There was a flash of lightning and a moment later a clap of thunder, and he remembered that the convertible was sitting in front of the house with the roof down. After he put the top up, he would go to bed.
He went out the screen door behind the bar to avoid walking through the playroom, then went around the side of the house to the car. He got the boot off and into the trunk and got in the car and started the engine. He had just leaned across the seat to latch the fastener when Sarah Child appeared at the window.
Their eyes met, and this time, although she flushed, she didn’t look away.
“Going for a ride?” she asked. Her voice was artificial, as if she were having difficulty controlling it.
“I was just putting the top up,” he replied, in a tone as artificial as hers. He could feel his heart beating. “Would you like to go for a ride?”
She got in the car and closed the door.
He drove down the dirt road to the airstrip. Neither of them said a word until he had stopped beside the stagger-wing Beech.
He looked at her, and saw that she was looking at him. He reached his hand out and ran the knuckles against her cheek.
“Jesus!” he said.
She smiled and caught his hand in hers. He had never seen eye, brighter than hers were now.
“Jesus,” she said, mocking him. “Fm trembling,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said. She reached up and turned the ignition key off, and then pushed the armrest between the seats UP Out of the way and slid over to him.
He held her tightly against him, his face in her hair, aware of her breasts against his chest. It seemed to be a very long time before he kissed her, first on the hair, and then On the forehead, and only at long last on her mouth.
When he kissed her on the mouth, her mouth was Open under his, and he found her tongue, which was at the same time gently moving against his. Then she unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off, and then her bra. And in a few seconds more, she was naked, In a few more seconds, so was Ed Bitter, Later he drove her back to The Lodge. When they were alm(st to the road at the front of the house, she said: “Let me out here, and I’ll walk. Then nobody will know we’ve been off together.- He stopped the car and she got out. He watched her as she walked toward the house, staying in the shadows of the trees. en -d on the veranda, be put the Buick in gear and she finally appear, Wh drove to the barn and parked the car. He turned the engine off and sat there for a couple of minutes, happening; and then he got Out of t trying to Put together what was he car and walked Out of the barn toward the river. It was pleasant to sit there at night in the dark and the quiet and watch the river flow by, as it had for-what, a million years, two mijlion?
He sat down or, the bank and glanced at the boat. Some damned fool had left a light on in one of the cabins. The master cabin. He forgot whether or not he had plugged in the shore power line when they’d tied up that afternoon. nected, the lights would drain If the shore Power line was not con- @@ I the battery.
Fnim A.#LW-F naftuba The Time out was docked with her bow downstream. The shore Power connection was aft, just inside the cockpit. The stairs to the wharf put him on the wharf by the Time Out’s bow. As he walked past the ports of the master cabin, he thought he saw movement inside. The first thing he thought was that a thief had boarded her. He moved as quickly and quietly as he could to the porthole. The curtain had been drawn, but not completely. There was enough of a crack for him to see inside.
He didn’t believe what he saw at first. It was the most shocking thing he had ever seen in his life.