Dixie Browning - A Knight In Rusty Armor

“Oh,” Ru replied, just as if she knew what he was talking about.

A little while later they were sipping hot cocoa made from a mix. Ru would have preferred tea. She had an idea Trav would rather have had coffee, but the occasion seemed to call for something out of the ordinary.

With the noise of the generator in the background, they discussed the vagaries of living on the Outer Banks, subject to nature’s whims and the limitations inherent on a barrier island. “Why did you settle here? It’s a long way from Oklahoma City.” Ru had two ways of dealing with stress. She either talked too much or not at all. This was going to be one of those too-much nights.

He sighed as if he didn’t want to answer but was too polite to refuse. Which he probably was. Sick or not, she’d learned a lot about Lieutenant Commander Travis, Holiday, USCG, retired, in these past few days. Not that he was talkative, because he wasn’t, but a remark here, a comment there, had been enough to go on. With nothing else to do but lie around and recuperate, she’d focused on the man because she hadn’t wanted to dwell on her own problems.

She did know that he was genuinely kind. And that he was second-generation Coast Guard and had been born in Oklahoma City, which struck her as a strange place for the Coast Guard. But then, she’d never been farther west than Mississippi.

She knew, too, that he had an overdeveloped sense of duty and an underdeveloped ego, which was surprising in anyone, especially a man. Especially a ruggedly attractive man who didn’t pay homage to every mirror he passed, the way Hubert had done. Her ex had taken narcissism to new heights.

Travis Holiday seemed totally unaware of his own rugged appeal. Even she, who had sworn off men—she, who had more problems than Godiva had chocolates—had done a double take at the sight of his lean, denim-clad backside bending over a stack of lumber that morning.

He was appealing, all right. She could have sworn, if she’d even thought about it, that she hadn’t a viable hormone left in her body. Stress had a way of doing that to a woman.

At least it had done it to her. Mentally and emotionally, if not physically, she’d been curled up in the fetal position for so long she’d stopped thinking of herself as a woman. She was a victim.

Correction. She had been a victim. Past tense. Her divorce had been rough enough, coming on top of the thing with her father. But half the women she knew had gone through at least one divorce.

Unfortunately that had been only the beginning. She’d begun to feel like a centipede, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then the other one, and then the other one, ad infinitum. Finally, after filling out enough forms to start her own country in order to officially regain her identity—a process that had taken more than two years—she had begun to build herself a new life.

Except for the phone calls. Evidently, crank calls were a common occurrence. As no actual threats had been made, the overworked, understaffed police force hadn’t taken her complaint too seriously. So she’d handled it the only way she knew how, by walking away. By that time there’d been nothing left to stay for.

Trav sneezed, and she slid the box of tissues across the coffee table. “Sorry. That’s what you get for being a Good Samaritan.

“Allergies,” he muttered.

She smiled knowingly. “I don’t think so,” she said, but before she could add that hoarseness, flushed cheeks and glittery eyes weren’t standard allergy symptoms, the phone rang. As an indication of how far she’d come, both literally and figuratively, she hardly even flinched.

Trav reached for it, stretching his long, lean torso so that his shirt parted company with his jeans on one side. Ru stared at the section of naked, exposed flesh. The man wasn’t even wearing an undershirt. She knew very well that flu was caused by a virus and not by the weather. All the same, there was such a thing as being too macho.

“Miss Cal?” He cleared his throat. “No, I haven’t heard anything yet, I’ll let you know as soon as—He’s really bugging you, huh? Yeah, I can do that. I’ll bring a few sticks of wood and some kerosene while I’m at it, okay? Sure, no trouble—I’ll be glad to take him out . for you.”

Trav hung up the phone, stretched again, liberating the rest of his shirttail, and then turned to Ru. “I’ve got to go out for a little while, will you be all right?” She was staring at him with that tight-eyed look again. “What?” he prompted.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” she said hurriedly.

“Come on, Ru, something’s wrong. Are you afraid of the dark? Afraid to stay here alone? I can cut off the freezer and let you have more lights.”

“No, please, you go right ahead with...”

He watched her knuckles whiten again as she got a good grip on her mug. The sixty-watt bulb he allowed himself, in order to leave enough power for the freezer, refrigerator and water pump, didn’t put out a whole lot of light, but it was enough to see that she’d crawled back into her cocoon. “Dammit, Ruanna, talk to me. I can’t help you if you’re going to clam up.”

She took a deep breath. He knew something about control. Hers didn’t come easy. “I’m not afraid of a power failure. I don’t need any help. You just go on and do whatever it is you’re going to do and don’t worry about me. I might just—um, go out and look around while you’re gone.”

“Right It’s pitch-dark out there, the wind’s blowing a gale, and you want to go sight-seeing. You go right ahead, lady, don’t let a little thing like that stop you. But it’s only about twenty-eight degrees, so you might want to put on your coat. You’re just getting over the flu, remember?”

And then he had to go and spoil his I-know-what’s-good-for-you stance by sneezing three times in a row.

Snatching his leather jacket off the back of a kitchen chair, he slammed out the back door. A few minutes later he was back, a coil of rope over one shoulder and a red metal can in one hand. “Forgot my flashlight,” he muttered.

Ru sat there after he left until the mug in her hand lost its heat. Then she got up and dumped the contents into the sink. She wasn’t going anywhere, and he knew it.

Dammit, just when she thought she had everything under control, it happened again. Evidently she’d been premature with her self-congratulations. The phone rang, and just like Pavlov’s dog she reacted. Hearing all over again the soft laughter, the filthy whispered words, the implied threats that weren’t actually threats at all. At least, nothing to interest the police when she’d shown them the words she’d copied down verbatim.

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