After he and his father were done talking, Cody even surprised himself a little by not heading into the house, grabbing Janice and heading upstairs. After all, for several months she’d had him pretty horny, sometimes very horny, especially when she broke out in one of those extreme bikinis she liked to wear on the beach. But the habit of being careful was still on him, and he wanted to be sure he was doing the right thing.

Mostly it was because of one part of the discussion that he’d had with his father – he’d told him that he flat-out loved her. That was well and good; it wasn’t as if he hadn’t pretty well admitted to himself that he loved Janice, and it was evident in her thoughts and actions toward him that she loved him, maybe even more than he did her if such a thing was possible.

There was a subtle problem in that which Cody finally recognized while letting the backyard revelations gel: he’d never quite told Janice that he loved her in so many words, and as far as that went he couldn’t recall her telling him that. Oh, they showed it non-verbally; there was no doubt that they were a couple, even one not as demonstrative about it as, oh, Shay and Bethany had been a year ago. And what was that worth? Nothing in the long run, as Cody was sure his mother was going to be happy to hear about. He was sure that he and Janice loved each other much more deeply and profoundly than that – but they had just never said it to each other.

Holding off a little while longer wouldn’t be that big a problem, he thought. He’d held out for months, what could it hurt to hold off a little longer so he and Janice could repair that little omission? Not a thing, he reasoned, if for no more reason than it would help resolve some of the issues he’d had all along.

The probate hearing on Monday proved to be a very quick thing, probably not lasting two minutes before Judge Dieball said, “Petition granted, and congratulations, Miss Archer.”

“Thank you, your honor,” she said, “You’ve made me very happy again.”

Needless to say, it took a lot longer to get the paperwork filled out in the court clerk’s office than it had in the hearing, but when Janice walked out of the courthouse, she had a new last name that she was a lot happier with than her former one. Every day, Cody thought, she managed to put her old life more and more behind her. She still had some issues and probably always would, but they were falling further and further into the past.

The next day Janice took her driving test and passed it with flying colors. She received a temporary license on the spot, and a few days later got a permanent license in her new name, which she was happy to show anyone who asked. In more ways than one, Janice Lufkin had been shoved into the past.

Beyond that, mostly their lives went back to normal, with Janice working at the store at irregular times, though she was now a lot more confident when she talked with someone about camping equipment. Cody was still working at the police station – with a little more respect: when the part-time front desk clerk is a state champion pistol shot, it tends to put the officers a little more on their toes. There was a little story in the Record-Herald about his achievement, no more than a couple paragraphs, but still it was something to be proud of.

Summer was winding down now. In a northern town like Spearfish Lake there was a hint of fall in the air. Cody knew that the football team was practicing two-a-days over at the school, not that he cared at all. The days were getting cooler and crisper, and the prospect of hanging out on the beach wasn’t quite as inviting as it had been earlier; soon it would be a thing of the past. Cody knew it would probably be a long, cold winter before he would see Janice in a bikini again, and he knew he would miss it. Shay would be home at the end of the week, he knew, and it wouldn’t be long before he’d be heading back to Lake State; and for that matter, soon he and Janice would be heading back to high school.

One evening later that week Cody and Janice seemed a little at loose ends. “You know,” he said, “we really ought to get down to the Frostee Freeze one more time this summer. It won’t be long before the place will be closed up for the winter.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Summer sure went by quickly, didn’t it?”

“It did.” he agreed, “but there is a bright side. Just think, this time next year we’ll be packing up to head down to Hawthorne.”

“I can’t wait.”

The evening was just a little too cool for shorts, so they both wore jeans and T-shirts as they walked down to the Frostee Freeze, just a few blocks from the house on Lakeshore, across from the empty beach. In spite of it being Wednesday evening the place was pretty full, mostly with high school kids looking to get in a last burst of fun and freedom before the evil days of fall and school set in.

They both got their ice creams and sat down at one of the outdoor tables under the awning to enjoy it. They hadn’t much more than sat down when Wyatt Curtis and Spring Trevetheck came over to join them. It had been several weeks since they’d seen the two, who were now even more publicly boyfriend and girlfriend. Over the course of the summer, the four teens had spent a little time together, but really not much. Their together time mostly consisted of playing computer games at the Curtis house on a couple of occasions. Wyatt really liked them, Spring seemed to enjoy them without being a fanatic about it. Although they tried to be nice about it, the games mostly bored Cody and Janice. The four teens had also spent a little time lying around the beach together, talking about one thing and another without deciding much of anything, catching some sun and enjoying being together.

“Haven’t seen you two around much,” Wyatt commented as he sat down.

“Well, we’ve been busy,” Cody replied. “There’s been a lot going on the past two or three weeks.”

“Anything interesting?” Spring asked.

“Well, the big thing is that we took off for a few days, did a little traveling, saw Shay down at Cedar Point, and checked out the place we’re planning on going to college.”

“Sounds like a pretty good trip.”

“Oh, it was,” Janice said. “We camped every night along the way, except for one night when we stayed in a dorm room. It was fun!”

“Cody, did your folks go with you?”

“No,” he replied. “It was just Janice and me in the pickup. We hit some nice beaches, too.”

“My God,” Wyatt shook his head at the thought. “I can’t imagine how high my mother would blow if Spring and I were to take off for a week together to check out colleges.”

“No fooling,” Spring agreed, “and my mother would blow up right next to her. She would think . . . my God, I don’t even want to think about what she would think. So where is it you’ve decided that you’re planning to go?”

“Southern Michigan, down at Hawthorne,” Cody announced. “We got accepted and everything, so that’s where we’ve pretty well made up our minds we’re going to go. Looks like a nice place, a little out of the ordinary, and from what we can find out it fits what we want to do pretty well.”

“I thought about that,” Spring commented. “There’s some things about it that seem real neat, but I hear that they don’t have much in student aid.”

“That’s a concern,” Cody admitted, “and it’s going to be expensive. Fortunately we each have a little money stuck back for college, but I guess it’s going to be student loans after that.”

“Maybe you ought to apply for a Donna Clark Foundation grant,” Spring suggested. “I know Susan McMahon goes down there, and she got a pretty good grant out of them.”

“We could try,” Cody sighed. “I hear they’re not the easiest thing in the world to get. I suppose it can’t hurt to turn in the paperwork.”

“They’re not easy from what I hear,” Spring told them, “but from what I’ve found out they seem to like to give grants to people who are pretty career and community-service oriented. Cody, with you going into law enforcement and with Janice going into nursing it sounds like you might be a pretty good fit. I don’t think it would work quite as well for me since I don’t know what I want to get into.”

“Well, yeah,” Cody agreed. “I’d hate to be paying off student loans the rest of my life. Like I said, I suppose it can’t hurt to apply. It’d be worth the effort, because Southern Michigan seems like a real good place for us in a number of different ways.”

“Jesus, I wish I had that stuff worked out for me,” Wyatt shook his head. “Zeke keeps pushing me to go to NMU, and hell, I don’t know how bad I want to do that. He says it’s nice, but he also says they get a ton and a half of snow up there in the winter.”

“I’m thinking about NMU, too,” Spring agreed, “and they seem to be pretty good about student aid money, although like most schools they don’t just throw it around for everyone. Marquette isn’t all that long a drive, but Mom would still be more than a little uptight about Wyatt and me going that far alone. I mean, we wanted to go to the renaissance faire down near Milwaukee and she just about blew her top at the idea. You two sure are lucky!”

“Well, the situation is a little different,” Cody smiled. “I mean, it’s a little different from boyfriend and girlfriend when you’re brother and sister.”

“Brother and sister . . . Cody, you don’t have a sister!”

“Well, I sorta do now,” he smiled. “In case you haven’t heard the word, I’d like to introduce you to Janice Archer.”

“Janice Archer?” Spring exclaimed. “What’s this?”

“I had my named changed,” Janice announced. “I didn’t want to be Janice Lufkin anymore, and as of a week ago Monday, I’m not.”

“I take it congratulations are in order?” Wyatt grinned.

“Very much so,” Janice beamed. “Of all the nice things Cody and his family have done for me, letting me use their name was one of the nicest.”

“Well congratulations,” Spring grinned. “I hope you won’t mind if I continue to think of you as Janice Lufkin for a while.”

“I suppose it’s going to happen,” Janice sighed. “I really don’t want it to. I suppose it’s going to take a while to take hold.”

“You’ll probably never break everyone of it,” Spring shook her head, “but I’ll try.”

Seeing that the conversation was heading off into a rather negative place, Wyatt changed the subject. “So,” he asked, what do you think about the new principal at the high school?”

“I didn’t know we had one yet,” Cody shook his head. “Sure is going to seem strange to not have Mr. Hekkinan around. So what’s the deal on the new guy?”

“I don’t know a whole lot,” Wyatt said. “I know his name is Bryson Payne; he’s from downstate somewhere. You know I don’t do football, but you know Mike Podgorny? His little brother is on the team, and his brother thinks this guy is really cool. He comes to all the practices, talks real big, says that athletes are the soul of the school.”

“Oh, crap,” Cody said with a disgusted tone to his voice. “That’s all we need, a jock for a principal with all the other crazy jocks running around.”

“That’s about how I feel about it,” Wyatt said. “The thing of it is, Mike’s brother says that this guy isn’t a jock himself, but he gets the impression he likes to hang around jocks.”

“Oh, that’s even more lovely,” Cody shook his head sarcastically. “A jock sniffer. Hell, they’re worse than regular jocks any day. At least Jan and I only have one more year, and we’re out of here. What’s more, we’re going to be heading to a school where they don’t even have jocks, and that is going to seem like a whole new world. I’ll tell you what, I’m looking forward to it more and more every day.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more,” Wyatt shook his head. “At least I only have one more year, too. I’ll tell you what, I’m thinking it’s going to be a long year. So what else have you been doing?”

“Oh, this and that,” Cody replied.

Janice smiled at him and said, “Cody is too modest to tell you, but when we were downstate two weeks ago, he shot in the state championship meet. He’s now the state centerfire pistol champion.”

“You’re what?” Wyatt exclaimed. “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten that you shoot competition. That’s really cool.”

“It really was kind of a fluke,” Cody shrugged. “A lot of the top people were off at another meet somewhere else, so it sort of diluted the competition. I thought I shot pretty well, but I don’t think I was that good.”

“Yeah, but it’s still pretty cool.” He shook his head, and added, “Aw, fuck.”

“What?”

“We might as well get out of here,” Wyatt said. “There’s Dick Hamilton and Allen Untermeyer, and they look like they’re as full of shit as ever.”

“You mean full of beer,” Spring snorted. “You’re right, there’s going to be trouble. The damn football players think they own the school already, and it’s just going to get worse with that Payne character around.”

“Right,” Cody agreed. “Let’s just get out of here. I’ve been around enough trouble to hold me.”

They quickly got up to leave, but to get to the trash can to dump the last of their ice cream they wound up having to get a little too near to the pair. “Hey Lufkin,” Untermeyer said, “why don’t you dump that little pussy and get a little from a real man?”

“I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last man on earth,” Janice sneered. “I’ve seen enough of your kind, and I’m glad they’re dead.”

“Oh, come on, you know you want it, and you know you want it the way you used to get it,” he said, reaching for her.

“Keep your hands off her if you know what’s good for you,” Cody said in a hard voice, knowing that any chance of avoiding trouble was gone, but he wasn’t about to let Janice have to put up with that shit if he could manage it.

“And who do you think you are to tell me what to do, you little pussy?” Untermeyer sneered. “You’re not so fucking big when you don’t have your fucking gun, are you? I’m going to kick the shit out of you like Bobby should have done.”

“You’re drunk,” Cody said, trying to draw the football player’s attention so Janice could get away. “You’re too drunk to know what you’re doing.”

“There ain’t no way I’m too drunk to slap the shit out of you,” Untermeyer said, sticking his hand out and slapping Cody lightly on the face. “See, you’re just as big a pussy as I said you were without your fucking gun.” He reared back to throw a serious punch.

Cody saw it coming – there was no subtlety to the move. He moved slightly as if to screw up the bully’s aim, but keeping his eyes right on him before reaching up – not to block the punch, but to grab the football player’s hand and yank at the same time he launched a big kick up to the armpit. Untermeyer let out a huge scream at the pain of his shoulder being yanked from its socket, then fell backward, sticking his arm out to stop his fall, which only resulted in more pain when his wrist buckled and broke.

“You fucker,” Hamilton screamed as he started to rush Cody. “You can’t fuckin’ do that to my fuckin’ buddy! I’m gonna fuckin’ kick your ass!”

Cody had plenty of time to see him coming and get set. At the last instant, he moved to the side, but left one foot in place. Hamilton started a swing at him, but it never connected, because he was off balance and falling from tripping over Cody’s foot. The move upended him; his head struck the corner of one of the picnic tables placed around the Frostee Freeze, and then hit harder on the concrete below.

All of a sudden there was a dead quiet where there had been a lot of kids sitting around joking and talking. “Wyatt,” Cody said into the hush, “you got your cell?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said, a little stunned at the quickness and the ferocity of what had happened. “Here it is.”

Cody shook his head, knowing that there was going to be a lot more trouble ahead, and flipped open the phone and dialed 911. As soon as whoever it was down at the call center answered, he said. “This is Cody Archer down at the Frostee Freeze. There’s been a fight here. Scene is secure, but there’s two down, and they’re going to need the BLS ambulance at least.”

“Roger that,” whoever it was on duty in the call center replied, picking up on the professional tone Cody was using. “Assistance is on the way. Can you state the nature of the injuries?”

“Just to look at them, one of them has a shoulder separation and a broken arm,” Cody told her. “The other one looks like a concussion, and possibly other injuries. I’m not going to touch either one of them until there’s an officer on the scene.”

“Jesus,” Wyatt said as Cody ended the call. “You made that look easy.”

“It would have been a hell of a lot harder if they hadn’t been drunk out of their minds,” Cody sneered. “What minds they have, anyway.”

“Where’d you learn that stuff, anyway?”

“Tuesday nights,” Cody said, a little more subdued now. “Just about every Tuesday since the first of the year.”

“You mean with Mr. Clark, Mr. Evachevski, and that crowd?”

“What do you think?” Cody shook his head. “You know what I’m planning on doing. I’m just trying to get a little head start on it.”

Not surprisingly, it was Fred Piwowar that showed up in one of the Spearfish Lake patrol cars, well before the ambulance arrived; he was on evenings now that Charlie had become the chief. “Jesus, Cody, what happened?” he asked as soon as he hopped out of the car.

“A couple of apparently drunk minors,” Cody said, still sounding professional. “The first subject threatened me several times, hit me lightly once, and then tried a roundhouse right. I blocked it with a kick to the armpit. The second subject then attacked me, and I had to subdue him by tripping him. He apparently hit his head on the table as he fell.”

“Well, well,” Piwowar shook his head, “Hamilton and Untermeyer. This isn’t the first place they’ve tried to cause trouble tonight but I haven’t been able to catch up with them. Guess you’d better stick around Cody, and any of your friends who watched this. We’re going to have to get a statement or two. Why don’t you just stand back?”

“Can do,” Cody said, then went back a few steps to where Janice, Wyatt and Spring stood waiting. “Christ, I didn’t need that,” he shook his head, “but can’t you just count on football players to louse up a perfectly good evening?” Christ, he thought. What is this going to do to Janice? The way Untermeyer was mouthing off it had to have rattled her a little, more than a little. It’s a damn shame she has that kind of reputation around town, but I guess it’s going to be that way as long as we’re here.

Cody felt Janice wrap her arms around him. “Cody,” she said. “You protected me again. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I really don’t. You’re still my guardian angel, you know that? I really love you, Cody.”

“I love you too, and that’s what I’m here for,” he said consolingly. Even as he said it, he could feel the weakness and shakes of an adrenaline crash begin to come on him, like had come on Janice when she’d rescued the little boy a couple months before, like had come over him when he’d rescued her back before Christmas. Fight it off, he thought. Maintain your cool. You don’t dare break down in front of this crowd, not after this. “Too damn bad we shit canned the ice cream,” he said conversationally, trying to fight back the weakness.

“I could get you some more,” Wyatt said, shaking his head at his friend – a friend, he thought, who had had a lot of rumors going around about him back at the end of Christmas break. Now he could believe that some of them might even be true. Cody hadn’t lost his cool at all – he’d just acted when he had to.

“Naw, don’t bother,” Cody shook his head calmly, still trying to cover up the agitation he felt. “You’d no sooner get it and then I’ll have to give Fred a statement.”

“Come on, Cody,” Janice said, somehow sensing from her own experience that Cody wasn’t quite as cool as he seemed. “Sit down and hold me so I don’t feel so scared.” She suspected that for once she was going to have to be the one to do the holding, but holding onto Cody was the thing that she enjoyed doing the most.

“Man,” someone behind them said, “Untermeyer and Hamilton. I don’t see how they’re going to play Friday night. Without them, the team is going to be fucked.”

Cody turned his head in the direction of wherever the voice had come. “If the team had to depend on those two they were pretty well fucked anyway.”

“Yeah,” whoever it was said as the ambulance pulled into the parking lot, “but now they’re really fucked.”

Wyatt shook his head. “You know, Cody, if that new principal is as much a jock sniffer as Mike’s brother says he is, I don’t think you’re going to be his favorite person.”

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