The live band in the town gazebo looked as if they were having fun as they played clean as country water, mild as Mountain Dew. Cat could feel herself relaxing slightly. Clark, holding Lois’ hand, led the women into the square, then he inhaled deeply. “Boy, I love these visits, especially in the fall. It’s so good to have a change of pace.” He turned on his heel and walked a few steps backward. “Metropolis is my home now, but coming back here just feels wonderful.”
Cat frowned at the band. “We’re still on assignment, Clark. This isn’t a vacation for any of us, remember?”
He nodded at her and turned again to walk forward. “I haven’t forgotten. If Wayne Irig is somewhere around here, someone will know about it. That’s one of the great things about a small town – secrets don’t stay hidden.”
Cat crossed her arms and edged closer to Clark. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.
“I feel like Dorothy. Shouldn’t a tornado be touching down and taking me to Oz pretty soon? And don’t tell me that Dorothy wanted to return to Kansas. Yow!” She grabbed Clark’s shoulder and lifted one foot, then pulled a long strand of hay from her high-heeled shoe. “Nuts! I’m not dressed for this.”
A medium-tall redheaded young woman in a police uniform drew Clark’s attention. He walked toward her and called out, “Rachel?”
The young cop turned into a squealing fangirl before Cat’s astonished eyes. “Eeeeeee! Clark! I’m so glad you’re here!” He picked her up and spun her around as she kissed him on the cheek. When she pushed back and he put her down, she said, “Hey, don’t let the uniform fool you. I can still two-step and tush-push better than anyone in this town!”
“I’m sure you can. You look good, even in the uniform.”
“Thanks.” She lowered her voice and leaned in again. “I’ll show you how good I still look tomorrow night. For old times’ sake.”
He shared a laugh with her, then turned and waved a hesitant Cat and an amused Lois over to them. “I want you to meet the other two best reporters on staff at the Daily Planet, Lois Lane and Catharine Grant. Cat, Lois, this is Rachel Harris – excuse me, now it’s Sheriff Rachel Harris.”
Rachel grabbed each woman’s right hand in turn before either one had a chance to open her mouth and said, “Howdy there, Catharine, Lois! I guess y’all came from Metropolis with Clark.”
As a surprised Cat put her hand behind her back and flexed it to make sure all her digits were still intact, Lois asked, “Old times’ sake?”
She grinned Cheshire-like at Cat. “Yeah, Clark took me to his senior prom. We had a blast.”
Cat suddenly realized that she was jealous, which was ridiculous and not a little bit embarrassing. She and Clark didn’t have a close personal relationship – at least, not the kind she’d once envisioned. She crossed her arms and took a small step away from him, trying to indicate that to the sheriff.
Rachel played with her hat for a moment, apparently checking out the geometry among the three of them, then gestured at Clark and Lois. “I see. So, when did you two – um – how long—”
Clark blushed a little. Lois answered, “Oh, not long. We’re still just kicking the tires and deciding on the color. Haven’t even gone for a test drive yet.”
Rachel’s mouth stuck in an open position, and Cat wanted to burst out laughing. Clark’s blush deepened and he blurted, “TMI, Lois! Rach, we’re actually here on a story. You know about the EPA at Wayne’s place, right?” She closed her mouth and nodded. “We need to talk to him. Would you happen to know where he is?”
She shook her head. “Nope, I don’t. But you know how he likes to keep to himself.” Her belt radio went off and she shook her head. “Sorry, y’all, but duty calls. Catharine, Lois, we’ll have to get together real soon and swap some Clark stories.”
Lois nodded. “Sure. I’d like that. Just call Clark’s parents and they can get in touch with us. That’s where we’ll be staying.”
Rachel pulled her radio out of its holster and responded to the message as she walked away. Clark shook his head. “The three of you swapping stories about me? I might have to take an early flight home.”
Cat snickered. “Does ‘tush-push’ mean what I think it means?”
Lois peeked around Clark and said, “Depends on what you think it means. Describes a country dance that can get pretty personal, especially in private. It’s usually no worse than a PG-rated activity in public, though.”
Clark gently took the near arm of each woman. “Why don’t we see if we can grab a taste of the local hospitality?”
Cat tugged her arm free and stopped. “You two go ahead. I think I’ll just hang around here and soak up the atmosphere.”
Clark lifted his free hand and waved it around. “Aw, Cat, c’mon! You just can’t stand how normal it is here.”
“Normal?” the redhead replied. “I’ve heard about these small towns. Normal for them is like attending a mixer at the Bates Motel.” She pointed at one of the cooks. “You see that guy over there at the grill? The one turning the burgers?”
“Yeah,” Lois said. “So?”
“I’d bet real money he’s a cross-dresser.”
Clark suppressed a laugh and asked, “Really?”
“Yes. I’ll even give you three-to-one odds.”
Before he could respond, another woman called his name. “Clark! Over here!”
He moved toward her and called out, “Mom!” then enveloped her in a bear hug.
“Oh, honey!” she purred. “It’s so good to see you!” The older woman turned to Lois. “Hi! You must be Lois. Clark’s told us so much about you. It’s good to finally meet you.” To Cat, she said, “And hello to you too, Catharine! Clark’s told us about you too! I’m so glad you’re both here with him.”
Lois barely beat Cat to the draw. “We both thank you, Mrs. Kent.”
“Pshaw! Both of you, call me Martha. Mrs. Kent was my mother-in-law, God rest her soul. She was a wonderful woman, but a lot more formal than I ever was.” She put a hand on either woman’s elbow and said, “You ladies must be famished! Those airline meals have such small portions, they must think they’re feeding mice. Do you prefer burgers or—”
“Mom, wait. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Cat – um – Cat’s concerned that the cook might be a cross-dresser.”
Martha glanced at the grill and laughed. “Oh, honey, that’s Clark’s father! I can’t get him to buy me a dress, let alone one for himself!”
It was Cat’s turn to let her jaw hang open. Lois reached behind her and pushed her forward, saying, “She was just illustrating a point, Martha.”
Clark stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. Cat’s teeth audibly clopped together, then she leaned toward him and whispered through clenched jaws. “I may just kill you. Wait till you’re asleep tonight. I’ll get you – and Lois will help me hide the body.”
Martha didn’t hear the exchange – she was still laughing too hard.
*****
The five of them – Clark, Lois, Cat, Martha, and Jonathan – entered the Kent home, laughter preceding them, and flipped on the light. Cat and Lois looked around at the décor – Cat with a polite smile, Lois with a real one.
Lois hadn’t felt this comfortable around a nuclear family since her pre-teen years when her father was still living with them and the arguments were far fewer and far less intense. “Martha,” she almost gushed, “your home is beautiful. It really feels lived in.”
“Oh, Lois, it’s just an old farmhouse, but it’s home. We certainly love it.”
“I can see why. And now I understand why Clark enjoys his visits here. In fact, there are times when we can’t get him to shut up about Smallville already!”
Everyone laughed again. Lois looked around until she noticed a painting on an easel. She tilted her head to one side and asked, “Who’s the artist?”
Martha smiled. “That’s my latest. What do you think?”
Lois grinned and shook her head. “I’m the wrong person to ask. I think the twenty-five-millimeter automatic cannon on a Bradley armored personnel carrier is beautiful.”
“That’s right!” put in Jonathan. “You were awarded those medals for your service in the Middle East.”
“My dad’s a veteran, too,” Clark said proudly. “He served in Korea from late 1951 until the treaty was signed. Has combat ribbons and a Bronze Star. He was his company’s sergeant major.”
Lois all but came to attention in front of him. “Thank you for your service, Sergeant Major. Your son is certainly a credit to your character.”
Jonathan also straightened. “Thank you, Specialist. But I left the Army and the rank behind me in 1954 and came back to Kansas to be a farmer, so please don’t stand on ceremony.”
Martha put her bag of corn on the table. “Hey, my artwork is right here, and it doesn’t like being ignored.”
Cat turned to it and tilted her head as if examining it critically. “It’s almost impressionistic. Good use of color, too. What does it represent?”
Martha smiled at her. “It’s a bowl of fruit. I haven’t given it a formal name yet.”
Cat nodded. “If watercolor is your artistic medium, you’ll name it soon.”
“Are you an artist too, Catharine?”
“You’ll save a lot of time and syllables if you just call me Cat. I don’t paint or sculpt, but I do enjoy taking photos. I don’t get many shots printed in the Planet, but I can get by in a pinch. In fact, I’m the photographer on this trip.”
Martha smiled and nodded. “Well, let’s talk sleeping arrangements. We’d like to put you two ladies up in Clark’s room – he’s had a queen bed up there since his sophomore year in high school. Got a lot of his height early. Unless – Cat, would you be more comfortable on the sleeper sofa? By yourself?”
“Mom!” Clark scolded. “As Lois so frankly confessed to Rachel Harris today, she and I are a couple but we’re just kicking the tires. No test drives yet.”
Lois turned scarlet and slapped his shoulder with an open hand. “Clark Jerome Kent! This is your mother you’re talking to!”
“Ow! You said about the same thing to Rachel!”
“That was so she’d know there was a fence there! Your mom isn’t about to get you on the dance floor and – and – push your tush!”
Cat covered her mouth with her hand and turned away. Martha leaned in close to Lois and quietly said, “Honey, I can still boot-scoot pretty well as long as I’m dancing with Jonathan. How about the three of us girls getting together one evening and have a long and involved discussion about men?”
Lois nodded, an evil glint flashing in her eyes. Clark’s eyes widened and he chose that moment to change the subject. “Mom, we’re expecting a fax in the morning. Is that okay?”
Martha assumed a pensive pose. “A fax?”
“It’s short for ‘facsimile transmission,’ Martha,” Cat said. “Lets you send documents as easily as making a phone call, assuming the recipient has a machine too.”
Martha waved at her. “Oh, sweetie, we know that. I was just thinking about how much paper we have and if there’s enough already in the machine. We couldn’t run this operation without faxing stuff back and forth. It’s a thermal machine, not one of those expensive ink jet or laser systems, but I don’t know how we got along without one for as long as we did.”
“Oh.” Cat stood in place for a long moment, then said, “I’m going to have to borrow a towel, Martha.”
“A towel? Whatever for?”
“To dry off my foot. It’s been in my mouth way too often today and it’s soaking wet.”
*****
Martha had shown her female guests to Clark’s room and told them exactly where the bathroom was and what time to expect breakfast before smiling and heading downstairs again. Cat put her suitcase on the bed and sighed. “This is not what I was expecting.”
“Maybe not, but it’s nice. The Kents are wonderful people.”
“They’re wonderful to you because you’re Clark’s girl. Me, I’m a third wheel, and I’m not used to that. And you’d better watch out for that redheaded sheriff. She wouldn’t mind sneaking off behind the Tastee Freeze with Clark.”
Lois laughed. “Oh, come one! Rachel is just a plain old country girl under that uniform. I bet we could be good friends if I lived out here.”
Cat opened the top dresser drawer and began loading her clothes in it. “Maybe you could live here. I couldn’t. This place is just too quiet and too much open space for me. I already miss asphalt and Centennial Park and city busses and honking horns.” She shoved her underwear to one side. “And I saw you giving that brown dress with the polka dots the eye when we walked by the clothing store. You were envisioning how big Clark’s smile would be when he first saw you wearing it.”
Lois opened her suitcase next to Cat’s and smiled softly. “Actually, I was. You’re very perceptive.”
“You wouldn’t catch me seriously wounded in that dress.”
“Of course not. But I bet you’d look great in those tight jeans and the matching sleeveless blouse, especially with those high-heeled sharkskin boots. There are lots of guys here who’d forget to breathe if they saw you in that outfit, plus all of those guys who’d give themselves hernias trying to win a prize for you on that bell-and-hammer thing at the carnival.”
Cat smiled thinly. “Thanks, Louise. You’re a trouper. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d come up with something, Thelma. You always bounce back.”
“Yeah, well, you’d better hurry up and marry Clark while I’m still young enough to make it down the aisle and stand up next to you.” She picked up a pajama top and her personal kit, then walked toward the bedroom door. “Dibs on being first in the bathroom. Shouldn’t take me more than ten minutes, and we can swap tomorrow night.”
“Okay. See you when you get back.”
“I’ll see you, too. Unless you sneak off downstairs to visit Clark.”
Lois blushed. “Come on, Cat! His parents are right here in the house!”
“Yes, but farmers are ‘early to bed and early to rise’ people. I bet they’ll be asleep five minutes after they turn out their bedroom light.”
Lois blushed again. “I’d still rather his mother not know what I’ve been thinking about. Besides, it seems to me that they tend to think about each other along those same lines.”
Cat smiled. “Sounds like my parents when I lived at home. Whenever I hosted a girls’ sleepover, I always made them promise to behave themselves. And my mom would always sigh and act disappointed, then pinch my dad’s rear end where my friends could see it.” She chuckled as she stepped out the bedroom door. “It always made the evenings fun, even though I always acted embarrassed for them.”
She didn’t tell Lois that the love her parents showed to each other and to her had been one of the things that made her want a life with Clark. She knew he’d love his wife like that. And she wanted to be loved that way.
She also knew that he loved Lois that way, not her.
Cat closed the bathroom door behind her and sighed. She never thought she’d lose that kind of competition to Lois.
*****
Thinking of the morning schedule on a farm, Clark turned to his father and smiled. “Y’all still get up with the chickens? If you do, Lois is in for something of a shock.”
Jonathan’s face cleared. “I was expecting you to come alone. Didn’t realize you’d have company this trip.”
Clark’s voice lowered dramatically and his smile vanished. “Why? What’s going on?”
“I need to show you something. Come with me to the barn.”
“Okay. But what’s going on?”
Jonathan shook his head and turned toward the door. “Not in here, Son. In the barn.”
Jonathan led his son into the barn and looked around outside before sliding the door shut. “Wayne broke off a piece of this glowing green rock and sent it to a lab at KU for analysis. Then he got nervous when he didn’t hear back from them and brought the big piece to me to hide. He said he’d tell anyone from the government who asked about it that the little piece was all there was.” He lifted a heavy toolbox from beneath an overturned wheelbarrow and set it on his workbench. “The original piece is in here.”
“It’s a green glowing rock?”
“Yes. My guess is that it’s some kind of crystal, but neither your mother or I have ever seen anything like it before.” He unsnapped the latches and pulled the lid back. “We think it might be some kind of space – Clark! What’s wrong, Son?”
Clark’s knees buckled and he groaned in shock. “Uhhh! Close it! Close – close the box!” He gasped and fell to the barn floor on his side.
His father latched the box shut and Clark’s pain lessened, then seemed to vanish. “Don’t – don’t open it around me again. Please.”
“That hurt you! How can it – you’ve told us dozens of times that nothing can hurt you!”
The younger man’s breathing eased and he lifted himself to one knee. “Apparently I was mistaken, because that really hurt. A lot.” He tried to stand and failed. “I’m – going to need some help – getting back to the house.”
His father leaned down and put one shoulder under Clark’s arm. “Ready to try it again?”
Clark nodded briefly and counted off. “On three, okay? One – two – three! Ahhh!”
They headed for the side barn door. “Any better yet?”
“A – a little. Don’t let me go, though. My balance – is way off and – I’d fall over.”
“What about your powers?”
Clark shook his head. “Not right now. That green crystal, whatever it is – uh – has sucked them right out of me.”
Jonathan pulled the barn door shut behind them. “That brings up another point. Do either of those young ladies know about Superman?”
“I told Lois. Cat doesn’t know, or at least I haven’t told her and I seriously doubt Lois has. Lois knows that you and Mom know, of course, and – whoa, still not walking straight.”
“It’s a good thing you’re sleeping downstairs. I don’t think your mom and I could carry you up to your room.”
Clark’s chuckle turned into a groan. “As narrow as that stairway is, probably not. Do you think we can make it to the couch?”
“You haven’t unfolded it yet, have you?”
“Didn’t have the chance. Just – just help me get there and let me sit down.”
Martha came to the back door, smiling – until she saw her son being supported by her husband. “What happened? What’s wrong with Clark?”
Jonathan shook his head and gasped, “Help me – get him to – the couch!”
Between them, they managed not to drop him on either the floor or the couch. Martha ran to the kitchen and brought back a towel, then wiped her son’s face with it. “Whew!” Jonathan exhaled. “You are heavier than you look, son.”
A woman’s alarmed voice rang out from the staircase. “What’s wrong with Clark? What happened to him?”
Martha glanced at Clark, then turned to Lois and replied, “His allergies kick up sometimes this time of year. I guess Metropolis doesn’t have the same kinds of pollen floating around.”
Clark took his mother’s hand in his and quietly said, “She knows, Mom.”
Lois made her way to the end of the couch. Martha exchanged a “look” with Jonathan, then whispered, “Cat?”
“She’s in the bathroom and I haven’t told her,” Lois whispered back. “I came down because I heard thumping noises. And please don’t whisper at me unless you know I’m looking at you. I lost some upper-end hearing in the service from being around machine guns and artillery and other explosions, and I have to read lips a lot.” She knelt beside Clark and put her hand on his wrist. “I’m guessing this is the first time you’ve felt like this in many years, if you’ve ever felt this weak.”
“Not that I can remember.” Clark closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “That’s some baggage the airline lost.”
Clark’s parents both looked puzzled. Lois caught Martha’s expression and smiled. “When Clark told me his secret a few weeks ago, we talked about my PTSD being baggage, just like being—” she glanced at the stairway and whispered “—Superman’s wife would be.” Her volume rose slightly. “He hasn’t officially asked me to marry him, but he did ask me to think about it. And I have been.” She caught Clark’s eyes with hers. “I hope I haven’t just let too many cats out of the hat.”
“Bag.”
Her expression cleared. “Don’t be absurd, honey. Nobody puts bags in their hats.”
“No, the phrase is—”
Martha chuckled. “Clark, she’s trying to lighten the mood. She knows ‘The Cat in the Hat’ and all about cats and hats and bags.” She patted Lois’ arm. “You’ve found a good woman, sweetie. I just hope she’s willing to make an honest man of you soon.”
“I just hope he’s smart enough to give up,” added Jonathan.
All four of them laughed quietly.
*****
At the top of the stairs, just past the last light before the left turn to the bedrooms, Cat knelt on the carpet, leaned against the wall, and wept silently. The easy camaraderie she witnessed among the four people on the couch put the last nail in the coffin for her hopes for a love with Clark Kent. Clark would never be hers, would never love her, would never embrace her or kiss her with passion or commitment, would never again wake up next to her in the same bed. He’d told Lois about his being Superman but hadn’t told her. He wanted to spend his life with Lois, not with her. Even if Lois ultimately chose not to marry him, he’d never accept Cat as a substitute.
Being right twice, that Clark was also Superman and that he’d never love her like she loved him, gave her no solace.
A friend was all she could ever be to him. Lois held his heart in her hands and he held hers. They might as well call the Smallville pastor in the morning and schedule the ceremony. Cat would stand up for her, hold Lois’ bouquet while the bride passionately kissed the groom, hug the stuffing out of the bride, chastely kiss the groom’s cheek, and support them together any way she could.
She’d have to bind up her own heart with duct tape and fishing line to get through the ceremony, but she’d do it.
The other thing she would have to figure out was how to tell Clark and Lois that she’d deduced Superman’s secret identity. Tonight’s overheard conversation had eliminated the last vestiges of doubt from her mind. Clark was Superman, irrespective of his temporary lack of powers. The hero would return, she was certain. Just from the few moments she’d eavesdropped on them, she could tell that Clark’s voice was already stronger and steadier and his mind was working more clearly. It was just a matter of time before he was all the way back.
Cat silently slipped to Clark’s old bedroom and slid beneath the covers. She’d feel marginally better after a good night’s sleep, even though she’d miss the soothing sounds of the city.
Getting past knowing that Clark would never be hers might be more than she could bear.
*****
Clark awoke to the smell of frying bacon and ham and pancakes. He sat up slowly and listened. Then he heard his mother and Lois laughing softly in the kitchen, something he wasn’t sure would happen until that moment. He’d believed that they’d need more time to adjust to each other and accept one another. But their easy teamwork sounded real and sincere.
He shrugged and guessed he was wrong about that. And it looked like a very good thing.
Just then Lois peeked around the corner and smiled when she saw him. “Hey, sleepyhead, it’s almost a quarter till seven and your father is already at his chores. You’re burning daylight. Come get some breakfast while it’s hot.” She walked to the couch, leaned down, and gave him a light kiss on the lips. “How about I fix you a plate?”
He grinned and stood without a groan or moan. “I can get my own, thank you. Just let me visit the little reporter’s room first.”
She started to turn away, then spun back into his embrace. “I love you, Clark. I hope we have lots of mornings like this.”
Before she could turn yet again, he took her shoulders in his hands. “Wait, please. I’d like to ask you a question.” She paused, then nodded. “Last night,” he said, “you called me ‘honey’ when we were talking about cats and hats and bags. Was that – were you saying that because – well, why did you say that?”
A mysterious smile peeked out from her face. “Let’s take a walk after breakfast and talk about it. Assuming you feel up to it, that is.”
“Sure. I think I need to loosen up my body anyway, and a walk over the property would be a good thing. Besides, there’s something I’d like to show you.” He stepped around her. “After I run my special errand, that is.”
*****
Lois shoveled in her last bite of pancake and made ‘yummy’ noises. “Oh, Martha, that’s so good! Your cooking puts MREs to shame.”
Martha tilted her head, puzzled. “What’s an MRE?”
Clark chuckled and said, “Can I tell her?” Lois nodded to him. “MRE is an acronym for Meals Ready to Eat, but Lois says a lot of the foot soldiers say it stands for Meals Rejected by Ethiopians because they taste so terrible.”
Martha groaned. Lois said, “They got better by the time I was discharged, but they still weren’t anywhere close to what you can do. Probably never will be. The best thing I can say about the earlier meals is that they were better than the C-rations and K-rations the Army passed out in World War 2 and Korea. I bet Jonathan could describe those rations more colorfully than I could.”
Martha laughed. “Not much of a recommendation, is it?”
“No, but it’s accurate.”
“Mom, do you have anything for me to do this morning?”
“Hmm. Other than washing the dishes – you and Lois can both handle that one – there’s nothing else you can do until that ‘powerful’ magic moment.”
Clark’s eyes seemed to lose a bit of their normal sparkle, but Lois’ expression didn’t falter an iota. From the corner of her eye, Lois caught Martha’s tiny grin. It seemed that Clark’s mother was on Lois’ side in this relationship tug-of-love.
Martha reached over and patted his hand. “Don’t worry, honey. Things will happen the way they’re supposed to happen.”
He sighed and nodded. “Okay, Zen Mother. Come on, Lois, those dishes won’t wash themselves.”
Lois nudged him with her elbow. “Now I know where you got that easy acceptance of circumstances.”
Clark chortled, then they stood together as Lois shook her finger at him. “You shouldn’t complain, Clark. I’m not. Sure, I got up earlier than I usually do and now I’m doing the breakfast dishes with you, but I also saw a beautiful sunrise, got to cook with your mother, and I’m going to take a very nice walk with a very special and wonderful man.” She turned to Martha and asked with perfect innocence, “By the way, Martha, when will Jonathan be back so we can begin our walk?”
When Clark blurted out an inarticulate syllable and stopped in place, she turned her big, doe-like, innocent eyes to him. She held his gaze until Martha snorted behind her and the three of them laughed like a sitcom laugh track.
*****
Martha smiled as she watched Clark guide Lois to his Fortress of Solitude. She doubted that he knew how many times she’d watched him as her heart broke for him while he climbed that tree to sit on one of the crates on that platform and brooded over the differences in him that separated him from his friends and classmates. She’d known when he’d climbed the tree to mourn the end of the relationship with Lana Lang. She’d watched him struggle with his new abilities, his impossible strength, his ability to float in mid-air, and she and Jonathan had comforted him and tried to guide him through those difficult times.
But the Fortress was always Clark’s place. She never went there while he was at home, not for any reason. Her young man needed a place of his own to be alone for short periods of time, and she always respected his boundaries.
Now he was bringing a young woman into that part of his life. She hoped Lois would also respect his boundaries. Of course, Lois had boundaries of her own, and as long as they respected each other’s boundaries, they’d be just fine.
*****
Lois looked around at the trees surrounding the creek. “This is nice. And it’s good to know that nobody’s pointing a weapon at us, doping his scope to hit us center mass.”
Clark grinned at her. “Just don’t look like a deer and you should be just fine. Some of the hunters in this part of the state don’t exactly carry licenses.”
“I’ll be careful. I’m not packing my AR-15 this week.”
“Well, we should be fine. My Fortress is about fourteen feet up the tree, and very few deer climb very well. Plus, we’re both bigger than the squirrels around here.”
She stopped at a tall oak with horizontal boards screwed into the trunk. “This looks like the place.”
He nodded. “It is. You want me to make sure the spiders and snakes are gone before you come up?”
“Please do. You know what a delicate flower I am.”
He chuckled and climbed the ladder. Lois noticed that the steps didn’t display much stress, as if he were almost floating up the tree instead of actually climbing. “Showoff,” she muttered.
He stopped and stared down at her. “Did you just call me a showoff?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Afraid not. That’s actually what my mom was talking about – the ‘powerful magic moment’ when my ‘special advantages’ show up again.”
“Ah, right. Sorry, I’d forgotten about that.”
In seconds he poked his head over the side of the platform at the top of the ladder. “All clear. Shall I come down and escort you?”
“Oh, I think I can make it that far without falling.”
*****
Carol Sherman stood behind a tree topping a rise at the edge of town. The band was playing their hearts out, the town was hopping, and the people were having a great time. Carol desperately wished she could experience it with them.
But she couldn’t.
Everyone knew her as the EPA liaison who was tearing up Wayne Irig’s farm for no good reason. They were sure she’d lied to them from the moment she’d walked into the courthouse to display her EPA paperwork.
She had, too. She hadn’t done it deliberately, but she had. She’d sold the county clerk the line that they were checking for pesticide contamination from decades earlier. She’d assured everyone that Wayne Irig was safe and sound, off on a government-paid vacation. She’d promised the reporters, the town council, the mayor, and anyone who’d listen that nothing odd was going on at the Irig farm, that the operation was a standard one and would be complete in a couple of weeks, and that the Irig farm would be restored to its original condition before they left.
It was a complete and utter lie.
She didn’t know exactly what these paramilitary pretenders were up to, but it wasn’t anything good. She’d almost called her boss in Washington to check up on Colonel Trask and his men, but fear grabbed her hand and stilled it, fear that Trask would do something very bad to her – or worse, to her daughter – if he found out that she’d gone behind his back.
Bureau 39 didn’t show up on her list of organizations. Her Internet searches on her laptop gave her only hints of something shady going on. The chemists with Trask’s men checked soil samples, but they were using modified Geiger counters instead of chemical detection equipment.
They were looking for something radioactive.
This was bad. This was very bad. She had to get out, and she had to have proof that this project wasn’t what she’d been told it was. Her word wouldn’t be enough. She had to have written proof. And the only written proof was in Trask’s files.
She had to get it. She had to get it soon.
Just as soon as she found some courage.
