Mean Streak(27)

As he stepped inside, he was greeted by the familiar scents of his bar soap and shampoo. Emory was standing in front of the fireplace, draping wet clothes over the back of one of the dining chairs that she’d situated near the hearth. Her hair was damp. In place of her running clothes, she was wearing another of his flannel shirts and a pair of his socks.

And that appeared to be all.

Between the hem of the shirt, which struck her midthigh, and the socks bunched around her ankles, was nothing except smooth legs. They were a runner’s legs, lean and long, calves and quads well delineated under taut skin.

She finished placing her running tights over the top rung of the chair back, straightening the garment to her satisfaction, and scooting the chair a mite closer to the fire screen before turning to him.

“I took you up on the offer of your shower.” She motioned down toward the socks, then ran her hand over the placket of the shirt where only a few of the buttons had been done up. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed these.”

With difficulty, he pulled his gaze up from the hem of the shirt. In reply, he shook his head no.

“It feels wonderful to be clean.”

He gave a nod.

“I washed out my clothes, too.”

He looked at the articles of wet clothing, but didn’t comment on them.

“My scalp stopped bleeding.”

He mumbled a gravelly sounding, “Good.”

He took off his coat, cap, and scarf, turned around to hang them on the peg, then kept his hands there, his fingers sunk deep in the yarn of his scarf, holding on to it as though for dear life, because all the blood in his system seemed to have collected in one critical place, and the concentration of it was so thick, it was painful.

He went into the kitchen area, took the bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, and poured another shot. Halfway to his mouth, he halted and glanced at her from over his shoulder. “Change your mind about this, too?”

“No. Thank you.”

He tossed the drink back. It burned on the way down and fizzed like a cherry bomb in his belly, but it gave him something else to think about instead of clean, smooth skin and how soft and warm it would feel under old flannel. Under him. Moving under him.

“You said you’d been watching me through binoculars.”

“What?”

“That morning when you…when I fell. You said you’d been watching me.”

“When you were—” Stretching. Arching. Bending. “There by your car. Before you set out.”

“What were you doing out there?”

“Hiking.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.” He gripped the edge of the counter and continued to stare out the window above the sink. He didn’t trust himself to face her.

“What caused you to notice me?”

Your legs in those black tights. Your ass. God, your ass. “I was just, you know, sweeping the area with the binocs, taking in the view. Saw motion, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you call out a hello?”

“Too far away. But I was curious.”

“Why curious? Didn’t I look like somebody just out for a run?”

“Yeah, but I wondered why you were alone. Most people, whatever they’re doing in rugged country, are doing it with somebody else.”

“You weren’t. You were alone.”

“But I’m used to it.”

The faucet had a drip. For a while, those ka-plunks, coming at fifteen-second intervals, were the only sound in the room. In the world.

Then she said, “That’s the one thing we didn’t talk about.”

He twisted the taps to see if he could stop the drip. “Sorry?”

“This morning I asked you how you could bear the silence, the boredom, and the loneliness. We talked about the other two, but not the loneliness.”

The faucet stopped dripping, but he kept a tight grip on both taps as though he would pull them out of their moorings.

“Don’t you get lonely?”

Was it his imagination or had her voice dropped in volume and pitch? “Sometimes.”

“What do you do about it?”

No, it wasn’t his imagination. Her voice vibrated with an intimate undertone. It was gruff, as though she had drunk the whiskey after all, and it had seared her throat. He pried his hands from the water taps and slowly turned around. She’d come only as close as the dining table, where she stood as though poised for a signal from him of what she should do next.

“I don’t think you’re referring to loneliness in general, are you, Doc?”

She made a rolling motion with her shoulders that could have meant anything.

“Are you asking if I get lonely for a woman?”

“Do you?”

“Often.”

“What do you do?”

“I go get one.”

His blunt answer had the effect he’d meant it to. It shocked the hell out of her.

“Like you got me?”

“No. You were different. You were a lucky find.”

She hovered there indecisively for easily half a minute, her eyes darting to this and that but staying off him. He could tell the instant she decided to soldier on, because her eyes stopped that restless search for…what? Courage, maybe. Anyway, they returned to him.