sound of his name and turned around in the gazebo.
He
jogged up to Jake. His breath came in short blasts as he peered at Jake’s furrowed brow, the dread in his eyes. “Everyone’s okay. But I need to talk to you.”
“Can’t this wait? I have to go see if the
Queen
made it through.”
“Jake, I got your note this morning about not taking the kids to the waterfront. But I took them anyway. I screwed up. I didn’t even
turn on the radio
.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I know you’re glued to the weather station twenty-four-seven. But I didn’t listen.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Man, I am so sorry.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
He looked at Jake. Shame and embarrassment curdled in his stomach. “Bubba left a healthy patch of skin on the asphalt. Stu kicked a rock; the end of his big toe split open and the nurse took him for stitches.” He hung his head.
“That it?”
He looked up. “Yeah.”
“Don’t let it happen again.” Jake’s face was granite as he stared at him. He turned and made a bee line for the parking lot leaving him to stew in his misery.
#
Aly swept the debris from the office steps with rhythmic strokes. The air had been washed clean by the water spout, and she felt a sense of wonder. How long had she felt this way about Cal and not realized it.
The first time she’d met him was at Kallie and Jesse’s rehearsal dinner. She’d been in eighth grade, Cal in tenth, and she thought he was the hottest guy she’d ever seen. If he would have asked her out that first year, she would have gone. He’d flirted with her, stopped to see her occasionally, randomly called her, but he never asked her out. Cal had been cool, even then, too cool to ask a junior high girl out. Sweep. Sweep. Sweep.
By the time she got to high school, she was already going with Grant Fallon. But Cal was always around. Even after he graduated, seldom did a week go by that they didn’t get together or have a long conversation on the phone.
He’d painted her for his senior project. She couldn’t even remember who she’d been dating then, but a week straight of a moody Cal had almost put her over the edge. There had been a funky tension in the room, and she’d wasted the week dreaming about kissing him.
When Cal finished the portrait, he kissed her forehead, and she went back to whoever it was she was seeing—because she could never be alone.
She stopped sweeping. And Cal had been into her that whole time.
She swept the last step clean, twirling the broom in a graceful arc overhead. This time she’d tell Cal how she felt.
Raine stood back as Cal scraped
the
wooden teacher’s chair into place in the middle of her classroom. He motioned for her to sit down. Even though she spent hours in this room every day, the scent of turpentine
and the fainter petroleum jelly
smell of paint made it feel like Cal’s.
His fingers gripped her shoulders, radiating warmth in every direction. He angled her into the sunset pouring through the open window. Placing her hands on the Bible in her lap, he stepped back to peer at her with the same intense look he’d worn since she walked in. He leaned toward her. The pads of his fingers pressed against her cheek moving her face a millimeter to the left.
Cal walked to his easel, but his touch was still on her skin. Orange light trapped her like a spotlight. Cal’s gaze unnerved her. He focused on the canvas, and she let the air out of her lungs. She watched him dab his brush into brown then red, blending them on his pallet.
Jeremiah 24:7 lay open on her knees. She read the words, praying them for Cal.
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
S
hadows lengthened in the room
. T
he clink of dishes being cleared away
in the dining hall, s
houts and the snap of
a
football on the athletic field drifted through the window. Somewhere, someone
sang a folk song
. Maybe it was Drew getting ready for the elementary kids’ campfire. She wished she was anywhere but pinned like a bug on a board
by Cal’s gaze
.
Please, Lord, give Cal a heart to know You.
“Praying?” Cal’s quiet voice boomed in the room.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you pray if God already knows?”
“Jesus told us to pray.” Raine shifted on the chair. “The ‘why’ doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Cal didn’t look up from the easel.
“I talk to God about the things I’m concerned about. He loves me and cares about what’s important to me.”
“If God is God, He’ll do what He wants no matter what you say.”
“He does what’s best for me.”
“
You believe that?”
Cal dipped his brush in paint the color of skin.
“You don’t?”
“What do you do when God says, ‘no?’
”
Like not taking her crush away? “Endure. God uses our suffering to shape our character.” She looked at the thick cords of blond hair that brushed his shoulders, the sun-bleached brows that stood out against the tan of his skin. White hair curled on his muscular arms. She was going to have some kind of character after spending the summer fighting her feelings.
Cal looked up and caught her staring. Her eyes darted toward the window, her cheeks burning. When she looked back at Cal, she saw a small smile playing at the edges of his mouth and eyes. It reminded her of one she’d seen and dismissed earlier.
“Why are you quizzing me on prayer?”
“You think I h
a
ve an ulterior motive?”
“You tell me.”
He sat on the table top behind him. “You were sitting there like you were afraid of your own skin. I wanted to paint your fire. Pretty much a no-brainer to get you going on a topic that lights your passion.” He shrugged and grinned at her.
Raine turned her face toward the bulletin board covered with crosses her elementary students had colored. Stupidity for having fallen for Cal’s manipulation warred against something entirely different. Cal saw something she didn’t see in herself—passion.