Chapter THIRTY-ONE
Jamison woke to the sounds of someone stirring in the kitchen. For a split second, he wondered which grandparent was putting on the coffee. So many times when he’d awakened on that couch with the busy fabric and firm cushions, he’d been roused by the odd plop and hiss of the old percolator. He’d find Granddad reading the paper and Grandma digging eggs and things out of the fridge.
And brown eggs. He remembered brown eggs.
No one was cooking that morning, however. There was a lot of sack rustling and bottle shuffling, but nothing sizzled or hissed. Nothing smelled but the cold ashes in the stove.
His belly felt full of them.
His mom’s head had appeared around the corner, but then disappeared again. “Oh, good, I didn’t have to wake you.”
“Oh, you woke me all right.” He felt around his face expecting the whole thing to be swollen. There wasn’t so much as a crust in the corner of his eye.
Wait a minute.
He’d woken up like that before, not many days before, and had a cheerful breakfast with a mother who was never freaking cheerful in the morning.
God, please don’t let my memories be gone!
“Mom?”
“Yeah, honey?”
“Where’s Skye?”
The wait time between the question and the answer was going to kill him.
“Mom!”
She came around the corner, a power bar in her mouth. “Mwah?”
“Where’s Skye?”
Mom held up a finger and chewed. He was going to kill her. She walked over and sat on the edge of the couch, facing him. Serious talk time. Not good. Not good.
“If you don’t spit it out I’m going to scream.”
Her eyes rolled. “She’s going to be here in about twenty minutes. She told me about the fight you two had last night.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. It’s not like I couldn’t hear you arguing, you know.”
He sat up straight and grabbed her arm.
“Relax. I didn’t listen. I was exhausted and at the back of the house. Besides, if you were arguing, you wouldn’t be, uh, doing, uh, other things.” She beamed, proud of her reasoning.
“Unless we then made up.”
Mom frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That you’re having trouble with her family accepting you, of course. Although Lucas and Jonathan seemed to be all right about you two kissing at Daddy’s viewing.” She put her hand against his cheek. “I’m so sorry, honey. She said you two are going to talk to the rest of her family, today, huh?”
“Yeah.” He had no idea what Skye was up to.
“And you’ve agreed to live by what they decide?”
“I have?”
“She said you have. Uh oh. She thinks you’ve agreed. Maybe that fight isn’t over after all.”
“No. I mean yeah, but, I’m not completely awake yet, you know?”
“Jamie, honey. She says that if her family can’t accept you, that you’ll be coming back without her. I’m so sorry.”
The torment he’d been feeling the night before came back full force.
Where I go, you can’t follow.
Oh, it was going to be a long day with all the bawling he had planned. He’d better steal a box of tissue from storage. And maybe a towel.
“I’m fixing enough food for a couple of days, just in case they make you sleep in a barn and won’t feed you.” Mom gave him a hug and headed back to the kitchen.
“A barn?” If they were going off to spend her last days together, where had his mom gotten the impression there would be a barn?
“Yeah, weren’t there barns at that ranch?”
Lanny’s! Hell. If he only had two days left with Skye, at the most, that’s the last place he wanted to go, where they’d be separated and he’d be put to work. His back had just barely recovered.
“Oh, and I forgot to tell you.” Mom came back with a warped pop-tart held with a dirty oven mitt. Yum. “She said you should wear the white clothes they gave you.”
***
Skye wished Lori could come along for the ride, just so Jamison would have to keep his foul mood to himself. If he got too upset, he wouldn’t be able to drive, and there was no way she could. She may not have the adrenaline running through her body to make it shake, but her own mind was in the middle of a freak storm and she could barely walk a straight line, let alone drive in one.
For a farewell treat, though, she should let the sheriff pull her over once more.
That morning, for the second time, she’d said her farewells to the others. She didn’t tell them all where she was going, but Lucas and Jonathan knew. The rest understood only that she wasn’t coming back.
“Where are your bags, honey?” Lori peaked in the back of the car as her son was lifting a large blue cooler into the trunk.
“We live pretty simply. I have clothes at the other place too.”
“Oh. Okay. You drive carefully, Jamison.” His mom kissed him on the cheek and gave him a big squeeze. “You’ve promised to come back, either way. Don’t make me come after you. And call me if you need me,” she whispered into his ear.
As they were pulling away, Skye was kind of glad it was almost over; soon she wouldn’t be wishing for sensations or worrying about the consequences of getting them. She’d never be a Gabriella. It was only phantom emotion currently breaking her non-existent heart.
“Okay. Let’s have it.” Jamison barely glanced her direction before gluing his eyes on the road.
“I’m a coward, okay? I’m taking you to Lanny, so she can explain everything to you.”
“So she can tell me why you can’t stay.”
“So she can tell you what my choices are.”
“And neither one is to stay.”
“Please don’t be angry. It won’t change anything.”
He veered off the road and stopped the car. They hadn’t yet gone far. The tree arch was still visible in the side mirror.
“I’m angry, because you told me we have a couple of days together, tops, and you want to spend it at the It’s-not-okay Corral! I want to go somewhere where I can hold you. For two days straight, until someone comes and pries my fingers away, I want to hold you.”
Oh, neither one of them was going to be able to drive!
“Okay. I’ll make you a deal. You come to Lanny’s and we’ll leave there before dark, find a hotel, and you can hold me until I...until it’s over.”
“And if she doesn’t let us leave?”
“She will.”
“She didn’t before.”
“I know. She had a message she had to deliver before she could let me go.”
“What message? You didn’t tell me about a message. From who?”
“The Father.”
Jamison looked sick. “You got a message...from God?”
She laughed. “If it helps any, it was an old message.”
He tried to smile, but failed. He was shaking in his boots. “Can you tell me what the message was? No, wait. I don’t think I should even ask. I mean, it wasn’t meant for me, right?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
Jamison relaxed in his seat. “That’s fine.”
“Lanny is.”
***
Skye had to drive the whole way to the ranch.
This time there were no suggestions in the air about turning around and going back. When they bought gas, the attendant paid no attention to two Somerleds travelling together. As the miles flew behind them and the canyon appeared, Jamison got paler, as if he thought he was headed for an appointment with God himself.
“The Father won’t be there, you know.”
His head jerked her way, as if he’d forgotten she was in the car with him for the last two hours, even though he’d held her hand in a death grip the entire time. He looked down at his hand and tried to open it. No go. He started pealing his fingers away from her, wincing as his blood began to flow again.
“Sorry.”
“I’m sorry for you. You’re the only one feeling it.”
He winced again, but not in pain.
“I’m sorry, Jamie. I don’t say it to make you feel bad.”
He gave her a little smile, then looked out his window.
Poor guy. He really was afraid of what he was going to hear. She’d already heard it, of course, and knew just how hopeless it was. He’d have to hear it from someone besides her or he’d never believe her. Understanding would help him get over it. It was the whole point in coming.
Jamison was intelligent. He’d see reason. Surely.