“My pathetic lack of a sex life isn’t the pressing issue right now,” Flora said impatiently. “You could be in real danger.”
“I live in Darwin, I travel through the Badlands for a living, and I’ve got a hair-trigger temper. I’m always in real danger. I’m more interested in your sex life. You guys just got mated. What went wrong?”
“We’re not really mated. He just said we were to keep the bears from Ruben’s territory from kidnapping me. They came to the club and said that I’d trespassed on their property and tried to take me with them. So he stood up and claimed me in front of everyone. He doesn’t want me as his mate.”
“Really?” Krystle looked at her skeptically. “Jose said that Finn is crazy about you.”
“He turned me down for sex,” Flora blurted out. “Because I’m a virgin.” Then she clapped her hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe I just said that,” she moaned. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Not like I’m surprised,” Krystle said. “That you’re still a virgin, I mean.”
“Hey!” Flora crumpled up a napkin and threw it at her. “Ouch. Thanks a lot.”
“It’s not an insult, you just always struck me as a ‘holding out for the right guy’ kind of person.”
“Speaking of the right guy, what’s up with you and Jose?”
Krystle bit her lip and looked away. “I don’t know. We’ve been seeing each other for a few months, it started out casual, and now I’m not sure what he wants. No, I haven’t asked. I’m not great at dealing with relationships.”
“So you’d rather meddle in mine?”
“Absolutely,” Krystle said. “So here’s the deal with Finn. I don’t know much about his past, but I get the impression that when he was overseas in the military, he went through some stuff. Bad stuff.”
Flora sighed. “It’s just that he’s not even talking to me about what’s wrong. I feel like there’s this wall up between us. One minute he acts like he’s attracted to me, the next minute he’s barely speaking to me. And he didn’t want to…you know.”
“Screw?”
“Krystle,” Flora said, scandalized.
Krystle frowned in thought. “Okay, I’ve seen Finn go through a lot of women, and never the same woman twice,” she said.
“Not helping.”
“Hold on, I’m getting there. He never spent any time with those women – they just came and went. If you get my meaning. If he’s moving more slowly with you, it’s probably because he cares enough that he doesn’t want to rush it. Or you.”
“Am I being unreasonable?” Flora asked. “Am I just being a horrible…”
“Bitch?” Krystle suggested helpfully. “No, you aren’t capable of being a horrible bitch, even on your worst days. You need a little more bitch in you, frankly. But even in the few minutes I saw you two together just now, I can tell he’s crazy for you. I’ve never seen Finn look at anyone like that.”
Flora felt the knot inside her uncoil a little bit. She wanted to believe that Finn cared for her as much as she cared for him. “So what should I do?”
“Be a little patient,” Krystle advised her. “Finn’s worth it. Now tell me how you found me, and what brought you to the Badlands. You should have sent a message to me – I would have come to meet you at the border.”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have time,” Flora said. “I was on the run. I called up your great aunt because I knew you stayed with her family sometimes in between foster homes, and she told me that they disowned you because you had gone to the Badlands and were working in, to quote her directly, a ‘pervert bar’.”
“I’m disowned?” Krystle exclaimed with delight. “Wow, the people who never gave a damn about me still don’t? I’m so excited!”
“You won’t be as excited when you hear what we’re up against.”
Flora quickly filled Krystle in on what had happened after Krystle had left: the scientists coming to her family’s house to do the blood tests, and then her being sent off to live with the Wilkinsons. Their attempts to push her into marrying Loren Haig. And then what she’d overheard between Loren and the man from TerraDyne.
“Did your family even try to stay in touch with you after you left?”
“For a couple of years I’d get cards at Christmas, and then even that stopped,” Flora said. “When I was nineteen years old, I ran away from the Wilkinsons’ farm and headed back to my family’s house. Only they weren’t living in a mobile home anymore – they were living in a huge McMansion and there were half a dozen fancy cars in the roundabout out front. I thought, oh, thank God, somehow they got money and now I can come home. But they looked totally horrified to see me. They told me I couldn’t stay, and they called up the Wilkinsons right away. The Wilkinsons came and got me, and that was when they really started stepping up their campaign to get me to marry that Loren guy.”