***
“D’ya have a date tonight, Son?”
Gray pulled a clean shirt out of his closet and slipped his arms through the sleeves. “Yes, sir.”
Judge Sheridan stood in the doorway of Gray’s bedroom and watched his son finish dressing. “May I ask with whom?”
Gray stood very still for a moment. He knew his father well enough to know what was coming. “Julie Ann Mason,” he said finally. He shrugged the shirt over his shoulders and began to button it.
“What’ya see in that gal? You’ve been going out with her all summer.”
“I just like her.”
“She anything like that sister of hers?”
Gray shook his head. “She’s nothing like anyone else in her family.”
“I put her daddy in jail. Judge Randolph got to put her brother away. Wish I’d had that pleasure.”
“What are you trying to get at?” Gray turned and faced his father.
“She’s trash, son. Good doesn’t come from bad.”
Gray had been taught to be respectful of his father’s opinions, even if he didn’t agree. But he couldn’t let this one pass. “Julie Ann isn’t trash.”
“Some things can’t be changed.”
“We disagree.”
Judge Sheridan nodded. “Just don’t let those bleeding heart professors of yours at Ole Miss convince you to forget everything you learned at home. Keep your eyes open when you’re with that little gal. Keep your eyes wide open.”
“What can she do to me?”
“Ruin your life.”
Gray thought about his father’s words on the drive to Julie Ann’s. There was only one way a girl could ruin a man. She could trap him into marriage. And Gray knew that marriage was as far from Julie Ann’s mind as anything in the world.
Marriage was that far from his mind, too. He had too much to accomplish before he thought about settling down. Someday he wanted a wife and kids, and maybe when that day arrived he’d want someone like Julie Ann, someone he could talk to about anything, someone he could be proud of.
Someone he could hold in his arms and make love to.
Lately his thoughts had turned in the direction of lovemaking more and more. He’d had his first real encounter with a woman the year before. He’d had the required number of experimental trysts in high school and the early years of college, but he hadn’t known what sex was all about until his junior year. Then he’d met a graduate student with more than a doctorate in sociology on her mind.
He was grateful to the young woman for the initiation she’d given him, but she’d never been able to touch his heart the way Julie Ann did.
Gray had been fighting his attraction to Julie Ann. From the beginning he had known she was off limits. She was too young, too innocent, too vulnerable. If he made love to her, it would bewilder her, and in the end it would make her bitter. If the life she’d led hadn’t made her cynical, Gray didn’t want their relationship to be the thing that did. He cared about her too much for that. He cared about her a lot.
Julie Ann cared about him, too. He could see it in her eyes. He could see it when she struggled to pretend he was just another man. He could see it when he kissed her—which he’d begun to do more and more often.
He’d never intended for their relationship to be a physical one. She wasn’t the kind of girl who had always attracted him before. She wasn’t pretty; she was too thin, too underdeveloped to stir his male appetite. And yet, as the summer drifted to a close, he’d begun to notice things that stirred him deeply. Her hair was poorly cut and unmanageable, but it was the most beautiful shade of brown, as dark and shiny as polished walnut. Her eyes were a blue that made the waters of Granger Inlet seem gray in comparison, and her skin...
Gray laughed softly to himself as he turned onto Black Creek Road. If he told Julie Ann his thoughts, she’d tell him he was crazy. He knew she thought of herself as one step above ugly. And she didn’t care. At least, she said she didn’t. When he kissed her, he knew she thought he was just whiling away the summer months. And that was probably how it had started. But lately...
He pulled into the space in front of Julie Ann’s house. Actually, calling the unpainted shack a house was an example of positive thinking. There was no grass surrounding it, just dirt and dust and a collection of abandoned junk cars. A magnolia shaded a porch that had long since lost part of its roof, and the only screen in evidence hung diagonally from one corner of a window frame. Every time Gray saw the place where Julie Ann had been raised, he found her more of a miracle. She was like a flower pushing up through inches of cement to bloom straight and proud in the middle of a sidewalk.
Gray had been taught never to honk for a girl. A Sheridan went up to the front door, knocked, introduced himself and promised faithfully to have his date home by midnight. Now, however, this particular Sheridan honked. He knew that if he went to the door, both he and Julie Ann would regret it.
She was outside in a second. As she slid into the seat beside him, Gray admired the pink blouse she was wearing with her jeans. “Is that blouse new? It looks pretty with your hair.”
He didn’t have to look at her to know that the compliment would make her blush. “I made it.”
“One of your designs?”
“Sort of. I adapted a pattern. The shawl collar was my idea.”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to nod in approval. “Cute.” And it was, but not as cute as the rosy-cheeked girl wearing it. For a moment she looked almost pretty.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her face straight ahead to avoid his eyes.
“To the coast, unless you have to be back early for something. I thought we could pick up some chicken and have dinner at the beach house.”
“That sounds great!” Although she and Gray had driven to Granger Inlet to walk along the beach, they had never been inside the house, never made the trip a real date.
He smiled at her enthusiasm. “That’s what you always say.”
“I guess I’m a pushover.”
“It’s a good thing I’m such a gentleman, then.”
“And so humble, too.”
He ruffled her hair, but his fingers lingered just a little too long to be playful. “Why don’t you let your hair grow?” he asked her. “It’s pretty.”
“I’d look like a mop.”
“I like long hair.”
“By the time it grew long you’d be an old married man, and it wouldn’t matter.”
“It takes ten years to grow?”
She laughed. “You’ll be married before you’re twenty-four, Gray.”
“What makes you think so?” Gray swung the car into the Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot.
“Because I think you’re somebody who needs to be married.”
He cut off the engine and considered her words. “Why?”
“You have a lot you want to share with someone.”
He’d never thought about himself that way, but he wondered if she was right.
They talked and teased on the way down to the beach house. When they finally pulled up, the waters of Granger Inlet were wind-tossed, and the sky was a steely gray.
“Looks like we’re going to get a storm.” Gray took the beach house steps two at a time, the bag of chicken in one hand. “They blow in and blow out fast down here. It probably won’t last long.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open. Julie Ann was still rooted to the ground beside the car. “Are you coming, funny kid? Or do you want a picnic in the rain?”
“I hate storms,” she said so softly that he almost missed the words.
“Well, you’re going to hate this one worse if you’re outside in the middle of it.”
She nodded and started up the steps behind him.
“My parents spent the weekend down here, so the refrigerator should be stocked. Let’s see what we’ve got to drink.” Gray set the bag down on the kitchen table and rummaged through the refrigerator. “Beer, Coke...” He opened a carton and sniffed. ?
??Sour milk.” He looked up to see Julie Ann gazing around her.
“This is a beach house?” she asked with a catch in her voice.
“It’s nothing like the places going up along the water now. No dishwashers and central air. Just lots of Gulf breezes.”
“You could put our whole house in this one room alone.”
Gray was stricken with remorse. He had been apologizing for the simple frame structure, but it must look like a palace to Julie Ann. “My grandparents used to spend their summers down here. We had to put it back together piece by piece after Hurricane Camille, but it’s gotten a lot of use in its day.”
“It’s wonderful.”
“What’ll you have to drink?”
“Coke. Do you want me to set the table?”
“I thought we could sit outside on the porch and watch the storm come across the water.”
“Not my thing.”
He looked up and saw she wasn’t kidding. She was paler than he’d ever seen her. “How about at the table in the living room, then? You can sit with your back to the windows.”
“Tell me where everything is.”
He poured the drinks while she set the table. Gray wondered why she was so frightened. He could see her fear in the set of her jaw and the faint tremor of her hands; he could hear it in her monosyllabic answers and the long silences that followed his attempts to make conversation.
He sat catty-corner to her instead of across the table, hoping that his nearness would give her some comfort. “Eat,” he commanded. “If you miss a meal, you’ll waste away.”
“There are women all over this country who’d give anything they owned to hear those words.”
Gray was encouraged by her attempt at humor. “Try some of the cole slaw. It’s good.”
Julie Ann obliged him, chewing for a long time before she swallowed. He could see she was making an effort to act normally, and he felt a wave of affection.
“Let’s put some music on.” Gray stood and walked across the room to flip on the radio. “There’s a Gulfport station I can usually pick up.”
Soft rock music filled the empty spots in their conversation. When Gray had eaten his chicken and most of hers, too, they cleaned up. The breeze sweeping in through the open windows had changed, growing brisker. The temperature had dropped as the sky darkened, and now distant flashes of lightning lit the room. Each time, Julie Ann winced as if she’d been struck.
Gray watched her as he tied the garbage so he could take it out when they left. She was trying to ignore the storm, but every minute or two she sneaked a glance outside, and her expression grew more desolate as the storm drew nearer.
If there was one indisputable quality Julie Ann had, it was courage. To see her frightened of anything was a new experience for him. He felt protective of her in a way he never had before. He felt responsible for making her more comfortable, and the feeling was a good one.
“Let’s sit and talk,” he said, not giving her a chance to say no. He steered her across the kitchen and into the living room. He settled himself on the sofa, then pulled her beside him. They were facing the windows.
“I don’t want to sit here.” Julie Ann tried to stand, but Gray held her still.
“Isn’t it better to know what’s going on than to worry about it? You keep sneaking looks anyway.”
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“I’m not.” He pulled her resisting body closer. “I would never make fun of you. I know you’re scared. But we can’t get away from the storm. I don’t want to drive in it. That would be worse. We’re just going to have to wait it out.”
She stopped trying to pull away, but her body was still stiff beside his.
He smoothed the hair over her ear, then watched it drift back to caress her cheek. “Why are you so afraid?”
“I just don’t like storms.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“This house has stood for seventy years, and the only time it’s been touched was by Camille. We’re safe here.”
“I don’t feel safe.”
He tried to think of a way to help. “Don’t think about the storm. Think about me.”
She turned her head, and he could read the fear in her eyes. “What should I think about you?”
“Why don’t you think about how I’m not going to let anything happen to you, how I’m going to be sure you’re safe and warm here with me, no matter how hard it rains outside.”
“I hate to tell you this, but the Sheridans don’t control the skies.”
“Come on, funny kid, do you think there’s a lightning bolt up there with your name on it?”
“There was one with my sister’s name on it.”
Gray didn’t know what to say. His hand crept back to her hair. “Mary Jane?” he asked finally.
She laughed harshly. “Some people’d say Mary Jane is just asking to get struck by lightning. But it wasn’t Mary Jane. It was Nancy Sue. She was a year younger than me. She died when she was eight.”
Gray didn’t want to know how it had happened. Most of the time when he was with Julie Ann, he could forget the way she had been brought up and the things she had endured. When he couldn’t ignore them, however, they ate at him unmercifully. The more he got to know her, the less tolerance he had for her pain. It was becoming his.
Julie Ann stood and went to the windows. She began to crank them shut. “Maybe we could play cards or something until the storm gets here and then leaves.”
Her words were greeted with a slash of lightning and an almost simultaneous burst of thunder. The lights went off, and the room was plunged into near darkness. Julie Ann cried out. In a moment Gray’s arms were around her.
“That happens sometimes,” he soothed her. “The lights go off, or the phone goes out. It never lasts long. Don’t worry.” He could feel her trembling against him.
She slipped her arms around his waist and held tight, but her body was still stiff.
“Let me finish closing the windows, and then we’ll go in the back bedroom. There aren’t so many windows in there, and we can close the curtains.” He pulled away reluctantly and finished the windows as quickly as he could. Then he held out his hand. “Come on, Julie Ann. It’s going to be okay.”
In the bedroom he drew the curtains tight. There had been enough power failures in the past for the beach house to be in an eternal state of preparation for the next one. He lit a kerosene lantern that was sitting on the dresser and went to sit on the bed beside Julie Ann. She looked as uncomfortable as she did forlorn, and without thinking about the consequences, he stretched out and drew her toward him. “You might as well get comfortable,” he pointed out. “We’ve got some time to kill before it ends.”
“How long do you think it will last?”
“Not too long.” He settled her beside him, then sat up to remove both their shoes. When he lay down again, he pulled her close to lie with her head on his shoulder. “There now. Does that feel safer?”
“Safer than what? I’m lying on a bed with a man, and you’re talking about safe?”
He laughed, pleased that she could joke—if she was joking. “I never take advantage of funny kids.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
He stroked her hair and wondered why he had stuck with the nickname. He didn’t think of her as a kid, although in some ways she was still a baby. More and more, though, he realized just how mature she was. She had seen things...
Her sister had been hit by lightning. He tried to imagine what that must have been like for Julie Ann. He wondered if she had been with Nancy Sue when it happened. It was no surprise that storms terrified her. How did she get through them at home? He felt her body relax a little as he stroked her hair. Who comforted her when he wasn’t around? Who had comforted her after Nancy Sue’s death?
“Tell me about your sister,” he said finally. He didn’t want to know, but he didn’t want her to carry the burden by herself anymore, either.
He suspected she was struggling with her answer, because she didn’t say anything for a long, long time. They had made a silent pact right at the beginning of their relationship that they wouldn’t talk about anything that would point out their differences. Now he was asking her to break it.
“My daddy drank,” she began at last. “All the time. For all I know he was born a drunk, because as far as I can tell, nobody ever remembers seeing him sober. He wasn’t a nice drunk, either. He was mean when he woke up with a hangover and meaner still when he’d gotten a few drinks in him to get rid of it. But he was meanest when he wanted a drink and couldn’t have one.” She moved closer when thunder boomed ferociously.
“What did your father have to do with Nancy Sue’s death?”
“Daddy never wanted kids. Neither did my mother. We learned to stay out of their way real fast, sort of a Mason survival instinct, I guess. One day my daddy came home from town, and every kid in the family knew they’d better leave him alone. He hadn’t had a drink in three days, because it was the end of the month, and the welfare check had been gone for a week. He’d gone into town to see if he could wheedle some cash from a friend, but he hadn’t succeeded.”
She sighed. “We were all hungry. Food had run out right along with the money, and there wasn’t anything left except some dried beans we were soaking for dinner. Nancy Sue knew better, but she started crying about something. I don’t even remember what, now. I grabbed her to keep her quiet, and Daddy threw us both outside and locked the door.”
“Julie Ann.” Gray put both his arms around her and hugged her harder.
“We were used to it, but this time there was a storm coming. We pounded on the door when the rain started, but nobody would let us in. The porch wasn’t any protection, and we were both getting wet. When the lightning and thunder started, we got scared. My daddy’s truck was locked, but somebody had junked a car off the road not far from our house, and we decided we’d run there and get in until the storm passed. I could run faster than Nancy Sue, so I ran on ahead to open the doors. I got there fine. Nancy Sue didn’t make it.”
He held her tight, unable to speak.
“Afterward the sheriff wanted to know what we were doing out in the storm. My daddy told him we were playing. He told him that he’d been calling and calling for us to come in. Nobody asked me.”
Gray rested his face against her hair. “Poor little kid,” he said, choking on the words.
“My daddy always managed to find a drink after that. He stopped speaking to everybody, too. The only person he spoke to was Nancy Sue, but she wasn’t there to hear him anymore. He died six months later.”
“And that’s why you’re afraid of storms.”
“It could have been me. It probably should have been.”
“Don’t say that.”
Her voice was thick with tears. “I was older than she was. I should have stayed with her instead of running off.”
“You were trying to get the door open for her.”
“I know. I tell myself that, but it doesn’t help much.”
He rolled to his side, shifting her so that they were face-to-face. “What good would it have done if you’d died, too? I’m glad you didn’t stay with her. I never would have known you if you had.”
“You’d never have known what you were missing.”
He stared into the blue eyes he was beginning to see in his dreams. He knew her last sentence had been said just to lighten the mood. She was close to tears, and she was trying not to cry. She’d been absolutely accurate, though. If he hadn’t met Julie Ann, he wouldn’t have known what he was missing. She had taught him so much about courage and strength. About prejudice.
“I might not have known what I was missing,” he murmured, “but I would have known something was. I feel real when I’m with you.”
She drew in a quick breath, as if that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. “Thank you.”
It was such a short distance from his mouth to hers. Gray breached it easily. The kiss was meant to be reassuring, but as soon as his lips touched hers, he wondered which of them needed the reassurance. He tried to remind himself that this was Julie Ann he was kissing, the girl he called funny kid, the girl who was probably the best friend he’d ever had.
None of his reminders helped. This was Julie Ann, all right, and Julie Ann was sweet and warm and completely acquiescent. She didn’t struggle or hold back. The storm and story had torn down all the walls she had built around her feelings.
He drew her closer without breaking their kiss. Face to face, body to body, he could feel how fragile she really was, and he wanted to protect her. At the same time he felt a fierce desire to make her his. He wanted to possess all the fine things about her, her mind, her spirit, the body lying against his own.
His hand crept under her blouse to feel her skin against his fingertips. His tongue found hers and stroked it in exploration. When she didn’t withdraw, he pushed her back against the pillows until he was half over her. Her eyes were clear and untroubled as he moved one hand up to caress her breasts.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and that revelation was almost his undoing. He understood why she hadn’t bothered; she was so slender that her breasts were too small to need one. But what they lacked in size they made up for in the perfection of their shape and in their velvet softness. He stroked his thumb across each nipple, feeling them harden at the same time that she arched toward him, shutting her eyes.
He kissed her face, her neck, as he caressed her. Both of them had forgotten about the storm. Overhead, thunder roared, but Julie Ann still lay in his arms, pliant to his touch. Gray’s fingers were unsteady as he unbuttoned her blouse. His mouth played over her torso, learning each hollow, each peak, each place that increased her pleasure.
Her long slender fingers tangled in his hair as she held his mouth to her. There was nothing practiced about the movement of her body or the sweet sounds coming from her throat, but Gray had never been more excited. The ache building inside him was like nothing he had ever felt. He didn’t just want to have sex with Julie Ann; he wanted to possess every part of her.
He wanted to make love to her. For the first time in his life he understood what those words meant.
His hands slipped under the waistband of her jeans, and he began to slide them lower. Only then did she resist.
“Gray, we shouldn’t...”
His head was spinning. He could think of no reason to stop. He silenced her with a kiss, and she sighed against his lips. Her hands edged between them, but if they were there to push him away, she didn’t seem to have the strength. She sighed again.
He stroked the contours of her narrow waist, letting his fingers delve under her jeans to the taut skin of her abdomen. His touch sent shivers coursing through her, shaking them both.
He couldn’t believe how quickly his need to comfort her had turned to passion. He slid his hands behind her, shifting so that he was completely on top of her. He lifted her against him and knew for the first time how perfectly they would fit together.
“Gray, we can’t...”
He silenced her words once more with a long delirious kiss. Then he drew just far enough away to look in her eyes. He saw a mixture of fear and longing. And trust.
It was the last that stilled his hands.
He groaned, slipping them from her jeans and rolling away before they both discovered her trust had been misplaced. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he reassured her. He took a deep breath, then two, and wished he hadn’t been raised to be a gentleman. “I’m not going to let it go any further than this.”
She sighed, whether in relief or disappointment he wasn’t sure, but she turned to her side, and her hands came back up to stroke his hair. They were both silent, and he knew she was trying hard to control her breathing, too.
“I never thought about anyone doing that to me,” she said finally.
His laughter was hollow. “I suspect you’ll think about it now.??
?
“Maybe I will.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Color crept into her cheeks. He could almost see the question in her eyes. He waited for it.
“Will you think about me?” she asked in a husky near-whisper. “When you’re back at Ole Miss in a couple of weeks, will you think about me?”
He wondered if he would think of anything else. School was a different world. It was such an insular environment that when he was there he usually forgot there was anything else in the universe. Now he wondered how he would concentrate.
“I’ll think about you.” He wanted to say more, but he knew more was dangerous. Julie Ann was going to be a senior in high school. He was going to be a senior in college. This summer had been an oasis, but their lives were destined for different paths.
“I’ll think about you,” he told her, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips. “But don’t think about me. Get on with your life after I go, Julie Ann. Don’t let me or any man hold you back from what you want to do.”
“I’m not going to.” She pulled her hand away to button her blouse. Then her arms came around him, and she rested her head on his chest.
As the storm moved away Gray wondered if she had really listened.