Thanks to all who read Chapter 2 and to the reviewers: MrDrP, cpneb, Kradeiz, spectre666, Dr. J0nes, DuffKilliganFan, mattb3671, AtomicFire, CastaS, momike, Zaratan, and dartblade.

Thanks especially to MrDrP for his excellent beta services.

Warning: This chapter contains spoilers for a film, named about one third of the way down the page, which some readers may not have seen. (It's only been out since 1938.) If that worries you, please read with care. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: Disney owns these characters.

Chapter 3

Kevin opened the door to greet T-square. He saw a dripping wet, blue poncho framing wisps of platinum blonde hair; a pretty, smiling face; and those huge azure eyes that had haunted his daydreams for the past three years. I cannot be seeing this, he thought. I've finally lost my mind. He stared dumbly at the apparition in front of him. Then it spoke.

"Hi, Cap'n K? I'm T-square."

It's her voice, that beautiful, soft, musical voice. It's really her! He somehow got his own voice working. "Tara? Tara Monroe? You're T-square?"

"None other," she said with a smile.

Seconds ticked away. "Sooo … can I come in?" said the blonde.

"Oh! Right! You want to come in," he stepped aside. "Please …"

She paused. "Actually, I should probably leave my raincoat out here. My sneaks, too. I, um, kinda stepped in a puddle or two. In fact, I could use a towel if you've got one."

"Oh, uh, sure." Kevin ran upstairs, grabbed a towel from the linen closet and hurried back down, lest his fantasy evaporate in his absence.

When he got back, Tara had doffed her wet gear and he handed her the towel. She looks so beautiful, he thought. Her simple casual wear might as well have been the finest Parisian couture; she looked so gorgeous in it. He watched as she dried her toned cheerleader's legs—Wow, she has incredible legs—and then stepped into the foyer.

"Thanks," she said, handing the towel back. "So, you're, um, Kenny, is it?"

"Uhh …" damn, what's my name again? "It's, um, Kevin. Kevin Guberman."

"Oh, sorry."

"That's okay. No reason you should know who I am. I mean, I'm just … and you're …"

"So where should we do it?"

"Wha–?"

"The chess game. Where are we going to play?"

"Oh! Yeah. I set up the board in the family room. Come this way."

He led the way to the farmhouse's spacious country kitchen/family room, where a chessboard was set up in the position after their last online move.

Tara walked around the large room, taking in the exposed hand-hewn ceiling beams, the French doors leading out to a flagstone terrace with an umbrella table and barbecue, and the windows on two other walls. "Wow, you have a great house. Is that a pool back there?" she asked, looking out the doors toward the back yard.

"Yeah," Kevin said.

"Too bad the weather's been so bad. I love to swim."

Tara Monroe … swimming. Tara … in a … Yowza!

She moved to the game table and took a seat behind the black pieces. "It's my move, right?"

Kevin shook his head to try to clear his mind. "Yeah, I had just moved my rook like so," he said, taking his seat behind the whites and moving the piece back and forth to illustrate.

Tara studied the board for a few minutes, then reached out and moved her queen's knight. "Your move," she said, sitting back.

Kevin, who'd been studying his comely opponent instead of the board, looked down and was at a loss. "Uhhh … what'd you do?"

"My knight was here," she pointed to an empty square, "… I moved him here."

Kevin was having trouble focusing. It was as if he'd never played the ancient game before. His familiar tournament chessmen seemed like amorphous globs of plastic, their shapes held no meaning he could discern. The precise grid of black and white squares swirled like a kaleidoscope. He reached for a piece, then pulled his hand away. Finally, hesitantly, he moved his king's bishop one square.

Tara raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?" she said.

Kevin looked at the board again. He didn't see a problem. He had no idea what threats were on the board. "Sure," he said with a confidence he didn't feel.

Tara studied the board intently for a full minute, then she picked up her black queen and captured Kevin's white one. "Check," she announced.

Gah! You idiot! Kevin berated himself. He stood up. "I'm thirsty," he said. "You want anything?"

"I'll take a glass of milk," she responded.

He went to the kitchen and turned on the cold-water faucet. He splashed some on his face and dried off with a paper towel.

Get a grip, Guberman, he told himself. This is Tara Monroe, the prettiest, most popular girl in school. She's not interested in you as a boyfriend, she has B-ball Boy for that. All she's looking for from you is a chess buddy. If you can't give her that, you're useless.

He got a couple of drinking glasses, took the milk out of the refrigerator and poured Tara's milk and some for himself. He brought the drinks back to the game table and set Tara's in front of her.

He sat down and began to concentrate on the game in earnest. It wasn't easy—having his crush across the board was quite a distraction. But Middleton High was abundantly populated with nubile lovelies, and Kevin had learned to focus in class well enough to maintain a straight-A average, so this was just a matter of degree. No worse than that history final last spring with a tube-topped and micro-minied Bonnie Rockwaller sitting in the next row. Across the board, Tara took a sip of milk and smiled at him. The milk mustache ad folks would have paid some serious claude to put that smile on a billboard. Well, okay, this is worse—but I can handle it.

And, through a supreme effort of will, he did.

Tara sat back and sipped on her milk. She was glad she'd agreed to come over. Kevin had seemed a little flustered when he first found out who T-square was—He must have been, to just hand me his queen like that—but now he seemed to have gotten over it. She regarded the boy across the board, taking in his expression of concentration, and smiled behind her glass. Y'know, in this light, he's kinda cute, she thought.

After careful study, Kevin was able to see a way out of his predicament. Move by move, he deftly parried the blonde beauty's attacks. She tried her best to simplify the board, trading piece for piece until her queen advantage could dominate the endgame; Kevin strove to keep the game as complex as he could. Soon her superior forces were tripping over each other, unable to combine effectively against the outgunned whites. The contest ended in a stalemate.

Tara wasn't too disappointed; this was the best result she'd obtained in all their games.

"Want to play again?" Kevin asked.

"No thanks, that was intense. Only so much thinking us blondes can do in one session," she said with a grin. "I should probably go soon."

Kevin was disappointed, but figured his luck had run out. She probably wants to go hang with her cool friends now. He walked her to the front door and opened it. The rain was coming down much harder than before, accompanied by strong gusts of wind.

"Yikes, I don't want to walk home in that," she said. She tried calling her mom and her dad, but got their voicemail. "Still busy with work, I guess."

"If no one can come for you soon," Kevin offered, "my dad should be home from the medical center in a couple of hours. I could drive you then."

"Works for me," she agreed.

The teens headed back to the family room. Tara noticed the big-screen TV and a collection of DVDs. "Hey, why don't we watch a movie for a while?"

Kevin was elated. "Good idea," he said. "Pick one. I'll pop some popcorn."

She looked over the Gubermans' DVD collection. The usual action movies and romantic comedies, a few foreign films, nothing appealed to her. Then she noticed some old Hollywood classics on a lower shelf. Gone with the Wind, Bette Davis, Fred Astaire, Bogart & Bacall, The Thin Man series, and … ah! Perfect!

Kevin returned with a bowl of popcorn and she handed him the disc.

"'The Adventures of Robin Hood'?" he read. "Errol Flynn? Who's that?"

"Trust me," she said, taking the middle seat on the sofa near the popcorn bowl.

Kevin loaded the disc in the player and took a seat in a nearby easy chair.

Tara patted the spot to her right. "Hey, don't leave me alone with all this popcorn. Come sit over here."

Kevin was stunned. Tara wants me to sit next to her? This is officially the greatest day of my life. He moved over as the introductory fanfares of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's iconic score began to play over the opening credits. Soon the action started and Kevin was quickly caught up in the age-old tale.

During one early scene between Robin and his sidekick Will, Tara pointed to the screen. "See that actor in the red suit? He was my grandpa's first flight instructor."

"Really?"

"Yeah, in World War Two the Army took over a bunch of civilian flight schools 'cause they had so many new pilot trainees. Grandpa was at this school in California, and that guy, Patric Knowles, was an instructor. Grandpa said he made so much money from his studio salary he used to let his paychecks pile up in the base office for months."

"This the same grandfather who taught you chess?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah, he was," Tara said. "He had quite a life. Came from back east to go to college around here, and enlisted in the Army the day after Pearl Harbor. After the war, he became an architect and stayed all his life."

"My dad's from the east. Grew up in Massachusetts, and met my mom in med school. Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore. That's where I want to go."

"So what's Dartmouth?" she asked, pointing at his T-shirt.

"That's where Dad went for undergrad. It's in New Hampshire. I'm applying there, too."

"I bet it's a nice place."

He reached for some popcorn. "Yeah, gets real cold in the winter, though."

"I don't mind cold weather," the blonde said, hugging herself. "It's perfect for cuddling."

Kevin almost choked on his popcorn. Okay, if I didn't know that such an idea was utterly preposterous, I'd almost think Tara was flirting with me.

"So both your parents are doctors?" she continued after a bit.

"Yeah. Dad's a brain surgeon and Mom runs the medical department at the space center."

"And you're going to be a doctor too?"

"Workin' on it," he said.

Tara sighed. "I think it's so great you know exactly what you want to do in life. I have no idea. I'll probably end up selling houses like my mom."

"Whatever you do, I bet you'll be terrific at it. You could do anything you put your mind to, Tara."

"You really think so?" she asked, a look of wonder on her face. She'd been flattered by guys before, frequently—but this felt different somehow. Better.

"I know so. You've got a good brain under all that hair. You couldn't play chess the way you do otherwise."

Tara scoffed. "I haven't beaten you in a game yet."

Kevin paused the movie and turned to face her. "Tara, I'm first board of the Tri-City champs. I've played and studied the game for years. You just started again a few days ago, and you see what's going on in a game better than most of the high school players I know. For someone who hasn't worked at it like me, you're amazing."

"You're nice to say that …"

"Let me tell you a story. Last spring in the finals I played this snotty jerk from Upperton. He'd beaten me twice in a row, bad. I spent a week preparing this obscure queen's-pawn opening that he wasn't expecting. Within ten moves he was practically in tears, he was so lost. I rolled over him."

"What's this got to do—"

"Two days ago I threw that same opening at you. You played it like you had the book right in front of you. You're smart, Tara, really smart. Don't ever let anyone tell you different."

He reached for the remote again, but before he could grasp it Tara threw her arms around him and hugged him for all she was worth, which was plenty.

"Oh Kevin, that's the nicest, sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," she said, her voice quavering with emotion.

Emotions, and hormones, were running riot within Kevin, for sure. His mother and grandmothers were the only women who'd ever hugged him before, besides Steve's older sister one time freshman year. But even as attractive as Lisa Farley was, that had been nothing like this. He was feeling things he'd never felt before—inside and out. Wow, this is … I don't know what this is. I like it, though. … Her hair smells like lilacs … I thought they'd be softer, somehow … stop that, Guberman! … Wow, I guess I really made her day.

She loosened her grip, which was good because he'd been having trouble breathing, and looked up at him, lashes fluttering over moist, half-shut eyes. Her lips parted slightly.

Okay, I could maybe believe she was flirting with me before. I mean, sometimes people just flirt, it doesn't necessarily imply anything, right? But there is no freakin' way that Tara Monroe is sitting here wanting me to kiss her. She's got a boyfriend, fer cryin' out loud. A big boyfriend. He'd kill me. This could kill our friendship. I've got to be imagining this.

"I just calls 'em like I sees 'em, kiddo," he said, croakily.

Eventually Tara collected herself and let him go. He restarted the movie.

Errol Flynn resumed swapping barbs with Basil Rathbone, pitching woo to Olivia de Havilland, and otherwise just plain buckling swash like only Errol Flynn in his prime could.

Why wouldn't he kiss me? Tara thought. I literally threw myself at him. I don't do that, ever. I can tell he thinks I'm pretty. He even thinks I'm smart, he said so.

Maybe he already has a girlfriend. He probably does. Some honor student who's working toward the future like he is, not spending all her time waving pompoms and mooning over jerks who play with balls. What do I have to offer a guy like him?

Toward the end of the movie, during a scene with Little John, Kevin turned to Tara. "That big guy looks so familiar to me. Wasn't he the Skipper on that old castaways sitcom? Killigan's Atoll, or whatever?"

She shook her head. "Close. That guy's Alan Hale. His son, also Alan Hale, was the Skipper."

"Gotcha," he said.

A few minutes later Kevin noticed Tara looking at him with a wry smile on her lips.

"What?" he asked.

"So, you liked the castaways show?"

"I used to watch the reruns on cable," he admitted.

"So, which one?"

"So which what?"

"Which girl did you like? The movie star or the farm girl?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."

"C'mon, don't even try to give me that. Every guy who watched that show has a favorite. Now spill," she implored.

"Mary Ann," he said after a beat.

Tara grinned. "I knew it. You like brunettes, then?"

Blondes, he thought wistfully, one incredible blue-eyed blonde who's so out of my league it isn't funny.

"She was cute," he finally said, turning back to the TV.

He glanced back at Tara; she looked disappointed, in some way. Why do I feel like I gave the wrong answer?

On screen, the climactic battle in Nottingham Castle was in full swing. The Merry Men of Sherwood Forest soundly thrashed the forces of the treacherous Prince John. Robin Hood skewered the evil Sir Guy on his sword and accepted the hand of the lovely Marian from King Richard. Closing credits.

Kevin turned to Tara. "Wow, that was a great flick. I never even knew we had that."

"You've got a lot of good old movies on that shelf."

"Maybe I'll watch the rest sometime." They won't be half as good without the company, he thought.

"You should," she said. We should, she thought.

They got up. Tara collected the empty bowl and glasses and brought them to the kitchen, while Kevin went over to the game table and packed up the chess set. Just as he went to his room to put it away, Kevin's father arrived home.

"Hi Kev– Oh! Am I in the wrong house?" the stocky, dark-haired surgeon said upon finding an unfamiliar girl in his kitchen. An exceptionally attractive girl, he couldn't help noticing.

She approached him with outstretched hand. "Hi, Dr. Guberman. I'm Tara Monroe. I'm a friend of Kevin's. We were playing chess"

He shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Tara. I'm Phil."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

Kevin returned. "Hey Dad, how's the brain biz?"

"Just fine. Got to try the new EZ3000-X laser scalpel today. Slices like a dream."

"Cool! Hey, can I borrow the car to bring Tara home?"

"Sure. Catch." He tossed Kevin the keys and the two teens left.

Once they were gone, he turned on the early news and fixed himself a glass of tonic water with a lime wedge. As Tricia Labowski was relating the story of a local couple who'd awoken the previous night to find an SUV in their living room, his wife returned home.

"Oh, hi, hon," she said, sounding surprised. "I didn't expect you to be here. Where's your car?"

"Kevin's got it," he said as he rose to greet her. "He's driving a friend home. A girl."

Her eyebrows shot up as she joined him on the sofa. "Kevin had a girl over? You met her? Who is she? What's she like?"

"Very sweet girl, excellent manners. Seems quite bright. They were playing chess, she said. Her name's Tara, Tara Monroe."

"What does she look like? Is she pretty?"

He blew out a long, up-and-down whistle tone. "You could certainly say that," he replied. "She's about as tall as Kevin, very pretty face, big blue eyes, long, platinum blonde hair, and—oh, how shall I put this?—built like a centerfold model." He traced an hourglass figure in the air with his hands.

"Really?" She gave him a mock-scolding look. "Why Philip Guberman, however would you know what a centerfold model looks like?"

"I am a Doctor of Medicine and a surgeon, my dear," he said, affecting a haughty tone. "I have studied the human body in great detail."

"You're a brain surgeon, honey," she said with a laugh. "What possible need would a centerfold have for your services?"

Kevin pulled up in front of Tara's home. She reached for the door handle and turned to thank him for the ride, but he had already shut off the engine and was out of the car, heading around to her side. He opened the door for her and she stepped out into the light drizzle.

"My, what a gentleman," she said with a smile. "I had such a time getting my ex to do that even on dates …"

Ex? Does she mean the guy before Morgan, or …?

"So, I had a lot of fun today," she said as they walked to her front door. "I'm glad you suggested it. It was nice to see the face behind the screen name."

"Same here," he said. "Maybe we'll meet online again?"

"Actually, I think I like it like today better," she said. "And the movie was fun, too. Plus, y'know, blondes, computers, not really a great combination."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Hey, don't you remember what I told you before?"

She lowered her chin and looked up at him. "I remember," she said softly, "but maybe I should keep you nearby, you know, in case I need to hear it again?" I'd welcome any other compliments you have for me, too.

He shuffled his feet awkwardly and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I'd be happy to tell you how smart you are as often as you want." And how beautiful, and how good you smell, and how great your arms felt around me …

Lightning flashes illuminated the distant mountains, thunder rumbled ominously, and the drizzle turned into a steady rain.

"I need to head back before it gets worse," he said.

"Goodnight, Kevin," she said.

"'Night, Tara."

He went back to the car; she went into the house. As he drove away, she watched the receding taillights as best she could through the glass door sidelight, her vision obscured by raindrops and tears.

to be continued …

Author's note: The anecdote of actor/flight instructor Patric Knowles' WWII activities comes from a contemporaneous letter written by the author's mother, a dispatcher at the flight school in question.