He discovered her body and his own dog-happy arousal. Between the fight and getting naked he had acquired nineteen-year-old eyes.
Glowing nineteen-year-old skin.
She held up a twinkling tinfoil square and Harry groaned.
“This is your basic casual encounter. And this is a rubber,” she said.
Still fun with galoshes on.
Before the problems began, Linda Margoles used to accuse Harry of being addicted to mood-altering flesh. Not true. Addiction was a struggle to stay ahead of physical tolerance. Good sex doesn’t go away after the first time and you never get used to it, and done right, it was still the only race where both people get to win.
“Man. I needed this.” Harry rubbed his knuckles through his messed-up hair. His sweat smelled good. His skin tingled.
“It’s a relief to be with a guy who doesn’t have problems with sex,” Ginny said as she ran her tongue across his bicep.
Harry grinned. Down the line, of course, lurked the jack-in-the-box nightmare.
“Don’t laugh,” Ginny said. “There’s a lot who do.”
“Like Jay?”
Her brows knitted. “You into comparisons?”
“Everybody’s different, huh?”
208 / CHUCK LOGAN
“No.” She crossed her eyes. “But truth and the male ego can wreak havoc on a bedroom real fast.”
Sweat glistened on the milky slopes of her shoulders and hips and pooled in her navel. Down below, the cesarean scar made a crooked welt, deep scarlet in the firelight. His finger followed the slick furrow into her pubic hair.
“Kids?” he said.
“Little girl.”
“Married?”
“Separated.”
“He live in town?” Harry cast his eyes around warily.
“Heck no,” she laughed. “He’s an assistant sociology professor at Moorhead State.”
“Good.” Harry fell back into the covers, relieved. “My luck, he’d be another Paul Bunyan look-alike.” He shook his head. “Hakala, Emery, Cox. Aren’t there any normal-sized guys up here?”
“You,” she said with a sly smile.
He lit two cigarettes and passed her one. They lay side by side and stared at the ceiling. She smoothed the scar on his hip with her fingers, as if to blend the dead tissue into the living skin. She relaxed.
At ease with him and more poised with her clothes off.
“What’s your husband like?”
“He wouldn’t let me smoke in bed.”
Harry turned, supporting himself on his elbows. “Then tell me what Cox is like?”
“Too fast,” she said. “Slow down.” She raised her head to be kissed.
His kiss was mechanical. His mind, which had bucked off during their lovemaking, was back.
She patted him on the cheek and her expression set and tightened.
“How quick it gets away,” she said.
“You’re not really a waitress, are you?”
“Can’t we have this conversation over coffee, say in the morning?”
“Ginny, you took me to that bar knowing Cox would be there.”
HUNTER’S MOON / 209
“We sure got his attention, didn’t we? I confess, I’m not perfect.”
“And you’re not a waitress.”
Ginny toyed with the mole on her cheek. “What gave me away?
The Ph.D. in oral sex?” she smiled. “I teach elementary school. Did.
I took a year’s leave of absence from Moorhead public schools when my marriage went down the tubes. My dad’s letting me run the diner till things straighten out.”
“Which one’s your dad?”
“The bank.”
“Christ, your brother’s Jerry the cop.”
“Jerry’s all right. I’m surprised he wasn’t there tonight. He’s sure taken an interest in you, making sure Larry doesn’t catch you out in the dark some night. Just don’t mention the Maple Leafs. He’s sensitive. They cut him from the team his first season.”
“Great.” Harry shook his head. “Why in the hell did you go out with someone like Cox?”
Ginny sat up and pulled the sheets to her shoulders. “He’s a sweet guy. He has these incredibly sensitive hands. Wish he could touch a body the way he touches a piece of wood. He can’t help the way he looks.”
“The sonofabitch is crazy, Ginny. Look in his eyes.”
“What do you expect? He got mixed up with Jesse.”
“You really don’t like her.”
“Actually, I feel sorry for her. She’s got it all. Looks. Brains. In her own way, she has a lot of heart. But she’s this beautiful plane that’ll never take off sitting on the runway.”
“So why didn’t she get out of here?”
“She got as far as Duluth and Larry Emery brought her back,” said Ginny. Goosebumps prickled over her smooth shoulders and she shivered and pulled the sheets tighter. “Larry loves Jesse. Except he loves the wild parts of her and his love winds up like a cage.”
“So she married Bud.”
“That doesn’t mean she got away from Larry.” She touched his forehead. “You know, you have these two lines 210 / CHUCK LOGAN
between your eyebrows from scowling. They go away when you make love.” Her hand was drawn back to his left hip. “What happened here?” she asked.
He closed his fingers over her hand. “I need a little help, Ginny.
What do people really think about the shooting? Why did Chris try to kill Bud Maston?”
“Uncle Mike says Chris was stoned out of his gourd—”
“C’mon, Ginny. I fought King Kong to earn your favors.”
She shrugged. “Chris was different. He was pulled in every which direction between Larry, his mother, and Reverend Karson. Like when Larry and Reverend Karson had their fight about Chris.”
“What kind of fight?”
Ginny made a face. “Chris got in trouble at school—”
“Pulled a gun?”
“No, before that. End of the school year last summer. Don Karson became real…involved…you know, counseling him. Larry lost it what with Jesse leaving him and living with Maston. He dragged Chris out of the church. Karson insists Larry assaulted him. It was a real scene. Karson gave this sermon about the rights of children and abusive men who were too rough on them. Larry walked out and took a bunch of the congregation with him. Jay was the only one Chris would talk to.”
“Doesn’t explain why Chris pulled the trigger.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Look. Larry and Jesse had—have this really strange relationship. Chris and Becky were both twisted from it.
Uncle Mike says Chris was shrapnel that finally went off.”
“Where’s Cox fit?”
Ginny
