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WYNTER & HAILEY
This is an erotic fantasy. It is the third sequel to
"Wynter" and follows "Wynter & Cinnamon." It is not
necessary to read the previous three stories to understand
this one, as events are recapped within this story, but it
would help in order to better understand the background and
to see the growth in the characters.
The characters and the situation are purely imaginary, and
this story is NOT intended to be a guide for actual
behavior. Any similarities between this story and actual
people or actual events you should be ashamed of are purely
coincidental. If it is illegal in your part of the world
to access and read erotic fiction, or if you are underage,
or if you don't like underage sex stories, then you should
stop now.
This story is copyright 2007 by Russell Hoisington.
Please do not remove the author information or make any
changes to this story. You may post freely to non-
commercial (free) sites, or in the "free" area of
commercial sites. That does NOT mean that these stories
are in the public domain, nor does it mean that I give
permission for you to use them in spam advertising. I
reserve the right to determine what is "spam advertising"
by MY definition, not yours or anyone else's.
Thank you for your consideration.
My sincerest thanks to Denny Wheeler for editing this
story and, along with Uncle Sky, the Night Hawk, Wizard,
Rod O'Steele, and, Old Man Ted, for their input and for
keeping the characters in character. Special thanks to the
Night Hawk for being my musical advisor.
This story is dedicated to Uncle Sky, without whose
encouragement Wynter would have remained a short story.
NOTE: Because of the limitations of ASSM's moderation
software I have split Part Three into thirds.
Part 3A is Chapters 23-26
Part 3B is Chapters 27-30
Part 3C is Chapters 31-33
************************************************************
WYNTER & HAILEY
Part Three (A)
Russell Hoisington
Twenty Three
Kenny couldn't get over the devilish sparkle in
Suzie's eyes as their lips separated.
"You want to?" she asked with that anxious giggle and
leer that meant she was especially horny.
"You bet! Here?"
"Unh uh," she said with a mischievous grin. "I got
just the right place for us to do it."
She took his hand and led him through a door. The
room on the other side had natural stone walls. "Back
here," she said, leading him to a bed in a long, narrow
room cut through the solid rock. Rotten timbers held up
equally rotten beams that supported a cracked stone ceiling.
They stripped and climbed into the bed. "I almost
forgot," she said, giggling again. "Wait here." She
jumped down, kicked an upright timber, and ran to the door,
laughing loudly with intense delight. He rolled onto his
side as the ceiling collapsed in a thick cloud of dust and
tons of heavy rocks buried him.
"_Kenny?_"
He knew he'd died because an angel's sweet voice
called to him in the distance. He knew it was an angel
because he forced his eyes open enough to see her fly
toward him from a speck in the vast distance of infinity, a
beautiful vision dressed in the purest white robes... and
carrying the BOOK OF NAMES!
_Damn!_ He hadn't believed. But it was true! So, if
his name was in that book, it certainly wasn't under
'Admissions.' He was going to be punished, sent to Hell
for all eternity. "I'm sorry I hid Charlie's glasses from
him yesterday," he mumbled, hoping he could get an easier
sentence. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see what
happened to him until it was over, either way.
The angel spoke with the melodious voice of silver and
crystal chimes dancing in a gentle spring breeze. "_I'm
sorry. I didn't understand you._"
"And I'm sorry for hurting Suzie, too," he said, his
voice sounding a little clearer to himself. It must have
been, because he heard other angels in Heaven gasp and
mumble at his words.
The angel shook his shoulder, and her wonderfully
sweet voice said, "_Kenny!_" He decided to open his eyes.
After all, this vision of loveliness might be the last
beautiful thing he ever saw forever. The angel flew down
and hovered over him, looking at him with the prettiest
blue-green eyes above a slender nose and sparkling white
teeth. Her halo slipped over her left shoulder and became
a ponytail of spun gold. Her slender hand reached for his
shoulder, and he marveled that with all eternity before
her, an angel would wear a wristwatch.
A watch that looked familiar. In fact, it looked just
like the one worn by...
"Wyn'er?"
"He's coming around," she said. "Kenny, are you awake
now? You're being released. You can go home."
Kenny forced his eyes to focus. She wore her lab coat
and had her stethoscope in a side pocket. "You making
rounds?"
"Uh huh. I made morning rounds with Doctor V earlier.
Your dad sent me to tell you that you're going home after
you get up and we talk about your symptoms." She indicated
the book in her hand. It was her 'Kenny's Illness' notebook.
"Yeah. I guess we can do that while I wake up.
Damned medicine really makes me groggy."
Wynter grinned sweetly. "I think it can wait until
after you greet your visitors." With a lift of her eyes
and head she indicated the other side of his bed.
Slowly, because he'd learned the hard way that rapid
movement under that vile disgusting medicine he'd renamed
Noxitol and Retchallday made for severe nausea, he turned
his head, then his body, to the right to look behind him.
Long, dark-red hair framing a square face with a pointed
chin slid into view.
"You scared us," Cinnamon said, her green eyes looking
wet.
He kept turning and saw Hailey giving him a stern look
with very wet brown eyes. "Hey! You SO need to get over
this totally bogus mess, pickledick. It's, like, way worse
on US than it is on you!"
He continued turning, bracing for either Jimmy's or
Huntly's snide comment next. His eyes blew wide open and
he stopped breathing when he saw familiar gray-green eyes
leaking tears down cheeks paled by worry.
"This is a heck of a stupid way to welcome me home,
you dolt."
_Is this another dream?_ "Suzie?"
Cinnamon sniffed, jerking her head toward the door.
"Well, that's enough for the rest of us. We need to run by
the psychiatric wing and see if they captured Huntly when
he wandered past. Sis, you'd better come with us in case
we need somebody on staff to help spring him." She used
the handrail to pull herself to where she could kiss Kenny.
"I'm glad you're finally going home."
_Finally?_ "How long have I been here?"
"Not now, pickledick," Hailey said as she replaced her
cousin. She, too, gave him a sisterly kiss. "Hey, we'll
come by the house and help Mrs. Holland keep you in line."
Wynter moved around to that side of the bed. She was
deferring to the medicine-induced nausea. She briefly
touched his cheek, then slid her hand down to check his
carotid pulse. When she looked up from her watch, she
said, "You're back to as normal as you'll ever get." That,
more than anything the staff might have said, told him he
really was well enough to go home.
She gave him a brief, gentle kiss, too. "It may take
a while to secure Huntly's release." She gave Suzie a hug
and then followed her adopted sisters out, closing the door
behind her.
Suzie's fingers twisted about each other. She spoke
quietly, with her head down but looking red-eyed at Kenny
from under her brows. "She's practically lived here since
you were admitted. She slept on that couch. Sunday your
dad said that if she wasn't gonna to go home, she might as
well be useful and do rounds or something."
"Sunday? Suzie, what day is it?"
Her right foot turned on one toe. She sniffed. "It's
Wednesday, almost noon. Kenny, you scared everybody. Bad.
That doctor from Denver was here Saturday and Sunday.
Wynter can explain it better than I can. I'm too stupid to
understand it or something." She sniffed again and wiped
her nose with the back of her hand, then her eyes with her
fingers.
Kenny shook his head without thinking. He was
surprised that it didn't make him hurl. The medicine
caused the nausea, so they'd obviously reduced his dosage.
Or maybe canceled it. "No. You're not stupid, Suzie.
Simply not knowing something doesn't make you stupid."
She raised one eyebrow and shoulder in a shrug.
"Maybe. Wynter's tried to explain it every day, but I
still don't understand."
Kenny's left hand hesitantly reached for her hands.
He decided instead to rest it on the bed rail, halfway.
"Uh huh. And did she speak English or Doctorese?"
A corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Well, yeah."
"There you go." His eyes tried to unfocus, but he
forced them to keep her image sharp. He'd waited way too
long to see her up close and talking to him. "Sometimes I
don't understand her, either. My dad says his greatest
fear is that one of these days he'll have to admit that he
doesn't know what she's saying and will have to ask her to
explain it to him. He keeps saying that day is getting
closer and closer."
Both corners moved upward and stayed there. "Yeah."
She looked at his hand but didn't move.
He wanted very much to ask, but he was scared of her
answer, so he asked instead, "Was the second group as much
fun as Amber?"
She sniffed and her smile widened. "Yeah. Better.
It was ever so great, except for when I hurt my wrist and
couldn't get in the pool for a couple of days."
"I was sorry to hear about that. If I'd been there,
I'd have taught that jerk some manners. I'd make him sorry
he hurt the one and only Suzie Middleton. Cinnamon and
Wynter and Josh told me you had a good time otherwise. I'm
glad to hear that's true."
The smile winked out. "You had nightmares."
The conversational jump confused him for a moment.
"Huh?"
Her hand moved towards his but grasped the bed rail
beside it. He looked at it but didn't move his. "Every
time I was here you had a stupid nightmare. About me.
Like today. You were crying my name. Wynter said you had
a whole lot of them."
_Great. Now what_? "It was just the pain, and maybe
the medicine," he said. He wouldn't tell her that he'd had
nightmares about her almost every night since she'd caught
him with Judy and Tiffany and had run out of his room crying.
"Yeah." Her index finger moved over and stroked his
hand, then rested atop it. "And I was some of your stupid
pain." She sniffed and then resumed, her voice hesitant.
"Because you hurt me. I wanted to hurt you back. That
same way. Bad." She sniffed again. "But I changed my
mind some. After talking with Jennifer. She made me think
a lot after I listened to some of her stories about, well,
someone we both know. I decided I wanted to be more like
her, and not so much like that stupid Amber."
"Jennifer? Was she a student or another coach?"
"Oh. Coach Jackson. Coaches called each other by
first names there. All of us. Except I just couldn't call
Coach Wallace by his." She shrugged. "Jennifer was ever
so understanding and said that I shouldn't ever do anything
I was uncomfortable with or something. She really did
understand, and we learned a lot about each other. Now
she's sorta like the big sister that that stupid Caroline
never was."
That made Kenny feel warm all over. "I'm glad, Suzie.
Maybe she can keep on being that way for you. When she's
not being a teacher and your coach."
Suzie sniffed and nodded. "Uh huh. And she's gonna
help me with my dyslexia because she said somebody helped
her like that with hers."
"Good for her. And for you." He couldn't wait any
longer. "Suzie, are we..."
She answered while he searched for the right word.
"No. But we can be friends, can't we?"
A knife slid through his heart, and he fought to keep
his tears in. "We can always be friends if you want."
She frowned slightly. Anyone who didn't know Suzie
would have missed it. "Just friends, Kenny. Okay? I
won't cheat on Josh."
He felt the knife turn. "Sure. Having you for a
friend without sex is way much better than not having you
as a friend at all."
Her hand finally slid atop his, causing a cold
electric shock to vibrate up his arm and down to his feet.
She squeezed. "I kinda feel lost or something not having
you for a friend. I didn't realize it at first, but I do
now."
"Somebody I respect said you can never have too many
friends."
Suzie nodded. "She's right, as usual. Can I... Can
we have a friends kiss? No tongues?"
As their lips separated, Kenny wondered if now the
nightmares would cease.
~ ~ ~
Kevin Taylor sat with his left elbow on his desk and
his forehead supported by his hand, his eyes searching
Steven Marcus's report for some new clue about Kenny's
baffling condition. Steven had written a paper for
publication about it and was proposing the name "Taylor-
Mosier Syndrome" for Kenny and the victim of a second case
that had recently been discovered out in Kiowa.
His right hand subconsciously reached for his coffee
cup. After all these years he could find it without
looking. Only it wasn't there. Eyes still on the paper,
his hand searched the immediate area and found only the
coaster.
He looked up. And jumped. "Goddamn it!"
Ron Lopez, relaxing in one of the visitors' chairs,
grinned at him over the edge of the cup. He swallowed and
said, "When did you stop taking it with cream and sugar?
Trying to lose weight after the last beating I gave you?"
Kevin grunted and waved at the report. "No time for
basketball today. This is about Kenny."
"You're right about that. There's not. And it is."
Ron's voice made Kevin very uneasy. "This isn't a
social call, is it." It wasn't a question, and he made no
effort to have it sound like one.
Ron shook his head.
"And I'm not going to like it."
"No." Ron drained the remaining coffee and put the
cup on its coaster.
Kevin leaned back in his chair and pulled two
peppermint candies from a drawer. He tossed one to Ron and
asked, "Candis?"
Ron scratched his head. "I think she should be here.
Your call, though."
"She doesn't need second-hand information from someone
who may garble the facts and can't answer her questions."
As Ron unwrapped his peppermint and popped it in his mouth,
Kevin lifted the receiver and punched her extension. "Drop
everything. Ron's here about Kenny."
Ron rose when she entered. He accepted a hug before
complimenting her colorful new blouse that had almost
melted the American Express card. She chose not to sit, so
Ron remained standing, too. He looked at both of them,
inhaled sharply, and began.
"While you were having breakfast, Adams County
Sheriff's deputies found the body of a Harold 'The Polack'
Kaczynski buried under rocks in a ravine a few miles east
of DIA. He'd been stabbed through the heart. He's a drug
dealer believed to be associated with the guy Kenny and I
took down at the Aspenleaf Center. Less than an hour later
a rancher stumbled across the body of Edward 'Fat Eddie'
Taggart, who IS known to be associated with him, buried
under rocks in a ravine on the west side of Pike's Peak.
He, too, had been stabbed through the heart."
Candis blanched and sat down. "You think he's coming
here next?"
Ron nodded. "I think they sent him here to meet
Angelo Ramada, not knowing that Dad had snatched him off
the street. In fact, Angelo might have been caught after
they sent him. He made a stupid move, one of the few he's
made over the years, and that got him caught. I believe he
now thinks he was set up, with the idea of eliminating and
taking over his multi-state territory. He wasn't a small-
time operator but a member of a rumored new crime family
based in Phoenix. Now he's getting even with everyone
involved in the suspected set-up."
"Then..." Candis looked at her husband for a moment,
then asked Ron, "Then what can we do?"
Ron shrugged. "Dad, of course, thinks he's going to
catch Ramirez. I believe Ramirez is smarter than that.
Dad won't admit it, but he got lucky when Angelo came to
town. So, I'm going to do the only thing left that has a
chance of succeeding."
Suspicion gnawed with icy teeth at Kevin's gut.
"Which is?"
Ron shrugged again. "Let him catch me first."
"No!" Candis came halfway out of her chair. "Ron,
dear, he might hurt you!"
Kevin realized Candis didn't understand Ron the way he
did. In any one-on-one situation, like that with the dead
other dealers, Ron would win. Ramirez would have to act
from a distance. Which meant... "He might kill you."
Ron shrugged a third time. "He might try. If he's
lucky, he'll fail."
Ron always said that if anyone killed him, he'd come
back from the dead for revenge. While Kevin didn't think
that was at all possible, he knew that if anyone could
accomplish that feat, it was the grinning youth scratching
his head before him.
"Besides," Ron continued, "I never lifted a finger.
He doesn't know that I'm Kenny's trainer. That's to his
disadvantage."
Her features hardened. "You mean you set my son up to
take the blame?"
"HONEY!" Kevin barked. "Of course he didn't.
Actually, it was a smart move on Ron's part. Which means
you suspected something like this might happen?" he asked,
shifting his eyes to Ron.
"Nah. I just took standard precautions. Besides,
Kenny needed a boost, so I let him have all the fun. You
should be as proud of him as I am. He was down because of
his break up with Suzie. Again. Though I heard she's now
up in his room."
"Yes, well, so what do we do now to protect him?"
"You keep him in the house for a few days. I suppose
that he's going to stay in anyway?"
Kevin thumped the report with the backs of his
fingers. "I don't think he's going to feel like going
anywhere for the rest of the week. Though sometimes these
attacks and the after-effects vanish in a few minutes. How
they go away can be as odd, and as frustrating, as what
brings them on. Are you going to tell him?"
"Got to," Ron said, his irrepressible grin spreading.
"He'll figure out what's going on quickly. He has his
mother's brains, you know."
Candis managed to look smug, thankful, and mother-hen-
worried all at the same time.
~ ~ ~
_Madre de Dios!_
De Ramirez glanced around the McDonald's dining area
like he was looking for someone, which in truth, he was,
and then left. As he pulled onto the street, he let out a
sigh of relief.
What was that _maricon_ March doing _here_? His
jurisdiction was Texas. The man with him must be from
Denver's DEA office. It couldn't be coincidence, if only
because De Ramirez didn't believe in coincidences. No,
they were looking for someone.
Someone named Juan Rodrigo De Ramirez y Sanchez. He
hurried back to the Alpine Ridge and told the chica at the
front desk that he had received word that he needed to
return to New York City immediately because of a serious
family illness. Fortunately, his business was concluded to
the point that the remainder could be handled by telephone
and e-mail. The _puta_ swallowed that story the way she
should be swallowing _pingas_.
_Breckenridge_, he decided while he was loading his
car. He'd hide out in Breckenridge for a few days, long
enough for March to discover that he'd left town. And
he'd ditch Taggart's car, too. Just in case.
Why did they have to show up today, just as he'd
learned the name of one _maricon_?
Taylor.
~ ~ ~
Wynter forced her mouth to close after Ron escorted
Mrs. Taylor out of her husband's office and shut the door.
She sat down and stared at Doctor Taylor in silence.
Gentle pressure on her shoulders reminded her that Jimmy
was there. She released her 'Kenny's Illness' notebook in
her lap and, crossing her arms, rested her hands atop his
for comfort.
Jimmy knew what she was thinking. "It's not like Will
and Dick this time," he said in a soft voice. Then he
added, "They aren't after you."
She couldn't BELIEVE that Jimmy was that thoughtless.
"Jimmy! I'm not worried about ME! He's trying to hurt
KENNY! And Ron! I'm worried about THEM!"
"If he's after those two," he said in a soft voice,
"then you should be worried about him."
"I can't agree as a father of one of the targets,"
Doctor Taylor said, his right hand pulling open a desk
drawer, "but if I were an uninvolved observer, I'd agree
with Jimmy a hundred percent. That De Sanchez couldn't
make a bigger mistake in this town. Peppermint?"
Wynter politely declined before saying, "You mean De
Ramirez."
Doctor Taylor looked horrorstruck, then recovered and
tossed a candy to Jimmy. He leaned back in his chair and
stared at the ceiling. "It's finally happened," he said.
"I've just been corrected by THE Wynter King, Future MD."
His head pivoted down. "You're going to make a habit of
doing that, aren't you?"
"Of course she is," Jimmy said, plopping into the
chair next to hers. "Next she'll be correcting your
medical mistakes. Get used to it."
She gave Jimmy a cross look.
"What?" he asked, unwrapping his peppermint candy. "I
promised that I'd never lie to you. I thought that meant
you didn't want me lying to Doctor Taylor in your presence,
too." He popped the candy into his mouth.
She snorted. "Huntly's been a bad influence on you."
Her attention was drawn to movement behind the desk.
Doctor Taylor had shifted his weight to sit upright and was
now shaking his head. "Marriage will be so simple for you
two," he said with a wistful look. "Candis and I had to
learn as we went those first couple of years. You already
have the bickering procedures down pat. Now. Future
Doctor King, you obviously had something important on your
mind when you came in here?"
_Kenny's illness!_ She opened her notebook but didn't
look at her conclusions. She didn't need to. Not
initially, though she might need to refer to them to answer
any questions. She automatically shifted into her
professional mode. "I had an idea while Kenny was telling
me about this last attack, and we discussed it. Although
it doesn't correlate a hundred percent, the initial onset
occurs during periods of either acute or prolonged chronic
stress eighty-five percent of the time."
Doctor Taylor picked up the document lying in front of
him and flipped through the pages. He pointed to a line
and looked at Wynter. "Doctor Marcus says fifty-three
percent of the time." Something Jimmy did caught his
attention for a moment, and then he gave Wynter a smile
that looked almost apologetic. "Eighty-five percent it is."
She acknowledged that acceptance with a slight tilt of
her head down and to the left, one of Doctor Taylor's
mannerisms that most of the staff now copied. "Now, here's
something important that I think we've overlooked."
The look on his face said that he realized that the
word "we" was used out of politeness.
"The symptoms closely correlate to symptoms of
autoimmune liver disorders."
He suddenly looked like he'd just won an argument. He
raised and waggled his right index finger. "Unh uh. We've
ruled out autoimmune hepatitis, remember?"
Wynter gave Jimmy her own look of triumph. She smiled
and thanked him after he grudgingly pulled a dollar bill
from a cargo pocket of his shorts and handed it to her.
"Uuuuh..." Doctor Taylor frowned at her. "He lost a
bet?" When she nodded, he asked, "I'm that predictable?"
She smiled and pointed at the phone. "If you would
like a second opinion, it's extension one-one-zero."
He gave her a 'you're a smarty-pants' look. "I
already know my wife's opinion. It's whatever yours is and
mine isn't. You know, you're going to have a much easier
time of it when this is finally your chair."
She smiled her sweetest smile. "I know." She
switched back to her professional voice. "Jimmy helped me
with the research on this. We discussed it at length, and
he agrees with my findings. It's not hepatitis, that's
true, but that doesn't contraindicate other autoimmune
issues. And before you note that prednisone has had no
effect, Type 2 autoimmune hepatitis responds poorly to it
as well. So that does not mean it isn't automu... au..."
_DRAT!_ She took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "Auto-im-
mu-no-logical."
Jimmy's tongue pushed the remainder of his candy to
one cheek. "What Wynter is saying is that A contains part
of B, but everyone is looking at it as if B wholly contains
A. If A is false, that does not necessarily invalidate B.
A could be invalidated by non-B factors."
Doctor Taylor blinked at him. He whispered, "My God,
there's two of her."
Fifteen minutes later Wynter reluctantly agreed that
she had been wrong.
Doctor Taylor looked really and truly sympathetic.
"Welcome to Real World Medicine, Future Doctor King. One
of the unpleasant truths I've had to manage over the years
is that I can't be right a hundred percent of the time.
You become accustomed to it, but you never learn to like
it." He looked at the clock. "Are you going to ride home
with Kenny? Mitch is taking him when he leaves in about
ten minutes."
"Yes, sir," Jimmy said, rising to his feet and
offering Wynter a hand. "It'll be my last chance to see
him for a week because I'm going to Uncle Jim's tomorrow.
Wynter's dad picked up our bikes earlier and took them to
your house after he checked on Kenny."
"Really? I didn't know he was here."
"He didn't want you to," Wynter said, raising her left
eyebrow but otherwise keeping an asymptomatic expression.
Doctor Taylor grinned and nodded understanding.
"Okay. So, what was it this time?"
"He hit his thumb with a hammer. Not fractured and he
probably won't lose the nail, but it's going to be sore for
a while."
"You need to trade your father in for a working
model," he said.
She gave him a smug grin. "I would, but your life is
complicated enough with Mrs. Taylor."
"I do believe that's the nicest compliment you've ever
given me. Can I have a hug before you go?"
Deep in thought, she barely noticed the two men
waiting in Doctor Taylor's outer office and didn't really
hear the secretary telling Mister March that he and the
other man could go in. She had been so CERTAIN that she
was right. She had bet a dollar on Doctor Taylor's
predictability, but she'd have bet her whole college fund
on her literature research results.
She sighed and let her hand find its resting place on
Jimmy's back. This time it was because she needed the
comfort of his presence. As always, he understood. He
kissed her cheek and said that he loved her. That made her
feel better, sure, but not as better as she'd have felt if
she'd finally made some progress in understanding Kenny's
illness.
She would keep her literature research. You never
know. Some day it might be useful.
Twenty Four
"WHITNEY GWYNETH, YOU'RE OUT OF LINE!" Cinnamon's
hands balled into fists, and she felt an urge to do a Suzie-
like stamp of her right foot. If she'd been standing
instead of sitting behind Wynter's dad in his family's Jeep
Cherokee, she might have done that. She settled for
glaring daggers at her hyper-impulsive cousin.
Hailey lowered her cut-off blouse. "I'm sorry,
Adopted Dad. I just thought that since you're, like, a tit
man..."
Mister King's head spun to look over his shoulder.
"WHAT?"
"Hey, it's obvious from the way you sneak looks at
Cuz's that you SO are one. So, like, I thought..."
"No," Cinnamon growled, "you DIDN'T think! What if
someone in a passing car had seen you? You're going to get
other people in trouble with your lunatic antics. I don't
care anymore if you get yourself in trouble, but you DON'T
want to piss me off by involving others, especially friends
I care about! _Capice_?"
Hailey sighed and looked apologetic. "Okay." Then
she brightened, as if the incident never took place. "Hey!
There's a parking place near the entrance!"
"It's better to park farther away from the door,"
Wynter said from the front passenger seat, "because the
extra exercise is good for you, especially if you're an old
person who spends too much time at his desk."
Cinnamon giggled at the way Mister King cupped a hand
around his ear, hunched over, and wheezed, "Huh? What'd
you say yuh young whippersnapper?"
Cinnamon was impressed by the way Wynter backhanded
his arm. Obviously Sis had been studying her technique.
"Daddy!" Wynter said. "It isn't polite to make fun of
other people's handicaps, especially when you aren't
getting any younger yourself."
He sighed. "Tell me again why I'm the one drafted to
take the three of you shopping for winter clothes for
Hailey instead of Angie or Rosita?"
"Because they went on pre-season sale today," Wynter
said.
"Because Mom and Rosita are busy and you aren't,"
Cinnamon said.
"Hey, it's because you're, like, SO way sexier than
they are."
He stopped for a car backing out and looked over his
shoulder at the brunette. "I think I'll go with your
answer," he said.
"So, you wanna, like, stay here and make out with a
younger woman while they shop for me?"
Wynter sighed. "Don't you know by now not to
encourage her?"
He sighed, too. "Apparently not." He pulled into the
vacated parking space.
The Aspenleaf Center wasn't all that large, but it was
enclosed because of the heavy winter snowstorms. Several
businesses, including restaurants and the ice cream parlor,
occupied pad sites in the parking lot. While it wasn't
new, it was well-maintained because of the income generated
by skiers in the winter and visitors to both Otter Park and
the Rainbow Peninsula in the summer. It also attracted
shoppers from surrounding communities.
They reached the entrance at the same time as a woman
accompanying an attractive girl in a motorized wheelchair.
The vaguely familiar girl was about their age. She had
short brown hair and a devilish look that said she could be
worse than Cuz if she decided to act up. _Isn't that a
frightening thought?_ The idea made Cinnamon shiver.
The calves below her knee-length skirt were emaciated,
but her legs were encased in braces. She didn't spend all
her time in the chair. Two collapsible canes in a pocket
at the chair back verified that deduction. The girl's
trendy skirt and blouse were both designer labels, as was
the more conservative clothing of the mother, who was
almost a clone of the girl. Both wore gold jewelry of a
quality that indicated to Cinnamon that they were at least
as well off as Wynter's family, but probably not as well as
her own.
The girl did a double-take when she looked at
Cinnamon, gave Wynter a quick glance, and then traced the
long red hair down with her eyes. Her right hand twisted
the control to turn the chair toward Cinnamon. With
frowning eyes and a grin she raised her left hand and
stabbed with her finger. "No WAY! You HAVE to be Cinnamon
Brees! I didn't know you moved here, too!"
Cinnamon glanced at the finger. Her eyes narrowed as
her smile pushed her round cheeks upward. She still hadn't
placed the girl. "The drummer. Do you play rhythm or lead
guitar? I'd guess lead, in a heavy metal group, of course."
Wynter gasped and the new girl looked startled, as did
her mother.
"Hey, don't worry about Cuz," Hailey said with a
dismissive flip of her hand. "She SO does that, like, all
the time. I'm her cousin Hailey Kennedy from Hawaii."
"Excuse me," Wynter said, "but we're blocking the
entrance."
The girl looked up at her mother. "I told you that's
the way she was. You lose." Her gaze shifted to Mister
King. "Is that the way she is at home, too?"
When Wynter gasped, Cinnamon fluttered her hands in a
shooing motion and said, "She watched the rescue on
television and knows your faces. She's not the first, so
why are you surprised? Okay, everybody inside like Wynter
said. And, yes, she's that way everywhere."
As she went through the doors Cinnamon glanced over
her shoulder at the handicapped parking spaces. _Of
course!_ She mentally slapped her forehead for not
realizing it sooner. _Maybe because the clues were too
obvious_, she decided. She was used to working with more
subtle ones.
When they were inside and out of the path of
pedestrians, Cinnamon perused the mother's purse in the
chair's carrier basket. Her deduction verified, she asked
in a casual manner, "So were you born in Virginia like your
parents, or were you born in Vermont? I think that after
you get used to the altitude here, you'll like it better
than the Avalanche Basin area where you grew up. Porcupine
and Blue Spruce Trails aren't as spectacular as Beaver
Trail, and none of those can compare with Appalachian
Springs Trail, of course, but both are easy enough for you
to navigate with your chair."
Wynter wasn't the only one with her mouth open. Only
Hailey took things in stride because she'd seen her cousin
do this many times before.
"I do have a question, though," she continued, her
face turning serious. "Will Mister Ward allow other local
bands to perform at the new concert shell, or only yours?"
The woman made a startled jerk. "What? You know who
we are, too?"
Hailey giggled. "She does now."
Cinnamon sighed. No matter how hard she tried she
couldn't teach Hailey to keep her big mouth shut until she
was finished probing for facts. But, she guessed she was
finished. Any more would just be showing off. Hailey had
accidentally done her a favor. That is, she assumed it was
accidental. Surely Hailey hadn't done so deliberately.
Somehow, the idea of Hailey giving her a lesson in
restraint was just more than Cinnamon could handle.
The new girl recovered first. "This is my mother,
Lynne Ward. I'm Brinkly."
Cinnamon waited until the others had introduced
themselves and greeted the pair. "I was right. You are a
lead guitarist. And singer, too. The Brink of Destruction."
The girl nodded. "It was. I'll probably re-create
the group here, if they're into heavy metal."
"Not really," Hailey said, her disappointment evident
in her voice. "If you don't like country, then, like,
prepare to live in terminal hurl mode. It is SO the big
here! Classic rock is, like, the first runner-up."
Brinkly waved the thought away. "Well, it's no big
for me. I can do a teen pop group. I'm not limited to
just one style like surf, you know."
Cinnamon saw at an eye-flickering glance the shocked
look on Wynter's face, the smile fading from Mister King's,
and the smug look on Mrs. Ward's. She knew without looking
back that Hailey's face had settled into an annoyed frown.
She decided to keep her face friendly, as if speaking with
Wynter or Mom.
"Oh, thanks so much for telling me," she said in a
sweet voice, "so that I can look for the difference when
The Brink of DISASTER plays. I'll also let others know
that you have switched styles if I recognize you've done so
while performing."
She did not react to the girl's sharp look. Her voice
remained sweet as she added, "If you'll excuse us, we have
to buy winter clothes for my cousin now. I do hope you
enjoy your new home. The town here is quite lovely, and
has some excellent people in it. I'm sure they'll make
allowances for you." She put the faintest emphasis on the
last word, just enough for them to get her point.
Sis and her father, of course, made polite farewell
words. Cuz, however, joined Cinnamon in turning away and
entering Fashion Emporium as a sign that the Wards were
dismissed.
~ ~ ~
"Don't drop any of it," Wynter said as her father
maneuvered the stack of boxes and bags around the north
stairwell landing. Sis and Sis Two had rushed ahead with
Ghost to put their loads in Hailey's bedroom. Wynter
didn't understand his mumbled reply as her two adopted
sisters reappeared and descended to the landing. They took
some of the remaining load, making it possible for her
father to see where he was going, and dashed back upstairs.
She guessed they'd understand if she stayed with Daddy to
make sure that he didn't have another accident.
When all the packages had been delivered and stacked
in one corner of the room, Hailey told Daddy to sit on the
end of the bed. "Thank you," she said. "Here's a little
token of my gratitude."
As she started to lean forward, Cinnamon said,
"Whitney Gwyneth!" in a quiet, rising, warning tone.
"Oh, cram it, Cuz! It's just a kiss." Hailey gave
him a gentle peck on the lips. "Thanks, Adopted Dad."
"You're welcome," he said.
Wynter noted the relief in his voice and grinned.
"Thanks for helping my new sister," she said and gave him a
nose-and-lips kiss.
"Thanks for helping Cuz," Cinnamon said. She wrapped
her arms around his neck. He wrapped his around her waist
as she gave him a gentle kiss, too. She tried to step back
afterward, but found herself locked in his grip.
"Not so fast," he said. "You promised Wynter you'd
tell us how you knew so much about Brinkly after you
pillaged the Center and we brought Hailey's plunder home."
The little redhead gave him a sly grin and turned to
sit on his right leg. "Okay. You two sit here in the
floor and pay attention. First, she pointed her right
index finger at me. You've seen how Huntly's fingers have
calluses from playing the guitar. It had the same, but she
also had the discoloration from doing bar chords that are
characteristic of heavy metal. Huntly might have noticed
that, but I'm not sure whether Mister McCauley would."
Wynter sure didn't know that. She wondered if it
might someday be useful to know when she was doing
emergency medicine. She filed that fact away, just in
case, while her father asked, "How about where she was born?"
"Her mother has a Virginia accent, mostly Richmond
area like that's where she grew up, but with some Eastern
Kentucky/Eastern Tennessee found over in the western end,
in the mountains."
"You can tell pinpoint accents that closely?" Daddy
asked.
Wynter wondered if she looked as astonished as he did.
_Probably._
Sis shrugged. "Television has made it harder these
days, but you can still do it. Atlanta used to have slight
differences between the north and south sides of the city,
but those have mostly faded away."
Wynter noticed that Hailey looked bored, as if this
was something she'd heard many times. She clasped hands
with her newest sister and returned her attention to the
little redhead as Sis One continued.
"That told me the woman was born around Richmond and
grew up there, but spent some time in the western
mountains. Keep that thought in mind.
"Brinkly's accent is Vermont with just a hint of
Virginia, mostly what she'd have if she grew up in Vermont
with family exposure providing the Virginia. There was
nothing of another accent in her voice, so it's probable
that her father was either Virginia- or Vermont-born.
"Next clue: an SUV in a handicapped space with
Vermont plates and an International Ski and Trail staff
parking sticker on the bumper. Who's the new entertainment
director for the events at the amphitheater that IST is
building in Otter Park as well as at the ski lodge?"
Wynter was as clueless as Hailey, but her father said,
"Ward. Something Ward."
Cinnamon smiled at him, then frowned at the other two.
"You really should read the papers and listen to the radio
news. Patrick Ward. Mrs. Ward's purse was in the carrier
on the back of the wheelchair. Sticking out of side pocket
of the purse was an IST memo pad sheet with 'Patrick' and a
local phone number written on it. The newspaper said that
he had been with IST since he graduated from college, that
he was the director of the Beaver Trail Resort before
moving here, and that he and his wife had been key staff
members of a resort in his native Virginia before that.
The only thing IST has in western Virginia is Appalachian
Springs Trail."
Daddy looked thoughtful. "And the paper mentioned
Brinkly's band?"
"Unh uh," Sis said with a brief shake of her head that
caused waves to flow down her long hair. "It's well-known
in the northeast, the way Junior and the Twins will be
through out the Rocky Mountain west and the way Tyrone
Hayes will be across the United States. She can't use that
name here, though, because it belongs to the bass player,
even though he no longer plays. Freak ski lift accident.
Paralysis from a broken neck left him a quadriplegic on New
Year's Day last year. He and Brinkly fought constantly, so
I doubt he'll even sell the name to her out of pure spite.
The only reason that the band got to keep using it after he
left was because the rhythm guitar player was his
girlfriend."
Wynter forced her mouth closed. Daddy looked at
Cinnamon like he'd discovered a new ore vein in a gold
mine. Hailey yawned and said, "Whadda ya say the four of
us hit the hot tub?"
~ ~ ~
Wynter thanked her father for offering to drive her to
Kenny's after breakfast, but the rain was predicted to be
light and to end before noon. She felt a twinge of
loneliness as she rode her bike past Jimmy's house. He'd
been gone only two days, but it seemed like two weeks to
her. She chastised herself. Jimmy was visiting family.
It wasn't right for her to monopolize all his time and take
him away from family who really and truly loved him, too.
Doctors, friends, even Future Spouses had to share.
Her spirits lifted when she saw Ron's car in Kenny's
driveway. When she was down because she was without Jimmy,
nothing lifted her spirits like Ron. Well, and her father,
of course. And Doctor Taylor. And Huntly always seemed to
know the right words to cheer her up. And so did Sis One.
Okay, she had a lot of friends for her personal
support group. That cheered her up even more.
Mrs. Holland took her raincoat and hung it with the
others before making her usual fuss over Wynter. "It's so
good to see you again. My, how you keep growing!
Everybody's playing in the sun room, even though it's not
sunny right now. Would you like some fresh-squeezed orange
juice?"
"That sounds wonderful," Wynter said, accompanying the
housekeeper to the kitchen.
Charlie rushed up from the family room when he saw
Wynter. "Is Jimmy coming today?" he asked, breathless with
anticipation. His new glasses sat crookedly on his face,
the way his brother's often did.
"No," she said, gently aligning his glasses the way
Suzie had done so many times with Kenny's. "I'm sorry, but
he's out of town until next Thursday. Maybe you could get
Huntly to play catch with you."
Charlie shook his head. "His knee hurts," he said.
"I already asked."
"Well, it's raining anyway," she said, hoping to ease
his disappointment.
"Yeah. Thanks." His voice said she sure wasn't very
successful. He turned and moped back to the family room
television.
Mrs. Holland handed her a glass of juice. "Poor
little guy. Maybe Kenny will feel like playing in a day or
two."
"Maybe," Wynter said, not reacting to the woman's
constant treatment of Kenny and his friends as if they were
the grade school students she used to teach. "Say, this
juice is really good. Thank you."
As Mrs. Holland wandered back to her dusting in the
living room, Wynter turned down the short east hallway to
the south entrance and the sun room beyond. She paused in
the French doors and took inventory.
Ghost, Cinnamon, and Ron spotted her immediately, of
course, while Suzie, Josh, Hailey, Kenny, and Finnegan were
distracted by one of Huntly's card tricks.
Huntly spotted her next, when Ghost dashed to her for
attention. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement,"
he said as he shuffled the cards. He cut the deck one-
handed and showed the bottom card: the queen of hearts.
"Everyone's favorite doctor is here and without that ugly
growth on her side."
Cinnamon groaned. "Shithead."
He cut the cards again and showed Cinnamon the queen
of spades. "Bitch."
Hailey patted an empty spot on the couch between Suzie
and herself. "Hey, Sis! I saved you a seat."
Wynter shrugged. "Why would I want to sit between two
girls when I could sit between Ron and Finnegan?"
"Hey, they're, like, on opposite sides of the room!"
"They'd move if I asked."
Ron rose and moved to the floor next to Finnegan,
leaving enough room for one slender blonde to sit between
them.
Hailey stared at the two. "They wouldn't do that for
me."
"They have taste," Cinnamon said dryly.
"They'll have to wait." Wynter checked Kenny's
condition first. She found him free of pain and weak but
not nauseous. His temperature and pulse were normal. Then
she turned to the taller problem.
"How'd you do it this time?" she asked, gently
palpating the surface of the knee and giving it a close
visual inspection.
He mumbled something, his face glowing like a stoplight.
She frowned up at him. "I'm sorry?"
"Shithead said he slipped on a bar of soap this
morning. He's embarrassed because his mother rushed in
after she heard the crash and saw Mini-Huntly in all its
glory."
Wynter frowned at him. "My mother's seen it in our
hot tub, you know. That didn't bother you, so you
shouldn't be..."
Sis shook her head. "You don't understand. She saw
it in ALL ITS GLORY!" She held up a fist with her index
finger pointed down, and then lifted her wrist until it
pointed upward.
"Oh. Well, Mother's never seen THAT."
"Which is why she hasn't laughed herself to death,"
Kenny observed.
Finnegan howled with laughter. "YOU DIDN'T TELL US
THAT, SHERIDAN!"
"Well," Wynter said, paying attention to the outer
side of the knee, "you can't hold Huntly responsible
because his body responds to... au-to-nom-ic reflexes."
She was pleased with herself for not stumbling over the
word this time.
"Unh uh," Cinnamon said. She held out a palm-up hand
and then curled the fingers and thumb into a tube. She
pumped her hand.
Suzie broke up. "You're as bad as that dolt!" she
gasped, pointing at Kenny as she bent forward at the waist
in laughter.
"Oh," Wynter said. Well, it was Sis's third day in
her menstrual cycle. She'd started the day after Wynter.
She guessed that Huntly wasn't doing Hailey for relief
anymore since he was an item with Sis One. He'd need some
kind of relief, just as she did. "It's not a bad injury.
Just stay off it as much as you can and avoid any strain
for a couple of days."
"And ice it," he added before she could say it. "I
know. I know. I'll be okay as long as I don't strain it,
which means I'd better not play catch with Charlie the way
he throws."
"Nope. I'll massage it later, though it probably
doesn't need much." She kissed his knee. "There. That
will hold you for now."
"Hey!" Kenny said, sitting upright. His voice turned
smarty-pants. "How come he got that and I didn't get
anything for my stomach while my guts were on fire and in
knots? That's discriminatory medical practice."
Wynter grinned in triumph at him. He'd done exactly
as she'd guessed he would, and she was prepared. "How do
you know I didn't do anything to you while you were
unconscious, especially after lights out? The nurses had a
four hour break between checking on you at eleven and three
every night. I could have done almost anything for fun
because you'd never remember it. Maybe I did." She
winked, turned, and left him open-mouthed and searching for
words as she took a seat on the floor between Ron and
Finnegan.
"IF MCCAULEY DOESN'T COME BACK, YOU'RE MINE!" Finnegan
cried, squeezing her shoulders with one arm before
breaking up over the look on Kenny's face. His howling
triggered everyone else's.
Wynter was content. If Jimmy couldn't be here to give
Kenny gotchas, she just have to deliver them for him. She
thought she was doing a pretty darned good job for him in
his absence.
~ ~ ~
"What do you think?" Cinnamon asked as she stopped the
CD player and glanced around Kenny's family room. She'd
expected Huntly to speak first, and he didn't disappoint her.
"I love it! What do you think, Doc?"
Wynter nodded. "Me, too. But I don't know what Jimmy
would say. There doesn't seem to be a lot for him to do."
"He likes it," Cinnamon said, enjoying the surprised
look from her adopted sister as she punched the button to
play the whole album and then sat beside Huntly. "His
Uncle Jim has broadband. I sent an MP3 of it to him this
morning. There's plenty for him to do if he does the wind
in the background. He'd already thinking of ways to do
that."
"Ah, that's no problem," said Finnegan. "I can get
him some sampled wind sounds. Or I could build a wind
board. It's just oscillators and..."
Kenny cut him off, earning himself a nasty look but
not Finnegan's usual explosion of temper. "If you want
wind, why not go to the source?" He jerked a thumb at
Hailey.
"Hey! No WAY is anyone here a bigger windbag than
YOU, pickledick!"
Huntly nodded vigorously. "Not even me."
"Nobody really asked for my opinion," Suzie began
hesitantly.
"Bitch did. She didn't exclude anyone when she asked
for comments."
"Shithead's right. And for the first time this week,
too. I'd like to hear everyone's opinions, including Ron's
and Josh's."
Suzie shrugged and squeezed Josh's hand. "Well, I
like it, even if it does have a funny name like... well, it
wasn't 'Zipper.'"
"Unh uh." Ron shook his head. "'Zephyr.' Zephyrus
was the god of the west wind. A zephyr is a wind from the
west."
Understand blossomed in the round face. "So that's
why it had the wind-sound thingys? It's called 'Zephyr'
because it's about the west wind?"
Wynter nodded. "That's right." Then her eyebrows
pulled together and Cinnamon knew what was coming next from
her worry-wart sister. "But what about LaMarcus?"
"He likes it. Alex will get him the music today,"
Cinnamon said. "It's essentially that rapid _bum diddy-bum
diddy-bum diddy-bum_ in key throughout the entire song. He
could play it without the music if he had to."
"As fast as he has to play it, he'll end up with
carpal tunnel syndrome if we play it very much."
Kenny snorted. "Not if he keeps his wrist limber like
Huntly was doing this morning."
"Oh, up yours, Taylor."
Both boys yelped as the two cousins pinched the legs
of their respective charges.
"You two better play nice," Wynter warned. "It won't
be me who yells at you now. The professional is back."
She extended a hand toward Suzie.
"I heard you were good," Suzie said as she wiggled to
get closer to Josh. "I wish I'd been here to see it."
"I wish I hadn't been," Cinnamon admitted, "though I
think it was better to have Sis yell at us than you. Oh!
I almost forgot. I have good news. LaMarcus said they'll
record the first track of Tyrone's album Monday."
Everyone agreed at once that it was good news, indeed,
before she said, "There's also bad news, though. We can't
do 'Cold Rain' at the dedication concert."
Wynter was incredulous. "But they gave us permission!"
"Yeah," Finnegan said, "but their damned lawyers got
involved and said they'd stepped over the line when they
did that and that nobody could play any of the songs in
public, live or recorded, until after the CD was released.
Those assholes always fuck everything up." Finnegan always
seemed to forget that his father was a damned asshole
lawyer, too, unless it was to his advantage.
"The rain's stopped," said a small, quiet voice from
the family room's south door.
Before Kenny could yell at Charlie to get out, Wynter
invited him in. She had him sit in her lap and then
wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "He just wants Jimmy
to play catch with him," she said. "Charlie misses him,
too."
Suzie sat up straight, then whispered something to
Josh. "Charlie," she said after Josh had replied, "I can
throw a ball. Would you like to play catch with me?"
"REALLY?"
"Sure. If you have another glove, Josh will play, too."
"He can use mine," Kenny said. "You know where it is."
"There you go," Wynter said. "Suzie's really good at
throwing, too. Jimmy and I lost a snowball fight to her
the day Cinnamon moved in."
"But I won't throw that hard at you," Suzie said.
"We'll play a friendly game."
"WOW!"
"Listen," Wynter said, looking at her watch. Charlie
tried to settle down as she continued. "The grass needs to
dry for about another half hour, and that will give us just
enough time to finish talking. Why don't you get the ball
and the gloves, and when the big hand on the grandfather
clock points straight up and the clock chimes, the grass
will be dry enough and then you can go play catch with Josh
and Suzie. Okay?"
"OKAY!" He raced out of the room and up the south
stairs.
Huntly raised his juice glass in a toast. "Doc, you
should consider a career in politics after that 'grass
needs to dry' line. Or better yet, pediatrics."
Cinnamon sneered. "So she can care for you, shithead?"
"She already does, bitch."
"I meant for the rest of your life." Cinnamon
squeezed the hand intertwining fingers with hers. Huntly
squeezed back and gave her a look that made her wet with
lust. Or love. Whichever. _What a hell of a time to have
'Aunt Flo' visit!_
"So," she said after a moment, "we're agreed that
'Zephyr' is something we should play at the opening of the
band shell? Assuming Wynter's new neighbors let us perform?"
Wynter's eyes widened. "Huh?"
"The Wards moved into that empty house on Clark Place."
"Oh. Well, yes, I think it should be one of the
numbers."
After everyone else nodded, Cinnamon said, "Good.
Well, I have more bad news instead of the good I'd intended
to deliver. Daddy was planning on an afternoon on the boat
tomorrow, but both Doctors Delvy and Holt caught a summer
cold. So, he's pulling duty, so I can't invite us to go
boating because I'm not old enough for a license yet."
"Which is a shame," Huntly said. "After all, WE are
TEENAGERS now."
"That's not a problem," Ron said with a dismissive
flip of his hand. "I'm old enough."
Cinnamon felt suspicion's cold touch. It seemed too
convenient. "You have a boat license?"
He scratched his head. "As far as you know."
"Ron!"
"He does," Kenny said. "He just doesn't tell anyone."
Hailey frowned at him. "So why not? What's, like, SO
the drama?"
Kenny shrugged. "If people know he can drive a boat,
they can't call him a wetback anymore."
"KENNY!" shouted a chorus of everyone in the room
except Kenny and Ron.
"No, no," the latter said, shaking his head with a
serious frown. "Kemo sabe is right. It's bad for the
image." Then he smiled. "But if you want me to, I can
pilot yours for you. Or, as I suspect will happen, I can
stand by with my license in case there's a problem while
you handle it."
She felt her smile push her round cheeks up. "One
o'clock, then. Kenny, do you think you'll feel like coming
along with us?"
"Unh uh," he replied. "You go without me. I still
wear out too fast. It's the after effects of the
Retchallday and the lack of exercise."
Cinnamon's favorite professional worrier sat up
straight. "Is the fatigue getting to you? We can leave..."
"Not now," he said with a faint smile. "I'm good
until Suzie and Josh go out to play catch, but I'll need a
nap then." The look he gave Hailey said that Kenny didn't
plan to nap by himself.
"In that case," Cinnamon said, "let's get to the real
reason for this meeting. What do we do about De Ramirez
and Kenny?"
"Nothing," Ron said in the voice that proclaimed it
was a unanimous decision. "Kenny's not well enough to get
out for a couple of days, which is a shame because he's
probably safest then. Brother Juan will return soon. If I
was him I'd give March and Stiles until Monday to realize
that he'd left town. Actually, that's when March does
leave for Texas. Stiles will hang around until Wednesday,
and then he'll be in and out."
"Playing into the shitbird's hands," Kenny observed.
"But also playing into mine because he knows March and
may remember Stiles from the post-bust extradition. No,
I'm sure he knows Stiles now because I'm willing to bet
pesos to peanuts that the reason he skipped town in a hurry
was because he saw the two together somewhere. But try
telling those two geniuses that. Or that nothing will
happen while they're here." He shook his head. "The
idiots would have argued with me if I'd said the sun rose
in the east and night was darker than day."
Cinnamon certainly understood. She knew what it was
like to have people doubt your abilities, though it often
worked in your favor when they did. But it wouldn't work
in your favor if it gave shitheads a chance to screw up
your plans, and in her experience, if you gave one a chance
he would invariably take it.
Ron scratched his head. "I'll be visible. He should
be able to find me in no time after he returns. He could
make a play for me at any time, so Dad has things set up
for an emergency response to my signal."
Suzie frowned and asked in a worried voice, "But what
if the stupid dolt doesn't give you time to phone your dad
or something?"
Ron made a pistol of his right hand and leveled it at
Finnegan.
"I took care of that!" the smaller boy said with pride
as Ron exposed a small metal rectangle inside his shirt
lapel. "That pin is a transmitter. Ron squeezes it, the
cover flexes and makes contact, and a signal sounds at the
station. There are directional receivers at Ron's house,
the station, and at my house. The station computer can
triangulate the location in a flash! It's like a GPS, only
more accurate, of course."
Cinnamon nodded. Finnegan was a very good friend to
have, indeed. "Well, what can the rest of us do to help?"
Ron shrugged. "You act as if nothing is wrong, and
you stay out of the way. I can take care of myself. I
can't take care of you and myself at the same time. The
only one of you who wouldn't make things worse is still too
sick to leave the house. Wynter understands."
She started in surprise. "I do?"
"Sure." He gave her his sparkling grin. "You have an
accident victim on the side of the road. He has a broken
neck. What do you do?"
"Immobilize and calm the patient if he's conscious
while waiting for an ambulance with the proper equipment to
move him without causing greater injury."
"So you're doing that and a couple of bystanders
decide he's too close to the road and try to move him
farther from traffic for his own good. A passing car
strikes one of them when he steps backward because he's off-
balance while lifting, causing him to yank the patient
sideways before dropping him. By trying to help, they've
increased the risk twice and probably killed the patient
who could have otherwise been saved. At the same time, one
'helper' has become a casualty."
"Oh! Right!"
_Well_, thought Cinnamon, _at least three of us
understand_. She looked at the others and watched as, in
Wynter's terms, the lights came on in all the eyes but one
brown pair. Sure enough, here came the argument.
"But what if..."
"Cuz," she said, "you have someone drowning out near a
rip tide. You swim out to save him. Do you let him get a
good grip on you?"
"Oh! Well, like, why didn't he just _say_ so?"
~ ~ ~
Because of his knee, Huntly accepted a ride from Ron
for the trip only four houses down the street. Cinnamon
and Ghost rode with him, while Wynter said she'd follow on
her bike after she had a few quick words with Kenny about
his condition. Suzie and Josh were already in the back
yard with Charlie, and Finnegan had to return home. Hailey
had remained "to help nurse Kenny back to health," as she
had put it.
As he pulled into the driveway Ron spoke to Cinnamon.
"Tell your dad to keep a close eye on those trees. People
still don't realize it and don't want to listen, but the
pine beetle infestation is far worse than it's been in
decades."
"Pine beetles?" Cinnamon asked. She wasn't native
Coloradan and didn't understand the problem or the
implication the way Huntly did.
"Their grubs burrow under the bark and kill the trees.
They're very hard to get rid of after they settle in.
There will be a massive state-wide die-off over the next
few years, probably the worst in over a century. All those
lodgepole pines around your lot are beautiful. I'd hate
for you to lose them, but if the beetles take hold in any
one of them, you'll lose eighty to ninety percent before
it's over. I'll send you some links to good websites on
how to protect them."
Huntly just couldn't picture the back yard without its
thick screen of pine trees on either side, its mini-forest
of them in the back, and its topless sunbathers by the
gazebo.
As Ron drove away, Huntly slipped an arm around the
little redhead and squeezed. "I owe you one," he said.
With one hand holding Ghost's leash and stroking his
head she looked up at Huntly, wearing a good facsimile of
Kenny's patented shit-eating grin. "For what?"
"For picking 'Zephyr.' You chose that one because
it's an opportunity for Wynter and me to play a duet
together, like we did on 'No Borders' at your dad's party.
And it's a duet that's not her and Jimmy's song." He
watched Wynter ride her bike down the Taylor driveway and
turn left at the street, ignoring the way Cinnamon was
grinning up at him.
"I'm surprised you didn't say that I'd done Wynter a
favor," she said.
He shrugged. "No reason to. You're reasonably
intelligent for a girl. I assumed you already knew that."
Her green eyes sparkled with the promise of a thousand
delights, and she gave him a warm and ferocious squeeze in
return. It was the best thing he'd felt since the last
time she'd hugged him that way, with the only possible
exception being Wynter's kiss on his knee. And he wasn't
sure about that exception. "Shithead."
He sighed with contentment and returned the hug.
"Bitch."
~ ~ ~
_FUCK!_
Suzie rolled onto her side, facing the bedroom wall.
She adjusted her pillow and told her eyes to close. They
ignored her.
She rolled onto her left side and adjusted her pillow
again. She sighed and rolled onto her back.
First her stupid parents want her going with them to
see that stupid cow sister of hers in the stupid girls'
correctional thingy. Then she talks them out of that, only
to have them tell her that she's going after all because
they don't want her out on the stupid lake in a boat!
She rolled onto her right side and glared at the wall.
She spent half a stupid hour explaining to them that
she's a swimmer after all, and they don't mind her swimming
at Barber Beach! So what happens? They say she can go out
on Cinnamon's boat, but only if they are home! How is THAT
going to help? They're at home or they're in Buena Vista,
what's the stupid difference? If they are home and she's
drowning, she'll drown slower so they can come RESCUE her
or something? They can't even swim!
She rolled on her back again and adjusted her pillow.
You can just bet the bottom of your last dollar that
tomorrow they'll change their stupid minds when Suzanne
Middleton...
_What? What could I do to make them change their
stupid minds?_ Well, she'd sure as heck think of
SOMETHING! They'd be ever so grateful to let her go out on
the lake with Cinnamon on that boat.
She rolled onto her left side and punched her pillow
into shape.
But Josh wouldn't like that. She'd be acting like
that stupid little witch from Alamosa. Or, worse, like
that stupid cow she was unfortunately related to. And, she
realized, Suzanne Middleton wouldn't like that, either.
But mostly Josh wouldn't like it. And she wanted ever so
much not to hurt his feelings.
She rolled onto her back.
And Jennifer wouldn't like it. That dolt Kenny
wouldn't like it, either. Well, okay, they were friends
now, so it wasn't nice to call him a dolt or something.
After all, she was ever so worried about him when she
visited him in the hospital and was afraid he was going to
die, or worse. And he had explained to her that just
because she didn't understand all that stupid doctor stuff
that Wynter was saying, that didn't mean she was stupid.
That was ever so nice of him, despite the way she'd been
treating him. And even when they'd broke up the first time
he'd been polite to her. He was always happy to do
whatever she wanted. She wondered if he always did
whatever Hailey wanted. After all, he'd taken her to his
stupid room when he wanted to take a stupid nap.
She threw herself onto her left side and beat the
pillow into shape with her fist.
He would hold her legs so she could push against them
just the way she liked when she came, even when it was
uncomfortable for him. Did he do that for Hailey? Or
whatever she wanted whenever she came? Maybe have Kenny
stick his finger up her butt or something, like she'd heard
one of the cheerleaders liked?
She flipped over and punched her pillow again.
There was a shadow on the wall that sorta looked like
Josh if you closed your eyes just right and looked a little
to the side. She wondered if Josh would hold her legs just
the way she liked. She didn't know. And she couldn't find
out for a few days, either, because it was THAT stupid time
again.
Why didn't she know already? Why didn't she find out
when she came home from Swim Camp, before she'd started?
They'd sure as heck kissed a lot. She was almost ready to
let him do her when he gave her Cinnamon's reply to her
birthday present. She knew her friend had kissed Josh that
way, but she didn't mind. Cinnamon was making sure he'd
kiss her real good when she got home.
That was because Cinnamon was ever so pleased with her
birthday present. Suzie wasn't going to any stupid movies
by herself for the rest of the year so that she could pay
back Jennifer for the loan to buy the compact. That was
okay. She'd made her friend happy, and that was what she
wanted most.
What did Josh want most? Did he want to do her? She
remembered what Jimmy said about boys not looking and that
it didn't mean they didn't want to look. Josh never asked
to do her, but did that mean, if she exterpolated what
Jimmy said, that Josh wanted to?
She flopped onto her back.
She wished she could ask Josh, but she couldn't. It
was too late to call Cinnamon or Wynter now. In the old
days, she could have called Kenny.
She twisted onto her side and beat the pillow. Her
eyes saw the outline of the phone. The outline blurred
when the tears came.
Twenty Five
Richard carefully sipped his coffee to check the
temperature, then swigged a mouthful and put the cup on the
end table. He leaned back in his recliner and, as his
daughter would say, reviewed the symptoms.
One. Wynter had prepared breakfast because it was her
turn, but she had been silent throughout the preparation,
the meal, and the clean-up.
Two. After cleaning up the kitchen she'd brushed her
teeth but hadn't showered or changed out of her nightie.
Three. She'd sat at the piano and listlessly played
scales for two minutes before remembering to needlessly ask
him if it would be a bother.
Four. She'd ignored Dragon when he placed his head on
the piano bench beside her.
Five. She hadn't really noticed when her mother had
entered the family room and stretched out on the couch to
read her half of the newspaper.
Six. That newspaper was the Sunday combined edition
of the 'Denver Post and the 'Rocky Mountain News.' Which
meant that...
Seven. Jimmy had left three days ago.
Yep. It would be any minute now.
As if she had read his mind, Wynter's left hand slowly
rose to the keys. The scales morphed a few seconds later
into the beautiful, melancholy 'The Velocity of Love.' He
wondered if she was aware that she played it whenever she
deeply missed Jimmy.
His eyes shifted to Angie's. She gave him the smile
of a mother wishing she could help her daughter but knowing
she couldn't. He returned a nod of understanding. There
wasn't much else he could do. Because of her period there
had been less than usual that he could do with her this
past Friday night, but she had wanted most of all for him
to hold her while she'd drifted off to sleep.
He'd noticed that the fire was fading from their
Friday nights. Not that she didn't welcome them--or him.
But her attention had slowly been moving elsewhere. As, he
realized, it should be. He was the past. Jimmy was her
future, and Wynter focused on the future more than most.
He would have to watch for signs that Wynter was
accommodating him on Friday nights out of a sense of duty.
Not mercy fucking him per se, but not with a hundred
percent willing acceptance, either. That he could not
allow, would not allow. She had no obligation to him in
that circumstance.
He knew his Friday nights were numbered, and he'd long
since accepted that. But now he wondered if that number
had two digits instead of three.
~ ~ ~
A siren wailed in the distance as Wynter locked her
bike in the rack at the Harbor Club's Pier 7 and grabbed
her small bag. Her watch said she was six minutes early.
The club sure was busy today with all the people taking
advantage of the brief summer season. She adjusted her sun
visor and turned toward the dock.
A man and a woman called her name from somewhere
farther into the parking lot. She looked for them and then
spotted the waving hands. She recognized Mister Pierce and
his wife and broke into a wide grin of delight. Her first
ever surgery patient! Well, co-patient, since the
umbilical cord had connected to Robert Andrew Junior, who
didn't appear to be with them. Both hugged her and asked
how she was doing. They had left little Bobby with
Granmama Pierce and had come to the Harbor Club restaurant
for lunch.
"Mom wants to start spoiling him early," Mister Pierce
explained with a smarty-pants grin. "I'm supposed to take
Kim to a movie and then shopping so that Grandma has more
time to spend with him. She's disappointed that Kim will
have to find a babysitter Thursday when Kim takes her to an
appointment in Littleton."
The siren grew louder while the Pierces told Wynter
about Bobby's growth and appetite and Mrs. Pierce's
recovery. As Mrs. Pierce asked Wynter for a favor an
ambulance driven by Mister "Hypo" Daniels rushed in through
the gate and headed for the restaurant. Mister "Bedpan"
Dornbush was riding shotgun and speaking into the radio's
microphone.
Mrs. Pierce snapped her fingers at her husband. "I'll
bet it's Jenny Tucker. She's two weeks overdue. I told
you she looked like she was ready to go into labor at any
second."
"If it is," Wynter said, trying not to laugh at the
way Mister Pierce rolled his eyes, "she's lucky. Doctor
Brees is on duty today. Which reminds me: I'm going to be
late getting to his boat. Sure, I'd be happy to help you
out. What time?"
She wrote down the details, including phone numbers,
in her notebook while Mrs. Pierce dictated them. After
parting hugs she headed down the pier to Berth 12 with a
lively spring in her step. She spotted Huntly first,
standing on the swim platform at the back--the stern, she
reminded herself--of the 'Summer Breeze' and, apparently,
watching for her.
"So, Your Doctorness," Huntly said with his
mischievous grin and a jerk of his head up the pier, "have
you been busy with a patient?"
She understood. She was almost two minutes late.
They'd thought she'd gone to the ambulance and would be
even later.
"Yes, a former patient," she said. Sis Two, her green
postage stamps and string looking like they'd shrunk,
squealed her name and gave her a hug as she stepped through
the narrow opening from the swim platform to the cockpit
seating area. "They need a favor later this week. The
ambulance might be business for Doctor Brees, according to
Mrs. Pierce. She thought it was Mrs. Tucker going into
labor. Where's our hostess? Hi, Josh. Didn't Suzie make
it? FINNEGAN! What happened to you?"
Finnegan shrugged and grinned with bruised, partially
edematous lips. "The Torfin brothers said some things
about Hailey that weren't nice. I taught them some manners."
Wynter gasped. Each of the three brothers was twice
Finnegan's size.
Finnegan thrust his bruised chin forward with pride.
"They'll be nice next time, or they'll be even sorrier."
"Suzie's down below with the hostess," Josh said.
"I'm up here because Cinnamon said I didn't pass the
physical."
"Girl talk," Finnegan explained, not that Wynter
needed a translation. "They'll probably let you in to
change."
"Oh, they don't need to." She handed her sunglasses
and visor to Hailey and her bag to Finnegan. She stripped
off her pullover blouse and shorts, revealing her bikini
beneath."
"Damn," Huntly sighed. "I was hoping for a show."
"Hey! You've, like, already seen everything she HAS,
pickledick."
Huntly shrugged at Hailey. "I've seen double rainbows
in the morning sun. Doesn't mean I don't ever want to see
that beautiful sight again, too."
Wynter thanked him for the sweet compliment because
she knew that was the way he'd intended the comment. After
all, Huntly wasn't Kenny. "I see you're wearing a knee
brace. That's good thinking. The rolling of the boat
might cause excessive stress if you have to stand."
Huntly looked embarrassed. "Uuuh, yeah. Thanks."
Hailey snorted a laugh as she handed the sunglasses
and visor back. "Hey, it was Cuz's idea. He, like, argued
with her and SO lost!" She waved a hand. "As usual. Oh!
Cuz, like, also argued with the Middletons, WAY major time,
and they SO lost, too! Otherwise Suzie wouldn't, like, be
here."
Ron, who'd been quietly checking the boat's control
panel until now, said, "Overprotective parents. I'm sure
you understand."
"Hi, Ron. Oh, sure. I remember what it was like
after the mine."
Ron flipped a switch and then joined them. "It wasn't
all that good before the mine, either, after Will and Dick
broke out of jail."
"Well, yeah," she admitted. "But her parents
shouldn't be worried about Suzie and the drug dealer if
Kenny's not here."
Ron shook his head, a movement echoed by Huntly and
Hailey and Josh. "They're worried about Suzie being out
here on the lake by herself."
Wynter frowned and shook her head to clear it. "That
doesn't make sense."
"Tell me about it. They're also so worried about
Caroline that they're treating Suzie as if she's about to
become Caroline Junior. That's why Cinnamon's calming her
down. She's already stamped her foot twice since she got
here."
"Oh! It's worse than I thought, then." She took her
bag from Finnegan and folded her shorts and blouse. She
carefully packed them in the bag before pulling out three
tubes. "I brought more SPF-45 sun screen in case Sis
didn't have enough on board. I thought we'd need it if
anyone went swimming."
"Hey, you are SO the most, Sis," Hailey said. Wynter
wondered if she correctly heard a hint of sarcasm in
Hailey's voice but decided it was probably the echoes of
water splashing around the boats and the docks that made
her sound that way.
Several people who knew Ron, Huntly, and Josh called
out greetings as they passed, headed down the pier. They
were followed by another group who knew all of them except
Hailey. Wynter introduced her newest sister. The postage
stamps and string were an instant hit with the men.
"Any idea how much longer Sis will be?" she asked
Hailey when the group moved on, mostly at the insistence of
the wives.
Ron looked at his watch. "Time's up," he said. He
turned and reached for the key. The engines started
immediately and thrummed beneath their feet.
Fifteen seconds later the door to the cabin opened.
Suzie emerged first and gave Wynter a hug. Suzie was
wearing her team swim suit. Wynter suddenly realized it
was probably because that was the only one her parents
could afford. She made a mental note to herself as Sis One
emerged, wearing her yellow birthday present.
It was all Wynter could do not to gasp. A tiny yellow
triangle barely reached the top of Cinnamon's split. Her
breasts were covered, if that was the word, by a piece of
almost-thread that rose from the string over her left hip,
crossed behind her neck from right to left, and descended
to the right hip. The string widened enough to cover her
nipples with only a millimeter to spare. Wynter was sure
that Sis's blue postage stamps and string bikini had been
made of more cloth.
Cinnamon grinned and pirouetted for Wynter's inspection.
"I use more floss for my teeth than she uses for her
butt," Huntly noted.
"Shithead."
"Bitch."
"Uh... well," Wynter said, "um... well, it... does
look good on you."
"Hey! It would, like, look SO the best on you, too!"
Hailey squealed.
Cinnamon's eyes suddenly flicked about in her
analytical mode, taking in all the boys. Wynter though
that they stayed just a moment longer on Josh than on the
others during each of three passes.
"I agree," Huntly said. "Why don't you two swap so we
can be sure? Don't bother going down below to change. We
don't have time for that."
Wynter rolled her eyes. "You're as bad as Kenny."
Huntly straightened and looked indignant. "I have
never said anything as cruel and inhumane as that to YOU,
Your Doctorness! What did I do to deserve that?"
The little redhead backhanded his arm, causing him to
yelp. "You got up breathing this morning, shithead."
"Bitch," he muttered, rubbing his arm.
"Cuz, why don't you show Wynter how to cast off. Life
jackets on, everyone!" Cinnamon donned hers and then took
the right hand of the two bucket seats at the controls.
She hit the power lift switch, raising the seat to its
maximum height.
Huntly started to take the left seat, but was stopped
by Ron. "Since I'm supervising her, I get that seat for at
least as long as it takes for her to teach me this craft.
This is a just a little different from the patrol boat."
"Yeah," Huntly said, taking the single bucket seat on
the other side of the door to below. "By about fifteen
feet, one extra engine, the deluxe accommodations below,
and the cuteness of the captain."
Wynter, shaking her head, followed Hailey to remove
the mooring lines. A minute later they were headed through
the smaller islets and toward Horsehead Island. They
skirted it on the south and east sides. Once they were in
the expanse of open water past Horsehead and Spruce
Islands, Sis shoved the throttles forward. The engines
surged below Wynter and the boat leapt forward.
The rear seat was a 'U' with the open end to the left.
Wynter couldn't remember if that was starboard or port.
The forward point of the 'U' was cut off so that people
could reach the door to the cabin and the seats on either
side. Suzie sat behind the... the... she guessed you
called it the captain's seats, on the short side of the
'U', facing the stern. Josh sat in the bend of the 'U'
next to her. Wynter sat in the other bend, between Josh
and Hailey, and Finnegan sat on the end of the long side,
next to the closed gate to the swim platform. It might be
a little cozy for full-grown adults, but it was roomy for
them.
"Cuz may not admit it, but she SO misses the ocean,"
Hailey said. "This boat's almost too big for a lake."
"Oh, there are bigger ones in the marina," Wynter
replied. She wondered how Hailey could have missed that.
"Hey, I know. It's SO way difficult to explain if
you, like, haven't experienced it."
Wynter guessed that was true. How could you explain
the feeling of cutting an umbilicus and freeing a new
person into the world to someone who had never done it?
She watched Sis One pointing to different places on the
control panel and explaining things to Ron. "She's
grinning almost the same way she does when she's drumming,
just like the other time we were out here and she drove the
boat."
Hailey took Wynter's hand and squeezed it, then put
her mouth next to her ear. "She and Uncle Mitch used to,
like, get away from 'everything' on this boat. Aunt Bitch
never set foot on it--it was SO not the yacht she DESERVED--
and never knew it had, like, only one bed. Well, the couch
folds out, but it is SO not the comfort!"
'Everything,' Wynter knew, was Hailey-speak for
Cinnamon's birth mother and her horrid attitude toward her
husband and daughter. "So the boat is something extra-
special to Sis? I didn't realize that when we were out
before. But then, Doctor Brees handled the controls most
of the time."
"For Cuz it's fun. For Uncle Mitch it's, like,
therapy. Even now."
Which was why Cinnamon had let him handle the craft on
Wynter's other sailing trip aboard the 'Summer Breeze'.
Wynter giggled. "I think it would be romantic if he
took Mrs. Vasquez out for a night on the lake soon."
Hailey raised her dense eyebrows and grinned. "Hey!
That idea is SO the BIG! Next time we spend the night with
you, I'll, like, suggest it to him."
"Unh uh. That might take too long. Next time he has
the opportunity, you two are spending the night with me and
they go out on the lake. Future Doctor's orders."
Hailey nodded and hugged her. "Promise! I'll tell
Cuz. She'll, like, be SO thrilled for him."
Cinnamon cut the engines back to idle and switched
places with Ron. He increased the speed in steps, waiting
until he was satisfied he knew the response of the boat
before he moved up to the next step. As they approached
Lakeshore Docks at the northern end of the lake he turned
the boat east in a sweeping arc and headed toward Schaefer
Beach and Ford Island.
Wynter wanted to speak to Suzie, but she and Josh were
holding hands and talking to each other as if the rest of
the world didn't exist. She sure did miss Jimmy, and he'd
been gone just three days. Suzie and Josh had been
separated a month, so she guessed that they still had a lot
of catching up to do. She knew that she'd not want to be
interrupted if it were Jimmy and her, even if that was
selfish on her part, so she didn't intrude.
After a few more minutes of turns and speed runs, Ron
cut the throttles back to idle south of Ford Island,
halfway to the Chinook Bluff peninsula, and shifted the
propellers to neutral. He rose to his feet and turned to
face Sis One. "Madame Captain, I return the ship to you."
He bowed as much as the cramped space permitted.
Cinnamon had him flip a few more switches and
indicated things on the screens. Then she turned off the
key. "We can drift for a bit. Swimming, anyone?"
Without a word, Ron slid out of his life jacket and
sprang backwards over the side in a jump Huntly would have
thought impossible if he hadn't seen it himself. Ron
cleared the side windshield without hitting the arching
overhead spoiler and also cleared the side of the boat on
the way down.
Huntly stood there with his index finger pointing to
the space where Ron had passed. He finally looked down at
Sis and said, "I couldn't have done that BEFORE I screwed
up my knee!"
Finnegan rose to open the gate. Hailey didn't wait.
She stripped off her life jacket and dove over the left
side The 'port side' in nautical terms, Wynter reminded
herself. _I think_.
Sis Two broke the surface with her eyes wide. "SHIT!
Hey! Why didn't somebody, like, TELL me this water was SO
fucking COLD?"
Cinnamon's chuckle drew Wynter's amused attention away
from Hailey. Sis One was standing with her head down,
shaking it. "She's bitched about the air temperature since
the day she arrived," she said to no one in particular,
"and now she's surprised that the water is cold, too.
That's Cuz."
Suzie and Josh stood and slid out of their life
jackets. "Excuse us," Josh said, allowing Suzie, whose
eyes danced merrily above a grin that threatened to rupture
her face, to precede him onto the swim platform. They
checked the water temperature with their feet and nodded to
each other.
"Good grief, Hailey!" Suzie called, her voice
trembling with a giggle. "What are you complaining about?
The water's ever so much warmer than usual for this time of
year!" She crouched. Josh echoed her movement. On a
silent signal they sprang into the water and began cutting
across the blue surface like dolphins.
"Somebody needs to lower the ladder," Cinnamon said.
Huntly asked her to show him what to do. When the
ladder was in place, he pushed her into the water, waited
for her to surface, and then jumped in beside her.
Wynter laughed and then asked Finnegan, "Shall we?"
Finnegan shook his head. "I can't swim."
That was news! "You can't? Well I happen to know
somebody who's an excellent swimming coach. I'm sure I can
get her to give you lessons at no charge. She's also going
to give me free lessons to help me swim better."
~ ~ ~
"I said," Huntly sighed, pointing at the hard pink
knob being pushed sideways by the narrow strip of cloth,
"you might want to put that back under cover. I'm not sure
the Ronster can handle the shock, what with his advanced
age making him practically a senior citizen."
Ron, seated in the single port-side bucket seat, put
on a perfectly innocent expression. "I never noticed it."
"Sure," Cinnamon said, circling it with a wet
fingertip before stowing it away. "And people in
Washington didn't notice Mount Saint Helens blowing up,
either."
Ron grinned and scratched his head. "Probably not."
Huntly glanced at the closed passageway door. "So, is
Finnegan just warming her up from her cold swim, or is he
'warming her up' for all of us?"
"Well, not for all of us," Cinnamon said. She sat in
the pilot's seat and flipped switches. "Wynter and Suzie
aren't interested." Under her breath she said, "They don't
know what they're missing." She twisted the key, motioned
for Huntly to sit beside her, and then turned to signal
every one to sit down and hold on.
Shrieks erupted from the cabin when she suddenly
engaged the propellers and slammed the throttles forward.
The door flew open and a furious Hailey exploded from
the cabin. Ron's eyes looked like they were going to
similarly explode from their sockets as the naked teenager
glared at her cousin and shouted, "HEY! THAT IS SO NOT THE
HILARIOUS! I DAMNED NEAR BIT HIS DICK OFF!"
"Really?" Huntly mused, pitching his voice to sound
deep in thought. "Hmmm. Well, if we can get Doctor Cutie
to almost bite off Jimbo's, too, then we can claim it's a
traditional family rite."
Hailey glared at him with raging eyes, then brought
her fists up to ear level. "AARGH!" she shrieked and
disappeared down the steps.
Huntly noticed the look still on Ron's face. He
leaned across the aisle, as if taking Ron into his
confidence but speaking loud enough for everyone to hear.
"You should invite yourself to the Brees family's hot tub
once in a while. See what you've been missing? Of course,
there's not much left of bitch that you haven't already
seen, given what she's almost wearing."
"Shithead," Cinnamon barked.
He leaned sideways to his right and put his head on
her shoulder. "That's why you love me."
She snorted and looked him out of the corners of her
eyes. "Yeah, but I'll never TELL you that. You're hard
enough to get along with as it is."
The doc had mostly stayed in the middle of the lake
the day Wynter had taken ill. Now his daughter was totally
in charge. Deciding she would go exploring, she headed
southeast, down the northern shore line.
Ron rose to his feet and leaned across Huntly. "You
need to turn back," he said. "That area ahead is called
'The Narrows,' and power boats stay out of it. It's just
for fishermen and people-powered craft."
Cinnamon throttled back, reversed course, and looked
past Huntly and Ron to the large houses near the shoreline
of the peninsula lying off to the south. "That's like
where we were in Boston," she said, and then pointed.
"That house is a lot like our old one, though it's a little
closer to the water and the brick isn't quite as red."
Huntly blinked in astonishment at the huge house.
"That big? Holy medieval castle, Bat Bitch! You now live
in a paltry pig sty!"
She grinned at him. "I'll gladly take the house here,
shithead. That one on the ocean had the bitch in it."
Huntly understood. If he had a choice of that house
with Cinnamon's birthing bitch or a one-room shack on the
downwind edge of the city dump, he'd take the shack.
He waved a finger at the peninsula. "See how the
ground jumps way up beyond the houses and back toward the
mainland? That's Chinook Bluff. The estates down here are
the poor rich-folks district, even if they are on the
water. Up there is Chinook Bluff Village. That's the
lower middle class rich. Take her around the peninsula,
into Independence Bay."
After they had slid between Sentinel Rock and the
Chinook Bluff peninsula and headed southeast down the long
narrow bay, Huntly pointed up and to the right. "That tall
sucker is Eagle Peak. The upper-middle-class rich live
near the drop-off of the shore line, south of us. Down at
the end, the hoity-toity live in The Aerie, an exclusive
inland community directly south of that dogleg at the end
of the bay. I hear they wear disguises when they go to
Aspen so nobody will recognize them and know they're
slumming."
"You mean..."
He nodded. "Your Boston relatives would fit right in
if only they had the money."
"You serious?"
"Doghouses alone cost a cool quarter mil."
He grinned when she gave him a look that said she knew
he was exaggerating, but clearly she understood his
meaning. She'd grown up among people like The Aerie's
inhabitants. Those were the people who her birthing
bitch's family, with the apparent exception of Hailey's
dad, sucked up to. Any daughter of the bunch up there who
was even one-tenth as wonderful as Cinnamon would never
give Huntly Sheridan the time of day. He hoped the skies
would be clear tonight so that he could thank his lucky
stars for his relationship with the little redhead. Again.
He kissed her shoulder in gratitude.
Her head turned to give him that coldly analytical
stare for a moment. Then she smiled as she understood his
thoughts. "Maybe I just don't have any sense of taste,
shithead."
His right hand caressed, then lightly squeezed her
left knee. He was glad it was his left knee that was
screwed up instead of the one on that lovely little article
of perfection. "Don't get one any time soon, bitch."
~ ~ ~
Ron scratched his head and slumped in his seat as they
emerged between Sentinel Rock and the Eagle Peak side of
the mainland. He glanced at Huntly sitting there with his
head on Cinnamon's shoulder and his hand on her knee. That
could have been him, but, no, he'd had to be a good son and
had honored the commitment he'd made to his father the time
that Cinnamon had made her offer.
He'd told Cinnamon that when she was in high school
and he was in college, he'd find out if it was then
permissible for them to date. Perhaps she'd no longer be
going with Huntly then.
He laughed to himself. If not for that commitment, he
could be the one in the cabin instead of Finnegan. Hailey
had been less than subtle in letting him know that she was
available whenever he wanted, unless you were one of those
people who considered her grabbing and massaging Speedy
Gonzales through his jeans and saying, "Hey, let's fuck!"
to be subtle.
He'd known Hailey was small-breasted, more along the
lines of Wynter than her cousin, even before he'd seen her
in that G-string-and-pasties swim suit, but he hadn't known
she had shaved everything below her neck. Well, that was
the current girls' fashion in high school, so why wouldn't
she be shaved, too. And apparently her cousin aped that
fashion, unless she had not more than six hairs under that
tiny yellow triangle. There wasn't room underneath for
seven.
He glanced up at Eagle Mesa and sat up. "Wynter!" he
called as he turned to face the rear. She was sitting
beside Josh, who was relating some tale, emphasizing his
points with one hand while his other pulled Suzie to his
side. Wynter appeared interested but also distracted.
Well, Wynter wasn't alone. He knew exactly how lonely she
felt. He'd been an item with Maria Alcalde for over forty-
eight hours now and had wanted her to come along, but her
mother had volunteered her for some function at the church.
Wynter put her hand on Josh's arm as a signal to wait
and rose. He joined her and pointed up. "Next time you
want to show Hailey the scenery, why not take her to Eagle
Mesa Outlook? You can take your bikes the whole way. Even
though it's not as spectacular a view as Panorama Point,
it's a lot easier to get down from there in a hurry."
She gave him a glum expression. "You heard, huh?"
"Oh, yeah! Why else do you think I didn't come to
visit you when you were sick?"
~ ~ ~
"NO!" Huntly yelped. "Don't go in there!"
Cinnamon reversed the propellers and brought them to a
halt. "Why not?" she asked as she looked up at the almost
vertical walls and then down at the water ahead.
"It's called Fishhook Cove for a couple of reasons,"
he said as Ron, who'd been back talking with Josh, came
forward. "First, the fishing's good in there. Second, see
the way it curves around to the right down at the end? It
keeps going and sort of makes a fishhook shape."
"Like Snowflake Cove was sort of shaped like a
snowflake," she said. Ron had moved to the back of the
boat while she slowly explored Snowflake Cove.
"Yes," Ron said. "Even more so. But the third reason
is it also acts like a fishhook. It will catch you."
Hailey and Finnegan emerged from the cabin. Finnegan
took a quick look around and his smug satiated look
vanished. "YOU'RE NOT GOIN' IN THERE, ARE YOU?"
Finnegan's face and body were almost white with fear. Even
his freckles looked bleached out.
"I don't know," Cinnamon said, studying Finnegan's
appearance. "They were telling me why I shouldn't."
"IT'S BAD LUCK! IT'S CURSED!"
Suzie snorted. "There's no such stupid thing," she
said indignantly. "Those stupid boats wrecked because the
stupid boat drivers were stupid."
"She's right," Huntly agreed. "Their bad luck was
simply not listening to common sense advice. It's full of
rocks in places, rocks that almost reach the surface. Big
rocks with points and edges, ones that sheared off the
cliff faces above us." He held up his hand with his index
finger extended and waved it around in a circle. "They'll
shear a hole in the bottom just like the iceberg did to the
'Titanic' if you don't thread the needle just right. In
some places you can cross between, but not many. In a few
others you can go over. In several places you can go in
but not out."
She frowned at him. "That's just silly."
"No," Josh said, leaning over the seat behind them.
"Jimmy explained it to me once. It has to do with the
curves of the walls and the location and shapes of the
sunken rocks. They reinforce the waves from boats' wakes.
Boats jump up and down with the water. You rise up, maybe
get halfway over the rock, and then get smashed down.
Jimmy says the rock breaks the boat open like an egg."
Doctor Cutie nodded agreement. She knew. Obviously
Jimbo had explained it to her, too, since it involved
physics and not physiology.
Huntly knew that look on Cinnamon's face. She had a
puzzle and was determined to solve it. "We have sonar,"
she said, pointing to the screen display."
"That's good!" said Ron. "That way you can see that
you're about to destroy the boat the instant before it
happens."
"Shithead said we could go between the rocks in places."
"I'm not through, yet, bitch. Some places you can
pass through into a narrow, dead-end channel that doesn't
have enough room to turn around. How good are you at
driving this thing backward, with the flat end headed into
possibly reinforced waves? I'd say from the width of this
sucker that you might have a foot to spare on either side
in some places, including that one right over there."
He pointed to a spot of water a football field away.
Two summers earlier he'd watched one of the big-money brain
trust who lived up above them wedge his three-quarters-of-a-
million dollars mini-yacht firmly between the rocks there.
He knew the divers who had brought up some of the ruined
luxury items that had spilled out the huge hole in the
bottom of the boat. The waves Josh mentioned had rocked
the boat fore and aft like a prospector's pan, helping rip
the hole wider and also helping the water that sloshed
around in the cabins wash the gold nuggets out of the
bottom of the pan.
He watched Cinnamon talk herself out of it. "It looks
pretty back there," she said almost wistfully.
Huntly nodded. "It's stark, prehistoric, and
beautiful. You expect to see flying dinosaurs dropping off
the pock-marked cliffs and giant crabs skittering sideways
across the beach."
"There's a beach? And just how would you know?"
"I said the fishing was good. You go in with a
shallow-draft flat-bottomed fishing boat, sonar, and
electric trolling motor. There's a beach of sorts,
slightly steep, and not very big. Oh! There's a fishing
boat coming around the bend now. Anyway, the walls are
almost vertical, with little vegetation because of limited
sunlight. You can climb up, but you'd better be a damned
good climber if you want to do it freestyle. Or you can
see it from above if you don't mind trespassing."
Hailey rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. "SO
not the big! Let's, like, get WITH it, Cuz. Are we going
in, or are we going on? Or are we, like, going swimming
some more? Ron and Josh and Huntly SO need to go swimming
again and, like, warm me up afterward."
The little redhead glanced at the clock. "Let's take
a run down Granite Bay, and then we'll go swimming off the
peninsula. She spun the boat around, exited the mouth of
the cove, and turned south into the bay, the area between
Rainbow Peninsula and the eastern shore. Near Nugget
Island they spotted Megan McNeal waterskiing with Bryce
Yeager behind his family's boat.
They avoided some fishermen near the eastern shore,
turned around at the end, and dropped anchor off the
southern edge of Rainbow Peninsula Park.
This time Cinnamon came out of the water with both...
Straps? Strings? Whatever they were, they washed aside
and she came out with both breasts fully exposed. Huntly
couldn't shake the feeling that she was providing Ron a
floor show as she stood in front of him on the swim
platform and replaced what little cover they provided.
"You trying to get Ron down in the cabin with you?" he
murmured as they moved up to the cockpit controls.
"Can't," she said. "And not just because of the
monthly calendar."
"Humph," he snorted. "You think maybe that's because
he has a sense of taste?"
She faced aft. "Hey, Sis! You want to learn how to
pilot this thing?" She looked up at Huntly and pulled his
face down. "Shithead," she murmured before their lips
touched.
Huntly finally withdrew his tongue into his own mouth
and dragged his lips away from hers. He couldn't get his
voice above a whisper. "Bitch."
~ ~ ~
Suzie knelt on the rear-facing part of the back seat
and watched. She thought Josh looked ever so handsome the
way he sat in the Captain's chair and drove the boat. She
thought she might have done okay herself during her turn,
but Josh was doing it as well as Cinnamon or Ron or Hailey.
She was so happy for him that it took her a moment to
realize Hailey had asked her another question.
"I'm sorry," she said, turning her face to her friend.
"I guess my mind was somewhere else or something."
Hailey gave her a grin that said she thought she knew
where Suzie's mind was. She pointed off to the right,
where a small partial of land stood in water that was
almost surrounded by part of Lakeside Campground. "Hey, SO
not the big! I said, is that called Cho's Island like,
maybe, a Japanese name?"
"Chinese," Suzie said, turning her eyes back to
worship Josh. "Mister Cho was a Chinese cooler building
the miners a narrow gates railroad in that valley over
there." She waved a hand without looking away from Josh.
She could have been pointing anywhere in half a circle.
"Some railroad building stuff came up missing. The
stupid railroad foreman somehow decided Mister Cho stole it
and sold it, and they said were gonna lynch him. He ran
off to keep from being hung or something.
"The town was mostly a mining camp trading post then,
but there weren't any other Chinese men around, so Mister
Cho kinda stood out. They told the foreman and a bunch of
his dolts that he was somewhere in the area. The dolts
found him hiding on the island and hung him from a tree.
He's still buried there.
"When they got back to the railroad camp the stupid
dolts found the missing stuff was being used to fix some
stupid broken track or something down the other way. One
of the dolts had been told, but he'd been drunk or
something and had forgot. So, the owner of the railroad
named the island after Mister Cho and had the stupid dolt
who'd been told about the equipment brought back here and
hung, too. On that island."
She pointed to the largest island, the one now falling
behind on their left side. "It was originally named
Horse's Ass Island because of the stupid dolt, but was
changed to Horsehead Island after the people moved down
here when Hargus City was abandoned. The stupid wives
complained about the name or something. Part of it kinda
looks like a horse's head on the map if you don't pay too
much attention and squint real hard."
She wished ever so much that she could have Cinnamon's
seat next to Josh, but she had to be satisfied with
kneeling on the bench seat behind him and looking over the
back of it. She was so intents on watching Josh that she
didn't realize how everyone else was staring at her in
wrapped amazement or something.
~ ~ ~
Mitch waved farewell at Ron and his passengers. "So,"
he said as he put his vehicle into gear, and hauled his own
share of passengers home from the Harbor Club Marina, "are
you going to tell Jimmy about Thursday?"
"No, sir," Wynter said with a sly grin. "I think I'll
surprise him and see what his reaction is."
"Yeah? That should be interesting. Please tell me
you're selling tickets."
~ ~ ~
Jimmy rang the doorbell just after two in the
afternoon on Thursday. Dragon appeared at the bottom of
the stairs, looked at him through the storm door, and raced
down to the family room. Wynter was upstairs, then,
probably in her room. He wondered if she was thinking
about him, sitting by her phone at her desk and wondering
when he'd call to say he'd returned. He couldn't wait to
see the surprised look on her face when she saw it was him.
Well, it wouldn't exactly be a surprise since she
could tell from the way Dragon acted that he was the one at
the door. Still...
Dragon shot around the corner, ears and tail streaming
to the rear, and bounded onto the porch to greet him.
"Hey, boy!" Jimmy said as he knelt and Dragon washed
his face in greeting. He set his gift for Wynter aside and
cupped Dragon's head in his hands, vigorously scratching
behind the dog's ears. "Did you miss me? I have something
for you, too." He pulled a large dog biscuit out of a
cargo pocket on his shorts.
Dragon took the biscuit but remained in place for
Jimmy to scratch his ears again. His eyes shifted from
Jimmy to the door as the latch clicked.
Jimmy looked around as the door opened.
Her face bright with a happy smile and sparkling eyes,
Wynter held the door open with her free arm. Her other
cradled a baby boy in her arm.
Jimmy raised one eyebrow. "That was fast," he said.
"I was only gone a week. Did the birth control pills fail?"
Her smile faded. She gave him one of those looks that
men everywhere know quite well. "Smarty pants!"
"He doesn't look like me at all. Well, I guess I
should be grateful that he doesn't look like Kenny, either."
He guessed maybe that wasn't the right joke for the
moment. He guessed maybe he shouldn't have made any joke
at all about Robert Andrew Pierce, Junior. He guessed
maybe he should have brought her two presents, maybe three.
He guessed he'd call Huntly and ask how long it took for
the sting of a backhand to the arm to go away.
Twenty Six
_Madre de Dios!_
That _bastardo_ Stiles was still here? What about
March? Him, too? De Ramirez thought both would have left
the previous weekend and had given himself an extra week.
He casually rested his elbow on the car window and dropped
his head into his hand, like he was about to fall asleep.
That would hide his face without seeming like he was hiding
it. Had that _maricon_ moved here? Been reassigned here?
Were he and March watching town in two shifts, one always
out on the streets?
No choice now but to throw them off the scent. He
would head for New Mexico, then Arizona, and be seen in
both places. March would follow and Stiles would finally
go back to Denver. Then he would come back and deal with
those would dare conspire with Kaczynski and Taggart
against Juan Rodrigo De Ramirez y Sanchez.
~ ~ ~
Hailey eyed the man leaving Kenny's house. He said
goodbye to Ron, who had accompanied him, and then left in
his car. As he passed her he gave her an appraising look
and a smile. She cocked a hip at him and gave him a return
smile. He was SO the average in looks, but he seemed to
have a nice build under that cheap suit. Worth flirting
with, SO not worth the effort for more.
Ron watched her approach, standing with his weight on
one leg and his arms crossed. Unlike that... that whoever
he was, Ron was SO the approved! Cuz had explained his
excuse for not dating middle school girls. Well, hey!
That was SO not the drama! He didn't have to DATE her. He
could just, like, take her someplace and get her off a few
times before getting himself off. No date, no big!
Like, what was WRONG with the local guys? She guessed
it was the cold temperatures in this place that SO froze
boys' minds. Guys in Hawaii could ALWAYS think of ways
around those problems. If they, like, couldn't make the
beast with two backs, then they'd do her doggie style. SO
not the problem! But the guys in this fridge? No way!
"Good afternoon, Miss Kennedy!"
"Hey, Ron! Was that, like, the FBI guy or something?"
"DEA. He had to come back to town for..."
"Whatev'." SO didn't care! She gave him a hug.
"You, like, wanna go for a ride? Show me the best places
to, like, make out?"
"Not today." He grinned and scratched his head.
"Your cousin let you out by yourself?"
"She's practicing." She glanced at the house for a
moment and then grinned. "You could, like go watch while I
supervise Kenny. It's, like, amazement city, you know."
He gave her a sly grin. "Yeah. Maybe I could. She
is something to watch perform. So, do you think you'll be
able to supervise without my help?"
"SO not the prob! You, like, run along." She gave
him a push down the sidewalk. "I'll, like, let you know
when you can come back."
"If you insist. I'm sure that I could use a good
time." He gave her a very odd smile and jogged down the
sidewalk.
She stood there and watched for a moment, wondering
what the hell THAT meant. The big diff between vibrators
and guys was, like, you didn't have to UNDERSTAND a
vibrator. It did its job, you got off, you put it away
until you needed it again. SO the advantage!
She took two steps up the driveway and stopped.
_That's Suzie's bike._
_But Suzie's an item with Josh. SO not the prob!
Except... except Josh's bike isn't here._
She started walking again. Maybe Suzie would be open
to a three-way. She was, like, cute, and had those
swimmer's arms and legs. Besides, swimmers had to know,
like, breath control.
That girl should be able to eat some MAJOR league pussy!
~ ~ ~
_FUCK!_
Suzie turned around, crossed her arms, and rested her
weight on one foot while she tapped the other one in
thought or something. She barely noticed Mister Ginley's
truck going down Seabridge Trail to his house. She had a
problem, and when Suzanne Middleton had a problem she
didn't have time to notice what else was going on in the
world until she got it dissolved.
The door opened behind her. "Suzie?"
"Hi, Mrs. McCauley," she said as she turned. "Is
Jimmy home?"
"Yes. He's down in the practice room with his father.
Come on in."
She followed Mrs. McCauley into the kitchen,
explaining as they went. "I'm ever so sorry I didn't call
first, but I thought about Jimmy while I was on my way
home. I need some advice or something. You know. About
boys or something. You know. And, well, I thought Jimmy
might be the best one to ask. Because he is one, you know.
A boy. And, well, Jimmy's his best friend and he knows all
about boys, you know. Or something. So, I came straight
here..."
Mrs. McCauley gave her a hug that felt ever so warm.
"Would you like something to drink? I have fresh lemonade
and some orange juice."
"Um, no, ma'am. I just, well..."
"Go right on down," she said, smiling and opening the
basement door. "And tell Keith I'm still waiting for him
to fix that shower head."
Mister McCauley gave her an ever so funny look when
she mentioned the shower head, but he didn't say anything
when Jimmy pushed him toward the door.
"That song sounded good," she said when they were alone.
"Thanks," Jimmy said, giving her a smile that was ever
so nice. "We're still learning that one. It would help if
Dad could read music, but we're finally getting there.
Would you like to sit down?" He waved a hand toward the
couch.
"Yeah. Um, thanks. I wanted to ask you something."
She sat on the edge and twisted her hands in her lap,
trying to think of how to ask her question. She kept
twisting them because she still didn't know how to ask,
even though she'd thought about it most of the way over
here. She felt ever so stupid because of that. Wynter and
Cinnamon always knew what to say.
Jimmy sat beside her and gently closed one of his
hands over hers. "Suzie, it's okay. Sometimes I'm not
sure how to ask something either. You can take as long as
you need, or you can just ask and then we'll sort out the
way you meant it to sound. Okay?"
She pressed her lips together while trying to smile.
"You're one of the best friends I have," she said.
He shrugged. "I hope so, because you're one of the
best friends I have."
"Thanks." She stared at the floor, but the words
weren't there, either.
"Don't let me rush you. I'm trying to help, but I
know that sometimes help is worse than doing nothing. Want
to give me an idea of what it's about?"
"Boys," she said so quiet she almost didn't hear
herself.
Jimmy nodded. "Okay. Josh?"
"No. Well, yeah. Well, no. Well, sorta."
"Oh." Jimmy kept his hand on hers and put his other
arm around her shoulders. "Him."
She inhaled and let out a big sigh through her nose.
It sounded kinda bubbly. She sniffed. "I'm all confused,"
she said.
"Has he done something?"
She twisted her head around and looked up from the
floor to his eyes. He looked kinda blurry. "Two
somethings. Some... somebodies."
"Oh." He squeezed her shoulders real gentle-like.
"Tiffany and Judy."
She decided to look for words in the floor some more.
"Yeah. Them, too."
"Too? Wait. Cinnamon and Hailey?"
She needed to sniff again. "Yeah."
"What about Josh?"
Maybe it was because she was thinking about the dolt,
or maybe it was because she'd been around Huntly too much,
but she had a funny thought that made her giggle. "I don't
think Josh is his type."
He gave her that gentle squeeze again. Wynter was
ever so lucky to have Jimmy. He grinned and said, "Not
unless he's fooled all of us."
She nodded. "And not just me."
"Suzie, I didn't mean it that way." He sounded ever
so concerned.
"I know," she said. "But I did."
"Well. What do you want to do?"
She had to sniff again. It was probably ever so good
that there weren't any words on the floor because it was
too blurry to read now. "You ever want to just shoot the
dolt?"
"Not more than ten or twelve times a day, no."
That made her giggle. "And then you want to hug him?"
"Shake hands, maybe. Yeah. He's that way, isn't he?
And sometimes you want to do both at once."
"Yeah."
"Ron said watching him take down that drug dealer was
the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. I missed that, but
I saw him after that, when he helped Wynter save that kid's
life and he made the crowd move back with just a few words
and a look. Sometimes he looked even more professional
than Wynter. Did you know he knocked out Huntly because he
thought, incorrectly, that Huntly made fun of you?"
_That's news!_ "No! I hadn't heard."
"Well, he did. It was the day before Cinnamon's
birthday. Huntly was just being his usual smartass self,
but Kenny thought it was personal, so he defended you."
"Just like that day at school," she whispered. But
Jimmy heard her.
"Pretty much so. Hard to believe he's the same person
who an hour or two later..." Jimmy stopped talking like a
door had slammed shut or something.
"Who what?"
"Ummm... If I say it, I might remind you of something
embarrassing."
She looked at him sideways out of the corners of her
eyes. "Can't be any more embarrassing than what I did to
you when you were hurt, could it?" She couldn't think of
anything more embarrassing than when she tried to give his
injured nuts a massage.
He seemed to make up his mind. "Remember when you and
Kenny came into Wynter's room looking for a ruler?"
"He did that again?"
"They weren't looking for a ruler, but, yeah."
She looked at the floor again. A few seconds later
she giggled. "It was kinda funny, though. That night."
He laughed and gave her that ever so wonderful hug
again. "It was. But it sure as heck didn't seem so at the
time."
"Yeah." Her smile faded. "So, who was he with this
time? Hailey again?"
Jimmy thought about that for a minute. "I guess I can
tell you because the only reason they won't is to keep you
from finding out it happened. But you already know now.
Cinnamon."
Suzie frowned. "I'm surprised she'd give him the time
of day. I can't imagine her running around naked with him.
Unless she was trying to explode his weakness for girls
again."
"For a while they had problems. Cinnamon was mad at
him for you. It was getting bad. They really needed you
to yell at them, but since you weren't here, Wynter had to
do it."
Suzie smiled. "I loved every second I was at swim
camp, but I'd have given up the time it took for me to be
here to see that."
Jimmy squeezed her shoulders. He gave the nicest hugs
she could think of. He must have learned how from his
mother. "She scared me worse than you ever did. But
Wynter gave them an hour alone to settle their differences
or else. I guess they overcompensated."
Suzie frowned. She'd misunderstood or something.
"You don't mean they DID each other, do you? They weren't
just busting in as a joke or something? What about Huntly?"
"Huntly..." Jimmy stopped and took a deep breath.
"Huntly was in the spare bedroom with Hailey."
"I thought..." She frowned even more. "So, this was
before he and Cinnamon became an item?"
"Huntly and Cinnamon have been an item for months.
It's just that nobody knew it, including maybe them. I
don't think they figured it out until that afternoon a week
earlier."
"No! Wait a minute." She turned slightly toward him,
but not enough to make him turn loose of her shoulders.
"They decide they're an item, so they celebrate by doing
HAILEY AND KENNY? A WEEK LATER?"
"And each other. It didn't make sense to me, either,
but Wynter explained it. Hey, don't look at me like that!
You know how Wynter is. She made me listen. She said I
wouldn't listen to anything I didn't agree with and then
proved that she was right about that. So I listened, and
she explained it in a way that made sense to me."
"And now you think it's okay?"
He shook his head. "It's not okay for me. It's not
okay for Wynter. I didn't think it was okay for you, and I
see I was right. But it was okay for THEM. I've been
thinking about what Wynter meant. You know, kind of
changing the circumstances. Is it okay for Wynter to tell
you that you have to study medicine instead of being on the
swim team?"
She would have thought that was a dumb question if
anybody else had asked it. But Jimmy was like Mister
Shelby and Wynter. They would ask a question like that to
help you understand a point or something. "No. But she
wouldn't do that."
"No, she wouldn't, because it's not right. But it's
okay for her to study medicine and for you to be on the
swim team if you each feel that's right for you, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah. But it's not the same thing."
He gave her the grin-and-nod that said she didn't
understand, but that she wasn't stupid or something just
because she didn't understand. Just like Josh did.
Just like Kenny did.
"It's not the same thing in total, but it is the same
thing in principle. If it's right for them, then it's okay
for them to do. If it's not right for us, then it's not
okay for us to do. Whether it's studying medicine,
swimming with the team, or sex."
She sighed. "Well, it sorta makes sense." She threw
up her hands. "I guess."
"You have to think about it quite a while before you
can accept it. You know," his voice suddenly sounded like
he was ever so surprised or something, "I don't think I
really could accept it until right now, when I heard myself
explaining it to you in my words instead of hers."
She had other questions she wanted to ask first, but
instead she just blurted out the big one. "If I take him
back, he's gonna do it again, isn't he?"
Jimmy was quiet a long time. She wasn't sure if he
was trying to think of the right answer or trying to keep
from hurting her feelings or something. Finally he
shrugged. His body went sorta limp, too, like he'd just
swum several miles and now it had caught up with him. "As
much as I don't want to think so, yeah. If I wanted to
take one of Cinnamon's bets, I'd bet that he'd do it again.
Though I think Cinnamon would never let me bet it that way
at any odds because she knows she'd lose."
She felt herself deinflating, or disinflating, or
whatever that stupid word was, too. Her head dropped.
"Yeah, I thought so. I was hoping I was wrong. I thought
he loved me."
"He did love you, and he still does. He's miserable
without you. He'll do Hailey or whoever and have a good
time at the moment, but then afterwards he goes back to
being miserable again."
She raised her head. Jimmy suddenly looked awfully
blurry or something. She wiped her eyes with her fingers
and he came back into focus. "Then how can he do them if
he loves me?"
Jimmy grinned. "After the mine you loved Wynter as
one of your best friends, didn't you?"
_Now what?_ "Well, sure."
"And now Cinnamon's one of your best friends, so you
don't love Wynter anymore. Right?"
"No! I still love her as a friend, too!"
In a couple of minutes he'd explained how loving one
person didn't mean you had to stop loving someone else so
that she understood. "But... are you saying he was in love
with Judy and Tiffany?"
"No. Not at all. I'm just saying that love is not a
factor because even if he was, it didn't change how much he
loves you. See, we don't think like Kenny, so that's why
we have trouble understanding. We think of it as love, but
he doesn't. For him, sex is like swimming is to you. You
like swimming, but you wouldn't have given up Kenny for it.
He likes sex with other girls, but he's not going to give
up you for it. That's why he couldn't understand why you
got so upset about it."
_This is just getting harder to understand, not
easier._ "They why did the dolt hide it?"
"Because he knew it would upset you. No, let me
finish. He knew it would upset you, but he didn't
understand WHY it would. So he decided that it was okay as
long as you didn't know about it and didn't get upset.
Somewhere inside that thick head of his he probably thought
you'd eventually understand that he was right and you were
wrong and would change your mind."
She shook her head and the lowered it to stare at the
floor again. He squeezed her hands again when they started
twisting together some more, and that made her relax a
little. "I must be stupid or something."
"Then I'm stupid, too," he said. "I didn't understand
it until I had time to sit down and sort through everything
Wynter said. I may have used different words and examples,
but I did like Wynter did and tailored my words to the
student. You just need some time by yourself now, so that
you can make yourself stop thinking normally and think like
Uncle Bozo Junior."
She sighed and her shoulders slumped. "I think it
would be easier to shave ten seconds off my record in the
hundred."
"Yeah," he said with a grin. "That's about how easy
it is for me to think like him, too. Well, what about you
and Josh? If you don't mind me asking. You don't have to
answer, of course."
She rolled her head sideways to look at him and found
her view blocked by her hair, so she looked at the floor by
her feet some more. "You're one of my best friends. I
guess if I thought I couldn't trust you, I wouldn't be here
now. Can I show you something?"
"I guess. Sure. I trust you, too, so... Um, this
isn't something that Wynter won't like is it?"
She straightened and looked him in the eye. "Wynter
is ever so lucky to have you for her boyfriend, just as I'm
ever so lucky to have you as a best friend. She won't
mind. You know how she is when it comes to making a point
or something."
He grinned. She thought he looked a little
embarrassed or something. "Yeah. That I certainly do
know. Okay, show me."
He looked startled but didn't object when she turned
and threw her arms around him. When she kissed him he
resisted her tongue for only a moment, then seemed to
realize it was necessary. She timed it in her head and
then broke away. "You aren't mad, are you?"
"Since I trust you," he said, "I believe you were
making a point instead of... well, acting like Hailey."
Suzie nodded. "I was. Okay, what was that like for
you?" When he seemed to be searching for words that
wouldn't upset or disappoint her, she added, "I need you to
be perfectly honest or I wasted my stupid time trying to
make my point."
That raised his eyebrows. "Well," he said, "it was
nice but it wasn't one of Wynter's kisses. Don't get me
wrong: it wasn't unpleasant, it's just that, well, I mean,
I hope you understand..."
She shook her head. "Hunh uh. I'm not the one who
needs to understand. You do. But you do understand it.
It was like at the birthday kissing contests, see? It was
nice, it was fun, but it wasn't special. You didn't feel
it here." She pushed the tip of a pointing finger over his
heart. "You felt it here," the touched his lips, "and
maybe you felt it there," she waved the finger toward his
thingy, "but you DIDN'T feel it in here like you do with
Wynter. Well, that's the way it is for me with Josh. But
it's not his fault. He's ever so nice to me, the way you
are, but..."
"I understand," he said in a way that told her he was
trying to keep her from needing the words she couldn't
find. "You're right. And you're saying that it's the same
way when you, well, when you, uh, do, uuuh... other things?"
"Hunh uh. Kissing is all we ever did. Oh, I think
he'd have liked it if we'd done more, but while I liked the
idea, I never really wanted it enough to do it. Is that
stupid?" She thought her voice sounded squeaky at the end.
His hug was ever so warm and comforting again. For a
hug from a friend, but she guessed that hugs from friends
should be that way or they wouldn't be special enough to be
friends. "If it's what's right for you, it's never stupid.
It's what's right for me, so I can't say it's stupid if
it's right for you. I'd be a hypocrite, and then I'd lose
Wynter because she hates hypocrites."
"Get real. She might get ever so disappointed, and
she might get real mad for a while, but she wouldn't get
stupid enough to dump you. You won't ever lose her. I
guess she might get Cinnamon to help teach you a lesson,
though, and then you'd wish you'd lost her."
He shrugged and gave her a devilish smile. "As long
as she didn't get you to scream at me."
"Then you'd better not hurt her!" She felt her smile
melt away, and she stared at the floor again. "Like Kenny
did me. Why did he do that?"
She guessed he didn't exactly hug her. It was more
like he just held her in a tighter squeeze, which wasn't
the same thing. _Was it?_ Whatever it was, it felt ever
so warm and nice and helped the pain go away some. "Like I
said before, he doesn't understand, and he thinks YOU'LL
eventually come to HIS senses. Suzie, Uncle Bozo Junior
doesn't have enough blood to run both heads at the same
time. When they're in a contest, his big head always loses
and has to shut down for anoxia. Lack of oxygen. He's
like Charlie. Maybe he's worse than Charlie. All he can
see is what's in front of him at that moment, and the rest
of the world doesn't exist. You can usually get Charlie to
understand about rewards at a later time. Kenny's just...
just..."
"Stupid."
Jimmy laughed. "That's a pretty accurate description."
"Jimmy, will... will Josh hate me if... if I..." She
had to stop to sniff again.
"I've never broken up with someone before, and I don't
think I ever will, but I'm sure I wouldn't hate her
afterward. I think it mostly depends on the way you are,
and from what I know of Josh, I can't ever see him hating
you."
"Do you think he'd still want to be friends?"
He leaned close to her ear and spoke softly. "I think
if he didn't, then he wouldn't be worthy of having you as a
friend."
The meaning of the words grew as she thought about
them. "I think that's one of the nicest things you've ever
said to me."
Mrs. McCauley's voice echoed down from upstairs.
"Jimmy! It's almost time!"
_Uh oh!_ "Jimmy, am I keeping you from going
somewhere?"
"Wynter and I are having dinner at Cinnamon's, and
then Wynter's spending the night afterward. But I don't
have to leave until we're finished. They'll understand.
Heck, if any of them learned that I kicked you out when you
need help, I'd be lucky to share Ghost's dog food."
She smiled. "I love you. OH! I mean... I didn't
mean... It's not like before when... That didn't come out
the way... I meant..."
He pressed a finger to her mouth to stop her. "I
understand. You meant exactly the same thing I mean when I
say I love you, too. Suzie, I love you as one of my best
friends. I love you as one of Wynter's best friends. I
love you as one of Cinnamon's best friends. I love you
despite your questionable interest in Uncle Bozo Junior,
but I certainly love you because of your dedication to him
and the fact that you have a heart big enough to forgive
him."
She relaxed and smiled. "You understand that, too.
Yeah. But I'm not sure I forgive him. I mean... I'm not
sure I wanna take him back. Not yet. I mean, I want to,
but what if he does it again? Maybe Josh and I can become
an item instead of friends if I wait. But maybe..." She
sighed and let her shoulders fall. "I don't know how to
say it."
His ever so handsome grin spread across his face.
"Since you say I'm one of your best friends, maybe you'd
let me help you say it. You're still undecided."
She guessed that was what she was trying to say.
"Yeah. Does that mean I'm stupid or something?"
He laughed, but it was a gentle sound, nothing like
Amber laughing at her. "When it comes to Kenny? Suzie,
I'd say it proves just how smart you truly are."
~ ~ ~
Cinnamon's head tilted to one side and her narrowed
eyes stopped blinking. She twisted onto her hip, pulled
her knees onto the living room couch seat, and braced her
elbow against the back. Two fingers and a thumb supported
her head at her temple while she thought about Jimmy's words.
Cuz said something to her from the dining room, where
she was helping Rosita set the table and bring in dinner.
Cinnamon had been chased out of the dining room by Rosita,
who said that as the hostess, Cinnamon had to entertain her
guests. Wynter had gently reminded Rosita that she was
family and not a guest, which had caused Rosita to point to
Jimmy and say, "He's not family yet. Both of you entertain
the guest."
"Hey!" Hailey said again. "I'm, like, taking drink
orders for dinner here."
Sis came to her rescue with, "The usual for all of
us," freeing Cinnamon to continue her lines of thought
uninterrupted. Then all was quiet while she tested
theories and compared the results.
"Well," she finally concluded, "I'd say Suzie was
right. She hasn't made up her mind yet. Josh might have
to wait until she becomes serious, or he might have to move
along while she decides between Kenny and somebody else."
"But..." Wynter looked at Jimmy and then shrugged.
"But who would she have more in common with than Josh?"
"Honestly, Sis!" Cinnamon's shaking head rocked her
arm. "Just because you and Jimmy have so much in common,
that doesn't mean it's that way for everybody else."
"That's true," Jimmy said with a grin. "Love is very
strange."
Wynter gave him a frown from under her eyebrows. "Are
you saying our relationship is strange?"
Jimmy's shrug almost knocked Sis's head from his
shoulder. "Maybe a little, but nowhere as strange as
theirs."
Wynter, realizing Jimmy meant Cinnamon's and Huntly's,
giggled. "You talk about opposites attracting!"
Cinnamon started to reply, then sat up straight. Her
eyes narrowed as her smile pushed up her round cheeks.
"Daddy's home!"
A second later Ghost rushed out of the room, and
another second later a garage door began rumbling up.
Cinnamon greeted her father with a ferocious hug and a
kiss. Sis gave him a hug almost as big as her own, and
Jimmy got a friendly slap on the back when he shook hands.
After her father had greeted "the domestic help" he
returned to the living room and sat on the couch with one
arm wrapped around his still-grinning daughter. "Am I
interrupting something important?" he asked.
"No, sir," Jimmy said. "As much time as you have to
spend away from your family, you're never an interruption,
and there's nothing more important than time with your
family."
Her father looked at her. "I think I'm going to ask
Keith and Marti if I can adopt him. He'd be a welcome
change."
Cinnamon gave him her most indignant look. "Well,
I'll be... Daddy! I've never said you were an
interruption!"
"I wasn't talking about you." He indicated the
kitchen and dining room with his eyes.
She relaxed and giggled with understanding. "Well,
you know Cuz. She was in make-out mode and just wanted
time alone with him." She glanced at Sis and Jimmy, who
clearly looked like they needed details, if not an
explanation. "Finnegan visited yesterday." That was
detailed explanation enough for those two.
"I see. Speaking of making out," Jimmy said, an evil
grin creeping into place, "how did you make out Tuesday
night with your getaway on the lake?"
The house phone rang. Hailey yelled that she'd get
it, so he answered Jimmy. "It was great! Nobody except
Cinnamon could reach us on the boat, so for a change, there
were no early a.m. wake-up calls. Wynter, I can't thank
you enough for the idea."
Wynter shrugged. "Well, you're feeding me tonight and
letting me stay here with my sisters. And we're going to
deliver another baby soon, so I guess I'm thanked."
His voice turned suspicious, causing Cinnamon to grin
with understanding when he asked, "We're going to deliver
another one soon?"
Sis smiled sweetly. "We aren't? Well, I guess I'll
have to take up one of the offers from Doctor V or Doctor
Malenkov."
He shook a finger in Cinnamon's face. "Young lady,
you've been a bad influence on Wynter. I remember her
before she became manipulative like you."
Jimmy took Wynter's hands in his. The reason became
apparent when he said, "Actually, I think she learned that
dirty trick on her own. Maybe she's the bad influence here."
When Sis couldn't break free of Jimmy's grip, she
frowned at him and said, "Some smarty pants has been
spending too much time with Huntly."
"CUZ!" Hailey yelled. "PHONE!"
Cinnamon shook her head and threw up her hands. "No
matter what I do, I can't teach her to use the intercom,"
she said, then sprang off the couch, grabbed the cordless
extension phone from its charger, and answered it.
By the time she was off the phone the others knew most
of the details from her end of the conversation, so she
summed up the highlights. "LaMarcus and Tyrone will return
on the seventh. That gives us exactly one week to get
ready for them and two weeks after that until the
dedication performances at the concert shell. We'll know
Tuesday if we're playing. Rehearsals start Monday night as
planned."
Her father grabbed her around the waist and kissed her
cheek as she sat down. "I wonder what it's like to be the
father of a pessimist. I guess I'll never know."
~ ~ ~
The evening was ever so pleasant. Suzie was glad that
they'd walked to the Aspenleaf Center theaters rather than
riding their bikes. The traffic dropped off after they
turned west from Ninth Street onto Wheeler Way, just north
of Aspenleaf Circle that surrounded the Center. They
walked with their arms around each other's waists.
Although Josh was an inch taller, their legs were the same
length, and they moved like one person with three legs.
Okay, boys already had three legs, anyway, sort of.
That's what Kenny had always said, and she'd always said
she was surprised that he didn't need a stupid crutch.
Why the heck was she thinking of that dolt when she
was with Josh?
A little puppy came rushing down one yard, yapping
furiously like it was going to eat them or something if
they came any closer to its property. She giggled. It
wasn't much bigger than both her hands. In the glow of a
street lamp its hair reminded her of Amber's. Then she
realized that its yapping did, too. She laughed so hard
she bent over and couldn't stop long enough to explain to
Josh.
An approaching car stopped. "Suzie?"
She waved for her friend to join them because she was
still laughing ever so hard and still couldn't talk.
Jennifer pulled to the curb and turned off the motor,
got out, and said hi to Josh. "What's up?" she asked.
"Beats me," Josh said with a shrug. "Something about
that dog, I guess."
Suzie managed to get control just long enough to point
to the puppy and say, "AMBER!"
Mister O'Guin came out of his house to see why he had
three people leaning on his picket fence and laughing like
they were dismental or something.
~ ~ ~
Wynter was thrilled that it was her turn to sleep in
the middle again. She sighed with deep contentment and
squeezed hands with Sis One and Sis Two, smiling at the
ceiling in the darkened bedroom. Her sisters squeezed
back, then turned their heads and kissed her cheeks.
Dinner with Jimmy at Cinnamon's house. An excellent
dinner, better than you'd get at any Mexican restaurant
anywhere. Playing Monopoly in the gazebo with Doctor Brees
and Mrs. Vasquez and her sisters. And now, getting to
spend the night with her sisters again. It sure didn't get
any better than this.
"I forgot to ask," Cinnamon said. "How did Suzie like
her bikini? You did give it to her yesterday, didn't you?"
"Uh huh." Wynter thought she'd never forget the look
of surprised delight on Suzie's face when she opened the
box. "It sure looked good on her. She kept saying that it
wasn't a special occasion for a present, so I explained
that any time I got to see her was a special occasion as
far as I was concerned. Then I had to explain that it was
okay that she didn't have a present for me because I didn't
give her one expecting anything in return."
"Yeah," Sis One said. "Some people have trouble with
the concept of 'I just wanted to do something nice for a
friend.'"
"Hey, like, tell me about it! There was, like, this
SO totally buff surfer in Waimea that I BJ'ed last year..."
"Cuz, I don't think that's quite the same thing."
"WAY! As I was saying..."
"Cuz, this is about Suzie, not you. So, the bikini
was a hit, Sis?"
Wynter frowned. "Except with her mother, but she
settled down when I said it was a lot like mine. I think
she was worse than Mrs. Erland would be if I gave it to
Alyssa."
Hailey snorted. "Like, I should give Suzie one like
mine."
Cinnamon's voice had an irritated edge as she lifted
her head to look over Wynter. "Cuz! We have enough
problems with her mother."
Cinnamon lowered her head to the pillow and continued.
"When I had a discussion with her about Suzie going on the
boat with us last weekend, I explained to her that Suzie
wasn't Caroline and didn't act like her. I said that if
she insisted on treating her like she was Caroline, she'd
simply guarantee that Suzie would turn out like her sister."
Wynter pursed her lips and pushed them to one side in
thought for a moment. "I don't think Suzie would do that."
"No," Sis agreed, "she wouldn't. But her mom doesn't
realize that. Or that while she might not turn out like
Caroline, it nevertheless could have a significantly
detrimental effect."
Wynter thought that was a good way to phrase it. It
sounded like a good term for some medical situations so she
filed it away for future use. Then she sighed. "That sure
was a good dinner. Those were the best tamales I've ever
eaten."
Both sisters agreed. "Those were some of Rosita's
best family recipes," Cinnamon added. "She's a wizardess
in the kitchen, and Doctor V says that the only one better
than her at making gazpacho was his mother."
Wynter didn't need the light turned on to know the
little redhead was grinning from ear to there with
pleasure. She could hear it in Sis's voice. "Then I'm
even more sorry that I only got to meet her just that one
short time before she died," she said, feeling a little sad
about that.
"Hey! It was SO the surprise Jimmy, like, didn't want
stay after dinner," Hailey said. "Hey, I thought the
pickledick had, like, better manners than to eat and run
with some seriously bogus excuse like that one."
"Oh, he does. He loves Mexican food, but shortly
after he eats he develops..." Wynter halted. This was her
sisters she was talking to. If she couldn't be blunt as
Cinnamon with them, then who could she be blunt with? She
giggled. "He gets a terrible case of the farts. He'd have
gotten them right after he left, probably in less time than
it took him to get home, and he didn't want to explain the
real reason why he had to eat and run."
"Yeah?" Cinnamon chuckled. "It takes Hailey a little
longer before it affects her."
Wynter lifted her head and turned it to look at
Cinnamon. "Are you saying..."
Hailey quickly lifted and dropped one leg, fanning the
sheet and light blanket.
Wynter's nose and eyes burned. She dropped her head
back to the pillow and coughed, then groaned. "I thought
Jimmy was bad, but at least he doesn't ambush me. Kenny's
been a bad influence on you, Sis. Maybe I'll get down on
the floor and sleep with Ghost."
"Don't bother," Cinnamon said. "He's almost as bad as
Hailey."
Copyright Russell Hoisington 2007
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Russ
Russell Hoisington
State of Confusion
Stories archived at
http://www.storiesonline.net
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