Kicking Eternity by Ann Lee Miller Page B

her pregnant body from the sand.
    Lord— Raine’s heart groaned.
    Jesse and Kallie waved and moved toward the road to follow the string of campers threading toward camp.
    The bucket sloshed seawater as Cal set it down. He sat facing her, knees drawn up in front of him. One hand clasped his wrist. “I want to paint you.”
    She sucked in a breath. What?
    “Your eyes are as big as sand dollars. Don’t freak, okay? I’ve wanted to paint you since the first time I saw you on the Canteen porch. You’ve got great bone structure. You could sit for me after dinner for like… a week.”
    No! The answer is ‘no’! “When will you surf?” She grasped at something, anything, to buy time to think.
    “If I want to surf, I can get my butt out of bed in the morning.”
    “I don’t know,” she hedged. She didn’t want Cal staring at her for who knew how long.
    “Look, I’m an artist. I don’t see someone every day I want to paint.”
    All she could think about was how they were alone in the firelight right now. God, help me.
    Wind blew off the ocean feeding the fire. Now she could see Cal’s eyes boring into hers. She shook her head. “I can’t, Cal—”
    “Why?”
    “It’s the same conversation we keep having.”
    “You’re avoiding me. I used to see you fifteen times a day. This is the first time I’ve seen you this week, and I had to come looking for you.”
    “I’m busy—”
    “I don’t care if you hate my guts. Sit for me and I’ll leave you alone the rest of the summer. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. It’s easier to paint without conversation anyway. You can pray for all I care.”
    For you. “Okay, I’ll do it.” She had to get someplace where there were bright lights and people. Away from Cal.
    “You will?”
    She laughed at his expression. “You look like you only got through half your arguments.”
    He stood. “Am I that transparent?”
    “Not usually.”
    He tossed the water onto the fire. The embers sputtered while Cal went for a second bucket. She didn’t hav e a right to ask God to douse her feelings, not when she’d agreed to spend a week of evenings with Cal.
    Cal emptied the sec ond bucket onto the dying fire.
    Sh e helped him kick sand over the charred wood.
    They turned toward the seawall and hiked in the soft sand toward the road without speaking. Lights glowed in windows of the cement block duplexes, remnants of the sixties, that lined the street. Overhead, pine branches swayed, their needles filtering the moonlight before it reached the pavement.
    She looked at Cal. “You’re not a pariah.” A circle of streetlight bathed his face, but his expression gave nothing away.
    “I like you.” She looked away stepping into the shadow between streetlights. “You’re honest. You don’t let me keep things superficial…”
    Their footsteps scuffed along the road into camp. Say something!
    Cal stopped in front of her cabin. “Thanks—for sitting for me. And for—what you said.” His voice was hoarse.
    Sh e stood on the porch and watched him walk away. She was so sunk.
     
    #
     
    Raine’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Eddie. Adrenaline streaked through her body as she opened his text. Her skin went clammy in the night air.
    “Yesterday, 4 p.m., bullet missed me. Maybe you’re right.”
    She sank onto the step of her cabin. Four was the exact time of yesterday’s meltdown over Eddie. What if—what if God had been urging her to “pray now” for Eddie because he was in crisis? Her prayers had been all about her and not about Eddie. Peace settled over her. Yes. Thank You. Next time she’d pray for Eddie.
    “Right about what?” she texted back.
    “That God is watching out for me. Even when I’ve ditched Him.”
    She punched the letters into her phone. “It’s true.”
    “I was scared. Really scared.”
    Panic curled in the bottom of her stomach. “You okay?”
    “Shaken. I hate my life.”
    Oh God, don’t let him be suicidal. “Teen