The Servants of Twilight

Maybe it had been his destiny to be here, waiting for Christine and Joey, when they needed him. If he'd had his own family, he wouldn't have been able to go to the wall for the Scavellos as he had done; these recent deeds, all beyond the call of duty, would have fallen to one of his men-who might not have been as clever or as committed as Charlie was. When Christine had walked into his office, he had been rocked by her beauty and by a feeling that they were meant to meet, one way or another, that they would have found each other in a different fashion if Grace Spivey hadn't acted to bring them together now. Their relationship seemed… inevitable. And now it seemed equally inevitable and right that he should be Joey's protector, that he should one day soon become the child's legal father, that each night he should hear this small boy say, "Goodnight, Daddy," instead of "Goodnight, Charlie."

Destiny.

That was a word and a concept to which he had never given much thought.

If anyone had asked him last week if he believed in destiny, he would probably have said he did not. Now, it seemed a simple, natural, and undeniable truth that all men and women had a destiny to fulfill and that his lay with this woman and this child.

They closed the heavy draperies at the bedroom window, and left a lamp on with a towel draped over the shade to soften the light. Joey fell asleep while they were arranging the towel.

Chewbacca had curled up on the bed, too. Christine quietly motioned for the dog to get down, but it just stared mournfully at her. Charlie whispered that Chewbacca could stay where he was, and finally he and Christine retreated from the room with exaggerated stealth, leaving the door ajar an inch or two.

As they went downstairs she looked back a couple of times, as if having second thoughts about leaving the boy alone, but Charlie held her arm and steered her firmly to the table. They sat and had coffee and talked, while the wind moaned in the caves and grainy snow tapped at the windows or hissed along the glass.

Charlie said, "Now, once this storm is past and the roads are open farther down the mountain, I'll want to go into the market to use the pay phone, call Henry Rankin, see what's up. I'll be going in every two days, at least, maybe even every day, and

when I'm gone I think you and Joey ought to hole up in the battery room, under the windmill. It-"

"No," she said quickly." If you go down the mountain, we go with you."

"It'll get tiring if it has to be done every day."

"I can handle it."

"But maybe Joey can't."

"We won't stay here alone," she said adamantly.

"But with the police looking for us, we'll be more noticeable as a group, more easily-"

"We go with you everywhere," she said." Please. Please."

He nodded." All right."

He got a map that he had purchased at the sporting goods store in Sacramento, spread it out on the table, and showed her their back door escape route, which they would use if, against all odds, Spivey's people showed up, and if there was enough time to escape. They would go farther up the mountain, to the top of the next ridge, turn east into the valley that lay that way, find the stream at the bottom of the valley, and follow it south toward the lake. It was a journey of four or five miles-which would seem like a hundred in the snow-blanketed wilderness.

But there would be good landmarks all the way and little chance of getting lost as long as they had the map and a compass.

Gradually, their conversation drifted away from Grace Spivey, and they talked about themselves, exploring each other's past, likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, getting a better fix on each other than they'd had an opportunity to do thus far. In time they moved away from the table, switched off all the lights, and sat on the big sofa in front of the stone hearth, with nothing but the softly flickering firelight to hold back the shadows. Their conversation became more intimate, and more was said with fewer words, and finally even their silences conveyed a richness of information.

Charlie couldn't remember the first kiss; he just suddenly realized that they had been touching and kissing with increasing ardor for some time, and then his hand was on her breast, and he could feel her erect nipple through her blouse, hot upon the center of his palm. Her tongue moved within his mouth, and it was very hot, too, and her lips were scaring, and when he touched her face with his fingertips the contact was so electrifying that it seemed as if sparks and smoke should issue from it. He had never wanted or needed a woman a fraction as much as he did Christine, and judging from the way her body arched against him and the way her muscles tensed, she wanted and needed him with a passion equal to his own. He knew that, in spite of their circumstances, in spite of the less than ideal trusting place that fate had provided, they would make love tonight; it was inevitable.

Her blouse was unbuttoned now. He lowered his mouth to her breasts.