Jodi Thomas - Twisted Creek

The Landry brothers…who ordered seconds twice and ate every bite.

2200 hours

Luke ate the last piece of chocolate pie. “That was great.”

“I know.” Nana smiled. “I’m better than Flo at baking, but we all say hers are good because no one wants to hurt poor Flo’s feelings, you know.”

“You said you had two brothers?”

“Frank and Charlie.”

He could almost see her mind moving back to the present. “They were both killed in the War.”

“And Flo?” Luke asked, testing to see if she’d been pulled into the present.

“She died before she had time to marry.” Nana looked up at him. “I still miss her, you know.”

Luke’s big hand covered her wrinkled fingers. “I know. I don’t have a single clear memory of my mother, but sometimes I miss her. Kind of like I know there’s a piece of me that would have been different if she’d lived. I think about what might have been.”

Nana looked younger when she smiled shyly. “I think about what might have been sometimes. It’s like there’s another life I’m living along a road I chose not to travel. When times get hard, I think about that other place and I go there in my mind.”

“I know what you mean,” Luke answered. When he’d been shot he’d thought about every time in his career when the path had split and how each time he’d taken the more dangerous way. He’d told himself it was because, unlike some of his friends, he had no family to mourn him, but maybe it was the other way around. Maybe he had no loved ones because he always took jobs involving the most risk. Even his apartment in Dallas, the address he called home, looked more like a hotel than a home.

When Nana stood and said good night, Luke said he’d wash up his plate before going.

She patted his arm and asked, “Could you lock up tonight? Allie went up to bed early.”

“She had a rough night Friday night with the fire across the lake,” he said. “She must have been beat.”

Nana shook her head. “I think she wanted to draw.” She laughed as if sharing a secret. “She’s drawing again. I’ve always loved her pictures. When she was little I used to put up postcard pictures of all the great artists and she’d spend hours looking at them. I’ll bet she’s drawing every detail of that fire.”

He walked Nana to the foot of the stairs, then watched her climb slowly. She could work all day, but her age crept in when she had to climb.

After locking up, Luke walked out to the dock and watched a storm moving in. The night chilled around him and fog moved like a shadow across the lake. If it rained tonight, there would be little evidence left from the fire. He’d thought of calling a team in to sift through the ashes earlier, but he knew there wouldn’t be much to find. He already knew there had been a drug lab set up in the cabin and he’d bet a month’s pay that the tag on that SUV was stolen. His best chance of catching those three was to stay low and wait until they relocated. If they thought no one was investigating, they’d be more likely to move in faster.

Drug dealers were a strange lot. They always wanted to produce more, faster. The longer they were in the business the sloppier they got. He’d make sure they didn’t get away the next time.

Standing at the far end of the dock, he began stripping off his clothes. In a few more weeks it would be too cold to swim the lake. His grandfather used to swear that he swam across year-round as a boy. He’d say, “Luke, the Navajo blood is too watered down for you to swim all the way across.”

Luke pushed himself for weeks, that summer, before his muscles and stamina developed enough to cross the lake. When he finally made it without stopping to rest, his grandfather hadn’t said a word, but Luke had seen the pride in his eyes.

Even five years ago when Luke returned to recover from a wound he’d taken in the line of duty, he’d known he wouldn’t consider himself well until he was able to cross the lake. Those first few weeks he swam, Jefferson would follow in the boat with a spotlight tied to the front, ready to pick him up when he could push himself no farther. But each time he made a few more yards before he gave up and crawled into the boat. Swimming laps in a gym just didn’t bring him the satisfaction of crossing with the moon and proving his bloodline.

Tonight as he swam, he didn’t enjoy the movement of the water or the night. His thoughts were filled with Allie. She wasn’t like the women he usually met. With her there would be no casual affair. She wasn’t guarded, dishing out feelings in small doses. She led with her heart. If he had any sense, he’d stay away from her.

An hour later, when he climbed back on the dock, he sensed Allie even before he saw her standing in the shadows by the porch watching him.

Pulling on his clothes, he stepped into his boots and walked up the dock.

She didn’t move when he neared.

Maybe it was the night, all dark with rain hesitating just above him. Maybe it was the way his senses always felt stronger when he’d done something he knew the men of his lineage had done for hundreds of years. Maybe need just outweighed reason. But Luke didn’t stop to talk.

He walked up to her, lifted her up, pressed her back against the wall, and kissed her hard with need. To hell with having any sense. For one moment in his life, Luke just wanted to feel.

She almost buckled his knees when she kissed him back.

The need for her was something primal within him. Something he’d felt from the first day. She didn’t fit in the mold of women he occasionally dated. He liked them tall, sophisticated. The kind who played no games and made no hints about a future.

Allie wasn’t like that. She’d want more. Much more.

He could feel every curve of her body. He was half-drunk on her kiss. But he wasn’t ready to turn down a road he’d never traveled.

Without breaking the kiss until the last moment, he lowered her and pulled away.

He was gone before she had time to open her eyes or ask any questions.

Ten minutes later, when he lay in the total blackness of his cabin, he could still feel her body against his…still taste her…still want her.

Distant thunder rumbled. The sound of rain tapping against the window lulled me near sleep but I couldn’t find the off button in my brain. Thoughts danced from one problem to another as if channel-surfing.

I decided I should stop worrying about Willie being a pervert and start worrying about Luke. He was like a phantom kisser. Every time he touched me I went all soft inside, and tonight I’d made it as plain as I knew how that I’d welcome a little more.

But he’d disappeared.

Maybe it was me. Maybe I had some kind of natural repellent when it came to men.

I closed my eyes. I knew little about him, except that he made my toes curl every time he kissed me. I think with men it’s not so much about knowing how to kiss, but more about knowing how a woman wants it. Problem is, a woman wants it different at different times. Tonight he got it right. Hard and hungry with need. I drifted to sleep remembering every detail.

When Nana called me I thought the roof must be leaking. All the years of growing up, no matter where we lived, the roof always seemed to leak. My job was usually to run around the house until I stepped in water. Nana always followed with the pots. Then, we’d go back to sleep with the sound of a tin-can band playing until the rain stopped.

“Allie,” Nana said again. “Get up. Someone’s at the door.”

I glanced at the rainy night beyond my window. “It’s too early to open.”

“I know, but they won’t quit knocking.”

I groaned and pulled on my flannel shirt. “I’ll see who it is.”

Nana waited. She had a few rules no one else seemed to follow. One was she never answered the door after dark. I’d heard her say many times that news coming at night is always bad.

It was a good rule, only problem was if she didn’t answer the door…that left only me to go.

I reached the ground level and switched on the twinkle lights so I could see my way to the door. All the bright-colored boxes of cookies and snacks sparkled at me, but they couldn’t help the fear growing like bindweed around my lungs. No one would come to my door at this hour unless there was a problem-a serious problem that couldn’t wait until daylight.

The wind did most of the opening when I turned the knob. Rain blew in as icy spikes against my skin. I stepped aside so Willie could rush in. Even in his parka and hat, I knew his smell. Only now it was a wet Willie odor-kind of like the smell of an old dishtowel and dirt. It would take more than one storm to wash that away.

“What’s wrong?” I knew he wouldn’t be here unless something had happened. Willie liked to fish after dark, but even he wouldn’t have gone out tonight.

“Trouble,” he yelled as he tugged off his hat. “I didn’t know where else to go. I thought you might could get a fire going out by the dock, but in this rain it’s not likely.”

“What trouble?” I said the words slow as if I could keep whatever it was smaller.

Willie scrubbed his hand across his face. “I found Timothy’s boat bashed against the north shore. The little motor he uses when he’s out late was still running.”

My first thought was that the boy had finally decided to fall in, but that didn’t make sense. He rowed out every day to think about killing himself, Luke said. But tonight he’d used a motor because the water was so rough. A man who had all day to fall in wouldn’t hook up a motor so he could do it in the middle of a storm.

Tonight he’d looked happier than I’d ever seen him. He’d even teased Mrs. Deals about getting fat because the old lady had asked for a big slice of the second round of Nana’s pie.