Cat's Cradle

Dillon squinted at the booklet he was holding, turning it this way and then that. “Help.”

Cat approached warily and peered over his shoulder. The booklet was the instruction manual for hooking up a VCR. In a dry tone, she suggested, “You might try turning that right-side up.”

He gave her a mock-threatening scowl. “Don’t get smart. Are you here to work or make fun of me?”

Some little devil inside prompted her to deliver a snappy comeback. She quelled the devil. She remained businesslike and distant, as she’d promised herself she would be. “What can I do?”

“Sit down.” He patted the space right beside him.

She hesitated, thinking it wouldn’t be wise to sit too close to him. And then she decided that if she didn’t sit close to him, he would think she was nervous around him. And she wasn’t nervous around him. Not in the least.

He held out the booklet. “Come on. Take this. Do something about it.”

She took the booklet and dropped next to him. Then she did her best to concentrate on the diagram he’d been looking at.

“God,” he said.

She shot him a suspicious glance. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just wishing.”

She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “Wishing what?”

He snorted. “That I could get up from here with one-tenth the ease that you got down.”

“Do you want to get up? I’ll be glad to help you.”

He shook his head. “Not yet. I’m working up to it gradually.”

This close, she could see that there were little gold flecks in the velvet brown of his eyes. His chin had a cleft in it. Cat seemed to remember that his blade of a nose had once been straighter. He’d probably broken it jumping out of a building for a movie or riding a bucking bronc in a rodeo.

She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why did you get down, if you knew it was going to be a problem getting up?”

“Hey, I have to do the tough things, if I ever want them to be anything like easy again.”

“Will they ever be easy again?”

“It’s relative. I’ll never run a marathon, if that’s what you mean.”

They were smiling at each other.

Cat reminded herself once more that she was here to work, not hear all about how Dillon McKenna was dealing with the changes his accident had made in his life. She looked at the booklet again. The page showed the terminals on the back of the VCR. It was a very clear and simple diagram. She glanced up at Dillon, to tell him this little task should be a piece of cake.

But something else entirely popped out of her mouth. “Has it been hard for you?”

He answered frankly. “Yeah. On a lot of levels. But it was time for a change anyway, you know?”

“How so?”

“Well, sometimes, in the past few years, I’ve found myself wondering exactly what it was I had to prove. Risking my life to jump a pyramid of sixty Buicks on a souped-up Harley started to seem more stupid than heroic to me. And the accident at the Mirage was bad. I’ve been broken up a lot in my time, but this was the worst. I was on my back or in a wheelchair for six and a half months.”

Cat thought of her own good, strong body. She depended on it to perform for her. How would she deal with it if she couldn’t walk for six months? Not well, she suspected. Not well at all. “I’ll bet you went nuts.”

“Yeah. You could say that.” He grinned rakishly.

Cat stared at his lips. They were wide and nicely shaped, lips made for rakish grins. There was a faint, jagged scar on his upper lip, like a tiny lightning bolt.

“What’s that?” She reached out, almost touched the scar, but stopped herself just in time.

Dillon knew what she meant. He touched the scar himself, lifting his dark brows at her in silent question.

She nodded in confirmation.

“A steer hooked me. Back when I was still riding the rodeos.”

“With its horn, you mean?”

“You got it. Ripped my lip in half. But that was fifteen years ago. It’s faded almost to nothing now.” He leaned in closer to her, so she could get a better look.

Cat leaned in, too, though she could see perfectly fine from right where she was. She realized that the gold specks in his eyes seemed to be glittering, like tiny flakes of pyrites in a mountain stream. And she also liked the smell of him. A clean smell, with a hint of something else, a little like cedar, tangy and sharp.

Right then, the door chimes rang.

Cat jerked bolt upright as a hot blush went shooting straight up to the roots of her hair.

“I...um...”

But Dillon seemed totally unconcerned. “Great. That’s probably the equipment for the gym.”

She took her cue from him. After all, if he thought nothing had happened, then nothing really had. Had it? She’d only leaned in close to look at that scar on his lip, that was all.

He smiled ruefully. “Either help me up from here—or answer that, will you?”

“Sure. No problem. I’ll get it.” She leapt to her feet and flew to the door.

It was the gym equipment. Since Dillon had to sign for it and show them where he wanted it, she helped him get up as soon as she let in the two delivery men.

The main living area of the house was upstairs, including the master suite. Downstairs was a central room off of which branched three more large rooms and two baths. One of those rooms had been intended for a gym; its walls were lined with mirrors. The equipment had to go in there.

Once everything was inside, it turned out that the delivery men actually were fully trained in assembly of the equipment. So Cat left Dillon to supervise them and went back to the upper level to tackle all the electronic gadgets that waited there.

By one in the afternoon, the delivery men took their leave and Cat had the chaos upstairs under control. She showed Dillon how to work all his new electronic toys, pointing out that he wouldn’t get anything but a few public stations on his fancy big screen until he either hooked up to cable or brought in that satellite dish he’d mentioned.

He said the dish was due this week. “And let’s have lunch. I’m starving.”

“I have a sandwich in my truck,” she said. “But aren’t we done for the day?”

He shook his head. “Don’t forget the wood. I like a fire, especially in the evenings. And I seem to have used up nearly all of what you split for me Friday.”