Just a Kiss Away

by Jill Barnett

  “What’re you doing?” Lollie leaned over his shoulder.

  “Heating the rocks to cook the potatoes.”

  “Oh.” She straightened, watching him stack the flat rocks on the fire. She leaned closer to get a better look, and he suddenly stopped, slowly turning to look up at her. She was so close to his head that their noses almost hit when he turned.

  She smiled. “Hi.”

  He looked away and rubbed his frowning forehead for a minute as if trying to think of something.

  “Did you forget how to do it?” she asked, wondering why he’d stopped.

  “No.” His shoulders stiffened for a moment, and she thought she might have heard him counting under his breath, but before she could comment, he’d taken his knife out of his belt and handed it to her. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Surely.” She smiled, happy to help him.

  “Take this knife and go over there . . . way over there.” He pointed toward the small pile of branches he’d gathered earlier.

  She looked to where he pointed.

  “And cut some of those leafy branches off the wood,” he instructed. “If they’re left on they’ll smoke too much when we burn them.”

  “Okay.” Off she went to the pile of wood. She lifted a branch and sawed the twigs off, one after another. Before too long she had a whole stack of leafy branches, and all of the firewood was leaf-free except a couple of large branches. She could hear Sam at work near the fire, could hear the clunks as he stacked rocks.

  She frowned at her hands, all sticky with sap and pitch. She tried to wipe them on her pants, but the stuff just smeared, making her hands even stickier. Even the knife handle had some of the sap on it. Over her shoulder, she gave Sam a guilty glance. It was his knife, after all. But she was just doing her job, so what harm was a little sap? She figured it would come off, somehow. Whistling “Dixie,” she picked up the next hunk of wood, a fairly heavy one, and tried to hack off the leafier branches. No luck.

  The sap got stickier with the warmth and dampness of her sweaty palm. She wiped her hand on her pants and tried again but couldn’t seem to get it right. Finally she pinned the wood between her bent knees, held the knife in both hands, and whacked at the branch.

  It worked. She turned the wood and did it again, and the small leafy branch cracked and fell to the cave floor. She finished that piece and picked up the last one, pinning it between her knees, too. After all, why mess with a successful method?

  She raised the knife high and hacked downward. She missed and cut a chunk out of the base of the branch. If at first you don’t succeed . . . She raised the knife high. It flew right out of her hands.

  Oh, darn! She turned to look for the knife.

  It was in Sam’s right shoulder.

  Shocked, she stared at him standing less than ten feet away and staring down at the knife protruding from his bleeding shoulder.

  “Any bastard stupid enough to give Lollie LaRue a knife deserves to get stabbed,” he muttered and slumped to the floor.

  “Sam!” She ran to him. “I’m so sorry! So sorry!” She knelt beside him, patting his cheek. “Please, Sam, wake up, please.”

  She scrambled around and lifted his head into her lap. “Sam? Sam?” She looked at his pale, dry lips, looked at the knife stuck in his bloody shoulder, and started to cry. She had to do something. She tried patting his cheeks again, only harder, then thought of what he would do in this situation. She slapped his cheek lightly. “Wake up, Sam!”

  Nothing.

  “Sam? Sam?” She popped his cheek again. “Wake up, you damned Yankee!”

  He stared up at her.

  “Sam! Oh, I’m so sorry and so glad you’re awake. What can I do?”

  “Pull it out.” His voice was raspier than normal. “The knife?” she whispered, horrified.

  He took a shallow breath. “No, all my teeth.” He closed his eye. “Of course I mean the knife.”

  “Now?”

  “Before next year would be nice.”

  “All right, all right.” She grabbed the handle. “How do I pull it out?”

  “With your hands.”

  “No, I meant is there anything special I should do?”

  “Don’t think, whatever you do. I doubt I could take that.”

  She grabbed the knife, squeezed her eyes shut, and pulled out the knife.

  “You can open your eyes now.”

  She did. Bright blood seeped through the cut in his shirt. Her stomach lurched. Her eyelids grew heavy.

  “Don’t you faint, dammit.”

  Her eyes shot open at the sound of his voice. “I won’t.”

  “Get me the whiskey.”

  “I don’t think you should drink right now, Sam.”

  “Get the goddamn whiskey. Now!”

  “Okay, okay.” She gently laid his head down, then scrambled over, grabbed the bottle, and hurried back to his side.

  “Give me a drink.”

  She pulled out the cork and lifted the bottle to his lips. He took a few gulps.

  “Now pour some on the wound.”

  She frowned at him.

  “Just do it.”

  She did, and it was all she could do not to drop the bottle when he sucked in a pain-whistled breath. She sat there helplessly watching him take slow, deep breaths.

  Then he opened his eye and looked at her. “Lift me up a little.”

  She raised him up.

  “More,” he rasped. “So I can see the wound.” She shifted so her body held him up.

  “Pull the shirt aside.”

  She did as he asked.

  He looked down and said, “Okay, put me back down.” She did.

  “Give me some more to drink.”

  She lifted the bottle, and he chugged down some more whiskey.

  “That’s better. Get some kind of cloth to press against the wound to slow the bleeding.”

  Slowly she lifted his head off her lap and gently settled him back on the floor. She rushed over to the blanket, grabbed it, and hurried back. She knelt next to him and pressed a corner of the blanket against his wound. She started crying again.

  “Would you stop crying all over me? You’re getting me wet.” He opened his sleepy eye and gave her a long look, then a bit of a smile. “Don’t worry, Lollipop. I’ve had worse.”

  “But I didn’t mean to do it,” she whispered.

  “I know. I’m going to sleep now. You press that against it and it’ll stop bleeding soon. It should have some stitches, but . . .” His voice tapered off.

  She held her breath and watched him for a minute. He was breathing. She breathed a relieved breath and kept the blanket against his shoulder as his words echoed in her mind. Stitches . . . stitches . . .

  Should she? She lifted the blanket and looked at the wound. The bleeding had slowed and was barely a trickle of red now, but her guilt was flowing full stream. She eased up and went over to her small satchel and pulled out her comb and soap, then felt around until she found the small tin box Sam had given her when she ruined the laundry.

  There were plenty of needles inside and one spool of thread left. She snapped the lid closed, set the satchel aside, and returned to Sam’s side. She took a deep breath and stared at the wound. She threaded a needle and then sat there looking from it, to him, trying to muster some nerve.

  After five soul-searching minutes she touched his face softly. “Sam?”

  A small groan escaped his lips.

  “Sam? I’ve got a needle and thread here. I can stitch you up.” She patted his cheek again. “Did you hear me? I can sew you up.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, never opening his eye.

  Well, I guess that means it’s okay, she reasoned.

  She patted the wound again, took a deep breath, and lowered the needle to the slit in his skin. She pinched the skin together. He didn’t make a sound. Very carefully, she slid the needle in and out, wincing and grimacing with each stitch. He moaned once, and her stomach roiled a bit. She too
k a deep breath, then finally told herself to pretend she was in the embroidery class at Madame Devereaux’s. That seemed to work. She reached the end of the wound and finished stitching, tying off the thread just as she always had in school.

  She sighed and looked at it. The bleeding had stopped, and her interlocking embroidery stitches were holding perfectly. She had done it. She had really done it.

  Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she bent and wadded the blanket up to make a pillow for Sam. Then she put the tin back in her satchel, lay down next to him, and watched him sleep. He was a handsome man. His face was hard and strong, even in sleep. His nose was long and noble and masculine, his cheeks and chin shadowed from his beard. They looked as if they’d been dusted with coal. His neck was thick and molded into those wonderful broad shoulders that had carried her over and over, saved her from drowning, held her against that tree as they shot through the violent water, and pinned her to the wall when he’d first kissed her.

  It was the strangest thing. She could almost taste him again. She closed her eyes and willed away her thoughts. Her will wasn’t working.

  She gave up on that and gave in to the luxury of just watching Sam Forester sleep. After a while she was sure he was okay, and she rested her head on her arm and listened to the splatter of the rain, the crackle of the fire, and Medusa’s snore, echoing from the woodpile. Soon she slept, too.

  Sam stared at his shoulder and couldn’t believe what he saw. He counted to ten, very slowly, then did it again. He looked at Lollie, sitting across from him, that bird on her shoulder as usual, only it was quiet for once. He glanced back at his shoulder and stated the obvious, “You sewed it up.”

  “Sure enough,” she said, then asked, “You don’t remember me asking you if I should stitch the cut?”

  “No.”

  “I had needles and thread in my satchel. It’s a good thing it washed up here, isn’t it?” She smiled proudly.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you didn’t have the needle and thread, I wouldn’t have a wound that looked like . . . an ‘L.’ “

  “Oh, that.” She gave a wave of her hand. “It was nothing. I just pretended I was at embroidery class. I only learned how to do the `E,’ the `G,’ and the ‘L.’ The letter `I,’ fit the wound the best.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sam nodded, still staring at his brand. He could do one of two things: he could yell or he could ignore it. He found a third solution: he laughed.

  She looked at him oddly, then smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “Lollie, Lollie, Lollie.” Sam shook his head. “You are really something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing, but I’m glad you didn’t have any buttons.” He laughed.

  “You know, I didn’t think about that . . . .” Her face was thoughtful.

  His laughter subsided and he looked at her small face, her wide blue eyes, and burned blond hair. There was something about that face that could move him. Not once since that day in Tondo, in all the time they’d been together, not once had he been bored, and that had never happened with a woman before.

  In fact he could barely remember any of the other women who’d been in his life, probably because they’d never been around for more than a week or so before he had an itch to get away. He knew one thing for sure: when he was back at his job and she was long gone, he’d never forget these weeks.

  He glanced at the L-shaped wound. He had the scar to remind him.

  It had rained on and off for the last two days, but Lollie felt just fine. Sam had healed nicely in the five days since she’d stabbed him. If it hadn’t been for the rains, they’d have left sooner, but he didn’t want to leave until the skies looked clear. His shoulder was stiff, but he hadn’t blamed her or been hard on her. In fact they’d had a friendly truce.

  During the long hours she’d talked about her brothers; he’d told her some things that had happened to Jim and him. He’d been lots of places—Europe, Africa, China, and always with Jim. She’d opened up one night and told him about her father. He’d looked at her and said, “Tough break.”

  She’d asked him about his parents. He’d said he hadn’t known who his father was, and his mother and stepsisters had died years before. That was the closest she’d gotten to learning anything about his past. She’d never dared to ask about his eye again, although she was curious.

  It had been a fine truce. Even his threats against Medusa had stopped somewhat . . . . Well, at least they had dwindled down to maybe three a day, and he issued those only when Medusa called him a name or ate too noisily.

  They’d gone out together and gathered more food that morning. He’d taught her how to find the yams and had said he’d show her how to cook them.

  It was late in the afternoon and she’d just given Medusa an empty spool to play with when Sam handed her the potatoes. “Go wash these in the pool.”

  “Oh, okay.” She wasn’t too sure about that pool. To her it still looked like the river Styx.

  “Hurry up, I’ve almost got these ready,” he said, arranging the rocks around their small fire.

  She took a deep breath and walked to the pool edge, where she squatted down and tentatively dipped a potato into the water, which was warmer than bathwater. She scrubbed one potato, set it down, and started in on the next one—two potato. One potato, two potato, three potato, four . . .

  She scrubbed the potatoes to the tempo of her rhyme, over and over until she had a nice stack of clean yams next to her. She finished the last one. Seven potato, more! And she stood up, still moving to the beat of the rhyme. She shuffled her feet, dancing a bit, and her foot hit the stack, sending them rolling all over.

  Oh, rats! She chased them, but two rolled into the pool with a plop. A third potato followed. She reached out. It teetered on the edge of the pool

  So did she. Her hand closed over the potato. She’d gotten it! The potato hadn’t fallen in.

  But Lollie did.

  Water burned up her nostrils, down her throat, filled her mouth. She struggled and kicked; then her feet hit the bottom. A splash above her sent water swirling around her and suddenly she was shooting upward.

  It was Sam. He pulled her up, and her head burst through the surface. She clung to his neck, coughing and choking. His arms were around her, pressing her hand against him. “You okay?”

  She nodded and coughed some more. “Your shoulder . . .”

  “It’s all right.” He set her down on the rock edge, hopped up beside her, and pulled her well away from the edge, then sat next to her just staring. She knew he stared because she could feel it, but she was afraid to look up, ashamed to see the scorn in his face. She’d been fooling around, not paying attention, and gone and gotten herself into another fix.

  She felt two inches tall and foolish. So, so foolish. It was just too much. She burst into tears, crying for all she was worth. He put his arm around her and held her, letting her cry like a baby against his good shoulder. “I can’t even wash potatoes!” she bawled like that water buffalo. “I stabbed you. I can’t do anything right! I’m a jinx, just like Jedidiah said.”

  “Lollie . . .”

  “What?” She sniveled into his neck.

  “There’s no such thing as a jinx. You just don’t have any confidence, and if you want to succeed at something you have to concentrate.”

  She pulled her face from his neck and looked up.

  “Tell me something. When you went over there to wash those potatoes, what were you thinking?”

  She thought about it for a minute. Before she’d gone to the pool she’d been wary of it. “I thought about the water. I didn’t like the pool.”

  “So you thought you were afraid.”

  Actually, at the time, she hadn’t been thinking at all. “And what was all that wiggling about?”

  She groaned. He’d seen her dancing to that silly rhyme. “I was singing,” she whispered, unable to look up at him and imagini
ng how she must have looked.

  “Singing,” he repeated.

  She could feel his shoulder shake a little.

  “Next time I think you might forget about singing and just concentrate on what you’re doing.”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “You know something?”

  “What?”

  “As important as concentration is, confidence is even more important. Trust me on this one, I know. You’ve got to be a fighter to make it in this world, Lollipop. That’s something you’ve never had to face, locked away in your little protected world. But remember, you’re not back home in Belton—”

  “Belvedere.”

  “Belvedere. You’ve got to stand up and spit in the eyes of the world and say ‘I will make it.’ The only reason you keep failing is because you believe you will.”

  He leaned back, grabbed one of his bottles, and pulled the cork out with his teeth. “Here, take a swig of this.”

  “Whiskey?” She grimaced.

  “False confidence. Here, try it.”

  She put the bottle to her lips and took a tiny sip, then started to pull it away.

  “More.” He tilted the bottle back, and the whiskey burned into her mouth. She swallowed and gasped, pushing the bottle away from her lips. Her mouth, her throat, and her stomach were on fire.

  He watched her, then shoved the bottle at her. “Again.” She took another mouthful and he handed her the cork, then moved down to her feet and started untying her boots. “What’re you doing?”

  “Untying your boots.”

  “Why?”

  “So you can take them off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Lollipop, you’re going to have your first lesson in believing in yourself.”

  “What’re you gonna make me do, walk through the fire?” She knew he wouldn’t do that, but some little devil made her first thought just fly right out of her mouth. She took another drink. The stuff wasn’t so bad after all. Once she got used to the burn, she realized she liked the bittersweet flavor and the way it warmed her insides.