John Rourke pulled his wife’s ’78 Ford wagon to a halt on the gravel driveway in front of the house. He could see Sarah waiting for him in the doorway-blue jeans with a few smears of paint on them, a T-shirt with one of his own plaid flannel shirts over it. Her hair was loose at her shoulders, a cup of coffee steamed in her hands, and her hazel eyes stared over it at him.
“Well,” he began, across the driveway from her, “I got the kids to school-they weren’t too late.”
“Have to kill anybody along the way, John?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked back inside the house.
As Rourke pulled his leather jacket shut against the cold, he felt the stainless Detonics .45 in his hip pocket. He’d left its mate and double shoulder rig in the house, and realized that she’d seen it.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself, then walked across the gravel and up the three steps and onto the long riverboat front porch, then into the high-ceilinged old house. “Where are you?” he half-shouted.
“In the kitchen-making your breakfast,” Sarah called back. He tossed his jacket on the coat tree and walked the length of the hallway to the end, then turned into the kitchen.
“You finished stripping the wainscoting? It looks good that way,” Rourke said, sitting down in front of the steaming mug of coffee that waited for him on the trestle table.
“It was a lot of work,” she said, still facing away from him, standing by the electric stove. “The woodwork, I mean,” she added, her voice low.
“How are the kids?” he said.
“Didn’t you ask them?” She turned toward him and put a plate before him-a small steak, two eggs, hash brown potatoes and toast.
“I didn’t expect this,” he said.
“Didn’t you ask them-the children?” she repeated.
“Yeah,” he said, a forkful of egg and potato poised in front of his mouth. “I asked them-all they said was they missed me. Said you missed me too,” he added.
“Well-they do. I do, but that doesn’t change anything.” Sipping at her coffee, she said, “I was worried you hadn’t gotten out of Pakistan in time. The Russians and everything. I thought you were supposed to be in Canada for that seminar on-what is it?”
“Hyperthermia,” Rourke said. “Field recognition and treatment of hyperthermia-a lot of interest in that these days.”
“Why didn’t you become a doctor after medical school? You’re crazy.”
“Dammit, Sarah,” Rourke said.
“Well, why didn’t you? You went to college, took Pre-Med, went to medical school, then you quit and went into the CIA. You’re an idiot.”
Rourke threw his fork down on the plate, then stood and walked to the window looking out onto the enclosed back porch. “What? You want the same argument we had last time?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I just want different answers.”
“I like what I’m doing.”
“Killing people?”
Rourke turned and glared at her, realizing he still had the gun in his pocket. Weighing it in his hand a moment, he set it on top of the refrigerator and sat down again.
“Answer me. Do you really enjoy violence?”
Biting down hard on a piece of toast, he said quietly, “I’ll tell you one more time. I enjoy working with police and military people. Training them how to stay alive. If staying alive entails killing someone else, then, okay-it does. I didn’t make the world. Somebody has to teach people how to stay alive in it. I know all there is to know about terrorism, brushfire wars-but it’s more than that. Just the day-to-day business of staying alive would kill most people if they found themselves in the wilderness, the desert…if they lost their modern technology in a flood or a quake. Most people-”
“Like me?” she said defensively.
“Yes. Yes, like you or anybody else. Do you know anything about edible plants? Ever skin down a snake then worry about whether you’d gotten all the poison out because if you didn’t eat it you’d starve to death? No. But I have.”
“What do you want, a medal? I don’t mind that part of it-but why is it always tied to death? I bet you’re hoping the Russians go straight on through Pakistan and we go to war with them. Then everybody’d have to tell you you were right.” Then, deepening her voice and frowning, she shouted, “Plan now for death and destruction-read the collected works of J.T. Rourke, noted survivalist and weapons expert. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, he can tell you how to survive war, famine, death-and, if you act now, he’ll even throw in pestilence at no extra charge.”
“Hell, lady,” Rourke said, downing his coffee. “If I really thought you believed that, I’d give up on this whole damned thing between us.”
“What? Divorce instead of the separation we have now?”
Rourke stood, walked around the table and put his hand on her shoulder, felt her touch her face against his hand, then felt her lips touch his fingers.
“Why do we fight?” she whispered.
“Because we love each other. Otherwise, we’d have given up a long time ago.”
“On that,” she said, “I’ll admit you’re right.”
Rourke dropped to his knees beside her chair and wrapped his arms around her, feeling her body pressing against him. They stayed that way for a long time.
When he sat down again his coffee was cold and so was the food.
“I’ll make some more coffee-would you like some more coffee?” she said, standing across the room by the stove.
“Yes, I’d like some more coffee.” He smiled, and she laughed. While the fresh pot brewed, he followed her into her studio across the hall. “What’s the latest book?” he asked, leaning over the slanted drawing table by the window.
“I don’t have a title for it yet,” she said, leaning over with him to look at the drawings. “Do you like them?”
“A snow leopard?” he said, pointing to one of the loose drawings at the top of the table. It was part of a composite. She had always made drawings and backgrounds separately, then combined them. It was a slow process, but her illustrations for the children’s books which she also wrote had received considerable critical acclaim over the years.
“Yes,” she said, her voice soft and girlish as she looked at the picture he held. “It’s about a snow leopard. They’re arboreal-hardly ever come down from the trees. This one has to. He’s exploring a new world that’s been right under his own world all his life.”
Rourke put his arms around her. “What about the coffee?” she asked, pushing her hands against his chest.
“Pull the plug.”
“Okay.”
Hand-in-hand, they went back to the kitchen for a moment while she unplugged the electric coffee pot. Then the two of them went back down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor, into the bedroom.
Sun was streaming through the sheer curtains on the broad-paned windows. Rourke folded Sarah into his arms. His hands pressed tight against her back and her rear end. Her arms twined around his neck. She leaned up toward him and he kissed her lips, gently, then with greater force as her hands caressed his face. His hands slowly explored the familiar curves of her body.
They undressed each other by the windows. She smiled, almost blushing, as he stripped away her bra. They stood naked for a moment, arms about each other, watching the autumn-like landscape on the other side of the glass. Their land stretched for miles into the woods, whose deciduous and coniferous trees were untouched, save for the yearly Christmas tree they always cut and a few trees felled for wood to stoke the house’s several fireplaces.
“In Pakistan, up in the mountains,” Rourke whispered, “It’s winter.”
She touched her fingers to his lips and he pushed them away, kissing her again, then walking with her the few short steps to the unmade bed.
They sat on the edge of the bed while she told him what Michael and Ann had been doing since the last time he had come to see them all-just before he left for Pakistan. Then, naturally and easily, they fell back onto the bed, slipped under the sheet, warming each other for a while as their hands touched each other’s bodies.
Rourke felt her hands slip between his thighs. His own hands touched her breasts, her thighs, then he moved over her, slipping between her thighs. Her back arched, her stomach pressing up against him. His lips touched her neck, her ear, her cheek, and as their mouths touched, their tongues touched also, the tip of hers at once exploring and inviting his. Her hands were guiding him and he moved against her, the moisture and heat of her, the twitching of her small muscles around him making him push all the more deeply into her.