Tribute

door.” Her lips moved to his ear, parted on a breathless whisper. “Lock the door.”
    He quivered, felt the shock of need ram into him—head, belly, loins— like fists. “Wait.” Even as he said it his mouth collided with hers again for one more greedy gulp. But he managed to order himself to pull back, to get his hands on her shoulders to peel her away, a couple of inches.
    “Wait,” he repeated, and momentarily forgot his train of thought as those brilliant blue eyes burned into his.
    “No. Now.”
    “Cilla. Whoa. Jeez. I can pretty much feel myself growing breasts as I say this.”
    She took his hands, pulled them down, pressed. “Those are mine.”
    “Yeah.” Soft, firm. “They are.”And with considerable regret, and what he considered heroic restraint, he put his hands back on her shoulders. “Where was I? I meant to say, even at the risk of sounding like a girl, this isn’t right.”
    She slid her hand over his crotch. “Then what’s this?”
    “The penis has a mind of its own. And boy, oh boy,” he managed as he took her wandering hand and yanked it up. “I should get an award for this. A monument. Let’s just step back.”
    “Step back ?” Shock and insult leaped out with the words. “Why? What the hell is wrong with you?”
    “The penis is asking those exact questions. But the thing is . . . wait,” he ordered, taking a firm hold of her arms when she started to jerk away. “The thing is, Cilla, you don’t toss stuff out when you’re churned up. Just like when you’re churned up, you don’t . . . lock the barn door.”
    “It’s just sex.”
    “Maybe. Maybe. But when it happens? It’s going to be just you and me. Just you.” He tested his willpower by leaning down and taking her mouth in a slow, soft kiss. “Just me. No Steve or Steve’s mom, no Janet Hardy, no letters. Just us, Cilla. I want lots of alone with you.”
    She let out a sigh, gave one of the boxes a halfhearted kick. “How am I supposed to feel pissed off and rejected after that?” Hooking her thumbs in her pockets, she lowered her gaze deliberately to his crotch. “Looks like that’s still doing a lot of thinking. What are you going to do about it?”
    “I just need to get a picture of Maylene Gunner in my head.”
    “Maylene Gunner.”
    “Maylene was mean as a snake, big as a battleship and ugly as homemade sin. She beat the living snot out of me when I was eight.”
    No, she couldn’t possibly stay pissed off. “Why would Maylene do that?”
    “Because I had drawn a very unflattering portrait of her. I didn’t possess the talent to draw a flattering one. Da Vinci didn’t possess that much talent. I drew her as a kind of Goodyear Blimp, soaring and farting. Very colorful. Little people on the ground clutching themselves or lying sprawled and unconscious, running for cover.”
    “Cruel,” Cilla said as her lips twitched.
    “I was eight. In any case, she got wind—so to speak—and ambushed me and proceeded to pound me to dust. So when I need to, I just picture that Jupiter-sized face, and...” He glanced down, smiled. “There we go. Retired from the field.”
    Cilla studied him a moment. “You’re a very strange man, Ford. Yet oddly appealing. Like your dog.”
    “Don’t get me started again. Even Maylene Gunner has only so much power. Why don’t I give you a hand here, then we’ll go see Steve together. Between the two of us, we can take his mama.”
    Yes, she thought, a very strange and appealing man. “Okay. You can start by taking what’s left of that pole lamp out there to the Dumpster.”
    SHE GOT THROUGH THE DAY, got through the night. And Cilla geared herself up for her second visit of the day, and second confrontation with Steve’s mother. Pacing in front of the hospital entrance, she gave herself a pep talk.
    It wasn’t about her, wasn’t about old business, grudges, one-upmanship.It wasn’t about tossing a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West.
    It was about Steve.
    She bounced her shoulders to loosen them like a boxer before a bout, and stepped toward the doors as someone called her name.
    Relief at the temporary interruption might have been cowardly, but she’d take what she could get. Turning, she smiled at Cathy and Tom Morrow.
    Cathy reached out to rub a hand along Cilla’s arm. “How’s your friend?”
    “The same. Pretty much the same. I want to thank you again for your help when Steve was in surgery.”
    “It was nothing.”
    “It was a