The Barbed-Wire Kiss by Wallace Stroby Read Free Book Online Page B

was thinner, lined. But the eyes were the same. If he moved closer he would see the fleck of gold in her left iris, the island in a sea of green.
    She stepped back, almost lost her balance, put a hand on the railing. He inhaled, opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
    “Harry?” she said low.
    He took a step toward her, her name forming on his lips.
    “Cristina!” Fallon yelled. Harry turned, saw him coming across the grass toward them.
    He looked back at her, knowing now there was no mistake, could never be any mistake.
    “Cristina!” Fallon called again. “I want to talk to you.”
    She looked at Harry for a long moment, then cut around him, pulled open the door to the dining room. He found himself reaching for her arm, wanting to slow her, stop her, but she was past him and gone.
    He turned, disoriented, saw Fallon come up onto the porch. He stopped, put his hands on his hips, looked at Harry.
    “What’s the problem?”
    Harry shook his head.
    “Then what are you still doing here?”
    He didn’t trust himself to speak. Fallon gave him a last glance, then went past him, into the dining room. Harry stood there, watched the door swing shut.
    “You look lost.”
    He turned to see the bartender standing in the lounge doorway, cigarette in hand.
    “I wouldn’t come back in this way,” he said.
    “Why not?”
    “That big boyo’s out in the lobby. Might be he’s waiting for you. No reason to force the issue.”
    Harry looked at the dining room door, but the smoked glass was too dark to see through. He turned back to the bartender.
    “Thanks,” he said. He went back down the porch steps and started around the side of the building, walking in a daze until he reached the Mustang.
    Cristina
.
    He got behind the wheel and started the engine. In the rearview mirror he could see the front entrance, the valet sitting beside the door.
    He backed away from the tree, K-turned in the parking circle, raising dust. He shifted into first, gave it gas, and drove away from there.
    •  •  •
    When he got home, he sat in the driveway for a long time, the Mustang cooling and ticking.
    Eighteen years fallen away in a turn of the head, a glance from green eyes. Cristina.

FIVE
    Did you know?” Harry said. Bobby leaned back against the transom, popped the pull top on a can of Budweiser.
    “Know?” he said. “Hell, how would I? I never met his wife.”
    They were on Bobby’s boat, an old eighteen-foot wooden cabin cruiser he’d rechristened the
Bitter End
. They were anchored about a mile off the beach in Sea Bright, a stiff wind blowing occasionally from the east, raising slow waves that rocked the boat and made them reach for support.
    They had two lines out, the poles in plastic rod holders mounted on the gunwales. Two fluke lay gray and unmoving inside the red-and-white plastic cooler at Bobby’s feet, beer cans shoved into the ice around them like headstones. It was all they had to show for their day.
    Harry looked out across the water toward the tip of Sandy Hook, watched seagulls follow a party boat as it rounded the headland and started back into the bay. Dusk was still two hours away, but the wind was kicking up stronger now, the threat of it driving some of the smaller boats in.
    “So what did she say to you?”
    “Nothing. There was no time. She just looked at me, went past.”
    “And you’re sure it was her?”
    “Positive.”
    Bobby sipped beer. He was naked to the waist, his skin burned a deep red-brown.
    “Who would have thought?” he said. “With that guy, no less. When was the last time you saw her?”
    “That summer after high school. She left in September.”
    “She ever call? Write?”
    “One letter early on. After that, no.”
    “So you haven’t heard from her in, what, eighteen years?”
    “About that.”
    Bobby drank beer.
    “You know,” he started. “I never pried …”
    Harry gestured at the cooler. Bobby opened the lid, took out a beer. Harry caught it in midair.
    “I knew