The End is Coming

Chapter Twenty-four

The camouflaged Ford was parked, the cases of rifles and ammunition and medical gear and other supplies from the aircraft in the truck bed—Nata-lia too exhausted to bother moving them, Paul too weak.

She had insisted he go to bed—he had insisted on a shower. She had been too tired to argue it with him. She sat, now, on the floor just outside the bath-room, listening for the sounds of him in the shower, afraid he was too weak to keep standing. She had offered to bathe him—and he had actually blushed. She smiled at the thought.

Love was a strange thing.

Her love for Paul was deep friendship, her love for Rourke something else entirely. But Natalia wasn’t certain what.

There was a loud squeaking noise and she heard a gasped “Shit!”

She was on her feet, inside the bathroom, rip-ping open the shower. She dropped to her knees beside the tub, bending into it, Rubenstein’s left arm dripping blood, Rubenstein collapsed in the back of the shower, the blood washing across his naked body, making a tiny stream of pinkish red toward the drain, his right leg drawn up, his left outstretched. Natalia was up, stepping into the bathtub, care-ful of her footing, her left hand turning down the shower, her right hand reaching out for Paul.

His head raised, his eyes odd-seeming without his glasses on—she sometimes forgot they ever came off. His speech slurred a little, he whispered, “Slipped, I guess—ha,” and he forced a smile.

“Did you hit your head?” she said leaning over him. As her eyes glanced down, she saw him com-ing erect between his legs.

“Get out of here—”

Tm going to see if you’re all right—”

“I haven’t been this close to—”

“I know,” she smiled. “There’s nothing to be em-barrassed about—it’s a normal reaction—you haven’t got any clothes on, that’s all—”

And Rubenstein laughed, “This is stupid.”

“What’s stupid?” she said, feeling the back of his head, parting his wet hair to see if he’d injured himself.

“I’m naked in the shower with the most beauti-ful woman I’ve ever seen and what am I doing—wishing for an erection to go down because I’m embarrassed.”

She kissed his forehead quickly, stepping out of the shower, reaching out to help him to his feet.

“That didn’t help me,” he smiled….

She had stopped the bleeding, bandaging his arm after forcing him to let her finish washing him—men were babies, she thought. As if any woman could reach maturity and not know what a penis looked like. And she put him to bed, giving him some of the painkiller John had prescribed for him, covering him, turning off the light, and going immediately back into the bathroom. It needed cleaning after the flood from the shower. She started working at that, getting up her bootprints, drying the floor. She badly wanted a shower, but more badly wanted a cigarette, leaving the bathroom, walking down the three steps and into and across the Great Room to the couch. Her guns, still holstered, were on the coffee table. She found her cigarettes in the black canvas bag that doubled as purse and light-load backpack. She lit one, inhaling the smoke deep into her lungs, sitting back in the couch. She stared up at the ceiling for a while—the sta-lactites there reminding her of something she didn’t wish to be reminded of, really, but making her laugh. “Paul,” she smiled. She rolled onto her belly, supporting herself on her elbows.

On the end table beside the couch she saw the photograph—Rourke, Sarah, Michael, and An-nie. Michael was his father—the perfect minia-ture, she thought. And someday, if they all survived that long, he would be the perfect dupli-cate rather than perfect miniature.

She looked at Sarah’s face. “What kind of woman are you, Sarah?”

She rolled onto her back then, closing her eyes, still smoking her cigarette. She was past falling asleep. If Rourke found his family, or if he found that they could not be found, it would forever change her life. She could not sleep.

She thought about Sarah Rourke—how was it to be the wife of John Rourke? To cook for him, to keep his clothes clean? How was it to sleep with him?

She—Natalia—had slept beside him, in his arms. He had kissed her. But because of Sarah, he would not—

Natalia sat up, stubbing out her cigarette.

She decided to light another one.

Alone in the Great Room, through an exhaled cloud of gray smoke, she told herself, “I would be blindingly lucky at cards.”