Prom Night in Purgatory(45)

“Will you hold my hand for a minute...please?” Maggie gasped. The pull had grown stronger. She was paying for her interference. NO! She couldn’t leave now!

Johnny looked at her, his eyes serious and his head cocked to one side. Without a word, he stretched his hand out and she grasped it, clinging to it with both hands. It was big and calloused and warm. She focused on the ridges and grooves, the length of his fingers and the width of his palm. She rubbed slow circles into his skin with her thumbs, the back and forth motion soothing her and quieting the intense quickening within her.

Johnny let her be for a few minutes, but then pulled on his hand, silently asking her to let go. She did so immediately, but felt the loss acutely, as if he were a lifeline in a raging storm. He tossed the food onto the seat behind them and with one steady motion leaned over and pulled her up tight against his side. Oh, the advantages of a bench seat.

“I need my hand for a minute, but you hold onto me if you need to.” His voice was gentle and without reproach, and Maggie thought, not for the first time, how unthreatened he seemed by her wild behavior. She had blown into his life less than an hour ago...and brought havoc in her wake. He hadn’t even batted an eye.

“Where are we going?” Maggie asked, burrowing into his side. She really didn’t care. For the moment she felt safe and exactly where she belonged.

“My favorite place to think and talk, or just be left alone, is the reservoir. There are some big trees, and a cool breeze comes up off the water. It’s not too hot yet, but it will be in another month, and the place will be hoppin’. It should be quiet tonight, though.”

In Maggie’s time, the reservoir had been closed to the public. Some tiny fish with a funny name had been discovered in the reservoir and a wildlife organization had come in and claimed the guppy-like fish was at risk of extinction. The government had stepped in and made it a preserve. So now the only creatures to enjoy the reservoir were the four-legged kind or the itty bitty three—finned variety. Kind of sad, Maggie thought. The reservoir was manmade, but that hadn’t mattered, apparently. As a result, she had never even seen the reservoir.

“I heard a story about you, this car, and the reservoir. It was a pretty cool story.”

Johnny looked down at her in wonder. “You heard that story?”

“I did,” Maggie smiled. “Your reputation preceeds you.”

“Boy, I hope not,” Johnny grinned. “And here I know nothing about you...well, other than you steal cars, you’re beautiful, and you don’t like Roger Carlton. Of course, I find all three of those attributes almost impossible to resist.”

It was Maggie’s turn to laugh, and laugh she did. “Is that why you called me Bonnie back there? Like Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Yes, ma’am. Bonnie was a beautiful woman, too. And she was also a famous thief. I’m not volunteering to be Clyde, though. Those two ended up getting shot to death in their vehicle, didn’t they? I like my car too much to take that kind of a chance.”

“I don’t think there would have been a Bonnie without Clyde.” Maggie flirted a little.

“Oh you don’t, do ya? Well you might be right about that. Behind every bad man is a woman who can’t resist him.”

Maggie didn’t respond. There was a story in that comment, though his voice suggested he was kidding.

Johnny drove the car up a long bumpy incline that finally leveled out at the top. Slowing to a stop, he put the car in park. The moonlight spilled softly onto the surface of the lake, and Johnny cranked his window down, letting the night air brush their cheeks and fill the interior of the car. Maggie scooted over and out the passenger side, and Johnny pulled their food from the back seat. He popped the trunk, pulled out a scratchy army blanket, and spread it out on a relatively flat area several yards from the car.

They made short work of the chicken, potato logs, and coleslaw. Maggie had thought she might not be able to eat, but the food actually steadied her, and the tugging eased and then ceased altogether as she ate her fill. Everything was delicious, and the Coke in a glass bottle was a treat. It tasted a little sharper than the Coca Cola of 2011, but she liked the difference.

Johnny finished before Maggie, and he removed his bow tie and pulled off his sports coat, setting it behind him on the blanket. He made short work of the cummerbund as well. Rolling up his sleeves and unbuttoning the top buttons of his white dress shirt, he lay back and sighed like he’d just been released from shackles and chains.

Maggie wished she could unclip her nylons from the garter belt and roll them off but thought it might create the wrong impression. She settled for slipping off her shoes and laying back beside him, a couple of feet between them, looking up into the firmament.

“So what was that all about -- the scene with Irene Honeycutt and Roger Carlton? I think you made an enemy out of Roger, maybe out of both of them.”

“Irene is family. It’s complicated,” Maggie sighed, knowing that if she were going to stay beside Johnny under the moonlit sky, she would have to tread very carefully. “Her little sister is afraid of him, which is always a warning sign. Kids and dogs, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, when kids or dogs don’t like someone, it’s usually a pretty a good indication of a person’s trustworthiness.”

“So you just decided to call him out and tell Irene he was no good based on that?”