Authors: I. R. Johannesen
Despite his lack of sleep, Crank got up early, around five a.m., and made a thermos of hot coffee before going for a walk down to the lake to clear his head before breakfast. It was his first opportunity to see the lake in the flesh, rather than in the coloured brochures, and he was absolutely gobsmacked by its breathtaking natural beauty. At this time of the morning the lake looked absolutely picturesque. The surface was as smooth as glass and covered in a fine mist. And dotted throughout the lake, as far as the eye could see, were literally thousands of massive, bald cypress pines jutting up out of the water amongst the water grasses and reeds like ancient monoliths.
S
hielding his eyes from the early morning glare, he looked up into the thick branches of a moss covered Cypress just a few yards from the shoreline to gaze at a roosting flock of swamp birds all sitting patient and still in the cool morning air as if waiting for a stray catfish or bass to swim close enough to the surface for them to catch in their powerful beaks.
A
s Crank glanced ahead along the boardwalk that meandered around the edge of the lake he spotted a small wooden jetty with an old dinghy tied to its moorings, about fifty yards ahead, and made his way around to it to sit down and drink his coffee.
‘This is where
I should be focusing my attention,’
he reminded himself, as he checked the seaworthiness of the old dinghy with the idea that if it wasn’t too far gone he could use it to go fishing,
‘rather than on Clare and Willow. The lake would be here for as long as he needed it and what’s more it was far less likely to break his heart. Nonetheless
,
he had promised Clare he would take her and Willow into Karnack so she could get her SUV repaired and he had also promised to take them fishing; two promises he was now obliged to keep, especially since he had always prided himself on being a man of his word. But once Clare’s car was fixed and he had taken them to the lake and showed them how to fish he would slowly distance himself from them before he got too involved in their lives. That way he would not be able to get attached enough to get hurt again.
Once
Crank had made the decision to put some distance between himself and the Bennett’s over the next few weeks he instantly felt better, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His plan for the day was to drop Clare and Willow off in Karnack to buy the supplies they needed while he grabbed the radiator, the new hoses, and some tools and headed back to Ferry Lake Road to fix their vehicle. Then, when it was fixed, he would pick them up and drop them back at Clare’s SUV so she could finally drive it back to their cabin. That only left the fishing trip he had promised them; not such a difficult task considering his love of fishing. He was free tomorrow so he may as well get it over and done with. After that he would be polite and say ‘hello’ whenever he saw them at the lake or in Karnack, but he would make up a suitable excuse if they ever tried to invite him anywhere again. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them or enjoy their company, it was just that right now he was feeling very vulnerable and getting involved in their lives would only lead to more heartache.
***
Soon after knocking on Clare’s cabin door, Crank was greeted by Willow’s smiling face. “Mama’s in the shower,” she said cheerily, “but you can come in and take a seat if you like? I don’t think she would mind now that you’re our neighbour.”
She reached out
, grabbed his hand and led him through into the dining room. “Mama cleaned out the fridge last night after I went to bed and filled a jug with water. Can I get you a cold drink?”
“Thanks,” Crank said gratefully. “I am a little parched.”
Willow skipped off into the kitchen. “Would you like to use your favourite cup again?” She held up the hand-painted cup she had given him the night before.
“You
betcha!” he smiled.
A few minutes later
, after handing him his drink, Willow skipped off to her room to retrieve Mr Truffles, who she informed Crank was coming for a drive to Karnack, and while she was gone Crank moved across from the dining room to the small sitting room to wait for her and Clare on the sofa.
“Willow, Honey, could you please look through
Mama’s suitcase for the hair …”
As she spotted Crank she froze. “Crank!”
she exclaimed, clutching the bath towel tighter to her breasts. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon. I’m so sorry, please forgive me.”
But
her words were hardly registering. He had thought that she had looked hot last night in old jeans and a t-shirt, but seeing her damp and almost naked except for a small bath towel was almost doing his head in. Her shapely long legs seemed to go on forever and he found himself almost wishing that, by some act of god, the towel would drop so he could see the rest of her – explore the rest of her with his hands and mouth.
Instantly he
did the gentlemanly thing and turned away, but not soon enough. He felt himself getting hard in his jeans and cursed inwardly.
‘What was it about Clare Bennett that was making his body react this way? He wished he knew.’
Five minutes later
Clare emerged from her bedroom fully dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and t-shirt with her straight, shoulder-length, brunette hair now dried and brushed. “I’m so sorry for coming out in a towel before,” she apologised for a second time. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here except Willow. I guess I should have been more careful?”
The drive into Karnack was relatively quiet except for Willow, who g
ave Mr Truffles a continual running commentary of the view from her window. “He likes me to tell him about all the things I can see because he’s too short to see out the window for himself,” she explained to Crank.
“I see,”
he said, trying hard not to laugh.
“Yes,” Clare added
, winking at Crank. “Mr Truffles got a running commentary all the way from Houston to Karnack as well.”
Crank
smiled at Clare knowingly before looking back at Willow through the rear vision mirror and raising a brow. “So, Willow, what do you think of the cabin?”
“It’s great!” she beamed
excitedly. “Only we haven’t been down to the lake yet. Mama said she will take us for a walk later this afternoon after our car has been fixed. Would you like to join us?”
Crank felt a twinge of guilt.
Given his recent decision to spend less time with Clare and Willow, he tried to think up a quick excuse to avoid hurting Willow’s feelings. “I might have to take a rain-check on that walk if you ladies don’t mind?” he said casually. “There are a few repairs around my cabin that need doing urgently so I thought I might make a start on them this afternoon when I’ve finished repairing your radiator.”
For a fleeting second Crank thought he saw disappointment on Clare’s face, but soon dismissed it as nothing more than his imagination considering that he and Clare had only just met. To distract himself from staring at her, he looked in the rear vision mirror and saw
Willow looking at him blankly. “But Crank why do you have to check if it’s raining, the sky is blue.”
This time he couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. He look
ed up into the sky through the windshield. “Why you are absolutely right Willow; it’s completely blue without a cloud in the sky; how silly of me!”
Willow’s
eyes and smile grew bigger. “Does that mean that instead of doing a raincheck you
will
join us for a walk to the lake after all?” she asked, holding her breath in anticipation as she waited for his answer.
Crank
looked across at Clare, and saw that her face was now lit up with a beaming smile as big as her daughter’s. “I guess in that case I can come for a walk with you and your Mama to the lake after all,” he said, smiling back at her in the mirror. “Especially now that I’ve figured out that there’s no darn rain around to spoil anything.”
***
After picking up the new radiator and hoses from the garage and purchasing the tools he needed to do the job from the local hardware store, Crank dropped Clare and Willow off near the centre of town and headed back east along Highway 43 to where they had left Clare’s SUV on the side of Ferry Lake Road. He had estimated that the job would take him no longer than two hours and had arranged to pick them up where he had dropped them off in Karnack by eleven a.m. Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on the bolts that held the old radiator in being badly corroded and by the time he had finished replacing them and refilling the new radiator he was overdue to pick up Clare and Willow by more than half an hour.
Like the previous day, the weather was hot and sticky and Crank had long ditched his faded t-shirt in a futile attempt to keep cool.
But as he was fetching it from the passenger seat of his 4WD he noticed there were more than a dozen missed calls on his cell phone, all from his sister Macey.
“What’s wrong?” he asked light heartedly
when Macey eventually picked up the phone. “Don’t tell me you miss me already?”
“CRANK, THANK GOD
! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” She sounded almost frantic.
Crank couldn’t remember the last time he had heard Macey sound this upset. “Hey Mace
,” he said soothingly, “what’s wrong?”
Instantly Macey broke down and began sobbing. “It’s
Eli, he’s been involved in a car accident on the freeway south of Austin.” For a few long seconds the phone went quiet.
Crank’s heart started hammering in his chest.
“Mace, are ya there? Mace, talk to me.”
“Crank, I’m so worried,
” she cried. “They’ve put him in an induced coma because of the swelling on his brain. The doctors say if the swelling doesn’t start to subside in the next few days he may suffer permanent brain damage.”
Crank
raked his hand through his sweat-soaked hair and tried to clear his mind. “Mace, do you want me to head back to Austin? There’s a few things I need to take care of first before I can leave the lake, but I could be back by six or seven this evenin’ if you need me to?” He suddenly felt so completely useless being clear across state, but there was little he could do.
“No, Crank,
Eli’s parents and his sister, Jane, have just arrived at the hospital and they’re being very supportive, besides there’s nothing much you could do here anyway ‘cept sit around with the rest of us and wait.”
He wasn’t convinced. “Are
ya sure you’re alright? I don’t mind heading back if I’m needed?”
There was a slight pause. “Crank,”
Macey said at last, “would you mind having the boys up at the lake with you for the next week or so? What I really need is to stay here in Austin to be close to Eli when he gains consciousness, but I don’t want to leave the boys at the ranch all on their own. They’re worried sick about their daddy, just like I am.”
Crank grabbed his t-shirt
and wiped the drips of sweat from his face. “Of course I will. Would you like me to drive back down to Smithville to pick them up?”
“No.
My neighbour, Phyllis Graham, has helped them pack a bag of clothes each and their toiletries and she’s bringing them to the hospital. There’s a bus leaving Austin in an hour and it can take them as far as Marshall. Could you pick them up from there?”
Crank breathed a small sigh of relief. Marshall was just a little over a half hour’s drive from
Karnack. “Yeah, that’s no problem, what time are they due to arrive?”
There was another
slight pause. “Crank, sorry, I was just checking the bus timetable. It should arrive in Marshall at around seven this evenin’. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, no problems, I’ll be there
,” he promised. “You just take care of Eli and let me worry about Edward and Michael, and keep me informed.”
As
Crank hung up his cell phone, he heard the loud rumble of a V8 engine shifting down through the gears and pulling off the road onto the shoulder behind him. As he turned to investigate he recognised the old classic Chevy Camaro as belonging to Brodie, the young mechanic from the garage where he had picked up the new radiator and hoses. A few seconds later the doors opened and Brodie, Clare and Willow all alighted from his vehicle.
Without bothering to put his shirt
back on, Crank immediately jumped out of his 4WD and walked over to apologise to Clare for running late.
Clare watched mesmerised as he headed toward her. With a will of its own, her gaze wondered over his large biceps and strong, broad shoulders and then moved down to his perfect six-pack, stalling on the crooked line of hair that started at his naval and disappeared under the soaked band of his jeans.
“Clare, I’m so sorry that I didn’t make it back into town at the time we arranged,” he apologised. “It’s just that most of the bolts holding the radiator in place were badly corroded so the job took a lot longer than I thought and then just as I was about to head back I received some bad news.” He used his balled up t-shirt in his hand to wipe the sweat from his eyes and Clare felt small jolts of electricity just watching.
“
My brother-in-law, Eli, was involved in a serious car accident this morning just outside of Austin and he’s been placed in an induced coma because of swelling on his brain.”