“I’m going to the grocery store,” I told him, as I started back into the woods near our camp. “Want anything?”
“
Denver Post,
M&Ms with peanuts, Prozac,” he joked.
“You’re in charge of the fire.”
Kit nodded, made a grunting caveman sound, then gave me another of his patented smiles. I continued to be a little amazed
at how well we were getting along.
There was a stream less than a hundred yards from camp. I strung a line on the portable fishing rod I carry in my pack. The
stream was bubbling and boiling down the rocks. It eddied into a little pool I knew from another time up here. Maybe a hike
with David.
Worms were thick in the leaf mold near the stream. I hooked one, tossed the line out onto the dark water. Waited for dinner
to swim along.
It took only a few minutes for me to catch a good-sized rainbow trout. I cut and tied my line, left the fish in the water,
then restrung the pole. The fish was only about fourteen inches, but a half hour later I hadn’t caught another, and it would
be dark soon.
One medium-sized trout would have to do for dinner. I’d brought along a couple of tomatoes and potatoes, so it wouldn’t be
too bad.
I had an eerie, sixth sense that the girl was close by. When she’d shown herself before, it almost seemed as if she were teasing
us, maybe even leading us up here. Why? Did she want to be found? Or maybe show us something? What, though? Where she lived?
How she lived? Some other secret she needed to share?
I took the trout out of the cold stream, killed it quickly with a rock, refilled the canteen, and headed back.
I found Kit at the campsite.
The FBI agent.
Out here on a big case that he wouldn’t talk very much about. Well, somebody could definitely hide a lab up here. Stoned-out
hippies had been hiding in these hills for years.
“Nice fire,” I said. It was a beauty.
“No Match-light either.”
He’d taken the potatoes out of the pack and they were already baking in the coals. A domesticated man—what fun! I handed him
the canteen of water and showed him the fish. He whistled his approval. A frontier woman—what fun!
I was gutting the fish on a flat rock with a Swiss Army knife and Kit was licking his handsome chops when I said, “I might
be willing to share my trout with you—on one condition.”
I had his attention. Also, his smile was turned on again. At least I amused him.
“You tell me, no crap, more of what’s going on, and you get to eat.”
“Fine,” he said. “You win, Dr. O’Neill. But I want to see half of that fish on my plate before I talk.”
“Deal,” I said.
I put the trout fillet into a pan. Set the pan onto the red-hot coals. The aroma was incredible, mouthwatering.
I walked over to where Kit was sitting and hunkered down next to him so that I could see the view. As if on cue, the sun set.
Great brush strokes of salmon and plum and whiskey colored the sky.
“Damn,” he whispered. “They don’t make them like this anywhere around Boston.”
I felt as strangely pleased as if I’d painted the sunset myself. For the moment at least, this was a really great adventure,
a truly amazing one. Everything about it was appealing.
The fish was done in no time. I took the potatoes out of the coals, and sliced the tomato. Kit put everything on plates.
He and I ate and watched the breathtaking scene from our dinner table in the sky, talking quietly, but pretty much nonstop.
The fish bones were in the ashes and we were sipping hot coffee. Kit, as he had promised, began to tell me what he knew.
He repeated what he had already told me, adding some information. He still kept it a little sketchy, which he said he had
to do. The current crisis emanated from an outlaw biology lab. It had started with MIT students and a few professors in the
late 1980s. It had definitely involved experiments with humans back then. The man who ran the radical group was named Anthony
Peyser. I told Kit that I’d never heard of him; I’d have remembered the name. Besides that, I didn’t think I knew anyone who
fit the description Kit gave me.
“There were charges in Boston, but the police couldn’t prove anything significant. The group moved to San Francisco, then
to New Jersey, a short stint in England, maybe to get European financing. Then back to Boston again.
“The second time they came to Boston I nailed them, at least I thought I had. They were experimenting on homeless people with
fatal diseases, or so they convinced them. They helped a couple of them die sooner than they would have. Somehow, everyone
involved managed to get bail—and then they disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Until now?”
“Somebody in the group contacted a couple of past associates. Maybe they’d been in contact all along. I think that whoever
it was might have been having attacks of morality and ethics. I wonder
why.
Anyway, Dr. James Kim in San Francisco and Dr. Heekin in Cambridge, Massachusetts, were contacted, and then ended up dead.
They
really
don’t like witnesses, Frannie. They’re thorough, too, as you might expect scientists to be.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I sure got the point.
Kit stopped talking abruptly. He just stared out as the sun finally slipped below the horizon. I knew there had to be more
to his story.
It struck me as funny, peculiar,
strange,
but I knew it was all over for me. Just like that! I liked looking at his strong face, the hard-chiseled cheekbones and chin.
I liked the softness I saw in his eyes, too. It had never happened to me like this before, not even with David. I could intellectualize
about it all I wanted to, but I was falling for Kit Harrison. Falling, or flying? I wondered.
“And that’s all you know?” I asked him. “You swear it is?”
“That’s what I know for sure, Frannie. It’s what you get for
half
a trout dinner.”
“All right, I guess that’s fair. How’s that scrape on your stomach?” I asked.
“I used to play rugby at Holy Cross, then in the Boston and D. C. beer leagues. I think I’ll pull through.”
I frowned a little at the tough guy posturing. “Did you put antibacterial gunk on it?”
“It’s not
that
bad, Doc. It’s a scratch, a scrape.”
Fireflies flashed intermittently in the gathering dark. Once upon a time I knew a lot about fireflies, but I couldn’t remember
any of it now. I was thinking about the tufts of gold hair on Bean’s chest and the abrasion roughing up his perfect skin.
I was remembering the softness of his lips, and his gentle touch.
I was turning myself on.
He
was turning me on. Oh boy!
There were no sick animals to distract me, nothing to clean or jump up and do. I wished for a cigarette, although I don’t
smoke. I could have used a drink.
“I think I ought to take a look at it,” I finally said. I don’t know why, but I spoke in a whisper.
I didn’t think he was going to answer me, he was so quiet. Then Kit cleared his throat.
“Would that be in a medical capacity?” he asked.
“No. It would be in a fellow traveler capacity,” I managed to croak.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m in your able hands. Let me get this shirt off.”
“Oh goodie.”
His blue eyes twinkled again. “Dr. O’Neill? Did you just say ‘Oh goodie’?”
“You can call me Frannie. I told you that before. And yes, that’s what I said. Oh goodie.”
M
AX WAS WATCHING THE TWO OF them from a safe distance, at least she hoped she was safe. Her mind was going about a million
miles an hour.
Warm tears streamed down her face and she couldn’t make them stop. That got her angry. She hated to show any weakness, and
she almost never did, but so much had happened in such a short time. She was on the run. No, she was
in flight.
Max knew it was stupid, but she just couldn’t keep the tears from flowing. She couldn’t shake a particular image out of her
mind. She’d been shocked when she saw the rock come down on the head of the poor fish. The woman doctor had been so cold when
she did it. Just the way they were at the School. Cold, cold, cold.
How could she kill that fish?
Put it to sleep?
It had been a living thing.
It probably had babies and a nice place to live in that beautiful stream back there a ways.
Now it was dead because the doctor had put it to sleep.
Max sat on a branch, shivering and crying softly to herself. She was never going to be safe out here in the world, and she
felt terribly alone and sad. She missed Matthew so much that she couldn’t even bear to think about him. The world outside
the School was as scary as Uncle Thomas had always told her it was. Only he’d never scared her half as much as she’d been
in the last few days.
At least she had found a safe, high place where she could see the man and woman and their roaring, blazing campfire. She didn’t
like to admit it, but the cooking fish did smell awfully good. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her how long it had been since
she’d put anything solid in it.
She wished she had someone to talk to.
The woman doctor and her friend were sitting on the edge of the hill watching the sunset. The sun, as it went down, was pretty,
like orange marmalade and grape jelly mixed together.
F-O-O-D,
she thought.
J-E-L-L-Y.
Sitting here, watching the same sunset they were watching, made her feel she was with them. Was she getting them all wrong?
If she went to them and asked politely, would they help her? She liked to think that life could work that way. But no. She
knew better.
She spied on the man and woman as they sat and talked around the fire. She could tell they liked each other.
She was having conflicting thoughts about the woman doctor. She wanted so badly to trust her. That was her instinct. She just
couldn’t see how all the gooey, soothing,
don’t worry I’m not going to hurt yous
in the world could be believed.
Then the couple were eating their dinner, and watching that made Max ravenously hungry. She listened as they talked and laughed,
even caught a few words. “… Thorn in the side… over the hill… antibacterial gunk….”
She wished she could sit with them and eat a baked potato at least. Potatoes were living things, too, but she could handle
that.
She scrunched forward to watch, to see them better.
What’s going on now? What are they doing?
As she watched from the tree limb, the doctor went and squatted next to the man. She began to take off his clothes, his shirt
first. The man was bigger than the doctor and he overpowered her!
What was he doing to her?
He lay down on top of the pretty doctor, but she didn’t push him away, didn’t fight him at all. They were laughing, smiling,
and then they began to kiss.
“They’re mating,” Max whispered.
I
HAD A FIRST-AID KIT in hand as I knelt down beside Kit. I carefully opened the buttons of his shirt. When I got to the one
closest to his waist, I had to pull the bunched-up shirt out of his pants. He winced from the friction of cloth against raw
skin.
“Sorry,” I said. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Frannie. I live for pain.”
I stared at firelight playing over taut chest muscles and a mat of bright curls. I reached for the tube of ointment, fumbled,
and almost dropped it. The lid spun off into the dirt.
I put some of the medicated goo on my fingers and carefully touched his body. Odd. My fingers were trembling a little. I could
hear my own breathing, which was too loud in my ears, but I was certainly focused on the task at hand.
So much so that I was surprised when Kit lightly grabbed my wrist.
“Did I hurt you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, but you’re killing me, Frannie.”
Kit put his free arm around my waist, and in one smooth movement lifted me and set me down on my back in the grass and pine
needles, half covered me with his body. He was obviously strong, probably a hundred eighty pounds, but he was also gentle.
My arms were high and tight around his neck. He pulled me against him and I felt him,
all of him,
against my thigh. I didn’t have any fears or doubts about this, none at all. That surprised me, shocked me, actually, but
there it was out in the open.
I wanted his mouth, and suddenly it was mine, as sweet and fresh as I had imagined. I was starving for this, the salty taste
of him, the touch of his hands, the roughness of his day-old beard against my skin. I wanted Kit so very much, more than I
could have imagined.
Kit lightly ran his hands over my breasts but there was too much fabric between us. I heard soft moaning sounds coming from
my throat, which I barely recognized as my own. I tried to help him undress me. I was pulling at my workout top. I was struggling
with his shorts, too. I hadn’t felt like this in so long.
He looked at me and his eyes were warm and sincere and, most of all, honest. I recognized the look, and suddenly I realized
how much he liked me, and how much I cared about him already. A bolt of lightning had hit me, and I never, ever saw it coming.
I never suspected, never would have guessed this could happen. It was kind of scary, but also unbelievably exciting and wonderful.
Two years of grief and repression had combusted in a rare moment. I felt his hand at my belt, cinching it tighter so that
the buckle’s tongue would slip from its notch. I heard the zipper of my shorts give way under his fingers. I wanted this to
happen. I was melting, and it was my choice.
Cool air rushed around my thighs as he slid my shorts down to my knees. I shivered, and I loved everything about the moment,
our first time like this, the suddenness of it, the surprise.
I reached for his belt. The leather was stiff, unyielding. I was wrestling with the buckle when I heard him saying my name.
I shivered at the sound of it and I wanted him inside me now.
“Frannie, Frannie. Wait. Stop.”