Dance of the Rogue

by Cris Anson

  Such as the time she and a snake scared each other as she searched for a good vantage point to photograph one of the icons in Arches National Park. Luckily she’d been wearing high-top leather boots and jeans and the snake apparently had recently had a meal and they parted friends.

  Or the time she’d gotten a flat tire a few miles from her campsite in Big Bend National Park and no one had passed by until she was retightening the lug nuts and it was almost dark.

  Their meals were served and eaten, water glasses refilled, dessert ordered and demolished, and still they talked. Or rather, she talked. Don seemed fascinated by her stories. Fantine felt like Scheherazade, telling the Caliph a story every night so he would be too intrigued to behead her the next morning.

  Finally the waiter cleared his throat, slipped the leather wallet on the table and took their empty plates. Without fanfare, she glanced at the bill, calculated the tip, tucked several twenties inside then stood.

  Reaching for her hand, Don drew her near and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  “Thank you too.”

  On the drive back, Fantine wrestled with whether she should invite him in again. All her sexual parts were sore. She’d been loved like never before, but she considered him, to use his own word, “addictive”, and she knew she’d probably take more if he had it to give.

  The Mustang’s headlights illuminated the RV as he pulled into her campsite. Don jumped out and rounded the hood to open her door. She let him. He swung her around and trapped her between the car and his warm, masculine body, dropping light kisses on her face. “Nightcap?”

  She took his face in her hands, relishing the feel of his sprouting beard against the softness of her palms, and leaned into him, touching his lips with hers, gently brushing, feeling a bittersweet pain somewhere behind her breastbone.

  “I don’t think so. You’ve swept me off my feet. I need to put my head back on straight and start breathing again.”

  He circled her shoulders with his strong arms, kissed her throat, her ear. “I want to see you again. How can I reach you?”

  Pushing slightly away from him, she delved into her handbag. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you again. Here’s my business card. My office number is live all summer, and I check my messages every day, even though I’m technically on vacation.”

  “What about a cell phone? Everybody has one of those.”

  “Mine isn’t working right now, but it’s okay, I won’t be far from civilization.” And if he called her cell, she’d probably be too eager to respond. No, he didn’t need her cell phone number.

  With no little regret, she separated herself from his warmth until there was physical space between them. Emotionally, the space wasn’t big enough yet. “If you do call, I’ll get back to you.”

  Don looked at her for a long time, as if memorizing her. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She laughed. “I still have things to do. I won’t get back to you for a few days.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Feigning a sprightliness she didn’t feel, she said, “Good night. Thank you for…for everything.” She turned to unlock the door and walked up the steps, closing the door behind her and leaving a bit of her heart outside with Don.

  * * * * *

  “She’s supposed to come at eleven o’clock. But I don’t like it, Magnus. Why would that woman be looking up Thorvalds from thirty years ago?”

  Soren took a long sip of coffee from his mug. He sat at the kitchen table of his apartment above Thor’s Hammer with his older brother, finally trying to come to grips with a subject that had haunted them both.

  “I think,” Magnus responded slowly, “the more important question is, do we want to protect Rolf from what she might find?”

  “What if we tell him what we suspect and it turns out we’re wrong? That could destroy him.”

  “On the other hand, wouldn’t he feel betrayed if we’re right and he finds out we deliberately kept the truth from him?”

  Soren huffed out a frustrated breath. “Do you honestly think Rolf has never looked in the mirror and wondered if Dad was really his father? I mean, you and I look like our parents. Blond hair, blue eyes, fair complexion. Scandinavian Vikings. Then there’s Rolf. Black hair, brown eyes, olive skin. If Fantine is coming at it from the…okay, the sperm donor’s side, that might mean he has other family. Yeah, he’s our brother in every way that counts, but if he has a different father…”

  “I still don’t understand why Mom left in the first place.” Magnus sipped his coffee then set down the mug with a thump. “Or, if she and Dad were so estranged, why she didn’t at least take Rolf with her. I mean, he was just two years old when she disappeared! I sure don’t remember her being a neglectful kind of mother. And do we tell Rolf what we just found out about her?”

  “We have to keep sight of the immediate problem. What if this woman says she knows who Rolf’s father is? You have Crystal, I have Kat. Who’s going to anchor Rolf when his world explodes around him?”

  “Hell, I don’t know what to—”

  The banging on the apartment door interrupted his speech.

  “Soren? Open up. I need to talk to you.”

  The two blond brothers looked at each other. Rolf. What was he doing up so early? What was he doing here?

  * * * * *

  “Magnus. What are you doing here?”

  “And good morning to you too, Bro.”

  Rolf’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t need Magnus here, he wanted to discuss this only with Soren, since they’d both talked to Fantine at Thor’s Hammer. He’d spent all night thinking about her, about himself, about what she said. She’d so tied him up in knots that he forgot to wheedle out of her just what the hell she wanted from Soren. Then he’d walked into Soren’s apartment and the two of them had looked too solemn, as if Rolf had interrupted something earth-shattering.

  Well, their problem could wait. He felt awkward enough asking both big brothers for sex advice. If he chickened out now, he’d probably never go through with it. His gaze jumped from one brother to the other. Then zeroed in on Soren.

  “I wanted to ask you about Fantine. About something she said.”

  Soren grew still. “What about her?”

  “For the record, she’s a nice lady. And fun. And happy.”

  “You decided all that from one short talk in a noisy bar?”

  “Well, no. I followed her when she left.” Annoyed by the cryptic glances his two brothers exchanged, Rolf added, “You know what she did before she came into the bar? She was dancing in the parking lot. Splashing around barefoot in rain puddles, looked like she was enjoying herself. I saw her from the employees’ entrance.”

  “And?”

  “I was intrigued. I wanted to see more of that joyous way she had of looking at things. But that’s getting off the subject.”

  “Which is?”

  “When I started chatting her up at the bar, you remember she said something about eating little boys for breakfast and spitting out the bones?”

  Magnus snorted then wiped the smile off his face at Rolf’s glare.

  “Well, we got to talking outside. I was trying to convince her I was old enough for her. She’s ten years older but very ripe and luscious. You know what I mean, you saw her. And what she said, outside, after we talked more. I need to know what she meant.”

  “What did she say?”

  He ran both hands through his hair, furrowing it into an unruly mess. “Shit. You guys’ll make fun of me.”

  “Why don’t you sit down, Rolf.”

  After a moment of indecision, he sat.

  “We won’t laugh if it’s serious,” Magnus said. “You know that, li’l brother.”

  Rolf took a deep breath. “Okay. She said my experience was all cock and no life.”

  “And that bothers you because it’s the truth?”

  Rolf shot out of the chair and bolted for the door. “See? I told you you’d make fun of me.”

  Standin
g up just as quickly, Magnus snaked a hand on his arm. “Sit down.”

  The tension between them was palpable. Magnus, a few inches taller, many muscles heavier, out-stared him. “C’mon, kid. Let’s figure this out.”

  Emotion tightened Rolf’s chest until it hurt to breathe. His eyes flicked between his two brothers. “Hell, you guys had no life, either, until Kat and Crystal walked into them. So don’t be so smug that you’re all set and I’m not.”

  Soren interrupted. “But we never gave our dicks the kind of workout you do. And we did have lives before we had a special woman in them. Sure, we didn’t date a lot, but Magnus had his wood carving and I had my bar. What do you have? An occasional gig where you strut around in a G-string for a bunch of sex-starved artistes. A rented hole in the wall for an apartment. You can’t even say you have a regular job because you only go to the union hall when you need rent money. She’s just an astute judge of character.”

  “You shit-for-brother! You don’t know anything! You don’t know why I—” He clammed up, but couldn’t help thinking that was more than he’d heard from Soren in one breath than ever before in his life.

  “Okay,” Magnus chimed in. “Let’s deal with this like rational adults. Here’s the rules. Let’s all sit down and lay our cards on the table. No bullshit. Tell it like it is, straight and honest. No finger-pointing. No name-calling.”

  After they had settled into whatever chair was closest, Magnus looked Rolf in the eye. “What don’t we know?”

  A long silence ensued. Rolf chewed on the inside of his cheek. Finally he answered. “Why I have to chase everything with a pussy.”

  Both brothers nodded, apparently agreeing with his self-analysis. Taking the lead, Soren said, “That’s a good start. Why do you?”

  Rolf’s gaze flicked to the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but into the eyes of the two people who meant the most to him. “I think I’m looking for something.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then how will you know if you’ve found it?”

  “I will know. I’ll just—” Rolf bounced up, started pacing, running his fingers through his hair again. “I don’t know.”

  Cautiously, Magnus asked, “You looking for a certain kind of woman?”

  That puzzled Rolf for a moment. “Maybe. Yeah. I guess so.”

  “Okay, let’s narrow it down. Are there some women that you’ve decided you don’t want?”

  A noise between a sigh and a snort escaped before Rolf could catch it. “Hell yeah. I don’t want anyone who’ll just fall into bed with me without even knowing my name.”

  “But isn’t that your usual modus operandi?”

  Rolf glared at Magnus. “I realized it bothers me, okay?”

  Magnus glanced at Soren then back to Rolf. “Is that what happened? This Fantine woman jumped into your bed without knowing your name?”

  “Technically, it was her bed. She was driving an RV, and I followed her to the campground.”

  “What?” Soren sat on the edge of his chair, gripping the armrests tightly. “You mean you’ve already screwed Fantine Mercier? Of all the stupid—”

  “Soren.” Magnus’ voice was low but carried a warning that Rolf couldn’t decipher.

  If looks could kill, Soren would be bleeding right now and Rolf would be happy to make the blood dribble all the way down to his toes. “Yeah,” he told Magnus as he sat back down, “she didn’t know my name. This dumb shit,” he gestured in Soren’s direction, “he started calling me ‘Don’ in front of her. Trying to warn me off. So I played along with it. You know, suggesting I was like Don Joe Vonny or something.”

  “Don Giovanni. A version of Don Juan. That’s not pertinent to this discussion.”

  “But it is. She kept calling me Don when we…when we…”

  “Why didn’t you correct her?”

  Rolf felt the backs of his eyes sting. “Because it didn’t bother me until after, when we were in the warm fuzzies. I didn’t want her to get mad and kick me out before we, um, had a few more rounds. Then it got to be too late to change it.”

  “Why did you take her to bed in the first place? Why did you take any of them to bed if being anonymous bothers you? And don’t say because she was there.”

  Another long pause. “Because…because…”

  “Because you’re punishing them?”

  “No. Yeah. I don’t know.”

  “I’m no psychologist, but are you maybe punishing yourself?”

  “For what?”

  “For being born? For Mom leaving us? Maybe thinking it was your fault she left?”

  Rolf gave Magnus a lethal look. “Ouch, man, that came out of left field. How could it be my fault? I was two years old, for God’s sake! What could I have done to her?”

  “Take it easy. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just throwing out questions and ideas to help you find some answers.”

  Soren said, “Hell, for the longest time I thought it was my fault that Mom left. I heard her and Dad arguing really loud in the kitchen. Scared me shitless. I was nine years old and wondered if it was something I’d done.”

  Magnus glanced at his watch. “Look, Rolf, there’s something you should know about this Fantine. Out of all the gin joints in the world, she didn’t just happen to walk into Thor’s Hammer. She was doing research on Thorvalds. You’re saying she didn’t know your name, right? Neither first nor last. Just as ‘Don’. So she didn’t connect you with Soren and me.”

  The somber tone of Magnus’ voice alerted Rolf that something was wrong. “And?”

  “Kat and I have been searching on the Internet for information about Mom. How do you feel about that?”

  “Sucker-punched.” Rolf bit his inner cheek again as he threw himself back in the chair. Soon, he thought, he’d be tasting blood. “I don’t know. I just—slammed the door on her. Never let myself think about it. She’s gone, she might as well be dead. Maybe she is dead, and we’re all better off without her.”

  “We don’t know who this Fantine is looking for, or why, but we thought you should know the latest. Right before we got married, Kat asked a friend who’s a private investigator to do some snooping. The guy called her last night. Said he found an Alana Thorvald who married a James Kronk in Anchorage, Alaska in 1997. Kronk died in November 1999. Washed overboard hauling in a net of halibut. There’s very little information on the Internet about Alana Kronk. No credit card, no driver’s license, no bank accounts. He’s still digging.”

  “We have to decide how much, if anything, to tell this Fantine,” Soren added.

  “What’s to tell?” Rolf asked bitterly. “She lit out for parts unknown and left three kids without a mother.”

  “Left a husband too,” Magnus observed.

  “Not that Dad wore a halo.” This from Soren.

  Magnus said, “At least she waited until he was dead before she remarried.”

  “Of course they could have lived together in the meantime.”

  “So what?” Rolf retorted. “Who cares? She’s out of our lives and that’s where she should stay.”

  “Soren and I feel differently,” Magnus said. “Maybe there were extenuating circumstances that we don’t know about. I saw Dad smack her around a number of times. Maybe he creamed her once too often and she decided to escape until she could get, I don’t know, a restraining order, a divorce, custody—some sound reason to come back and get us.”

  “Yeah, you two go ahead and believe that. So why didn’t she, huh? Couldn’t find a judge in twenty-five years?” Rolf ground his back teeth together. “At any rate, both of you had at least a few years of being a family. I was, what? four? five? when Dad died, but I can’t ever remember him talking to me other than to yell at me for something. All I knew was Grandpa and Grandma Thorvald. Not that they were ever soft and cuddly.”

  Rolf cut his gaze from his older brother to look at a blank wall. Raking it all up again was too painful. He swallowed hard.
“Anyway, it’s water under the bridge. You guys do what you want, but count me out. I didn’t come here to talk about Mom.”

  “It might not be that simple.”

  “Forget it. I don’t want to know.” He stood up to go. He didn’t like the answers he’d gotten with his own problem, but at least they were honestly concerned about him.

  “Rolf, there’s one thing you really do have to know—”

  A peremptory knock turned the two older brothers into statues. It sounded to Rolf like Soren whispered, “She’s early,” but it was so low he might have misheard.

  No one moved to open the door, not even after another knock.

  Then someone opened it from outside the living room.

  “I heard voices, but no one answered my knock.” The woman they had all been worried about strode into the living room and locked her gaze on Rolf. “Don. What are you doing here?”

  Chapter Seven

  Fantine scrutinized Soren Thorvald and the other blond man. He had to be Magnus. They were like peas in a pod, she thought. Her sharp gaze narrowed as she turned her stare to the third man. Don. The man who had occupied her thoughts all night and into the morning, wishing she hadn’t sent him away. The man who, even now, quickened her pulse just from his nearness.

  Approaching the one who must be the sculptor, she said, “You’re Magnus, the oldest, right? Did Soren call you after I approached him? To decide how to head me off? I must be pretty close.”

  “What are you talking about?” The man she’d just spent thirty-one consecutive hours with moved from his position in the center of the living room and came to stand next to her. “Why are you here, Fantine? Are you a lawyer? A bill collector? Are you trying to harass Soren?”

  “You know what I do. I gave you my card, which states my position at the college. I should ask you what you are doing here. Why you followed me to the campground. Did you try to seduce me from my purpose?”