The Scent of Rain and Lightning

37

TWO NIGHTS LATER Jody walked up to where Collin stood beside his car in front of the Testament Rocks. His father was in jail, charged with so many crimes that once he was convicted of any of them, the question of his guilt or innocence in the death of Jody’s father would no longer matter. One way or another, Billy Crosby was going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“Let’s walk,” she said. “Okay with you?”

He nodded, and took her hand to hold.

“Is the ranch okay?” he asked her.

“Yes. Grandma and I hauled a couple of big tarps out of the barn and laid them on top of the fires and pretty much stamped it all out. That, plus a garden hose, took care of it. There are some burnt spots, but that just means new grass will grow there.”

Collin stopped and pulled her around so he could look at her.

“What about you? How bad did he hurt you?”

Under her jeans and long-sleeve shirt she was black and blue; her ribs and other spots on her body still hurt so much she had to move carefully. “I’ll be fine. Thanks. A lot more fine than I’d have been if you hadn’t called my grandparents.”

“You scared me to death when I heard you scream. And then I heard his voice. I’m so sorry, Jody.”

“Not your fault.” She saw how sad he looked. “This is impossible, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he answered in a low voice that held all of the regret she felt inside of her. “Your family-”

“Still believes your father killed my parents. And they blame you for Red’s death, because you set your father free to do it.” At the mention of Red’s name, Jody’s throat closed and she had to look down to hide the tears in her eyes.

“I doubt that’s ever going to change,” Collin said.

Tears or no, Jody looked up at him. When he saw her eyes, he gently took her in his arms for a moment. When he felt her wince-in spite of the fact that she tried desperately hard not to-he released her. But she’d been raised by her family to be bold, and so now she was. “Then we may never have another chance to be together, Collin. I can’t abandon my family.” She looked into his eyes. “But I can’t bear the thought of never loving you.”

They walked together back to his car.

Like teenagers, like the couple they might have been if life had allowed it, they made love in the backseat, at first carefully because of her wounds and then with more abandon as her body loosened from its stiffness and she refused to let pain stop her. They laughed and cried and said goodbye to each other. Afterward, hours afterward, Jody drove home to her own house and Collin drove back to his home in Topeka.

Jody went to sleep in the smallest bedroom, the guest room at the end of the second-floor hallway, where nobody else in her family would go. She lay down on the bed in the room where her father had been murdered. It couldn’t be said that she cried herself to sleep. Instead, she thought the whole night through about how her life was now defined by the word “never.” I’m never going to be with Collin again. We’re never going to know who killed my father. I’m never going to know what happened to my mother.