Natural Instincts (4 page)

Being thrown against a wall by your mother when you were a baby did bad things to your head in a lot of ways.

Almost burning to death in your bed because your father set fire to the house to kill your mother when you were ten didn’t help stabilize your mental state either.

And being left tied up for two straight days when you were twenty because you’d gotten involved with a very kinky lady, who’d gotten so drunk that when she’d gone out for more beer, she’d forgotten about you and hadn’t come home for the rest of the weekend, was icing on the cake.

So why didn’t I speak now? I’d used up my voice screaming. At least, that’s how it felt to me.

The sounds of oars creaking in their locks and the rhythmic splashing of a rowboat’s hull grew closer. I raised my head and opened my sore eyes. The boat was coming along the shore in my direction, and yes, it was Hal. He was looking over his shoulder at me.

“Hi, Kyle!” he called.

Great. I should have eaten in the tent. I’d chosen the rock over the picnic table to discourage anybody from stopping. Hadn’t expected an attack from the sea.

Before I could respond, he called, “Oh, hey, can you hear me?” It was too dark for long-distance lip-reading, which he’d probably just figured out.

I raised one hand in greeting and nodded. He was too far away to read my phone, so hopefully he wouldn’t expect a conversation and linger.

“Oh, okay,” he said, getting the message that I wasn’t deaf. He pulled in his oars as he drifted closer to me. “Are you all right?”

I nodded again, making the gesture big enough for him to see.

“Okay. You look really tired. Listen, we’re having a bonfire on the beach tonight. Everyone’s invited if you want to come.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if Jon was going to be there.
Damn it.
He was probably long gone. I had no reason to believe that had been him in the bathroom. Not that I cared. My head still hurt so badly that whatever game these two brothers were playing, I really couldn’t care less. Maybe in twenty-four hours I’d worry about things again. Right now, just digesting half a sandwich took all my energy.

I managed to smile and shake my head.

“Okay, that’s cool. We’ll try not to be too loud. Have a nice evening.”

I waved in a kind of general way that meant
thanks
and
the same to you
. He waved back and kept going, heading out toward the island.

I saw the loon surface near him. Hal stopped rowing, and the two drifted close to each other, bird and man. Then Hal kept on his way, and the loon came closer to me.

Now the loon’s presence I didn’t mind. I gazed at him, so free, so untouched by the things that had scared me. He was powerful and proud, master of his element, sensual as he dipped his head below the surface for a moment, raising it to let beads of water run down his neck. I realized he’d come very close. His eyes were red, burning the way they had in the artist’s rendition on the website, almost as if he had been the model for the painting. He looked back at me. I wondered why he had no fear. Was he just very used to people camping, or was he so regal that we didn’t matter enough for him to deign to deviate from his course?

He would never allow himself to become a victim. If bad things happened to him, he would refuse to let them scar him. He would swim on untouched, confident and assured of who he was. I wanted to be like him, but I was a far cry from having that kind of strength.

I felt myself relaxing, though, as some of the pain eased away. Watching the loon did me more good than a month of therapy. I let him imprint very deeply on my memory so I could recall his serene dignity in perfect detail when things got hard.

Everything had become really quiet. Both the loon and I looked for the rowboat at the same time. Hal had stopped rowing some distance away and was drifting, watching us.

The loon gave a low warble deep in his throat and dove. I jumped up, grabbed the remains of my dinner, and walked back to my tent.

After stowing my garbage in a bag in the car so no raccoons would get into it, I slipped into my tent, stripped to my underwear, and crawled under the top sleeping bag. With a sigh, I nestled into my pillow, enjoying the soft fabric against my skin, stretching out and luxuriating in the freedom of movement and the breath of fresh air moving over my face and the gentle wash of the waves.

Again, the last thing I heard before I slid down into sleep was the call of the loon. He was still close by.

I
F
THERE
had been a bonfire in the night, I hadn’t heard it. Or smelled it, which, coming from me, was saying a lot. Usually one whiff of smoke and I was running in the other direction. Fear of campfires was one of the excuses I’d always used for not going camping.

I slept very late, still worn out from yesterday. It was well after noon when I made my way to the bathhouse. It was a misty, foggy day but warm and windless. I showered and then walked up to the office for more ice. The door was closed but not locked, and when I opened it, nobody was around. A note scrawled on a chalkboard propped by the cash register read
Help yourself to whatever. Catch you later.

I left a dollar and two dimes on the cash register and took another bag of ice, marveling at the way people in Vermont did business. Not that there was anything very valuable in the little store. Still, it was a far cry from the world of high finance I was used to.

I was almost back to my site when movement by my tent caught my eye. I froze, heart starting to pound. The damned image of vampires kept coming back to me, and my first thought was that I’d caught Jon prowling around my tent, thinking I was still inside, sleeping and vulnerable. But it wasn’t a dark, cloaked man who stepped into sight. It was a young blonde woman wearing shorts and a pink bikini top, holding a camera with a very big lens. She saw me and flushed.

“I’m so sorry,” she called, walking quickly toward me. “I’ve been trying to get a good shot of that loon since last year, and he was right there by the rock. I hope you don’t mind?”

I did actually mind a whole lot that she’d not only invaded my privacy but that she’d bothered my loon. I decided not to start anything, though, so I just shook my head slightly and stepped out of her way, hoping she’d take the hint and leave. But she followed me over to my car as I opened the hatch and set down the ice. Today I was going to drain the cooler.

“I’m sorry?” she said, looking as if she was missing something. Strangers often did around me. It freaked people out to no end when I didn’t respond with appropriate small talk. Generally they took the hint and left. But sometimes they acted as though I’d replied, but they hadn’t heard me.

Damn it, now I was going to have to dig out my phone. With a silent groan, I pulled it from my pocket, opened and closed my cold hands to loosen them up, then typed
I don’t speak
and showed it to her.

“Oh wow,” she said, looking at me hard, as though trying to figure out what was wrong with me. For some damn reason, a lot of women apparently thought that not speaking made me very hot. Maybe it triggered their maternal instincts, or maybe they thought they’d be the one to get me over whatever my problem was. Or maybe they jumped at a chance to get to know someone who would have no choice but to listen to them all the time. As far as I was concerned, a woman had been the final straw as to why I no longer spoke. Love had not worked out well for me. I still had scars on my wrists, throat, and ankles to prove it.

“Are you, like, deaf?”

I shook my head and focused on my cooler. I needed to swing it sideways, lift, and pull it to the edge of the car so the drain plug would be over the ground. The damn thing was heavy, and to my frustration, the woman reached in to help. That brought me face-to-face with her bikini top, which strained over her skin as she used her muscles, bringing back way too many memories for me. I tried to block them, or at least accept that they no longer had power over me. It didn’t work. It took everything I had not to leap away and run.

I gritted my teeth and nodded in thanks after we got the cooler into position. I told myself firmly that she did not have any rope. Nor was I ever going to experiment in that direction again, no matter what my innermost cravings were. I popped the plug and water streamed out, spattering in the dirt. I didn’t care about my feet since I was wearing sandals, but I was happy that she danced back a pace so her little sneakers didn’t get wet.

“Were you born that way?” she asked, probably wondering if I had a tongue. As far as I was concerned, she was never going to find out.

I could have lied and nodded, but that wasn’t my style. I shook my head and left it at that.

“Sorry,” she said, giving me what she must have thought was an understanding smile. “I’m too nosy for my own good.”

I agreed but didn’t nod, focusing on balancing the cooler, tipping it a little higher to keep it draining.

“You here by yourself?”

I nodded again. If she asked me one more question, I was going to accidentally drop the cooler on her.

“Me too. This is the first year without my ex. He’s the biggest jerk known to humankind.”

No, my father was
, I thought, but I wasn’t going into that either.

“I needed to come here and prove I could do it, you know?”

I nodded. That was mostly why I was here as well. Sort of. I really didn’t know why I had decided to go camping this summer. I just suddenly couldn’t stand my life any longer. So far it had been a disaster. Except for the loon.

My guest kept talking. “My ex is the reason I needed to get a good shot of the loon. Arnie was completely obsessed over it last summer—there’s only one here, ever—but no matter how hard he tried, the crazy thing would dive whenever he got a camera on it, or it would get behind Hal’s rowboat, or something. The whole thing was pretty funny. I mean, look at this shot.”

She stepped closer again—the water was just trickling out of the cooler now—doing something with the controls on her camera. “I saved this shot because it made him so mad. We were down at the beach, and the one time he thought he got the loon, somebody swam in the way. Got a guy’s head instead.”

I only looked because I couldn’t really not see it, considering I needed to stay still and keep my hands on the cooler. The photo being displayed on the back of her camera had been taken on a bright, sunny day. The beach and water were full of people. In the background, though, was just one swimmer. The shot was close enough to get pretty good detail of his face and dark hair.

Holy fucking shit.

I almost lost the cooler. Swiftly I gave it a shove back into my car, heedless of the fact that the drain spout was still dripping. I practically ripped the camera out of the woman’s hands and stared at the image.

“Yeah, I mean, where did the loon go?” Fortunately she seemed okay with my interest. “It must have dived, but jeez, you know, it had to have been really close to that guy. It doesn’t seem to mind people unless they’ve got cameras. Hal could get some great shots
—
it’s always swimming around his rowboat. Think it must know he owns the lake or something. Check and see if my shot today came out. I haven’t looked yet.”

I quickly navigated away from her stored images—using even an unfamiliar camera was easy for me, compared to what I did with computers in my line of work all day—and went to her recent photos. And there was the same man from her photo last summer, swimming by my rock! His body was below water, but I could make out arms and legs. His head was above. I could see his dark hair and eyes clearly. He looked very startled by what must have been the unexpected presence of the woman and her camera.

Instinctively, I looked at the shore, the rock. The loon was still there. As soon as he saw me looking, he began to yodel and splash and flap his wings and practically throw himself up onto the shore. I knew if he could have become airborne, he would have, and I had no doubt he would have snatched the camera. His distress was dire and heart wrenching.

I instantly knew what to do. As the woman turned to look at the commotion, I hit the little trash can icon with my thumb. Did I want to delete the photo? Yes, I did. It vanished. Swiftly, behind the woman’s back, I sent the loon a thumbs-up.

At once he stopped thrashing.

“What’s wrong with him?” The woman turned back to me in alarm.

I shrugged and handed the camera back, shaking my head.

“What? I didn’t get the shot? What the hell? I swear, he was right there!”

She fooled with the camera a second, then realized she was missing her chance to get another shot. She whirled back toward the water. Before she could get the camera to her face, the loon dove away into the depths, heading toward the island. She clicked, and I was afraid for a second that she’d gotten a white foot in the corner, but when she displayed the image, it was just ruffled water.

“Well, shit! What is it about that damn bird?”

I was wondering exactly the same thing. We both looked after it for a long moment, but it didn’t resurface. Feeling very strange, I turned back to my cooler, closing the drain spout and then pushing it in place. The woman searched her camera’s memory, but the photo was gone. I dumped my new bag of ice into the cooler, and then, because I was a gentleman, offered her a soda. She took one and joined me at my table. In a way I was glad, because the last thing I wanted to do right then was think.

Wanting to get the subject off the loon, I typed
I’m Kyle. From Boston.

“I’m Sue. From Jersey. College dropout, waitress, and very lonely.”

Master’s Degree. Financial systems analyst
,
I typed. And then, I had no idea why—perhaps for convenience or something more, something that had just changed—I added
and gay
.

“Well, shit,” she said. Then she flushed and laughed. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant, you know, how it always seems like the best ones are gay.”

I let myself grin. God, I hoped she was right. Because I had a feeling I was about to get involved in something far stranger than all the strange things that had happened to me combined.