Читаем Upsetting the Balance полностью

He slid across the blanket toward her. She pulled the shirttail of her thin white cotton blouse out from the waistband of her pleated skirt. He set his hand on her belly, just below her navel. When she had clothes on, you couldn’t see she was pregnant, or not, and be sure, but you could feel the mound that had begun to rise there. Her flesh was warm and beaded with sweat from the sticky day.

“He’s stopped,” Barbara said, disappointed. “No, wait-did you feel that?”

“I sure did,” Yeager said. Something had-fluttered-under his palm. He’d felt it a few times before, but it never failed to awe him. He closed his hand into a fist, tapped gently on her belly. “Hello? Anybody home?”

Barbara made her voice high and squeaky: “I’m sorry, I’m not ready to come out yet.”

They both laughed. Somewhere back in the forest, a wood thrush trilled. But for the droning of the bees, that was the only sound. The two of them might have had the national park to themselves. Lazily, Sam slid his hand up under the blouse to cup her left breast through the fabric of her brassiere-gently, because she was still often sensitive.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Barbara said. She looked around to see who might be watching. No one was. No one, probably, was within a mile of them.

“I think-I hope-I’m getting ready to make love to my wife,” he answered. “How about that?” He pulled the blouse all the way out of her skirt, then bent down to kiss the spot where his hand had rested to feel the baby move.

“How about that?” she said softly. She reached around to the back of her neck. Through endless practice, women learn to work buttons behind them as smoothly as men do those they can see. She pulled the blouse up and over her head.

Sam unhooked her bra and tossed it on the blanket. Her breasts were fuller than they had been, her nipples larger and darker. He lowered his head to one of them. Barbara sighed. Her head lolled back; her breasts were sensitive to more than pain these days.

Presently he got out of his own clothes. In weather like this, bare skin felt best anyhow. Barbara was still wearing her skirt. He slid his hand under it, peeled down her panties, and tossed them on top of the bra Then his hand returned. When he kissed her at the same time, she set one hand on the back of his head and pulled him to her. Her other hand toyed with him.

After a couple of minutes of that, he couldn’t stand to wait any more. He started to hike up her skirt, but she said, “No. Take it off me,” in such urgent tones that he quickly did as she asked. Sometimes being smart didn’t amount to anything more than knowing when not to ask questions.

They both glistened with sweat when they were through; their skins slid greasily across each other. Barbara dressed in what seemed like no time flat. “Hurry up!” she hissed to Sam when she saw he wasn’t in quite such a rush.

He looked down at his still-bare self and shrugged. “Okay,” he said, and sped up. As he buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his trousers, he went on, “I guess I’ve spent so much time in the buff in locker rooms and things, I don’t much worry about getting caught that way.”

“All well and good,” Barbara answered, “but getting caught naked with me is different from getting caught naked with a bunch of baseball players-or at least I hope it is.”

“You better believe it,” he said, and got a chuckle out of her. He folded up the blanket and stowed it inside the picnic basket. The napkins that had wrapped the sandwiches went in there, too. So did the empty bottles of beer, and even their cork-sealed lids. You couldn’t afford to waste anything, not with the war going the way it was. Even so, the picnic basket had been a good deal heavier on the way up the trail.

They were almost out of Hot Springs National Park when Barbara said in a small voice, “I’m sorry I barked at you back there.” Sam raised a questioning eyebrow. Looking down at the ground, Barbara went on, “I mean about hiking up my skirt. I remembered a time when-” She didn’t go on.

Yeager kicked at the dirt. What she probably meant was that she remembered a time when Jens Larssen had hiked up her skirt. If she hadn’t thought Jens was dead, she never would have ended up with him. He knew that damn well. After a few seconds-maybe a couple of seconds too long-he said, “Don’t worry about it. Nobody here but the two of us now. That’s what counts.” With a laugh, he set his hand on her belly again. “Nobody here but the three of us, I mean.”

Barbara nodded. They walked on.That’s what reallycounts, Sam thought. If she hadn’t been pregnant, dollars to doughnuts she would have gone back to Larssen when she found out he was alive. Yeager still marveled that she hadn’t. You play half your life in the minor league-and most of that in the low minors, to boot-you get used to winding up on the short end of the stick. Winning a big one like having the woman you’ve fallen in love with pick you instead of the other guy-that was pretty special.