The Spy Who Kissed Me

by Pauline Baird Jones

  He half lifted a foot. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Be my guest.”

  I thought it would be easier, more relaxed across from him, but with his legs stretched out close to mine, his eyes studying me, his body “at ease” but still emanating coiled strength, my tension increased instead of decreased.

  “So,” I nervously cleared my throat, “how’s everything going? Have you figured out what’s going to happen on Tuesday?”

  He rubbed his hair and grimaced. “The shell game. No, not yet. Though I think I’m getting close.”

  “You still think that someone is trying to distract you from the real issue?”

  “More than ever, after what Willis said. Whoever is behind the con is pretty certain he can keep our focus misdirected until it’s too late to do anything about it.”

  “So the embassies may be part of that misdirection? He didn’t seem worried that you’d found that out.”

  “It could be the embassies themselves, or it could be the method. If they had what they considered a fool proof method of delivery, it could make Willis feel confident. If we could get him to talk—” Kel shrugged.

  “He was careful not to tell me too much, which I thought showed a real lack of trust on his part. Obviously he doesn’t watch enough TV. Or watches too much.” I was still trying to decide which, when I realized that Kel was looking at me like someone with bad news to deliver.

  “Bel?” There was a curious note, too. “I’ve been looking into Kenyon Business Machines. It was the last place Mrs. Carter went the night she died. To an executive board meeting for her PAC. She had to have stashed the papers in the typewriter that night.”

  My heart did a funny lurch. If she hid the papers there, was it because she felt threatened there? I pulled my legs off the table and leaned forward. “You think the Kenyons are involved?”

  He shrugged. “I wish I knew. All the clues lead back to the PAC. Elspeth Carter goes to a PAC meeting. She dies, presumably because she found the papers then and hid them. Paul Mitchell dies by the same gun. He’s the supply officer for a supply depot missing some important armament. Howard kills him and is killed. Then we find evidence linking him to a terrorist group. Obvious conclusion, terrorists are planning a raid on the embassies highlighted in the papers. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Except Willis isn’t worried that we know this. So I dig a little deeper and I find out that Mitchell was also a member of PT-PAC.”

  I nodded, remembering my conversation with the lady at the booth. “Don’t tell me the round-headed man was a member, too?”

  Kel shook his head. “Not a member. But a contributor. A substantial contributor. As was Willis.”

  “How substantial are we talking about?”

  “Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  “How did they pay that kind of money to the PAC? And why would they—if they had that kind of money?”

  “Yeah, I’d like the answers to those questions, too. They sure weren’t interested in education reform.” He looked at me soberly. “Three years ago PT-PAC was about to disband because of a lack of funds. Flynn Kenyon came on board and suddenly they’re raking in the cash. But they still don’t have any clout. You ever hear of a PAC with money but no politicians?”

  “No, but—”

  “What?”

  “Flynn Kenyon as bad guy? There’s no way on this earth—”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “What?”

  “Where Elspeth Carter hid those papers? She felt threatened at Kenyon’s. She hid them there. Now I checked the attendance for that meeting. Neither Willis nor Howard was there. Flynn Kenyon was.”

  I stared at him. “He’s a grandfather.”

  Kel pulled his long legs clear of the table and sat forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his eyes worried for me. “I’m sorry this is hitting close to home for you.”

  “It’s not just that. Why would a guy who’s worried about education blow up embassies?”

  He rubbed his face. “I don’t know.” His eyes looked tired, his face drawn and stroked with gray.

  “Now if it was the capital…” I said, lightly, hoping to distract him. It couldn’t be easy knowing lives were resting on his ability to see which shell was hiding which pea.

  “The capital? Why?” he asked, absently.

  “What, doesn’t the CIA know PT-PAC’s current reform effort?” I shook my head in mock reproof. “You obviously don’t know the right people to talk to.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’ve jumped on the term limitation bandwagon. I signed the petition myself at the convention on Friday.”

  Kel grinned, his whole face lightening. “I guess the Democrats would consider that a form of terrorism, but—” He stopped, an arrested expression on his face.

  “I was joking,” I protested. He ignored me.

  “If I could only see how? That’s got to be the key.” He stared into the distance for a moment. “Term limitation. What an intriguing concept,” he murmured. “There are a lot of ways to limit terms, but the quickest way is—”

  “You’re not seriously considering…no way.”

  “It’s my job to consider possibilities.”

  “Everyone wants to get rid of Congress, but, they’re like zits. They only go away if they want to. It’s democracy not working. Nobody plots to blow them up.”

  “Tuesday night is the State of the Union address. They’ll all be together in one place at one time.”

  “But surely people have thought of that? Taken a few precautions? A few Patriot missiles lying around?”

  “What if there’s something we haven’t thought of? Willis was pretty confident.”

  I felt this tiny bell go off in my head, the one that warns me I’m forgetting something. Unfortunately, all it does is warn me. It doesn’t tell me what I’m forgetting.

  “I shouldn’t have worried you with this.” Kel, looking regretful, stood up. “But I needed to pick your brain. You’re the one who’s been hanging out with the bad boys.”

  I smiled. Etta Place I was not. “You leaving?”

  “I’ve got to follow up the leads you gave me.”

  “You’re going after the Kenyons, aren’t you?” I asked, more to hold him here, than to know. I wanted time to look my fill at the spy who was leaving me.

  “Just going to sniff around a bit. Don’t want to spook them.” Maybe he saw the regret and longing in my eyes because he sighed. He cupped my face with his hands. “I have to go, Bel.”

  “I know. You have to save Congress…I suppose you do have to save them? I mean, they didn’t vote for your raise.”

  It was a feeble joke, but I needed to lighten an atmosphere that was starting to simmer. I swallowed, then licked my lips. He followed the movement intently, a fire starting in his eyes. I don’t know who moved first. All that mattered was my mouth and his were together at last. The coffee table kept our bodies apart, but not our passion.

  He was chocolate and cream. He was everything nice. Not a hint of puppy dog tails or snails…

  He tried to step over the coffee table, slipped on the magazines I’d dumped off and tumbled us both onto the sofa, then we slid to the floor. Space was tight, which suited me. We had to stay together to fit. It was hard on elbows as our hands explored each other, but what are elbows in the face of passion?

  It was easier for him to breach my robe’s boundaries, but I was on the bottom and had more elbow room, so we got to the good stuff at almost the same time. I wanted to sink into this vortex of passion, but there was something poking into my back.

  “Could we…there’s something in my back,” I muttered into his ear. “No. Don’t stop…just—”

  He rolled sideways and the coffee table shrieked across the floor, sending a small shower of papers down on us. But the pain in my back was gone, leaving only the ache for him.

  “How’s that?”

  I rolled on t
op and gazed down into dimple and blue eyes.

  “Perfect. It’s perfect.”

  I bent my head, wanting only to feel his mouth on mine again, but the mood was already dying.

  “What’s that?” he said, softly, his hands on my body stilling their heady explorations.

  “Isabel?” It was my mother and she sounded close, like right outside the door. I heard her fumble with the knob and looked in panic at Kel. There was a flurry of bodies. I still don’t know how I made it to my feet before my mother rounded the corner. I finished knotting my robe, while assuming what I hoped was a calm expression.

  “Mother.” I stole a peek. Kel was on the floor, tucking in his shirt.

  “I thought you’d be in bed by now?”

  “No.” Darn it.

  She frowned. “You’re awfully flushed. Do you have a fever?”

  “No.” There was a stealthy slide as Kel worked his way past me. I turned and headed for my bedroom. My mother turned too, giving Kel the diversion he needed.

  “Where are you going?”

  I felt the brush of cool air across my feet as the door opened and closed, but it didn’t cool anything higher. “I’m going to take a cold shower.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “I haven’t lost anything tonight, mother. In the morning I’ll let you know if that’s good or bad. Right now I’m not sure.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  My body was on strike when I woke up the next morning. While I slumbered my muscles had gotten together and decided to never move again. I just wish they’d told me before I tried to move. I thought I’d developed an accurate concept of pain the past week, what with being shot and knocked around by a variety of villains. But I was a novice at pain. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, wishing I didn’t have to get up, wishing I had no life, no rally, no nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and try not to move.

  Instead I inched toward the edge of the bed, wondering what had happened to my peaceful existence in one short week. I accidentally turn down the wrong street and suddenly my life is filled with spies, murderous policemen, younger men, older men…all interested in a skinny author from the suburbs. Had the whole world suddenly gone mad?

  What did they want from me? Well, okay, I guess I kind of knew what they wanted, but why did they want it? I studied my reflection in the mirror, but except for some bruises and scratches I looked even less exciting than usual. And even more perplexing, what did I want? My lack of enthusiasm for the married state hadn’t changed any, though my appreciation for the male form certainly had. Lust could really muddy the waters.

  Lust aside, I had yet another rehearsal to crawl to. I tracked down Addison, declined a ride from my protection detail and headed for the park with them trailing behind me in their car.

  Despite the metallic gray of the winter sky and the dead grass underfoot, the park looked festive and patriotic when I arrived for my rehearsal with the guys who loved me. Bleachers and a bandstand had been erected near the cement square that now contained the “pig” shrouded in white for its moment of glory this evening.

  Nearby, trees fluttered with hundreds of yellow and white ribbons and men labored to string red, white, and blue steamers on everything that wasn’t moving. They were even erecting a flagpole. Obviously a serious patriotic frenzy was in the making.

  The guys, now attired in Desert Storm gear and accompanying military swagger, were glad to see me, despite their recent frisking. Or maybe because of it.

  They gave me some gear to pull on over my regular clothes and I started to walk with a swagger, too. I wished I had the clothes when the bad guys were pushing me around. I’d have pushed back.

  Addison headed off to play with some kids, leaving us to tweak and twist our equipment into emitting weird wailing sounds that eventually steadied into something vaguely musical. Throughout the process, I pondered the problem of my young admirers. Though some may dispute it, I am convinced I got a desperately needed bolt of inspiration.

  I needed to kiss them. How had I forgotten this important need?

  It was the quickest way to remove their Cosmo-induced curiosity about love with an older woman. And it would help clarify things for me. I hadn’t gotten my kiss from Mike because he’d fallen for Rosemary. If they tasted as good as Kel, then I’d know my hormones were having their last hurrah before the onset of menopause and I wasn’t falling in love with the spy who kept revving my engine, then leaving me.

  I had to wait until after the rehearsal to put thought into action. We did our run through, then learned other details about the ensuing patriotic frenzy, like the fact that there were three parks, three rallies, and three pigs to receive dedicating, but we were the only ones who got to have Lee Greenwood.

  The other rallies would have to watch him on a big screen by satellite. We were also the only ones to get Fox News too.

  Rehearsal completed, I turned my attention back to the problem of how to lure three young men into kissing me. Inspiration struck again. Obviously God wanted me to kiss these boys. All I had to do was sing the “Little Mermaid” song about “kissing the girl” before we closed up shop. And if that didn’t work? Well, if they could read Cosmopolitan to develop sensitivity, and then not develop any, then I didn’t want to kiss them.

  Like the Sirens of myth, I started slow and let it build, luring them with words and song. Fortunately, they appeared to have acquired the needed sensitivity.

  Drum followed me behind the bandstand, ostensibly to get us Cokes.

  “Did you mean it?”

  I didn’t ask what. I just nodded and hoped. He didn’t disappoint me. It was a nice kiss. Not too wet and slightly dangerous, like his dark eyes, but nary a wobble in my knees. Was this good? I wasn’t sure.

  Tommy didn’t ask when he cornered me. He just did. And did it very well.

  “Why…thank you, Tommy.” I straightened my cap.

  He grinned. “Anytime. Really. The pleasure was all mine.”

  “Oh, not all yours,” I assured him. I tested my knees. A pity they were still steady. The boy could kiss. At least I’d learned some new stuff for my book.

  Jerome made me work for it. Of course, there was a marriage proposal still on the table between us. I smoothed the desert tan tee shirt wrinkling a bit across one broad shoulder and gave him what I hoped was an inviting look from under my lashes.

  “What’s the kiss supposed to prove?” he asked, his voice going husky, but still laden with amusement.

  No wonder I liked the boy.

  “Well, I figured if we…kissed and then we, well, felt like singing or something, then I…we’d know.”

  “Singing? Like a love song?”

  “I’m not looking for a dance number here.”

  “You’ve been watching too many musicals. Any particular song you got in mind?” Amusement came out into the open in his eyes.

  I started to smile, too. “I was thinking of something smoky and edged with jazz, but since you’re a white boy, I won’t hold it against you if you can’t produce.”

  He laughed. “You’re something else, Stanley.”

  He looked at for me for a moment, then stepped up to the mound, so to speak. His lips settled over mine, pleasant, nice tasting, sweeping away the present, and Kel from my thoughts, carrying me back in time. I was sixteen again and getting my first kiss. The kind of kiss I’d been hoping for from Freddie Frinker and hadn’t gotten. I even got a little wobble in my knees. My leg popped up, because it never had. But it didn’t knock either leg out from under me the way Kel’s kisses did. And there was no music.

  Sweet Sixteen didn’t count.

  “What now?” Jerome asked, still looking amused and ever so slightly regretful. I guess he could read the writing on my lips as well as the next guy.

  “I think we stay friends. It’s the way they do it in all the best musicals,” I said, with a few regrets of my own.

  It was a relief, so we kissed on it again, only friendly this time,
though Jerome tried to take advantage by stretching it out a bit. I let him because of Freddie and the spit rainbow, then watched him swagger away, wondering if I should have tried a little harder to get that song going in my heart—

  “Are you finished? There are a few guys you haven’t kissed yet.”

  I really did need to stop meeting Kel like this.

  He was several feet away and glaring, but my stupid knees still went soft, just from remembering what it was like to kiss him. There was more going on than hormonal hurrahs, but I wasn’t ready to admit what that might be. There was too much risk, too much possible pain following that path to its natural and logical conclusion.

  The sun glanced off the burnished brown of his hair, the highlights winking as the wind ruffled the surface. His skin glowed from the fresh air and he had on this truly great coat.

  He slipped sunglasses over the glare and walked, no stalked, over to me.

  I crossed my arms, determined not to feel guilty for conducting what was essentially scientific research. On his behalf. “What do you want now?”

  “I want you to look at something.”

  Etchings?

  “The computer sheets you found.”

  Oh, well. Baptist girls weren’t supposed to look at etchings anyway. “Why?”

  “There’s some handwriting on one of them that I want you to see if you recognize. Do you mind?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  Despite my agreement, he didn’t move. I shoved my hands, cold now that I was no longer kissing boys, into my coat pockets.

  Kel looked around. “So, what’s going on here?”

  “Going on?” I slid on my dark glasses, why should all the advantage be his?

  “Yeah. All this stuff. The ribbons, bandstand—”

  “It’s a rally in support of the troops. And they’re dedicating a pig.”

  Kel’s brows arched above the top of his glasses, telling me he was startled. “Pig?”

  I pointed at the howitzer. “Pig. It has this military sounding name, but Flynn just calls it the pig.”