looked to him as if they might be working on a smile.
A pleasant warmth spread through him, and he ducked his head and attacked his own hotcake stack with extra concentration on the off chance his sister might be watching him and catch reflections of it in his eyes.
With his peripheral vision he could follow Caitlyn’s progress as she picked up her knife and fork, gauged the size and location of the stack of hotcakes on her plate, cut off a chunk and lifted it to her mouth. Then he couldn’t help himself, he had to sneak another peek at her. This time her eyes were closed and there wasn’t any doubt about the smile. When the pink tip of her tongue emerged from between her lips to lick away a glaze of buttery syrup, his stomach growled and his mouth began to water in a way that didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with the food he was eating.
He took a careful breath and cast a guilty look across the table at Jess, and yep, sure enough, she was watching him like a hawk watches a mouse. No, not like a hawk, come to think of it; the expression on the face of his oh-so-superior, usually teasing big sister was a lot kinder and softer than that. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he wished to God she’d cut it out; she was making him squirm.
“So,” he said after he’d washed down his last bite of hotcakes with a big swig of coffee, “you’re getting around by yourself okay, then? Feelin’ okay?” When she’d nodded yes to both those questions, he said, “How’s your, uh-” and was pointing to his own temple when he realized what he was doing and added on “head.”
But just as if she
C.J. followed the gesture and felt a shock of surprise; it was as if he were seeing the bandages for the first time. They gave her a waifish, childlike look, he thought, like something out of a Dickens novel. Fascinated, he watched her fingers creep upward to pluck at the tufts of her hair. Like little golden rooster tails, he thought, or plumes of winter grass.
He was so taken up with watching those waving feathers that he forgot to worry about whether or not Jess and his mother were watching
Then he decided he didn’t care who watched him watch Caitlyn, because a little bit of a frown had appeared in the middle of her forehead, like a ripple in silk, and he couldn’t bring himself to take his eyes off it.
“What I was wondering-” she made a tiny throat-clearing sound “-what I’d really love to do is go outside. Do you think it would be-”
“I don’t see why not,” said Jess, getting briskly up from the table. “Long as you feel up to it. I’ve got to go to work, but C.J. or Momma can take you out after a bit.”
“I’ll take her,” C.J. growled, and he shot his sister a look to make it clear he considered that was his responsibility and nobody else’s. “I was planning on showing her around whenever she figured she was ready.”
Then he said to Caitlyn, and it came out a lot gruffer than he’d meant it to, “So, you want to go right now, or what?”
“Sure.” She pushed back her chair and stood up, and so did he. Then, of all things, she gathered up her dishes and was about to carry them to the sink when he moved to intercept her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he said, taking hold of the plate in her hands.
“Clearing my dishes. What does it look like?” She was hanging on to the plate, and there was a stubborn edge to her voice that matched the steely gaze she aimed at his chin.
“You don’t-” C.J. began, but his mother interrupted him.
“Plenty of time for that later, hon’. Nice of you to offer. Right now you run along and let Calvin show you around the place. It’s just a perfect time to be outdoors-the weather’s so fine. This is my favorite time of year, Calvin knows. Yellow-flower season is what I call it.”
C.J. barely heard what she was saying. He was too busy trying to figure out the look on Caitlyn’s face-several looks, really-different emotions that flitted one after the other across her face like images on a movie screen. A comical “So there!” look first, as if she was on the verge of sticking her tongue out at him. But then that vanished and he saw hope and wistfulness, sorrow and despair, but in such rapid succession he couldn’t be certain he’d seen them at all. And finally, an almost angry sort of puzzlement as she realized that her hands, which had somehow gotten tangled up with him while he was trying to relieve her of her load of dishes, had come to be resting on his arms.
He realized it, too, about the same time she did. He looked down and saw them there, her fingers rubbing back and forth in a questing sort of way, burrowing down through the sunbleached hair to reach the tanned skin underneath, and he froze, rooted fast to the spot. Although “froze” wasn’t anything like the right way to describe what he felt, the heat that was suddenly pouring through his body, the electricity skating around under his skin, the heavy thumping in the bottom of his belly. Terrible things to be happening to a man while his mother and sister were standing beside him; put it that way.
“You two go on, now, I’ll do the washing up,” his mother said, making shooing motions at them with the dish towel she was holding. “Calvin James, put on your shirt.”
Caitlyn had snatched her hands away from him and was rubbing them as if she’d touched something she didn’t like. “It’s warm out, isn’t it? I won’t need a jacket…” She sounded as if she didn’t have enough air to breathe.
“You aren’t gonna need a jacket,” C.J. muttered as he retrieved the T-shirt he’d left hanging over a vacant chair and pulled it over his head. He felt half-suffocated himself, his body blooming with heat and his heart pounding in a way it never did after the easy, one-mile run over from his place. He was good and angry with himself, and it came out in his voice when he snapped, “Are you ready? Well okay, then, let’s go.”
He felt sorry and ashamed for his sharpness when he saw the eager look on her face, and the searching, almost childlike way she reached for him with her hand. He took it and placed it in the crook of his elbow the way he might have returned a lost bird to its nest.
“Okay,” he said with a more gentle gruffness, “this is the back porch. Watch your step, now…”
The screen door banged behind them. Caitlyn held her breath to contain shivers of delight…of anticipation and, yes, of sheer joy. At the bottom of the steps she paused, and C.J., obeying the tug on his arm, paused with her. She inhaled deeply, lifting her face to the sun’s warmth. “Smells good,” she said inadequately. “Like fall.”
“Yeah,” said C.J. Then, as she heard the eager wuffs and snuffles and felt the bump of warm bodies against her legs, he said, “Guess I better introduce you to the dogs.” He paused, then went on talking as Caitlyn gave a gurgle of laughter and dropped to her knees in a wriggling, licking, wagging pile of friendly canines. “The big quiet one’s Bubba. He’s a chocolate Lab and he’s got yellow eyes-looks like a lion without a mane. He’s my brother Troy’s dog- you met his wife, Charly-but they live in Atlanta and he’s a whole lot happier out here. Can’t say I blame him. Anyway, he’s getting up there-must be about ten, now, so he’s normally pretty well-behaved. Also the brains of the outfit. The other one’s Blondie. She’s young and a golden retriever, and as far as anything not having to do with retrieving goes, dumb as a bag of rocks. Makes up for it by being pretty and sweet natured, I guess. Just don’t count on her to bring you home if you get lost. She’s as apt to lead you into a pond.”
The words startled her, though she doubted he’d meant the remark the way it sounded, or had any idea of the notion-the hope-of independence that flashed through her mind.
Before she could stop herself she jerked her face upward as if to look at him-an automatic response from a different life and futile now, of course-but it was to Blondie’s advantage and utter delight. A huge tongue slapped joyously across her face, and Caitlyn was caught between laughter, the instinct to cry for help and mercy and the practical need at that particular moment to keep her mouth shut.
She heard C.J. shout, “Hey, Blondie! Come here-fetch!” then give a little grunt of effort. The tongue retreated with a happy “Wuff!” and a scrabble of claws on gravelly ground.
Abandoned, Caitlyn teetered off balance and would have collapsed in a breathless, laughing heap except for the solid, furry body that moved in close to steady her at just the right moment. Nudged up against her side, Bubba gave her chin an encouraging lick as if to say, “You’re okay, now.
Murmuring, “Good dog…what a sweet ol’ boy you are…” she wrapped her arms around the big Lab’s neck and gave him a fur-ruffling rub. Then strong hands were under her elbows, and instead of the dusty, warm dog smell in her nostrils, there was that familiar, clean C.J. smell again. As he helped her up, just for a moment she felt the brush of his cheek-slightly beard-scratchy-against hers and the feathery tickle of hair. Something jolted under her ribs, and she caught at her next breath as if it were about to be taken from her.
