~ Bettina's Gamble ~

by

Kay Layton Sisk

She wasn’t afraid of him. She couldn’t be. A fearful woman launched herself in the back door, through the house, and out the front. A fearful woman didn’t leave just a screen door between herself and her assailant. A fearful woman didn’t let her lovely lips curl up at the corners into a little smirk. A little smirk that was rapidly becoming a laugh.

She lost the battle to contain herself. Although she never took her eyes from him, she was laughing too hard to stand. She leaned over, clasping her knees with her hands, the camera swinging from its loop around her neck. How brazen was she? Didn’t she realize he might be a crazed serial killer, a maniac, a recluse given to nude sunbathing who hid a sawed-off shotgun...

Yeah, right. Nude sunbathers didn’t hide anything. That was going to be painfully obvious when those shots hit the front page of some tabloid. He secured the towel and reached for the tee shirt, pulled it wrong side out over his head, tugged it low over his hips as if trying to doubly hide what she had caught on film. Who was he kidding? The instant those photos went on sale, Erns would find him and then he’d need every copy of the paper he could get so he could remember how he used to be.

Ron pulled as much dignity together as he could and crossed his arms on his chest. “You’re not going to be laughing so hard when I come in there and get that camera. Now fork it over!” For emphasis, he extended his right hand and advanced on the door.

She straightened up and sidestepped away from him. But she didn’t reach for the back door. She did clutch the camera and pull it to her side away from him. “Not bloody likely.”

He cocked his head. And an accent? Or was that the choke of laughter still evident in her voice. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. Not bloody likely that I’m turning my camera over to you.” She looked him up and down and swallowed a laugh. It turned into a snort.

English. She had an English accent. Oh, Lord, who knew him well enough to seal his fate not only with an exotic woman but one with the purr of England? He sucked in his cheeks and let out a long, slow breath. Maybe she was just a tourist and this was just a stop to get a view of the lake. He let his gaze drift to the right and the narrowing view of the water hidden more each day by the budding trees. No, that was lame. He studied her again. Thief sizing up the property for a possible break in? She’d be very much disappointed; the most valuable thing he’d found was a dark Polo shirt like C wore all the time. If she could prove it was his, the online auction market might make her days in jail a bit more luxurious. Nah, she wasn’t a thief. Then what?

A damn, nosey lucky photographer, that’s what!

Best to quit being sidetracked by her accent, her looks, her laughter. She was all that stood between him and a knife. “Do you know who I am?”

She nodded and lifted the camera, jiggled it at him. “Who knew success was so close at hand?” Straightening up, she turned to face him but still leaned a shoulder into the wall. Her legs were crossed at the ankle; she wasn’t prepared for flight. She wanted a chat.

“So that’s what’s so damn funny?” He spotted the meat fork he’d left on the grill cover. Long tines. Sharp. He might be able to rush the door and rip through the screen to the latch...

“No. What’s so damn funny is that you look like a baby in a nappy!”

That caught him off-guard. He spread his hands and looked down at himself. A baby in a nappy? Who was she kidding? What kind of nappies--uh, diapers--did they have over there? He was thinking he looked more like a waiter, poolside at a resort, his swim trunks visible only from the rear, his apron covering from his tee shirt to his knees.

“I do not!” Indignant, he re-cinched the towel, squared the tee over his hips.

“Perhaps you’d be more comfortable if I fetched a pair of boxers for you?”

He started to protest, thought better of it. His clothes were visible to him through the opened shutters of the sleeping porch to his left. The pink sleeping porch. Perhaps he could earn his keep by repainting that room for his host while he was here. Something in black should fit the mood. He pulled his mind back to the work at hand. So, if she went to the bedroom to get his shorts, the door would be unguarded... “Certainly. They’re in there.” He pointed and she craned her neck to see the walls of the airy room.

“And I get there by...”

“Down the hall to your left. Pink. You can’t miss it. I’ll wait here.” Said the spider to the fly.

“Oh, I’m certain you will.” She grinned at him, a you-can’t-be-trusted smile, then swung the door shut.

He heard the click of the door lock, and he snatched the meat fork, took off for the first window, to jab at the window screen just above the hook closure, swing open the screen, throw himself in, grab the camera from around her neck...

She beat him to the room. She’d run. Okay, so she was as quick to think as snap a camera shutter. She hauled down the first window, the second as he reached it, the fourth when he jumped to it, then back to the third. There was another around the corner, just near the edge of the porch. If he was careful, he could slash it, jump, twist his body, maybe not lose his balance...

~ * ~

“Hmmm.” Bettina unhooked the window screen and leaned out, surveyed the form of Ron Gregory as he clasped the porch decking with reddening fingers. His bare feet dangled about three feet off the ground and his toes seemed to stretch toward it. Or at least toward the towel/nappy that had fallen off and now lay on the ground and paving stones. The man’s rearview was as interesting as his front one. Should she make a fore-and-aft set? “I’d say you were in need of these for sure now.” She tossed the khakis onto the ground below him. “Just let go. It’s not far to drop.”

He pulled himself up until his elbows bent and tilted his head to look first at her, then at the ground below. Deciding that going down would be better than pulling up, he pendulumed his long body and launched backwards, landing lightly on his feet and snatching up the khakis as he bent his knees to absorb the shock on the hard sand of the ground. He turned his back to her and stepped into the shorts. She watched the unmistakable male movements that told her he’d buttoned and zipped.

Hands on hips, he spun back around. Bettina didn’t move from leaning on the window sill, her chin propped in one palm, the other hand still holding the screen open. She pressed her lips together and strangled the laugh that threatened from deep in her throat. All the BCA videos she’d watched this week, all the photos on the web, everything about Ron Gregory had shown a man who was still. He didn’t move around like the other members, he didn’t hop from spotlight to spotlight, from bed to bed, or even vice to vice. The gossip sheets had been explicit: a one-woman man for whom any relationship lasting longer than six months was practically an engagement although there had been but one marriage--and one vice: gambling.

Now he stood rooted in one spot directly below her. He was barefoot, his dignity was bruised, and he was, as far as the public knew, missing in action from his livelihood and comrades, never mind the window-dressing story that said he’d quit. Quitters didn’t hide with former business associates. Something was definitely not on the up-and-up. And she had him on camera, bare everywhere, no dignity, and very much where he shouldn’t be if he and Levi Fletcher weren’t living a lie.

She needed to think on this. Sobering her features, she raised up, made sure they could still see each other as she lowered the screen. What now? Which tack to take now that the adrenaline was coasting away? The laughter had been fun, but this wasn’t a laughing matter to him. Would he ever believe she’d stumbled onto him by accident? Not in the next five minutes, he wouldn’t, and Bettina thought that was probably all she had before he plotted out another way to get what he wanted.

And it wasn’t actually the camera, was it?

She took a step nearer the window. He had caught his breath by now and the red blush of embarrassment had left his face and neck. He was a handsome man, quick of wit, and in some kind of trouble or there wouldn’t be such a ruse. He swallowed and watched her in turn.

“So what now?” he called up.

“You don’t want my camera.”

“I don’t?”

“No. You want my memory card.” She ejected the plastic and held it where he could see it. True, it had his photos on it, but it also held a portion of her personal photo-journal of this trip, some quite nice shots, arty. He wasn’t getting them. And she was willing to bet--from all she’d read--that he wouldn’t force himself on her. She took the card and slid it into the top of her Capri’s. There was a reason the things were skin-tight, and he grimaced as she pushed the rectangle down as far as her fingers could go. “But then, why don’t I meet you at the back door and we’ll talk about it?”

He didn’t say anything, just turned toward the deck and started up the steps. Bettina walked calmly out of the pink room and towards the front door.