The fairgrounds weren't big and the crowd was pretty light; according to the flyer the fair was close to its end of its run and that was fine by me. James and I paid for our tickets and looked at the little map on the brochure that came with them. I could smell hay and popcorn and cotton candy in the air in a really lovely combination. The PA system was playing some golden oldies station tune and we wandered in, trying to decide where to go.

"Food or games?" I asked, glad that I had dipped into the cookie jar before we'd left the cabin.

"Food."

This answer didn't surprise me, and I nodded, herding my guest towards the concession area. He started slow but picked up speed once he saw the number of booths, and I had to jog to keep up with him. "Hey! Slow down!"

"Sorry," James said absently. "What's . . . a churro?"

"Fried dough stick rolled in sugar and cinnamon. They're good. Over there are funnel cakes, and that's the kettle corn wagon, and there-"

He was off again, striding towards the corn dog stand, a man on a mission. I caught up with James just in time to hear him order, "Seven corndogs."

"Seven?" I gulped.

He gave a worried look and turned to the vender. "Sorry. Eight corndogs."

"Hungry, huh?" the vender deadpanned, and James nodded.

I paid, and shot him a sidelong glance. "I appreciate that it's been a while since you've had a corndog and that I told you I'd get you all you could eat, but I'm also not going to let you stuff yourself until you get sick, okay? Two of those corndogs are for me and you may have the rest. Pace yourself."

A mulish expression crossed his face; very emo under the hoodie, but he reluctantly nodded before looking around. He did that at regular intervals, I noticed—checked the area as if looking for someone. At the moment the late afternoon crowd was thin and mostly parents with kids or older folks enjoying the last of the fun, I guess.

When the vendor handed the corn dogs to us, piled into a couple of those rectangular paper bowl things, James brought one up to his face and sniffed it. Embarrassed, I steered him to the picnic table area, rolling my eyes. I'd snagged some mustard and ketchup packets already, so we wouldn't have to go back. "All right Mr. Impatient, eat up."

He did, chowing down steadily, and looking pretty blissful now that he had his mouth full of cornbread batter and frankfurter. He wasn't a messy eater, or disgusting, the way some guys could be—no, just an efficient one, bushing his hair back periodically and plowing his way through. I was barely halfway through my first one when James finished his sixth, giving a gusty sigh of satisfaction that cracked me up.

"Was it good for you?" I asked.

"Copacetic," he sighed, eyeing my remaining dog. I dropped a hand over it protectively, and for a moment he hesitated, then gave me that Basset Hound stare.

"No," I told him, even as my resolve crumbled a bit. "Mine."

"You're beautiful when you're stern," James murmured, still holding that liquid-eyed stare on me.

I sighed. I pushed the bowl towards him. "Cheap trick."

He didn't say anything, but saluted me with the corndog, smiling this time, and I realized that before this man had been turned into a semi-cyborg assassin, he had probably been a very dangerous flirt.

Afterwards we wandered down the alley where the games were, trying to steer clear of the crowded ones and generally taking in the atmosphere. I hadn't been to a carnival in a long time, and it's funny how even though they're hokey and expensive and sometimes sort of stupid, they're also . . . fun. Fun in a way that makes you love childhood and summer and companionship. I felt James slow as we reached the pitching booth.

The hawker was a round Latina woman with a gold tooth and tattoos of the Virgin Mary on her forearms. She caught our pause and called to us in a lovely husky voice. "Ohh, I see someone who needs to win his novia a prize! Come on, come on, Handsome, and show her what you've got!"

She set three softballs on the tray on the counter and gave us an outrageous wink that made me laugh. James took a sleepwalker's step forward.

"Base. Baseball."

"Well, softball really," I said for clarity's sake, but he didn't hear me.

"Pitching. Catching. Batting. RBIs. Dodgers," James recited, his voice cracking a little. "Higbe, Grissom, Durocher, Peewee REESE!"

"Uh, yeah, yeah," I tried to soothe him, but the man was on a roll and he walked up to the booth, grinning. I watched him pick up one of the softballs with his right hand, tossing it up and down.

"Dolph Camili won The Sporting News MVP in forty-one. First baseman, a lefty. Batting style was a little wild, but he managed thirty-four home runs the last season . . . the last season . . ." his voice broke a little, "the last one I remember."

"Yeah?" The hawker nodded, taking the three bucks I laid on the counter. "Well let's see if you can do him proud, amigo."

I held my breath because James was staring at the ball in his hand as if it held the secrets of the universe. But a moment later he looked up at the three milkcans stacked against the back wall of the booth, and I swear I could hear gears clicking in his head.

He took a step, cocked his arm and the 'CLANG!' reverberated so loudly that you could hear it all up and down the midway. The Latina lady let out a little curse but she was grinning at the same time. She held up a hand to stop James from his second pitch because yes, the cans were all knocked over. Knocked over, and when she pulled them up, the second milkcan had a perfect softball shaped dent in it.

James self-consciously pulled his hood down a bit more as a few people laughed and one applauded. The hawker waved to the rack, her voice loud and amused. "Okay, pick your prize sweetheart! Come on folks, anyone can win!"

I looked up at the selection, feeling giggles rise up inside me as I studied the plushy options above. Spongebob was out, as was the goofy-looking Iron Man, but the soft, fluffy tiger?

"That one, please," I told the hawker, who fished it down and handed it to me.

She winked at James. "Thanks for the publicity, man . . . they're lining up now!"

James nodded and turned away, hands stuffed in his pockets, and I scurried to catch up, tucking my tiger under one arm. "You okay?"

"That was stupid," he mumbled. "Dangerous. We do not bring attention to ourselves. We do not show off."

I looked back; nobody was looking our way as far as I could tell. I followed him a few more steps and then sighed. "Slow down, please?"

He did, reluctantly, peering out from under his hood to scan the perimeter. "This was a mistake."

"Why? Because you won?" I huffed, feeling a little discouraged. We'd been having a good time up to now and I hated seeing him go cold like this. "People win at these games you know. It does happen."

James spun and caught me by the shoulders, his gloved hand a little heavier than his other. "People are also looking for us. For me. And I do not want to get you killed because I was showing off!"

I held his gaze, keeping calm, giving him time to settle. "Not at a carnival," I pointed out softly. "This is probably one of the safest places to be. It's public and frivolous, and not where anyone is expecting to find you."

He looked unconvinced, but I added, "Thanks for the tiger, Tiger."

That got a flicker of a smile.

"I still want cotton candy. And maybe a ride on the Ferris Wheel."

That got an eyeroll, and I considered the crisis over for the moment.

-oo00oo-

The entire evening I found myself fighting my attraction to him. I chided myself, reminded myself of all the reasons why getting involved with him would be a terrible idea, pointed out the dangers and unknowns . . . . All the things Ed would have said to me, or texted to me if I'd spilled my guts to him the way I have in the past.

But against all those true, good, and honest points I also had the reality of my own situation, and also the emotional crutch of being raised by Russians.

My point is, I knew I was getting into murky waters by falling for an international fugitive sixty-five years older than I was, but my track record with guys had never been much good anyway. I'd had a total of three boyfriends, one of whom was in jail for burglarizing his workplace (tried to sell the industrial mixer on Ebay); one of whom had been married and carrying on with two other women; and one who found the love of his life at the restaurant where we were both working. The last one, Marco, had been a sweetie, too, but the better woman won in that scenario, sigh.

So, not very successful in the romance department. It didn't bug me much, but after being in someone else's personal space most of the evening, it was harder to stay objective. We drove away from the fair around nine, and on the way back to the cabin, I thought about what to say to James. By tomorrow we'd have to figure out a real plan of action and I suspected his choice would be to walk away from me and head out somewhere remote.

And I wasn't sure that was such a bad idea—at least for him. For me, it would suck. So I was turning that around in my head, along with guilt/sorrow about Uncle Mischa, simmering panic about who it was exactly from the government who might be wanting to talk to me when we pulled up to the cabin. The moon was just past full, putting a beautiful silver haze on the pine needles underfoot, and dappling the waters of Great Sacandaga where it peeked between the trees.

Gorgeous night, really. I climbed out of the car and knew I wasn't ready to go into the cabin just yet, so I headed for the dock. Behind me came James, very nearly dead quiet, but close enough to sense. When we reached the little beach I climbed up the steps, walked the short length of the dock and sat on the end, snickering at the Otis Redding in my head. A few seconds later I felt James sit next to me, and his boots were nearly touching the water because his legs were so much longer than mine. I took in a deep breath.

"Tomorrow is going to suck," I murmured.

He looked perplexed, and immediately I felt bad for making him feel bad, so I added, "sorry, it's just that today was really nice. Even though we're fugitives and my uncle's dead, it's been a surprisingly decent day."

James laughed very softly, and that gave me a little jolt of courage to keep going.

"Look, we haven't talked much about plans, and right now really isn't the time to do that, but for tonight, I just . . . I don't want to be . . . ."

"Alone," he finished for me, his voice a little strangled.

I shot a sidelong look at him. "Yeah."

Silence. God, aching loooooong humiliating silence, and I started to inwardly curse myself in English and Russian for being such a needy, awkward idiot when James drew in a sharp breath and let it out again, his words jumbling out in skewed Russian.

"I don't want to be alone either, but I don't . . . I can't promise you anything. I'm . . . out of practice."

"Me too," I replied, "maybe we can coach each other," and felt his metal arm slide around me. I leaned against him, getting used to the feeling, and we sat like that for a while, both of us self-conscious and me on the verge of giggling because of it.

Finally I lifted my head from his shoulder and turned to him. "Can I kiss you?"

He gave a little groan, hungry and terrified at the same time, and ever so gently let his mouth drift down to mine.

Oh yeah. Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, it was pretty clear pretty fast that despite the many decades my man James knew how to kiss. Soft and hot and slow, just the tiniest tease of tongue against the seam of my lips.

I whimpered, completely at the mercy of my hormones now, and kissed him back while savoring the easy pleasure of what he tasted like, which was corndogs, testosterone, and lust. We pulled apart for a moment, mostly to re-align ourselves and then launched into another kiss, this one not quite so, um, civilized.

Who am I kidding? We were both pretty much on the same page of horny, so making out on the dock went from upright and romantic in the moonlight to horizontal and potentially raunchy after a while. I make no excuses; James smelled and tasted wonderful; the combination of his kisses and touches were ratcheting up my desire to get laid into the 'inevitable' territory.

We needed to get off of the dock though—I was getting splinters in my back, and while the night was romantic and all, a degree of comfort and privacy would help a lot. So I told him, "Take this inside?" and he agreed, pulling me up but keeping me close as we sort of lurched and kissed our way back up to the cabin. This was an impressive feat by the way since the lights were off and the pines were blocking the moonlight. Still the two of us managed not only to get inside, but also onto the nearest of the twin beds of the sleeping porch, dropping onto it and making the rusty springs squeal.

Now I know there are all kinds of sex—angry sex and silly sex and 'we're soo drunk so this is a good idea' sex—and yeah, I've indulged in a choice number of them, but what happened with James was . . . unique. For one thing, we didn't really talk much. At least, not with words; it was more of a stroke and look sort of deal. Lots of sighs and groans and little growls.

And touching! Both of us got a lot of tactility going because I wanted, needed to get to know that cleft in his chin, and the hollow of his throat, and the hard long muscles of his ribcage. It's funny too, that I started kissing the side of his neck and when I reached the point where his flesh ended and the overlapping plates of his metal arm began at the shoulder, I just kept going, right over the steel. I didn't care, it didn't make a difference to me, but when I did it, James gave a hard chuff and arched his head back.

There were tears.

Do you know what tears do to a woman when making love? A Russian woman? Mmmmmmmmm, oh powerful stuff.

So we'd built ourselves up into a wet writhing frenzy, smearing our sweat and slickness when I suddenly remembered I didn't have any birth control, and I was about to say something when James leaned over the side of the bed and came back up with a little square packet in his white teeth. He tossed his long hair back, grinning around the thing and I snatched it out of his mouth, laughing a little myself. It was hard to concentrate because was he kneeling between my thighs, his hands tugging my underwear down even as I tried to tear open the condom.

"How?" I chuffed, finally getting the wrapping off.

"Standard issue. Use them to keep rifle muzzles dry," he rasped, bending to kiss along the leg hole of my panties. God I nearly dropped the condom because not only was James being a total tease, but also, it meant there was quite possibly a gun under my bed. Then he managed to get his tongue under the elastic and I decided I had better things to concentrate on than weaponry, ohhh yes.

I got him suited up, which wasn't easy because he was as impatient as I was, and pretty um, impressive. Not that I've seen a lot of khuy in my time, but let's just say the Winter Soldier was packing some extremely girth-solid weaponry, and once he sank that cannon into me I pret-ty much came like a screaming banshee. Rough and fast, clawing and very unrestrained . . . that would be me, all right? It's embarrassing to admit in the light of day, but at night, I can be a bit of a hellcat. At least on the first go-round.

Luckily James was made of sterner stuff—wonderfully so—and managed to hang on through my second orgasm before finally succumbing to his own in a mighty big way, his groans and thrusts almost drowning out the squeaky bedsprings. Almost. He collapsed on me and I let him, being too boneless to care.

"Mmmmm, thank you," I told him as I wrapped my arms around his damp torso.

"You're welcome," James sighed, moving to slip himself out of me to deal with the condom. When he came back from the bathroom I'd pushed the two beds together and thrown one blanket over them because I had no intention of sleeping alone tonight. And no, I didn't look under either one of them.

He climbed in, curled around me and was out before I'd even tucked the blanket around us.