This old tree fell in the forest, not with a splintering crack, but tearing slowly loose, all my roots exposed to the sky when I landed. After settling into the earth, I laid in the moss, and slumbered peacefully.
Laura listened to the echo of Bill's doorbell mournfully chiming around the heavy woodwork and plaster walls. Perhaps this was a mistake...Then she heard footfalls coming toward the door. She glanced back at the stairs down the stoop. Could she make it around the corner before—
"Yeah," rasped Bill, holding the door just wide enough for him to peer out.
"Hello," she said, straightening her spine. "May I speak with you?"
He stared out at her. Finally he turned away and trundled down the dark hall.
She decided that meant he wanted her to enter. She closed the door quietly behind her and followed him down the hall to a room she hadn't been in yet—his office. Jazz played, low but still threading through her heart, the saxophone's husky notes reminding her of Bill's voice.
Only one mica shade lamp was on. The room was deep in the scent of a cigar and another tang she wasn't know. Then he lifted a half empty glass of amber liquid to his lips and she recognized it as whiskey from the night before, the taste on his tongue as he'd kissed her.
That had felt ages ago. But he must have been thinking about it too.
His intense gaze traveled over her.
"Shoulda worn the jeans on your date."
She lifted her loose print cotton skirt and let it drop. She'd finally been able to choose a patterned fabric without anxiety. She'd loved the bright red poppy blossoms scattered across the white background but had been nearly paralyzed at choosing a top. Finally she'd gone with a pale yellow short-sleeved cotton sweater and cardigan that matched the flowers' stamens.
She'd been pretty damn proud of herself and now he was criticizing her choice.
"No, they weren't as comfortable as a skirt," she said snippily.
He lifted the lit cigar from a heavy glass ashtray on the desk and inhaled deeply.
He looked at it. "Ya mind?"
"It's your house." She glanced around at the cluttered room. More books. His trusty laptop sat on a grand old oak desk, piled with papers, magazines and more books. A printer was the only other concession to modern needs. A deep green velvet wing-backed chair sat in a bowed window, beckoning her, but she was too jittery to light.
"Why do you go to the coffee shop if you have such a nice office here?" she asked, drifting to the small fireplace with a dark walnut mantel and marble surrounding the firebox.
He grunted. "I need to get out. Be around people. Don't want to be one of those writers. End up wearing my robe until three in the afternoon."
The mantel held a row of photographs. A familiar bright-haired young woman caught Laura's eye. "Oh," she said involuntarily.
The woman was arm in arm with a young man who reminded Laura very much of Bill. He was in another photograph at about age twelve with an older teen-aged boy, standing with a uniformed Bill, appearing not just younger, but less world-weary. In the next frame, the young man was in a police uniform, his expression serious. A black ribbon was fastened in the corner of the frame.
After balancing his cigar in the ashtray, Bill came up beside her. "My boys," he said.
The other son was also in a uniformed portrait, but with no black ribbon. Laura was visited with a horrible realization of what the ribbon meant.
"They joined the force too," she said.
"Yeah." The pride in his voice was tinged with sadness.
She waited.
"This is Lee," he said, pointing to the the older son. "And this was Zak." His blunt finger touched the younger son's picture.
Laura took his free hand and held it loosely in hers. He squeezed her fingers.
He looked over at her and smiled, surprising her. "He was a good boy. Probably too good."
"Did he die in the line of duty?"
"Yeah. Rookie." He nodded to the picture with the blonde. "Kara was his training officer, but they were secretly engaged. Not supposed to go on, but—" He shrugged.
"But he was as charming as you are?" Laura said quietly, giving him a small smile.
Somehow, that was just the thing to say. He chuckled, his thumb circling her palm. "Sure," he rumbled.
"He was a good boy," he said again, still gazing at the photograph.
"You're a good man," she told him, sincere.
He narrowed his eyes at her, his gaze on her mouth. "And you are a little vixen, Sister Laura. Comin' here, giving me sweet nothings, when you were kissing another man an hour ago."
Her hand flew to her mouth. "How did you know?"
"You just told me," he said dryly.
Her mouth formed a very unkissable thin line.
Bill wasn't going to give her any slack. He released her hand and moved to retrieve his cigar. "You've gone from being unable to choose toilet paper to some confident comparison shopper of men? Kissin' us all to find that prince among toads?"
Folding her arms, she frowned at him. "I had a plan coming out of my religious life, and it wasn't seeing just one person after two weeks."
He leaned against his desk. "You can't plan life, Laura."
Her irritation grew. "I know that, Bill." Would she have planned her family to all die? Would he plan his son to be murdered?
He ran his fingers through his hair, obviously also becoming frustrated. "I'm too old to be in some competition for the girl—I'll woo you, Laura Roslin, but I won't rumble with the good doctor or some geek, or whoever else catches your eye at the coffee shop."
"I'm not asking you to do either thing," she protested.
"I'm not the one going out with a different person every night," he said, self-righteous.
"Really." She pursed her mouth and looked down her nose at him. "You're a successful writer. Surely you could have any woman."
He barked a laugh. "And the nun has had more dates in a week than I've had since Valentine's Day!"
She started pacing, needing to burn off her anger. "Is that my fault?"
He snagged her arm as she stormed past him on her circuit with a gentle big hand, like a bear scooping up a fish.
She stopped beside him, but didn't look up. "You make me nervous," she murmured an admission, staring at her toes.
Tipping his head, he tried to capture her gaze. "It's to be expected in your circumstance."
Her hand covered his on her forearm, her fingers nervously traveling from his hard-edged knuckles to the knob of his wrist until she found his thudding pulse. She had another confession: "If I'd been with a hundred men, you'd still make me nervous."
Stung, he tried to step back. She grabbed his hand with all her strength, pulling him to her.
"Bill, just—" she grumbled before latching onto his mouth. He caught up quickly, burying his fingers in her hair, keeping her captured like a fluttering moth without crushing her.
Her head was spinning again, but she felt greedy, taking all she could, even if it meant losing consciousness. Suddenly, she understood the term 'turned on.' She felt as though some switch had been flipped on in her body. An unfamiliar expectation rose through her limbs. It was primal; a moist heat and heaviness that settled between her legs and in her breasts.
Easing away from her, Bill finally pulled his lips free, regret in his growl. "You don't feel very nervous." Even with their mouths apart, he cradled her close.
She lay her head on his shoulder. Flashes of possibilities flitted through her mind. Lying with him under a star-filled sky, draped across the strong chest that her palm smoothed now, simply sinking into his body, molding to the bones and muscles until they became one, the night's breeze cooling their spent bodies.
"I came over here to tell you that you're being an ass, that I don't want to see you again—and here we are." There was wonder in her voice.
He just grinned at her. "Weren't you just calling me charming?"
She blinked at him slowly with a cat's blank stare.
"I told you I'd go slow," he said, then in the next breath, "Let's go out tomorrow."
Automatically, she started to accept, but shook her head. "I've already told Billy we'd go for a walk around Lake Merritt—"
"Another one?" he hissed.
"He's my student teacher!" she insisted, wiggling from his arms.
"I bet!"
"I'm not cougaring!" she sputtered.
He snatched up his glass and drained it. "It's 'I'm not a cougar'," he sneered.
"Whatever!" She shook her head like he was a wasp buzzing around her head. "I cannot go out with you. I'm already engaged," she said haughtily.
"Okay, okay." He waved his hand. "Let me walk you home."
She started. Home...She wasn't home, was she?
Stomping to the front door, she barely gave him time to put aside his slippers and slide into his loafers before clattering down the stoop.
He scooped up her hand and brought her to his pace. "I thought you wanted to go slow."
She shot him a dirty look, but sealed her lips, holding in her comeback.
As though reading her mind from earlier in the week, he said, "Your vow of obedience has been put aside, Laura. Feel free to tell me to go to hell."
"Hell is a real place to me," she said tartly. "You don't want me to curse you."
Now it was his turn to press his mouth closed.
She got her key out and ready as she went up the stairs to her building's front door. If Bill Adama thought he was getting another kiss—
"Saturday," he said behind her.
She checked her watch before unlocking the door. "Not anymore."
"Next Saturday," he said.
Her gaze shifted.
He rocked back on his heels and pushed his hands in his pockets. "One of the lineup, or a new fellow?"
"It's not that," she promised. "I was planning to visit the convent."
"Having second thoughts?" He sounded worried.
"The women are all my friends in the world, Bill," she reminded him gently. "I'd like to see them."
"You got a car?"
"No..."
"Can you drive?" he asked.
"Yes," she said huffily. "I drove the order's Taurus when necessary."
He grinned.
Hanging on the door jamb, she told him, "I was going to take the bus back to Marin."
"The bus!" He shook his head. "I'll drive you."
"Oh no." Laura couldn't imagine her two worlds, old and new, converging like that.
"My pleasure." His knowing eyes told her that he'd read her mind. "I'll stay in the car and work while you visit. But I won't have you riding four buses all day when I can drive you over there in an hour."
"All right," she said, thinking she'd have all week to figure out an excuse to beg off.
Distracted, she didn't register Bill's approach until he pulled her into another kiss. Just deep enough, just long enough, with just enough confidence not to be arrogance.
She still had to chide him, even as she sagged against the door. "Now you're not playing fair."
"Hasn't anyone told you that all is not fair in love and war?" he said smugly.
With no retort, she watched him strut down the stairs and along the dark sidewalk, his whistle floating back to her. Resolute, she shut the door, blocking it out.
