The Perfect Letter Read online

  She turned the light off in her bedroom to make her grandfather think she’d gone to bed, then raised the sash on the window and swung herself out onto the windowsill. Jake reached up and took her around the waist. She leaned back into him, and he eased her down, then spun her around to face him. “Look at that,” he said. “I was wrong about you, that first day. You aren’t a horse; you’re a monkey.”

  “And you’re still a talking ass.”

  “Ah, but I’m your talking ass.”

  “Lucky you,” she said. She kissed him.

  A noise around back startled them, and they went completely silent: it was her grandfather opening the window in his bedroom.

  “The barn,” Leigh whispered, and they went around across the lawn toward the stables, keeping to the shadows and away from the bright glow of the moon rising orange over the hills, staying low. In a minute they heard the scrape of the window closing again.

  The stables were dark for the night and smelled of dust and creosote and leather polish and horseflesh. The horses nickered softly when they heard footsteps in the aisle, but Leigh gave them a reassuring whoa there, hey there, and they went quiet.

  They went down to the tack room and found a stack of clean wool blankets. She took one, but under the bottom blanket she could just feel the cool metal of her grandfather’s .357 Magnum. She picked up the corner of the wool and showed the gun to Jake.

  “One of these days,” she said, “the old man is going to get brave enough to open my door and realize I’m not there. When that happens, you’d better learn to run fast.”

  “He won’t catch me.”

  “It’s not catching you I’m worried about, it’s shooting you. He’s a hell of a shot, you know. He keeps this gun here for coyotes and horse thieves and debauchers of his granddaughter.”

  “He won’t shoot me,” Jake said. “Don’t you fret.”

  They grabbed a blanket, then climbed up the ladder to the hayloft, the one place she was sure that no one would be that time of night, the one place she knew no one would look for them. She’d spent hours reading alone there when she was younger, trying to escape her list of after-school chores, dreaming of her future in New York. The hay was stacked in bricks, smelling sweetly of the fields in summertime, and the hayloft was hot even in the evening, holding on to the warmth of the day. Leigh spread the blanket over the carpet of hay littering the floor and flopped down on it. Jake lay down next to her, stretching out his full length and leaning over her.

  A beam of moonlight was coming in through the open hatch of the hayloft. Below them they could hear the sounds of the horses moving in their stalls, stamping their feet, chewing a bit of hay. A breeze blew through the building, causing a wind chime outside to tinkle. Somewhere the old peacock, Peabody, was standing on a roof and giving his mournful cry: ah-Ah! ah-Ah!

  In the dimness Jake was just a shadow, a deeper bit of darkness. His skin was hot where Leigh touched it—the back of his neck, his shoulders, the hard muscles on the back of each arm. His hands wound around her back, and he pulled her in for a kiss, long and slow, leaning into her until they were pressed together knees to chest.

  She could feel his heartbeat under his ribs picking up speed like her own. Something was different. He seemed strangely intense, his touches longer, less tentative. There was a pressure in his fingers and breath that hadn’t been there before, a question he was asking with his hands and his body. She realized suddenly that he was trembling.

  “What’s the matter?” she breathed.

  “Nothing,” he said, his hands stroking her hip, moving up toward her breast, the shiver working up from his core and making his voice shake as well. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”

  He found her nipple under her shirt, and her breath caught. “Me, too.”

  “Are you scared at all?”

  “No,” she said, and meant it. She trusted him completely. After all, it had been his idea to wait until the time was right, and it seemed the time was most certainly now. She knew he would never abuse her trust. He was worthy not only of her trust but of her passion. The time for caution was gone.

  She slid her hand up his back, under his T-shirt, his skin velvety and a little damp, following the curve of his spine, the wings of his shoulder blades, the soft place at the base of his throat. She wanted to touch all of him, every bit of him. She sat up and pulled off his T-shirt, leaning back to look at him in the moonlight. He looked like a Greek statue, or a David, his skin marbled and white in the silvery light. The muscles of his chest and belly were flat, taut from working out of doors with the horses. A faint touch of stubble darkened his cheeks and the spot in the middle of his chest, and she kissed him there once, and felt him shudder.

  She pulled him to his feet and undid the buckle of his belt, then the buttons on his jeans, and with a thump they both slid to the floor. He stepped out of his jeans and stood still.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I’ve always wanted to look at you.”

  He looked down at himself and up again, abashed. She saw his hands clench and unclench, as if he were fighting the urge to cover himself, but she reached out and ran a finger up his leg from knee to hip and smiled when she heard him gasp. “Jesus,” he said, his voice ragged.

  “Too much?”

  “No,” he said, slightly breathless but grinning.

  She ran another finger across his backside, enjoying the feeling of it clenching under her touch. She’d had no idea the power she could have over him, or how intoxicating that power could be—that she could tease him, seduce him, enjoy him all she wanted.

  Jake’s breath was coming in little gasps, his breastbone rising and falling quickly under her hands. She leaned forward and kissed the spot over his heart, then licked one of his nipples gently. She stood on her toes to reach his neck, then his mouth, all while Jake held himself still, willing himself not to move for fear of breaking the spell.

  With one hand she cupped his buttocks, and with the other, she reached down to feel him hard against her thigh. She took him in her hand and felt his whole body shudder. “I can’t—” he panted. “I can’t—Leigh, please, please, Leigh, it has to be now.”

  She let go of him and stepped back, undoing her shirt, her jeans, letting them fall to the floor. Then she stood before him naked herself.

  He crossed the space between them in two steps, picking her up and wrapping her legs around his waist, lowering her to the floor. She was surprised at how strong he was. His lips moved to her ears, her neck. Her body was dissolving into his, the margins between them evaporating. He put his mouth on her nipples, and she panted. “Jake,” she said. “Jake, please don’t make me wait anymore.”

  His mouth on her neck, her breasts. His mouth on the deepest place inside her, his tongue, his wetness melting into her own. Her hands on the back of his hair, on the silk of his shoulders, and she pulled him up to kiss him again before bending over to slide the condom on. Then she lay back and arched her hips to let him ease into her. A quick burst of pain and then it was done, more smoothly than she had imagined. He moved over her, hips pushing into her softness, into the ache, her body so lit with desire she no longer had any sense of where she stopped and he began.

  She grabbed him and pulled him into her, deeper, nothing but his body and hers curled around the epicenter of pleasure. He lifted her hips to pull him to her, thrusting until the world went white, and her whole body shuddered. Jake cried out once, twice, and then collapsed on top of her, his weight pleasantly heavy, his neck slick with sweat.

  He stroked her hair in the moonlight, rolled off her, and lay quiet while she put her head on his shoulder. It had been surprising only in that she’d enjoyed it more than she would have thought, given what Chloe and the other girls at school always said—that it was usually fast, and painful, and awkward. But maybe it was different when you really loved someone, she thought. Maybe Jake had been right to make them both wait until they were sure what they meant to each
other. But as she lay there with her head on his chest, her body still tingling with pleasure, the only thing she was sorry about was that in the morning they’d have to go back to pretending in front of their families that nothing had happened, nothing had changed, when all she wanted was to shout from the rooftops that she loved him, that she was his now and always.

  When she thought she could speak, she looked over at him and said, “Think you could do that again?”

  He laughed. “Give me a minute,” he said. “I’m sure I could manage.”

  Afterward they were inseparable, insatiable, finding each other in the hayloft, at the lake, in the woods. They were careful, so careful not to get caught—Gene still swore to Leigh that he’d fire Ben at the first hint that Jake wasn’t keeping his hands to himself—but there was hardly ever a day they didn’t find at least five minutes to spend together, hardly ever a day when they didn’t have a chance to sneak a kiss in the tack room, a quick I love you between chores.

  They managed to keep their relationship a secret from Gene, but Jake’s dad was another story. Ben Rhodes watched them all the time, always aware that his job was on the line if Jake slipped up even a little. He hated Leigh for it, too, staying close whenever she was in the barn, never letting her out of his sight, yet he never spoke to her, just followed her with his eyes wherever she went, a scowl of disgust on his face.

  Jake, who was a year ahead of Leigh, graduated high school and started learning the business in earnest from his dad, who sent him on errands to the vet’s, to town, even long trips to deliver horses to buyers, anything to keep him away from the farm as long as possible. Sometimes he would go to Oklahoma, Missouri, Florida, staying away for days or even weeks at a time. Ben had his training partner, the dirty-minded, foulmouthed Dale Tucker, keep Jake out in the training pens for long stretches, working the horses on the lead lines, taking them through their paces on the test track. There was so much work to do on the farm that there always seemed to be some new excuse for Ben to keep them apart. That Christmas, Ben even sent Jake away to his mother’s back in Kentucky for a couple of weeks, maybe hoping he might see his old girlfriend there, that he and Amy would be tempted to pick up where they’d left off.

  The night he left, Jake had come to meet her, to tell her he’d be home soon. They slipped into the hayloft after dark, where he told her where he was going and when he’d be back, kissing her long and deeply. “Don’t forget about me,” he said.

  “Never.” Two weeks was hardly long enough for her to forget him, she wanted to say, but then they’d never been apart that long before.

  “Look,” he said, pulling up one sleeve of his white T-shirt, “I had it done today.”

  On the back of one arm was the small dark shape of a bat. “It’s our secret. To remind us of the day in the cave, so I can carry you with me forever.”

  Afterward they’d made love in the hayloft and she’d touched the tattoo gently, feeling the place where the skin was raised, the permanent reminder of the day when they’d first declared their love to each other. She’d loved it, and him, more than ever. It didn’t matter where he went, she’d be with him.

  Whatever their families did to keep them apart, though, Leigh and Jake weren’t deterred. He called her every day he was in Kentucky, sent her letters almost by the hour. They swore their love for each other, swore they’d be together no matter what his father and her grandfather had to say about it.

  All they had to do, Jake decided, was grow up. When Leigh reached the magic age of eighteen, they’d be free to do as they liked. They had to be patient, and wait, and it would turn out all right in the end. Leigh wasn’t sure she could wait that long, but Jake told her to keep her grades up and her nose clean, and before long they’d be old enough to go where they wanted, live how they wanted. “It’s just a few more months,” he said.

  “A year,” she wheedled. “A whole year, Jake.”

  “Just a year,” he said. “Be strong. I know you can be.”

  So Leigh did what he said: she kept her grades up, stayed out of any serious trouble. She didn’t party every weekend like most of the kids she knew; if she wasn’t at home doing homework or chores, she was with Chloe, maybe hanging out in Austin, seeing some live shows, watching Chloe audition for band after band. Sometimes Jake would sneak away and meet up with them. Leigh always called home to let her grandfather know where she was; she kept her curfew religiously, stopped talking back to the old man. She and Jake would come home in separate cars, at different times, as if they hadn’t been together.

  She would give Gene no reason to come down on her. She was respectful and courteous and did exactly what she liked when he wasn’t looking, just the way her mother had done, and it worked: Gene relaxed, stopped arguing with her so much. As long as he didn’t know the truth, it seemed, he was happy.

  During her senior year Leigh was at the top of her high-school class. She’d already been admitted to Harvard—she’d hardly been able to believe it when the acceptance package arrived—but even before she held the letter in her hands, she’d known it would be impossible to live without Jake in Boston. She knew in her heart that she couldn’t take classes and make new friends and talk to Jake once or twice a week, go months and months without seeing him, touching him.

  After Christmas, Leigh started talking about going to the University of Texas instead, staying close to home. Jake didn’t like that, said she was being shortsighted, that most people would give anything they had, everything, to get into the best college in the country. “I can’t let you give up Harvard,” he said. “Not on my account.”

  “I can’t go now,” Leigh said one night not long after New Year’s. The hayloft was cool in midwinter, and she could almost see her breath in front of her face. Jake sat up and put her on his lap, wrapping them both in a heavy wool blanket. “Let’s just say I go to UT. I can commute from home, or maybe get an apartment with Chloe in Austin. You can work with your dad until you get your own training business going. Then we can go anywhere we want, do anything we want.”

  “You’re going to Harvard. Period.”

  “Now you sound like my grandfather.”

  “The old man’s just looking out for you.”

  “Ugh. Now you really sound like him.”

  “We will call a lot, see each other over vacations. This is your dream, your chance to get out of Burnside.”

  “It won’t be the same without you.” Leigh shivered, though not just from the cold. “I mean it, I think I might die if I have to go months and months without seeing you. Two weeks at Christmas last year was torture.”

  Jake was thoughtful for a minute, quiet. In the time since he’d graduated high school he’d grown quieter in general, more serious. She knew he had a lot on his mind—it wasn’t easy working for his dad and living on someone else’s place, a position that was always in jeopardy because he was in love with the boss’s granddaughter. For weeks she’d felt it: Jake had a lot on his mind. He was getting ready to make some kind of decision, and for weeks she had dreaded hearing what it might be. Moving away. Getting a job someplace, starting his own business. Leaving her behind.

  Finally he said, “Let’s get married.”

  For a minute Leigh wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “What?”

  “You and me, kid. What do you say?”

  “You aren’t serious.”

  “As a heart attack. I’ve always known I was going to marry you one day. Why should we wait? We’ll get married and go to Boston together.”

  “My grandfather will cut me off, for one thing.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I can’t pay for school on my own. Pop’s money is the only reason I can afford Harvard.”

  “We won’t tell him. You can live off campus. We’ll get an apartment. You tell him you got a roommate.”

  “You think no one’s going to notice you’re gone?”

  “I’ll tell my dad I’m going back to Kentucky to live with some friends.”
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  “We won’t be able to keep it up for long.”

  “Sure we will. Long enough to get settled, anyway. After that it won’t matter. You think your granddad will shoot me if we’re married? No way. Not when it’s all legal.”

  Leigh imagined her grandfather doing exactly that, showing up unannounced in Boston one day, just dropping in. Wanted to see how you’re doing, Leela. Making sure you’re okay. And then what he would do if he found Jake there, if he saw that they were living together. She imagined police sirens and ambulances and Jake in a body bag, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was exaggerating.

  But maybe Jake was right—if they were already married, if they were respectably and legally wed, maybe her grandfather would manage to live with it eventually. He was old-fashioned; he believed in going to church on Sunday, in holy matrimony, in babies born in wedlock. He might not like it, but he wouldn’t punish Leigh after the deed was done. Her mother had come home pregnant and unmarried—that was what had galled Gene, that she’d had a child without a father. Leigh started to think Jake was right, that marriage was their only way out of this mess. She’d have college and Jake and her grandfather’s grudging approval. In time he’d learn to accept Jake. He’d have to.

  Jake flung the blanket off his shoulders and got down on one knee, taking her hand in his. “I love you, Leigh Elizabeth Merrill. Will you marry me? Will you please be my wife?”

  Leigh could hardly breathe, but she choked out a yes. Jake gave a yelp of joy and caught her in a tight embrace, and they made love in the darkness of the hayloft with the moon shining through the window, secure in the knowledge that they would now be together forever, that there would be no force the world could muster that would keep them apart.

  It all had to be done quickly, but legally. A few days after she turned eighteen, at the end of June, they’d go on down to the courthouse and get married. That summer Jake would tell his father that a couple of his friends back in Lexington had invited him to share an apartment with them, that he’d get a job at one of the stables there, start making his own way. Then he’d pack up his old Ford truck, drive up to Boston, and meet Leigh. They’d find an apartment. Jake would find a job. Leigh had some money she’d saved up—not a lot, but enough to live on for a few months until her college fund from Gene came through. So simple.