“Because things were rough enough as it was. My dad worked all the time in the brewery. I was on my own after school until late every night. You see, he resented being stuck with me when my mom died. He was a foul-mouthed, mule-headed, hard-drinking man. His ambition extended only to having enough money to pay the rent and buy whiskey. The last thing he wanted was to take care of a kid. I left home as soon as I got old enough. I only saw him twice after that before he died.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was bowling one night with a bunch of his cronies and just dropped dead of a heart attack. They buried him beside my mother. I was in Asia. They sent me the details of it in a letter.”
Kerry didn’t know what to say. She’d never known anybody who had come from that kind of environment. “When did you get into photography?”
“High school. I was flunking something...I don’t remember what now...so they stuck me in the journalism class that put together the school newspaper. They gave me a camera and appointed me photographer as a punishment.” He chuckled softly. “It backfired. By the end of the year, I was hooked.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“College?” He barked a scornful laugh. “Cambodia, Vietnam, Africa, the Middle East. I got my formal education on the Golan Heights, and in Beirut and Belfast, and in refugee camps in Biafra and Ethiopia.”
“I see.”
“I seriously doubt that,” he said bitterly.
Kerry didn’t know whether his resentment was directed toward her, toward his unloving father, toward his lack of formal education, or a combination of all of them. But she felt it safer not to pursue it.
It was he who finally broke the silence. “What about you? What kind of childhood did you have?”
“Charmed.” Kerry smiled with remembrances of golden times. Before they were tarnished by scandal. Before the nightmare. Before the bubble burst. “Like you, both my parents are dead now, but I had them when I was growing up.”
“You went to parochial school, of course.”
“Yes,” she answered truthfully.
“Let me guess. You wore navy blue pinafores over stiff white blouses. And pigtails so tight they made your eyes water. White stockings and black patent shoes. Your face and hands were never dirty.”
She laughed softly. “You’re remarkably accurate.”
“And you were taught social graces along with Latin and Humanities.”
She nodded, thinking back on all the formal salons she had sat in with her parents, listening to boring conversations, which to a teenager with a passion for the Rolling Stones, had had no relevance. She had never been at a loss as to which fork to use and had always politely thanked the host and hostess for the evening’s entertainment. Linc had had a latch-key, and she had had personalized stationery.
“Yes,” she replied, “my father’s work involved considerable travel. You and I might have been in some of the same places at the same time.”
He uttered another of those humorless laughs. “Honey, you don’t even know about some of the places I’ve been in.”
“I’m not that innocent.”
“Compared to you, Sister Kerry, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm led a wild life.”
Though she couldn’t see his face, she could imagine the sneer on his lips. Knowing now how different his background was from hers, she could understand why he might ridicule her previously sheltered life and lack of worldly experience.
She lapsed into silence. Apparently he was of the same mind. He adjusted himself more comfortably against her. Miraculously they fell asleep.
Kerry came awake suddenly. Every muscle in her body was tense and quivering. “What is it?”
“Shh.” Linc laid his fingers against her lips. “It’s only rain.”
The huge drops fell heavily on the plants surrounding them. They landed in hard splats. It sounded as though their shelter were being pelleted with BBs. “Oh, Lord,” Kerry whimpered and ducked her head so low that her chin almost touched her chest. “I hate this.”
Even though the broad leaves of the vine covering them provided some protection from the torrent, rainwater still trickled through the foliage and dripped chillingly onto her exposed skin. Her muscles were cramped. She longed to stretch her limbs in all directions in order to ease their aching and to restore circulation.
“I can’t stay in here. I’ve got to get out.”
“No,” he said sharply.