by Alyssa Kress
Gary didn't stop to question why or how this was so as he dropped into the driver's seat of his white car. He probably should have taken a minute to step back and note that his need for the woman had gone way beyond the mere physical, that he was letting himself become vulnerable in ways he'd never allowed before.
He knew he should think about that, but he didn't.
~~~
"Oh, she's up at the array," Allyce Horton told Gary, answering his knock at the front door. She clucked her tongue knowingly. "Checking up on Dr. Bothmann, you understand."
Gary frowned. Bothmann? Oh yes, he remembered just who that was, the Harvard professor. Talons of fear dug into him. "Bothmann," he asked, "is here?"
"Didn't finish his footage last winter," Allyce informed Gary, as though this odd statement meant anything. "And Tom doesn't know how to say 'no' to anybody. Why don't you go on up? I'm sure you can find her."
"Thanks," Gary replied hoarsely. "I'll do that."
Gary ate up the path to the array in leaps and bounds. He paused just before the top to catch his breath. Bothmann the Harvard professor. Here now. Shit! Couldn't the man own the decency to wait until after Columbus Day, when Gary would be back in Chino, back in cell block eight, and all of this a dreamlike memory? Couldn't he have waited to give Gary a fucking chance?
With his breathing back to normal, Gary finished the trip up the path and found them at the far side of the array. Tom was pulling one of the copper leaves to the side, explaining something about the wires snaking around underneath it. A man with brilliant gold hair was filming Tom's explanation with a fancy-looking video camera. He was a tall man, built like a magazine model, lean and perfect. His deceptively casual clothes were expensive and also perfect.
Kerrin sat on the ground to one side in a pair of shorts, her arms wrapped around her upraised knees and a dark, disapproving scowl on her face. She was definitely not a happy camper.
Kerrin noticed Gary first. The scowl on her face transformed instantaneously to anxiety. Remembering the outrageous promise he'd made her the last time they'd been alone together, here in this very spot, Gary could only suppress a groan of self-disgust. Undoubtedly Dr. Victor Bothmann, Harvard professor, would never have expressed himself so crudely.
"Wait, Tom," Bothmann now said, pulling his face away from the camera. "We're getting somebody else in the frame." He looked past Tom Horton to Gary. "Oh, sir, would you mind stepping forward? You're accidentally ending up in the picture."
Gary wouldn't have minded 'accidentally' doing something else to Bothmann's picture.
"Oh, Gary." Tom turned around with a genial smile. "I don't believe you've met Victor Bothmann. Victor, this is Gary Sullivan."
"Ah." Victor lowered the heavy video camera. Not a lot of strength in those well-dressed arms, Gary happened to note. "So you're the man who stole the Wilson house from me."
Every nerve in Gary's back stood on end. "I haven't stolen anything from anybody."
"No, of course not." Victor gave a brilliant smile to match the sun's gleam on his hair. "Knowing Marge Hellman, she probably offered her body to get you to sign a lease."
Gary stared at the man. Bothmann was pushing all of Gary's buttons, without even half trying. Time to calm down. "Oh, were you planning to rent the Wilson house yourself?" His voice was harsh, but within normal limits.
"I'd thought so, yes." Bothmann twirled the camera idly in his hand. "Though I probably won't be in town long. Just so much time as it takes to shoot my additional footage of Tom. Perhaps Kerrin's told you, I'm working on a documentary."
Gary stole a glance at Kerrin, who was looking off to the side, her expression unreadable. "No, Kerrin didn't happen to mention you were coming."
"Oh." Bothmann appeared momentarily confused. He, too, glanced at Kerrin; a glance that said he'd imagined Kerrin doing nothing but chat about his activities. With a frown and a shrug, he turned back to Gary.
"It's a film about people like Tom here who are searching for extraterrestrial life forms." Bothmann gave a fake-modest cough. "With a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts."
Tom rolled his eyes heavenward. The small act of disparagement went far to assuage Gary's raw jealousy. But he still wanted to get Kerrin away from the guy, bad enough to take a big chance. "Hey, Kerrin," Gary said, "you're not going to Bishop dressed like that, are you?"
Kerrin looked up at him, surprised. "Bishop?"
"Oh, now don't tell me you forgot." Gary crossed his arms over his chest. "You were going to Bishop with me this afternoon."
Kerrin's guileless eyes met his and slowly, thank God, filled with comprehension. "Oh, that's right. I did promise you that, didn't I?" She stood up, brushing the dust off her shorts. Her legs, Gary couldn't help noticing, were the color of peaches and cream. God. He knew just how silky they'd be. Quickly, he dragged his eyes from her legs.
"Dad, you going to be all right without me?" Kerrin glanced anxiously at her father.
Tom Horton, meanwhile, was regarding Gary with cool speculation. Better get out the shotgun right now and have done with it, Gary mentally informed the man, if that's the way you feel.
"Sure, I'll be fine," Horton said. "You two run along."
Still Kerrin hesitated. It took Gary all of point five seconds to decide stronger methods were needed. He stepped up, took hold of her shoulders and pressed a swift, hard kiss flush on her startled mouth. He might as well hang for a man as a mouse. "Come on, sweetheart. It's getting late."
Kerrin's amber-jade gaze fixed right on Gary. She didn't glance to the side to check out Bothmann's reaction ‑‑ or even her dad's. She was concentrating on him. More balm poured into Gary's scared soul. "Okay, Gary," she replied softly. "Just let me change my clothes and then we'll go."
Gary couldn't resist a quick glance toward Bothmann. The Harvard guy gazed straight back at Gary, looking amused, looking as if he had nothing to fear from the intruder at all. But looking, perhaps, too curious.
It occurred to Gary he probably shouldn't do anything to make Mr. Professor Bothmann too curious about him, curious enough to do something like figure out who he really was.
All the same, he wondered if it would be taking too big a risk to smash a few holes in the man's perfect dentistry.
~~~
In her bedroom, Kerrin squinted in the mirror at the summer dress she'd put on while Gary waited out front for her. The sleeves were no more than spaghetti straps, making a bra an impossibility. Given the doll-cup size of her breasts, however, she supposed a bra-less condition was no big risk.
Nevertheless, Kerrin felt decidedly vulnerable as she stepped out the front door and Gary, pacing the red-packed dirt of the drive, turned to face her. Just as before, up at the array, there was an intensity, a hardness in his eyes as they fixed on her. She was reminded of their first meeting at Chino.
He didn't say a word as he drove with enviable skill down the winding road to the highway. When Kerrin gathered the courage to steal a look at his face, she found it hard, well-masked, revealing nothing.
"Is something wrong?"
He stopped at the T-intersection with the highway and turned to regard her. The hardness lashed out at her for a moment and then subsided. He shook his head. "No. And...thanks." The words seemed to emerge with great effort. "For not asking any questions up there."
Gary moved the car forward, turning north onto the highway.
"Well, I would like to ask them now," Kerrin said. "Why are we going to Bishop?"
"You're going to Bishop because I'm not supposed to leave town without you."
Kerrin had understood that up at the array. "Does this have something to do with the DWP facility?"
The muscles around his eyes tightened. "No."
This was like pulling teeth. Resting her elbow on the back of the seat, Kerrin turned to regard him. She wondered what had set him back in this walled, defensive mode. "What do you need in Bishop?"
He glanced toward her. "Marge tells me the phone a
t the Wilson house is on a party line, and I want to call Chino."
"Chino," Kerrin repeated in a murmur, and then she remembered. "Ah, your friend there, the one who's ill. I'm sorry, I've forgotten his name."
"Willie Deere." Gary's straight-edged lips twisted slightly. "I guess Marty told you about our deal, after all."
"There was no harm in it." Kerrin turned forward again in her seat. She remembered her disbelief when Marty had assured her that Gary would honor such a deal "How's he doing?"
Gary hesitated and then shrugged. "Last time I called he was fine."
"It doesn't seem fair he has to wait for you to finish this job," Kerrin mused. She wondered how much longer Gary was going to continue making what appeared to be a fruitless attempt to get into the DWP. That meant wondering how much longer he was going to be around, period.
"They don't have any leverage against me, otherwise," Gary reminded her.
Kerrin gazed absent-mindedly out the window at the scrub rushing past, feeling suddenly depressed. Gary had a point. It would be crazy for him to stick around if he didn't have a binding reason to do so. What man in his right mind would willingly go back to prison?
The rest of the drive to Bishop was made in silence. Once in the small metropolis, Gary pulled into the parking lot of a fast food outlet. "I'll use the pay phone out in the lot here," he told Kerrin, shoving open his car door. "Why don't you go inside and get something to drink? This won't take long."
"Take your time," Kerrin said, opening the passenger door.
Gary gave her a pitying look. "They'll only give me five minutes with him. See you in a few."
From the air-conditioned interior of the Mexican taco restaurant, Kerrin sat near the window and watched Gary make his telephone call. He leaned against the open doorway of the booth on a forearm raised above his head. His brows were drawn and he seemed to be arguing during most of the call.
Then he abruptly stopped and held the receiver a few inches away. Apparently his time was up. Reining in an obvious frustration, he gently hung up the phone.
Kerrin hastily turned her eyes down to the previous day's local paper that had been left at her table. She read it with a grave and deep concentration. She didn't miss a single word, not until Gary stood right by her elbow.
His mask was back in place, harder than ever. Without worrying about it, she reached to take hold of his hand. "Is everything all right?"
He looked down at her, his expression flat. "Can we get out of here?"
"Of course."
He rolled his hand around hers, taking hold of it to help her out of the plastic booth. He kept hold of her hand as they walked out of the fast food place and into the heat of the late afternoon. Gary squinted across the parking lot. "Would you mind taking a walk?"
Kerrin felt the firm hold he had of her hand, like that of a man holding onto a lifeline. "No, I wouldn't mind."
Gary thought a walk was a pretty stupid idea. It was really too hot and there was nowhere to go, except down one of the side streets past a gauntlet of tourist motels. But Gary felt the need to move.
"If we walk far enough east we'll hit the river," Kerrin suggested. "It'll be cooler there."
Gary nodded and started them off in that direction. Everything was falling apart. The same frustration that had attacked him earlier that afternoon struck again, three times worse. In the past he'd known how to get rid of this feeling, how to regain control. It was simple.
He gripped Kerrin's hand harder. With her along, however, Gary could hardly slip into one of the modest homes they were passing and rip off somebody's television set. No, instead he let her lead him past the last house in town.
It was cooler by the river. The branches of the sycamore trees met overhead, the leaves filtering and quieting the hot, late afternoon sun. The river, no more than a stream, gurgled lazily over the boulders in its path. Gary tried to forget how much he wanted to go jimmy someone's window.
Kerrin came to a stop at a soft patch of soil. "Sit down," she ordered.
"Here?"
"Yes, here."
Kerrin watched him shrug, then sit. He turned his head with a frown when she lowered to her knees behind him.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to rub your shoulders." She tried to sound matter-of-fact. "You're all tense. Just turn around and relax."
He gave her a peculiar look, but turned.
Kerrin settled her weight on her knees and stretched her hands over Gary's broad, muscled shoulders. Normally, she'd be way too stupidly nervous to touch a man in even the slightest romantic sense, but Gary's mood made her feel urgent. Something had to be done. Lightly, uncertainly, she let her hands drop on top of his shoulders.
Even through the material of his shirt she could feel the gathered ropes of muscle. He was built like an freight engine; sleek, solid and powerful. "You're so tight," she exclaimed softly. It shouldn't have surprised her. Ever since his phone call he'd been wound up tighter than a spring. The look in his eyes afterward, as though he were swiftly drifting away, had frightened her.
When Kerrin began to knead his shoulders, she did it slowly, gently, knowing she didn't have the brute strength to force her way into the mass of tension.
Gary released a long breath. "That's very good. But you can't be comfortable on your knees. Sit back."
"But ‑‑ "
With a perfectly calculated shove backward, he knocked her weight from her knees to her rear end. "That's better. Now put your legs to either side of me." He grabbed one of her ankles and drew it forward, then the other. Kerrin found herself straddling the man, her skirt pushed up, her knees knocking either side of his rib cage. "Much better," Gary murmured, his own weight propped on the arms he'd splayed to either side. "Now, go on."
Kerrin didn't know whether to laugh at his audacity or hit him on the back of the head. Instead she lit into his shoulder muscles with a vengeance.
He groaned. She pushed harder. He groaned louder. "God that's good, Kerrie. Oh, don't stop."
She couldn't help laughing. "I was trying to hurt you!"
"Oh, please don't stop. Keep right on hurting me just like that, honey."
Laughing even more, Kerrin resumed the powerful barrage. Gary lifted one shoulder then the other and turned his head like a cat, trying to make the most of her efforts. With murmured groans and words of encouragement, he let her know how very much he was enjoying the whole thing.
Finally, panting with her exertion, Kerrin had to stop to shake out her aching hands.
"It's okay, that's enough, sweetheart."
"It had better be. Ouch."
Gary chuckled and leaned back until his head was resting against the hollow of her shoulder. Kerrin was now truly straddling his male torso, her inner thighs scratched by his cotton clothing.
He took one of her hands and kissed the palm. "Does that make it feel better?" In his eyes all kinds of teasing red lights danced.
She didn't know if she were more relieved to see the hardness gone, or more dismayed by his flirting. "It helps a lot, you big lug. Get up."
She saw him make the calculation: how much more physical teasing would Kerrin tolerate or should he quit while he was ahead. He quit while he was ahead, leaning forward and freeing her legs with a sigh.
Kerrin hastily tucked her skirt over her legs as she crossed them Indian style. Gary took immediate advantage of this position to use her lap as a pillow, lacing his fingers behind his head and stretching out a pair of long, masculine legs, crossed at the ankle.
"Ah, this is better." He closed his eyes with a faint smile. "I knew you would make me feel better."
"Hmm." Kerrin couldn't quite resist brushing some of his bronze-brown hair from his forehead. "You want to tell me what's wrong now?"
A frown breezed over Gary's relaxed features. "Oh, take your pick: Willie's complaining about pains down his left arm, the work for the DWP is going exactly nowhere, and your old boyfriend, Vic Bothmann, is back in town."
&n
bsp; Kerrin's lips parted in surprise. She addressed the last item on his list first. "Victor Bothmann was never my boyfriend."
"Oh no?" Gary opened one eye to look up at her.
"No," Kerrin repeated firmly. "Oh, I'll admit, I had a mild crush on him last winter, though for the life of me I can't remember why. Fortunately, he never returned the interest."
Gary kept that one eye open and trained on her. "He's good-looking, well-educated, and works at Harvard. Why wouldn't you want him to return the interest?"
"I don't care what he is, he's not ‑‑ " Kerrin cut herself off before adding, my white knight. "He's not what I'm looking for."
Gary opened both eyes now. "Exactly what are you looking for, Kerrie?"
She shifted her gaze from his, fixing instead on the way his hair leapt from the top of his forehead. She wished she weren't too shy to run her fingers through its surprising silkiness. "Never you mind. I saw you arguing with your friend on the phone. Won't he go see a doctor about the pains in his arm?"
Gary closed his eyes again, this time in disgust. "What doctor? You mean the butcher who comes in three times a week?" He shook his head. "What Willie needs is a real doctor, one on the outside."
And you need to finish your job so he can get one. Kerrin could understand his frustration, and the conflict surrounding it. The faster he completed the job, the sooner he had to go back to prison. But the longer he took, the more risk to his friend.
"And the DWP?" Kerrin prompted.
His frown grew darker. "Oh, I don't want to talk about that."
"I'm sure you're doing the best you can, Gary."
"Yeah?" His voice was suddenly harsh. "Well, that obviously ain't good enough."
"Hush!" Kerrin took his head between her palms, forgetting she'd been afraid to do just that a moment before. "You're going to undo all the hard work I did on your shoulders."
Some of the tension went out of his drawn brows. "Sorry." He made an effort to relax. "You know what, Kerrin?" He spoke softly, his eyes still closed.