Coalescence - SF3 (44 page)

Deciding to avoid embarrassing them, he went back to his car and honked the horn a few times, smiling to himself when Ryan came barreling down the path a few moments later, wrinkled clothes hanging haphazardly from her long frame. Jamie was nowhere to be seen, but he figured that she didn’t have a lot of experience in getting dressed quickly like his sister did.

"Nice key and set of directions you left for me, Sis," he shouted when she was within earshot.

"My bad, my bad," she admitted. "I’m sorry, Con, you haven’t been waiting long, have you?"

"Nah," he lied. "Just got here. You didn’t answer the bell so I thought I’d announce myself."

"Well, I’m glad you’re here," she said, wrapping him in a fond hug.

"Where’s Jamie?" he asked innocently.

"Oh…ahh…we were in the pool house…swimming…and she needs to close it up."

"Nice…" he mused, looking around. "Uh…is she Bill Gates’ illegitimate daughter or something?"

"No," she laughed. "She knows who her parents are. This place is unreal, though, isn’t it?"

"I’ll say. I’ve worked on some pretty nice places, but this one is sweet, and I haven’t even seen the inside."

"Come on in," she urged. "Have you had dinner?"

"Nope. I just got in the truck and drove. I got a snack right before I left, but it’s long gone."

Jamie ran up the path just as the O’Flaherty’s were entering the kitchen. "Hi, Big Guy," she smiled, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Hi yourself," he said. "Wow, you look great, Jamie," he added. "You both look really healthy and happy. The honeymoon must be going well."

She batted her eyes at Ryan and enthused, "I think it’s the best one on record."

"Conor hasn’t eaten, Babe. Can I make him something?"

"I’ll make you both something," Jamie decided. "How about a frittata?"

"Sounds good to me," Conor said, smiling broadly. Turning to Ryan he asked, "Do I like frittatas?"

"Yes, Goofball, you’ll like it," she laughed, rolling her eyes. "That sounds good, Honey. I’ll get Conor set up in a guest room, okay?"

"Fine," Jamie replied. "I think Conor should stay in the main house, don’t you?"

"Okay, come on, Conor, I’ll give you the nickel tour."

After his bag was placed on the guest room most distant from her and Jamie’s, Ryan said, "You in the mood to work on our little problem?"

"Yep," he agreed. "Show me the scene of the crime."

An elbow to the ribs kept the comments to a minimum as Ryan led her brother to the gym.

"So…the honeymoon went well?" he teased.

"Conor, I had no idea what I was getting myself into," she said with a chuckle. "I plan on being with Jamie for the rest of my life, but at this rate, that might not be very long!"

"I’m really happy for you, Ryan," he said as he leaned over to give her a kiss. "I’m happy for you both, actually. She’s pretty lucky to have you, too, Sis." As they climbed the stairs he cocked his head a little and asked, "What do you mean, you had no idea what you were getting into? Was this your first time together?" he asked incredulously.

"Yep. It was truly our honeymoon," she said with a big grin.

"
You
waited
this long?
You
?
"

"Believe me Conor, she was worth waiting for," she said, sliding her arm around his waist.

Conor’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as Ryan opened the door to the gym. "Holy crap!" he shouted as he looked around the lavishly appointed space. "Ryan, how much money do these people have?"

"They’ve got plenty," she said succinctly, leading him over to the control room.

"And this is just their weekend house? What does their main home look like?"

"I don’t know. I’m a little afraid to find out, to tell you the truth," she admitted.

"Have you even met her parents?"

"Huh-uh," she said as she shook her head. "Well, actually, I briefly met her dad after the AIDS Ride. He came down to L.A. to see Jamie, but he was only able to stay for about five minutes. I had dinner with her grandfather, though. He’s a real sweetheart. To tell you the truth, I’d like to meet her nanny. She’s the one who really raised Jamie."

"Boy, that’s weird," he said. "I guess your family backgrounds couldn’t be more different, huh?"

"We’re not from different worlds, we’re from different solar systems!" she agreed.

She opened the door to the control room and Conor spent a few minutes looking at the equipment with Ryan anxiously looking over his shoulder. "This is not a problem, Sis. These tapes are easy to erase."

"But they’re electronically marked with the date and the time. It’ll be obvious that we edited them," she argued.

"Obvious to whom?" he inquired.

"To whoever reviews them," she explained.

"Oh, that’s the problem," he said with a smile. "You obviously don’t know how these systems work. Here’s the deal. The security company installs these as a part of their total home protection system. The cameras take a still shot every so often, depending on how you set it up. When the tape is full it rewinds to the beginning and starts over."

"But who looks at the tapes?"

"No one, unless an alarm goes off. Then the monitoring company comes out to investigate. They go through their normal procedure, and then they enter the house and review the tape to see what triggered the alarm. Usually it’s just a malfunction or some foliage that brushes against a door. But if there really was a security breach, they have pictures to help identify the intruder."

"But the homeowner can review the tapes if they want to, right?"

"Yeah, and most of them do so for a couple of weeks, but the novelty wears off really quick. So if you just leave this alone, it will rewind itself and start over."

"Can you tell how often they rewind?"

"Yeah, give me a minute." He looked at his watch and timed the cameras. "They shoot every 30 seconds. These are standard videotapes and they hold six hours of pictures. Can you do the math?"

"I think I can handle it," Ryan smirked, her math abilities legendary in her family. "They rewind every seven and a half days," she said after thinking for just a few seconds. "I don’t want to take the risk of a alarm going off before they’ve rewound themselves. Is there a way to erase them?"

"Yeah, we can just rewind the tape, hit this erase button and scroll through the whole thing. It’ll only take a few minutes. Which tape are you worried about?"

Ryan blushed to the roots of her hair, "All of them," she mumbled.

"Jeez, Ryan!" he laughed. "Even the garage?"

She mutely nodded, still blushing.

"What about this one?" he asked pointing at the machine that recorded the perimeter of the buildings and the front entrance.

She gulped noticeably, "That’s one of the worst ones," she admitted, thinking back to their arrival.

"The gym?" he asked incredulously.

"That’s
the
worst one," she declared as she stared at the floor, thoroughly mortified.

"Well, well, well, you girls have had a gay old time, haven’t you?" he teased.

"Conor, don’t make this worse than it already is, and please don’t tease Jamie about this. She’s embarrassed to talk about it with me, and I was the one doing it with her!"

"Hey," he said as he wrapped his sister in his arms. "I’m sorry, Ryan. I didn’t mean to upset you. I think it’s great that you two are having such a good time together. And I promise I will never mention this whole thing in front of Jamie."

"Thanks, Conor. You really are the best," she said as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Now go play in the gym while I erase these babies."

He left the room with nary a teasing comment, for which Ryan was eternally grateful. She erased the tapes one by one, but the one that captured the scenes from the gym caused her to pause and consider whether she wanted to erase it. Scanning through it with Jamie had aroused both of them, and she considered that the tape could be just the ticket for a little spice when they hit a sexual lull. She was fairly confident that Jamie would not approve, so she acknowledged that she would have to inform her if she kept it.
Knowing Jamie, she would agree to keep it, even if she was opposed, if she thought it was important to me
.
Hmmm, my sweetie would be mortified if anyone else ever saw this tape. No matter how safe we think it is, there is always the chance that it could be discovered.
Deciding that her partner’s feelings were worth more than the thrill they could get from watching the tape, Ryan popped it in and erased it, rewinding and playing it again, just to make sure.
We can always recreate the scene,
she mused
. That’ll give us a good excuse to come down here again.
When she exited the room, Conor was playing around with the exercise equipment while he watched the Giants on the big screen TV. "This is some sweet setup," he said as he shook his head.

"You ain’t seen nothing yet, Bro," she assured him as they left the gym.

When they returned to the kitchen, the table was set, the wine was chilled and dinner was being served. "I was just about to come and get you two," Jamie said as Ryan came up and gave her a little kiss.

"Mission accomplished," she said in a low voice.

Jamie gave her an anxious look, but Ryan shook her head a little. "It’s perfectly all right, Honey. Don’t worry about a thing."

They sat down at the table after Ryan and Conor spent a few minutes arguing about the proper way to light a fire, finally managing to get a roaring blaze going using a combination of their techniques.

The siblings agreed that the vegetable frittata was a perfect bedtime snack, and Conor was effusive in his praise of Jamie’s culinary talents. "Jamie, it’s just not fair that you can cook, too," he whined. "You truly are the perfect woman. I know you don’t have any sisters, but do you have any cute cousins?"

"Yeah, I do have two cute cousins. One of them is 16 and other is 14. Can you wait a few years?"

"Hey, if they’re gonna turn out like you...except for that one little thing...I’ll gladly wait."

"No guarantees, Conor," she laughed. "And I didn’t find out that ‘one little thing’ about myself until I was 21. I’d hate to see you waste all those years waiting, only to be disappointed."

"Good point," he admitted. "I guess I’ll have to find a woman on my own. Now that Ryan’s off the market, the pickings should be easier."

"Hey," she warned, "I didn’t date many straight women."

"You had your share," he reminded her with a smirk. "But it’s just not fair that you got the best one in the whole Bay Area," he complained with a grin as he patted Jamie’s hand.

That got him a kiss from Jamie as she stood to collect the dishes. "Not so fast there, Jamie. The cook does not clean," Conor said firmly, pulling Ryan to her feet. "The O’Flaherty’s will have this place shining in no time."

"Did you make dessert?" Ryan asked hopefully.

"No, but we’ve got another bar of Scharffen Berger chocolate," she replied with a grin.

"Excellent!" Ryan said. "Conor, you’re going to get a hot fudge sundae the likes of which you will never forget."

By the time they finished dessert and clean up it was 10:30, and Ryan was fading fast. Conor was still wired from his drive, so they showed him the game room, and within moments he was racking the pool table while watching the Giants extra-innings game on the big-screen TV.

When they were alone in their room, Ryan provided some details about the tape erasing procedure. "I erased each tape myself, Hon," she assured her anxious partner. "Conor knew just how the system worked and he walked me through it, but he stayed out in the gym while I did the work."

Shy green eyes peeked out through golden bangs. "Did he tease you really bad?"

"No, he really didn’t because I told him it was off limits. We all respect each other’s boundaries if we know what they are. I think he’ll drop it after today."

"Whew, that’s such a relief," Jamie said dramatically, falling to the bed.

"I agree, Love. The next time we come down here, we’re sticking to the bedroom."

"Will you come again?" Jamie asked.

"I love it down here," Ryan assured her as she stood in the bathroom doorway, brushing her teeth. "I’d certainly hope we can come down often. Especially on our anniversary," she added with a gleaming smile.

"I thought you’d enjoy it," Jamie replied as she ducked under Ryan’s outstretched arm to grab her own toothbrush. "It feels like you’re really away from people, even though Carmel is full of tourists."

"I like the whole lifestyle down here on the coast. Partly, I think I like it because it reminds me of the Atlantic coast of Ireland. I like the fog and the rocky cliffs, and I really love the wildness of the ocean. And I could sure get used to playing golf at Pebble Beach."

"What do you think of golf? Is it a game you’d like to play?"