She smiled at him. She had a bright smile, a smile that warmed. “That’s right. I enjoy helping people. Of course, there are those who just hang on and expect you to make their decisions for them. It’s very irritating; you sit there and say, ‘You see your choices; you make the decision,’ and they beg you to run their lives.” Lina shook her head with a snort. “Some people.”
Londo was trying to contrive how to bring up the subject. “So did you ask your guides about coming here to Tiawa?”
Lina laughed. “There goes my reputation. They said, ‘Go ahead, have a swell time,’ and didn’t mention anything about explosions or terrorists. I guess I must not have communicated with the highest level I should have. Although it has been interesting so far. As long as nothing really bad happens, it’ll be an adventure I can look back on someday and tell everyone about. I mean at the very least, I got to meet Valiant himself.”
Londo smiled. “And I got to meet Lina O’Kelly herself. Psychic healer extraordinaire.”
That made her laugh again as she regarded the remaining slice of coconut and his empty hand. “Want some more? I’m in a bludgeoning mood right now.”
“Bien sûr, merci.” Londo took the opportunity to slide closer. “So you haven’t left anyone missing back at the hotel? Traveling alone?”
“It was a vacation for one,” she said as she positioned the coconut on the large rock. “Odd, isn’t it? I mean, they’re usually for two.”
“So who’d you have gone with if it had been for two?”
Lina considered. “I guess I’d have tried one of my friends at work.” She paused again, as if listening to the air. “Oh. No, no boyfriend or anything like that.”
“Your guides seem to be blunt.”
“Better blunt than obtuse.” She cracked the hard outer coating off and handed the result to Londo. He’d noticed that she tended not to look at him when she spoke, so he raised the coconut as he accepted it, forcing her gaze to follow the movement so it met his eyes.
“Thanks,” he said, and held her gaze for a split second before she looked away.
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re between boyfriends...”
“No.”
“Divorced?”
“Never married,” she said. She glanced around the clearing, not at him. “Never involved with anyone. Never even been out on a date.”
He stared. He couldn’t help it. Here was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen—not glamorous, to be sure, but an earthy, natural kind of beauty—young, buxom, thick auburn hair and bright green eyes filled with life. “How does that happen?” he had to know.
“It happens,” she said vaguely. “For instance, there’s a certain parahero I know of who’s never been associated with anyone. Not seriously. I mean, I’ve heard about him escorting this woman and that woman and the date contest winners and all, but his love life’s never made the cover of People two issues in a row.”
Londo drew back from her. “Eh bien... What do people think?” he asked in a tight voice.
Lina knew what he was talking about. “Maybe you were... too busy,” she hedged. “Saving the world all the time. You give up a personal life to be a parahero. A megaparahero. Unless... unless you have some kind of secret identity thing going—”
“Secret identities are a royal pain.” He gave a decisive snort at the idea. “You should talk to some of the people who have them. Non,” he shook his head, “megaparas don’t have time for secret identity crap.”
“No time for a personal life?”
“Everyone’s got to take time for a personal life or they go crazy.”
“And no one would want Valiant to go crazy.”
Now he smiled sadly. Now he was the one who looked anywhere but at her. “Non. Crazy Valiant would cause too many problems. Been there.”
“Um.” Lina sat and considered the rumors she had heard over the past few years as if one of them might be true. The leading contender, of course, was...
“I have too many problems as it is.” Londo frowned down at his coconut. There was only a sliver left. He crushed it between his fingers and flung it away.
“So it’s what they say? Don’t answer if you don’t want to. But remember, I’m a priest. It won’t spread from me.”
Londo saw only concern on her face. “Yeah,” he finally confessed. “Too powerful for my own good.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, and looked away to give him his privacy. Maybe even famous people had miserable lives. It didn’t seem fair for a hero like Valiant. When did karma kick in? Or was karma just a hoax, something that someone had dreamed up to give people like her hope?
“Of course, there is this one thing.”
“Hm?” Lina found a forgotten piece of coconut and tried to figure out how to break the shell away from it without destroying it completely. She lifted her rock in preparation for a precision strike.
“It seems that I don’t have any powers now.”
Her hand stopped in midair.
“And there’s this beautiful woman who just happens to be here, and who doesn’t have attachments anywhere else...”
Lina gaped at him but he smiled encouragingly back. “So do you think you might be available tonight... for a date?”
Now the world seemed to take its own step back from her. This was unreal. He couldn’t mean... She closed her mouth and put the rock down. “I don’t think it’s just a date that you want,” she said slowly. He must be utterly desperate, that was it. Poor man.
Londo edged closer. “No, it’s not,” he admitted. He reached out to touch her hair and twisted a curlicue lock around his finger. “Lina, if we’re in safer territory tonight, and if my powers haven’t come back, would you...?” He let the question hang in the air between them.
“Londo...” She didn’t know how to say it. She moved away from him, but he came with her, still holding her hair.
“You have the most beautiful green eyes,” he said and leaned in closer. Suddenly he straightened and gave her a hush! signal. In an instant he was up and running close to the ground, keeping the forest undergrowth between him and... whatever.
Seconds passed before Lina realized that he was responding to some kind of danger. She sat paralyzed until he disappeared into the forest. Only then did she pick up a fallen tree branch and run it through the clearing as quietly as she could, obliterating the evidence that they had been there while trying not to think about anything except gun-toting terrorists with hard faces. She scattered the coconut shell under some leaves and then bent down for a final drink from the spring.
**Good,** she heard Londo say silently as he came up behind her. **Let me get one, too. They’ve started to come into the forest. Let’s move out.**
They marched north in general, with Londo maintaining a constant eye and Lina an inner one for danger. Twice they skirted squads whom Lina couldn’t see against the forest foliage, but Lon could. Often they’d crouch rock-still to hear a walkie-talkie go by some distance away.
Londo regarded her, aware that the situation was escalating. He could see the tightness in her face, how she trembled when they had to wait. **You okay?** he asked. He slipped his arm around her shoulders to comfort her, but her trembling increased. She pried his fingers off and twisted away.
**I’m fine,** she replied. **I’ll just conveniently forget that yellow is the color that the newer Treks used for Security forces. Or that it makes me stand out like a sore thumb.**
He frowned at her nightgown. The dust from the explosion had stained it to make a light yellow and white flag against the dark forest. Lon shrugged off his vest, dropped it on the ground, and started to take off his gray-striped shirt. His left shoulder held blotchy bruised patches. Most were turning yellow and green as his injuries healed. The swelling had gone.
Lina gaped as his upper body stood revealed. Michelangelo would have killed to get a model like him. She hurriedly looked away from his nakedness and licked her suddenly dry lips.
**Take it off,** he ordered her. **The dress. Wear my shirt instead. It’s darker than what you’ve got on, and patterned. You’ll blend into the shadows better.**
He secured the vest back over his broad chest and shoulders and politely turned away while Lina slipped her gown off to don the shirt with its shredded sleeve. It closed with what looked like Velcro, but this stuff didn’t make any ripping noise when it pulled apart.
The small metallic circle lay next to the collarless neck of the shirt. It contained a hologram with Valiant’s symbol, the V surrounded by the starburst. But more than just a hologram, the starburst was a bursting, colorful sphere, rotating and changing direction, collapsing in and then exploding again. Lina had never seen such a complete and spectacular hologram before. It was a regular mini-movie.
Leaving the shirt open a couple inches at the top made it less confining, even though the neck opening was comfortably large. Thank goodness the shirt covered her well. She was a very tall woman, just shy of six feet, but Londo was maybe four or five inches taller than she was, and the difference between the broadly-defined muscles of his shoulders and her feminine ones let the shirt hang a reasonable length on her. If only she were tanned darker, that would help, too. She hadn’t had time on her vacation to get a tan yet.
**How long does it take?** Londo demanded.
**Sorry! I’m done.** She folded up the gown and wondered what to do with it. She might be able to use it as a skirt when they stopped next time, if they got to some territory where the color wouldn’t make her a walking target.
Londo looked her up and down. His mouth quirked into a smile. **My shirt looks good on you,** he told her.
He stuffed her dress into a pocket on his vest. Now she noticed that the vest had a number of deep pockets, and wondered what was in them. Not emergency supplies or rations, that was for sure.
Londo looked around to assess their situation. **Five minute break,** he announced, and Lina took the opportunity to sit on a fallen log. Carefully; this took a little finesse now. Londo sat beside her. His hip and arm touched hers, and she eased away.
**There’s a small patrol next hill over, not moving in this direction.** He pointed. **Another patrol over there, going away from us.**
Lina squinted her eyes and tried to match Lon’s para ones without success.
**So if you’ve never been on a date,** he asked, **does that mean you’re a virgin?**
She looked at him as if he were a dolt, but he just smiled, wide-eyed and innocent.
**Yeah. As if it were any of your business,** she admitted. **Two hundred percent.**
**How two hundred percent? Are you counting past lives now?**
She ignored him.
**C’mon. Two hundred percent. Are you celibate because you’re a priest?**
**No. I’ve just never been kissed. Never been touched. By anyone.**
Londo considered that. **How did that happen?**
**I have a little phobia about being touched. Actually, a pretty big phobia.**
He opened his mouth to accuse her of lying. Then his eyes moved as if he remembered how she’d pulled away every time he’d offered his hand or sat down beside her. Closing his eyes, he shook his head at himself. **Oh great. God is laughing at me.**
She grinned. At least she was safe from him, now that he knew. **Yes, He is. So you’re a virgin too, and against your will.**
**But only about, oh, twenty percent virgin.**
It was her turn to pause. **Hold on. I’m trying to figure it.**
**Let’s just say that I’ve experimented a number of times. I can get a couple bases into the process. Foreplay—I’m good at that, I’ve been told. Or maybe they were just trying to be nice when I couldn’t...**
**When you couldn’t or wouldn’t?**
**Wouldn’t. Can’t risk injury, especially anyone who’d get into that position with you.**
**A considerate lover.**
Why wouldn’t she at least look at him? He had to gain her attention somehow, make her realize that this was far from trivial. **Very considerate, Lina. You’d like it. Don’t you ever get lonely?**
Lina was silent for a while. **I’ve been alone all my life,** she finally told him. **What is loneliness? I get by. I’m fine with just myself.**
**Denial.**
**Is it? I call it adaptation. Whatever it is, I’m locked in to it. I don’t get close to people, and they don’t get close to me. You seem to have adapted well, too. I mean, I’ve never heard of you going on any wild rampages in frustration.**
**I’m lonely all the time. I’d give anything to be truly intimate with someone.**
What to say to him? Did he need a counselor or someone to point out hard reality? **You... you could be intimate without having sex. There are thousands, maybe millions of handicapped people having at least semi-satisfactory relationships.**
**Let’s just say that I’m very, very close to a couple of people. But close and sex close—those are two different things.**
**Especially for a man, I suppose. Is there any chance to contact those people now? To take advantage of the situation?**
**Less than zero,** Lon told her. **Why especially for a man?**
**Women get intimacy first, then go to sex. Men get sex first, then go to intimacy. Different genders, different ways of thinking.**
**Mon dieu, not the old Venus and Mars thing. You don’t believe any of that tripe?**
**A lot of times it’s true tripe.**
Londo sighed. He rubbed his nose. Ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. He stared openly at her, this sleek woman dressed only in gray-striped silk. Her long, curving legs. The way she filled out his shirt. She was straight out of one of those early Sixties bachelor movies, where the exotic virgin stewardess winds up—quite innocently—in the hero’s shirt and nothing else.
Lon wanted to make it a more modern movie, R at the very least, triple-X and banned in Canada if he could. There had to be a way, a starting point. **You seemed to be able to touch me well enough back there.**
**I can touch for healing. That’s business, not personal.**
**Why the phobia? Or don’t you know?**
**Oh, that’s easy. Emotional deprivation as a child compounded with lack of self-esteem. In other words, I can blame it all on my parents. Handy.**
**So see a shrink.**
**Shrinks are expensive. I’ve got a slew of self-help books at home and I’ve taken bunches of psychic courses, but I’ve never been able to make real progress in this area. I guess I’m too embarrassed about the problem to help myself.**
Londo brushed mosquitoes away from himself, wanting to curse out loud. This was one hell of a situation! Easy, easy. **You can heal emotional problems?**
**There are lots of non-mainstream techniques, but when you’re too close to the problem, they don’t work well.** She paused and turned to him. **I’m sorry.**
**Don’t be.** He snorted softly and his eyes crinkled as he looked at her. **I’m going to work on you all day.**
One eyebrow arched. **And how are you going to do that?**
**You mentioned three things. Never been on a date. Well, consider this a date. Voilà, we’re at Adventureland.** He gestured to take in the forest.
Lina shook her head and gave a soundless laugh.
Lon slipped his arm around her waist and turned her, catching her by the cheek and kissing her quickly before she could protest. **A touch and a kiss. Now you’re at 100 percent; I’ve cured half your problem. I can cure the rest, too.**
With a gasp, she pushed away but didn’t get anywhere. He still held her by the waist and now his other hand slid from her cheek to stroke her neck and chin. He moved in so his mouth, his nose, his eyes were only inches from hers. **Get used to my touch, Lina.**
**Londo!**
**It’s not so much to ask. Just let me touch you.**
She trembled until she shook. Her body went rigid as if every nerve were turning her body into a statue wherev
er he touched her. He could see her grit her teeth and try to fight it even as she pushed away.
**It’s a for real phobia, Londo. Please stop. Stop it! Stop it!!** She made an inarticulate sound and was about to make another when Londo clapped his hand over her mouth. The quick, short breaths she sucked in and out pulsed against his palm. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints.
**QUIET!** he ordered. **Do you want them to hear?!**
**Ohgodohgod, let go. Please let go, letgoletgoletgo LET ME GO!!**
Chapter 4
She scrabbled against him, and when that didn’t work she shoved her own hand under his against her mouth. He let her loose then. She fell to the ground: shaking, teeth chattering. She pressed both fists against her mouth and curled into fetal position. Faint, inarticulate squeaks emerged despite her efforts.
To Londo it looked just like a seizure.
**Lina! Are you all right? Lina!!**
She spasmed. Great shudders rocked her, as if she’d been stranded in the Antarctic, shivering for her very life.
Lon fell to his knees beside her. He reached to touch and then hastily drew back. **Lina. Talk to me.**
The shudders subsided little by little.
**Lina? Lina?**
Eventually her hands de-clamped from her mouth. She covered her eyes. **Give me a few minutes. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.**
Dizzy with relief, Lon sat back on his heels. He studied the way she shook her arms out as if she were releasing something clinging to her. She tried to breathe rhythmically. Then she shook her arms out again.
**How long have you been like this?** Londo demanded. Great waves of shivering overtook her with every third breath. He wanted to help her, but how? How without touching her again? How without the patrols hearing them?
It was a long, long while before she could reply. **I don’t know. A little ever since I can remember. Really bad since fifth grade or so. I’m better than I used to be.**
**Better? This is better?**
**Used to be I couldn’t touch anyone. Now I can heal. I’m sorry.** She just lay there, a wrung-out rag. She panted shallowly, as quietly as she could behind the hands that hid her face.
Touch of Danger (Three Worlds) Page 5
