To be truthful, kissing Ice this way in public was a bit of a turn-on for me, as if it were even possible for me to be more turned-on than I already was. The irony of my feelings didn't escape me, either. With very few, and therefore all the more precious, exceptions, making love in prison meant doing it in full view of whomever happened to wander by. And during those times, when it was possible for me to think at all, I wished for privacy. Now, with the possibility of a private rendezvous just a closed and locked door away (when we actually obtained doors and their attendant locks, that is) I found myself reveling in a more public display.

Then she deepened the kiss, melding our bodies together, and I stopped thinking of anything at all.

When she finally broke away, the only thing keeping me upright were her firm grip on my shoulders. Shaking my head to clear it-a lost cause-I cleared my throat instead, tasted my lips, and opened my eyes to see her smiling down at me. "You know you're killing me, right?"

Her only answer was a smirk.

"I'm about one second away from chucking this whole 'day off' thing and getting back to building the cabin. There's only so much of this extended foreplay I can stand here, and I'm just about at my limit."

When will I ever get it through this thick head of mine that statements like that only served to incite the woman who lived for a challenge? She closed in and kissed me again, so deeply that the only sound I could hear was the rapid and thundering beat of my heart in my ears.

This time, it was my turn to pull away, which I did, but not without great reluctance, and, shrugging out of her grip, made an abrupt right turn and threw myself into the lake. The chilly water did nothing to dampen my ardor, but it did wonders for my spinning head. I came up after a long moment and wiped the hair back from my eyes, treading water and looking toward shore. Ice was standing there, hands on hips, shaking her head at me.

"Better now?"

"Not really, no."

She grinned, obviously quite pleased with herself.

"Care to join me?" I asked, wondering if it was possible to get the jump on her in the water and give her the dunking of her life for putting me through such wonderful torture. Barring that, I was more than willing to see just how long I could hold my breath underwater by returning her torture a thousand-fold. A flock of goosebumps broke over my wet skin at the image flashing behind my eyes.

"I have a better idea, if you're interested." She cocked her head to the left and, looking in that direction, I noticed for the first time the colorful sails of a small boat floating complacently in the small cove next to the dock. I recognized it immediately as being a 16' Hobie Cat, a sailboat that I'd always loved as a child.

"Where in the world did you get that?" I asked. Hobie Cats weren't cheap. My father told me as much every time I would beg him to trade in our old Sunfish for one. And certainly not on our shoestring budget.

"I was informed by a certain irritating old woman that you loved to sail and if I had the sense god gave a rooster, I'd go into the garage, dig this old fossil out, and take you out on it."

"You're kidding."

"Nope."

"You know how to sail?"

"Yup."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

One broad shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. "Dunno."

I grinned. "That's one of the things I love most about you, Ice. Your utter verbosity."

She shot me a mock scowl. "You wanna go sailing or not?"

"Aye, aye, Cap'n!" I tipped off a jaunty salute just for the irritation factor.

Oh. I was so dead.

Wow!

Painfully inadequate as far as descriptions of joy went, but about the only word I could come up with as the water's spray needled into my grinning face. Balanced precariously on one of the pontoons and leaning back to avoid toppling head first into the glistening water below, I watched the lake race by beneath the boat, my eyes wide as silver dollars and the grin threatening to permanently etch itself into the lines of my face.

To my left, Ice's long body lay almost full out in the racing sling, keeping the boat balanced on one pontoon while using the rigging to keep us going in the right direction, all at an incredible and mind-numbing (for me, at least) speeds.

I felt the true power of nature there, as if the rushing wind, beaming sun and spraying water were all conspiring to give me a high that was near to being untouchable in my experience. The only thing close would be making love, but this was a great, if somewhat distant, second.

Ice followed the gentle curve of the lake's central island, a tiny, tree covered affair, and bled the boat's speed until it was resting on both pontoons once again.

"Why are we stopping?" I asked, not a little disappointed.

"Your turn."

"My ... . But I don't know how to sail."

She turned her head slowly to pin me with her gaze, one eyebrow raised high on her forehead.

I looked back, feeling a little defensive. "Well, I don't! I begged my father to teach me, but he said that sailing was for men. Women just had to learn how to look pretty while sitting in the boat."

My partner snorted. "What a crock of shit."

I shrugged. "Yeah, but he was my father. There wasn't anyone around who wanted to cross him, on that point anyway, so I just got used to sitting in the boat and looking pretty." I looked down at my feet, unaccountably embarrassed over the revelation.

A warm hand under my chin urged my head back up. I looked into eyes the color of the summer sky and swallowed hard. "There are few things in my life I have to be grateful for, Angel, but right now I'd have to say that not having the dubious pleasure of meeting your father ranks near the top of that short list." She dropped her hand and her smile became bittersweet. "I sometimes wonder how you came to be the person you are with the upbringing you had. And at the same time, I can't help but think that my own parents are rolling in their graves over what I've become." She turned her head and looked toward the sun, her face once again a stone mask.

Moved beyond words over the precious glimpse into her heart, I could only reach out my hand and gently lay it on her arm in a woefully inadequate gesture of support and thanks.

A moment later, she turned back toward me, the pain in her eyes pushed back into whatever place she kept it. She shot that endearing half-grin at me. "C'mon. Let's teach you how to sail."

I sat on the sofa, legs curled beneath me, reading the same passage for the seventh time (or was it the tenth?) and trying desperately not to look at the clock that was ticking impudently at me from its place on the mantle. She'll be back. We've fought before. She just needs some time to cool off. She'll be back.

Maybe if I thought it hard enough, I could even make myself believe it.

After all, it wasn't as if we hadn't ever had words before. There were times in the Bog, more often than I'd like to admit, when we seemed to be avoiding one another more often than we sought one another out. As partnerships went, we had more than our share of bones of contention hanging in skeleton filled closets. A fight wasn't anything new, nor particularly unexpected. Even now.

So why was I so worried? Why were my guts a tangled knot somewhere in the vicinity of my larynx? Why was that damn clock moving so damn slow?

I had awoken that morning with a vague feeling of unease which had begun to plague me during the preceding week. A nebulous feeling of anxiety, perhaps mixed with a touch of depression, it left me feeling out-of-sorts. It wasn't something I could articulate, even to Ice, who'd noticed my mood quickly and had asked what was going on with me.

With Ruby off visiting friends and Ice again working at the garage, I was left alone with my thoughts, there being little else to do on a rainy July day but think.

And then it hit me.

I wasn't anxious or depressed. At least, not primarily.

What I was feeling was useless.

Leaning my head back against the rough fabric of the couch, I mulled the revelation over, not liking the bitter taste it left on my tongue, but forced to admit the truth of it nonetheless.

It stirred within me feelings, emotions I'd thought long buried beneath the weight of time and experience.

As a teen, I'd railed against my father's indictment that a woman didn't need a job to find happiness. Happiness was a pregnant belly, a hearth and home, and a husband to care for. Peter carried on that corollary, and except for the pregnant part, fulfilled my father's dreams for me to absolute perfection.

The irony of finding freedom in a prison never escaped me. It was there that I was nurtured and given the freedom to grow into the woman I believe I was meant to be.

And now, I was forced to face the fact that once outside those confining, and yes, comforting walls, I'd fallen back into old habits, and perhaps an old view of myself, much too quickly.

And this time, I had no one to blame but myself.

Leaving the matter of blame behind for a moment, I tried to think of ways to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, however, all the alleys I went down led to dead ends. After all, I wasn't in Canada legally. I wasn't a national. I wasn't even a landed immigrant. I had snuck over the boarder like a draft dodger, aiding and abetting the escape of a fugitive from justice, no less. Not something likely employers were apt to turn a blind eye towards.

Ice was lucky, in that Pop didn't give a horse's behind who or what she was, as long as she was good at what she did, which she undeniably was, and still is. Problem was, however, that there most likely wasn't more than one 'Pop' in a town this size. Without immigrant papers, without even so much as a passport, I was dead in the water, so to speak.

My mood went from bad to worse, and when the rain stopped, I went outside and took my frustrations out on the cabin, pounding nails until my hands were blistered and raw.

And when Ice came over the breast of the hill, a jaunty step to her walk and a wad of cash in her hand for a night on the town, I'm afraid I did a butcher's job of ripping her head off.

Figuratively, of course.

And in that nanosecond of eternity between the words "oh" and "shit" when I realized just what I had done and who I had done it to, my anger was gone, replaced with a recrimination so deep, I could have drowned in it, if it would have let me.

If Ice had decided to return the favor, I most likely wouldn't be writing this today.

Instead, with a patience rarely shown to anyone but me, she offered a strong shoulder and a listening ear, if I would just reach out and take them.

And I repaid her kindness with words that shame me to this day, proving that my anger hadn't left entirely, coward that it was. Only waited for another chance to ambush her in a fit of jealousy so green the world seemed bathed in it, a bloody wound for which there is no salvation.

Her face set in stony lines, she turned away from me, dropping the money she'd hoped to spend on a nice evening for both of us at my feet, then walked away without saying another word.

And so it was that I found myself sitting alone on a couch in Ruby's house, staring at words in a book I had no desire to read, listening to soft orchestral music from the kitchen that I had no desire to hear, and watching a clock giving up minutes as sparingly as a miser extends loans.

So deep within the well of my thoughts was I that I didn't hear the knocking on the door, and nearly jumped from my perch on the couch when Ruby's graying head poked itself from the door to the kitchen, a slight smile creasing her lips. "There's someone here to see you, Tyler."

I was half-way across the room, my apology ready to birth itself from my throat before I was stopped by the vision, not of Ice, but of a young woman walking into the room, a clutch of books clasped awkwardly to her chest.

Stopping in my tracks, I gaped at her, my mind changing gears with the swiftness of a semi lumbering uphill. From somewhere unknown, my manners managed to reassert themselves, and a smile which was most likely totally false bloomed on my face. " ...hello ..."

The young woman returned my smile, though hers was notably more genuine. "Hello, Ms. Moore," she said with a shyness known only to pretty young woman of her age.

"Do I ...know you from somewhere?" Oh yes, the old eighteen wheeler was still chugging uphill alright. In first gear.

The girl blushed. "Um, yes, Ma'am. We met in the cafe a few months ago. I'm afraid I wasn't very polite to you."

Then it clicked. The young woman looking at me through half-lowered eyelids was the same waitress I'd taken for twice her age when we first came into town. Amazing how slathering makeup on with a trowel ages a person, my still-laboring mind supplied cheerily. Someone should tell her that this look's much better than the 'rode hard, put away wet' one she seems to favor.

Silence made its presence felt in the suddenly-too-hot room.

Oh. She's waiting for some kind of response. "Um ...nice to see you again." Ok, that didn't come out very well. Shall we try again? "Is ...there something I can help you with?"

The woman blushed again. "I ...um ...heard you were a teacher?"

From who? Then I remembered telling Ruby a severely edited tale of the teaching I'd done prior to making the move up to Canada. She didn't need to know that my students were hardened criminals, after all. Our gracious, if nosy, host probably passed that information on during one of her weekly gossip exchange sessions that masqueraded as bridge tournaments. "I've done some teaching," I allowed, curious as to where this particular conversation was going, since I didn't have the faintest clue.

The girl's face lit up. "Cool!"

The silence stretched out once again.

"Was there something you needed?" I asked, finally, imagining I could feel moss start to grow on the north side of my body.

"Oh! Yeah. Um ...I need some help. I ...kinda ...dropped out of school last year. I got bored with it, I guess." She shrugged. "Wasn't learning that much anyway. Figured I'd be better off taking the waitress job full time and having some money in my pocket."

I nodded. "And now you think you made a mistake."

She snorted. "A big one. I don't wanna be a waitress all my life, but without a diploma, no one will look twice at me, so I'm kinda stuck."

"Why don't you just go back to school, then?"

"It's not that easy. See, I raised kind of a big stink about leaving. I'd be to embarrassed to go back now."

I nodded again, then waited for her to state whatever case she was interested in bringing to the bar.

She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "So ...when I heard that you were a teacher, I wondered if maybe you could help me out. See, there's a way I can get my diploma without having to go back to school. There's a test I can take, and if I pass it, I get my diploma. And I really only need help with two classes. English and World History." She showed me the text-books she still held close to her body. "I borrowed these from my brother. He was smart and stayed in school." She took in another breath. "So, if you're interested or anything, I was hoping you might be able to help me out. You know, like tutor me? I'd pay for your help. My parents even offered to put up some money," she hastened to add, her face as earnest as her plea to me. "I'll come every day after work, if you want. Stay as long as you need me to. Anything."

I thought about it for a long moment, staring into her eyes and watching as she fought hard not to fidget beneath the weight of my gaze. I realized that the answers to some of my problems was standing before me and refused to look a gift equine in the cuspids. "Sure. Why not? We can start tomorrow, if you want." Another thought struck me. "Ruby?"

The graying head popped out, too quickly, from the kitchen beyond. "My house is yours, Tyler. You know that. You're welcome to use the study."

I resisted shooting my most menacing glare at my snooping hostess. Instead, I tried my most gracious smile on for size. It was almost a perfect fit. "Thanks!" I turned back to the girl. "Looks like we have a deal then ...um ...I don't know your name."

"Oh! I'm sorry. It's Kelly." She stuck out her hand, and promptly dropped her books.