The Silken Web

He laughed scoffingly. “Do you think I care? Go ahead, Kathleen. Touch me. Feel me. I want you to know how all your careful teasing paid off.” He rubbed her hand up and down the hard shaft while

his breathing became more labored. Then, abruptly, he flung her away from him in a gesture of utter disgust.

She covered her face with her hands to halt the angry, debasing tears that were coursing down her cheeks.

“Goddammit!” he cursed. “I don’t know why I’m bothering myself with you.” The quiet room was filled with his harsh breathing. He turned on his heels, grabbed his shirt and coat and stalked to the screen door. Kathleen heard it squeak as he opened it. He paused before he went out.

“You know, the boys in that nightclub weren’t wrong. You are a hot little number. And you were primed and ready.”

* * *

The next morning, Kathleen walked on leaden legs toward the dining hall. She dreaded meeting Erik face-to-face because she wasn’t sure what she would do when she saw him. Would she feel compelled by rage to slap his face for the insulting words he had flung at her? Or would she want to weep because he thought her capable of intentionally leading him on? Every time she recalled the revulsion in his voice, she shuddered. Yet by what right did he expect her to sleep with him? Wasn’t the choice hers? After a sleepless night of debate, she still had no answers.

He wasn’t in the dining room when she went in. She behaved normally, responding to the hellos the children called to her. When she joined the other counselors at their table, she offered the obligatory pleasantries, though it was impossible to hide the red puffiness of her gritty eyes.

Her heart leapt to her throat when Erik stalked in, but he stayed only long enough to retrieve a thermos of coffee from the kitchen, then slammed out, having looked neither right nor left. His back was ramrod stiff.

The other counselors curiously shifted their eyes toward Kathleen, and there was a noticeable cessation of conversation. She sipped her coffee nonchalantly, trying to act as though she hadn’t even seen him.

Edna was standing on the porch when Kathleen left the dining room after pretending to eat a hearty breakfast. The older woman went straight to the point. “Things didn’t go too well last night, did they?” she asked with uncanny intuition.

Kathleen was tempted to brazen it out, to respond happily, but she knew it would be useless. She had known Edna too many years, had grown up under her watchful care. This woman knew Kathleen’s heart and mind probably better than most mothers knew their own daughters.

Kathleen sighed heavily. It was with relief that she let her shoulders, which she had been holding so proudly for the benefit of the staff, slump in dejection. “No.”

“I’m sorry. I was foolishly trying to play matchmaker. B. J. warned me to leave well enough alone, but you two seemed to be attracted to each other. I think you look beautiful together. He’s so masculine and you’re so—” Edna was startled into silence by Kathleen’s uncharacteristically bitter laugh.

“Not being attracted to each other isn’t our problem,” she admitted.

A light dawned on Edna’s kind face. “Ahhh. Then may I presume that quite the opposite is true?”

Kathleen looked away guiltily. “Yes,” she mumbled. “He’s much more… He’s sophisticated and I’m…”

“I think I get the picture,” Edna said sadly. “Come on. Let’s walk. I’ve asked Mike to take your group to the soccer field with him.”

How had Edna known that she didn’t feel quite up to coping this morning? Affectionately, Kathleen placed her arm around the older woman’s waist. They strolled toward a tributary of the river, little more than a stream, which flowed at the back of the Harrisons’ cabin. By mutual consent, they sat on the clover-carpeted ground. It was shady and peaceful. The campers had filed off to their first morning activity. From somewhere, the purr of B. J.’s lawn mower could be heard. The birds chirped as they flitted through the sun-dappled branches of the trees. Noisily, a squirrel and blue jay argued over territorial boundaries. The brook bubbled over its rock-strewn bed, unaffected by grief, indecision or hurt.

“Are you in love with him, Kathleen?” Edna asked gently.

Kathleen shook her head, the ponytail whipping her neck like a brush. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I’ve only known him a few days.”

Edna laughed with genuine humor. “My dear, time has very little to do with love. Some people know each other all their lives and love each other for that long. Others meet and fall in love in the space of hours. Love doesn’t have a timetable. Nor does it discriminate. It happens to the best of us, you know. Are you afraid of loving, Kathleen? I don’t mean physically,” she stressed. “I mean are you afraid of losing Erik as you did your parents?”

Love? Only in the last few hours had Kathleen realized that Erik was a man she could care a great deal for. She wasn’t quite ready to attach the label of “love” to the emotions he brought to the surface. But those emotions were too strong to be taken lightly or to dismiss completely.

That was another problem. Erik was interested in her. She knew that. The chemistry between them couldn’t be denied. But if she slept with him, what then? He would go on his way, to another assignment anywhere in the world, to another woman, with a new scalp dangling from his belt. What of her? She would be left with nothing except a sense of loss—of the man and of her self-respect.

Most contemporary women would hoot over her old-fashioned code of morality. That didn’t bother her. It was important to her. But was that the only reason she had resisted him?

Perhaps Edna was right. She was afraid. Pure and simple. What to her would be a commitment, to Erik would be an episode. Yes, she feared that. But she wasn’t ready to confess it. “He’s arrogant and extremely selfish and spoiled,” Kathleen said crossly.

“Yes, he is,” Edna agreed. “And B. J. is a procrastinator, downright lazy sometimes, and snores. But I’d be a basket case without him, even though at times I feel like killing him.” She grew serious again and took Kathleen’s hand in hers. “You loved your parents, and in your young eyes, they deserted you at a vulnerable time in your life. You’ve overcome all the obstacles of that trauma and grown into a beautiful woman. But you’ll decay and dry up from the inside out if you don’t share all that beauty with someone, Kathleen. Don’t be afraid of loving.”

Tears gathered in the corners of Kathleen’s eyes. She placed her hand on Edna’s shoulder and said softly, “I love you.”

Edna reached up and patted Kathleen’s hand briskly. “I know you do. But that’s hardly the problem right now.” She got to her feet with an economy of movement unusual for a woman her age. “It may make you feel better to know that your misery’s got company. If Erik’s mood this morning is any indication, I’d say he’s got it bad, too. He was as cranky as a bear with a bee sting in the butt.”

“Where is he?” Kathleen asked quietly.