Looking disappointed, the boy settled back.
Karen followed Scott along a path near the shoreline. Without his pack, he felt nearly weightless. He walked with a springy step. The breeze was cool against his damp T-shirt. And he was alone with Karen, at least for the moment. He turned to her. "Howdy, stranger."
She ducked under his outstretched arm, and leaned against him. He cupped her shoulder. They walked along the path, holding each other. "Now, this is nice," she said.
"You surviving the kids all right?"
"Sure. They're fine. Benny's quite a guy."
"I think he's fallen for you. Can't blame him." "I've fallen for him, too." She patted Scott's side. "Good thing for you he's just a kid."
"I wish Julie'd shape up. Maybe she will, now that Nick's around."
"They seem to be getting along okay."
"Yeah." He sighed.
"What's wrong?"
"Well, I've been thinking about the sleeping arrangements. I really don't see how we can manage. "
"I know. I've thought about that, too. I guess I tent with Julie, huh?"
"I can't figure any way around it, what with the kids and the Gordons."
"That's all right. Maybe we'll be able to sneak off, sometime."
"You can bet on it."
Karen's hand moved down, and pushed into a rear pocket of his trousers. It stayed there, curved against his rump, caressing, as they walked along the path.
"If Julie gives you any trouble," Scott said, "let me know."
"I'm sure we'll be fine. It'll give us a chance to get to know each other."
"She's really not a bad kid. I've been trying to figure her out. It hit her pretty hard when her mother split. But it was never 'How could she do that to me?' She only seemed upset that I'd been dumped on. She really holds it against June, won't even talk to her on the phone. Both kids are pretty bitter about what she did, but with Julie it seems to have spilled over onto you. It's not you personally. She'd have the same feeling toward any woman I got serious about. I'm sure of that. She seems to feel it's her duty to protect me."
"Maybe she'll get over it once we know each other better."
"I sure hope so. I feel bad, though, that you have to be put through this kind of thing."
Karen smiled up at him. "Hell, you're worth it."
"Is that so?"
"That's so."
They rounded a bend in the shoreline, and Scott heard the sound of rushing water.
"Success!" Karen said. She squeezed his rump, withdrew her hand from his pocket, and stepped ahead through a narrow passage between two trees. Scott watched her hurry forward. She bounded up a small, rocky rise, glanced down, then whirled around. "Voila!" she cried.
Scott climbed up to join her. A few feet below, a stream tumbled and swirled over rocks on its way to the lake.
They stepped down to it. Kneeling, Karen dipped a hand into the water. She cupped some to her mouth, and drank. "It's luscious," she said. As Scott tried the chilly water, she splashed her face. Then, to his amazement, she unbuttoned her blouse. She spread it open, scooped up water with both hands, and flung it against herself. He watched it splatter her bare skin. It slid over her breasts, dripped from the jutting tips of her nipples, rolled down her belly. Bending over, she cupped more water to her mouth.
Scott reached across her back. He lifted the hanging side of her blouse out of the way, and curled his fingers around her breast. The skin was wet and cool, the nipple springy against his palm. She turned her face to him, and they kissed. "We'd. better not."
He kissed her again, then let go. As Karen buttoned her blouse, he caressed her back beneath it. Then they stood up. Scott filled his lungs with the fresh air. "Well, let's see if there's a decent place around here to pitch camp."
They leaped across the stream, walked up a low slope of broken granite, and looked down at a clearing. "All right," Karen said.
They made their way down to it. In the middle stood a nicely built-up stone fireplace with a grate across the top. Large, flat-topped rocks and smoothly sawed logs for stools were placed around it. Someone had even gone to the trouble of lashing branches together in the semblance of a table. Best of all, Scott saw plenty of level ground for the tents.
"It looks ideal to me," Karen said.
"Me, too."
They headed back to tell the others.
"Let's get organized here," Flash said, rubbing his hands together. "Nick, you help me with the tents. Alice, why don't you and the girls scout around for firewood? We'll get this show on the road."
"Benny," Scott said. "You want to go with them?"
The boy shook his head. "I wanta do the tents."
As Alice led the twins into the trees, Flash turned to Scott. "Where do you want to set up? You should get first choice, since you found this place."
"Makes no difference to me," Scott told him. "Right here's fine for one. Maybe pitch the other over there." He nodded toward a level area closer to the lake.
"You want one that far off?"
"Sure. Why not? Give everybody a little breathing room."
"Breathing room, eh?" He winked.
Scott looked amused as he pulled a tubular plastic bag from his pack.
"Which place do we get?" Benny asked.
"We should let the ladies pick."
"How about it?" Karen asked Julie.
The girl shrugged.
"Over by the lake?"
"I don't care."
"I wanta be close to the fire," Benny said.
Karen grinned. "You've got it. Julie and I'll take the scenic tent." For a moment, her eyes met Flash's. There was mischief in them. Fooled you, they seemed to say.
Flash was fooled, all right. If he'd been in Scott's shoes, nothing in the world could've kept him from tenting with a woman like Karen. He hadn't put it quite that way to Alice, when they'd discussed it last night. He'd simply bet her a dinner at Victoria Station against a dinner at Casa Escobar that the couple would share a tent. "I don't know about the girl," she said, "but Scott isn't that way." Flash had smiled at that. He managed to refrain from telling about the time in Saigon when he and Scott, bare-ass and side by side, humped the daylights out of a couple of whores — then traded. No point in tarnishing Scott's image. Hell, Scott was about the only friend of his that Alice approved of. "Aside from just good manners," Alice had continued, "he wouldn't put Julie and Benny together. They're too old to be sleeping together." That point nearly succeeded in changing Flash's mind. Still, he hadn't called off the bet. Maybe they'd show up with three tents, one for each kid and.,
"Over here?" Nick asked.
Flash turned around. His son was standing in a six-foot space between two spruces, a rolled-up tent in his arms. "That'll be fine. Hold up a minute, though, till we clear the ground."
Together, they brushed away the twigs and pinecones littering the area. Then they rolled out the red tent, and spread it flat. They joined the fiberglass wands, slid them in at the four corners, inserted the tips into eyelets at the top and bottom, and lifted the roof. In less than five minutes, the tent was up. All that remained was to tie out the guy lines and stake it down.
"I'll get the hatchet," Flash said.
He headed for his pack. Scott, Karen, and Benny had nearly finished setting up a blue, two-man tent similar to his own. Julie was crouched by the fireplace, pouring fuel from an aluminum bottle into the base of a Primus stove.
Flash rummaged through his pack. As he looked for the hatchet, his stomach growled. He tried to remember the menu he'd worked out with Scott, but couldn't recall what was planned for tonight's meal. One of the Dri-Lite stews, probably. With pudding for dessert — either vanilla or chocolate. He hoped for vanilla. Nothing could beat that vanilla pudding, especially when it didn't get mixed up real good and still had some of those lumps in it.