by Alyssa Kress
That seemed to make an impression. Some of the panic in his eyes fizzled down. "No, it doesn't belong to anybody else, does it?" Carefully he reached out and Kerrin handed him the envelope. He weighed it in his hand.
"Go ahead," Kerrin said. "Open it."
After a moment's hesitation, he broke the seal of the envelope, doing it quickly, as though afraid he might lose his nerve. He drew the green check from inside and scanned its typed surface. He smiled then, slanting a glance down at Kerrin.
"I think crime pays better."
Kerrin bit her tongue. "Sure it does." She coughed. "But the benefits aren't as good."
He gave a bark of laughter and, still smiling, dropped to a seat on the bed next to her. The mattress sagged noticeably under his weight. Kerrin could feel the heat of him and her skin prickled with his nearness. Gary, on the other hand, was busy gazing with fascination at his check.
"To tell you the truth," he confessed, waving the check a little in the air, "I'm kind of amazed anyone would think what I do in that classroom is worth paying for."
"Why not? You're doing a great job."
Gary brushed this aside. "Hell, it's easy."
"That's what you think. Some people take years of experience and education to get to the point you're at."
"No kidding?" Gary was plainly shocked. "What's wrong with them?"
"What's wrong with them?" Kerrin stared at him. Did he seriously not know? "It's not a question of what's wrong with them. It's more a question of what's right with you."
He shot her a sharply disbelieving scowl.
"Gary, you're a natural teacher. I don't know how that is, considering how little experience you had as a student. But that's only half of it. Maybe nobody's ever told you this ‑‑ " Come to think of it, Kerrin was almost positive no one ever had. " ‑‑ But you happen to be brilliant."
His brown-red eyes seemed to bore into her. No. No one ever had told him that, obvious as it was. Kerrin thought about all the books Gary had taken from her library on his first night in Freedom ‑‑ and apparently absorbed. She thought about his immediate assessment of Elaine Gerard's home situation. Someone ought to tell him being able to do those things was not usual. Someone ought to tell him soon. Like, immediately. Which meant that someone was going to have to be her.
Standing up, she took a deep breath. "You are brilliant, Gary. IQ in the clouds. In fact ‑‑ " She took a pace away from him and made herself go on. " ‑‑ in fact, you're about the sharpest guy I've ever met."
Unable to look at him, she gave an intent examination instead to a framed photograph of three fluffy kittens on her wall.
A crackling silence stretched between them. She shouldn't have said that last part. It was confessing too much. Every muscle in her back tensed in self protection. She could only pray he wouldn't figure out this endowment in the area of his brain added another layer to the powerful physical pull of him.
Gary cleared his throat. "At the risk of destroying your extremely flattering perception, I have to ask you something."
Kerrin didn't turn around. "What's that?"
"How do you put a check in the bank?"
~~~
Dinner wasn't that bad. Matt figured his mother must have made most of it after all. There was a basket of biscuits, however, that was another matter, and some kind of barley that had been overcooked into an oatmeal-textured mush. But all in all he thought Gary could get through the meal creditably.
"I'm interested in how you became a health education teacher," Matt's mother asked Gary just as he reached for the biscuits.
Matt made a warning face. He waved a hand in a negative gesture low down over his plate, but Gary paid no heed. He blithely took one of those lead plate biscuits and brought it to harbor on his plate.
"It's particularly intriguing," Matt's mother went on in her bright, birdlike way, "considering you've spent so much time in the field of manual labor."
There was a tiny, almost invisible check in Gary's movement as he sliced a sliver off the bar of butter. Perhaps he'd belatedly noted the solid weight of the biscuit he'd so foolishly taken. "Yes, you figured right." He spoke in a low voice. "Teaching is a new line of work for me."
"Maybe new," Kerrin broke in hastily, "but he's catching on very fast. Isn't that right, Matt?"
Thus appealed to, Matt tried to drag his eyes from Gary, upon whom a frown had developed as he attempted to cut open his biscuit. The dull knife was next to useless against the toughened dough.
"Uh, right, Kerrin. No one would guess Gary hadn't taught a class before."
Realizing he'd reached a dead end with the table knife, Gary retired it to the table and began eyeing the sharper steak knife by its side. Matt sincerely doubted that instrument would prove any more effective.
"But the transition," Matt's mom insisted. "Why make the change?"
Matt had been right. The steak knife was no better at all. Gary stared down at the intransigent biscuit, utterly chagrined. Kerrin, seated next to Gary, looked ready to cry.
At this delicate point, Tom Horton stepped in. "The reason Allyce is so intrigued with the question," he smoothly informed Gary, "is because she and I went through a similar transition ‑‑ changing careers, that is." From the other end of the butcher block dining room table, he gave his wife an indulgent smile.
"Oh, pooh," Allyce Horton said. "Mr. Sullivan isn't interested in something you did forty years ago. I'd much rather hear about what made him turn a new direction." She turned her avid green eyes on Matt's teacher. "Do tell us, Mr. Sullivan."
Gary just sat there, frowning at Matt's mother and unable to say a word. Probably still cogitating the biscuit problem. Something like that could take all of a man's attention.
Matt's father cut off any possible reply Gary might have made. "I'm sure Mr. Sullivan had very good reasons for whatever he chose to do with his life," he said in a firm tone. It was the tone Tom Horton used when he'd finally decided to pull the reins on his less diplomatic wife.
Tom smiled benignly at Gary, but Gary, Matt noticed, did not smile back, benignly or otherwise. Instead his dark eyes narrowed on the older man's face.
"Some of us would rather move forward with our lives," Tom went on, in a mild tone, "and forget about the past."
Gary leaned back in his seat. One hand reached out to idly handle his fork. But the play of his eyes over Tom Horton's face was anything but idle. It was as though he were trying to divine something hidden and important there. "You may be able to forget about the past," he now told Matt's father. "But the past doesn't always forget about you."
Tom nodded. "True. But in the end, we make of ourselves what we want to. And we can start over at any moment."
Gary visibly tensed. "And what do you want to be ‑‑ at this moment?"
Matt's father gave him a broad smile. "Harmless."
That seemed to stop Gary in his tracks. Matt could understand his confusion. Tom Horton didn't appear to be a particularly dangerous character. "Not a bad ambition," Gary pronounced carefully.
"I agree."
Gary looked at Tom a moment longer and then seemed to relax. He went so far as to return his attention to the biscuit on his plate. He picked it up in his hand, as though he actually intended to bite into it, trusting his teeth where sharpened stainless steel had failed.
"Perhaps I should explain what sort of work I was doing forty years ago," Tom Horton went on, gazing with the same fascination as his son when Gary took an experimental nip at the biscuit.
Gary frowned at the biscuit, which remained unscathed from his attempt at penetration. Then he switched his gaze to Tom. "What sort of work?"
"Nuclear physics. Not to waste your time with false modesty, I was considered something of a genius. At a very young age, I was picked up by the government's atomic research branch." Tom paused, in apparent amazement.
Matt was just as amazed. Gary had actually managed to bite a chunk off the biscuit. He chewed it triumphantly.
Raisi
ng an eyebrow, Tom went on. "To work on the H bomb."
A violent cough attacked Gary. Matt had just known any attempt to eat that biscuit was going to end in disaster. Kerrin, her brow furrowed with concern, tapped him on the back.
"Are you all right, dear?" Allyce got into the act, pouring some wine into his glass. "Here, have something to drink."
Gary took hold of his wineglass and dutifully swallowed a mouthful. Meanwhile Kerrin had the foresight to whisk that ill-begotten biscuit off his plate to somewhere safe in her lap. Gary turned and shot her a look of pure gratitude.
Matt dropped his eyes to his plate and didn't even try to hide a broad smile. Those two were going to be all right. He hadn't been so sure the other day, when Kerrin had picked him up after fishing. She'd seemed awfully upset as she'd rejoined Matt at her car. Matt had had to gently point out to her that she'd turned south onto the main highway instead of north. The state she'd been in, they could have ended up in Palmdale before she'd figured it out.
"Ahem, so you worked on the bomb." Gary, still a bit hoarse, got back to the previous topic.
"It was exciting work," Tom admitted. "Intellectually stimulating. Until the first time I went to one of the test sites and actually saw one go off."
Gary was watching Tom with undisguised fascination. "An H bomb. That must have been one powerful mother."
Tom's lips twitched. "That's one way of putting it. It was rather awesome seeing so much energy expended in one gigantic burst. Awesome and also frightening. It got even more frightening when we watched a film of ground zero." Tom's eyes lifted and focused on a point far away. "It showed a blackened, desolate wasteland. Not a stick or a branch or a shred of evidence that anything had once been standing there. After watching that film, I packed the things in my desk and never returned."
Allyce made a tsking noise with her tongue. "The AEC gave him so much trouble after that. The FBI, too. For years."
"Security," Tom clarified. "I knew too much."
"They claimed it was for his own protection," Allyce sniffed.
"I was trying to teach at UCLA, but the unwanted supervision got to be too onerous. So we took Allyce's little nest egg and settled far away from it all, here in the Owens Valley."
"And haven't regretted it for one minute," Allyce added with a smile toward her husband.
"Allyce and I have a long-term project which keeps us busy," Tom explained to Gary.
Matt suppressed a groan. He'd known this moment was inevitable. It was only a matter of time before a person discovered that Tom and Allyce Horton were lunatics.
Gary raised an eyebrow. "A harmless one?"
Tom gave him a mysterious smile. "Oh, probably." He shot a wink at Matt. "We'll show you after dinner."
~~~
Kerrin climbed the hill in the dark. The path that wound between the lowlying brush was lit by little Japanese foot lanterns. More illumination was provided by the floods her father had turned on over the array. Kerrin could see the leaves of copper gleaming under the high-voltage lights. For as long as she could remember Kerrin had grown up with the belief that anything was possible, even contact with beings light years distant.
She doubted if Gary held any similar kind of belief. In fact, she wondered if he believed in anything at all.
Kerrin stopped for a breather and turned to look down the hill toward town. There, just beyond the last buildings on Main Street she could see the other brightly lighted structure of the area, the DWP facility. Her brow furrowed. Sight of the place reminded her of a growing host of questions.
Gary never mentioned what, if any, problems he'd found in the security. Meanwhile such problems were all that Marty, when he called, wanted to hear about. Kerrin had the distinct impression of being caught in the middle of a delicate game of cat and mouse.
And then there was her father's part in all of this. He'd yet to tell her how he'd discovered the DWP's plan to use a felon. So far as she knew, he had no special friends in the Department.
Kerrin arrived at the work shed to find her father alone inside. "Come on in," he told Kerrin. He stood at the workbench, peering through his bifocals at a delicate connection he was soldering. "Matt's out showing Gary around."
Kerrin entered the shed with trepidation. Was her father in one of his vague moods, or one of his incisive ones? One never knew and it could make all the difference in how one emerged from a discussion: merely frustrated or sliced up the center.
"It's a nice clear night," Kerrin offered. "When do you think you'll get the array back on line?"
"Oh, it's operating," Tom assured her. "This little baby I'm working on is just a new improvement. Something to clarify the reception." He held the half-formed connection up to the light and squinted at it. "He's the one, Kerrin, isn't he?"
Kerrin nearly fell off the stool upon which she'd perched. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the edge of it. Oh, he means Gary is the convict, the one the DWP hired, you idiot. Not the other. "Yes, Dad, he's the one. I thought you'd figured that out ‑‑ Anyway, it's not turning out as bad as I thought it would."
Tom smiled faintly as he bent over the soldering iron again. "I had a feeling if you just relaxed everything would be fine."
"Yes, well. I could hardly guess Gary would turn out to be so..." Her voice trailed off as she wondered how to finish the sentence. So protective? So responsible? So honorable, intelligent, and caring? And ‑‑ an arch little voice inside added ‑‑ so attractive?
Tom shrugged. "These matters rarely happen quite the way we imagine."
These matters? Wait a minute. She and her father were now talking about two wildly distinct things. "Uh, Dad, when you asked...I didn't mean...That is, Gary isn't the one. The man."
"The man you're going to marry, make a home with and raise children together." Tom nodded contentedly as he continued to fiddle with the wires.
"Just so," Kerrin agreed. "Gary isn't the one. I ‑‑ I thought you meant was he the convict, the one the DWP hired. Yes, he is that one."
"Indeed," Tom drawled lazily. "That's what I said."
Vague, Kerrin decided, sighing as she watched her father exchange the soldering iron for a pliers. Her father was definitely deep in the vague state. Then a shiver ran up her spine, a particular shiver she'd discovered meant only one thing.
She turned to find Gary leaning in the open doorway. His arms were crossed over his chest.
Tom looked up and gazed at Gary over his bifocals. His expression brightened. "Ah. Did Matt finish showing you around?"
A half smile curved Gary's mouth. "He would have taken longer about it, but I reminded him he had class work due tomorrow, so he went back to the house to take care of the matter."
Tom straightened from the task upon which he'd been so engrossed that he'd completely misunderstood Kerrin. He took off his glasses. "So, tell me. What do you think?"
Kerrin held her breath. Gary, she remembered, didn't pull punches. She imagined that on a scale of one to ten regarding credulity, Gary would come down a solid negative one.
"I have a couple questions." Gary uncrossed his arms and stepped into the room.
Tom rested his elbows on the tall table. "Shoot."
Gary gestured toward the door, in the direction of the copper array. "Do you seriously believe you're going to hear anything, from out there?"
Tom Horton rubbed a hand across his jaw as Kerrin silently wilted. "Haven't the vaguest idea," he surprised his daughter by admitting. He gave Gary a broad and impish grin. "But it's sure worth giving it a whirl, don't you think?"
Obviously flabbergasted, Gary regarded Kerrin's father as though he, himself, came from another planet.
"Now, why don't you two get on out of here," Tom went on. "This connection's a bit tricky. Need to concentrate, you know. Catch you later, Gary."
"Sure," Gary murmured. "Later." With one arm he absent-mindedly scooped Kerrin off her stool.
As they went out the door, Tom looked up briefly from his work. "Oh, and Kerri
n," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Interesting choice."
Kerrin frowned, but didn't have time to study her father's face to figure out whether he was still in the vague or had moved into the incisive state. Gary's arm was firm against her back as he led her out into the floodlit night. So firm that she didn't even experience her usual nerves from a man's touch.
They'd gotten to the center of the array when the lights suddenly sighed off. Gary's arm tightened reflexively around Kerrin's waist in response.
"They interfere with the reception," Kerrin explained. "Dad figured since you've seen everything we didn't need them anymore." Her calm explanation sounded a little breathless, however, with Gary's arm bringing her so close against his hard body.
He kept her close to him as he squinted up at the stars. "You really believe this stuff? I mean, I know he's your father, but you're an intelligent woman." In the starshine Kerrin could see Gary's mouth stretch in a faint smile. "At least as intelligent as myself, anyway."
"At the risk of overturning such a flattering assessment," Kerrin teased, "I'd have to say yes ‑‑ a qualified yes. I think that anything is possible."
"Anything," Gary repeated softly, looking down at her.
His eyes were dark pools in the night. God, he felt warm and solid and...good. So good that she wasn't even shaking. In fact, she liked being right where she was, liked it a whole lot.
"Hell, I must be hanging around you too much, Kerrie."
"Why is that?"
"Because..."
The wind soughed gently through the mesquite and the copper leaves surrounding them danced softly in unison. A million stars spread across the velvet sky. All of it seemed to make perfect sense to Kerrin, as though Nature were speaking right to her. She felt a viable part of the whole as Gary drew her even closer and lowered his mouth over hers.
He moved his mouth over her lips in that way he had and all the magic of their first time fell over her again. Oh, this was too good to waste energy panicking, even when he did something practiced and masculine to coax her lips apart. Kerrin had never had a man's tongue in her mouth. Gary's was rough, demanding, and extraordinarily exciting. Her fingers dug into the hard muscle of his shoulders.
