Eagle, Kathleen (14 page)

"Have
we been sleeping?"

"We've
been, uh... laying together?" He grinned. "Lying together? Which is
it, Teach?"

His
confidence had always been a pretty thing, the way it made his eyes shine. He
put his arm around her to walk her to the house, and she leaned against him,
tucked in her chin, closed her eyes. "Lying, I guess."

"For
sure we got laid."

"For
sure we did," she said, and for his gentle tone, she smiled.

He
told her to jump in the shower while he made coffee. Her head was under the
water when she felt the curtain slide. A large bare foot joined hers in the
tub. She looked up, to find him filling every spare inch of space in the
cubicle, giving her an impossibly sheepish wolf grin. Lord, he was big.

"Coffee's
on," he said. "Thought I'd save us some time here."

"Are
we in a hurry?"

"I'm
not."

She
had to laugh. He looked like Daddy visiting the playhouse. It couldn't hurt to
extend the magic a bit, allow it to enter this small place, too. She could
contain it here in the tub, which was even smaller than the backyard bower. She
could take the risk in this small, private place, harness it here, enjoy it a
little longer. It would not have to spill out if she drew the curtain.

He
washed her hair, and when she offered to return the favor, he knelt in the tub.
She adjusted the spray, but still he got soap in his eyes, feigned blindness,
and groped her. She laughed until he found her mons with his mouth, which was
oddly startling. She tried to back away, but there was no room, no backing or
escaping or denying the pleasure he would give and give and give, for he was
also big in the giving department. He clamped an arm around her hips and sipped
between her legs and stroked her with his tongue, and there was no such thing
as a harness. There were no limits. Neither of them noticed immediately when
the hot water ran out, and when they did, it felt good. Everything felt good.

Dressed
only in jeans, he served her coffee. Dressed only in a slip, she served him
poached eggs on toast. When he disappeared to turn on some music, she sneaked
the dog into the house and fed him bacon. Reese caught them under the kitchen
table and scolded her, using the words his father had obviously recorded in his
brain. She'd heard them from Roy herself not long ago. "Dogs don't belong
in the house. You start letting them in, they forget how to be dogs."

But
to his father's line Reese added, "Don't they, you sneaky ol' coyote? What
am I gonna do with you, huh? I got no place to..." He eyed Helen as he
ruffled the dog's black-and-white ruff. "Does your son have a dog?"

"No."
Her heartbeat tripped into high gear. Whenever he mentioned Sidney, her stupid
heart raced so fast she felt light-headed. Crybaby was still licking bacon
grease off her fingers. "We can't have dogs where we live."

"Every
boy needs a dog," he professed, and she could hear her son saying,
Yeah,
Mom.
"You guys need to move back here and give this mutt a home now
that you've spoiled him so bad."

"I
have not."

"Yeah,
you have. Look at the way he's lookin' at you." He paused while Crybaby
demonstrated soulfulness on cue. "How about your boy? Have you spoiled
him?"

He
was teasing her with that I-know-you look, and she wanted to warn him that he
didn't, and she didn't know him. Not well enough, not the way knowing really
counted. She wasn't sure what he'd do if he found out that his innocent look
was misplaced on her. The only knowing he could claim was a physical thing,
purely sensual, senseless and risky. But, ah, enjoyable beyond reason. The
capricious realm where children came into play.

"Probably,"
she confessed as she stood, leaving him on the floor with the dog. She was
exposing too much of herself. "I can't believe I'm wandering around here
half dressed," she said, heading for the bathroom in search of her blouse.
She felt like a wilted flower, losing pieces of herself every time somebody
barely breathed on her. "Did I bring my skirt in, or did I abandon it in
the grass?"

"
I
abandoned it in the grass," he called after her, "but then I
retrieved it, put it in the bedroom with your shoes and stuff."

She
followed his directions and the music to the end of the hallway. She'd never
seen the bedrooms. One of the doors stood open to what had once been a boy's room,
now being visited by a man. A man's pair of shoes lay beneath a boy's desk. A
man's classical jazz played on a boy's boom box. A man's black leather suitcase
stood next to a boy's chest of drawers, and a woman's skirt and shoes lay at
the foot of a bed that had to be too small to accommodate the man who had
stripped it down to its sheets and taken every blanket in the house outside.
Something he had probably done as a boy. Something her own boy had done many
times. Her boy,
her
son, as long as she could get all her pieces back
into place exactly the way they'd been. No cracks, no leaks, nothing left
behind in this enchanting and chancy territory.

"See?
I didn't burn everything."

Reese
had sneaked up behind her. She stiffened, but she refused to let him startle
her. She felt him invade her space without quite touching, so close she could
feel the warm shower dew.

He
lifted her damp hair off the back of her neck and kissed her nape.
"Personally, I like the way you're dressed," he said, his voice low,
near to whispering. "You're elegant no matter what you're wearing or not
wearing. Classic. The first time I saw you, you were wearing a plain dress,
pale yellow, but it just sort of skimmed over you." His fingertips
skittered over her shoulder. "It flowed with you when you moved, and all I
could think of was lemon sherbet. You made my mouth water."

She
stepped into the room, turned, looked up at him in wonder. He remembered what
she'd been wearing that day? He remembered the color?

"You
know what else I like? I like the way you forget yourself sometimes. Like you
did with me last night and then"—he nodded over his shoulder, but his eyes
held her gaze—"then crouched under the table with the dog."

"No
similarity whatsoever." She smiled, teasing. She would take charge here.

"You're
such a surprise sometimes, the kind that takes a guy's breath away." With
a long arm he easily bridged the distance she'd put between them, touching her
shoulder again. He slipped two fingers under her satin strap. "But sooner
or later you always remember again."

"Remember
what?"

"I
don't know. Something better, maybe. Someplace else you're supposed to be,
something you're supposed to be doing." He shrugged. "Somebody you're
supposed to be with."

"I
forget myself," she echoed deliberately, examining the notion. It was a
nice way to put it, nearly absolving her of all responsibility. To forget and
do the natural thing. It sounded wonderfully harmless. "There's no one
else I'd rather be with, Reese. Believe me."

"I
didn't say
rather."

She
saw his kiss coming, and she lifted her chin to meet it. Point well taken. But
still she whispered, "I should be going soon."

"You're
hung up on
should."

"No,
I'm not, but I shouldn't be..."

"And
the flip side is
should not."
He kissed her again, sliding his hands
over her shoulders and down her arms. So disarming a gesture, so appealing his
smile. "I have things to show you, things I want to talk with you
about." He squeezed her hand. "So don't be in such a hurry to
remember whatever it is that pulls you away. Forget yourself a while
longer."

But
she did pull away. "Was this your room?"

"Mine
until Carter moved in. Guess he got it all to himself when I left, but this is
pretty much the way it's always been, except there used to be posters on the
walls and clothes on the floor."

"You
and Carter shared this bed?" She plunked herself down, bounced as though
testing the mattress. The springs chirped.

"When
he came home we got a pair of those damn twin beds, which is probably what did
my back in. My father gave those away and got this one back out when I left for
the army after my first attempt at college." He sat beside her, then
flopped back on the bed. The springs screeched. "Damn, this thing is shot.
A new one's being delivered next week, which is going to take up the whole
room, wall to wall. But, then, so do I. Meanwhile, I'm better off on the
ground, sleepin' out. Does your kid like to sleep out?"

"He's—well,
summer camp, he—"

He
laughed, pulled her down beside him, and cuddled her. "We don't need to be
talking about kids or brothers or any of that stuff right now, huh? It's just
us. Let's do things, just us."

Her
nose was pressed against his smooth skin, and his tangy male scent went
straight to the weak side of her brain. A smooth clarinet carried the mood along.

"What
kind of things?"

"The
kind we've been doing. Man-and-woman things." He pushed a strap off her
shoulder, touched the tip of his tongue where the satin had been. "I'll do
some more man things. You do more woman things."

"Speaking
of hang-ups, that sounds pretty sex—" Something was crawling up her flank.
She reached back and discovered another tongue, this one lapping out of a fuzzy
face. "Uh-oh."

"Is
that what I think it is?"

She
giggled. "Crybaby, we agreed you were going to be quiet and inconspicuous,
remember?" The dog answered with a solicitous whimper, his front paws
gaining ground. "Now what are you trying to do?"

"He's
trying to compete." Reese sat up and peered over her. "You can't.
You're not a man. You're supposed to stay outside and be a dog."

"He
misses your father, too."

"My
father would be the first to tell you that no good could come of this. To prove
it, he'd spin you a really long, kinda tangled-up, little bit off-color Coyote
tale."

She
flipped over so she could give the dog a proper ear-scratching. "He's just
lonesome, aren't you, sweetie?"

"It's
an act he puts on. Coyote's a sneaky sonuvabitch," Reese said, and she
scolded him with an over-the-shoulder glance. He shrugged. "He sleeps
around. You know that, don't you?"

"Only
because you won't let him in, poor thing."

"Seduces
softhearted women, turns them away from their men."

"He
just wants to be with us. Oooh, he's such a good boy."

"Yeah,
well, so am I. I'm the master now, and the master wants to do man things with
his woman. So the dog gets DOWN." The paws hit the floor. Reese stabbed a
finger in the direction of the door. "And goes OUT."

The
dog was thinking about it, backing up, sucking what sympathy he could get from
Helen.

"Don't
look at her, you big crybaby. You're ruined now, aren't you?"

"He
just wants somebody to play with."

"I
can identify with that." To the dog he said, "Go find your own."
And to Helen: "What do you want to play? A little one-on-one?"

Crybaby
got as far as the door, and then he sat, watching, waiting for the games to
begin.

They
played the morning away. "I should go," she would say, and he would
remind her of the papers he was going to show her. She really should look at
those papers. But first they grained the horses, which led to playing ball with
the dog. Going back inside for another cup of coffee led to playing war on his
father's battlefield. He lined up his soldiers against her Indians, and they
hurled insults at each other. For every good insult, a plastic man keeled over.

"I'd
shoot you, but you're too ugly for carrion."
Ping!

"I'd
drag you behind my horse, but you're so fat I'd need a damn Clydesdale."
Zap!

Over
a second cup of coffee and a painted field full of plastic corpses, Reese
allowed that Helen talked trash pretty well for an amateur. Admittedly he
wasn't one of the best trash-talkers in the NBA, but he'd learned to hold his
own, he told her as he finally served up the papers. He dealt the pages out to
her at the edge of the battlefield, summarizing facts and figures with each
exhibit. Here, from his father's perspective, was the history of his people's
foray into the casino business. Roy Blue Sky had done his research and
concluded that there should have been more profit showing somewhere.

"Is
it a lot of money?"

"Yeah,
the way he had it figured." Hovering over her with his cache, Reese
produced copies of Roy's whistle-blowing letters. "It looks like we're
paying through the nose to lease the slot machines. He's saying the tribe would
own them by now if they'd bought instead of leased."

"That's
what they agreed to, though."

"Yeah,
but look." He plunked a budget analysis in front of her while he recited
from one of the letters, saying, "And he's right. The management company
has an answer for everything except the bottom line. Where's the money? That's
what he keeps asking here. See, Ten Star takes the leases off the top, plus
operations costs, plus, plus, plus. They keep revising their projections. Like
he says here, whenever he tried to pin them down, they gave him a lot of 'puff
words,' he says, 'meaning nothing, explaining nothing, just nonsense on top of
more nonsense. But underneath it all, there's money being made by somebody, and
it's not the Bad River Sioux Tribe.' "