Heaven (Casteel 1)

"Logan, now Fanny's ashamed of her old family," I said with tears in my voice. "I thought she'd be glad to see me. There were times when she and I did nothing but fight, but we're blood kin, and I love her just the same."

Again he tried to hold me, to kiss me. I held him off and turned my face aside.

"Do you happen to know where my grandfather is?" I asked in a small voice.

"Sure I know. I visit him from time to time so I can talk to him about you, and often I help sell his whittled animals. He's good, you know, really an artist with that knife of his. And he's expecting you. His eyes lit up when I told him you were coming. He said he was going to take a bath, wash his hair, and put on clean clothes."

Again my throat constricted . . . Grandpa was going to take a bath without urging? On his own going to wash his hair and change his clothes?

"Have you seen or heard from Miss Deale?"

"She isn't here anymore," he said, keeping my hand tightly in his. "She left before you did, remember? Nobody's heard from her since. I go by our old school every once in a while, just for old times' sake, and sit on a swing and remember how it used to be. Like I said before, I've even been up to your cabin, and walked in your empty rooms--"

"Oh, why did you

do that!" I cried, so ashamed.

"I went there to understand, and I think I do. To think that someone as smart and beautiful as you could come from such as that cabin, and Tom as well, fills me with awe, and so much respect. I don't know if I could have come out of that with all your courage, and all your drive, and when I see Tom--"

"You've seen Tom? When?" I asked eagerly.

"Sure, and soon you'll see him too." He smiled sadly when he saw my expression. "Don't cry. He's fine, and quite a guy, Heaven. You just wait and see."

We were approaching Martin's Road, which was one of the lesser, poorer areas, about twelve blocks from where Fanny lived in the grandest house of all. "Mrs. Sally Trench runs a nursing home, and she's the one who takes care of your grandpa. I've heard that your father sends money once a month to pay for his stay there."

"I don't care what my father does." But it surprised me to know he could be that caring . . . sending money to support an old man he'd seldom noticed.

"Of course you care about your father, but you won't admit it. Maybe he did take the wrong road out, but you're alive and well. Fanny seems happy enough to me, and so does Tom. And when you find Keith and Our Jane, no doubt you'll be amazed at how well they both are. Heaven, you've got to learn to expect the best, not the worst; that's the only way you'll give yourself a chance to be happy instead of miserable."

My heart felt heavy, my soul wounded, as I glanced his way. Once I'd believed that kind of philosophy . . . now I didn't. I had tried his way of thinking with Kitty and Cal, doing my best to please both of them, and fate had tricked me, maybe tricked all of us. How could I restore the trusting innocence I'd lost? How could I turn back the clock and this time say no to Cal?

"Heaven . . . I'm never going to love anyone as much as I love you! I know we're both young and inexperienced and the world is full of others who might attract us later on, but right this minute you've got my heart in your hand, and you can throw it down, step on it, and crush it. Don't do that to me."

I couldn't speak, made dumb from all the guilt I felt, all the shame of not being the girl he thought I was.

"Please, look at me. I need you to love me, and now you don't let me touch you, hold you. Heaven, we're not kids anymore. We're old enough now to feel adult emotions--and share adult pleasures."

Another man who wanted to take from me!

"My family gives me lots to worry about. I wonder how I managed to grow at all," I managed to say.

"Seems to me you did a super job of growing-- and shaping up." His tentative, troubled smile faded as his eyes went serious, and for a moment I thought I saw in those stormy bliie eyes all the devotion and love an ocean could hold. For me, for me! An eternity of love, caring, and faithfulness. A deep throb stabbed me and made me feel for a moment there was hope, when there couldn't be, not ever.

"What's the matter?" he asked when I began to stride onward at a faster pace. "Have I said something wrong? Again? Remember the day we pledged ourselves to each other?"

I remembered just as much as he did that wonderful day when we'd lain by the river and made our childish vows to love each other forever. Now I knew nothing lasted forever.

Then it had been easy to make pledges, thinking neither he nor I would or could ever change. Now everything had changed. I wasn't worthy of him anymore, if ever I had been. Funny how being a hill scumbag wasn't nearly as humiliating as being what I was since first I had allowed Cal to touch me, just another trampy girl who'd allowed herself to be used by a man.

"I guess you've never had any girlfriend but me?" Bitterness was in my voice that he didn't seem to notice.

"Just dates, casual dates."

We'd reached Martin's Road. And there on the corner was a huge monster of a house, painted a sickly sea-foam green, like froth on the sea, like Kitty's eyes.

The yard about the house was wide, mowed to perfection. It was hard to picture Grandpa shut up in such a big house as that. Every last one of the old rockers on the porch was empty. Why wasn't Grandpa on that grand front porch, whittling?

"If you want, I'll wait out here while you visit with him," Logan said thoughtfully.