Eagle, Kathleen (23 page)

Her
lips parted. He couldn't see much in her eyes, but he heard a quick breath. He
smiled, and he thought, Pick it up, honey. That shiny thing, that's what you
want from me. Pick it up.

"The
very first time I saw you, that's what your eyes were saying to me. The very
first—"

"Oh,
that's not true," she protested. "I didn't think about kissing you
the first time I laid eyes on you, for heaven's sake."

He
laughed, relieved. Back to the good stuff. "Liar."

"There
were a bunch of little kids around, and you were... I thought you were..."

"A
little overgrown but still a kid. I know. And I fooled you, didn't I? Turned
out to be more man than you thought."

She
slid her arms around him and buried her face against his neck.

He
smiled in the dark and whispered, "In some ways, huh?"

"You
turned out... I always thought you were quite a man. But young." And then
she added quickly, "Compared to me."

"Am
I old enough for you now? Tell you what, I've aged a whole lot more than you
have. You've gotten more beautiful, is all."

She
rewarded him with a small laugh as she turned in his arms. He helped her get
situated so she could see what he'd brought her up there to see, and he figured
he'd better keep talking, since it seemed to be working. He loved it when she
laughed, even a little.

"They
say women become more beautiful when they become mothers, and you're sure proof
of that."

She
groaned. "Quite a man and then some."

"Well,
I've been polishing up my act. You were obviously underwhelmed the first time
around, the way you took off without even leaving me a note. You're supposed to
leave a guy a note, a phone number, some way to find you."

"You
could have found me," she said quietly.

"Sure,
if I felt like hiring a detective." Okay, this wasn't the good stuff, but
it was easier. It was past. "I thought about doing just that, and I came
close, but then I thought, what was the point? It was pretty clear to me that
you didn't want to see me again."

She
was silent for a moment, and he almost regretted opening the valve on this
particular chamber, but then she said, "I'm seeing you again now."

"That's
right. You hang tough, the parts left hanging kinda heal up a little bit, and
along comes another chance. Life's funny that way, see?" He was looking
for that small laugh again, and he got it this time by touching her sides, her
ticklish spot, the one he'd discovered thirteen years ago and rediscovered on
the first try.

"No
fair! It won't be funny when we're tumbling down the hill."

"That'll
be the funniest of all. Can't you just see us, somersaulting into the middle of
an Intertribal round?" They both laughed as he drew it out for them in the
air.
"Hopo,
new step, they'll all be saying, and pretty soon
everybody's rolling down the hill."

Ah,
they laughed. With the lights twinkling below them and the velvet night taking
heart from the steady beat of the drum, this was the spirit, he thought, the
willingness to reach for the shiny thing. How could he show her more of the
same?

"When
do I get to meet your son?"

"My
son?"

Damn,
she'd gone tense again. He had his arms crossed around the front of her, hands
on her arms, suddenly gone stiff on him. He started rubbing again.

"I
figure I could make more points with you through your son. Kids really like me,
especially kids who like basketball. You did say he plays basketball."

"Yes,
he does. Well, he's only... he's young yet. Still has a long way to go."

"Of
course he does—at what, ten? Nearly eleven, huh? He's pretty young to be away
from his mom all summer."

"He's
very mature. He's always been pretty independent, eager to explore the minute
he found out what feet were for."

"He's
not tied to your apron strings?"

"My
apron strings were never long enough for him."

"Does
he look like you?" Oh, yeah, she'd like this. "Show me a picture when
we get back to the car. You must have one in your billfold." Women loved
to show their kids' pictures.

"I
usually do, but I just switched to a new one, and we had new pictures taken, so
I was changing wallets, changing pictures." It all came out in a gush, as
though she felt guilty for not having the pictures right on her. Then, in a
small voice, she said, "I guess I'm between pictures."

"Not
even a baby picture?"

"Not—not
with me."

He
heard sadness. He shifted, surrounding her a little better, cuddling her a
little more. "You get too lonesome for him when you look at his
picture?"

"It's
not that. It's..." She sighed. "I do miss him. I don't like being
away from him at all, so this has been difficult."

"We
could pay him a visit at camp. It's what, little more than a day's drive? You
think he'd like that?"

"I
think he would, but..."

She
would, too; he could feel it. She wanted to see her kid, but there was some
kind of catch, some doubt about somebody in this equation. Probably the kid.
Kids were funny about their moms getting interested in guys.

"It's
kind of a special camp," she said. "The idea is to develop confidence
and self-sufficiency. They do a lot with survival, wilderness experiences, that
sort of thing."

"They
don't let them have any visitors?"

"They
don't encourage it."

"That's
not the way I run my camp," he said proudly. "If I have it next
summer, he's welcome to come. As my guest."

"Thank
you. That's—I know he'd enjoy that."

"I
require parent involvement, though." He lowered his head, tucking his nose
into her hair, muttering, "Lots of parent involvement. Private
consultations." He slid his hand beneath her breast. The bra was a true
inconvenience. "How did you feed him when he was a baby? Did you—"

"Yes,
I think we should consult right now, Reese."

He
nibbled her ear. "Excellent idea."

"About
your heart."

"Treat
it gently," he warned, hooking his thumb over the neckline of her dress.
"You run off on me again, you're liable to break it so it can't be
mended."

"Is
there no cure?"

"No
cure." He kissed the curve where her neck met her shoulder and wondered
whether the curve had a name. "But like I said, there's treatment."

"Surgery?"

"Not
right now, thanks."

"Is
this hereditary?"

"Could
be," he said, settling back against the rock. "My mother died of
heart failure not long after she had Carter. She was only thirty-one. Nobody
knows of anyone else in her family having a problem, but there were other
people who died young. With Indians, dying young is not unusual. The doctors
wanted a family history, and that's it. She died young."

"Is
that why you haven't gotten married?"

"I
haven't had time to get married. I haven't been able to find the right woman.
Or the right detective agency."

"But
your heart wouldn't prevent you from getting married," she concluded.
"Or discourage you from..."

"We'd
have to have this consultation." With his thumb he stroked that curve he'd
kissed, and he thought how absurd for his heart—always,
always
tripping
over itself when she was around—to keep him from her now. His pride, maybe, but
never his poor heart. "She'd have to know that I'm not the best risk. On
the other hand, I think she could do worse."

"What
about children?"

"Now,
there's the risk," he admitted. "I don't think I'll ever have
children of my own. But I wouldn't have a problem being a father to somebody
else's. Adopting or being a stepfather."
Show me his picture, Helen.
Let me put a face to the name you've given me, and I swear...
"Do you
want more children?"

"I'm
too old."

"You're
barely thirty-nine."

She
turned her head toward him. "How do you know? You don't remember—you
couldn't even remember how long it had been since you'd last seen me."

"I
remember your age by counting up from mine." He yelped when she reached
around and pinched him high on the thigh, and then he laughed. "Aw, Helen,
I remember only because it was such a big deal for you that I was a few years
younger."

"It
wasn't for you?"

"I
guess it scared me," he admitted, now that he thought about it. "You
were educated and I wasn't. Sophisticated, and I wasn't. I was
going
to
be, once I got off the rez; at least that's what I had planned. But I wasn't
yet. I was just... plain damn cocky. That's all I had going for me."

"You
were going to become a big star, and that scared me."

"You
believed me?"

"You
believed
you, and that was what mattered."

"My
dad wanted me to finish school. But I had a chance then, a chance I thought
might not come around again. I'd had a heart thing when I was a kid. Nothing
serious, just some palpitation, a little fluttering. I didn't tell anybody. My dad
knew, but I wouldn't let him tell anybody. It never bothered me. I passed every
physical. I passed the army physical. And I had to play basketball. I
had
to.
What good does it do to be this tall, this gawky, when you're a kid? You've
gotta be able to turn it into some kind of an asset, you know?"

"So
this is a genetic, um..."

"Weakness?
They tell me it could be. Carter and Rose had some tests done, and they seem
okay. So far, their kids are okay. But if I had kids..." He hadn't thought
about it a lot, this kids-of-his-own thing, so talking about it—going at it all
serious, the way she wanted to—well, he was feeling
his
way along.
"Put it like this, if you had a horse like me, you wouldn't put him out to
stud. Kind of a shame, 'cause I'm a damn good specimen, you know, in some
ways."

"I
believe we've established that," she allowed, serious as hell. "What
kind of tests did your brother and sister have done?"

"Blood
workups, looking for something genetic. It's a problem that kinda sneaks up on
a person, usually a teenager or young adult. You can have it without even
feeling any symptoms."

"And
then one day...?" she prodded gently.

"One
day you feel a little dizzy after a workout. Next thing, you think you've got a
kettle drum in your chest. Then this seven-foot center lands on your chest,
cracks a couple of ribs, one damn specialist leads to another, and they're
talking diagnosis and prognosis, and all you know for sure is you're out of the
game."

"Was
it your choice?"

"I
would have taken the risk and kept on playing if it had been up to me," he
told her. "They still don't have all the answers about this condition,
which turns out to be a lot of variations on a condition, and the ones you hear
about are the guys who drop dead on the court. But people live with it, too.
Anyway, it was my choice not to disclose my whole damn medical history. I was out
for the rest of the season with the ribs, and then I retired."

"So
now... you seem fine. Is the risk... are the chances..."

He
had to laugh. He couldn't help it. His compulsive gambler was trying to assess
the odds. He felt like telling her,
Hey, it's six for one, half dozen for
the other, sudden-death game.
But he had to remember that she was new to
this game, and her sense of humor wasn't quite the same as his. So he just
laughed.

And
she turned and hammered him on the shoulder. "I don't want anything to
happen to you!"

"You
don't?" He slanted his mouth over hers like the kid in the school yard,
repaying her cuff with a kiss. "I do," he whispered, taking the hand
from his shoulder and sliding it over his chest. "I want
you
to
happen to me. Make my heart skip a beat."

"Is
that what it does?"

"What
it does is pump blood, almost like your heart and everybody else's." He
pushed her hand down, pressing her fingers to him, over the ribs long since
healed, over the belt he would soon unfasten, over the zipper that held his
jeans together where he wanted them apart. "Right now, it's pumping most
of it right here. See? You're happening to me already."

She
massaged him through his pants. "What about your head?"

"Coming
along just fine." He found the zipper on the back of her dress. She
flipped his belt buckle open, and he laughed, not because he was being
terrifically clever, but because he was happy. "Oh, you mean the ugly one?
Light as a feather. Headin' for the stars."

"I'll
make you touch them," she said, and he shifted his hips to assist her in
his unzipping.

Her
dress slipped down her shoulders, and he saw the soft white pillows he would
more than gladly touch, and he told her so as he unhooked her bra.