S-No Kidding–Page 7
Nov/110
I looked into her eyes, and in them I saw what I saw before. She quickly glanced away with a little smile on her face. Turning her face back to me, I looked again, and found myself with feelings for her. She walked close to me and then turned aside.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I just can’t." She let go of my hands and walked over to a nearby bench. I stood there for a second, watching her put her head on her hands, and then walked over.
"May I join you?" I asked. She moved a little, and I sat down. I went to put my arm around her back, but she shrugged it off. "Kendall, what’s wrong?"
"Nothing." The typical female response, yet as always, I knew something was up. Drawing a little closer to her, I put my head on my hands and said, "Maybe if I tell you what I’m struggling with, maybe you can tell me what you’re thinking?" She didn’t respond. "Well, let’s see. How do I put this? Kendall — I don’t know." I took a deep breath. "Kendall, tonight, after we fought those two guys I looked into your eyes and," I looked toward her, "I found that I had feelings for you. I don’t understand it, but I like you Kendall."
She lifted her teary-eyed face up from the security of her hands. A tear slid down her cheek, and she sniffled. "But I can’t… I can’t love you! You’re engaged to a beautiful girl. I saw that look in your eyes at dinner the other night."
"I know," I said. I attempted once again to put my arm around her, this time with success. "Let’s go somewhere a little warmer and talk about this, shall we?" I asked. She nodded, and I helped her to the car. We got inside and drove to the hotel. She walked in, and I took her coat. Her face all red, and sniffling, I suggested that she change in the bathroom and I in the room. We did.
A little while later, she came out of the bathroom. I sat on my bed, in the middle, and patted the place next to me. She came over and sat about six inches away from me, legs together and hands folded in her lap. "It just won’t work," Kendall stated.
"What won’t work?"
"You and me. You’re supposed to marry Tracy!" Realizing what she was saying, I got confused. My mind went into overload as I quickly ran through all of the dreams that I had had about my marriage to Tracy. That case a year ago where I thought that I would meet that girl at that certain time in Nanopolis at my office, the date I was supposed to get engaged, and the date of the marriage seemed so real in my mind. I was positive that Tracy was the one I was supposed to marry, or was I so sure?
Kendall continued to cry. I moved closer to her. I put my hand on her folded hands, and took my left hand and put it on her chin to move it towards me. "Kendall?"
"Yes." Holding out my arms, she gave me hers and we hugged. I put my left arm underneath her legs and picked her up. Walking over to a nearby recliner, I sat down with her lying on my lap, her head lying on my chest. I kissed her forehead.
S-No Kidding–Page 6
Nov/110
"Ahh, I know what you mean. You thought that I wouldn’t remember what we were taught in OTM!"
"Well?"
"Sure," she said, pushing me down into the snow. We made our imprints on the world, well at least in the snow, and then went back to the car. We went to a fast food restaurant and then went back to the hotel. We scanned the channels for something interesting to watch. Unfortunately, there wasn’t, so we opted to go back outside and do some more ice skating.
The time came for us to go to back to the Red River. Kendall proposed to change clothes, but I didn’t see the need for it. I thought that she would just make herself more of a target. She conceded and we left for the Red River. Walking inside the club, we went and took a seat. I called a waiter over, and I asked him about the DG. He had no information. Just then, we spotted the trio over in the corner. They were roughing up another couple. I looked into Kendall’s eyes, and we thought just about the same thing. The couple was forced up from their chairs and escorted outside. We followed them out. "Excuse me," I said. The lead man turned and faced me. "I said, Excuse me. I don’t figure that they wanted to leave."
"It’s none of your business." The one guy said. The gentleman and lady looked frightened.
"Oh, I would say that it was. You see, you tried to take my date away from me just the other night." I said, reaching behind me for Kendall’s hand. She offered it to me and came into the light. The guy let the couple loose. They three of them came after us. "Just stay behind me." I whispered to Kendall. Meanwhile, the couple went in the club and called the police. I took on the two bullies while Kendall took on their leader. She was doing a good job. We threw the three of them in the corner and the police came and took them away.
On the way back to the hotel, I turned to Kendall and said, "I guess you really can take care of yourself."
"I told you I could. I took Karate for a little while."
"A little while! From what I saw you are probably a black belt!"
"Well," she said, her cheeks showing a slight blush, "do you think that I’d let you get hurt after all that you have done for me?" Looking into her eyes I saw something that was not there before. If I did not know better I would have said that she liked me. The scary part was that something deep down inside of me liked her too.
Snapping out of my daze, Kendall and I went to the tubing place. We got our tubes, but everyone had gone to the winter games in town so we had the place to ourselves. We rode down a few times, and it began to snow. After one of the trips down she got up. Her cheeks were red, and she had snow in her hair and hat. She reached out her hand toward me. She took me over to return the tubes, and we walked over to the wooded area. "Adam."
"Hmm." I replied.
"It sure is pretty up here."
"Yes, that it is."
"It must be wonderful to have a white Christmas."
"Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas for me without snow." I said, looking at her. The giant flakes of snow continued to fall all around us. We stopped. Peering out of the corner of my eye I saw our tracks beginning to be covered over with the snow.
S-No Kidding–Page 5
Nov/110
"ADAM!! Wait, I didn’t mean it," she said, trying to get up. She just kept sliding and falling. I came back to her.
"Promise not to pull me down?"
"Yes," she stated. I offered my hand, and with it she was able to get up. She shook a little, and I wobbled a little.
"Easy killer. Don’t try to be world class all at once. Let’s take this one step at a time." I showed her how to move her feet to get the rhythm and motion going correctly. We skated together for a while before I turned to her and asked, "Are you ready to try this on your own?"
"Sure," she said. I let go of her hand. I slowed up a bit, and she went a little faster. It seemed like she had gotten the knack of it. I chased her, and she went faster. She started to lose her balance. She fell backwards, I reached out and caught her. I had her under her arms. We were still going pretty fast.
"Are you okay?" I asked her.
"Thanks. That might’ve hurt."
"Not a problem. Can you get up?"
"Umm." She started, trying to get enough force to get up, but she kept slipping.
"Okay, here’s what you do. All I want you to do, is start to bring your feet backwards, I’ll lift you."
"All right." She said. I started to lift her up. She was a lot lighter than I figured. Easing her over to my right side, I kept my arm around her back. She put hers around me. "This is a lot of fun, Adam. Thanks for bringing me."
"Let’s be honest with each other, all right?"
"About what?"
"You’ve never skated in your life before now, right?"
"I wondered how you figured that one out."
"And I. Well, I can’t swim."
"You can’t swim! That’s so funny!"
"Hey, I could let you go right now!" I said, loosening my grip on her side.
"No, no, I didn’t say that. I was just remarking how things are different from where we live."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I grew up in water, practically."
"You’re not a mermaid are you?" I asked with a smile on my face. She punched me in the stomach.
"No. And you were born in the north so you know about all these snow things."
"And skating."
"And skating," she repeated, "It just goes to show how much we could learn from each other."
"Oh, I get it. Well, my dear southern belle, are y’all hungry enough to get something to eat?"
"Sure’n enough I am."
"Well then follow me." I took her over to the booth and exchanged our skates. We put back on our boots, and we walked back to the car. Taking a path that was not used, which you could tell because there were no other foot prints in the snow, Kendall was struggling walking beside me. "Walk in the holes I make." I instructed her. She started to follow in my foot-steps, literally. We got to a place where no one could see, and I turned to her and said, "Would you like to make a snow angel?"
S-No Kidding–Page 4
Nov/110
"Thank you, warden," she said, with a grin on her face. It would be a long time before we would need to be at the Red River, so I suggested to Kendall that we do something while we were waiting. "How about some swimming? This hotel has an indoor swimming pool. That would be fun!" I tried to convince her otherwise, but she insisted. When she gave me the "Puppy dog" eyes, it was over. I nodded yes, and she got excited.
"Just one question."
"Okay?"
"How do you get over there in your swimsuit? It’s has to be below freezing out there."
"Good point."
"Let me just go and see if it is even open, or there is a life-guard, stuff like that."
"Okay." She said. I left the room and walked toward the pool. As I arrived at the pool, the door was locked and a sign read: "Closed for repairs." Returning to the room, I opened the door. Kendall was standing in her one-piece bathing suit wearing high heels. "Shut the door!!" She screamed. After I shut it, she asked, "Well, what do you think?"
"Umm, blue is a good color on you." Giving me one of those looks of hers, I said, "The pool is closed for repairs. Though I did see how to get over there without getting too cold." She was very disappointed, or at least that is what she wanted me to believe. I suggested that we go sno-tubing. Not knowing what this was, I had to explain to her, "You sit on a tube and slide down a hill."
"And that’s what you call fun."
"All right. I admit that it doesn’t sound like fun, but neither does soccer if you figure that all that you do in it is kick a ball around trying to get it into a net."
"I get the picture. Do you know where to go?"
"Well, let’s see if the hotel manager has any suggestions." Calling up the manager, he gave us the name of a place that would not only be fun to slide down, but would also provide the tubes on which to ride. We got bundled up, and headed over there. As we arrived, we noticed that there were not many people there, for it was just after one o’clock. We rented some tubes and had the slopes to ourselves. Sliding down was exhilarating. I showed her all different ways of doing it, spinning, making jumps, and other things. Besides landing head first in the snow a couple of times, being covered in snow, and the time she landed on my back, it was great fun.
Children started to appear, so I asked her if she wanted to ice-skate. She nodded and I took her over to the skating rink. There we traded our tubes for skates. I laced up quickly and moved out onto the ice. I’m no Olympic figure skater, mind you — though very few of us are — but I can manage to get myself going, and stay balanced. I learned a lot from Amanda, though. Kendall had a little rougher time with it. I can imagine why. If you figure that she lives in the south and the only place they can skate is on indoor rinks, well, us northerners corner the market in outside rink availability.
Enough of all that, the point is, she was having trouble staying on her skates. Coming over to me, I could tell that she either hadn’t skated before, or she had forgotten everything. I smiled, thinking how funny it was watching her try to skate. As I was thinking this, she fell backwards. I skated over to her. "That ice hurts, doesn’t it?"
"I’ll say. They need to give us cushions for when we fall down." She commented.
Offering my hand to help her up I said, with a smile, "I don’t see anyone else falling." She took my hand, and pulled me down. I landed on my knees and hands. Getting up I said, "Fine, get up yourself!" I skated off in the direction of some other people.
S-No Kidding–Page 3
Nov/110
"All right, you go dry your hair and I go change my clothes." I opened my suitcase and on top there was a sweater and turtle neck that still had tags on them. I looked over at Kendall, and she smiled. I gave her my you-shouldn’t-have-done-this, you-didn’t-need-to-do-this, but I’m-kinda-glad-you-did-this-anyway look, tore off the tags, grabbed a pair of my jeans and socks, and went into the bathroom. I put on the clothes. She’s very sneaky. All of it fit. Walking outside, I asked, "How did you know what size to get?"
Turning off the hair dryer, she said, "Easily, I checked your tag while doing your makeup!" We matched, which I would guess was the point of it. Seeing as there was no more danger of people finding out who I was, I was able to go without makeup. I was still kinda bruised, but it looked okay. She just put on enough makeup and stuff that girls do, and we were off. I stopped by the rental car place to give them the car I had, which was better than the one I had rented, telling them that someone stole mine and picked out a new one. They were kind of hesitant, but I got them to call Michelle in Nanopolis, and she said that I was a good risk. They made me promise to return it, though.
Arriving at the police station, I parked across the street, got out of my car, and went around to the other side. Kendall had gotten out, and we went, together, into the station. Walking inside, an officer called us over. "You look a whole lot better, sir. I see that you’ve found your young lady."
"Yes sir. What is the problem? You said that it was urgent."
"And indeed it is, my boy. Those two guys have been bailed out of jail. An anonymous amount of money was mailed here, postmarked this morning. It seems that someone wanted them out today. I just thought that you’d like to know that."
"Thanks."
"You’re welcome. If you’d like, I could send a guard with you."
"That won’t be necessary, but thank you anyway."
"Suit yourself. If you need anything, just call."
"Will do," I said, turning to Kendall. I escorted her back to the car, and we drove back to the hotel. Once inside, and our jackets and shoes taken off (to prevent tracking the snow in the room), Kendall sat on her bed with one foot on it. I stood thinking.
"Penny for your thoughts," Kendall said.
"Well, I was just thinking. What could those guys be up to? You didn’t tell them where you were staying?"
"No."
"So they can’t get us here. I think that I’ll pay another visit to the Red River tonight."
"Why?"
"I want to catch these two guys."
"I’m coming too."
"No, Kendall, I don’t want you hurt."
"Believe it or not, I can take care of myself."
"And what about the other night?"
"The other night, I was trying not to ruin our cover!"
"Right."
"How about you in Orlando?" She said, with a grin.
"Okay, okay. You win. You can come along, except you’re not leaving my sight."
