Unknown - The_Growing_589064

Koda raises an unseen eyebrow. Sounds like, maybe, but the thoughts she’s entertaining while looking at those suddenly displayed legs are anything but paternal. “You said you were up for fishing this morning,” she replies, pleased that her voice sounds relatively normal.

“The operative word here, Dakota, is ‘morning.’. This,” she swings an arm in a large arc, “is oh-God thirty. Even the fish are asleep.”

“Wanna bet?”

The arm collapses across Kirsten’s eyes. “I knew you’d say that.” Her sigh is worthy of the most scene-chewing actor ever to take the stage. “Do I have time for a shower, at least?” Not that the showers offer much. With the natural gas having petered completely out, the water is cold, bitter cold, or icicles. Then again, a cold shower sounds just the ticket right about now.

“Sure,” Koda replies, thinking much the same thing. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

“So very generous of you,” is the dry retort, causing Dakota to chuckle.

With that, she backs out of the room, taking Asi with her.

After the door has safely closed, Kirsten removes her arm and expels a great gust of air from her lungs. “Sweet…Jesus!”

Her head is spinning. Her heart is pounding. Even her damn palms are sweaty.

“Either I’m way deep in love, or I’m getting ready to have a stroke,” she whispers to the uncaring ceiling. “Worst part is, I don’t know which one would be easier on me.”

*

Exactly eleven minutes and one very cold shower later, Kirsten appears in the living room, dressed casually in a pair of well worn jeans, a simple navy blue T-shirt and hiking boots that have seen better decades. She appears appealingly rumpled, and even younger than she normally looks. Koda smiles at her from her place in the kitchen, and hefts the basket she’s packed from the table. “Breakfast. C’mon, the truck’s packed, Asi’s aboard, and the fish are waiting.”

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Kirsten mumbles something unintelligible and follows behind like a little kid going to the mall with Mom when she’d rather be in bed sleeping. She finally manages to waken fully once she’s belted into the truck—borrowed from Judge Harcourt—and Koda is starting the engine. “Wait a minute. I thought we were just going down to the stream at the edge of the property. I’ve seen fish in there.” She’s not…quite…ready to tell the circumstances behind seeing said fish, however.

Koda shrugs. “Too many people.”

Kirsten nods in understanding. Though incredibly generous and giving, Dakota Rivers is an intensely private person, just as she herself is. A private person with an innate need to escape into that privacy at any given time.

Her eyes widen as she realizes the honor she’s being given.

“Is that okay?” Dakota asks, unsure of the reason behind Kirsten’s prolonged silence.

“It’s more than okay,” Kirsten replies, grinning. Reaching out, she lays a hand on Dakota’s wrist, squeezing it in thanks. “Much more.”

Returning the smile, Koda slips on her sunglasses, throws the truck into gear, and starts off, not minding in the least that Kirsten hasn’t yet seen fit to remove her hand.

*

Less than a half hour later, Dakota pulls the truck into a dense grove of trees and kills the engine. Kirsten looks around through the windshield as Koda opens the door and slips out, Asi at her heels. The big dog spies something off to his left and goes pelting off, barking fit to raise the dead. A second later, a flock of pheasants rises up with a ratting whirr, and Asi reappears, proudly wagging his tail.

Laughing at her dog’s antics, Kirsten slips out of the truck and takes in a deep breath of spring scented air. She then walks around to the bed of the truck, where Dakota is busy unloading their equipment. “Need some help?”

“Yeah. Grab this for me, will ya?”

Kirsten’s shoulder is nearly pulled from its socket as she grabs hold of the handled basket Koda hands her. “Jesus! What’s in here? Bricks?”

“You’ll see,” Koda replies, smirking, and handing her several thick blankets. “I can get the rest.”

Kirsten looks around again as Koda continues to unload the gear, taking in the seeming quiet of the place. Her mind, of its own accord, slips back a pace to a time when she had been in a similar place after the failed business at the android factory. The droids had come from nowhere and surrounded her truck. She shivers with the memories.

“You ok?”

Kirsten frowns, knowing it’s a stupid question, but needing to ask anyway. “Is it…safe here?”

Koda smiles. “It should be. And if it isn’t, we have Asi, and I have this.” She hefts an oblong object that can only be a cased rifle. “We’ve got it covered.”

Kirsten nods, saddened by the need to carry a rifle on a simple fishing trip. “Things are never going to be the same, are they.”

Laying her gear down on the ground, Koda straightens, reaches out, and brushes the tips of her fingers against Kirsten’s spine, between the smaller woman’s shoulder blades. “I have faith in you,” she begins, voice very soft. “And in the rest of us, to get rid of the androids and help make this land a good place to live in again.”

“I wish I had your faith in me,” Kirsten replies, sighing deeply.

“You do.” Ignoring Kirsten’s questioning look, Koda retrieves the rest of their gear and heads off into the woods, Asi happily at her heels.

Fetching another sigh, Kirsten tromps in after her.

*

“This is beautiful,” Kirsten whispers, as if giving full voice to her thoughts will break the enchantment of the area around her. A faerie ring of fantastically colored flowering trees surrounds an almost perfectly circular pond whose calm surface reflects the slowly lightening sky like a mirror made of smoked glass.

Fine, feathery grass grows along the shore, heads bent like Narcissus looking at his reflection in the cool water below. Frogs sing for mates across the expanse, their calls echoing and mixing with the chirp of crickets and the somnolent buzzing of a hundred other, as yet hidden, insects.

There is an almost sacred sense of peace to this hidden glen, and the calm seeps into Kirsten, soothing over edges made jagged by worry and strain.

“Thank you,” she says, still whispering. “For bringing me here. I know this place must mean a lot to you.”

Koda favors her with a smile that is, curiously, half-shy, half-defensive. Then she relaxes. “I used to come here when I needed to think.” Her smile becomes more genuine. “Or be alone.”

“You mean, you never…?” Kirsten asks, surprised.

“No. Never.”

Kirsten feels her breath catch. “Wow.” She shakes her head, trying to clear it. “I…uh…I don’t…” She looks up, startled, as a blanket is snatched from her arms.

“C’mon,” Koda invites, grinning. “Let’s get this spread out and do some fishing.”

*

“Oh God that was good!” Kirsten groans as she flops back onto her elbows. She wiggles a little; her jeans seem to have shrunk in the waist since she put them on this morning. The top button strains heroically with the effort of holding the fabric together.

“I’m glad you enjoyed,” Koda replies, watching her companion’s body movements with interest—and a fairly accelerated heart-rate.

“Oh, I did more than enjoy, believe me.” She laughs. “It’s strange. I never liked venison before.”

“That’s because I never cooked it for you,” Koda teases, grinning. “Here, try this.” She hands over a wine glass filled with a Pinot Noir.

“Why Ms. Rivers,” Kirsten questions over the rim of the glass, affecting a cultured accent, and batting her eyes, “wine before noon? Whatever will the neighbors think?”