Speak in Winter Code

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Speak in Winter Code Page 11

by S. M. Harding


  Win squeezed my shoulder and said, “Hard lesson. But I learned I needed help.”

  Em stared at Win. “Touché.”

  “What’s this really about, Em?” I asked.

  Em shifted her gaze. “One, I really wanted to check in with both of you and see how you’re handling the additional stress. Fair to middling isn’t good, and I’d like to see you both do better. Has the sex cooled down?”

  Win snickered and I blushed.

  “Are you taking the stress out on one another?”

  “I don’t think so,” Win said. “We’ve had a fight or two, but I think it was more about boundaries and openness than just striking out to ease the worry and frustration.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Win yelled at me for not telling her about the letters and I think she was right. I’m so used to playing everything close to the vest and she’s helping me understand why I do that.”

  “You agree?” Em asked.

  Win grinned. “It’s pretty hard to talk about something when you refuse to think about it.”

  “That means you’re developing an ability to ask the right questions on an emotional level,” Em said. “Which leads me to my second point. I’m starting a group for veterans and I’d like you to lead it with me, Win.”

  “I don’t do groups,” Win said.

  Em gave her that half-lidded stare. “I won’t push, but I’d like you to really consider it.”

  “Yeah,” I said as I turned to Win. “You’ve helped me work through stuff I never would’ve thought about unless you pushed me. You’re good at it Win.”

  Win examined my face, then turned to Em. “You have a number three?”

  “I don’t, but my partner Marty does,” Em said. “If you’ll meet with her independently of our therapy sessions, she has something she’d like to discuss with you both.”

  “Sure,” I said. “When?”

  “How about now? She’s in the waiting room.”

  * * *

  Marty was as athletic looking as Em, though a few years younger and softer. Laughter came easily to her.

  “I do counseling with students at the LGBT center in Bloomington and I’ve been hearing talk. We keep telling these kids it gets better, but I’m wondering if it ever does. Three students at IU have been stoned by so-called Christians citing Mosaic Law.”

  “What?” I asked, suddenly wide awake. “‘Stoned’ as in having rocks hurled at them?”

  Marty nodded. “I couldn’t believe it either, so I investigated. Three or four men, older—either grad students or from off-campus—threw not only rocks but quotations from the Old Testament. There was definitely that particular biblical slant to it. One of the other counselors there said it’s part of a far right-wing religious movement that was popular in the eighties, then seemed to die out in the nineties. But with all the radicalism on the right, they seem to be resurgent.”

  “This is an organized group?” Win asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Marty said. “I don’t know if these people came from one congregation or just got together to spew their hate.”

  “Have the cops done anything? Did you get to read their reports?”

  Marty frowned. “These kids are just coming out and are so shaky. They didn’t report the attacks.”

  “Oh man.” Win leaned forward. “I’ll talk to campus police when I go in on Wednesday. They may have heard something. This happened on campus?”

  “Yeah, but the thing I can’t figure out is how they got onto our kids. Like I said, they’re just beginning to come out to themselves. Not even family.”

  “Surveillance,” Win said. “They saw kids going in or leaving your building. Do you have any exterior cameras?”

  “No. Bloomington’s always seemed like a safe place. With the university, the population’s fairly progressive.”

  “Not true,” I said. “There’ve been attacks on a number of minority groups over the past ten years.”

  “Well, yeah,” Marty said. “But that’s been a lunatic fringe.”

  “Gay haters aren’t a lunatic fringe?” Win asked. “Get cameras, watch for faces who loiter around the building or reappear on a regular basis. I’ll hook you up with someone who can set them up and give you a good price.”

  “We don’t have money to—”

  “You want to wait until one of those kids dies?” Win asked. “We’ll find the money.”

  Marty nodded, but looked more worried. “I’ve done some digging. These groups used to be called Christian Reconstructionists. If you Google them, you can find a number of entries.”

  “I’ll look tomorrow.” Win stood. “Talk to everybody at the center. Encourage them to leave in groups, not alone. Don’t wait until the worst happens.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Win

  “You should really think about doing the group with Em,” Sarah said as I drove home.

  “Uh-huh.” I kept checking the rearview mirror. Our escort was fairly far back. I worried that another car could slip in and separate us.

  “You’re good at it, Win. You’ve helped me a lot, ever since our first kiss.”

  I glanced at her. “Because I love you.” My gaze returned to the road and the mirrors. “But I don’t love every veteran in McCrumb County. I get impatient with bullshit. Shut down. Emily would kick me out of the group midway through the first meeting.”

  “Talk about bullshit.”

  “I’m not taking time from the little we have together.” I glanced at her again. “I don’t want to do it. Not now. Not while we’re under fire.”

  Sarah leaned back, closed her eyes. So much for surveillance from that side of the truck. We made it home without incident and our escort waited at the bottom of the drive until we got inside. I was still worried about the watcher at the top of Foley’s Knob.

  “Why are the shutters closed on the front windows?” Sarah asked as she hung her parka up.

  “Because I found we had a watcher on top of the Knob.”

  “You what? When? When were you going to tell me?”

  “Today. Now. Tonight we were supposed to concentrate on Emily. Not this.” I went to the fireplace. Leaned my hands and head against the mantel. We were sniping at one another again. Shit.

  “I’m sorry, Win. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know.” I turned to face her. “I don’t want to fight with you. Understand, thinking of somebody stalking you makes me crazy. People stoning gay kids? Really crazy. We’re both wound tight.”

  Des woofed at the door. Sarah opened it. Des licked Sarah’s hands, whined.

  “She’s picking up on our tension, Sarah. Let me build a fire. Would you put some music on?”

  Soon the fire was popping to the sound of Cris Williamson. We sat on the couch, feet on the coffee table, fingers entwined.

  “You’re right,” Sarah said. “The tension’s getting to me.”

  “Want to go to the dojang tomorrow? I’ll give you a workout. Great way to relieve stress.”

  “I was hoping to stay in bed…”

  “All day?”

  “All morning?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrow.

  I grinned. Sarah laughed. I realized it had been a while since I’d heard her laugh. The lines on her face softened and her shoulders relaxed.

  “Without all this outside crap, we’re doing fine as a couple.” She turned to probe my gaze. “Aren’t we?”

  “You never leave the toilet seat up, so I’d say that’s a really good sign.”

  She laughed again. “When have you ever had to deal with that?”

  I pulled her to me for a long kiss. “Tonight, we forget there’s a world out there. Tomorrow, we go on the offensive.”

  She reached up, stroked my cheek. “Tomorrow afternoon?”

  * * *

  “So what’s our offensive strategy?” Sarah asked over lunch.

  We hadn’t made coffee until eleven that morning. Unless we stayed out of bed, we weren’t going to have an
offensive strategy. “While you were in the shower, I sent what info I had on the Christian Reconstructionists to Nathan. Wasn’t much. I wish Bill would set me up with some of their databases.”

  “He won’t?”

  “He can’t. I don’t have security clearance anymore.” I finished my coffee. “I asked Nathan to dig. See if we can find specific congregations in our area.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Language analysis of church websites.” I sighed. “He’s got a lot of work going. Glad your dad’s lending a hand. There is news on one front. He’s getting satellite images from Bill for Foley’s Knob. We’ll know if the watcher returns.”

  “Win, have you thought about how open the back of the house is?”

  “When I designed this house, I was in the throes of paranoia. I scoped out all the surrounding places where someone could launch an attack. There’s nowhere in the back. Not even with an RPG. That’s why I put the big windows in.”

  “So what’s on the agenda for today?” Sarah asked.

  “Dojang?”

  “I seem to have released a lot of tension last night, not to mention this morning.”

  I grinned back at her. “Then what about some cross-country skiing?”

  “Really?”

  “How about you find out if someone checked the records on this property.”

  “That’s work, Win. This is my day off.”

  “And I’ll check with Zoe, see if she followed the tip I gave her.”

  “What tip was that?” Sarah asked as her shoulders stiffened.

  “I told her I thought the McCrumb County Rangers might be a good story. A while back. I didn’t tell you because…I just didn’t think about it again. Zoe hasn’t got back to me.”

  “Do we have to go into town?”

  “We have these wonderful new devices for talking to people who are far away, Sarah. They’re called telephones.”

  “Smartass.” Sarah stretched. “Two days off, Win. Two whole days of no paperwork, no patrol and no investigating. It’s such a luxury, especially since you’ll be gone for three days. I just want to talk with you and look at you and touch you.”

  I walked to her and held her. “If we get this stuff out of the way, we’ll have the rest of today and tomorrow to just be together. Any way you want.”

  She looked up at me. “I know you think I’m just refusing to think about the danger. I know it’s there. I do, constantly. I go to work in the morning and think I might not come home. That thought’s with me every morning. You go to Bloomington, you might not come home. I know that, bone-deep. That’s why I want to just be with you whenever we can.”

  “Carpe diem, huh?”

  “Exactly.” She slipped her hands under my sweatshirt. “I promise I’ll go to the Recorder’s Office first thing Wednesday morning.”

  “With photos of McNab and Leatherby?”

  “Promise. I’ll text you with the results. Okay?”

  “If I get to call Zoe while you’re doing the dishes.”

  “You push a hard bargain, woman,” Sarah said with a grin.

  “I’ve got another clause. We snowshoe on the property. Enough to get some real exercise. I need it, so does Des and so do you.”

  Des woofed on cue.

  Sarah threw her hands up. “I surrender. Make your call, we’ll go outside and play and then come in and relieve any tension that’s left.”

  “Light a fire.”

  * * *

  I called Zoe, but she was out of the office. “Call me,” was the message I left. Frustration was what I felt. When I left for Bloomington, my head had to be in academic territory. I wanted to kick-start this investigation while I was here so Sarah and I could get back to a normal life. Not wait for a bullet.

  As we trooped around my land, I kept an eye out for footprints that shouldn’t be here. Nothing. Maybe I was right and nothing at the back of the house was vulnerable. But the thought would be there when I turned on lights tonight: maybe I was wrong.

  On our return, I built a fire as Sarah made hot chocolate and Des settled in her favorite place in front of the fire. A light snow had started outside the big windows. Cozy. Serene. Why couldn’t I stop waiting for the crap to hit? Because the threat was out there. Waiting.

  Sarah brought two mugs and settled down beside me. I cradled the mug in my hands, relished the warmth. Idyllic. I wondered if Sarah was thinking the same thing.

  She sighed, rested her head on my shoulder. “I wish we never had to go to work, but could stay here like this.”

  “This is making a memory, Sarah. I engrave the scene in my mind. Every detail. When things get rough, I pull up the scene.”

  “What’s your favorite scene of us?”

  “The first time we made love. You’d just opened the window because it was stuffy in your bedroom. You were naked from the waist up and the sun sculpted your breasts. You turned to me, looked so aroused. Scared at the same time. The breeze blew a curtain against your body, your nipples got tighter.” I put my arm around her. “You looked ephemeral—like if I blinked you’d be gone.”

  “I remember.” She sipped the hot chocolate. “I wanted you so bad and I’d thought the day would never come. I was scared, at least a little. I was a tad worried about the performance part, you know?”

  “That you wouldn’t come?”

  She took another sip. “I think on some level I was worried fingers couldn’t replace a penis.”

  “Wow. I didn’t pick up on the penis thing.”

  She grinned. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  I groaned. “Last thing on my mind. Was that all you were afraid of?”

  “No.” Another sip. “I was afraid I couldn’t let go because…it was so new and…knowing you were a woman.”

  Always a big step, the first time. Because it was forbidden, this need to bring such a deeply felt bond to a physical destination. “But you came. Rather spectacularly if I remember rightly.”

  “And haven’t stopped since.” She tucked her head into my shoulder. “Drink up so we can make more memories.”

  “Do you have a favorite scene of us?”

  “There are so many, Win. I start remembering one when I’m at work, get aroused and start blushing like crazy. I think Dory believes I’m going through the change and it’s hot flashes. But it’s not that kind of hot flash.” She finished her cocoa and put it on the side table. “The most memorable was on the kitchen chair at Dad’s house when you had me tie you up. I didn’t know a woman could come so many times or so many ways. I could feel each one through your whole body. Your face was so open, Win.”

  “My surrender.” I finished and handed the mug to Sarah. Watched her as she set it next to hers. “Do you think we’ve settled into a rut with our lovemaking?”

  “If we have, it’s a rut I don’t mind staying in. Why? Do you want to do some other stuff?”

  “No. I’m still learning your body, Sarah. I keep finding new places that turn you on.”

  “It’s your touch that turns me on. Anywhere you touch me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sarah

  Win disentangled our limbs, got up and walked to the fireplace. Her body in the low glow from the embers was so beautiful I almost got up to touch her. I watched her muscles ripple as she added a couple of logs and bent over to blow the embers into flame. Her ass was perfect, high and lusciously round. As the logs caught, she added another and turned around.

  “Making a memory, Sarah?”

  “Oh yeah. I envy your butt.”

  She laughed, settled next to me and pulled me atop of her. “I love your butt just like it is. And your breasts. And your belly. And—”

  “No more inventory, please.” I looked out the window. The snow had stopped as it grew dark. “Are you hungry?”

  “For you? Always.”

  “I was thinking about dinner. I bought a couple of frozen pizzas for evenings like this. I can put one on and come back and snuggle.”


  “Frozen pizzas?”

  “From Mama Mia’s, guaranteed not to be cardboard crap by her son.”

  Win gazed at my breasts and sighed. “When you get food on your mind, there’s no stopping you, is there?”

  I put the pizza in the oven and set the timer. When I returned to the couch, Win had stretched out with one arm behind her head and one leg bent at the knee. In the soft light from the fireplace, she took my breath away. “Can we take some pictures?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Naked?”

  I nodded. “Something more tangible than memory. You look so gorgeous, like someone a Renaissance master would’ve painted, except you’re too muscled for back then. Where’s your camera?”

  “Those kind of pictures can get people in trouble, Sarah. If they go on a computer, they can be hacked.”

  “Then we’ll keep them in your camera.”

  “Which can be stolen, Sarah.”

  “Enough! Where’s the damn camera?”

  “Last cupboard in the hall.”

  I found it and returned to the living room. Win had sat up and wrapped both arms around her up-drawn knees. “No you don’t, Kirkland. Back as you were, marine.”

  She resumed her reclining position. “I really feel naked, Sarah.”

  “That’s the purpose.” I took a couple of shots from different angles, then asked her to move in front of the fireplace.

  She did so reluctantly. “Just don’t shoot my crappy thigh. It’s not romantic.”

  “Shut up and get sexy.” I grinned at her, buoyed by her first discomfort at anything sexual. “You talk a good game, Kirkland. Now walk it.”

  I sensed an immediate change in her and when she threw back her head to laugh, I clicked off a shot of a beautiful woman relaxing into her sexuality. I took several more, then she grabbed the camera.

  “Your turn,” she said with a huge grin. “Is there any space?”

  “I put in a new memory card. You can hide the card easier than the camera.”

 

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