Defender

11

They arrived to discover they had the place to themselves. The owner who also acted as the receptionist gave them just a bit of an eye but then offered them their choice of seating.

They chose a quiet corner. They sat with their backs to the rest of the dining room and enjoyed a lovely view of the ocean. The moon was already coming up, huge and orange in the sea air.

While they savored the view, two more couples arrived. The guys were in shorts and shirts like Jack. The women were in muumuus. All showed wet from having sat on the sand. Kris and Jack shared smiles with each other, but the two couples settled in different quiet corners, so they didn’t get to smile at them.

The waitress finally arrived; she wore a dress flowered like Kris’s muumuu, but cut tight into a sheath to show off her curves. She offered them a choice of fish or fish. She named both types, but they meant nothing to Kris. For a moment, the three stared at each other. Then Jack led off.

“Is one of them white fish and the other dark fish?”

The waitress stared blankly and renamed the fish. Apparently, if you were from here, you knew your fish.

“Okay, this is what we’ll do,” Jack said. “I will take one of them. Please serve the lady the other.” That satisfied the waitress, and she bounced off.

“Enjoying the view,” Kris whispered.

“I’m wondering why they didn’t provide one of those for your closet.”

Kris started to say something about how she had nothing to fill out the top but swallowed it. Jack said so very many nice things about her. Why should she repeat all her negatives? Especially since he wouldn’t agree with her. The big liar.

She changed the subject. “So what are we going to do if I hate the fish I get?”

“You will switch with me.”

“And if you hate the fish I got?”

“I will be a gentleman and eat it so my lady can enjoy herself.”

Kris considered that. Jack had an all-encompassing definition of chivalry. “And if I don’t like either of them?”

“Don’t be such a pessimist. We’re surrounded by a lovely view. Notice how the moon is causing the waves to glow. We’re not on duty. No one’s trying to kill us. Have faith. We’ll love both fish and end up feeding tidbits to each other from our plates.”

Kris considered that. “Okay. You carrying?”

Jack scowled. “Yes. You?”

“Yes,” Kris answered. “But I left the spider-silk bodysuit off when I put on the muumuu.”

“So you and I are half on vacation.”

“Well, that’s more than I’ve been since college. Even there, most of my summer vacations were spent covering campaign gigs for Father.”

“You enjoy them?”

“Usually.”

“I loved my work at summer camps. I badly needed the money to help me through the school year. I enjoyed mountains, the hiking and fishing and the kids. Most of them.”

“Let me guess, the rich, spoiled brats weren’t in the ‘most of them.’”

“Sadly yes, but let’s not go there.”

“Gladly. They were a pain in my butt, too. Trust me, the Great Billy Longknife, Man of the People, would not have one of his kids misbehaving in public or otherwise.”

“But the other rich kids . . . ?” Jack left the question hanging.

Kris refused to rise to the bait. “So, you earned money summers to pay for college. What kind of college scholarship did you have? Let me guess. You’re big. It could have been football.”

Jack silently shook his head.

“You’re tall and fast. Basketball?”

This time Jack grinned as he shook his head.

“Soccer? Father played soccer in college.”

Again Jack shook his head, now grinning from ear to ear.

“Baseball? Boxing? Wrestling? Swimming?”

“I would have accepted a swimming scholarship if I’d been offered one.”

“Okay, you win. I give up. After five years of you constantly at my elbow, telling me when and where I can pee, I don’t know what sports scholarship you had in college.”

“I do not tell you when you can go pee,” Jack said.

“Scholarship? Scholarship? What scholarship?”

“Golfing,” Jack said.

“Golfing!”

The conversation had to be put on hold. The owner dropped by their table to apologize for the delay in their meal. “I know we rang the dinner bell, and I know we promised you that you could eat from six on, but our guests are usually much later. Our chef only does two specials a night and we don’t want them to be cold for our later guests, so, I’m afraid you are having to wait much longer than anyone would expect. Could I offer you some drinks on the house?”

Jack raised an eyebrow to Kris.

She took a deep breath. “As Granny Rita told you, we are unfamiliar with much of what you have to offer. I do not drink alcoholic beverages. Do you have tea or something like it?”

“We have several teas. Would you like yours cold or hot?”

“Cold,” Kris said.

“Cold tea for me, too,” Jack said.

The owner left to apologize to the other tables. He did touch base with the waitress, and two tall, cold teas arrived.

“Jack, you don’t have to take this gentleman stuff to the max. I don’t mind if you have a beer.”

“I am having the most important conversation of my life with the woman I most love in the galaxy. I’m drinking tea, so I’ll have my wits about me.”

“You’ll need them,” Kris said. “Golf. You said you played golf in college. There can’t be a lot of money in golf scholarships.”

“No, there isn’t. But by my junior year, I was head of my class in criminology, and there was a bit of scholarship money for that, thanks to your father. Two small scholarships, odd jobs, I pieced it all together.”

“You still haven’t said why you chose golf,” Kris insisted.

“How many men do you know with a football knee, or tennis elbow, which, I must say, can come from basketball or even swimming, not to mention baseball injuries? Besides, baseball was out of the question. I wanted to be a cop. Not a donut-gobbling cop but one of the best. Golf gave me a good eye. By my junior year, I was shooting match level with both pistol and rifle. Also, you do a lot of walking that is good for you but won’t break anything.”

Kris began to giggle. She had a hard time believing it, but apparently, Longknifes could giggle. The giggle caught hold, and she found she couldn’t stop.

“What’s so funny?” Jack asked. When the giggling showed no chance of letting up and allowing Kris to answer his question, he leaned back, not at all patiently.

Kris tried to stop and couldn’t. “I’m trying,” she got out through the giggles. “Really, I’m trying to stop.”

Maybe Jack’s glare got a bit more patient.

Kris couldn’t remember ever having the giggles before in her life. If you’d asked her yesterday, she would have sworn she couldn’t giggle. She tried taking a drink of water, thinking to drown her giggles.

Bad idea. The water went down the wrong way, and she traded giggling for choking.

“Honey, are you okay?” Now Jack showed real concern.

Kris stuffed her cloth napkin into her mouth. Now she had no air to giggle or cough.

The owner showed up at the table. “Is there anything wrong?”

Jack looked helpless for the first time since Kris met him.

Kris managed to gasp in a breath. She forced herself to hold it while shaking her head and waving the owner off.

Cautiously, she took a second, then a third breath.

“Honey, it was delightful to hear you laughing like that,” Jack said, “but please don’t do that again.”

“Trust me, I won’t.”

For a long minute, Kris and Jack sat silently, her watching the eternal sea, now glowing with its own light. Him watching her, as she couldn’t help but notice out of the corner of her eye.

“I really scared you?” she finally said.

“Bad as that damn crash, or that bomb. Imagine all the paperwork I’d have to fill out. And the ribbing I’d take. My primary drowned herself on a water glass.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. That’s the way we handle being pissing scared, remember? We crack jokes.”

“Let’s come up with another approach for our courtship.”

“Courtship? Honestly?”

“Honestly, Jack. I love you. I don’t know if I love you as much as you love me, but I sure don’t want to get into a contest on the matter.”

“Good idea. I don’t think all the boffins on the Wasp could come up with a meter to measure love.”

“Not even Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?”

“Now who’s cracking jokes?” Jack said.

“Good point. Okay, let’s see if I can explain to you what I found so funny.”

“You can stop anytime you feel the giggles coming on.”

“Oh, I will,” Kris said, and took in a large breath. “You chose golf, even though there was less money in it because it was the safest route to where you wanted to go.”

“Yes.”

“You were in training to be my security chief even before you entered college.”

Jack looked at Kris in utter silence. Then snorted. “By God, you’re right.”

“You bet I am. You’ve been training yourself to look for and follow the safest path since when you were a teenager. I wonder why?”

Jack took a while to try an answer to that.

“My dad was a construction worker,” he finally said. “An accident-prone construction worker. Your dad’s regulations protect people that get hurt on the job, but after you’ve been on workers comp a couple of times, even the union isn’t so interested in referring you to a job. He still got work, but little stuff, short stuff, stuff that no one could get hurt on. Pay sucked.”

“I’m sorry,” Kris said. She licked a finger and made a mark in the air. “Put that down as one question I should not have asked.”

“You had no way of knowing, honey. Your life is an open book, complete with pictures. Most of us live our lives in quiet desperation.”

“And my desperation gets me all over the news.”

“You’re talking shop.”

“Change the topic to something else,” Kris suggested.

“Well, the later diners are arriving. Turn around. You’ll get quite a view.”

The scene could have qualified for a review or floor show in many places. The female half of the couples were arriving in shorts, the shortest shorts in Kris’s closet. The tank tops hardly qualified for the name. They stopped well short of what they were supposed to cover. The men had on the shortest shorts, too, and many hadn’t bothered with a shirt.

“I guess now we know what ‘Total Nudity Not Allowed’ means,” Kris said, turning back to her view of the ocean.

“Twelve guesses why they’re late, and the first eleven don’t count,” Jack said.

“I can’t figure out whether I feel scandalized or regret that we aren’t late with them. Not that I’d step out of our cabin in that outfit.”

“You mean it?” Jack asked.

“I really am enjoying talking to you, Jack. Getting to know you.”

“Me too.”

Dinner arrived. They were served first, at least. The fish was . . . interesting. Different from anything Kris had ever tasted. Hers had a nutty texture although whether that was from the sauce or the fish, she wasn’t sure. After her first taste, she offered Jack one. Kris had seen couples feeding each other from their plates and often wished she had someone she could do it with.

Now she did. Her best guess was she ate half of Jack’s and he ate half of hers. The fish came with a wild rice that could have been from Wardhaven and a mix of sautéed vegetables, half of which were familiar and half strange.

The medley was delicious.

They were about done. They might have been done if they hadn’t been talking so much when, an hour after the dinner bell rang, the second installment of the floor show arrived.

Jack announced it by saying “Don’t look.”

So, of course, Kris did. Only then did Jack turn in his seat and clearly enjoy the show.

Here was the string-bikini brigade. Most of the young women hadn’t even bothered with the top. The guys were also in string things. Most of them covered the essentials, but a few had a critical portion of their anatomy peeking out around the edge.

“And my Granny Rita sent me to this . . .”

“Den of delights,” Jack finished.

Kris turned back to her not-quite-finished dinner. Jack timed his turn perfectly with hers.

“Now we know what ‘Total Nudity Not Allowed’ means,” Jack said.

“I hope.”

“Would you like dessert?” the waitress asked. “We have a chocolate delight that you can not pass up, and for you, it is straight from the oven.”

“Kris?” Jack asked, tossing the call in her lap.

“What do you want to bet me that our new dinner guests had dessert before dinner?” Kris asked Jack. He chuckled but said nothing. “I’m gonna have dessert with my dinner.”

“Two of them,” Jack said.

Kris risked another glance over her shoulder. She’d never seen that many bare breasts since the gym shower in high school. No, there there’d been other girls like her who were still waiting for something to show up on their chests. Here there wasn’t a flat chest in the dinning room. Yes, some were nice and small, but not flat. Some of the guys had more top hamper than Kris.

She turned back to Jack. “How come you’re not married? I don’t mean to one of those hussies, as Mother would call them, but to a good girl. A girl like a good gentleman deserves?”

Kris paused. Then realized the directness of her question might be going someplace Jack didn’t want to. “Excuse me. That’s too forward. You don’t have to answer if I’m out of line.”

Jack’s face had become a mask. He turned his eyes to the ocean and quite a few waves came in and went out before he said anything. “Yes, Kris, you are forward, but that’s something I like about you. You don’t beat around the bush. You’re more likely to take a chain saw to it.”

“Or C-16,” Kris added.

“There have been two girls in my life. One in high school and the other in college. Once I became a cop, and then was invited into the Secret Service, there hasn’t been a lot of time for a girl, except for you. And you are, or were, or whatever, off-limits.”

Kris folded her hands on the table and waited. She knew Jack was letting her into something sacred. However much time he needed, he would not find her impatient.

“Lisa was the most lively, vivacious girl I’ve ever met. Smart, too. She didn’t blame me for breaking the curve on the tough courses like math and science. She often beat my score. She was beautiful, too, and had a sparkling personality. You know those aren’t supposed to go together.”

“I’ve heard girls condemned with the faint praise of great personality,” Kris admitted.

“Lisa had it all, and for no reason I could understand, she liked me. You know how I say something nice about you, and you deflect it?” Kris confessed she did. “That was Lisa and me. She’d say things to me that I just couldn’t believe a girl could see in me.”

The conversation paused as the dessert arrived. They tasted it. It was fantastic.

“Where did they get chocolate?” Kris asked.

“Am I permitted to answer?” Nelly said.

“Yes, this once.”

“After the Sheffield made two bad jumps, the second one discovering the lost colony of Santa Maria, someone at the headquarters of the Society of Humanity’s Navy made a policy that no ship sailed without a sealed two-hundred-pound pod of seeds in cold storage. I would guess that they brought both the Furious’s and the Enterprise’s survival seed banks to Alwa.”

“Thanks, Nelly,” Kris said.

“In the early years, it must have taken all kinds of self-control to not eat the seed corn,” Jack said.

“Granny Rita said she was a certified tyrant, with some signed in blood. I guess she wasn’t kidding.”

“There’s a lot more to this colony than we’ve found out so far,” Jack said.

“Do you think we ought to report this to Amanda and Jacques tonight? Here they were supposed to report to us, and we’re maybe discovering stuff.”

“You’re talking work, but I’ll give you a pass on that,” Jack said. “And yes, I think we need to report this.”

They ate their dessert in silence. Kris so wanted to know about Jack’s first girlfriend, but she bit her tongue and waited.

“You asked me why I didn’t take a baseball scholarship,” Jack began, the words coming slowly. “I said baseball is a lot more dangerous than you think.”

Kris made a middling noise that she hoped came across as agreement and encouragement to go on.

“Lisa was a cheerleader. Football, basketball, baseball; if there was an excuse to get the crowd cheering, she was out there doing it.

“They were doing one of those pyramid things. Three guys holding up two girls, then the last girl somehow somersaults to the top. Lots of girls would botch the landing and bring the pyramid down in a mess. People would laugh as much as they cheered.

“Lisa never missed her landing. She’d just landed, not so much as a bobble, threw up her hands when our best hitter swatted a fly ball. A foul ball, as it quickly became clear. If anyone had been looking, they’d have seen it coming, but all the cheer team was leading a cheer for our best hitter. ‘Hit a homer’ was the cry.

“Instead, he hit Lisa right in the back of the head.”

“That’s horrible,” Kris gasped, her desert forgotten.

“I already knew what I wanted to be. I’d taken volunteer training and was the closest thing the school had to an EMT. I covered all the games. I’d taken care of a few broken bones before the first responders could get there. That kind of stuff.”

“You were the first to get to Lisa,” Kris said.

“Yes,” Jack said, covering his eyes. “There are some sights you never get rid of.”

“Yes,” Kris agreed. She’d known from an early age there were some pictures of Eddy’s death that she’d never let herself see. Jack had faced the choice of running away from the man he was becoming or face a sight he’d never forget.

“I’m sorry I asked, Jack,” Kris said, reaching across the table.

“I know, Kris, but Lisa and that baseball game are a part of me. We’re a package deal.”

“And Eddy comes with me, and we’ve lost Tommy together, and God only knows how long the list is now. And it will grow.”

Now Jack patted her hands. “But they’ll grow for the both of us.”

“Yes,” Kris agreed. “You don’t have to tell me about the other girl.”

“That one’s really nothing. Great girl, beautiful. We thought we were in love. She’s the one I got suspended from school for my outlandish invitation. I and my best friend agreed she shouldn’t have to sit home alone just ’cause I was stupid.”

“You’re kidding,” Kris said.

“Nope, they hit it off. I was best man at their wedding.”

“I bet you’ve been best man at several weddings.”

“A few.”

“Nice thing about being second up for you guys is you can rent the tux. I’m stuck with six maid-of-honor dresses in my closet.”

“And never a wedding dress.”

“That is now subject to change, but trust me you don’t want me walking down the aisle in a dress my mother picks out. You remember the one Mother was looking at for Penny’s wedding?”

Jack glanced over his shoulder at the pulchritude on display. “It would be just the thing for a wedding here.”

“No,” Kris said. “The bride would wear a white string bottom and the guy would wear a black bow tie over his . . . you know.”

“And it would pass ‘Total Nudity Not Allowed,’” Kris and Jack ended saying together.

“I think we got a dirty look from that topless gal behind you,” Jack said.

“I know you got a nasty look from two of the gals behind you.”

“Think it’s time we beat a strategic retreat?”

“Even if that does sound like you’re talking shop,” Kris admitted.

Jack pulled Kris’s chair back, like a good gentleman. Their table was as far from the door as you could get, so they would be passing a lot of well-tanned flesh on the way out. Kris had done a perp walk in cuffs. She’d been paraded for good and bad reasons enough times to have lost count. She set a smile on her face and did the best she could to look each and every man and woman in the eye as she passed them.

“Hold it,” one of the guys said, half-standing. “Aren’t you the gal, the commander that was on TV?”

“Yes,” Kris said, coming to a halt. “I’m from the Wasp in orbit, and I did talk to one of the Alwans’ news stations.”

“I saw you,” several people said, now muttering to each other.

“You blew that huge alien ship out of space and saved all our lives,” a barely dressed woman said.

Kris shook her head. “A lot of people were involved in stopping that raiding party. Most of them died for our effort. I’m one of the lucky few that survived.”

A woman stood, one of those in short short shorts, and a very short tank top. “We owe all of you our lives. Thank you.”

The wave of thank-yous was followed by a round of applause. Kris gave them her best princess smile and bowed her reply as she tried not to run for the door. She kept her pace down, and Jack stayed right behind her.

At the door, the owner waited. “I’m sorry about this. Granny Rita said you wanted your privacy. I don’t watch much TV. I didn’t think my clients did either. If you want, I’ll have your meals taken to your cabin.”

“Give me a night to think about that,” Kris said, just wanting to be gone. He stood aside, and she fled into the night.

She found herself holding on to a tree before they were halfway back to their cottage. She had to hold on, her knees weren’t doing that support thing they’d been doing since she was a toddler.

Jack scooped her up and carried her. “Where do you want to go? The cottage or the beach?”

“The beach,” Kris whispered against his shoulder.

He settled her on dry sand this time. The tide was high, the breakers close. Kris squeaked and backed up on all fours as a high one tried to wet her down.

“Sorry about that,” Jack said as he settled down beside her farther up the beach.

For a long time, they just watched the breakers come in and roll back out again. A shooting star cut across the inky black sky. The other stars, with no competition from city lights, were as bright and proud as Kris had ever seen them from space.

“Why is it so hard to accept a thank-you?” she finally asked the eternal ocean.

Jack did not speak for another couple of waves, one of which wet Kris’s toes, but she stood her ground, and the ocean dared go no farther.

“Maybe it’s hard to take because you know the thank-you belongs to not just you but a whole lot of people who worked, sweat, bled and, in too many cases, died. But, honey, you are Princess Longknife, ComPatRon 10, and there are not a lot of other people alive to accept the thanks.”

“Gramma Ruth says that somewhere along the way, Grampa Ray lost his humanity. Grampa Trouble says he’s still human, thanks to Gramma Ruth.”

“I can believe that.”

“It’s a hell of a job to keep a Longknife human. The legend wants to eat us up.”

“I’ve heard that. I’m still willing to interview for the job. I’ll do it if you’ll accept me?”

“If I really love you, is it fair to let you take such an impossible job?”

Waves rolled in, broke in phosphorescent beauty, and slid back out several times before Jack cleared his throat. “I’ve shared your world for nearly five years, haven’t I?”

Kris nodded agreement.

“In that time, I’ve come to love you. To only want the very best for you. Believe it or not, from where I’ve stood, stuck on the sidelines, I’ve done my best for you.”

“I believe you, Jack.”

“Honey, I think you love me as much as I love you. It’s hard to believe a beautiful, powerful, competent woman like you can love me, but you’ve given me a few hints that it just might be possible.”

“Very possible. Almost certainly. No. Definitely,” Kris said.

“But you’re a Longknife. To some people, that means wealth and power. To other folks it means danger. In all cases, it means target. May I point out that for the last four years, I’ve grown as good at making them miss me as I have at making sure they miss you.”

“And you haven’t gotten nearly the medals you deserve for that,” Kris said.

“I’d swap all the medals in the book for a simple gold band to put on your finger.”

“Jack, you’re too good to believe.”

“And I thought you were the one too good for me to ever find.”

“Most men find me, get a good look at what happens around me, and run, not walk, for the door. Or pick one of the girls around me.”

“Yes, I know,” Jack said. “I’ve had to sweat a couple of them in the last few years. Fortunately for me, they all bolted.”

“Fortunate for you, but a bit hard on me.”

“I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”

“No it didn’t. I know what you meant.” Kris used the hem of her muumuu to wipe her eyes. “Jack, I’m exhausted. Could we go to bed?”

“Yes, honey. Do you need a lift?”

“No, just give me a hand up and a strong shoulder to lean on.”

“Always, love.”

Even in the dark, they had no problem finding their cottage. The moon was up, the stars were bright, and the ocean gave its own green light. The only light in the cottage was a small lit candle. Kris found that whoever had lit the candle had also tossed a rather skimpy nightgown on one side of the bed. Jack found soft sleeping shorts on his, and dismissed himself to the bathroom to change.

It took Kris just a second to toss the muumuu over her head and slip into the gown. It didn’t quite go halfway to her knees, and the top was so open she could easily pull it aside if she didn’t toss it off entirely.

Well, if elves were appearing and disappearing, she might have them do some wash. She left the muumuu on the porch chair and tumbled into bed.

A moment later, Jack appeared and blew out the candle. He stepped outside, very likely to leave his shorts and shirt on the same chair with Kris’s muumuu.

Kris had pulled the covers up a bit, not enough to turn herself into an unapproachable mummy, but Jack settled above the covers, his front to her back. He slipped an arm over her shoulder that easily managed to miss what she claimed for breasts.

“Don’t you want to do something more tonight?” she asked. She knew the answer to that. She could feel him through the thin blanket and even thinner gown.

“I don’t think so, dear. It’s been a long day. You’ve been through a lot, and let’s face it, you’re exhausted. You need your sleep a lot more than you need anything else.”

“No, I don’t,” Kris said . . . through a yawn.

“I rest my case,” Jack said.

“But what I’m feeling from you isn’t at rest.”

“You want me to roll over?” Jack asked, ever the gentle gentleman.

“Please don’t. I want you close.”

“And I always will be,” he said.

Kris settled comfortably in Jack’s protective arms. She remembered something about checking in with her team. Letting them know about something. She was asleep before she could remember what it was.