Chapter 12

 

The couple walked in silence for a good half hour, neither really sure what to say or how to say it.

I wonder what she’s thinking.  She’s been quiet ever since Murry made those comments about me being her boyfriend; I wonder if that’s what she is thinking about?  I don’t want to push her to anything, but I haven’t been able to get that out of my mind all summer.  With her gone all summer I’ve realized just how much I need her around, nothing seems to be fun anymore all I do is eat, sleep and work.

The rounded a bend in the trail and come beside the lake.  With no kids at the camp it was nice and peaceful.  The silence of the walk had been a comfortable on, both of them were thinking and no words were needed just yet.  They walked up a small embankment and sat down side-by-side watching the water.  An hour went by and they just sat there enjoying the feeling of being near one another.

Soon want ware of the past two day s began to weigh down Kait’s eye lids and she had trouble keeping them open.  Growing more and more tired he leaned more into Jonathan’s side and relaxed.

“Tired?”  Jonathan whispered, not wanting to break the tranquility of the moment.

“Mmhm,” Kait mumbled tiredly.

“Want to head back?”

“No, this is nice.  I’ve missed doing this; just sitting with you...I’ve missed you.”  Kait admitted resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes.

Jonathan smiled; he had just been thinking the same thing.  How do I tell her that I don’t want to go through that again?  I don’t want to go around lonely all the time anymore.  That’s when the realization hit him, the reason he had been so lonely.  He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, but somewhere along the way he had fallen in love with her.  Scratch that, I’ve known for a long time that I love her.  I realized it the night before the attack, but after that, I couldn’t let myself let her know.  She didn’t need someone professing love; she needed someone to be there for her when she was scared, to calm her down after a nightmare, someone to hold her when she cried.  But now?  What would she do if I told her I loved her?

Jonathan felt Kait relax completely, her breathing was even and slow, she had fallen asleep.  “I’ve missed you too.  I love you.”  Jonathan whispered and kissed the top of her head, sliding on arm around her side and holding her close to him.  Chicken! Jonathan chided himself, So what if she couldn’t hear me, all that matters is that I’ve said it.  Even if she doesn’t know it, at least I do.

Kait smiled to herself, he may not know that she heard his admission, but she did.  It warmed her heart and she let herself slip into a blissful slumber.

Jonathan let her sleep for an hour then roused her gently, “Hey Miss Sleepy Head, are you going to sleep all day or are you going to spend some time with me?”  Jonathan joked.

“Okay, okay,” Kait yawned and stretched.  In doing so, it brought them nose to nose, just millimeters away.  Suddenly the moment had lost all its amusement and both of them became serious.  Jonathan started to say something but was silenced by the soft brush of Kait’s lips on his own.  The kiss was nothing more then just a momentary contact, but it was filled with meaning and left them both breathless.  Kait opened her eyes and smiled a dreamy smile at Jonathan.  “Now that’s a nice thing to wake up to.”

Jonathan returned her smile with one a little less dreamy.  He caressed the side of her cheek while watching her closely to judge what her reaction was.  Before Jonathan could come up with a reply the sound of the bell ringing could be heard form eh direction of camp.

“That would be the dinner bell,” Kait told him softly still unwilling to break the magic of the moment.

After a moment of neither of them moving Jonathan chuckled, “We should probably head over there before someone sends a search party to find us.”

Kait’s dreamy smiled broke into one of the laughter, “Your right.”

***********

Jonathan and Kait grabbed the last two seats at a table right before Pete gave the blessing for the food.  After the prayer the room quickly filled with people talking.

“Hey Jonathan, you drove over here from the mainland right?”  Murry asked as he passed the salad.

“Yes, I live about 40 minutes away, why?”  Jonathan took some of the salad and passed it on to Kait.

“Well, you might want to head back soon.  I heard something about both the bridge and the ferry being shut down tonight.”  Murry offered with a shrug.

“Too late man, they’ve already shut them down.”  Another guy at the table chimed in.

“Why would they do that?”  Kait asked looking around the table a little alarmed.

“The bridge is getting some work done to it and I heard there was some kind of accident on the ferry dock.”  The second man answered.

“Any idea when they are going to reopen them?”  Kait asked.

“Well the bridge should reopen tomorrow morning.  And I have no clue about the ferry.”

“Is there any other way off the island?”  Jonathan asked.

“This island only has about five hundred residents, on an island this small, we’re luck to have that much.  But to answer your question, no there is no other way off the island.”  He saw a look of thought cross Jonathan’s face.  “Don’t’ worry, Pete wont’ make you sleep in your car or anything.  I’m sure he’ll let you stay the night.”

As if on cue a tall well-built man in his early 30s cam up behind the man whom had been speaking.  “I hear we have a guest for the night, huh Mask?”  He was speaking to the guy he was standing behind whom Jonathan assumed was Mask.

“If you don’t mind Lank,” Kait asked using his camp name.  Pete always wanted people to use camp names when they were on campgrounds.  “You see,” she continued. “Jonathan came to visit me for the day and it seems that both the bridge and the ferry have been closed down.  Is it alright if he stays the night?”  Kait mentally crossed her fingers, girls had stayed over with girls and guys would have guy friends over, but she had never heard about girls having guy friends stay the night.

Lank looked form Kait to Jonathan, “You Jonathan?”  He asked not unkindly, but his voice want’ all that friendly either.

“Yes, sir,” Jonathan responded with a polite nod of his head.

“Well son, you’re welcome to stay the night, seeing that you’re stranded.  I’m sure the guys can spare and extra bed.”  Murry and Mask nodded an affirmative.  “Good.  Well it was nice meeting you and if you excuse me, I’m going to go join my wife for dinner.”

“It was night to meet you also, sir.”

“No need for this sir business, you can call me Lank, the same as everyone else.”

“Alright Lank.”  Land nodded and headed over to the table where his wife was waiting for him.

************

That night Murry showed Jonathan to the bunk he could use.  “And this one is yours for the night.”  Jonathan looked at the bed, it was one of about 8 in one room, some were bunk beds some were singles like the one he was given.  After a moment of pause Murry spoke again, “And so you don’t have to get lost when you go to find it, the girl’s room is right next door.”  Murry gave him a slight smirk.  “So how long have you and Kit-Kat been going together?”

“We used to date a while back, but now we’re just friends.”

“Well you two looked pretty close when I walked in on you.”

“She was just a little excided.”

“If you say so man.  But boy I’d like to know how you got her that excited, and you two are still ‘just friends,’ if you know what I mean.”  Murry slapped him on the back and left the room to go check on the horses before he headed off to bed himself.

Jonathan knew Murry was just kidding about that, but he still didn’t like the idea of anyone talking about Kait like that.  And he really didn’t want anyone else trying to get that close to Kait, ever.

***********

Kait looked around the empty room.  She was the only female wrangler that had stayed the weekend; all the other had gone home and would be back tomorrow.  She hated staying there by herself, it was always so quiet.  She hated it when it was this quiet, every time she was the only one to stay the weekend she always had one of her nightmares (which ended up being almost every other weekend), she figured it had something to do with feeling alone.  She prayed to God that tonight wouldn’t be another one of those nights.  Kait kept up her running monologue with God while she slipped into bed and tried to relax.

***********

Lank knocked on the door to the guy wrangler’s door.  Mask opened it up, “What’s up Lank?”

He looked in the room, saw Jonathan over by the sink and lowered his voice.  “If she wakes up tonight don’t forget to come and get me, okay?”

Mask held up his hands in front of himself in a gesture of self-defense.  “Hey after last time, I won’t forget.”

“Good.  I’m going to turn in.  Hopefully I won’t see you until tomorrow.”

“Hey just one question man,” Mask looked back at Jonathan and lowered his voice again.  “If she has nightmares every time she sleeps alone, why don’t you ask one of the girls to stay with her?”

“Because she doesn’t want anymore people to know then have to, so far you, Hook, and I are the only ones who know that she has these nightmares.  And she wants it kept that way.”  Lank shot his glance over in Jonathan’s direction.

“I get ya man.  Hopefully I won’t see you again tonight.”

“Hopefully”

***********

Jonathan awoke in the middle of the night, at first he didn’t know what it was that had awoken him, but then he felt the all too familiar tightening in his chest, followed by the muffled sound of someone crying.  Jonathan bolted out of bed and was out the door without a second thought.  HE halted outside the door to the girls’ room.  Mask and Lank were already in there trying their best to calm Kait down.  She was huddled in the corner of her bed clutching her knees to her chest.

“Kait,” her name was a pained whisper on Jonathan’s lips.

At the sound of Jonathan’s whisper Kait’s head shot up and she looked right past Lank and Mask at Jonathan.  “Jonathan!” Kait cried his name and flew off her bed strait to Jonathan.  “Thank God!”

Jonathan wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest.  “Shhh, it’s okay.  I’m here.”  Jonathan continued to whisper soothing words and combed his fingers down through her hair and down her back.  Kait quickly calmed down; once she had stopped shacking Jonathan pulled back and framed her face with his hands.  “Why didn’t you tell me you were still having nightmares?”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”  Kait shrugged and looked down.

Jonathan looked beyond Kait at the two men in the room.  “It’s all right.  I’ll get her back to sleep.”  Both men nodded and left the room without a word.  “Come on, let’s go into the lounge and we can talk, okay?”  Kait nodded and stayed close to his side to the lounge. 

They sat down on one of the couches and Kait quickly curled up at his side and wrapped her arms around his chest.  She needed the contact; whenever she had that dream it always brought her old fears back to the surface of her dreams.

“What was it about this time?”

“Same as always, I’m pulled down and I can’t get away, no matter how hard I fight,” Kait shuddered at the memory.  “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure, what do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” Kait shrugged, her thought process hadn’t quite gone back to normal yet and she really didn’t want to do any talking.  “You still haven’t told me about your real reason from coming to see me.  How about you start with that?” Kait looked up at him expectantly.

Jonathan couldn’t’ deny her anything when she looked at him with her eyes so full of hope.  He would give her the world just to see the transformation that had taken place in her eyes; they had gone from echoes of darkness and pain to being almost child-like in her expectation of hearing something that she wanted to know.  “Okay,” Kait smiled up and him and settled her head back on his chest to listen.  “Remember how I was disappointed in the medical department at the U?”  Kait nodded an affirmative.  “Well I’ve been offered a full scholarship to another school.  Their medical department is pretty new, so there is lots of leeway and classes aren’t over-crowded like at the U.”

“That’s wonderful.”  Kait said happily, then a disturbing idea cam to mind and she sat up slowly.  “Where is it?”  She was afraid to ask the question but she was even more afraid of the answer.

Jonathan smiled teasingly, “What, afraid to lose me?”

Kait looked down and attempted a smile, the looked him in the eye truthfully, “Yes.”

He had meant hid little remark to be a joke but he realized that Kait actually thought that he would just pack-up and leave her.  He held her gaze and reached out to cup her cheek in his palm, lightly rubbing his thumb over her tanned skin.  “Kait, I would never just up and leave you, no matter how wonderful of an offer the school gave me, Never.  The school I’ve been offered the scholarship at is in Seattle.”

Kait blushed with embarrassment, she hadn’t meant to admit that she didn’t want him to leave, but he had asked, and he was the one person she could never lie to; so she had told him the truth.  “So…um…what school is it?”  Kait asked regaining the use of her thoughts and changing the subject.

“The Murphy School of Medicine.”

“Sounds familiar, but I’m not sure.  Where is it in Seattle?”

“It should sound familiar; it’s affiliated with your school.  It’s part of SPU.”

It took Kait almost a full minute to comprehend what he had just said, “Wh…What?”  Kait didn’t believe what she had heard.

“You heard me; it looks like we’ll be going to the same school next year.

She just sat there frozen with her mouth slightly open; she almost didn’t believe what she had heard.  “No joke?”

“No joke.”  Jonathan had to smile as he watched the shock on her face form into a brilliant smile.

“That’s wonderful!”  Kait smiled his cheek and settled back down to how she had been sitting earlier with her head resting on his chest.

Jonathan was so shocked by her completely innocent but loving kiss that by the time he had found his voice she was already asleep.  He ran his hand through her hair continually, feeling blessed to have such a simple form of contact with her.  “Ditto.”  Jonathan quoted from one of her favorite movies and settled into the couch for some much-needed sleep.