To the Wild Country

Chapter Six.

Bill hung out with Rabbit and Airhead at the coffeehouse for the remainder of the morning, and a good part into the afternoon too, before Pam returned in the Jeep.

"That lady a friend of yours then, Robinson?" Airhead asked.

"Yeah, she rented a Jeep in Portland, knowing we'd be coming into rugged territory upriver here. She's from Seattle too."

"I meant to ask you earlier, what part of Seattle you from?" Rabbit asked, almost as if he were testing Bill.

Bill thought of the first neighborhood he remembered when he was in Seattle on a case with Carlisle a few years before: "Capitol Hill."

"Ah," Rabbit said knowingly, winking at Bill.

Huh? Bill wondered, but didn't say anything; he only replied with a smile.

Pam came in and saw the three men at the corner table.

"Hey, Robinson!" she said, looking curiously at the other two men.

"Hey, Pam. This is Rabbit and Airhead, we've been going over stuff about the land deal. Protest rally planned tomorrow."

"Cool," Pam said, smiling at the two men.

"Are you from Capitol Hill, too, Pam?" Rabbit asked. "Robinson said you two were, uh, FRIENDS!"

"Friends, huh?" Without warning, and out of the blue, Pam grabbed Bill, both of her hands behind his ears, and drew him into a long, deep kiss.

When Bill responded ardently, pulling her close, Rabbit shrugged and smirked at Airhead.

Pam pulled back, and tousled Bill's hair once more. "Friends, my ass, Robinson, what're you doing? Pretending I'm not your girlfriend?"

Bill was close to fainting, so overwhelmed by the kiss and Pam's subsequent teasing and joshing around. "Hey, what can I say?"

Before it got any more out of hand, Pam took Bill's big hand in her own and began dragging him to the exit. "Nice meeting you guys! We'll talk, tomorrow morning okay? Same place?"

"Same bat time, same bat channel!" Rabbit said, laughing as the two waved their final goodbyes for the afternoon.

Bill staggered behind Pam as she led him to the Jeep, and she practically slammed him up against the vehicle. Knowing the two guys in the coffeehouse were probably still watching, she leaned in close, as if snuggling to him, and whispered to him.

"Bill, do you know WHY I did that?"

He smiled raffishly down at her, "'Cause you want me and you know it?"

She laughed, "No, dummy! Do you know about Capitol Hill in Seattle?"

"I know it's real close to downtown, yeah."

"Bill, it's the GAY NEIGHBORHOOD in Seattle! When you told them that's where you're from, they thought you were GAY!"

"Holy CRAP!" Bill whispered, again almost fainting, this time with relief.

"I couldn't say anything, 'cause it would've been too obvious, so I had no choice but to kiss you and make that little scene. I figured you wouldn't mind, after all, to keep those two from thinking you're gay."

"God, Counselor, I don't know how to thank you!"

She ran her thumb over the mouth she'd recently kissed so passionately, wiping the residual of her lipgloss off it. "I'll, um... I'll think of something, Kell."

She stood straight and spied the payphone on the corner of the block. "How 'bout you drive back; I'm going to try Ralph again."

"All righty, I'll be here."

She repeated the call she did earlier that morning, with the same reply: Mr. Hinkley's not in, would you like to leave a message? She again chose not to, not having a regular phone to use. "I'll try again later this evening, when he's had a chance to return. Thank you."

"Well?" Bill asked as she returned to their Jeep.

"Nope, not in. He's keeping pretty busy it sounds like. I'm tempted to try tonight, at about 1:30 in the morning, to be sure I'll reach him."

"Aw, Counselor, don't worry your head about him. You and I, we'll, um... we'll be good boys and girls, okay?"

Pam touched her own mouth, remembering how kissing Bill so passionately had felt. If anything, it made her want him more, that expressive, soft mouth, those deep brown eyes... she wasn't going to go there. She HAD to talk to Ralph, and soon!

"Bill, what, uh... what do you want to do now?"

"Let's go grab something to eat, I'm starved! I've been nibbling on snacks all day in there, sucking down WAY too much caffeine too! I'm so jittery right now, I feel like I'm going to jump outta my skin!"

"You want to get some beer and burgers, and head back to the campsite? Beer should calm you down from the caffeine, and we won't have to drive anywhere later."

"Yeah, sounds like a scenario!"

The sun was nearing the hills when they arrived back at their campsite. All was in order, no vandals or thieves had ransacked the place. Bill got everything situated as before, rearranging the more valuable gear they'd kept in the safety of the Jeep.

"Here, it's a nice night, you want a fire any way? Feels about 80 still!"

"Of course, Kell, campouts always need fire! You get that, and I'll get the burgers, fries and beer set out. We'll have a starlight picnic."

Bill and Pam, each armed with a six-pack apiece, settled onto the log they'd shared the night before, in front of their tents. They laughed together at one another's dirty jokes, jostling each other more and more roughly and playfully as the beer began to hit their brains.

Pam got up to throw more wood on the fire, standing opposite the flame from where Bill was. He looked up at her, smiling and not hiding the fact, for a change, that he was admiring her. The red glow of the fire danced off her curves, enhancing the effect of her beautiful figure. The snug khaki shorts and black tanktop, combined with her smoothe skin, grey eyes and brunette hair, mesmerized him. The fire's light reflected as two sharp diamonds in her eyes, and twinkled when she smiled sweetly at him.

"What?" she asked.

"You, that's what." Bill shook himself, breaking out of the gaze he'd locked himself into. "Sorry, Davidson, shouldn't gawk at ya like that. It's the beer."

"You know, maybe 'long as the beer is flowing, you and I should talk."

"Maybe you're right, Counselor."

"Yes, keep calling me that."

"Not Pam, then? Not Scotty?"

"Bill, I don't KNOW!" She sat down roughly beside him, almost toppling over the back of the log. He pressed his hand on her bare thigh to balance her, and once she sat up straight, he left his hand where it was.

"Bill, what's HAPPENING between us? I can't believe this!"

Bill didn't answer at first; all he could register in his beer-soaked brain was that his hand was resting on this tanned, muscular and female thigh, and the owner of said thigh wasn't in too much of a hurry to remove it.

Pam's befuddled brain was trying to work out a multitude of feelings and impressions. She wasn't unaware that Bill's hand was resting on her thigh; part of her was reveling in the sensation, while another part felt obliged to fling his hand off of her. As a result, she was too overwhelmed to react either way. She had to think, she had to resolve all these feelings into a cognizant conversation. The beer certainly wasn't helping, as she thought it would.

"I... I don't know what I'm feeling, Bill. Yes, Ralph's my boyfriend, and we have fun together, but then he introduces me as his FRIEND to that Kathryn creature and his coworkers. But then again, I can't really bitch about that; I've done the same with him, told people he's my FRIEND, not my BOYfriend! Maybe he and I aren't as together as I thought we were. He made it clear he didn't want me to go to Vegas with him, where he's been so busy he doesn't seem to ever go back to his room. Now you and I are here together, alone, in the woods, and we're working together on a CASE, something of our own, no Ralph, no suit needed. WE'RE a team, Bill, you and me, in this, and I'm having a blast!"

She knew she was blathering, but for some reason couldn't stop. It was like she was free-flowing now, the beer relaxing her enough to remove any barriers she'd consciously erected soon after she'd become aware of this physical attraction she was feeling for her friend Bill Maxwell.

Bill gazed into the fire, hand still resting on thigh, barely listening to Pam's ramblings.

Neither spoke for a few minutes after Pam's dissertation wound down.

Bill finally broke the silence. "So, Davidson, you going to let me leave my hand on this thigh all night, or do something about it?"

"I don't mind it being there, Robinson."

"Again with the Robinson," Bill said, turning to look at her.

Pam stared at him, not saying a word. Bill didn't fidget as he would have if he'd been totally sober; in his current relaxed limbo, not really drunk but not really sober either, he just relaxed and let her gaze at him.

"Bill, it's really weird, but you DO look a LOT like him," Pam couldn't help pointing out.

"Yeah, I've had people tell me that, especially when the show was out in the mid-Sixties," he said, chuckling as he remembered people's comments. "I'd tell 'em, No, I'm in the FBI, I'm not a spy! Harlan thought it was funny as hell."

"I was only 10, 11 and 12 when that was out. Old enough to crush on some characters though, and he was the biggie. I can't believe I never noticed before how you resemble him. I'd play spy with my neighborhood friends after each week's episode, combining it with cops and robbers." She laughed, remembering the twilight games they'd play till the parents would call them all in. "I don't know what it's like from a pre-teen boy's point of view, but girls that age, well, are already fantasizing about stuff. Kelly was a big part of that, and this morning when you were talking to me, through my tent, it was coming through in my dream. You even SOUND like him, Bill!"

Bill shrugged. How could he reply to that, after all? He'd heard it all before. Then something began to seep through to his brain, something he was just now realizing: Wait a minute, I resemble this fantasy character of hers, that she's had since she was a pre-teen? He personally never saw the resemblance people claimed he had to this spy character, but he didn't mind the attention. After all, at the time, all the dames were going ga-ga over this tennis bum/spy, weren't they? If they wanted to say he looked like him, who was he to argue?

Without conscious thought, Bill's hand began to move along Pam's thigh, toward her knee; it paused there and returned to its previous position. He made the grand effort not to let it wander any further up: he told himself, There and no further. Or back to the knee. So he stroked it back to her knee, and continued the back and forth motion, reveling in the feel of the warm smoothe skin and strong muscles underneath.

"You play tennis yourself, don't you, Pam?" he asked quietly, watching his hand move back and forth. He'd pause at the "top," and give a little squeeze, then return back to the knee.

"Hmmm mmmm, how'd you tell?" she asked, watching his hand too as he turned a simple rub into a massage.

"Your thigh, it's so...." he couldn't continue, he was too enraptured by the motion of his hand over that tight tanned skin. Bill stood, a bit more steady on his feet than Pam had been earlier, and moved behind her, kneeling down so his head and shoulders were about even with hers. He put his big hands on her shoulders, and leaned forward, whispering, "How would you like a real massage?"

"Yes, Kell," she sighed, leaning her head back.

Picking up on her game, Bill continued talking to Pam from behind, letting her enjoy the illusion that it was her fantasy Kelly she was hearing and feeling, not Bill Maxwell.

Remembering the show, probably better than Pam herself, he started bringing up storylines he recalled, cities the two characters had gone to, adventures they'd been in. After an hour of this, interspersing breaks in the massage with beer, Bill finally had to get up and move.

"Ooh, Pam, I'm all stiff from leaning over you like that, on my knees! I think I need to find the latrine, any way."

Pam couldn't speak, and could barely move. She practically fell over backward off the log, toward her tent. While Bill was gone, she crept into the tent and crawled into her sleeping bag. Her semi-conscious state, from exhaustion and beer both, allowed her to dream of her spy, her tennis bum, the feel of his mouth so close to her ear as she thought it had been, the soothing-yet-rough voice hypnotizing her to relaxation.

Oh, he'd been so very very close. Had it been a dream? Reality? She remembered his hands on her, his strong slender fingers massaging the tightness out of her neck and shoulder muscles, the thumbs digging into her back, removing any remaining tension. In this altered state, she was having a hard time separating fantasy from reality. All she knew was that the warmth of Kelly's breath, the sound of his voice, had been there.

"Pam?" she heard Kelly say. "Are you all right, sweetheart?"

"Hmmm mmm, Kell, I'm fine!" she moaned, smiling. Within seconds, knowing her dream lover was nearby, she slipped completely into sleep.

Bill pulled the tent flap back, moving so the firelight shone in, to be sure Pam was truly okay. When he saw the soft, secret smile on her lovely face, he smiled in response. She was really digging that, he thought with pride. I may not be able to really touch her, but I can let her live the illusion.

He took the liberty of crawling into the tent with her, and he lay alongside her, his head propped up on his hand. He watched her sleep for a few moments, the soft glow of the fire reflecting off her wavy brunette hair. He leaned forward, almost touching his nose to that hair, and breathed in her fragrance. His motion must have seeped into her dream, because she turned to him and sighed, the smile never leaving her lips.

He gasped as she moved to face him, holding his breath, not wishing to break this moment. Her mouth, the same mouth that had kissed him so passionately earlier that day, was mere inches away. How easily it would be to simply lean forward and touch those lips again, but Bill knew he could not and would not take such liberties with his friend.

He could touch her in other ways, however, and he softly ran fingertips through that thick hair, brushing it back from her face. She stirred and even opened her eyes for a moment, catching his gaze, but Bill got the impression she wasn't truly awake. She's probably seeing Robinson, he thought reasonably. And he was right. In her dream, she was lying beside the handsome young spy, who posed as a tennis star in his travels around the globe. She saw the smirk on his lips, the cute little gap in his teeth, the beautiful brown eyes staring down at her adoringly.

"Hmmmm, Kelly?" she mumbled.

"Shhhh, I was just checking on you, Pam, to be sure you were okay."

"Hmmm, I'm okay."

Bill leaned forward one more time, planting a soft gentle kiss on Pam's forehead. "I'll let you sleep then, darlin'. Sweet dreams."

As Bill carefully crawled to the tent entrance, Pam mumbled once more, "They sure are."