Pier Lights Read Free Page B

hers. She just
had to be there.
    Putty and bluster.
    Maybe Mr. Big Sword wouldn’t be either. But
some things were better left unknown.
    She needed to leave. A yawn told her she’d
reached her limit for the day’s energy. Rising slowly, still
watching the man she could barely see, she froze when he stopped.
He set the tip of his sword down, again between his slightly spread
thighs, or just in front of them. And he stood still, faced her
direction.
    Caroline calmly walked away. At least mostly
calm. Her heart rate increased only the slightest bit. He hadn’t
followed her the night before; there was no reason to think he
would tonight. And he was out farther in the ocean. By the time he
could get to shore, she would be lost on the sidewalk with other
night wanderers. It was dark. He’d never know who she was. Besides,
she couldn’t imagine he’d walk the sidewalks with that thing in his
hand. It couldn’t be legal. Could it? She doubted it. Not much was
legal anymore, not like when she was a kid and the neighbor boys
carried their BB guns around town to harass squirrels and discarded
pop cans. They couldn’t even carry water guns that had any
resemblance to a real gun these days.
    No way could Mr. Big Sword carry his weapon
around town. She was plenty safe enough. Maybe she’d come back
tomorrow night and ... take another swim. In return for making
herself set up her apartment and tread through shoppers to get what
she needed. The shopping itself she didn’t mind. The loud pushy
garish women who made a habit of shopping to the extent they
believed they owned whatever store they inhabited at whatever time,
she did mind.
    She’d said once that people annoyed her. It
didn’t gain her any friends among her fellow dancers, but then she
wasn’t there to make friends. She was there to dance, and to beat
them out of lead positions she wanted. There was no point in acting
otherwise, although most of them did.
    Caroline was glad to be away from the
falseness of girls acting sweet to each other the whole time they
had every intention of stepping right over them on their way to the
top if at all possible. They all had the same goal. She simply
admitted it. They hadn’t liked it much.
    She supposed her fellow strippers wouldn’t,
either. And she supposed they’d be just as determined to walk over
each other to get to the top. Such was life.
     

 
     
     
    ~3~
     
     
    “Yes, I’m coming.” Dio set the rake aside
and wiped his hands on his jeans. At the door, he shoved his shoes
off. He didn’t have the energy to have to sweep the wood plank
floor which he’d have to do if his shoes so much as touched it.
    “What took you so long?” His mother shuffled
from the small kitchen counter to the small scuffed wood table and
set a platter in the middle. Steam rose from the dish and he
smelled cheese and ... spinach. Again, spinach. He supposed there
was rice or noodles at the bottom. Always rice or noodles. And
spinach, which she grew in the big greenhouse outside the small
kitchen. She grew almost nothing else in it, although Dio kept
trying to encourage other things. Anything. She said it was easy.
And fast. And healthy.
    He didn’t mind it. Or he didn’t use to mind
it. At this point nearly anything dark green made him cringe.
    “Well?” His mother’s drawn-in wrinkled face
met his.
    “I’m not done raking the weeds.”
    “No matter. Do it after dinner.”
    “I work tonight.”
    She sighed. “Must you? Why can’t you find a
normal job instead of letting all of those horrid females gawk at
you? If I’d known you would turn around and do that, I wouldn’t
have fed you so healthy.”
    “A normal job is daylight hours. I need
those for the farm work. What do you want me to do? Let it all go
to weeds and rodents?”
    “You should, yes. A young man should set up
a house of his own, not look after this awful big place. God love
your father, but I will never understand why...”
    “He loved it.”
    She stopped