Thoroughly Kissed

by Kristine Grayson

  Emma frowned at him. He’d be second-guessing her for the entire trip. She slipped her keys into the pocket of her jeans and closed the car door.

  Darnell had to sniff each blade of grass before moving to the next little patch. It was going to take forever to reach the railing with the view of the river below. So she picked up her cat and tucked him under her arm as she walked to the view site.

  This time, Darnell hissed and spit and yowled. He kicked his chubby little legs and growled at her.

  “I’m not impressed,” she said. She almost made a comparison, then caught herself. The last thing she needed was a repeat of yesterday morning’s incident.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Michael was still struggling with his seat belt. She grinned. So much for male superiority over technological gadgets. And she hadn’t even been born in this millennium. Her grin widened.

  Darnell dug a claw into the soft skin of her belly and made her wince. She set him down, keeping a firm grip on his leash. He began sniffing anew, looking up with irritation at all the grass he’d missed.

  She’d have to keep an eye on him. She knew from experience that he liked to chomp grass and vomit in the car just to annoy her.

  The river sang beneath her. The Mississippi was wide and flat here, carving through bluffs that looked relatively untouched. She knew they weren’t, though. The view that she was standing on proved that.

  She wondered what the river had looked like when she was born. A trickle? A mighty overgrown torrent? There was no way for her to know, and no way historians like Michael would know either. History on this continent wasn’t kept as well as it had been in England.

  Finally, she heard footsteps behind her. Darnell looked up from his little grass feast and started to growl.

  “Poor cat,” Michael said with more compassion than Darnell deserved. “Looks like he gets carsick.”

  “What?” Emma said, turning around.

  “Cats eat grass when their stomach is upset. You want some water, big guy?”

  Darnell had been watching Michael warily. When Michael crouched and offered him some water, Darnell turned away, apparently embarrassed that his secret was out.

  “You mean he doesn’t do that to annoy me?” Emma asked.

  “He might, knowing how contrary he can be, but it isn’t likely. Did he travel with you before?”

  She nodded.

  “And threw up a lot?”

  “A lot wouldn’t describe it.”

  “I bet he didn’t eat much either.”

  “Not until we got to our hotel for the night.”

  Michael nodded. “I’ll get him a bowl.”

  He handed her the bottles of water and the bag with the morning buns and headed back to the car. Darnell had stopped eating grass and growling. Instead he was looking up at Emma with the most shocked expression she had ever seen on a cat’s face.

  She shrugged. “I had no idea he specialized in cats.”

  Darnell gave a soggy burp and sat down, watching Michael as if he were a lifesaver. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She rather enjoyed Darnell’s hostility toward Michael. It helped her keep her distance.

  Michael got Darnell’s water bowl, poured out the water in it, and brought it over. Then he poured in some bottled water and set it in front of Darnell.

  “Drink,” he said. “You’ll feel better. And we’ll keep the window open just a little too. It’ll get that new car smell out and you’ll be surprised how much better you feel.”

  Emma’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you doing this?”

  Michael grinned up at her. “I used to get carsick when I was a kid. It’s not a pleasant way to travel.”

  Darnell was staring at him in wonder. After a moment, he bent his shiny black head and began to drink.

  Michael stood up. He came over to the rail and drank out of his bottle. “Haven’t you ever been carsick?”

  She thought back to her very first ride in a car, before she even knew what a car was. Car terrified, but never carsick. “No.”

  “Ah, one of the lucky ones, then. My dad smoked, and we always had one of those pine air fresheners up front. The combined smell was bad enough to turn my stomach on a short trip. On a long one…” He shook his head.

  “On a long one what?” She wedged her bottle against her stomach and tried to twist off the top with one hand. Darnell’s leash was making the work difficult.

  “Well, what I remember most about long trips was lying in the backseat, listening to baseball games, and staring at the clouds of smoke surrounding my father’s head. If I try real hard, I can even recall the queasy feeling.”

  She frowned at him. He painted a vivid image—one that was so alien to her that she couldn’t imagine growing up like that. Of course, she had never thought about the way modern adults had been as children. No one had ever discussed it with her.

  “What?” he said. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing.” Apparently her expression hadn’t been what he expected. “I hadn’t realized you were an only child.”

  He shrugged. “Well, now you do.”

  Darnell walked over her foot and put his head between the iron bars of the railing, staring at the water below. Emma tightened her grip on the leash. The last thing she wanted to do was lose Darnell because he got too curious.

  But her tightened hold on the leash made opening the bottle impossible. After a moment, Michael took the bottle from her, twisted off the cap, and handed the bottle back.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I couldn’t stand watching it anymore.”

  She flushed. What was it about this man that made her feel chronically embarrassed?

  Darnell’s tail flicked back and forth as if something below had caught his attention. Emma wrapped the leash around her wrist.

  Michael reached into the sack and took out a morning bun. He offered it to her, saw she had no available hand, and said, “I guess this one’s mine because I’m not going to feed you.”

  She took another drink of water, not wanting to answer that. He munched beside her, and they both stared at the river. The silence was even more awkward than Emma had imagined a silence could be.

  Darnell crouched, his tail still flicking.

  Emma picked him up, and he thrashed, trying to see what was below. “I guess we’re going to back to the car,” she said.

  “No,” Michael said. “We’re not.”

  He led her to a picnic table, and then took Darnell from her. The leash was still wrapped around her wrist, and she was tugged in the same direction as the cat.

  Michael set Darnell down, and Darnell immediately lunged toward the railing again. “You need to teach him some discipline.”

  “He’s a cat,” Emma said.

  “That’s no excuse,” Michael said. “Why do people always assume that cats are not intelligent enough to learn discipline?”

  “We don’t,” Emma said. “They are too intelligent to listen to anyone else’s instructions.”

  “Even when it saves lives?”

  Darnell looked up at him and growled.

  “Hey, pal. I’m not the one who has poor impulse control.” Michael pulled off a bit of morning bun and handed it to Darnell. Darnell forgot all about the iron railing and whatever lurked below, and swallowed the piece whole.

  “I try not to feed him people food,” Emma said.

  “Yeah,” Michael said sarcastically. “I can tell.”

  She sighed and grabbed a bun for herself. It was a cross between a cinnamon roll and a sugared donut, only with a light and fluffy French pastry feel. She took a bite and relished the taste, knowing she wouldn’t find it anywhere else.

  “You know,” Michael said after he had eaten the last bite of his, “I hope you’re not pla
nning to eat all our meals at waysides. We really should stop at restaurants and sample some local cuisine.”

  “What about Darnell?” Emma asked.

  “What about him?”

  “We can’t very well bring him inside a restaurant.”

  “No, but many places have take out or they let you eat outside.” Michael grinned. “At worst, we could tell them he’s a seeing eye cat. That leash might convince them.”

  She wouldn’t smile. She didn’t want him to think he was amusing. “There are stores along the way. I’m sure we can make do.”

  “I don’t want to make do,” he snapped.

  “Well, I can’t imagine the local cuisine would vary much from Wisconsin to Oregon.”

  He frowned at her. “You mean you don’t know?”

  She raised her chin, trying to ignore the funny panic in her stomach. For some reason she felt as if another embarrassing moment were on the way, and she didn’t know why.

  “That’s right,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you drive that lovely car out here? Or did you buy it in Madison?”

  “I drove,” she said. “I had to. I had Darnell.”

  “People fly with cats.”

  “Not Darnell.”

  Darnell had wrapped his leash around her legs and had fallen asleep between her feet. For the first time in her memory, he didn’t spend all of their rest stop eating grass.

  “You drove all the way out and you never ate at a restaurant?”

  She shrugged. “It wasn’t practical.”

  “Well, we’re changing that.”

  She straightened. “No, we’re not.”

  “Emma, I’m not going clear across country and eating from 7-11s all the way.”

  “It’ll change to Circle K’s long about Montana.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “I’m not.”

  She took a deep breath. “But what if my magic goes off in a restaurant? What’ll we do then?”

  “Make it better,” he said. “Isn’t that why I’m here?”

  “It doesn’t always go back the way it was,” she said.

  He grinned. “Then we’ll beat a hasty retreat.”

  She glanced at the river. He was changing everything. Didn’t he know that routine made trips easier? Didn’t he understand that the less change the better?

  “If you’re so worried about that,” he said, “why are we staying in hotels along the way? Where’s the tent?”

  “I don’t own a tent,” she said between her clenched teeth.

  “One of those women too good to own a tent?”

  She glared at him. “I’ve stayed in very primitive conditions, thank you.”

  “What? A place with no blow-dryers?”

  She let out a small sigh. She wasn’t about to tell him everything. “Something like that.”

  “Then what’s wrong with a tent?”

  “I like beds,” she said. “And showers, believe it or not.”

  “Why should that be hard for me to believe?” he said. “I hadn’t noticed that you had a problem bathing.”

  Her flush grew deeper. In every conversation she said the wrong thing. He didn’t know that she used to be afraid of running water, that plumbing was nearly her undoing on the day she had awakened from her magic coma.

  “Was I supposed to notice?” he asked with a little too much amusement.

  She grabbed the morning bun bag and tucked her water bottle under her arm. “Get Darnell’s stuff,” she said. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

  “Emma—”

  “I don’t need you hassling me,” she snapped and started forward. Only then did she remember that Darnell’s leash was wrapped around her legs. She tripped, caught herself, and dropped the bottle. Water splashed all over Darnell, whom she had apparently dragged along behind her.

  He woke up, hissing and spitting, slapping the water bottle with both paws, and only succeeding to make himself wetter. He looked like a cat stuck in a ferocious battle with a vicious squirting hose.

  Water alternately splashed and poured out of the bottle, depending on how hard Darnell whacked it, and Emma was getting drenched. Michael was making strange choking sounds that were too much like laughter for her tastes.

  Finally she snatched the bottle out of the way, only to lose her grip on its slippery sides again, and watch it bounce toward Darnell. The cat hissed and backed up, wrapping the leash tighter around her legs. This time, she lost her balance and fell backwards into the soaking wet grass.

  Michael stared at her for a moment, then offered her his hand. His expression was carefully neutral, the choking sounds he had been making a moment before gone.

  Her eyes narrowed. The last thing she wanted to do was accept his help. Again.

  Darnell shook himself off, spraying water all over Emma. Then he looked at her as if he were proud of himself, as if this had been all her fault.

  The water was soaking through the seat of her jeans, and the leash was cutting off circulation in her left leg.

  She looked at Michael’s hand, then leaned over and snatched Darnell off the grass. Darnell’s eyes widened in horror—and for a moment, she realized that he was afraid she was going to spell him. She had held him just like that the last time. Instead, she held his damp, squirmy body with one hand while untangling the leash with the other.

  Michael continued to watch, his mouth twitching suspiciously. His hand was at his side, waiting, it seemed, for her to need its services again.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she snapped.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” he said, but it was clearly a lie.

  “You are laughing at me,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

  “It was funny,” he said.

  “It was not,” she said. “And you’re being a jerk.”

  His eyes widened. “I am?”

  “You are.”

  “Really,” he said.

  “Really. You’re one oversized jerk.”

  His cheeks flushed. “That’s what you think I’m doing,” he said. “Being a jerk.”

  “Yes.” She slapped the leash into Michael’s hand. He looked at it like it hurt. It probably did.

  She didn’t care. She carefully set Darnell down, and stalked away from them both, trying to look dignified. She got a change of clothes from the car, and headed to the ladies room. She didn’t look at either Michael or Darnell, but she knew they knew how mad she was.

  As Aethelstan once said to her, her anger was hard to miss.

  But she didn’t care. Michael would just have to get used to her anger, like everybody else.

  ***

  Michael managed to pull Darnell to the car where he dried both of them off with one of the towels Emma had so thoughtfully put in the back.

  The cat didn’t seem to mind his ministrations. In fact, the cat seemed as confused as he felt. He had actually felt close to Emma Lost for a moment, but clearly she hadn’t felt close to him.

  She came out of the ladies room wearing a pair of shorts that showed more leg than he had imagined she had. At that moment, a breeze came up, chilling him as much as a cold shower would have.

  Thank heavens. He didn’t want to ogle when he was mad at her.

  She had actually accused him of being a jerk. When he had dropped everything to join her, a woman he barely knew.

  “What was that about?” he asked as she approached the car.

  “What?” she asked, her eyebrows raised, all innocence.

  “That anger.”

  She shrugged and looked away. “I should have warned you. I have a terrible temper.”

  “No kidding,” he said.

  “It flares out of control and I can’t—”

&nbs
p; “Everything about you seems to be out of control, Emma.” Michael stopped in front of her. “Your magic, your temper, your research.”

  He added that last because he knew it would piss her off. And, not surprisingly, it did.

  “You shouldn’t bring my research into this!” she said.

  “No,” he said, “I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Her mouth was open as if she were going to continue berating him, but she stopped, narrowed her eyes and looked at him sideways, as if that would make her see him clearer.

  “You shouldn’t?” she asked as if she didn’t trust him.

  “I shouldn’t. But someone let you get away with that temper much too often.”

  Her beautiful eyes narrowed.

  “You act like a spoiled child.”

  “I do not.”

  “Do too.

  “Do not.”

  “See? I haven’t had that argument since grade school.” Michael crossed his arms. “If you want me to continue on this trip—”

  And as he said that Darnell’s head popped out of the towel, his expression panicked. Apparently the cat wanted him to continue on this trip.

  “—you’re going to have to learn some control.”

  Emma crossed her arms over Darnell, trapping him against her. “Men always say that to me. Are you afraid of a woman with a temper?”

  “Only a woman with an out-of-control temper and out-of-control magic,” Michael said. “Somehow I have a hunch that’s a bad combination.”

  He might have been wrong, but it looked to him as if the cat were nodding.

  “You can’t not go with me,” Emma said.

  “What?” Michael asked. “Why can’t I?”

  “Because you promised you’d help.”

  “I have helped. You’re going a different route.”

  “You think that’s enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what if it isn’t?”

  He stared at her for a long time. “Maybe that’s your problem.”

  “But you already said you’d stay.”

  “I did not.”

  “You said if I want you to continue on this trip. Sounds like that’s my decision.”