Time for some rest

Time for some rest
Originally uploaded by indirafrhm.

I turned on the water and stepped into the shower. It felt wonderful. For a girl raised in the mountains, I had a strong affinity for water. It was calming, relaxing and was intensely peaceful. I cleaned my arm scratch thoroughly, then washed my hair, getting all the twigs and dirt out of it. When I was done I was relaxed, happy, and almost completely calm. I dried off, changed into a sleep shirt, gathered my stuff and headed out of the bathroom. I put my clothes on the stairs, then headed to the front door. I grabbed my little recon droid, opened the front door and released it. It would alert me to any vehicles or anything that looked like a threat approaching the cabin. I locked the door, retracted the shutters so the cabin didn't looked lived in, then went up stairs, grabbing my stuff on the way.

At each end of the cabin there was a large window that didn't shutter. The overhang from the roof protected it from most weather and when my grandparents had replaced them, it was with very weather resistant windows. The sun was setting, making the snow look like warm red pink and orange water. I set my control/display unit for the droid near the head of bed then crawled under the covers. The desire to leave the Navy was quite strong at that moment. I looked over at Dante to see how he was doing

"What's the smile for?" he asked, reaching out to stroke my cheek. "Is that for me?"I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, "Of course," I replied."Say, I like this place of yours," he remarked. "How come you never mentioned it? Maybe this is your secret place where you take your other boyfriends?" he arched an eyebrow.

His voice was teasing, but I knew he wanted an answer to his question. "It's not 'my' place, it belongs to my family, and I haven't been here in years. I never mentioned it because I was worried you'd give me a hard time about it when we were first dating." I propped my head up on my hand as I lay on my side, looking at him. "And no, I've never brought a boyfriend here before. It's been an interesting experience being here without a herd of family around. It's rather nice." I returned his curious look, "Why do you ask? Do you have a little place tucked away that you take all your girlfriends to that I don't know about?" I teased.

“You know most of my spots, but there is one place you've never been…" he paused dramatically. "You haven't yet been to my new house." he grinned. Which was true, I hadn’t seen the new house he family lived in, just the old one. "I don't make a habit of bringing women there…" He paused then frowned. "Actually that's not true – Dormé's been there. I took her there after her 'kidnapping.' For all I know she left some surveillance devices in my house."

"So you whisked her off to your house at the beach after her kidnapping? That must have made her all giggle and happy, she always seemed to like to be rescued." I paused and thought about Dormé, "And she seemed to need it a lot too. I could see how that might have started a bit of an unrequited longing on her part." I tried to hide a teasing smile, "I mean you did carry her to the safety of your car then take her to your beach house." Even as I said it, at the very back of my mind, a faint nagging thought tugged a bit at my attention. Why did he take her to his house? Couldn't he have just taken her to the local precinct? I decided to let it go, it was done with, no point in fretting over it.

"'Whisked away' is too strong a phrase, but, yeah, I did take her to my house and let her stay overnight," he replied. "She was acting helpless." I didn’t say anything, people who constantly need rescuing drive me nuts. I can understand some problems in life being things you need help with, that happens. But always ending up in trouble usually indicates that a person is either a bit of a putz or someone grasping for attention.

"What can I say? I'm a sucker for that and she must've known. I didn't know she was playing me," he said. "I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm in distress," I commented. "Though wouldn't the idea of dating a girl who looked like your ex and your boss weird you just a bit?"

"Yes, which is one of the many reasons why Dormé had no chance with me," he answered.

I rolled onto my other side then snuggled against him. I was very ready for some warm, comfortable sleep.

"We should come back here some time, preferably when no one's trying to kill either of us," Dante whispered. "Though I'd really prefer the beach," he added with a yawn.

"Me too." I drifted off into sleep.

TBC

Read Cpt Typho' POV here