“Interesting? Care to elaborate?”
“These for one thing.” She blushed as she held up a few condom packets.
He felt it best not to comment, but noticed she shoved them into the drawer on her bedside table. Good to know. Doubtful they’d be needed.
Turning back toward him, Betsy’s expression looked serious. “I would like to finish telling you what I started earlier today when we were down by the dock.”
“Sounds good. You talk. I’ll listen as I work.” He’d keep working on the door that he already had done, but that way she wouldn’t feel like she was in the spotlight with her story.
Tugging off her socks, she wiggled her toes then bent her knees and scrunched them tight, against her chest. Hugged them even closer. “My parents, Marcy and I had had a wonderful last day of summer at the lake. A few weeks before, Dad had had us all put one item in our so-called memory box. Said we’d bury it right before we finished the parking area the next year.”
Her dad sounded like a man who loved his family and life. Cain had known others like him, others who’d lost their lives just doing their jobs. Some day he might, too. He’d made sure to enjoy and love life whenever possible, but he suddenly realized that having a wife and children to enjoy life with him had seldom, if ever, crossed his mind. Felt good to at least consider the idea.
Betsy cleared her throat. “By the time Mama, Marcy, Summer and me came down to the lake the next year, Papa C had had the parking pad completed with a poured concrete surface and surrounded by a sturdy metal railing on three sides. My parents had planned to do that, but there hadn’t been money or time the year before. Papa C had simply said he’d wanted to do something in appreciation for all my dad had done for the community.”
They sat there quietly for a while. Each in their own thoughts. Content to just be. To be together for a moment.
“Did you all ever bury the box any place?”
“No. Mama has it stored away in the safe room at her and Truman’s house. I’ve often thought about opening that box and seeing how my treasured purple pen with a fuzzy road runner on the end has fared after all these years. But I haven’t.” Betsy smiled. “There was even a photo of me sitting on the dock fishing.” She grinned larger. “And a plastic purple worm lure with a grungy dried-up worm still on the hook.” She teasingly stop-signed him with her hand. “And before you ask. Yes, I always added a live worm onto all my lures.”
Listening to her tell her story gave Cain the opportunity to connect with her on a whole different level. One that invited him into the family’s world. He might not appear to be paying close attention, but he felt everything she was saying. Storing it away in his own memories. They’d always belong to him even if Betsy didn’t.
“What about the initials I saw earlier today?” he asked.
Suddenly she giggled and waved her index finger in the air as if writing. “My dad had brought a couple bags of quick-setting concrete, mixed it with water from the lake and poured it in the hole me and Marcy dug. Once my daddy smoothed it out, we each etched our initials in it, all in a row.”
Cain did a quick open-close-open on the door, then leaned back against the chest of drawers on the side wall. “Smart man. Sounds like he really cared about making things special for his family.”
She nodded. “Once we finished up the concrete writing, we washed off our hands in the water at the edge of the lake. The weather was already cooling into fall temperatures, so swimming was out of the question. Then we all took a walk in the woods. Marcy and I kept stumbling over the roots and acorns. Lots and lots of acorns. Skinned my knees. Scraped the palms of my hands. I was the biggest klutz around.”
He felt the rounding of his cheeks as he burst into laughter. “Well, I can outdo that. When I was seven, I broke my leg falling off my bike.”
“I can do better than that.” Squinting, she stared at the palm of her right hand then smiled as she pointed to a tiny scar on the pad of her palm beneath her thumb. “There…right there is proof of the horrendous injury I suffered when I fell over a downed tree that day. Landed on one of the snapped-off branches on the ground.”
“While Mama and Marcy gathered up the food and drink from the picnic table,” Betsy continued, “Daddy and I loaded fishing stuff. Then, we all piled in the truck and headed home to Jefferson City.” Closing her eyes, she softly took in a deep breath and slowly blew it out.
“Sounds like it was a great day.”
“One of the best days of my life.”
She glanced into his eyes, and he saw that her own were glistening with tears. A couple spilled over onto her cheeks. So much for shoving his emotions aside, because they seemed to be tangling in with her own. Without thinking, he moved over beside the bed and wiped the wetness from beneath her eyes. Even scrubbed the heel of his hand against his own left eye. “Must have got some dust in my eyes as I hung the door.”
She let go of her knees and reached her hand out to him. Interlacing his fingers with hers, he sat down next to her on the bed, offering the support of his arm as she leaned against him.
“Little did I know that would be the last time we were all together there at the lake,” she said. “Three months later, he was killed walking down the steps of the FBI building in Jefferson City.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Betsy woke with a start, but quickly oriented herself, remembering that she was in Cain’s bed. Better than that, she realized they were spooned together with his arm draped across her middle. Her legs gently tucked between his. She smiled. Snuggled closer. The warmth of his skin against hers was everything she’d ever dreamed it would be. And last night had been?—
“How are you this morning?” he asked in a husky whisper of tenderness. Kissing the sensitive spots across the back of her neck, he brushed his hand down the side of her hip and angled his body closer.
Turning slightly, she looked into his eyes and knew she’d found her soul mate years ago. Last night she’d finally felt his energy and passion. “I’m perfect. Simply perfect. How about you?”
As she turned toward him, she felt the heat in his lips on hers. Slowly, he eased his hand up her body, his fingers teasing as they found their way across her skin, and she arched into his touch. Loving every movement, every sensation, every moment, she fell into his hold, clutched the muscles of his back as they came together.
“How do I feel?” he said as he eased over her. “Like a man finally coming home.”
