Alice pedaled up the dark driveway to the dark house and leaned her bike against Jean’s car. She unhooked the bungee cords around her bike rack, dropped an armload of survey stakes and ran her fingers through tangled hair. Usually she wore a helmet, but the rain had stopped, and she wanted to feel the wind.
“Hello!” right beside her ear startled Alice. She stumbled backwards, fell against Jean’s car and knocked her head on the trunk. “Dammit!”
A hand out of nowhere caught Alice’s arm and helped her scramble upright.
“Omigod!” Alice blurted. She leaned against the car to catch her breath and managed a nervous laugh. “Oh, you scared me! It’s so quiet out here. I didn’t hear you at all!”
Diana rested a hand on Alice’s shoulder, then gave her a hug. “I’m so sorry! Yes, it’s quiet. I get used to moving quietly so I don’t disturb the animals. Are you all right now?”
Alice took a deep breath, blew it out, then laughed again.
“I’m fine. I lost a couple of years, but I’m fine.”
Diana slipped the hand on Alice’s shoulder under the middle of her backpack and guided her away from the car toward a path that entered the woods in front of the house.
“Well,” Diana said, “I hope I can make it up to you sometime.”
Alice waved it off. “It’s all right, really.”
“The quiet outside at night is rejuvenating, I’ve found,” Diana said. “Shall we?”
She moved her hand under the backpack, and Alice didn’t shrug it off. She was attracted to Diana, but very cautious in her intimate relationships. Business with the public required discretion in a small community.
“There’s a clear spot up here,” Diana said. “We can get a good look back at the house. You’ll see the rest of the brush I’d like taken out.”
Alice’s vision adjusted to the dark on her ride down the driveway, but now, with no moon, the landscape swathed its ebony shapes in dark air.
“And the boulders?” Alice asked. “Where to put those? I can get some so big that they come one to a truck.”
“Excellent!” Diana said. “I’d like them up here, in the clearing. In a circle, like those stone ruins back in England. You’ve seen those?”
Diana’s voice was soft, lulling. Alice shrugged off her backpack to lean closer. Out here, in the night chill, she felt cozy in Diana’s company.
“Only in movies and books,” Alice said. “I’ve seen the Stonehenge replica down on the Columbia River. I was there for … for …”
“Yes?” Diana whispered in her ear. “What were you there for?”
“An eclipse,” Alice said. “A beautiful eclipse with snow glittering on the stones.”
“Sounds lovely,” Diana whispered. Then she hooked her arm into Alice’s and led her into the clearing. “So, here we are. We’ll need a compass to orient our great stones properly.”
Alice said, “I have GPS on my phone. It’s in my backpack.”
The only sounds were their breathing, cheek to cheek, and a breeze creaking nearby branches. Their arms moved around each other’s waists. Alice tried to concentrate on business, but she couldn’t shake the mental fog that settled on her with Diana so close, her breath so warm.
“Once we clear the brush we’ll see how we’re going to get a backhoe in here with the rock. That may be tricky getting through all the trees.”
Diana turned around and put both hands up to Alice’s cheeks; her close, green gaze rendered Alice nearly breathless. She didn’t resist Diana’s surprisingly tender kiss, and neither woman closed her eyes. Alice kissed her back, warming quickly and suddenly eager. It had been a long time. They undressed each other in a fumbling scramble, then lay on the long, damp grass in a blur of body on body.
Finally, they pulled apart and Alice said, “My whole body’s tingling!”
“The night’s not over,” Diana said. She nuzzled Alice’s neck, lingered there, sucking.
“Are you giving me a hickey?” Alice asked, with a chuckle. “I like it.”
Diana said, “I’m glad.” Then she ripped into Alice’s neck with a hiss and a growl. One hand clamped on Alice’s airway, so all she got out was one shrill, broken-off fragment of a scream.
In the house, Daniel sat bolt upright in bed. His sensitive hearing caught Alice’s shriek, and his startle reflex woke Jean.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
Daniel’s expression hardened as he stared at the window, then softened when he realized Jean was beside him. He patted her thigh, kissed her neck.
“No,” he said. “Nothing. Just a bad dream.”
He glanced again at the window before he turned back to Jean. She kissed him, then sat up on the edge of the bed.
“I hate to say it, but I have to go.”
Daniel felt a jolt of fear hit his belly. He couldn’t let Jean out there, not right now. “Can’t you stay the rest of the night?”
Jean turned and said, “I’ll be honest with you.”
Daniel swept back her hair and held her gaze with his most sincere expression. “Please do.”
“Your sister makes me nervous,” she said. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”
Jean stood and started dressing in the dark.
Daniel said, “Diana needs me. She worries that you’ll steal me away and leave her helpless.”
“Well, then. Maybe after she gets to know me better.”
Daniel said, “That means I’ll get to know you better.”
“You already know me pretty well,” she said. “Body-wise, I mean. How about dinner on the boat tonight?”
Daniel got up and pulled on his clothes. “I’d like that,” he said. “Today I’m painting the kitchen and this room while Diana unpacks the last from the PODs, then I’m sheetrocking the shop. I’m scheduled to demonstrate the Matrix at the Hot Cuts shop across town tonight. Is ten too late?”
“Ten is good,” Jean said. “Don’t use up all your energy on housework, and I won’t tell Marie you’re over there seducing her competition.”
They kissed again, and over Jean’s shoulder, out the bedroom window, Daniel saw two dark figures, one dragging another into the trees at the edge of the clearing.
“Let me walk you out,” he said.
“Oh, a gentleman!”
At the car, Jean saw the survey stakes and said, “Alice must’ve dropped these.”
Daniel said, “I’ll pick them up and make sure she gets them.”
Jean started the car and in the headlights Daniel caught a glimpse of reflectors and a wheel lying back in the brush. He hoped that Jean backed out without noticing. He sniffed the air, sniffed again, looked out at the clearing and growled. He kicked the stakes and returned to the house where he hesitated, studied the eastern horizon, then hurried inside and slammed the door.