i 077f700896a1d224 by Unknown

smelled of sunshine and sweat.
    In the strong kitchen light, she inspected the splinter embedded in Francis's hand. It was
    indeed a large one, an alien splice through the whorling pattern of his handprint. The
    area around the puncture had already begun to swell. It must be quite painful, and,
    unknown to her, Kirstie's forehead wrinkled as she stared at it.
    Francis was watching what he could see of her downbent face, and that male gaze grew
    sharp with conviction. 'You have such a nerve,' he said.
    The unexpectedness of it was like an attack. It shot past all her barriers and hit inside,
    and Kirstie's head snapped up as she took a step back from him in shock. Francis
    advanced; now he was the aggressor with a new, inexplicable anger, and the recognition
    of just how big he was barrelled through her all over again. She retreated until her back
    was pressed against an unyielding kitchen counter, her mind pounding with
    disconcertment, incomprehension.
    'Pain!' Francis drove the word at her, and he thrust his open palm under her nose. 'You
    don't like it, in anyone! It's written all over your face! How the hell did you pull last
    Friday off?'
    She stared at him, with her eyes huge and dark, a reflection of the conflicting emotions
    heaving inside.
    Quietly she said, 'It wasn't that difficult. You saw what you expected to see.'
    'Oh, Kirstie,' he whispered, and the warning in it twisted her own words on her like a
    knife. Her mouth tightened with the unhappy pain of it, and she jerked his hand down to
    focus on it with desperate intensity.
    'Grit your teeth,' she muttered, and she pinched the flesh surrounding the splinter with
    the nails of her thumb and forefinger. He emitted a small grunt but otherwise made no
    protest, and held absolutely still. The splinter wouldn't budge, however, and she had to
    swab the area with antiseptic and use the gleaming razor-sharp point of the kitchen's
    paring knife at the point of the puncture with careful precision. When she was finally
    able to pull the small wooden spear out with her fingernails, she smeared antiseptic over
    his blisters and wrapped a strip of gauze around the raw areas of both hands.
    'Thank you,' he said.
    She shrugged, an impatient answer, and stored the first-aid things back in the cupboard
    where they belonged. In quite a different tone of voice, in a tired tone, Francis said, 'You
    really hate it when you have to be civil to me, don't you?'
    She stopped in the middle of shutting the cupboard door. Sometimes it was so hard to
    remember that she disliked him; forgetfulness crept in between the pleases and thank-
    yous, and passing the salt at the dinner table. Somehow in the midst of them he became
    just a pleasant, personable man.
    Again a stab of that unhappy pain. Her lips betrayed her with a tremble as she turned and
    replied grudgingly, 'Yes. I suppose I do.'
    His expression was unreadable in the pause that followed. Then he made a gesture
    towards her. What he meant to convey by it she wasn't to know, for she cut it dead by
    her own instinctive recoil. They stared at each, other, wondering, troubled, until her own
    precarious uncertainty became too much for her. She turned abruptly and walked out of
    the kitchen.
    She spent the remainder of the afternoon in a huddle by the lake, her mind a deliberate
    blank, desperate to soak up the quietness and serenity of the scene until finally her tense
    muscles unravelled and all human clashing seemed bearable.
    At last that afternoon Kirstie managed to catch two lake trout. Francis appeared from
    wherever he had gone while she was in the midst of cleaning and gutting the fish. She
    was all too aware of his fascinated attention as she worked with swift competence, her
    nostrils pinched in distaste for the messy job, which turned to surprise at his quiet
    chuckle.
    She paused and looked at him 'What?'
    He was still laughing. 'You have a very expressive face.'
    Standing there. His white grin open. His demeanour