Roberta Radcliffe

I'm sure the pause was for me to say something, but I was still waiting to see where this was going, so I continued to let her take the lead on this, for now anyway.

"When you came to visit me in hospital, I was ever so grateful. Not only because you got me out of a REALLY bad situation, but from the conversation I had with the surgeon, had you not been there, even discounting the bear from this conversation for a moment, I could well have lost my leg before help arrived."

Roberta told me about the conversation with her mother; she had wanted her father to leave me alone. He took it upon himself to keep that appointment.

"When he did that, I took sides. He may be my father, but he had no right to 'summon' you to his office; a polite phone call would have done the same job."

The stare was harder this time. "I know you can take care of yourself Logan, so how do you feel about taking care of me as well. At least until I get back on my feet."

Curiosity being what it is, I just had to ask. "And if I say no?"

Judging by the look on Roberta's face, it clearly wasn't the answer she was wanting from me.

"Then from the time I put the phone down on my cousin, I will be gone within two hours." Her voice shook a little when she said even that much. She gulped and continued. "I'm hoping that was a rhetorical question Logan. Speaking personally, I want to stay. I want to get to know the man who saved my life, and let's face it Logan, the shape I'm in at the moment, you're going to get to know me really well over the coming minutes, hours and days."

She saw something, I know she did by the way she started to smile. I had only just decided myself, how the hell could she know that fast. I didn't tell her to make the call to her cousin. I still couldn't nail down one reason why I didn't. If I had to stick my hand on a Bible and swear to it, I figure I would just about get away with, 'the voices in my head made me do it'. So I got up to leave the room.

"Okay you can stay, but no leaving your nylons hanging in the bathroom and don't go all whinny on me when I leave the toilet seat up."

She was still laughing when I stood. I was about to ask her if she wanted a drink. Having Roberta Radcliffe dropped into my apartment, and of course into my life, sure was going to get interesting. I could see so many variables in all of this, most of them ending in a train wreck of course, but I put that thought down and allowed my positive attitude on life to beat it to death.

*******

"That reminds me Logan. What were you doing in the woods dressed like a tree the day you shot at and missed a dirty great big bear?" She did that swooning thing that women perfect through their lives, the back of her hand had rested on her forehead by now. "Not that I minded of course, since you saved my life and got us both to this point."

I sat back down, we needed to get some ground rules out there. Most of those rules would be about my job.

The Sanchez case was still months of investigation away from any prosecution. His own links within the government meant that we had to work without their assistance, hence it was taking longer. So I gave my standard reply to my new guest. "That's classified."

That smirk came back with a vengeance. "I see, out there doing top secret stuff."

I blushed.

Her eyes went wide and the smile soon followed. "Oh he blushes, that's so sweet. You do realize of course, that's my own personal lie detector with you."

Feeling that anything I said now would only make things worst, I tried changing tactics.

"Are you always like this?"

Roberta just stretched out the moment by looking down at herself, something about her pulled at my attention just then. I've been reading people all my life, more so with this job, it felt like one of those moments were she turned that question in on herself. Like she was trying hard to find the answer to that very question herself and was almost afraid of the answer.

Her eyes gave her away, even to Roberta, this was truth time, "What, sitting half naked in a man's bed all busted up?" She pulled air into her lungs and let it out in the form of a sigh, as she said. "No I try to be more positive, but images of a bear chasing me keep cropping up in my thoughts and I head towards cold sweats, faster than I can outrun them."

She made a really good point so the words, "Can't say I blame you." were the voice added to my thoughts.

This time it was Bobbie who blushed. Taking a statement she had used on me, I mentally agreed that she looked real cute when she did that, she also looked a tad vulnerable right about now.

I suspect she was trying to move the conversation away from her when she said, "So, what are we going to do to keep each other company?"

The look on her face was priceless. My first instinct was to accept the question for what it was, not the subliminal implications it projected. Either way you looked at it, her body was still broken, she needed rest and her body or rather, her leg needed time to heal.

Mind you, it still didn't stop me thinking I could get the last dig in. It was the devil in me, I swear it was. Somehow she noticed, I can't quite figure out how though.

So I said with as much innocence as I could muster. "Let me guess, you wanna play strip poker?"

She looked down at what she was wearing compared to me, then laughed. I planned on hearing that laugh as much as possible. It wasn't even in the ball park of smutty; her laugh seemed to come from her heart. It pulled at something that was deep inside me, forcing me to bring down my own life's defenses by just listening to it.

All the questions on why she was here and not at her own place seemed irrelevant now. She had made a choice; admittedly it would have been even remotely polite to ask if she could move in first. Confronting her about it let me know her reasons, all valid ones as well, I just wasn't going to admit that to her, not in this lifetime anyway.

I had a weeks leave to use up, keeping Roberta company didn't seem like a difficult way of using up a week's leave. She came down from her laugh and looked at me, something about her made me watch her closely and above all, listen.

"Thank you for letting me stay." Her words came with an honesty about them, so I listened even harder. "I could go back to my folk's home, but the fuss mom would be making would make it hell on wheels until I can get crutches under me and out of the house for some peace. Dad would be all tut-tut, shake his head and look disappointed at me. Like I'm supposed to know what bear lives in what wood around this country."

The silence within my bedroom seemed to be like a punctuation mark in our lives, before some hidden writer out their wrote down the next chapter. As for me, I had resigned myself to my fate. Hell, even all busted up she was easy on the eye, and since she wasn't taking her injuries too badly and taking the 'oh woe is me' attitude, I couldn't see this being too difficult a time together. I figured I still needed to air the conversation that hovered between us.

I stood and headed to the bedroom door. "I'm sleeping on the couch, and before you go all weird and whiney on me, you're not putting me out. The couch is a pull out for when I get ganged up on by Senator's daughters who are so unfit, they can't even outrun a bear."

I was still hearing her laughing over by my kitchen, I did yell out if she wanted a coffee while I was making one. She spouted something about a skinny, half soya latte, something or other. I must admit to shutting down about then. When I came back into the room, I handed her a coffee from a jar, with milk, in a mug. The only question I wanted an answer to after that was if she took sugar. I think we came to an understanding after that, about coffee anyway.

"Is this the way you treat all your house guests?"

Just before her cup reached her lips I said. "Only the semi-naked ones."

She choked back into the mug she now had to her lips and had to put the mug down to wipe her chin, the smile still on her lips. I got the feeling that she was working on her own retribution. We were still talking about the small things in life for the next twenty minutes; it was then that it started to look like she was getting uncomfortable.

Even Roberta couldn't hide the defeat in her eyes. "Um, Logan. You know that comment about getting my own back later?"

I nodded, and then waited as her discomfort became really distracting.

Eventually she kind of stuttered. "Well, you see, I mean."

Amusing as it was, watching her discomfort become real. I did feel it was about now that I should help her out. "I have two options here Bobbie; I can carry you to the bathroom, sit you on it and walk away for a long moment. Or I can go get that bedpan in the bathroom and sit you on it."

She went straight to crimson. Her head lowered and for the first time since she had been here, I strongly suspect that she had come to realize that she hadn't completely thought all the real logistics through.

Bobbie looked down and said something that wasn't even the volume of a whisper. When I asked her to speak up, she looked at me, totally expecting me not to believe her.

Her volume rose, so did the flush of her cheeks. "To get out of the hospital as soon as I did, I had to promise the surgeon and doctors that I wouldn't move around too much with this cast newly on me." She gulped, and then stared directly into my eyes. "Could you get and help me with the bedpan please."

The next ten minutes proved to be, interesting. I think we both came to an understanding that discretion was a waste of man-hours. It was also a time when we set aside our differences and concentrated on the problem in front of us. I held her up over the bed while she slipped the bedpan under herself. I also got to find out that the sum total of clothes on Roberta, was a Garfield t-shirt. The gentleman in me made me head for the door before she asked me where I was going.

"You're going to fill a bedpan; you don't want me hearing that."

"Logan, I've had your hands touching my tits when you helped lift me up, let's face it, I'm sure you've seen what I have when you've undressed other women in your life, so let's not pretend anymore, please."

I put as much effort into my next statement as I could, when I said. "But I'm Gay."

Her face was a picture; she actually looked like she had tears in her eyes. Her lip quivered slightly before her jaw almost dropped onto her lap. Then something clicked in her head and she reached for the pillow next to her, screaming and calling me a bastard as the pillow left her hands and headed in my direction. Catching it was easy enough, but she sure put some effort into throwing it.

"Hey you can't call me that, I'll have you know that I know my parents were married when I was born."

"Fuck you and the camel you wandered in on. It's a good thing I'm still sitting on this bedpan Logan Hesler. I almost shit myself thinking I had made a horrible mistake."

Now grinning, I made one last attempt. "But Roberta, I am Gay."

Its official, Senators daughter's know more swear words than anyone I knew that hung around the docks.

*******

It still took us both a good day and a half to figure things out. When we came to a problem, we discussed it like grown adults, well as grown up as a Senator's daughter/golf pro and an ATF agent can be. Fortunately, she could feed herself, she must have a well-conditioned stomach because she was eating my cooking in the evenings, although she had a rest in the mornings when breakfast came out of a cereal box.

Showers? Well showers we had to call a truce. It was Bobbie's idea. She smirked all the way through her thoughts and reasons why both of us getting naked so she could have a shower rather than a bed bath when Nurse Barns came to visit, were as tenuous as her reason for being here. I must admit, the pervert in me sure had fun putting the plastic cover on her cast.

Being a true gentleman, I refused to look at any part of her above her cast while I put the waterproof cover over it. Yeah right, I'm still a male of the species, like that was going to happen.

Although I did mention before we started, that I thought it best that I had at least a swim suit on. Wow, that blew her up all over the place. Comparing a cover on her cast to protect it against getting wet, and getting my dick seen by an adult woman, and a totally naked one at that, didn't even enter into the world of a level playing field to her.

Yep, this Senator's daughter shaves. I tried but there is no way this was a level playing field. I have my hands all over a naked mid-twenty-year-old, soaping/sponging her down while she holds herself on the stool. Hell, I couldn't be that professional no matter how I tried. I was as hard as steel. The only positive that came from our first venture at me getting her washed was that she never said a word all through that 'ordeal', She sure stared allot, blushed like hell, yet not one word passed her lips.

As I looked at her, thinking a job well done and even she agreed that I had washed all the necessary bits and they were all clean and sparkly. I'm still a guy, she knew I looked, stared and tried so hard to hide the drool. She was one fit young lady. I hadn't seen as hard a body on any female since I left the military. Hell, she could be on a level playing field with some of the female ATF agents that used the company gym.

My one thought that caused my very solid and very painful erection to lose some of its hardness was when I thought. 'If only her father could see us now'.

Garfield seemed to be a theme that ran through her life. Once clean and dried off, another one of her t-shirts adorned her body; Garfield once again stared back at me. 'ain't I cute' asking the question that my thoughts refused to answer. As she held herself up, I pulled that t-shirt down her body and once again, almost went face to face with that bald pussy of hers.

"I'm good for another couple of weeks Logan, then you're going to have to be a real gentleman and shave it all back."

The shock of her statement took me a moment to get around.

"Isn't that what Nurse Barnes is for, things like that?"

The rolling of the eyes thing I was getting used to, it just highlighted how often any of my past girlfriends went bald.

"Logan, I think the only reason Nurse Barnes turns up is to see if she's won the sweepstakes they have at the hospital."

That's when I looked really confused.

This time she sighed. "Logan, remember when Nurse Barns turned up the first morning of you being back here."

I nodded and I think my own mind filled in the blanks; Roberta and I weren't seeing eye to eye on something, the nurse said she could hear us while she was still in the elevator. It seems Nurse Barnes went back to the hospital and started a sweepstakes on who was going to kill who first, and when.

"What about if I paid her twenty to do it?"

Bobbie was still shaking her head when she said that it cost her a heck of a lot more than that when she gets it done at the salon. Now I was stuck with THAT vision in my head. Mind you, it did give me other job options to venture into, when her father finally gets his way and I get tossed out of the ATF.

I took the cowards way out, I put her back into bed and went and made us both a coffee.

The comment that came from the bedroom was. "In case you're interested, I put fifty on us lasting longer than three months."

She must have heard me drop one of the coffee mugs when it shattered on the kitchen floor.

Bobbie's voice carried some concern when she said. "Are you okay out there?"

My head came around the doorway and I looked directly at her.

"If you can afford to spend money on a damn sweepstakes, then you're paying rent, you damn freeloader."

She was still laughing as I made my way back to kitchen to finish making coffee for two. Plus, clean up the mess of the broken cup. I was still trying to figure out if she was joking or not. Three months? Hell three months would have her out of the cast and well into physio-therapy by then. Was Roberta Radcliffe fixing on staying around once she got both her good legs back under her?

*******

It was his eyes that gave him away. Bobbie Radcliffe was quickly understanding Logan, that his work with the ATF was not a topic he would delve into. She understood that, but the rest of him was a book that she enjoyed turning a new page with everyday. She dropped herself into his life, rather unceremoniously, and yet he adapted to her being here very quickly. Once her father found out she had left the hospital and was now, as her father put it, 'shacked up' with that man, he came so close to disowning her.

She asked Logan to sit in on her next conversation with her family. Bobbie's retaliation was swift when she offered to send her cousin over to pack her stuff away and place it all in storage until she could sort out her own apartment. The true force of her mother's nature came to her aid when she told her husband that she would be helping her cousin when she came to pack her belongings, if he continued to meddle in his daughter's life.

At first she wondered if it was infatuation. After all, he got her out of a very bad situation. Not only that, but the surgeon had told her that because of Logan's medical knowledge, she not only got to keep her leg, but would also be back to winning ways within the year.

On one of the visits to the hospital, the surgeon came down to have a chat with her and the physiotherapist. Logan followed his usual routine and went in search of a coffee machine and a newspaper. The surgeon had been talking to her for close to fifteen minutes, no question asked of him was swept under the table. In fact, Bobbie winced a few times at his honesty. Finally he stood and turned towards the door, he paused for a moment, and almost seemed to shrug his shoulders before he once again looked at her.

"I bounced around the house when you putted that last hole and won the title. My wife just watched and then turned shaking her head at me. I plan to embarrass myself in front of my wife once more when you take that same trophy again young lady."

With tears in her eyes Roberta once again thanked the Surgeon. She knew she got to keep it all going in her life. She was, in a way living with the man of her choice. All she had to do now was get his attention without scaring him off, or Logan and her father going head to head. She smiled as her thoughts went further than even she expected. At least until after the wedding anyway.

The journey back to the apartment was always done in silence. The meeting had left Roberta with a great deal to think about. What the surgeon had said to her being one of them. After physiotherapy, she would be back to winning ways. Because of a man who wanted nothing more than to stay in the background after he rescued her, she was able to go back to playing golf, something she loved so much. As each day came to a close, she came to realize just how much she was in one man's debt.

*******

That smile of hers was still on her lips as I came back into the room carrying another coffee for her.

Her smile intensified and said thank you, as I handed her her mug. I've noticed this look from time to time, she was deep in thought and no amount of asking got me a real answer to why she always finished with a smirk at the end of it.

I sat across from her as she looked at me "You know the physio is going to hurt like a bitch don't you?"

The pause in our conversation was only out there because it looked like Bobbie wasn't sure how to answer him, be it with honesty or humor, when that smile came to her, I knew humor won out. Bobbie placed the back of her hand on her forehead, advertising that she was going for the drama queen look.