Gathering String Read online

  Halfway up, just as they reached the landing, a flash of lighting hit nearby with an electric crack, and she flinched, grabbing his arm. The light over the stairs went out, and the stereo stopped, but Jack laughed softly and swung her into his arms, holding her easily. “It’ll be alright,” he whispered. “This old house has seen a thousand storms like this.” Even in the dark, he knew the way so well he didn’t so much as pause. Brushing the bedroom door open with his shoulder, he put her down in the center of the huge bed. The lightning seemed to be in the room, illuminating them in bright, blinding flashes, the thunder nearly constant. She came to her knees reaching for him, pushing his shirt up, running her hands up and over the smooth, taut muscles of his chest, again and again, pausing only to press her fingers hard and deep against the broad width of his heavy shoulders.

  His fingers moved quickly down the line of tiny buttons on her blouse opening it and tossing it aside. He fingered the long chain she wore underneath and would have lifted it over her head, but she caught his hand, whispering, “Leave it.”

  In the flashing light, his face did indeed seem like sculpture, the fine contours of his cheekbones and chin clear and sharp. With an easy snap, he flipped open the front closer of the silky bra she wore. As he lowered his head, she felt the soft growl deep in his throat under her fingertips. He pushed her back, letting his weight pin her to the bed, holding her still while his hands moved over her, pulling away the rest of her clothes. “Beautiful, so beautiful,” he murmured over and over.

  She stretched herself out, offering every inch, delighting in the feel of his long, smooth, stroking hands, his lips and tongue following where they had gone, warm and moist. This was exactly what she wanted from the first moment she saw him. She wanted to see his broad shoulders rise above her, feel his arms circling her, holding her tight in his grasp.

  The thunder was a distant rumble when the phone on the nightstand rang. “Don’t answer it,” she murmured, drowsy against his chest, listening to the slowing drum of his heart.

  “I think I’d better.” He reached over her, pulling up the receiver with, “Yeah?”

  She could hear a man’s voice, talking excitedly, and Jack replied, “No, Wayne, there’s nothing wrong …” In response to another question, he cleared his throat. “I was almost asleep, that’s all …” She snickered, and under her cheek she felt him catch his breath to keep from laughing. “Of course the yard light’s out. There’s no power … Yeah, I saw the funnel, but it didn’t touch down. No, we’re, uh, everything’s fine. I haven’t been out, but I don’t think there’s any real damage.” She started to giggle again, but stopped abruptly when he replied to something else with, “No, no need to come over. I’m just going to call it an early night for a change.”

  When he hung up, she asked, “Who is Wayne?”

  “Wayne lives the next section over, and was watching the same clouds we were. He and Pauline just came up from the basement.”

  She rose up on an elbow to ask, “And were Wayne and Pauline really going to come over here?”

  The medal she wore glinted in the fading lightning flashes, and he smiled slowly, reaching out to catch the disk that dangled between her breasts. “Well, they might have if I hadn’t picked up. They didn’t see the yard light and just wanted to make sure I hadn’t been blown away.”

  Her eyes went wide with amusement. “Are they always so curious about such personal matters?” He laughed. “You’ve got an awful lot of people minding your business, you know that, Westphal?”

  He shrugged. “I guess it got to be kind of a habit with folks around here.” Then, squinting, he tried to make out the markings on the medallion, asking, “What is this?”

  “That is St. Francis de Sales, and he was a gift from my father when I graduated from Brown. Dad’s a devout Catholic. I, however, am lapsed, but I promised him I would always wear it.”

  “Ah, and why St. Francis, who I must say is a very lucky fellow.”

  “He’s the patron saint of journalists, and he's there for my protection.”

  Gently he raised the medal to his lips and said softly, “Well, I agree with your dad. Keep him right there. You should always be protected.” Tenderly, he pulled her close and kissed her, then said he was hungry, and went to the kitchen in dark. He came back with candles, potato chips and beer that was still cold in spite of the dead fridge. They ate and drank by candlelight in the middle of his king-size bed.

  It continued to rain the whole night long and they made love again and again, with all the pent-up need of two people who had been alone too long. He was an ardent, generous lover, a delightful mix of intensity and playfulness, strength and finesse. Somewhere near dawn, they both finally fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

  Chapter 11

  In spite of their jobs, the long drives between their homes, and getting ready for Dolly Timm’s gallery opening, Jack and Tess spent more and more time together. She loved his house. He encouraged her to explore every room. In one of the upstairs bedrooms, where Jack had set up his weight equipment, she nodded toward the glassed-in half-room, separated from the bedroom by French doors. The windows went floor to ceiling, around three of the four sides. “What’s out there?”

  “Just the old sleeping porch. Back before the house had central air and combination windows, they’d put on screens in the summer, and on hot nights folks would sleep out there.”

  She cracked the door and stepped out. “What great light with the northern exposure. It would make a fantastic studio.”

  “For your painting?”

  “Oh yes. It would be perfect.”

  “You talk a lot about it. Why aren’t you doing more?”

  She sighed. “I’d love to. But I don’t have this great space.” He didn’t smile as she expected he would. “Besides, my job gets in the way.” She looked moodily out at the yard and orchard below the windows and muttered, “Sometimes I feel like just a piece of fucking photographic equipment.” She turned to see his eyes had narrowed at her choice of words and understood how harsh she sounded. “I know. I should be happy. There are so many laid-off photojournalists, not to mention a new flock graduating every year, who would give anything to get a crack job at a good paper for half what I’m paid. I shouldn’t complain.”

  The next weekend she spent there, she found the room cleaned out and a new easel in place of his weights. “Where are your things?” she gasped, stunned, delighted.

  “In the basement. I don’t need good light to lift.” She would have protested, but he pulled her into his arms. “I just want to give you a good reason to keep coming all the way out here.”

  “I already had a good reason.”

  His smile deepened. “Then I want to give you two. Bring your paints. I like the idea of this being your studio.” When he leaned down to kiss her, he slipped a key to the front door into her hand.

  She immediately went to work on the picture of the wet wheelbarrow covered in cherry blossoms. She wasn’t sure which pleased him more, coming home to find her there, one of his old dress shirts covering to her knees as she worked, or watching the painting come together.

  It was a great place to work. The light really was fantastic, and the profound quiet allowed her to focus completely. Even when Jack was home, there was an unspoken understanding that each would pursue their own interests. He had a million things that kept him busy, if not working in his office on Journal business or reading other news sites online, then outdoors cutting grass, trimming trees, or keeping up the outbuildings, Rover following dutifully. Later, when both were ready, they’d come together in easy companionship, sometimes to talk about what they’d been doing, sometimes not.

  When he was in the house, the music was always on, and his eclectic taste amused her. Sometimes U2, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bach, Springsteen or Dylan came floating out of the speakers in her workroom. Or, just as likely, Vivaldi, Guns ‘N Roses, Rush or Aretha Franklin. With Jack, you never knew. He had three TVs, but if he turned one on at
all, it was to watch a ball game. Otherwise, they went mostly unused.

  He gave her a key to the Journal, too, so she could use the huge, old-fashioned darkroom. Thelma groused every time Tess came in. Jack ignored her, uneasily aware that Tess was finding the interest of the townsfolk more than a little intrusive.

  She met more and more of his friends. There were a lot of them, and not just from Lindsborg. In June, Buddy Tolliver, who had played center on the same Iowa State team as Jack, was named head coach at St. Louis University. Most of the old team met at a Des Moines sports bar to celebrate.

  Watching the noisy camaraderie from a quiet spot near the bar, she saw a different side of Jack, louder, a little cocky, the one they all looked to still to set the tone.

  It wasn’t until Buddy got up and joined her that she had a chance to really talk with him. She knew he’d been Jack’s closest friend, knew they were roommates all through college. He said, "They're already getting rowdy.” It was clear he was the quiet one of the group.

  She smiled and nodded toward his outstretched arm, as he took his beer from the bartender. “Tell me about those tats.” She noticed his right bicep bore the same tattoo as Jack’s. “Jack just shrugs whenever I ask him.”

  His grin was a little self-conscious. “Ah, well, I guess they were sort of our last hurrah.” She raised her eyebrows to encourage him. “Got ‘em about four in the morning, after we’d drowned our sorrows in tequila at a downtown Kansas City dive, the night we played our last game.”

  “Was it close?”

  Tolliver shrugged. “Lost to Duke by ten. I rolled my ankle early and didn’t play for shit. Jack fouled out with a little over a minute left, trying to draw a charge. After that, there was nothing left to do but get tattoos.”

  “But just you and he got them. No one else?”

  He laughed softly. “Well, we were the last two still standing, know what I mean? The place had a big old sign outside saying not to bother coming in if you were drunk, but we were determined. I’ll say this for Jackie, he can act sober better than any drunk I’ve ever seen. He probably won’t say much about it because it’s all a little fuzzy.”

  “Do they all call him Jackie?”

  Buddy shook his head. “Only me and Governor Erickson and a few folks from his hometown. That’s what his dad always called him.”

  “You knew his family?”

  “I wish I had, but I only met them once, earlier on the night of the accident.”

  For a moment they were quiet, watching the table erupt in laughter at something someone said. Then she asked, “What was it like for him, Buddy?”

  Tolliver still watched his friends, and she had to lean a little closer to hear. “That’s when he stopped sleeping. He couldn’t be still. If he wasn’t on the court, he was slamming away at the books all night, or out in a little Jag he bought with some of the life insurance money, driving like he could outrun his own thoughts. He’d go home because he needed to be surrounded by their things, just wanted to hide under what was left behind, I suppose. But he’d nearly go crazy with the emptiness and quiet. I went back with him sometimes, trying to help.” A vague smile came to his lips. “Not easy for a shy guy like me. A big black man in that little farm town drew a lot of stares.”

  She said softly, “In a different way, I’ve sampled some of that myself.”

  “I bet you have. That town keeps an eye on Jackie. But they’re well meaning, and they were right to be concerned for him. I don’t know if he’d have made it without them and Swede Erickson. You know, the hardest thing the rest of us had to get over was losing in the Final Four. But for Jack, loss was a whole different world.”

  She nodded, well aware of what he meant.

  She also saw more of Governor Erickson. She knew from the start that he and Jack were close. Erickson had stepped in, a guiding hand that helped keep Jack on track through the worst. Now they seemed to drift between an older brother/younger brother relationship and adult friendship. Erickson was always full of advice, though Jack rarely asked for any. Tess liked Swede for the fact that he’d opened his home and shared his family with Jack. Unlike the gossipy townsfolk, Augusta Erickson’s interest in the couple felt more grandmotherly than snoopy. Her kind-hearted observations seemed more practical than prying.

  It amazed Tess, when she had a minute to think about it, how quickly and naturally Jack made himself a fixture in her life. And finally, after months of getting calls from the guard at the Record’s front desk saying Jack was in the lobby, or finding him waiting patiently on her front steps when she came home in the evenings, she had a key to her house made for him.

  “Well,” he gave her that slow grin, “I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see one of these.”

  “But you never asked for one.”

  “I figured you’d get around to it when you were ready. Now I feel privileged.”

  “You should. The only other guy that’s ever had the key to my place is my father.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Not even the guy you stood in line for?”

  She shook her head. “But I thought you never wanted to hear a word about him.”

  “Good point.” He came to her, his face serious as he leaned down to brush his lips to hers. Holding the key up, he said, “I won’t take it lightly.”

  The first time Tess woke in the middle of the night to hear his key in the lock, she was startled, and hurried out to the landing to find him nearly at the top of the stairs. Before she could speak, he grabbed her close and whispered, “Couldn’t sleep without you.” After that, it wasn’t unusual for her to wake to find him slipping into her bed to wrap his arms around her, having driven down late after he’d finished at the Journal. Always he was up early to rush back. In no time, they were spending more nights together than apart, him driving down to Des Moines during the week, her coming up on the weekends. Sometimes when she came in from a night shoot, she’d find him asleep on her sofa, having drifted off reading with his laptop in front of him on the coffee table. When she woke him, he always denied being tired.

  But she knew it was stressful, splitting his focus, because she was feeling it herself. In the days before the gallery opening Tess felt overwhelmed. Naturally Dolly wanted more of her attention, calling several times a day with details from lighting to guest lists. Jack had helped her pick several of the pieces to be displayed, and to Tess’s delight, one had already sold to a friend of Dolly’s.

  Work got the short shrift. When she first started out, she was excited by each assignment, but now every shoot was pretty much like the last. For days on end, she slipped into a kind of autopilot while she worked, not thinking of much beyond the mechanics of the job.

  The Lindsborg gossips still appalled her, and it was obvious they went out of their way to make sure she knew their gimlet eyes were glued to her and Jack. But she tried to shrug them off, knowing as soon as she was headed back to Des Moines they'd be forgotten. As far as she was concerned, the stresses they lived with were just the price paid for the happiness they shared. And she was willing to keep paying it.

  Then the accident brought her up short.

  It was Indian summer, hot for mid-September, and for Jack the day started a little after 4 a.m. with a call about a burning machine shed full of equipment on a nearby farm. He rushed to get there, then went straight to the office to process the pictures, post the video and write, not even taking the time to go home to shower off the smell of smoke. It looked like arson, and it took a number of phone calls to the state fire marshal’s office to connect with someone who had a clue how the investigation would begin.

  While he worked on the story, he was vaguely aware of Thelma and Laramie carrying on about a front-page picture in the Record. At one point, as Thelma stomped past his desk on her way to her office, she fired off at him, “You had a look at what that girlfriend of yours has been up to? That hideous picture on the Record’s cover is hers.”

  “She has a name, Thel,” Jack called back, continuing
to type as he spoke. “It’s Tess, OK? Her name is Tess.”

  “Well, whoever she is, she’s got some nerve.” Thelma slammed the door.

  Tess had been on the road the last few days, picking up shots for a couple features from the southern part of the state. Their phone conversations had been short, their schedules not jibing well for their usual long talks, so Jack wasn’t really aware of what she’d been working on. He’d intended to grab the Record to take a look at what the fuss was about, but first he had a meeting with a new client and the web developer. After that, he hurried to edit one of Laramie’s notebook-emptying stories that wandered to hell and gone. That took him right up to press time, which was hectic as usual. After that there were a litany of voice mails to return, postings to make to the website and a couple stories he still needed to write. It was after nine when Jack finally had a moment to snatch the folded morning Record off the counter and take a look.

  At first glance, it appeared to be a wide, panoramic shot of a beautiful sunset. But then his stomach rolled over at the central focus. Right in the middle of the purple and crimson sky was the silhouette of a man’s body, hanging upside down from a power pole, clothes dangling in strips. The cutline read that he had been electrocuted while trying to steal copper tubing used to protect the power lines. And the photo credit read "Tess Benedict."

  For a long moment he just stood there, staring at the chilling photo. Then he realized that Tom, who was still there writing a story on the day’s cross-country meet, had called out to him more than once. “What?”

  “Governor’s on the phone for you,” Tom repeated.

  Carrying the Record with him, Jack continued to stare as he walked back to his desk and punched the button for his line. “Yeah, Swede?”

  Erickson called every so often, just to schmooze about his day and unwind. He and Jack chatted about his re-election campaign, which was going well, and then Jack asked, “Hey, did you see the Record’s cover today?”