Men of Intrgue A Trilogy (52 page)

“You haven’t missed anything.”

“Steven.”

“Okay. Well, it’s kind of like a bee sting.”

She stared at him. “A bee sting?”

“Yeah, you know, that sharp, hot jolt, so sudden, but magnified about a hundred times.”

“Is it very painful?”

“Not at first. It’s just a shock, like—wow, what hit me? The pain sets in later, after you realize what happened.”

“How many times have you been shot?”

“Three. No, four. This makes four.”

“Is this a scar from one of the bullets?” Karen asked, touching an irregular lump of pinkish flesh on his upper arm.

He glanced down at himself. “Nah. That one’s from a knife fight in the army. Did three weeks in the brig that time.”

“Oh. What were you fighting about?”

“A girl,” he said levelly.

“I hope she was worth it.”

“I don’t remember.”

Karen made a face.

“What do you want?” he said wearily. “I was eighteen. I would have fought over the weather report.”

“It doesn’t appear to me that you’ve changed very much.”

“Yeah, I have,” he replied. “I’ve gotten more selective about the fights. I want to be paid for them now.” He cast her a sidelong glance. “How’m I doing at this friendship stuff?”

“Not bad.”
 

“Isn’t it your turn to tell me something now?”

“Yes.”

“I’m waiting.”

“I’m falling in love with you, Steven.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then dropped his eyes. She could still see a circle of blue iris through the screen of his lashes, focused on nothing. He was motionless, as still as a portrait.

“I must say you don’t seem overjoyed to hear the news,” Karen observed nervously. Her heart was beating so hard she thought he should be able to hear it.

“It’s not news,” he said softly.

“Oh, you knew?”

“Yeah.”

“And here I thought I was making a dramatic declaration,” she said, striving for lightness. If he didn’t say something significant soon she was going to get very upset.

“I figured a girl like you wouldn’t go away with me unless you’d made a commitment,” he said. “I mean, you could have come over here when I was hurt because you felt sorry for me, but you didn’t have to stay and do this, too.”

“You thought I felt sorry for you?” Karen asked him wonderingly.

“The idea did occur to me,” he said tightly.

“Why?”

“Well, you’re so tenderhearted. When you heard that I was alone and in the hospital it wasn’t hard to guess your motivation.”

“I’m not that ‘tenderhearted,’ as you put it. I came because I care about you.”

He lifted her hand and placed a kiss in its palm. “I believe that now.”

“But you’re still not happy about it.”

He gestured helplessly. “I just don’t think this has much of a chance to work out in the long run.”

“Because we’re too different?”

“That’s one reason.”

“What are the others?”

He hesitated. “Karen, I’ve done things that I’m not proud of, things that would make you run from this room and from this relationship if I told you about them.”

“Then don’t tell me,” she said evenly.

“Don’t you care?” he said hopelessly.

“I care that you’re with me now, and that’s all.”

“But my life was all wrong from the beginning. How can it match up with yours at this late date?”

“What do you mean ‘all wrong’? How can anybody’s life be wrong? Is there a set of rules? You’re talking nonsense, Steven.”

“No, I’m not,” he said stubbornly.

“What are you saying? Because we didn’t go to high school together we can’t have anything now?”

“I didn’t go to high school, Karen,” he said dully. “I got an equivalency diploma in the service.”

Karen sighed, cursing herself for reminding him of yet another disparity in their backgrounds.

“But don’t you want someone to love forever, someone who’ll be yours alone?”

“More than anything,” he said quietly, his head bowed.

“Then why are you so certain she isn’t me?” she whispered.

He wouldn’t look at her. “Because I’m not destined for that kind of an existence. I’ve known it from the beginning. Life isn’t fair, Karen. Some people just don’t fit the happy pattern of wife and kids and a house with a dog. I’m one of them. I’m on the outside, a square peg in a universe of round holes. I always have been and I always will be.”

She was amazed at how convinced he sounded, as if this were a conclusion he had reached a long time ago and never found reason to doubt.

He finally met her eyes, reaching up to touch her cheek. “I just don’t want to make promises I can’t keep,” he said softly.

Karen put her arms around him and snuggled into his good side. “We’ll just take it one day at a time, okay?” she whispered.

“Okay,” he responded, just as quietly.

They lay together for a long while with no need of further conversation. Then Karen felt him stir and draw her closer.

“Are you cold?” Karen asked him, pulling the sheet up to cover them both. “There’s a heavier blanket in one of the chests.”

“No,” he answered. “You feel like a little bonfire right here in bed with me.”

“I wonder,” Karen said teasingly, “what happened to that clever little plan calling for me to sleep in the other room?”

He chuckled. “Don’t remind me. I got one look at you in that transparent nightie and all bets were off.”

“Transparent!” Karen said, shocked. “I beg your pardon. I do not wear transparent negligees.”

“I don’t care what it’s supposed to be; when you stood in front of the fire I could see right through it.”

“Oh,” she said, chastened. “I didn’t think about that.”

“But I did,” he said, rolling her under him. “I thought about it quite a bit, especially while you were posing five feet away from me, as good as naked.”

“I was not posing,” she protested. “I didn’t think you could see me.”

“Oh, no?”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“A likely story,” he murmured, kissing the tip of her nose, then her lips. “And while we’re on the subject of this lousy nightgown, why the hell are you wearing it again?” He took the collar between his teeth and dragged it away from her neck, then dipped his tongue into the exposed hollow at the base of her throat.

“It was chilly when I got up to tend the fire,” Karen said breathlessly, “and...”

“It’s not chilly now, is it?” he interrupted. “In fact, aren’t you feeling a little... warm?”

“Yes,” she sighed as he bent his head and mouthed her breasts through the cloth. Her nipples rose at his touch, straining the sheer cotton so that he could feel them, defined like pebbles, with his tongue. She turned sensuously beneath him, almost wanton in her unspoken demand. He moved to kiss her again, passionately this time, communicating his intention clearly.

“Wait,” Karen began, attempting to take the gown off.

“Just lift it,” he said urgently, shoving the folds up her thighs with eager, impatient hands. She could feel him hard against her. When he’d pushed the nightgown out of the way he entered her in almost the same motion.

This time it was swift and silent. They moved as one, unthinking, uncaring, and when it was over, they slept.

* * * *

When Karen woke again it was morning and she was alone in the sofa bed. Colter had drawn the quilt up to her chin, but the fire had gone out and the cabin was cold.

She got up and found her watch in the other room. It was nine-thirty and Colter was gone.

Karen didn’t know whether to be worried or furious. He was in no shape to be out and running around, but she blamed herself for oversleeping. He would always do too much if he weren’t watched and she hadn’t been watching.

She was opening her suitcase to get a change of clothes when the cottage door opened and Colter came through it, carrying two paper sacks of groceries. He was wearing a green sweatshirt with a pair of tan chinos, and his bright hair looked soft and freshly shampooed. The stubble of his beard was gone.

He held up his hand as she entered the living room and he saw her expression.

“Don’t yell at me,” he said, depositing his burdens on the kitchenette counter. “I’ve been feeling very guilty with you waiting on me hand and foot, and I wanted to do something for you.”

“And that was?” Karen asked.

“Get breakfast,” he said. “Which turned out to be much more of a project than I had anticipated.”

“Really?” she said, smiling slightly. “How so?”

“Well,” he said, leaning back against the wall and crossing his legs at the ankle, “first I had to buy the groceries. No easy task. I soon discovered that nothing opens until ten o’clock. Apparently these people aren’t as concerned as our countrymen with making money.”

“It looks like you found something.”

“‘Something’ is right. I took that roller skate you call a car down into Kinsale, and remind me to award you a Purple Heart for driving that thing all the way from Belfast yesterday. Anyhow, I found this little one room place down an alley off Cork Road. An old guy was sitting outside drinking a mug of tea when I pulled up and asked him if he was open. He took about ten minutes to think about it before he answered that it ‘might be getting near the time.’ He took me inside to this incredible junk pile. Every conceivable space was covered with shelves and boxes filled with stuff I haven’t seen in years. Coke in the hourglass bottles, Band-Aids in the metal tins, cocoa in those old square boxes. It was amazing. I felt like I was in a time warp. And look at what he sold me.”

Karen went to his side, smiling, as he revealed his purchases.

“I’m not even sure it’s safe to eat the stuff,” he said. “This, for example, is supposed to be bacon.”

He unwrapped a side of meat and they both stared at it.

“Looks like pork chops cured like ham, doesn’t it?” he said, clearly puzzled.

“It’s all right,” Karen said, laughing. “That’s what they call bacon around here. I’ve had it and I assure you it’s edible.”

“And what about this?” he asked. He indicated a brick of butter. “Did you ever see butter that color? It looks anemic or something. It’s called Kerry Gold but there’s nothing gold about it.”

“They don’t add any food coloring,” Karen said. “I’m sure it’s actually better for you.”

“Hmm,” he said doubtfully. “And this bread,” he went on, holding up an unsliced loaf, “is gray. How the hell do they manage to achieve gray bread?”

“It’s stone ground or stone milled—I forget—but the process doesn’t remove the husk from the wheat. Very nutritious.”

“Brown eggs,” he said, opening a box and pointing.

“Oh, come on, Steven, don’t be such a chauvinist. You’ve seen them at home.”

“And the milk,” he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, “comes in those glass bottles they used to deliver in the forties, with the cream in a layer on top. I haven’t seen one of them since the last Bowery Boys movie on the late show.”

“As far as I know,” Karen said dryly, “no one ever died from drinking bottled milk. They just don’t homogenize it, like we do now.”

“How do you know so much about the food?” Colter asked suspiciously.

“I was buying it in the stores the whole time you were in the hospital, remember? I couldn’t afford to eat every meal in the hotel dining room.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Well, since you’re still alive and I survived the Mandeville meal plan, I guess it’s okay to proceed with my next move.”

“Which is?”

“Cooking you a Colter homestyle breakfast.”

“You can cook?”

“Of course. When you’ve lived alone as long as I have, it’s either learn or starve.” He began to unpack the rest of his purchases, inspecting each item as he picked it up.

Karen watched him until he said, “What are you doing still standing there?”

“Waiting for my orders.”

“Very funny. Weren’t you going to take a shower when I came in?”

“Yes.”

“Then go ahead. I’ll build up the fire and have this ready when you come out. But first let me tell you about the shower.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. It’s one of those handheld jobs, you know, with the little wand?”

“I see.”

“And it has a hook that you’re supposed to hang the wand on, except when you do it falls through and crashes to the floor.”

“Oh.”

“And if you try to hold the wand with one hand you can’t adjust both of the water taps.”

“I know I shouldn’t ask this, but why do you have to adjust both of the water taps?”

“Because the temperature keeps changing while you’re showering. I think it has to do with pressure problems in the tank, but the end result is that you need both hands free to fool around with the spigots when it runs too hot or too cold.” He raised his eyebrows at her as he unwrapped the bread and began to slice it.