***Kayla learns about the last tattoo.
0_o
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No matter what Jim said after -- no matter what threat was used, or even polite questioning, as much of a surprise as that was to Josh that it would be attempted, there was no answer forthcoming when Jim asked what Josh's idea had been. The best that he got was something as vague as if he'd asked for the exact date of the second coming of Christ.
"It's just something that I was thinking with regard to Kayla and I," Josh said, "It doesn't concern you at all, Jim."
Brisebois had finally just shrugged, "Do you really think that after my whole long life and the things that I've done, that I don't know bullshit when I hear it?
Alright," he said raising his hands in a placating gesture, "OK, you won't talk. But when it hits the fan, Josh old buddy, it just might hurt."
"All I'm saying," he grinned maliciously.
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Rose stared as she looked at the set of keys dangling from Josh's fingers. "What -- what do you need me for?" she asked Jim, "If I knew how to make this place go, I'd already have started."
"You've lived here for a long time," Josh said, "You know where everything is. I've only ridden the perimeter fence to fix it some, but I don't know the features of the land. I think it would save us some time if you went with Jim to show him the place. I'm sure that he could roll around and discover everything by himself, but that takes time."
"Well it wouldn't take quite as much time if you'd been able to get me that map that I requested," Brisebois tossed in.
"Rose hasn't been able to find the original survey," Josh tossed right back, "C'mon, Rosie. I could go with him, but it would just be the blind leading the ... uh, .... learned and wise one," he smiled carefully.
"Besides, he'd only make me drive and he'd bitch about every little bump."
Jim looked at Josh with old storm clouds gathering on his brow as he sighed heavily, "Taylor, I remind you about that urban warfare course at Shiloh when you swerved to the right and took us right off the road and broke an axle. I got a freely-bleeding lump on my head out of it and about a day and a half of paperwork just for fun afterwards."
"I told you," Josh protested, "I thought that I'd seen the trigger of a roadside bomb; you know the flash-bang things they used in that course?"
Jim nodded, "Yes, cleverly disguised to look like a flattened paper coffee cup. I remember."
"Yeah," Josh countered, "but out there? What was a coffee cup doing out there, miles from anywhere?"
"I dunno," the older man said, "but it wasn't anything other than what it looked like, was it?
Unless," he mused aloud, "Unless it was placed there very craftily by the course instructors, so that the less-bright among us would jerk the wheel to avoid it and break an axle in the rocks."
Brisebois suddenly looked concerned, "I think this is significant, because it indicates something which might be used against us."
"What do you mean?" Josh asked.
"Well how the hell would those people have known otherwise that they didn't need the expense of actual training explosives there that day? They didn't need any, did they? They knew you'd be coming by and hell, a coffee cup was good enough then, right, Taylor?"
Kayla looked down, trying to hide her smile as Jim turned, "Please Rose, get me the hell away from Josh before I remember any more highlights. I'll be good. I promise I'll be good."
Rose had to smile then and she just shrugged, "Alright, just let me get some jeans and boots on."
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Jim and Rose stood by the fender of the Ford. He was making sketches on the pad on the hood, and checking his GPS, noting elevations, and distances. It was all Greek to Rose, but she was enjoying the day.
Jim was all that Josh had said; polite, courteous and thoughtful. She found that he was rather nice to look at as well, though he did seem to have a second sense about it and she found that her glances had to be really surreptitious and above all, quick.
She was able to get a few longer looks when he grabbed his cell.
When Josh picked up, he said. "Taylor. Is there Internet access here?
Ok, how about a printer?
Good. I need something of a topographic view, tremendous detail isn't important, but I need the features. If you can't do that, don't sweat it. I've got my laptop, and I have mapping software on it for my GPS...."
He listened for a moment as Josh asked about rattlesnakes.
"Rattlesnakes? Yeah," Jim growled, "we saw a couple, but I barked at them, and they buggered off. I don't have time to tiptoe around every one. I just stomp my foot and yell."
Rose grinned at that, though it had only happened twice -- and it had worked.
"We're gonna break for lunch in a minute. Later."
That evening, Rose found herself even more impressed when Jim had asked if he could help with dinner that evening. She'd thought that it meant that he'd offered to help out and she'd agreed just because he was a lot of fun to be with and it also saved Josh from his ire, though there wasn't any more of that at all.
They were only going to have hamburgers, but Brisbois had surprised her -- well, amazed her, actually, when she'd turned around to find him mixing all sorts of things into the ground beef; things that she'd never have had the thought of tossing in. She asked and Jim had only shrugged as she watched him make up the patties.
When the grille was hot, he'd just taken over that chore as well, and though she'd been cooking up hamburgers for years on end, she couldn't recall ever tasting a better burger anywhere in her life.
