Hi guys :) I don't have an excuse this time. So to make it up to you. I prepared something that you might like. *giggle* Here's Chapter 23 for all of you. Please enjoy~

Mikan couldn't remember ever hearing her mother sound so close to losing all control. She was hanging by the threads but, of course, she wouldn't admit it

We're alright," she said. "We had an unexpected delay; we couldn't get hold of anyone. I was afraid you'd all be frantic. I'm so sorry."

"What happened?" Mikan asked.

"I ran into someone I know. It's a long story. I'll explain when we get to Tokyo. We're scheduled for an early morning flight. Right now. I just want to go to bed. Your dad's exhausted, too."

"I understand, but –"

"I tried to call Ruka," her mother cut in, obviously reluctant to go into more detail. "He was asleep. I'll try again in a minute, but if I don't reach him, will you call him later on and let him know we talked?"

"Of course." Mikan hesitated, glancing at Natsume down on the dock. Not one inch of him looked relaxed. "But there's something I need to ask you. It can't wait."

Her mother inhaled. "All right."

"When we were all at the Musée du Louvre together in April, a man spoke to me. Dark hair, angular features. He had just a slight accent. French I think. He approached me while you were at The Wedding Feast at Cana. Did you happen to see him?"

"No. No, I didn't."

Mikan sighed. "I thought not. You were talking with another man. I thought they might be together. The man you were with had silver hair –"

"I know. He's –" her step-mother broke off, something ragged, even afraid. "He's someone I used to know in college. It's a long story. What about this man you were with? Why are you asking about him now?"

"I might have seen him in Central Park the other day. I'm not sure."

Her mother didn't respond.

"The FBI and the Alice are looking into it," She added.

"Dear God." Her mother seemed ready to crack with tension. "The agent who was shot with Ruka; Natsume Hyuuga. He's staying in Northern Woods with you?"

"Yes, but –"

"Then you're out of harm's way. Whatever's going on, you and Ruka are safe." She gave a fake little laugh. "All this drama. We're all tired and freaked out by this senseless shooting. Let's just stay cool. We'll get everything sorted out when we get to Tokyo tomorrow."

"Mother, was the silver-haired man with the guy who approached me?"

"I don't know. Mikan, please. I'm exhausted. Stay safe, okay? I love you very much."

She said goodnight and hung up.

Mikan cradled the phone and got to her feet, feeling unsteady, shaken.

Natsume appeared on the porch steps. He glanced up at her, his expression more law enforcement officer than friend or lover. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"The kitchen. I think there's another casserole in the freezer. Whatever it is, we can have it for dinner."

But mounted the steps and caught her by the elbow, turning her to him, gently. She felt how rigid she was, not awkward so much as incredibly aware the her mother hadn't wanted to talk about the silver-haired man that she was hiding something and intended for as long as she could.

And that Natsume wanted whoever had shot him and Ruka more than anything else.

It was why he was in Northern Woods. That they'd made love last night was an accident of timing and a product of chemistry. Even if he was genuinely attracted to her, it didn't mean he'd let his feelings interfere with his duties as an agent and his determination to find out what had happened in Central Park.

She wouldn't expect him to.

"What happened in the Musée du Louvre?" he asked.

"I thought you weren't listening in."

"I didn't hear everything. You looked like you're going to pass out. I was coming to your rescue."

"I've never passed out."

"Nothing happened at the Musée du Louvre. My mother didn't see the man who approached me. She was still at The Wedding Feast at Cana. She's something of an art historian she takes forever to wander through the museum."

"Where were she and your father today?" Natsume didn't let up on his intensity, didn't release his hold on her. "Why did they miss their flight?"

"She ran into someone she knew. She didn't get into details." Mikan fought to control her emotions. Was her mother hiding something? Why? Nerves, fear, drama?" She's the mother of an Alice Agent who's got a long recovery ahead of him. We're all crazed right now. This is why I didn't want to mention the guy in the park; I knew you'd all seize on it when I'm sure I was mistaken."

"Do your parents often miss plane?"

She jerked back out of his grip, angrily, then saw his face pale, the pain register at the edge of his mouth. "Your arm! Oh, my God, I'm sorry."

He waved her off, visibly absorbing the pain.

"What can I do? Tylenol? A fresh bandage? Should I call the ambulance?"

He manage a thin smile. "A shot of some kind of Japanese bourbon would be nice."

"That I can manage."

She ran into the front room and found a dusty bottle, a glass that she held up into the light and decided definitely needed rising. She brought both into the kitchen, swirled water into the glass, added ice and splashed in the bourbon. Her emotions were all over the place. How could she have forgotten about his arm even for a split second? What was wrong with her?

She returned to the living room with the glass.

He didn't gulp. She has a feeling that Natsume Hyuuga didn't do much that didn't show total control. Even last night, making love to her. As wild as it had been, he'd know precisely, exactly what he was doing.

"Go ahead." He waved the glass at her. "Call your brother and tell him you've heard from your mother."

"I'm really sorry."

"I deserved it."

She dialed her brother's room at the hospital, but Kokoro Yome picked up. "Is that you, Dr. Sakura? Your parents are safe."

"You talked to my mother? She just called here, too."

"I didn't talk to her. Hotaru Imai answered Ruka's phone." His tone was difficult to read. "You're brother was knocked out. I'm waiting for him to wake up. Nurse said it probably won't be long. He was in a lot of pain this afternoon. They're working him pretty hard."

"I should be there."

"You should be where you are. Nothing more out of your letter writer?"

"No, sir."

"Quite a day?"

"We had a Japanese Keelback in the house, but other than that-"

"A snake? Hell, I hate snakes. What'd you do with it?"

"I caught him and released him back in the river."

Koko chuckled, surprising her. "I don't know why your brother worries about you. We'll stay in touch, right, Dr. Sakura?"

She nodded at the phone. "Yes. Yes, of course."

Whatever he knew, whatever her mother might have told Hotaru that she hadn't told her daughter, Kokoro Yome was keeping it all to himself. He hung up, and Mikan almost poured herself a glass of bourbon.

"Sometimes I wonder why Ruka couldn't have become a veterinarian." She sank onto the couch, aware of Natsume standing in the shadow in front of the stone fireplace. "He used to take care of his rabbits and other animals. You might be bitten, but usually people don't shoot veterinarians."

Natsume set his glass down. "You asked your mother if a silver-haired man was with the man who'd approached you at the museum. Why? Who is he?"

"Your relentless, aren't you, Agent Hyuuga?"

He didn't answer.

"I don't know who he is. My mother said he was someone she knows."

"My parents know a lot of people I wouldn't recognize." Mikan angled a look at him. "Do you want to strap me down and shoot me up with truth serum?"

Not even a flicker of a smile.

She tried to smile, just to ease some of her own tension. "I wouldn't want to be someone you're interrogating."

"That's right. You wouldn't."

She quashed a flare of irritation. "You're known for being the hard-ass of hard-asses, aren't you? Ruka didn't tell me that. Neither did Hotaru. But it's obvious from the way people treat you. They say it's because you're the best at what you do, but don't think they know you're harder sometimes than you need to be."

"Figured that out all by yourself?"

"Don't patronize me."

He drank more of his bourbon. "You don't like it when the shoe's on the other foot, do you?"

"I wasn't patronizing you. I was just-"

She didn't know what she was doing. Picking a fight so she didn't have to confront her own fears and worries about her parents? What the hell was going on in Paris? How could anything her parents were involved with possibly have spilled out into Tokyo and damn near gotten her brother killed? More Sakura drama, embellishment, exaggeration. It had to be. But she blinked back tears and jumped to her feet, heading for the kitchen.

Do nothing. Tell no one.

Had whoever sent her that hideous letter realized she'd talked and gone after her parents? Was that why her mother was so tense?"

Mikan shook off that train of thought before it could get started.

"I just had this upsetting conversation with my mother," she shot back at Natsume, "and you can't give me five damn minutes to pull myself together."

"Take ten. Then tell me what happened in Paris."

"Nothing happened!"

"It stuck out in your mind or you wouldn't have remembered the man who approached you. I've been to museum. I'm trained to remember faces, and I doubt I'd remember anyone who stopped and chatted with me for a few seconds, especially not three weeks later." He mocked.

Mikan stormed down the hall to the kitchen.

"Maybe he was good-looking. Maybe that's why I remember him."

She ripped open the freezer, grabbed a frozen dish marked "squash casserole" and slammed it onto the counter, swearing under her breath, her chest tight with anger and kind of fear she'd never known as if people were out to kill her, kill her brother, and kill her parents. But that was insane.

Natsume was standing in the kitchen door. She pushed past him, not even looking at him. "Help yourself. I'm not hungry."

He didn't stop her from walking down the hall and heading upstairs.

He didn't say a word. Nothing.

She shut the door to her room.

Five o'clock. Hours left before she could go to bed, bit she was exhausted and feeling guilty, because she knew she'd picked a fight with him in order to keep herself from thinking about her mother and what she was hiding.

It was terribly like her step mother to have secrets. The Azumi side of the family was all big on secrets. They treated them as currency.

Mikan tore open her bedroom door and stormed back into the hall, but all the fury had gone out of her. She hung over the stairs railing. "I'm going to take a bath. I'm sorry I'm not better company."

No response.

"And I'm sorry I almost ripped your arm off."

"My arm is fine."

He was behind her. She turned around so fast she almost lost her balance. Her heart was pounding it was as if all her nerve endings were raw, exposed, responding to him in a thousand different ways. She pushed her hair back with one hand and gave a self conscious laugh. "I think Jethro Gibbs of NCSI could do that, couldn't he? Materialize out of thin air."

"I think that was James Bond."

"I'll cooperate," she blurted. "So will my mother. You know that, don't you? It's just unnerving to think that we might have any connection to a shooting that almost killed Ruka, you-"

"Later."

"But if you've got a bee up your nose –"

He wrapped both arms around her and lifted her off the floor, kissing her, tasting bourbon and a kind of intensity she'd never known. He carried her back into her room. "I want to feel the breeze off the river while we make love."

"Natsume-"

"You and I both have a million things to think about. Let's think about all of them later."

He laid her down on her bed. She could, indeed, feel the breeze off the river. "I've neglected this part of my life," she whispered.

"You don't have to anymore. Neither do I."

"But you-"

"There's sex," he said, "and there's lovemaking. I want to make love to you."

"Why?"

He smiled. "No more questions."

(Warning: the following may contain theme or scene which may not be suitable for very young readers, parental guidance is strictly advice.)

He stripped off his shirt, she could see that his arm had bled slightly through the bandage, but he didn't seem to notice. His pants came next, and it was obvious he'd been anticipating this moment for at least a few minutes. But, instead of rushing, he said, "I want to take my time with you." And he slid in next to her, taking her hands when she started to lift her shirt. "Allow me."

"As you wish."

"And you?" he asked, raising her shirt. "What do you wish?"

He touched his thumbs to her nipples through her bra, and she couldn't answer. Slowly, without any obvious sense of urgency, he lifted her bra and exposed her breast to the cold breeze and the wet heat of his tongue. He took his time easing of her top, smoothing his hands and tongue over her throat between her breasts, down her abdomen. He caught his fingers in the waistband of her pants and took them and her underpants off at the same time, exposing her to the same slow, erotic play of hands, teeth and tongue."

"I wish…" She couldn't breathe, couldn't talk. "I wish this could go on forever."

With his fingers still on her, inside her, he took her hand and placed it on him. He was hot, throbbing. He thrust himself against her palm, a promise of what was to come. But she couldn't last another second and moved under him, and he pulled back his hand, then entered her, pushing in hard and deep, his eyes locking with hers. "How long do you mean by forever?"

He took her to the precipice, and then fell back again, over and over, until she couldn't speak, couldn't think, and could only feel her own blinding need for release. When it came, he stayed with her, spun into a freefall with her, tumbling, picking up speed, but she kept pace with him until his own release overcame him. Afterward, completely spent, she wrapped herself around him so that could feel the entire length of his of his body, the taut muscles, and the hot skin as the chilly wind blew across them. He is real. So very real. She hadn't imagined one second of what had just happened.

"A sly agent," she whispered, not sure if he could hear her, and smiled. "Dear God"

She could easily fall in love with him.

She might have already.

And there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it, any more then she could stop the river outside her doors from flowing – not that she would if she could.

Finally she stirred. "What's in squash casserole?"

"Summer squash, Ritz crackers, onions, cheese and butter." She sat up, untangling her hair with her fingers. "Lots of butter."

He threw his legs over the edge of her bed. "Another of Granny Sakura's recipes?"

Mikan nodded. "One of my favorites."

He grinned at her. "They're all your favorites."

He pulled on his pants and stood up, and when he turned to her, he winced and gives a mock shudder. "I wish I'd seen that before I carried you here."

She followed his gaze and realized that it was fixed on the picture of her and Narumi Anju at her college graduation, in front of a table of strawberries and champagne. "He was running for governor then. My parents were out of the country my father was serving as a special envoy to Indonesia during hard times."

"There are always hard times somewhere."

"I told them it was okay for them not to come."

"You had Narumi Anju," Natsume said.

"Yes." She pretended not to hear the note of criticism in his voice. "And Ruka. He came, too."

"Did your parents make it to his graduation?"

She shook her head. "We had a grand party afterward here at Northern Wood. We've learned to seize the moment, make up for the lost time when we're together." She collected her clothes and held them close to her. "Why don't I get dressed and make us homemade biscuits to go with the squash casserole?"

He pulled on his shirt. "I thought you weren't hungry."

She threw a pillow at him and remembered his injured arm too damn late again, but he caught the pillow with his right hand and tossed it back at her. And in a minute, they were making love again, all thought of biscuits and squash casserole, of loving but neglectful parents of the family friend who was now in the Palace vanished, which was, Mikan thought, just what Natsume had intended.

"Himemiya and Shizune used to tell a story about a Huck-Finn type boy who lived on the river," Mikan said as she led the way to the Anju house, the river on one side of the narrow trail, the thick woods on the other. It was after dinner, the sun low in the sky, but she had restless energy that Natsume, as tired as he was, understood. "They said he camped in the caves. I'm not sure when it was. I never asked. It's one of a thousand questions I wish I could go back and ask them."

They were on a section of trail that wound over the top of a near vertical limestone bluff. One wrong step and he'd be in the water. The river was quiet, no waves, and no boats. "What'd he do live off the land?"

"They claimed he'd fish, catch frogs and snakes. They liked frog's legs themselves. I think Narumi did, too." Mikan paused atop the bluff and caught her breath. "I never developed a taste for them."

Natsume smiled next to her. "I've never eaten frog and have no plans to start. What about snakes?"

"Oh, no. I'm not eating snakes. Himemiya and Shizune claimed they tried it once, when they were little girls." She breathed out. "Hard to believe that was before World War One."

Natsume saw that talking about the Anju sisters and her friendship with the president relaxed her. He regretted having pushed hard earlier with his questions, but he'd never been a patient man. A patient lover, sometimes. This afternoon. His doctor probably wouldn't be pleased with him, but, on the other hand, he felt fine. "Isn't there a story about the prime minister and a snake? I don't remember the details. It came out during the campaign."

She shuddered. "I don't know how anyone stands a political campaign. I really don't."

"Do you know the story?"

She glanced at him, "I was there."

In spite of her seriousness, he smiled. "After this morning, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You and your snakes."

"Narumi I mean prime minister Anju came to Northern Woods not long after he and his wife had lost their fourth and last baby. A little girl, stillborn. They knew there wouldn't be more. I was still in high school. Almost seventeen."

Natsume tried to picture her at almost seventeen. Pretty, intense, dragging her video camera down the river to interview her two elderly neighbors. And direct. She'd have been direct, too.

"I was walking back from the Anju house along this same path, not that far from here. I was a sticky summer day, oppressively hot." Her accent seemed more pronounced. "Narumi was standing below me on a narrow, treacherous ledge that leads to a cave just above the water."

"He was there alone?"

"Luna stayed in Tokyo. She was out of the hospital her mother was with her. I've always thought Narumi just needed some time to himself. He was grief stricken-"

"Do you think he meant to jump that day?"

She shook her head but didn't seem shocked by the question. "It was just such a hard time. Narumi prides himself on getting things done, making things happen. But some things you just can't control. I just think he wanted to be here, on the river."

"Who say the snake first?"

"He did. It must have come from the cave. I've seen them out on the ledge, sunning themselves."

"Water moccasin?"

"Yup."

Natsume remembered some of the story now. "He saved someone's life, didn't he? Yours? Isn't that the story?"

"That's the story."

She continued along the trail. When they reached the Anju, she led the way through the tall grass to the road, the down the fishing camp and the cabin Reo Mouri had rented.

He was sitting out on a rusted lawn chair, chatting with an old man with cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and he squinted up to Mikan, then at Natsume.

"Evening Mikan, your prune cake was fantastic I almost sneaked into your house in the middle of the night to steal me another piece, but then I decided that probably it wasn't a good idea." He grinned lazily. "You did make your granny proud."

"Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"Let me introduce you to my friend Tonochi Akira. Tono, this here is Mikan Sakura and her friend, Agent Natsume Hyuuga of Alice"

Mikan mumbled something about being pleased to meet him. Natsume just nodded, and the old guy rolled back in his lawn chair and blew out a lungful of smoke. "I knew Himemiya and Shizune back in the war. Used to come out here to fish. They were real ladies."

Reo gave Mikan a pointed look. "Tono was here not long after they found Prime Minister Anju on the doorstep."

"He wasn't president then," Mikan said, a little sharply. "He was just a baby."

"Cute little fella," the old man said.

Mikan sighed. "You don't let up, do you, Reo?"

"No, ma'am. I don't give up, either. Anything I can do for you? How's your brother today?"

"He's doing well, thanks. I wanted you to know I spoke to Tsubasa, and he apologizes. He said he stopped by earlier to apologize to you in person, but you weren't around."

"Out for my run, probably. Water over the dam." He laid on the charm. "Tell him apology accepted."

Mikan thanked him, but he didn't invite her in and she didn't invite him back to her place to eat the last of the fried apricot pies. The old man puffed on his cigarette.

"It's not a serious interview," Mikan said to Natsume on the way back out to the road. "Reo doesn't have a notepad or a tape recorder."

Natsume made a face. "I think you'd have to be a serious journalist to have a serious interview."

"At least he's pleasant."

"Too bad he didn't invite you in for a little nip of something. I'd love to see his notes for his book."

She cut a look at him. "You don't think he's legitimate?"

"I don't think anything one way or the other."

"My opinion? Tsubasa's right. Much as I hate to say it, Reo's a bottom-feeder, positioning himself to be in the right place at right time for a bombshell." She squared her shoulders and picked up her pace. "But my family doesn't have anything to hide, about ourselves or anyone else."

Natsume hung back, watching her walk down the road with sudden energy. Caves, snakes, frogs, a baby on a doorstep, an historic house, an old fishing camp, a well-respected diplomat, the prime minister if he wanted secrets and lies to drop into his lap, Natsume though, he'd park himself in Northern Woods, just as Reo Mouri had done.

What do ya think folks? Good? Bad? Love it? Hate it? If you have any comments, opinions, suggestions or violent reaction. Just write it on the review section below. And let me know.

Quick Shout Outs To:

Guest and to the ever supportive riaanaa.

Thanks guys.. :) (y)

To all the other readers, followers, to those people who added both of my stories on their favorites list. I would like to say a massive thank you to all of you, If weren't for you I wouldn't gain to trust myself and be confident to write ;) Thank you for all the support. Till the next chapter.

Lots Of Love XOXO,

Claire-chan143