Defender

13

Sated and exhausted and pleased, Jack lay beside Kris. She turned into his arms, kissed him once more, yawned, and fell asleep.

Apparently they both did, because Kris came awake much later when the cold water of the ocean started tickling her toes.

She nudged Jack. “Hey, security chief, your primary is in danger of drowning.”

Jack came awake with a yawn, glanced down, and raised an eyebrow. “Why yes, I do believe you are in danger of drowning. Tell me, Commander Longknife, how are you going to get yourself out of this mess?”

“A mess you got me into.”

“I thought I was the one that got into you.”

Kris had no answer for that, so she stood, collected all the strings that had wandered off, threw the towel over her shoulder, and headed up the beach. The shade from a stand of trees past the high water mark looked inviting.

Jack collected his towel and bit of nothing and followed.

Once in the shade, Kris spread her towel and sprawled out faceup. Jack spread his towel beside her and settled, faceup, hands behind his head, a very satisfied look on his face.

“Now it’s my turn,” Kris said.

“We’re not in the sun. I don’t need more sunscreen.”

“I’m a Longknife. I don’t need an excuse to do nasty things to people.”

“Oh, please, Commander, don’t do nasty things to me,” didn’t have any beg in it at all.

“As my wise and not at all prudish great-grandmother has pointed out, you are not in my chain of command, so you are fair game for anything I want to do to you.”

“Well, in that case, please do.”

Kris took exactly as long to cover Jack with kisses and stroke every inch of his skin as he had taken with her. It turned out that Jack had resorted to Sal to keep time, so, of course, Nelly knew all the delightful details and was only too glad to help Kris match minute for minute.

Nelly was also wise enough to keep her computer mouth shut about what she thought of human mating rituals.

In the end, Kris showed Jack that she could be just as good at shading him as he had been to her. Even if they were already in the shade.

Once again, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

It was the dinner bell that woke them.

The sun was low in the sky. “Did we sleep through lunch?” Kris asked.

“My tummy says so.”

“Was I really that exhausted?”

“When did you last have a good night’s sleep?” Jack countered.

“I don’t remember,” Kris admitted. “Certainly not since before that which we will not mention.”

“You need a vacation. A nice, quiet, relaxing vacation. I’m only too glad to be providing the relaxing part of it.”

Kris leaned over and kissed him. “You are very relaxing.”

“How late do you want to be for supper? Ready to join the bikini brigade?”

“Give me a hand up. I’d prefer to wear shorts.”

They found they could walk right into the shower from the outside and enjoyed helping each other get clean. Kris found herself carefully weighing just how attractive the bed was and how late she was willing to be for supper.

Naked, she stood in front of her closet as Jack, just as bare, studied his. He pulled out a pair of very short shorts, high-cut and low-hung. Kris grinned and pulled out the smallest pair of shorts in her closet. She was pretty sure that if she’d gotten her butt sunburned that morning, she’d be glowing red as she walked into the dining room.

Jack chose a net tank top that showed off his six-pack. Kris sighed and chose one that would show off her flat belly.

Hand in hand, they headed for dinner.

They were late. Most of the shorts contingent was already seated. The two women who had worn the muumuus last night were still covered with flowers. The owner led them to the same table they’d had the night before. “I saved it for you,” he said with a too-knowing smile.

The waitress showed up, also sporting a knowing smile. “Usually it takes first-timers a couple of days to quit hiding behind a muumuu,” she whispered to Kris.

“We’ve known each other a very long time,” Kris said.

“And fought battles together?” the waitress said, all starry-eyed.

“No,” Jack said. “Usually, we just fight with each other.”

That left the poor girl too puzzled to answer with anything but tonight’s specials. Again it was fish and fish. Each ordered a different one and prepared to share. The girl bounced off happily and soon returned with two ice teas.

Kris found herself staring at the ocean and thinking of how it went on forever. It never changed, but it didn’t feel anything, either. Slowly, she began to open up to Jack what it had been like to be “that Longknife girl,” the “Prime Minister’s brat,” the gal with the chest that belonged in the guys’ showers.

“Girls can be so cruel to each other. Any flaw, anything different, can get hammered at.”

“And you felt your chest gave them an opening to hurt you.”

“I felt the hurt. You know, it’s strange, we tiny titty kitties should have formed our own club, but we were so hurt or cowered that we just couldn’t flock together. Then, of course, when one of us suddenly popped a pair of boobs, she was only too happy to be welcomed into the sisterhood of ‘real’ women.” Kris snorted. “I got my first period before most of them, but that’s a lot harder to brag about.”

Jack listened. He did a good job of listening. He made sounds once in a while, just about the time she figured she was yammering on, that encouraged her to go on.

“Being a Longknife meant I had to deal with three kinds of guys,” Kris said, as their dinner arrived. It turned out, she really didn’t like her fish, but she refused to give it to Jack and they shared it, feeding each other. She relished what he fed her. He tolerated what she sent his way.

“There were the gold diggers. They came in two flavors, the poor who were trying to start from scratch and the ones close to as rich as I was. You know, the pains in your butt at camp. I kind of felt sorry for the poor ones. The rich ones I tried not to throw up all over.”

“Why not? I wish I could have tossed my cookies on some of them,” Jack said.

“Sorry I disappointed you, but remember, I was young, frightened, and thought I had a reputation to defend to the death. I’d done a lot of throwing up during my drunk years. I didn’t want to start that rumor again.”

“Oh! Good point,” Jack said, sending his fork her way. She held her mouth open for the bite.

After chewing and swallowing, she went on. “Then there were the boys who just wanted to put a notch on their whatever that they’d scored on a Longknife. I made that mistake once. After that, I could spot one a mile away. If he got close enough to dance with, I stepped on his toes enough for a three-footed girl. With my equipment, it was hard enough to find second base, much less score. I got real good at slapping anyone who even got close.”

“Okay, that covers the first two, who was the third?”

“Boys and girls who were interested in politics. Get close enough to a Longknife and get caught up in the wake. They were easy to like. I’d invite them on a first date that involved a political thing for Father. They’d be so glad to go.”

Kris took a deep breath, and Jack reached across to her plate and snagged most of the remaining fish. He popped it into his mouth too fast for her to protest.

“You know, there’s such a thing as being too much the gentleman.”

“There is? Nobody ever told me that.”

“Well, I’m telling you.”

“The third kind of guys. You left them at a political shindig.”

“They usually end up hitching a ride home with someone else.”

Jack gave Kris a puzzled look. “I can’t believe anyone would not take you home.”

“You could if you ever saw me in full political forward motion. I learned politicking at Father’s knee. I have pictures of me, cute as a button at five, doing the rope line, shaking hands. I kissed my first baby before I was seven. Wind me up and put me in political gear, and I will work the crowd, make a speech, smile, smile, smile, and do it all without using a single brain cell.

“I could spend a week of twenty-hour days on full automatic. Why do you think I joined the Navy? I had to get out of that rat race before the rats won.”

Jack shook his head at her self-depreciation. “And yet I’ve seen you come the politician and be a force of nature that nothing could stand against. What you did on St. Petersburg—the way you finagled Vicky Peterwald into signing a city charter. That was a magnificent bit of politicking.”

“But we were totally off the map. It had never been done before.”

“Nelly and Abby pulled up the Magna Carta, complete with parchment and silver seals when you asked.”

Kris started to shoot Jack down, then paused. “Yes, we did something pretty slick there. Not at all standard stump speech. We were borrowing from history and coming up with something that helped a whole lot of people.”

“What I’m hearing is you got tired of the same old same old and left for the Navy before you were old and experienced enough to sit at the grown-ups’ table. To sink your teeth into some real steak-type issues.”

Kris leaned back in her chair and looked at Jack. “You know, Captain, you’re a pretty savvy guy. You may have just shown me why dear Father is so mad at me.”

“Glad to be of service,” Jack said.

Then Kris shook her head. “But I’m glad I went Navy. It’s been a whole lot more fun than politics could ever have been.”

“And your brother admitted that you got all the courage in this generation, and the Navy’s putting it to a whole lot better use than any old campaign.”

“And I met you.”

“And I got to meet you. If you’d stayed the Prime Minister’s brat, I’d have just been following you around.”

“As I got more bratty and you got a whole lot less interested in me.”

“I don’t think that could ever happen.”

There was no applause as they left that evening. One of the couple in muumuu and shorts did cross paths with them at the door. He shook Jack’s hand. “Thank you.”

Kris got a huge hug from the young woman. “Now there’s hope that I can have a child, and he can grow up to be a man.”

Kris and Jack walked slowly back to their cottage.

“You notice how that young woman wants a boy?” she pointed out to Jack.

“Yeah. I’d call that our first hint that Alwa is a man’s world.”

“So very many of them are,” Kris said with a sigh.

That night, the bed turned out to be just as much fun as the beach blankets had been. And the feathers were much softer than the sand.

Another interesting bit of discovery.