When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [50]
I was turning myself on. He was turning me on. Oh boy!
There were no sick animals to distract me, nothing to clean or jump up and do. I wished for a cigarette, although I don’t smoke. I could have used a drink.
“I think I ought to take a look at it,” I finally said. I don’t know why, but I spoke in a whisper.
I didn’t think he was going to answer me, he was so quiet. Then Kit cleared his throat.
“Would that be in a medical capacity?” he asked.
“No. It would be in a fellow traveler capacity,” I managed to croak.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m in your able hands. Let me get this shirt off.”
“Oh goodie.”
His blue eyes twinkled again. “Dr. O’Neill? Did you just say ‘Oh goodie’?”
“You can call me Frannie. I told you that before. And yes, that’s what I said. Oh goodie.”
Chapter 49
MAX WAS WATCHING THE TWO OF them from a safe distance, at least she hoped she was safe. Her mind was going about a million miles an hour.
Warm tears streamed down her face and she couldn’t make them stop. That got her angry. She hated to show any weakness, and she almost never did, but so much had happened in such a short time. She was on the run. No, she was in flight.
Max knew it was stupid, but she just couldn’t keep the tears from flowing. She couldn’t shake a particular image out of her mind. She’d been shocked when she saw the rock come down on the head of the poor fish. The woman doctor had been so cold when she did it. Just the way they were at the School. Cold, cold, cold.
How could she kill that fish? Put it to sleep?
It had been a living thing.
It probably had babies and a nice place to live in that beautiful stream back there a ways.
Now it was dead because the doctor had put it to sleep.
Max sat on a branch, shivering and crying softly to herself. She was never going to be safe out here in the world, and she felt terribly alone and sad. She missed Matthew so much that she couldn’t even bear to think about him. The world outside the School was as scary as Uncle Thomas had always told her it was. Only he’d never scared her half as much as she’d been in the last few days.
At least she had found a safe, high place where she could see the man and woman and their roaring, blazing campfire. She didn’t like to admit it, but the cooking fish did smell awfully good. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her how long it had been since she’d put anything solid in it.
She wished she had someone to talk to.
The woman doctor and her friend were sitting on the edge of the hill watching the sunset. The sun, as it went down, was pretty, like orange marmalade and grape jelly mixed together. F-O-O-D, she thought. J-E-L-L-Y. Sitting here, watching the same sunset they were watching, made her feel she was with them. Was she getting them all wrong? If she went to them and asked politely, would they help her? She liked to think that life could work that way. But no. She knew better.
She spied on the man and woman as they sat and talked around the fire. She could tell they liked each other.
She was having conflicting thoughts about the woman doctor. She wanted so badly to trust her. That was her instinct. She just couldn’t see how all the gooey, soothing, don’t worry I’m not going to hurt yous in the world could be believed.
Then the couple were eating their dinner, and watching that made Max ravenously hungry. She listened as they talked and laughed, even caught a few words. “… Thorn in the side… over the hill… antibacterial gunk….”
She wished she could sit with them and eat a baked potato at least. Potatoes were living things, too, but she could handle that.
She scrunched forward to watch, to see them better. What’s going on now? What are they doing?
As she watched from the tree limb, the doctor went and squatted next to the man. She began to take off his clothes, his shirt first. The man was bigger than the doctor and he overpowered her! What was he doing to her?
He lay down on top of the pretty doctor, but she didn’t push him away, didn’t fight him at all. They were laughing, smiling, and then they began to kiss.
“They’re mating,”