Page 16 of Catch a Kiwi
“Liability, I do. That’ll pay for most of the damage to your trees, except for a thousand dollars, but I may have to …” A breath. “I may have to owe you for a while. It’ll take me some time to get it all paid off, since I’ll need to buy a car, but I’ll set up a plan, and I’ll do it. But I—the van wasn’t worth getting collision insurance. I knew it wasn’t, except that not having it— I wasn’t imagining that it—” She broke off. “I should think that it’s just another snakeskin. Why can’t I think that?” In a wondering voice, and maybe a sleepy one. I guessed she was working on that bourbon.
“Mm,” I said. “Hand me that drink, would you? I need it if I’m going to hear about snakes. I’m not fussed about my trees. Heaps of trees on this section. They’ll grow back.”
She gave me the glass, missing a little so the back of her hand brushed my arm lightly, making the hairs rise there. I wasn’t wearing much myself, just a T-shirt and shorts. If I were a gentleman, I’d offer her a T-shirt. Later, I decided. She wouldn’t want to put it on now anyway, because she’d have to take off her towel to do it. Of course, I could have been rationalizing here. It was surprisingly intimate in the dim firelight, not really able to see each other, the scent of her in my head and the knowledge of that towel lingering at the back of my mind.
It had been a while. Nobody who appealed to me enough, because there couldn’t be any other reason. I didn’t do doubt, and I didn’t do depression. This woman wasn’t the answer, either, whatever my body was telling me. Too complicated, and I didn’t need complicated. Also, I needed her to leave tomorrow. No mixed messages. I took a sip of the bourbon—she was right about the caramel, I decided, and also about the spicy apple—and handed it back to her.
She said, after a minute, “You know. A snakeskin.” Hervoice a bit lazy now. Husky, too, but it had always been that. Pitched low. Her voice didn’t match her stroppy attitude, because that was a bedroom voice all the way. “The snake sheds its skin because it’s outgrown it. That’s a good way to look at things when you feel like you’re losing too much. You’re shedding your skin, that’s all, ready to move on, be somebody new. Unencumbered. That’s the word.”
“A good philosophy,” I said. “If you can make it work.”
“Yeah. Well …” A sigh, and the movement of her throat in the flickering light as she drank. “I’m trying.”
“Good on ya. What else needs bandaging?”Stick to the point. You don’t need this, however it feels right now, and neither does she.
“Uh … my knees, mostly. Shins. A few places. I wouldn’t care, but … infection.”
“Mm. I think you’d better put your legs across my lap, then. If you lean up against the pillows, you can see where to shine the torch.”
“That’s a little …” She stopped.
“Well, yeh,” I said, “in your towel and all. Or you could drink some more bourbon, tell me your story, and let me bandage you. Nobody’s watching, and I’ll never tell.”
Seemed I didn’t listen to my own advice, and it wasn’t the bourbon. I had a hard head. Unfortunately, my head was no match for her voice. Or her scent. Or her skin.
7
NO QUOTE FOR THIS
Summer
I’d been tired for so many hours, it felt like my natural state. There was a difference, though, between being exhausted, wet, and filthy, and being sleepy, warm, achy, and … and much less desperate than I probably ought to be. Maybe that was the snakeskin idea, or maybe it was the completely false sense of security I was somehow getting here.
Everything bad in your life has come from surrendering to impulse,I reminded myself.You don’t do that anymore. You run your life. Your life doesn’t run you.
Also, I didn’t have sexual feelings anymore, so that couldn’t be what this was. It was relief, that was all, and very good liquor, and finally being comfortable. I wished Roman wasn’t so big, though, or so self-assured, or so clearly strong and competent. If only his eyes weren’t so piercing and his voice wasn’t so deep and dark. “Much alpha,” Delilah would have said. Why couldn’t I have crashed my car down the hillside of an irritable accountant and his middle-aged wife?
They wouldn’t have been able to get Delilah out.Well, therewas that. I took another sip of bourbon. It reallywasgood, the kind that trickled down your throat and slid through your veins like warm honey. Dangerous, inhibition-wise. I took another sip, and Roman shifted on the bed, pulled my legs over his thighs so I had to grab for the bottom of my towel, and said, “Aim that torch on your knees for me.”
His skin was warm, his thighs firm with muscle, the hair on them rough against my skin. I said, “This isn’t going to end the way you’re thinking.”
He said, “If I need sex, I can probably find a willing woman somewhere.” Still sounding amused. “Besides, I’m going to turf you out in the morning, remember? Hard to do that when you’ve just given a woman a good … what-for.”
“A good what-for?”Something escaped me. A giggle. Giggles didn’t come my way much these days. Must be the bourbon.
“Delilah says you don’t like language.” He was smearing antibiotic ointment lightly over a scraped and battered knee. His touch stung, and it felt weirdly good. I shivered, and he said, “Let me finish this, and I’ll put another log on.”
“Oh. No.” I needed to get it together here. “I’m fine. Just a little ticklish.”
He looked up at me. The light was dim, but you couldn’t miss the intensity on his face. “You’re ticklish?”
“Uh … not usually. Sometimes.” Oh, boy. I set the glass of bourbon on the table again.Sucha bad idea.
“Mm.” Taping the gauze down, now, then moving to my other knee, the stitched one. The way he was touching me was nothing but businesslike, so why was I reacting like the most desperate dog in the shelter?Pick me,the tingling, thrumming rush was saying.Pet me.
He said, “So what’s your story, Summer Adair?”
“You remembered my name.” I was stupidly gratified.
