She finally gave attention to the small hand tapping on her arm and looked down to see Jaimie again. His dark eyes were shining and bright. “It was neat having Erik here today, wasn’t it, Kathy?”
Kathleen looked back toward the rock where Erik was hauling his camera onto his bare shoulder. “Yes,” she said shakily. “It was neat.”
* * *
Erik hurriedly ate his dinner and then began setting up the television monitor on which he could play back his videotapes. He had promised the campers they could see themselves on television and he was keeping the promise. Many of them skipped the meat and vegetables and went straight to the chocolate pudding, hoping to speed the meal along.
When Erik saw what was happening, he announced loudly, “Nobody gets to watch until everyone’s plate is clean.”
There was a congregational groan, but the food on each plate was then attacked with voracity. Within a half-hour, all two hundred children were fanned out in a semicircle before the dais.
“Okay. Here are the ground rules. The first boy who stands up and blocks someone’s view has to wrestle me. The first girl who does it has to kiss me.” The children shrieked with laughter as Erik scowled darkly. “I mean it. If all of you cooperate, everyone will get to see. Okay?”
“Okay!” they chorused.
He started the playback, and soon they were convulsed with laughter at their images on the screen.
“Isn’t he marvelous with the children?” Edna said glowingly. She, Kathleen and the other counselors were still seated at their dinner table, relaxing over cups of coffee or glasses of iced tea.
“He’s very competent,” Kathleen said.
“Oh, I know he is. He wouldn’t work for the network and have been assigned so many impressive jobs if he weren’t. But he could have had an artistic temperament and been cranky with everyone. He manages the children beautifully.”
Kathleen crossed her arms in a defensive gesture. She didn’t want Erik to be marvelous. She examined him for flaws. She wanted to see him make a mistake, commit a small transgression. His perfection disturbed her. His presence disturbed her. He disturbed her.
Ever since they had returned the children to the compound and gone to their separate cabins, her mind had been in a whirlwind. Much to her chagrin, she caught herself remembering how it felt to be close to him, something he had said into her
ear, his warm, fragrant breath and how it caressed her cheek and the back of her neck.
Then, impatiently, she berated herself for acting like a fool. She was a mature woman, too old to be behaving this way. Too old to have that shortness of breath and fluttery heartbeat each time she reflected on the image of him as he had walked toward the river, his body naked except for the swath of cloth around his loins that enhanced rather than hindered his sexuality. Never had she given so much thought to the male anatomy.
She had resisted the temptation to wear something to dinner besides her navy shorts and white knit T-shirt. But she did succumb to the urge to dab Mitsouko onto the pulse points of her body. Not because of him, she had averred even as she leaned down to stroke some on the backsides of her knees.
Now, Edna’s enthusiasm for Erik only made her more determined not to become too attracted to him. He was a world-traveler. He was several years older than she. How old? Thirty? Thirty-five? Chronological age didn’t matter. Even if he were younger than she, he would still be years older in experience.
Surely he had known women in every part of the world. A man who looked like Erik would not stay celibate for long. His virility radiated from him like an aura of light that touched everyone, especially women. The only persuasion he would ever have to use would be to get women out of his bed once he was finished with them. To get them into it would be no problem.
Disobediently, her mind conjured up a picture of Erik lying on a wide bed. Someone was with him. It was she. She was helpless beneath him. He was nuzzling her neck with his mouth. His mustache—
What was she doing? Kathleen shook her head. Glancing around furtively, she noted that neither the Harrisons nor anyone else had been watching her strange behavior. They were all engrossed in the unedited tape that was being played through the monitor a second time at the request of the viewers.
No one noticed when Kathleen stood up and left the mess hall, shutting the screen door quietly behind her.
No one but Erik.
He watched Kathleen as she strolled to the edge of the deep porch and sat down on the top step, tilting her head back to gaze at the sky. He saw how the tendrils that had escaped the knot of hair secured to the top of her head lay like strands of silk against the stark whiteness of her shirt.
Closing his eyes briefly, he could almost smell the honeysuckle essence of her hair that had filled his head and made him drunk this afternoon.
It was hard to tear his eyes away from the poignant picture she made sitting out there in the shadows. For the sake of his captive audience, he returned his gaze to the tape. But not his mind. It was still on the girl on the porch.
Girl? Woman? That was the hell of it. For some reason, none of the labels he usually attached to women fit Kathleen Haley. She had elements of every other woman, yet she was none of them. She had a classiness, an indefinable distinction that made her different and impossible to categorize.
But she was woman. God! She was woman. Every time he saw her, his body threatened to make it embarrassingly evident how much of a woman he thought her to be.
That was another thing that didn’t fit into the scheme of things. She wasn’t his type. The Harrisons had told him she worked in the fashion industry. He should have guessed that right away. Who else could make a simple pair of shorts and a T-shirt look haute couture? It had never mattered a tinker’s dam to him what a woman wore. He preferred them without anything on. And then, he liked lush bodies, round hips, big breasts.
She was almost boyishly slender, but that tight little fanny nearly drove him crazy. He wanted to cup his hands over it, just to see if it was as firm and taut as it looked. Those long, slender legs didn’t try to be provocative, but he had caught himself watching the play of muscles as she walked ahead of him on the mountain trail earlier in the day. Her breasts were small, but full and beautifully shaped. When she had come out of the cold, rushing river, her nipples had stood out invitingly, eager and pert.