Retreat (43 page)

    
“Shit,” he said, bending down and picking
her up in his arms. “Why didn’t you say something?”

    
He carried her back to the cabin, setting
her down in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch. He disappeared inside
and after a few minutes reappeared with a slip of paper in his hand.

    
“It’s cleaned out,” he said. “Meg and Marcy
took care of packing everything up. Marcy took my car and headed back to the
airport and Meg took the minivan and headed home. It says they cleaned out Slippery Falls, too.”

    
“Your flight back to Texas …” Clara started.

    
“Already missed it,” he said. “Don’t worry
about it.”

    
“What about our things?” Clara asked.

    
“Meg and Marcy took it all,” Jon said. “I guess
they figured we wouldn’t be back.”

    
Clara nodded. That was just like them, to
make sure all the loose ends were tied up and chip in wherever they were
needed. Meg and Marcy were a lot alike that way. Neither of them needed to be
told what to do, they just jumped in and did it.

    
“So now what?” Clara asked, looking up into
his dark eyes only to find him staring down at her with deep compassion.

    
“I have an idea,” Jon said, brushing her
hair from her bruised face. He squatted down in front of her. “Hop on,” he
said.

    
“Are you serious?” she asked, surprised but
grateful not to have to put any more pressure on her feet.

    
“Absolutely. Now hop on.”

    
Clara rode on Jon’s back all the way to the
lake. She was amazed that he had the strength to carry her all that way after
the harrowing day they’d just survived. She tried to get him to put her down
and take a break but he wouldn’t do it. He seemed driven.

    
It was nearly dusk when they reached the
lake. The kid at the boat rental stand had already packed up for the night and
was heading out. Jon set Clara down on a concrete bench near the refreshment
stand and ran over to him. Clara couldn’t make out what they were saying, but
she saw Jon hand the kid a few bills and within moments they were down at the
rental shack pulling out two canoes.

    
The kid wrote a few things on the back of a
flyer he’d snatched from the bulletin board by the rental stand and then took
off toward the parking lot. Jon jogged up to Clara.

    
“We’re all set,” he said.

    
“Hidden Falls?” she asked.

    
“I had to pay for the whole week’s rental
anyway, so we might as well use it,” he said. “I sent Skip over there to
Valleyview to pick up a few things for us. He’ll be back in a few hours.”

    
“Skip?” she asked. “How do you know he
won’t just skip out with your money?”

    
“Because I only paid him half,” Jon said,
gathering her in his arms and carrying her toward the canoe. “I’ll give him the
rest when he delivers everything.”

    
“What’s he getting?” she asked, snuggling
into his chest.

    
“You’ll see.”

    
The night sky was awash with stars as Clara
sat propped up on one of the rocking chairs on the front porch of Hidden Falls,
each foot wrapped in a water-soaked hand towel from the bathroom. Skip had
returned as promised, and was helping Jon carry several bags up the trail from
his canoe to the cabin. Jon thanked him, paid him the rest of what he promised,
and sent him on his way. As he was leaving, Skip remembered Clara sitting on
the porch.

    
“Oh man, I almost forgot,” he said. “This
is for you.”

    
Skip reached into the extra-long pocket on
his calf-length shorts and pulled out the flyer he’d written on back at the
shack. He read it over to refresh his memory and then looked at Clara.

    
“I talked to your Mom,” he said, a bit
sheepishly. “She told me to tell you that your Dad’s going to be fine. His arm
is broken but they set it and he sprained both his ankles so he won’t be
running any marathons soon, but he’s going to be just fine.”

    
Clara gave Skip a huge smile. “Thank you,”
she said. “You don’t know how much that message means to me.” She watched as
Jon came up behind him, smiling broadly from behind Skip’s shoulders.

    
“No problem,” Skip said. “Your mom also
told me to make sure I tell you not to worry about anything, just call when you
get home.”

    
“Okay,” Clara said. “I can do that.”

    
“Oh, geez, I almost forgot the most
important thing,” he said, slapping his head and rereading the note. “She told
me not to forget to tell you to trust the fire in your belly. She said you’d
know what that means,” he said, shaking his head. He turned to Jon. “Hey dude,
thanks for the cash. I’m out of here.”

    
“Later, Skip,” Jon said with a grin.

    
Clara watched Skip jog out to the trail and
disappear down the hill.

    
“So what’s this about fire in your belly?”
Jon asked as he lifted her from the rocking chair and carried her inside,
planting a soft kiss on her forehead. He set her on the loveseat gingerly and
started to unpack one of the grocery bags. There was Neosporin and band-aids
for her feet and all the other little cuts she’d managed to rack up, calamine
lotion, an assortment of toiletries, and two t-shirts and two pairs of shorts
for each of them.

    
“Nothing you need to worry about,” she
said, sitting up straighter so she could see what he was unloading. There was
coffee and filters, hot dog buns, marshmallows, granola cereal, potatoes,
lettuce, tomato, a couple of apples and an onion. Another bag held charcoal and
matches.

    
“She sure thought it was important,” he
said, as he reached down and pulled the lid from a large white Styrofoam cooler
that Skip had pushed up against the cabinets on the kitchen floor. Jon pulled
out two six packs of soda, a package of rib-eyes, a pack of hot dogs and a
quart of milk and put them in the fridge.

    
“Boy, Skip thought of everything,” Clara
said, smiling broadly at Jon. “We’re set for a while.”

    
“He’s a good kid,” Jon said, grabbing the
toiletries and putting them in the bathroom. He came back out and sat down next
to her.

    
“There’d no tub in there. Do you think you
can stand long enough for a shower?” he asked.

    
“No problem,” she said, although she didn’t
look forward to putting any weight on her feet. Now that she’d been off them
for a while the pain was likely to be even worse than before.

    
“There’s another bag over there with soft cotton
socks and a pair of flip flops. I told him to get a size 8. I hope’s that’s
right,” he said.

    
“Yes,” she said, “it is. How did you know
that?”

    
He tapped the side of his head, “Dead
storage,” he said. “It can be a blessing and a curse.”

    
She grimaced as she tried to stand. Jon
pulled her up into his arms in an instant and carried her to the bathroom. She
sat down while he started the shower for her. “Are you going to be okay in
here?” he asked gently, kneeling down in front of her and taking her hands in
his. His eyes searched her face.

    
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you for
doing this.”

    
“Get washed up,” he said as he slowly stood
up. “If you need any help just holler and I’ll come in. I’ll grab my shower
when you’re done.”

    
Another time she would have asked him to
stay with her, to enjoy the shower together, but somehow he sensed and she knew
that she needed some time alone to digest everything that had taken place.

    
She took her time in the shower, carefully
washing away all the grit that hung on her from David’s rampage. The pain in
her feet had now become an almost unbearable stinging as the water cleaned her
wounds.

    
After a while the pain subsided and her
feet grew nearly numb. She washed her body three times, letting the warm water
wash over her until she felt clean again.

    
When she was done, she studied her face in
the steamy mirror. The bruises she’d noticed earlier at the bungalow were
beginning to stabilize. She used the first-aid supplies to tend to her wounds,
and then slipped on the cotton socks, pink knit t-shirt and matching shorts
that Skip had brought for her.

    
When she finally emerged from the bathroom
she was fresh-faced without her make-up, and her hair was casually styled with
her fingers. The cotton socks provided padding and comfort to her feet, which
were now covered with Neosporin and band-aids. It was far from her usual look,
but the best she could do under the circumstances.

    
Jon had started dinner, and the smell from
the charcoal grill out back made her mouth water. He handed her a soda.

    
“My turn,” he said. “I won’t be long. The
coals are almost ready.”
   

    
He slipped into the bathroom and emerged
less than ten minutes later in the black t-shirt and shorts Skip had brought
for him.

    
“High fashion,” Clara teased, pulling at
the hem of her own t-shirt.

    
“Only the best,” he laughed, then headed
for the steaks.

    
She sat out on the back porch and watched
him work the grill. It didn’t take long for the steaks to be ready. They went
back inside where Jon had prepared a salad and set the table.

    
“These are wonderful,” Clara said, biting
into a piece of steak.

    
“It’s the charcoal,” Jon said. “You just
can’t get that flavor with a gas grill.” He took another bite. “So why did you
haul off and sock Mark in the nose?” he asked.

    
Clara explained what David had told her.

    
“So Carpenter planned all along to take
down Spritzer & Spritzer,” Jon said, shaking his head. “Unbelievable. I
wish we could prosecute him for that, too.”

    
“Between the gambling thing in Tulsa, threatening to
kill me, setting up my father, and being an accomplice to kidnapping I don’t
think we’ll have to worry about David Carpenter for a long time,” Clara said.
She reached across the table and touched Jon’s hand. “In fact, I’ve already put
him out of my mind.”

    
“There will be a trial,” Jon said. “We’ll
have to be ready for that.”

    
“Not tonight,” Clara said. “Tonight we
don’t need to worry about anything at all. All our demons are gone.”

    
Jon considered her across the table. “Do you
remember what we were talking about this morning at the diner?” he asked.

    
Clara thought back. Had that really only
been this morning? Everything that happened before they’d seen Elizabeth’s face on the television screen
seemed fuzzy.

    
“It’s kind of a blur,” she admitted.

    
“That’s okay. But I want you to know that
I’ve made a decision,” Jon said. “I’m definitely investing in Spritzer &
Spritzer, so once you’re up to it we’re taking that trip to Germany.”

    
“Okay,” Clara said, raising her eyebrows at
him. “We can talk about that.”

    
“And I’m moving to Brighton,”
he continued. “I know you said there are no apartments, but I’ll buy a house if
I have to. I get that you want to be near your father, and I’m guessing that
after today that hasn’t changed.”

    
Clara nodded. After finding out that David
had planned to take the company down she was more determined than ever to help
her father transform it into a powerhouse.

    
She started to say something but Jon held
up his hand to stop her.

    
“There’s something else I need to say,” he
said, taking a deep breath and gently squeezing her hand to make sure he had
her attention.

    
“I love you, Clara. And I don’t see moving
to Brighton as a temporary thing.
 
So I need to know that you’re okay with it,”
Jon said, searching her eyes. “With me being around.”

    
Clara smiled gently. He wasn’t the same man
he’d been that night in Fort Worth.
She could see it in his eyes as he watched her now, waiting for a response.
That night all he could think about was making partner. The man in front of her
was willing to give up everything he knew to be with her.