Liberty or Death by Kate Flora

threatening situations, my mind stayed clear and calm. I didn't get scared, I got mad. But today I couldn't seem to recover my balance.
    For the second time that day, I felt Clyde's warm hand on my back. Just a slight and gentle touch as he asked, in a low voice, "Are you all right?"
    I was tough as nails. I could wrestle barrels full of bears and vanquish boatloads of fierce pirates. I could handle bad guys and bad gals and bad stuff. I turned around to say that I was all right and promptly dissolved in tears. American's wimpiest spy.
    "Jeez, Clyde," Roy whined. "Don't look at me like that. I didn't do anything to her. I barely touched her and look what she did to me." He held out his hands and arms for inspection.
    "Serves you right," Cathy said tartly. "You're old enough to know better. You ought to have learned by now that women don't like men who maul them and paw at them and shove them around. You woulda learned long before this, if your momma and daddy hadn't spoiled you so bad. Right, Clyde?" She linked her arm through Clyde's and smiled up at him. Roy made a snorting sound and muttered something rude about women's libbers.
    Despite my rattled state, I was aware enough to notice that Clyde's tender attitude toward me had piqued Cathy's interest in him. Sexual politics were such a drag, all that flirting and jealousy and crap. Give me Andre Lemieux any day. Most of the time, he just says what's on his mind, no subterfuge, no game playing, no making me work for information. Give me Andre Lemieux. Please. God. Give me back Andre Lemieux. The man who is proud of me and loves me for being who I am, but doesn't hesitate to tell me to put a sock in it.
    Two whole days pouring pie down hundreds of greedy gullets and I hadn't learned a damned thing. No wonder I felt like crying.
    "You ready to go?" Clyde asked.
    I nodded. "Unless you want to stay longer... I don't want to spoil your afternoon... I could walk back. It's not that far."
    "Oh, we've got to be getting back anyway," Cathy said, looked pointedly at her watch. "Getting close to opening time again. We were lucky to get away at all. Summertime." She rolled her eyes. "Folks who live here are too busy to enjoy it."
    I bent down and picked up my shorts, uncomfortably aware that Clyde and Roy Belcher were both watching my breasts as I bent. I pulled the shorts on, fastened them quickly, and pulled the T-shirt over my head. Depressed. Disappointed. Most of the restorative work of the swim had been undone again, though why I should expect to feel good about anything when the whole world sucked, I couldn't explain. In the truck on the way back, I wasn't thinking of the summers of my youth. I was thinking about dark, musty underground bunkers. The only way to get through the days was to keep believing he was alive.
    I watched Clyde's hands on the wheel and thought about Andre. Andre had strong, capable hands with long, blunt-tipped fingers. Hands that could be so gentle, so erotic, so soothing. If I closed my eyes, I could see his hands a dozen different ways. Carefully, lovingly sanding the cradle he was making. Wrapped around weights. Curling in anger and frustration. Smoothing back the hair that's always straggling into my face. Straightening my arm and putting it through the motions so I'd stop throwing like a girl. I could see him doing that with his daughter. Pain at remembering spread through me. Sorrow closed my throat. I stared out the window so they couldn't see my face.
    As I was getting out of the truck, Cathy put a hand on my arm. "Hold on a sec," she said. I held on, wondering what was coming. "About Roy Belcher. You don't seem interested, but just in case you're one of those girls who find outlaws attractive—don't. Roy's bad news. Most people think he's just a dumb-acting good-old-boy. He's not. He can act nice when he wants, but cross him and you'll see. He's got a mean streak goes right straight through him."
    I barely had time to change and stuff my hair