Chapter 15

When the elder Flemings returned to their suite, they both deeded to shower again. Ever since their visit to the Salon farmhouse, the whole family seemed to be unable to bathe enough. As she watched her husband towel himself Ann wondered if the bathing obsession might not be a subconscious desire each of them had to wash away some other fixation.

She climbed into the shower he had vacated-it had taken her longer to undress~and tried to asks her own feelings. Had she been able to break the morbid train of thoughts the last time they poured into her mind? Yes, but it hadn't been easy.

She'd gone in to wake Tommy this moming, and found that he was in the shower. On the way out, she noticed the dampness on his sheets. As she leaned over and the magnetic semen scent rose to stir her, she bent down and started to lick the meager remnants of the boy's dream.

She'd pulled herself away and walked unsteadily from the room. She'd beaten it. But it took several minutes of deep breathing exercises to get up the ambition to join the others at breakfast.

She climbed out of the shower and toweled herself dry, then put on the robe she'd brought in with her. Chuck had gone without his, but he would sleep naked, anyway, and probably was in bed right now.

But he wasn't there when she went in. She moved around the suite until she found him, standing just inside Darla's door, looking at the sleeping girl. Sleeping in the raw, like her father.

Fleming stood a moment after she spotted him, then he silently closed the door and turned. He was startled to find Ann so close.

"She's a pretty big girl to peep in on at bed check, isn't she?"

"Maybe so," he replied. "But something about her's been worrying me. I just can't put my finger on it."

"The thing about her that worries me you'd better not put your finger on!" Ann answered. "Would you mind explaining that?"

"We were married before I was as old as she is, now. And she has yet to get interested in one boy enough to go steady. After the wild stirring her juices got, she's going to be hot-pantsed as hell until she starts getting laid regularly. I see enough of me in her to know that."

"That's it," Fleming said. She's been fidgeting around a lot since we got back in the hotel. Can't sit still. And I remember now that I got the impression she was rubbing herself under the table at breakfast. Does it get that bad?"

"Not usually," Ann laughed. "But I know what's causing that particular discomfort. She told him about the bites Darla had gotten from Guiyesse, and explained that they were healing now, and very itchy.

"For crying' out loud! You never told me about that when it happened."

"I suppose there are a number of things that happened at that place which we haven't discussed in detail around the dinner table. Some of them might well be left alone. But I'll compare notes with you here in the privacy of our bedroom."

"Okay. For openers, what do you think about Le Boeuf?"

"I think that I hope he doesn't get caught."

"That's not what I mean, Ann. And you know it. Why did Darla stick up for him so strongly-before he saved you from Guiyesse?"

"I think that she has the knack of sensing when people are basically right or wrong-good or bad."

"Too bad her clairvoyance didn't extend to sensing the extra key Le Boeuf had made in Marseilles and kept on him."

"That's your opinion. Darla and I both think that he had good reason to have that extra key made, and we're glad he did!"

"Why did he do it, then?"

=B3Because, if you believe the initial premise that he told the truth about Gerault's having something on highland Darla and I do- --it's a short step to believe that he could expect anything from Gerault, including locking up Le Boeuf in those cuffs. He just prepared himself for the possibility."

"Well, your judgment of him--or Darla's might be proved by his stopping on his way to freedom to save you two. But how about his deserting his comrades in crime? Does that make him look goody