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Show 96. "Then I'll say yes-with guys." JD didn't reply to that. He knew Gayle liked to play with his feelings, but he didn't think she could get involved with someone in two weeks. She returned his jealous smirk with a bubbly laugh that made him feel better. "You turkey!" she said, poking him. He pushed the VW up to sixty, then sixty-five. "Listen to that engine," he cocked his head to one side, happy to be enamored of his own car. "All I can hear is engine," she shouted, holding her hands over her ears. "How far do we have to go?" "Not far." He maneuvered around a curve to the right, then accelerated into another one that bore left. "How about this? Shall we park?" JD pulled into a view area at the top of a bluff overlooking Red Butte, ten miles away. "Remember when we found that stunned bird up here?" he asked. They had looked and looked for its nest last spring, then left it under the shelter of some sage brush. Gayle was afraid to hold it. "It's probably diseased," she'd said, quickly hiding her hands behind her back when he'd offered. JD pulled the car up to the railing and cut the engine. "Little bird, little bird," he said softly, reminded of the song, "in the cinnamon tree . . ." Gayle leaned over into his arms. "You're my little bird, aren't you?" he whispered, pulling her close. She managed a few chirps. And then they kissed. Without any warning, the nightmare returned as soon as he closed his eyes. Like the surrender to Gayle's lips so threatened his fears that they rushed back again a hundred-strong. Instead of her face, he saw another's. Inside his own eyes burned the ones that threatened his sleep each night and seared into his consciousness a dozen times a day. He pushed her away from him, breathing hard. "JD, what's the matter?" "Gayle, my God, Gayle, I can't get away from it." He covered his face with his hands. "They're back. I'm kissing you, but I see them. Gayle, what's happening?" "JD, you can't be talking about that UFO again!" |