A Red Leaf & Ten Orchids Ch. 03

She sure had an edge to her, he thought. And even though her take had been a mile off, she was ready to do whatever it took to protect Jillian and Rosie. He could admire her for that. As far as that went, there was an awful lot that he found he could admire.

He chastised himself for that stupid line of thought.

He was annoyed with Rosie for not telling him that her niece was coming. What had she been thinking? Well, she probably didn't imagine that there would be any gunplay involved, that was certain. Suddenly he realized that if Rosie had told him her relatives were coming beforehand he would have felt uncomfortable, and would probably have wanted to leave. Hell, he sure wanted to leave now that he'd made such a fool of himself.

Well, he couldn't leave now, no matter how stupid he'd been. There was too much to be done before Rosie could sell the place at a good price. He cracked open another beer, and considered it. He usually never drank three at a sitting. Then again, he'd never had a gun pointed directly at his family jewels before either. He laughed out loud at the thought. No telling when his manhood would get over that shock and want to come out to play again. It wasn't as though it had anywhere important to be anyway, he thought.

The sun had completely set now, and the full moon was rising to shine down on the high desert. The rock still felt warm to his butt, but the air was cooling fast. A coyote started to warm up in preparation for the evening's concerto not too far away. Off in another direction, a small group joined in. Josh smiled and listened. What could be better? Dinner and free entertainment.

He came to a decision of sorts. He would come in quietly and see where things were. Rosie's niece, (Kayla, was it?) said she'd been hauling a trailer. What did that mean? Was she just passing through, or was she going to stay? It didn't matter much, he guessed.

He knew that the guests would either be in the house with Rosie or in the bunkhouse. It didn't matter. He'd fixed up a loft in the driving shed, and he was bunking there anyway. The plumbing that he'd run in there worked, so he was good for a shower tonight, and the appliances in the kitchen nook that he'd put in worked just fine. Tomorrow, he'd head into town and pick up a few groceries. He could live there until he'd gotten everything done for Rosie. He'd just stay out of the way as much as he could, and head home when he was finished. He figured that he'd have most of the things done inside of a month.

Kayla. Nice name, he thought.

Suddenly the memory of the hard words that he'd spoken to her came back to him again, and he hung his head. She was right. He was a bastard. He decided that if he got the chance, he would apologize to her, then get into the background and stay there.

An hour later, Josh drove through the empty landscape very slowly. He wasn't sure that his blood-alcohol level would exactly qualify him as legally impaired, but he'd had four beers in three hours. Then again there wasn't much traffic to tangle with out here in the dirt on Rosie's ranch. He never drove on roads after two drinks.

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Jillian woke up and looked around. It took a second for her to remember why everything looked different around her. The living room was lit by the glow of the old nightlight that had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. She was a little groggy but she felt better when Daisy noticed that her new friend was awake and walked over to the couch.

Jillian was thinking about Joshua. She didn't understand what had happened between him and her aunt, but she knew that she liked him, and then had a thought that if he'd come home while she'd been sleeping, then she might be able to see him and tell him that Kayla wasn't always like that.

Kayla was the center of Jillian's universe and Jillian had never seen her aunt like she's seen her today. Kayla had never raised her voice to Jillian, no matter what, and couldn't understand what had happened.

She got up and wandered to the screen door with Daisy at her side. Standing on the deck, the yard looked a little strange, lit up by a bare bulb over the door of the barn yards away. But she could see the driving shed and headed toward it.

Jillian wasn't sure why, but she walked inside, and in less than a minute, she was lost in the cavernous darkness of it. She was glad that Daisy was with her.

"Joshua?"

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He came to the gentle slope that would bring him into the yard, and shut off the headlights of the old Ford once he's rounded the bend halfway. He didn't want to talk to anyone at that point and so he allowed a minute to let his eyes become accustomed to the dark, and let the SUV coast down quietly. Near the bottom of the slope, he shut off the engine and coasted the last hundred feet in silence. He didn't need to steer at that point.

Getting out, he stood chewing over the things that he'd planned to do in the morning, and was satisfied overall. He made his way to the driving shed, and was about to walk inside when he heard Jillian call to him. Her voice sounded frightened and tearful. He called softly to her and listened for a second until Daisy made her low and quiet bark that usually served as a heads up that there was something going on that she didn't necessarily agree with. After that there was silence for a moment, and then Joshua heard Jillian's small voice as she began to sob.

He walked into the shed and looked around in the darkness. His eyes adjusted quickly and after a second he spotted her when she moved slightly.

Josh found Jillian frightened and shaking. She was standing between Sam's large tool chest and the old police bike. Somehow she had wandered in and gotten stuck by feeling her way until she touched an obstruction, and moving in a different direction, until she had finally trapped herself. Josh thought she looked so small and vulnerable. His heart forced him to move. Picking her up, he smiled as her little arms encircled his neck. "Josh, I'm scared." she told him.

"There's nothing to be afraid of Jillian. I'm here with you now."

Josh marveled at the words that came from his mouth and wondered where they'd come from. That wasn't what he'd meant to say, but what the heck, he thought. He carried her gently to the shed doors, and pushed them open farther with one foot. Then he walked as carefully as he could to the house with a very relieved Daisy alongside.

Kayla had woken and had gotten up to check on Jillian. Finding her missing, she'd pulled on her jeans and pulled her nightshirt overtop. She was surprised as she met them at the door. Josh whispered that she was ok, and that she'd gotten lost outside somehow. He quietly explained that he had heard her in the shed a few minutes before, but that was all that he said.

Once inside, Kayla pointed to the couch, and Josh carefully laid Jillian down. She opened her eyes sleepily, and hugged him. He softly wished her a good night, and stood up to back away. Kayla placed the blanket over Jillian, and quietly asked her if she was alright.

Jillian nodded, and after a smiling hug, Kayla could see that her niece was already close to dropping off to sleep. Josh heard Jillian say Kayla's name and wondered why. He'd have thought something like 'Mom' would have come into it. Kayla tucked Jilly in carefully and decided that now was as good a time as any to get Joshua outside and apologize for what had happened. She turned around.

The screen door was closed.

She walked to the door, and opened it. "Joshua?" she called.

She was alone. The doors of the driving shed were closed. Kayla's interpretation was that while he might be concerned for a lost little girl, he was now treating the child's aunt in the manner that she deserved. Well that shouldn't come as much of a surprise, she thought.

Kayla sighed and leaned on the rail of the porch. She actually wanted to talk to him, and that bothered her all by itself. She'd decided what had to be done, and the longer it took, the worse she'd feel about it. A part of her just wanted to forget about the afternoon, but she also knew she'd overreacted to nothing, really. She was surprised at herself, and couldn't really say why she'd come to her snap conclusion. He didn't look like a criminal at all. He'd made no threatening moves or comments. For some reason, they'd just managed to lean on each other's "Launch" buttons somehow.

She looked over at the shed, wondering if she ought to follow Joshua and apologize. She looked a bit higher up the wall and noticed some motion in the dirty old windows. Josh had turned the light on in the loft.

The driving shed was two stories tall, and there were windows up there to allow light in when the doors were closed. The windows probably hadn't been washed since the building was erected before the Depression. They were so grimy that she hadn't noticed them during the daytime. And it was looking like Josh hadn't noticed them much either...

Joshua had found the mostly empty loft above the rear half of the shed the previous year. He had cleaned it out, put down sub flooring, and created a small loft apartment up there shortly after arriving in June. He hadn't gotten around to planning for some generic walls yet to divide it into rooms, other than just what was needed to basically hold up the sink and the mirror in the "bathroom" and have something to lean the cupboards and counters against in the "kitchen". Mostly, the walls were there to hide the wiring and plumbing. The rest could be any way that Rosie decided. But the openness of it was providing Kayla with some novel entertainment just now.

She knew she shouldn't look, but hey, the TV was on so to speak, so she watched.

Josh went to the small fridge and took out the last two slices of pizza from the night before, and put them into the microwave. He was thinking that he hadn't lived a stranger day in his whole life up to that point, and that was saying something after his overseas postings. Usually when somebody pointed a weapon in his direction, he at least had a clue what it was about.

He went to the old claw foot tub and turned on the water. He'd decided to have a bath instead of a shower. He took off his shirt and draped it over the chair by the table. The shirt was quickly followed by the rest of his clothes, as the microwave beeped.

Kayla thought this show was beginning to look like the best one she'd seen in a while, but the grimy glass sure wasn't letting her see the degree of detail that she wanted right then. His upper torso was worth the price of admission by itself, she decided. There was some kind of smudge on his right bicep, she thought. It moved with him, so it wasn't the dirt on the window.

When he turned to get something out of the microwave, she saw his backside, and her heart began to flutter a bit.

"Now that's nice." she said to herself quietly. He bent down from the waist to get the laundry detergent, and she saw – something, but again, no detail. She was starting to throb a bit lower down now.

"He's just standing there eating something completely naked – why do guys DO that?" she wondered aloud. "What do I care?" she smiled, "Let him eat, as long as he doesn't disappear."

The only annoying thing was that he kept his side turned toward her as he ate at just the wrong angle as far as she was concerned. Kayla had a small grin on her face as she willed Joshua to turn toward her - at least just a little.

Josh stood munching on his pizza and looking down over the railing at the old Harley parked downstairs. He hadn't ridden it in a week or so – there had been no time. He thought about the other one that Sam had said was around here someplace. He'd never seen it.

He finished the second slice, and grabbed his clothes to throw them into the washer. He'd do a load tomorrow, he thought. Then he walked to the tub and eased himself in.

Kayla had been watching with fascination. She had positioned her butt to lean on the end of the handrail. Joshua's recent excursion around the loft had made her lean around in some odd positions as she strained to keep him in view.

He turned around for a second, and she had a full frontal view – or she would have, but the wood separating the glass panes was in the way. She leaned out farther to improve the angle when something warm and wet touched her hand on the rail, and she let go of it in alarm.

She almost landed in the dirt, but managed to save herself with a few extreme gyrations. She turned around, and there was Daisy with her tail wagging, and obviously wondering what the game was. Kayla felt foolish as she walked up the steps, and tentatively patted the big head. She looked back toward the windows, but Joshua had gotten into the tub.

"Thanks for nothing, Daisy." she sighed as she walked back into the house. Daisy followed and lay down on the floor in front of the couch.

Kayla went back to bed, but sleep eluded her for a long time.

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He'd gotten about as relaxed as he thought he ever would. He wet his hair well, and washed it with the bar of soap. Nothing like a no-maintenance haircut, he smiled, as he leaned back. His eyes closed as he sank a little deeper into the hot water and after a few minutes, he fell asleep.

He was back in the village again. It was happening more often. He saw the little girl and her smile once more as she ran toward him on her little bare feet through the dirt, laughing and calling to him. He had no idea what she said to him. He never did. She was just a beautiful little kid who looked for him whenever he came this way, just as he managed to keep an eye out for her even as he oversaw his people to make sure that they were on the job.

Like generations of soldiers and peacekeepers from his country before him in many altercations, Josh and his men tried to keep some candy in their pockets to toss the kids here a little when they passed through just to make the kids' day. His little friend was too small and shy to push her way to the front when that happened, and Josh had seen it. That was how they'd noticed each other. From then on, if he could, he would sometimes stand so that she would be sure to get some and he stayed long enough for her to at least begin to enjoy the treat while she stood next to him.

Josh noticed the woman that he assumed to be the girl's mother, leaning against the door frame of her home with a smile. Then he looked down. The girl stood looking up at him, saying something. Her eyes shone with joy. There were none of the other children around and she was so excited to have all of his attention for once. All of the alarms in his head were going off, and he felt a sudden sense of foreboding. The hair on the back of his neck rose as he heard the comments on the open channel through his earpiece at how deserted the place was that day.

In the next instant he lost all positional references, as though the video recorder in his mind had run into a bad section of tape. He had no idea what had happened to his body armor. It was just gone along with some of his shirt. He pulled himself from some razor wire that he'd landed against with his chest. The house was more than half fallen in and it was plain that the girl's mother was dead.

The next second, he found himself looking into her eyes, close up. Josh didn't remember when he'd picked her up off the ground. She smiled weakly as he gently kissed her forehead and spoke to her, trying to sound more reassuring than he felt as he tried to find his personal radio to get some help, but it was gone as well. She touched his face, and looked so happy as his heart pounded painfully.

The world was hazy with dust and confusion as his men ran around, seeking other threats, warily looking around them with their rifles ready. His chest and arm pulsed. He knew that he was bleeding, but it wasn't what caused his horror.

He felt the warmth.

On a hot day in Hell, he could feel it, her warmth on his arms, chest, and stomach. Oh God, how could there be this much. He could barely hear anything. The confusion around him was muted as though they were alone in a whirlwind, and his ears were ringing from the noise and adrenaline. But somehow he could hear her through it all.

She smiled again as she spoke to him for a moment, just a short sentence or two in a language that he knew very little of. Her eyes rolled upwards a bit as her little heart ran out of blood to pump, and then she was gone with a sigh. He could smell her blood mostly, but everything else that her body would normally produce added its terrible cachet as it left her.

On a hot day in Hell he stood clutching the tiny, wet, and torn bundle to his chest. Somebody told him that she had said that he was an angel.

He thought his heart had torn open.

Finally, he began to scream.

He sat up violently, and heard some bathwater land on the floor. He still got tears in his eyes every time. The bath had gone cold. He stood up and reached for the towel.

His chest hurt again.

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In her own way, Daisy was pretty bright. She had no measure of the days on a calendar or the names of the days, since dogs have no need of it. But she knew what day it was, even if the word 'Saturday' held no meaning to her. From the way that the bright morning sun shone down, it was time.

To Daisy, it all meant that today was one of two days in the cycle of a week while people were here that everybody ate breakfast together, and with just a little luck, she might be able to mooch or otherwise come into possession of a little of the treat of a scrap of their food.

But Daisy knew that for that to happen, her male human friend would have to be there, and he wasn't - yet. So Daisy decided - as she had every Saturday since Joshua had arrived to go and try to wake him up so that this whole procedure might be expedited just a little. She sat by the screen door, and knew that before long, somebody would let her out.

Today it was Jillian. Once Daisy was outside, she ran toward the driving shed. Jillian followed, walking. As they passed the door of the bunkhouse, Kayla saw them, but thought nothing of it.

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Joshua gradually noticed the change in the air. It caused him to work his way a little closer to full consciousness so that he could wonder about it. He knew that slight odor.

He'd only known two individuals whose morning breath came to him like that, and unless something was terribly wrong with the universe, he thought, then he just couldn't be in bed with the woman. That had been something of a short-lived friends with benefits thing, years ago, and anyway, she was married now.

The way that he heard the heavy breathing and the snuffling had almost shocked the hell out of him, until he remembered the other female with this sort of morning breath. The cold nose against his cheek cinched it for him and he opened an eye.

Kayla had been busy sweeping out the bunkhouse for a time but she suddenly wondered where Jillian and Daisy had gone. She turned around. They were either around the back of the driving shed or they were in it. Those were the only choices. Kayla leaned the broom against the door frame and started to walk.

"Thanks, Daisy, I'm up," he groaned and Daisy tried to show him her happiness by licking his face. Josh turned his face into his pillow and tried to push her away blindly, but not before he'd gotten the dubious and questionable thrill of feeling her tongue against his ear, and then it was gone.

He waited a full ten seconds as he heard her nails on the floor receding away from him. He wondered why. Daisy never gave up that easily. He cautiously turned his head and opened one eye just a little to see Jillian smiling at him from fifteen feet away.

Joshua closed his eye as his brain started its power-on, self-test routine. He knew who he was. He knew where he was. He knew that he was capable of speech. Frantically, he tried to sense the sheet which ought to be there over top of him. He was relieved to feel enough of it to know that he was at least covered to the small of his back. He heard Kayla's voice then as a hissing whisper and wondered what was going on.