by T. F. Walsh
A cry shattered the frigid air. She stopped dead in her tracks.
Scuffling. Twigs cracking. A high-pitched squeal, a deep grunt. A shout.
Everett.
She half-skated, half-stumbled down the hillock’s slick crest. Hitting bottom unexpectedly she fell. Snow thrust past her cuffs to freeze her wrists. She scrabbled to her feet, shaking it out.
A shriek split the air. Animal? Human? She followed the dashed trail as fast as she could.
She burst through a ring of scrubby pines. Across the clearing of packed and churned snow, crouched beneath far boughs, was Everett. She almost didn’t recognize him.
His face was flushed, his hair completely loose. His eyes glittered through the curtain of chestnut hair like those of a wild thing.
He saw her and straightened, triumphantly holding up a string of rabbit carcasses. She could practically feel the primitive masculine waves coming off him.
“You did it.” She was a little awed. “You caught something with those bits of string. Congratulations.” She started toward him, casually, as if she hadn’t been searching frantically for the past hour.
He grinned. “The animals finally came out.”
That boyish grin did it. She ran the last few feet and threw herself at him. He dropped his prey and caught her easily.
“Oh, Everett! I thought you were dead . . . or frozen in the ice . . . or worse.”
“Not cold in the least, not chasing after this bugger.” Setting her down, he picked up one unstrung rabbit. “He worked the noose loose and scampered around the whole dratted clearing before I got him.”
“I heard.” She insinuated herself back into his arms. “Yelling, shrieking . . . I wasn’t sure if it was you.”
“Him, mostly. Animals can make a bloody racket.” His warm lips found her hair.
“I saw blood.” She shuddered.
“Him again. But I could use a bath. I’ll tell you about it on the way back.”
She braced away from him, searching his eyes. “I didn’t believe you could do it.”
“Is that an apology?” He dimpled. His handsome face, flushed with success and framed by swirling chestnut hair, dazzled her.
“Yes,” she said softly.
“I’m mostly a city boy, but there is more to me.” He smiled into her eyes.
She traced the small scar on his chin. “I’m beginning to realize that. Did you get this hunting rabbits?” Shyly she added, “I’ve always wondered.”
“Have you?” Gently he disentangled her. “Let’s go back to the cabin. I can tell you the story on the way.” He picked up the game and headed off.
She trotted along in his wake. It was easier going with his feet packing the way. Her leg was barely throbbing. “That scar’s not recent, is it?”
“Fifth grade. Top grade in my elementary school.”
“What happened?”
“I was on safety patrol. One spring day, this spindly little first-grader was waiting on my corner to cross. Three seventh-grade types skidded up on dirt bikes, spitting mud from the gutter. Mud splattered everywhere, and a pebble hit the poor first-grader in the face. I called the seventh graders on it, but they just jeered.
“They probably would have ridden on, and that would’ve been the end of it. But the neighborhood I grew up in . . . we had gangs. This first-grader was wearing the wrong colors. The trio dropped their bikes and grabbed the kid to beat him up.”
“Everett, how horrible! How badly was he hurt?”
“Not at all. I seized the biggest asshole by the collar and yanked him off. When the jerk tried to plant his fist in my face, I introduced him to the sidewalk. Anyway, not to bore you, I managed to convince those bullies that they didn’t want to pick on smaller kids. This scar was my trophy.”
“I get the feeling that’s not all there is to the story.”
“Really? Why?” Everett shot her a look of pure innocence over his shoulder.
“A fifth grader besting three big middle schoolers? You must have had some sort of weapon. Iron knuckles? Mace?”
“Those are illegal, Ms. Rowan. No, I had one very basic weapon that made me unstoppable. I was willing to get hurt fighting for that little kid. They weren’t.”
They walked in silence after that. She hadn’t known him at all. She was impressed with him, fighting for that unknown first grader all those years ago. She suspected he still fought so wholeheartedly for the little guy today.
Chapter Eleven
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Are you a mind-reader?
I was about to respond in a perfectly rational but snippy email that I was definitely not jealous of the woman you like a lot.
A lot. You like her a lot.
And then I realized you were right, I am jealous, although not quite the way you think. Despite fighting, you still like her. There’s a man . . . I want so much to be liked by him. He fights and ignores me as much as your woman fights and ignores you. But I still want his trust and respect. I want him to like me for myself, even the imperfect parts of me.
That irritating man, I spend all my time thinking about him. Well, I guess that’s the definition of irritating :D
But I’m happy to know you like me, Prez. Hey, you tolerate my awful computer jokes—we must be made for each other :)
—ED
Back at the cabin, Everett disappeared into the bedroom and emerged minutes later, hair neatly tied back, black sweater obscuring his powerful torso, baggy slacks civilizing his muscular legs.
Edie looked up from her magazine. “I liked you better the other way. You’re going to get that nice outfit messy cleaning the rabbits.”
He threw a flannel shirt on over his sweater. “I suppose it’s too much to ask you to clean them?”
“I’ll cook, Everett, but you have to do the Tarzan stuff.”
“Ha. I get to be Tarzan after all.” Everett rolled up his sleeves, fished a knife and meat cleaver out of the drawers and spread newspaper on the table.
“As long as you don’t yodel.”
“Killjoy.” He sat down with the first carcass. “By the way. This is game, so if you’re cooking, make sure to cook it well. Don’t want to get—”
“Tularemia?”
He looked up in surprise. “You like this wilderness thing, then?”
“Well, yes. It’s so different from civilization.” Edie set the magazine aside and watched his hands, competent, efficient. “This is life or death. Exciting. Dangerous.”
“What if I told you HHE is more dangerous than any wilderness?”
“I’d ask what hallucinogen you’re on. And if you could get me some.”
“Think about it. Clients are the prey the company has to hunt to survive.” Gestures with his knife punctuated his remarks. “Corporate infighting determines pecking order, like a wolf pack. Sometimes survival itself is threatened.”
“No way. Suits, ties and pantyhose are not wild kingdom.”
“I disagree. Corporate politics are more savage than any horror of Mother Nature’s. Howell Senior hired me to supplant his own son. What sire in nature would bring in an outsider to lead the pack? And then there’s Bethany. Why do you think she’s having an affair with Howell?”
“Because they’re two of a kind?”
“Think stallion.”
Edie blushed.
“Bethany wants power.” Everett started filleting. “In addition to her own position, being Howell’s lover confers power on her. Like a lead mare.”
“That’s awfully sexist. And I still don’t buy it. What about your hand-tailored shirts and Italian shoes? Those are pure civilization.”
“Are they? How does nature protect the puffer fish? Why dapple the coat of a fawn?”
She gaped at him. “You’re saying power ties and gold watches are protective coloration?”
“Exactly.” He dumped the meat into the pot, washed his hands. “Screaming to the competition, �
�I’m bigger and I’m stronger. Don’t mess with me.’”
“Then the man I see at the office, he’s not you at all?”
“Oh, he’s part me. But not, I think, the best part. That’s you.” He came to her and took her face between clean palms. “You’re the part that fights for the employee and tells the truth no matter how damning. The part that doesn’t play corporate games, the part that has big brown eyes to live in and sweet soft lips to die in . . . ” He bent his head and kissed her.
His mouth teased, tasted. Warmth stole over her like hot mulled wine, tingling down her throat, pooling in her belly. His tongue touched her lips, slid between. Eagerness flared and she pressed into him. He deepened the kiss, fingers tangling in her hair.
When she was dazed and panting, he lifted his head. “Edie, my fireball. You’re the one who both civilizes me and makes me wild.” His fingers drifted lightly over her face, her neck, his touch like velvet. “You can stop me any time, you know.”
“Not happening.” She wrapped herself around him and pulled, toppling them both onto the couch. While she could still think, she freed his hair.
Her fingers ran through raw silk, reveling in untamed length. She curled strands in her fingers and pulled his head to her, kissing him hungrily. He groaned and opened his mouth on her and they kissed each other, give and take, tongues tumbling and teeth nipping.
His hands skimmed her breasts, thumbing her nipples through cloth. She shivered. Her need spoke through her hands, urging his head down her body.
He shoved her sweater and bra up, baring her breasts. His warm lips found her nipple and suckled. She arched against the couch, gasping with her ripening desire.
“Soon, sweetheart.” He laved her nipple, and then gave equal attention to the other until both her breasts were throbbing and tight. Her fingers dug so deep in the silk of his hair that she thought she might be attached to him forever, wrapped in deliciously warm, seductive strands, wrapped in Everett . . . the idea didn’t scare her as much as it should have.
He kissed a warm trail down her middle. Sparkles followed. His hair slid from her hands; she clutched the couch instead.
As he went, he pulled off her doubled pants and underwear in one long tug. His lips burned a long path down the smooth skin of her thigh. “Edie, my fireball. My heart. Open for me.”
She ached so much. Parting her knees seemed her only relief. Her legs fell open. Cool air brushed her dewy center, almost immediately replaced by his fiery hot palm. He cupped her vulva and rode it gently with his hand while he kissed her belly, her mons. “Tell me what you want, Edie. Tell me how you like it.”
No one had ever asked her before. But with Everett it seemed perfectly natural to tell him that felt very nice, that this made her shudder, and when he did them both together it made her want to scream. So he did them both together and she did scream and burst and fluttered down into absolute peace.
Eyes shut, she said, “Now you.”
His only answer was a groan.
“Problem?”
“Unless you can make condoms out of rabbit guts, I have the same problem as before.
“We have the problem, Everett.” She opened her eyes. “But there are ways around it.”
And while the meat simmered slowly, she proceeded to show him some of the things that she’d learned since her commune days.
• • •
When Everett was boneless under her, Edie rested her head on his muscled thigh, gazed up at him and permitted herself a small, slightly smug smile. She’d done it. She’d tamed the mighty beast of the corporate boardroom.
She lazed with this thought for all of five seconds before his silver-blue eyes popped open.
“Why do you hate Bethany?”
Ruefully, Edie wondered which of them really had been tamed. “I don’t hate her.”
“No?” He sat up and drew her next to him, one capable hand making lazy circles on her backside. “Then why are you always sniping at each other?”
Danger, Will Robinson. Telling Everett about Aurora and Leadbottom was revealing; explaining Bethany would strip bare her childhood. She opened her mouth to give him a comfortable lie.
Knocked clean out of her head when he smiled at her, unleashing the dimple.
Stealth dimple. That sucker was dangerous. She jumped up, found her scattered clothes. The silence stretched while she put them on. She turned to tell him but nothing came out. Even dressed, she didn’t feel any less exposed.
He stood, came and gathered her gently into his arms. “You don’t have to.”
Perversely, that decided her. She took a deep breath. “Bethany and I . . . we grew up in the same commune.”
“I didn’t know those still existed. You, I can see. But Bethany?”
“Sure, she proactively leverages the strategic paradigm now, but for the first part of her life she was as macrobiotic a little peacenik as I was.”
“Huh.” Everett urged her back onto the couch. She objected until he snagged her foot and started massaging. Objections turned into a little groan. “Go on,” he said, as if his touch weren’t making her relax into a puddle.
“Bethany’s parents were originally Eighties yuppies. But when they joined us they were like born-again hippies, really vocal. First to shout over pollution, protest war, save the animal of the week. Wherever they went, they pushed Bethany out in front. She was practically a poster girl for us. Mmm, that feels nice.”
“Bethany, a protest poster girl.” His strong fingers soothed the ball of her foot. “The mind boggles.”
“Eventually my grandparents pulled out of the commune so I could go to a good high school and college. Bethany and her folks were off on a crusade and I didn’t get to say goodbye. I had trouble adjusting to public high school and by the time I wrote her, a few weeks had gone by. She didn’t answer. I wrote several more times but she never got back to me.”
“You didn’t phone?”
“The commune had one emergency phone. We weren’t supposed to tie it up with personal calls but I did eventually decide that not hearing from Bethany was an emergency. I got her parents. They told me she never wanted to speak with me again. I was shocked, and by that time we were into semester finals and, well, I’m not proud of it, but I lost touch with Bethany. You can imagine my surprise when I met up with her at HHE. I tried to talk to her about our past but she shut me out. She was very different. Maybe Howell changed her.”
“Why would you think Howell did it? Because they’re sleeping together?”
“It’s a bit more. Working late one night I heard them arguing—loudly. Howell accused Bethany of being tawdry like her parents. She was shouting about her corporate worth. But she was crying too. Sobbing that she was just trying to please him.” Edie pulled her foot from Everett’s hands, tucked both feet under her. “I don’t understand how she could do that, change to please a man. Speaking of, quid pro quo, Everett. Why do you hate Howell?”
“Hmm? Oh, I don’t hate him.” He tucked the blanket around her. “But someone is trying to push me out of my job. It’s most likely Howell.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were.” He rose and started cleaning the table. “It was subtle until lately. Rumors about apparent indiscretions. Vague accusations of not being a company man.”
“Covering for employees who won’t toe the line?” Edie bit her lip.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Everett bestowed a quick smile on her as he walked the papers to the trash. “But just before I left, false quarterly figures were forwarded to the board of directors. That was his mistake. If I can find out where those figures came from, I’ve got him.”
“Are you certain it’s Howell?”
“Who else? But I need proof.” He cocked his head, staring thoughtfully at the dead phone on the stack of milk crates.
“More corporate Tarzaning?”
“Tarzaning.” He picked up the phone base, turning it thoughtfully in his hands. “Is that a word?”
“It is now. What are you doing?”
“Even if the line gets fixed . . . ” He shook the base. It rattled, like bits were loose inside. “We’re not getting a call out.”
Just when she was feeling a connection. “Poor Ms. Dooley, alone in the office, waiting for your call.”
“She guards my back, Edie.” It was a gentle reprimand.
“Yeah, sorry. You’ve convinced me that businesses are more dangerous than I thought.”
He set down the phone, came and gathered her into his arms. “Don’t worry. I can handle it.” He kissed her nose.
At that moment, the delicious scent of cooking meat rose to tease her. “You know, Everett, I believe you can.”
Chapter Twelve
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Are you a mind-reader?
Dear ED,
Thank you for understanding. You’re beyond a mind-reader. You’re a best friend.
I just wish mind-reading could nail down my enemy.
—Prez
Tarzaning. As Edie minced dried onion for the abbreviated stew, she pictured Everett clad in a loincloth and tie, swinging on a vine over the big main conference room table at HHE, overwhelming all opposition.
For a brief moment, in her imagination, she swung tight in his arm with him, protected from dangers below by his strength.
She sighed.
Everett Kirk had proved to be a man of hidden talents, and not just his survival skills. Deeply hidden were compassion and championship of the little guy. He wasn’t the corporate ogre she’d thought.
She glanced at him. Flannel shirt, just like her. She wondered if, on the battleground between nurturing employees and exploiting them, he was really much nearer her side. Had her own extreme attitude polarized him into opposing her?
Edie set down her knife. The mental black-and-white map labeled “Us” and “Them” morphed into color. The board, Howells, Bethany, herself, Jack, clients, vendors, customers . . . Everett was caught in the middle of them all.
How difficult it must be to please everyone. How challenging to keep the whole company running smoothly and still maintain his personal integrity. No wonder he had headaches.