Desperate. The situation was desperate. How melodramatic. In all her movies she had looked on with a clear eye; she had avoided overwrought emotions. In all her movies but one. Don’t think about that. Don’t think of that now. Tess pushed open the door and stepped into the blizzard.

Desperate. As she forced her way toward the shed, the word beat inside her head, a counterpoint to the pounding of the icy shards blown against her face. It was not too strong a word. I'm desperate here, exhausted, at the end of my tether. She fought her way along, blinking against the wind. Now she had ahold of the axe, long and heavy. An axe, a cliché from a bad horror movie, not a prop she would use. Heavy and too long, unwieldy. But the situation was dire. The electricity was out. There was no gas or coal or even peat. All the chopped wood was gone, and now she would have to spit the long logs that were piled outside beside the shed. What did a director woman from L.A. know about chopping logs? Damn, even growing up in a little town in Washington state, she'd never chopped logs. Images of blood spurting across the snow--blood from the wood, blood from a misplaced foot--flooded her mind. Get a grip, she told herself. What has to be done, you will do. But, yes, be careful.

She pried a six foot log from the congealed pile and swung the axe overhead and down. A small piece broke off the log. Help. If only help would come. Tess swung the weight of the axe against the numbness of her limbs, trying desperately to hit the same mark twice, to cleave the log in two. Her feet were like stumps of ice. She didn't have boots. Sturdy leather brogues, but no boots. He had boots. He always had on those stupid boots. If only he would come. She hefted the axe again. Damn, he'd worn those boots even in the swelter of summer. She swung into the warm, light-brown heart of the pine. It was warm and brown where the axe cleaved it open, before the snow covered the heart wood. Warm, brown thoughts of him.

She swung the heavy tool over her head and sweat sprang out beneath her clothes. Hectic, ardent thoughts of him. The Santa Anna had been blowing when they met. No cool breeze over the mountains. What a joke, his name. Coolness. Not with her. With her he had been all excitability, heat, and fire. He'd always been so cooperative with directors. Not with her. And when it came down to it, she could not remember a single important thing that they had disagreed about. They called his acting wooden? Not in her movie. Any wood involved would have been devoured in the whirlwind of his tempestuous fire. He'd been great. She made better progress now cutting the wood.

Normally she would suppress the memories. That's why she was here, experiencing these desperate hours. Running away. Not that he would have chased her. Not that there was any hope he would actually come after her. But she had run away nevertheless--to Ireland. To meet her past. To meet her mother's aunt, the woman who had raised her mother in this desolate place. Far-flung it was supposed to be, but not cut off from everything, not, as it was now, covered by the rarest of blizzards. What had happened to that current that came up from the South Atlantic? What was the name of that current? Damn, she swung off mark. Damn, he would know the name of that current that was supposed to keep this place warm. She swung on target again and dragged another log into place for chopping. He was well read. His lambent wit played over every subject, illuminating each new topic. Her intellectual match entirely. Match--yeah, he was like a match to her dry tinder. With them, sparks flew.

Damn, she wouldn't think of that. What was the name of that current that was supposed to suffuse warmth across these islands? She couldn’t remember; instead she remembered that night. That one wonderful night when they had talked. Tess had lain in her trailer with lukewarm puffs of air from the overburdened window unit playing over her body. Lightly clad in a short, thin-strapped nightgown. He'd come knocking on the door. She'd peeked out the window and seen him, script in one hand, running his other hand though his short hair in a gesture of exasperation. He'd looked ready to explode. She'd flung open the door, heedless of wearing only the short, sage-green satin gown, heedless of the mess of her long, light brown hair, hanging loose as she almost never let it. "What now?" she challenged. His eyes took her in and then fixed down on her bare feet. "Sorry," he mumbled, "I didn't mean to wake you. This can wait." He'd turned to flee; she couldn't let him. "I wasn't asleep. Come in, why don't you?"

Tess started clearing the piled up snow from the rusted red wheelbarrow that leaned against the shed. They had sat together and talked that night, she pulling on a big T-shirt and hiding her legs under herself, sitting on the couch. He starting out in the opposite corner of the same short couch. She remembered how big his feet were in the old battered brown boots. How his long legs had sprawled. How he had begun to take up more space as he relaxed. How they had moved imperceptibly closer as the minutes passed, as they talked, really talked. Gone for once was the chafing irritability that had so often blazed into fireworks between them. Gone was the ice dam she had erected to keep from getting singed. The memories of that one evening were warm balm in her mind. Damn, if only he were here. Damn, why did she focus on him?  Probably soon the blizzard would stop and the snow would melt in the lanes, and some hearty sheep farmer would come to rescue them. She tossed a mangled piece of wood into the wheelbarrow.

They hadn't talked about the film that night. They had not talked about her directing or his acting in the film. Instead, he had told her things about himself. Odd, the things he'd told her. How he felt when he was alone. About things he liked to eat--marshmallows, fresh baked bread. Poems he loved. He had recited from Shelley's To a Skylark: "Profuse strains of unpremeditated art." "Unpremeditated art," he'd said, "if only, if only." He had spoken apologetically, as if his tastes were not worthy, his thoughts not deep enough. Tears had stood in her eyes and she'd told him not to apologize, never to apologize.

He'd talked to her as if he needed her to know. She had wanted to reciprocate. She'd shared some details about herself--her favorite color, reminiscences about her home town, what she liked to read. But what she'd told him had been inconsequential. She had been afraid. More fascinated by him than ever, but still afraid.

He--he'd told her important things--things about the way his mind worked, about his passion for acting, about how beautiful a sunset or a yellow rose could be, or a jazz riff. His words had poured over her like honey, like warm oil. She remembered even now what she had thought, of thinking of that phrase from the Bible, "The Word made flesh." Blasphemous? Maybe, but his voice embodied the person to her, embodied Keanu, a blithe and melancholy spirit. It was a revelation to her: she loved his voice. That voice that she had directed, in her movie, beyond the brink of cries and whispers. In her movie where he was playing a madman. That night she had looked into Keanu's clear eyes and seen such essential sanity there. Damn, but he was doing a great job of acting in this film because she had sometimes feared that he was running mad.

Looking in his eyes, as they had talked, some little detail had eluded her--the name of a place she had visited. He used his hands as he spoke. He took her hand and held it. "When you can't remember," he said, "for me, I, well, I kind of put my mind over there." He used their entwined hands to make the point, gesturing above and beyond their heads, that were bent close together. "You focus over there and kind of just let it
well up." He had let go of her hand. "I can't explain it right." "No!" she had said. "You explain it perfectly."

She threw another of the split logs into the wheelbarrow. The thud reminded her of the knock that had come to her door that night. Of how Keanu had quickly left as she dealt with some crisis with the set design. Keanu had kissed her lightly on the cheek and just left. What had gone wrong after that? She'd never really understood. Despite the tiredness in her limbs she threw the next piece of wood beyond the rim of the barrow. Damn.

She cleared the pathway to the door with the old coal shovel. She had kept the snow at bay and kept the forty-foot passage open at great cost. Somehow it was like a war to her. She now understood phrases like, "taking ground at great cost" and "keeping the enemy at bay." The relentlessly falling snow was her enemy. The leaden sky was her enemy. The crazy wind was her enemy. It had howled steadily for days, but now it actually seemed to snarl. It took on some new depth of sound, ominous and low. Again she was reminded of war movies. Of engines of destruction swooping out of the sky. Of choppers--choppers! Damn--a helicopter. Here? For them? Praise be, she hoped it was so.

Outward from the farmhouse kitchen, a rolling untreed field swept down to the frozen brook. The brook in the del, her aunt called it. The great gray machine came closer and landed on a high place where the wind had wiped away some depths of snowfall. She stood in her tracks. Hope making her giddy. Relief making her dizzy. As the rotors slowed, a tall figure in black jumped out. As he came down the slight slope before the final rise to the house, he was engulfed in a wave of snow. He struggled free and came ever onward toward the house. Meanwhile Tess made her way to the kitchen door, waiting, waiting, looking. Feeling a tingling beneath the numbness in her legs, hoping that she had not fallen face down in the snow. Hoping that she was not now sleeping in the snow, dreaming her last earthly dreams. Because surely it was Keanu she'd seen. And surely that must be a dream.

And then he was there and he was taking her into his arms and she was holding on to him for dear life. And her stocking-capped head was against his parka-clad chest and she felt a wave of warmth envelop her. A wave no thermometer could have measured. She looked up into his bearded face and saw he too had on one of his own oft-worn stocking caps. "What the hell took you so long?" she said.

"Ah . . . sorry," he said. "Can we please get in out of this hyperborean wind?"

Just like him, damn him, to make her smile with some abstruse allusion. Once the door was opened, the wind flung them into the little pantry that adjoined the kitchen. He reached back to pull the door closed. "Insulted, I guess." He grinned at her.

She looked up at him in puzzlement. His heart ached to see how tired she was, the large dark patches round her eyes. He could see even her mind was numbed with cold. She blinked a bit just standing there, all purpose temporarily gone from her small frame. "Oh, you mean the wind was insulted?" she said flatly.

"Here." He sat her down in a chair. "What the hell were you doing outside? You could die out there. You know?"

There it was again, she thought, that heat that flared between them. That hot temper that she seemed to bring out in this normally cool-headed guy. But right now it was a welcome blaze, and a smile played round her tired lips, and she reached her hands out to that warmth. He took her hands and pulled off her work gloves and rubbed her cold hands between his big warm ones. "I was getting wood. Thank God we have a wood burning stove in here. We've been living in the kitchen since the electricity went out three days ago. The heating was electric. There was no peat laid by. And the phones are dead. The village is only five miles away, but it might as well be on the far side of the moon in this weather."

She stopped and looked at him. He seemed content to just chafe her hands and listen. She drew a breath and continued, "Aunt is okay, but she is nearly 80. And Maudie--she's my aunt's companion--fell down the steps and I think she broke her ankle. And I had to shut off the water." She wrinkled up her nose. "Privies, chamber pots--how the hell did they ever live without indoor running water?"

"That was smart of you, not to let the pipes burst."

She looked at him forlornly. She was winding down. "And oh yes," she added, "we are running out of food."

Keanu looked into the kitchen. It was a big, but not enormous room. The table was pushed over to one side to make space for extra furniture. An overstuffed couch was drawn up near the old cast-iron stove. Under a coverlet was a large lump on its side with white hair peeping out. A brocaded chaise lounge was at the other side of the stove. In it a thin woman, with iron-gray hair, dozed fitfully. The thin woman's foot was elevated on a pillow and a hot, or perhaps cold, water bottle was at her ankle. "A fine mess you've gotten us into," said Keanu gently.

Tess recognized the imitation of Hardy from Laurel and Hardy. "The better for you to play the rescuer." She smiled and started to cry.

"Hey, hush. Hush. You've been real brave." He stroked her hand. "What are you doing out here in the wilds of Mayo anyway? Why didn't you stay in Galway?"

"This is the place my mother grew up, here with my aunt and my uncle. Aunt Rose wanted to see the place again, and I had never seen it. My mother wanted to come back, but she never got to." She paused, looking up and out at nothing in particular. "Anyway, we came. And then comes the worst snow in over a century." He still held her hand, crouching beside where she sat on the ladder-backed kitchen chair. He reached up and removed her stocking cap, filtering his long fingers through her hair as it fell around her in disarray.

"I better go wake them, don't you think?" he whispered. "It's getting late and the pilot is out there clearing a pathway. He wants to get out of here as soon as possible."

"I bet you had to pay him a fortune to fly in this weather."

"Yeah. Well, you know, he's after being a fine Irish fellow and more than up for a bit of risky business, and happy, too, I'd say, to get his hands on a clutch of Yankee dollars." Keanu put on a terrible Irish accent.

Tess laughed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Just then the door opened and himself came in. "We better be movin'," he said, "if you're wanting to get out today. The sun will be setting. And there's still more path to be cleared." He surveyed the area. "Oh no. One too many's come to the party, isn't it?" The pilot shook his head in despondency. "Well now, I can only ferry three to Galway."

"It's okay. I'll can stay till tomorrow," said Keanu.

"Me too," said Tess without missing a beat.

Keanu looked at her seriously, silently, directly, for what seemed like a very, very long time. "Okay" he said. That was something else she loved about him. When he decided to give in, he did it with no frills or bluster. "We brought some extra food," he added.

By this time, Maudie had awakened and was making tittering noises and little sniffles. "Praise be, praise be, we are saved," she said in her high-pitched, piping voice. This woke up Great-Aunt Rose.

"What is happening here?" said Rose, as Tess sprang up to help her get to a sitting position from where she lay on the couch. "Bring my hairbrush, Tess. My shoes." Tess scrambled to comply. No one spoke or looked as Tess put her aunt's shoes on her feet and then brushed her hair. Finally Rose spoke, "So, gentleman, you are here to rescue us?"

Tess interrupted any replies. "Aunt Rose, Maude, I'd like you to meet Keanu Reeves, and the pilot--"

"Morgan Sullivan, ma'am, out of Shannon Airport."

Morgan just tiped his head in greeting. But Keanu came forward. "Nice to meet you, ma'am." He shook Maude's hand. And then Aunt Rose's, "Ma'am," he ducked his head politely.

Aunt Rose held on to Keanu's hand and gave him a close scrutiny. "Well, Tess, he has nice manners. And he came to get you in the snow." Aunt Rose gave Tess her assessment exactly as if Keanu were not there in the same room. "He might look presentable enough without the beard. I like the look about the mouth. And he seems to be built well enough." She examined Keanu with narrowed eyes as he stood up straighter. "Perhaps he'll do."

"Do what, ma'am?" said Keanu with a sparkle and a straight face.

"Take this mooning, moping child off my hands, of course," said Rose.

Maudie made a little squeak in her throat. And gave Aunt Rose a look of eminent disapproval.

"Even though she is in my employ, this old harpy thinks she can control me," said Rose to Keanu, "just because we've been together more years than I care to remember."

Keanu just stood there grinning, catching the pilot's eye, who grinned back and looked over the bedraggled Tess from head to foot as if trying to see what the attraction could be. Keanu noticed and eyed her too. Tess felt warmer than she had in days as a wildfire blush swept over her face and body.

But Tess was not a director for nothing. "You better get ready aunt. Shall I help you to the rest room?" That did it. Aunt Rose got up and made her slow way on her own, thank you very much. The men went out to bring in the food and Keanu's bag, and to finish clearing a better pathway to the helicopter.

"Did I tell you, Niece, that I was glad you came?" said Aunt Rose as she looked around her bedroom one last time to gather her essential belongings. "You are family. My only family now. I wanted you to see this place where your mother grew up. She was my joy, you know. My only joy after my Trevor died." Rose calmly placed a few things in her big purse. "I don't think I will see this place again."

Tess looked up, surprised. Aunt Rose was so undemonstrative. They had been here three weeks. They had been companionable enough. And from time to time her aunt had spoken of Tess' mother. Once her aunt had walked a little way out beyond the front door. The old woman had stopped before a bare-branched willow. "Just here she played. In the summer. Her dolls were fairies in the grass." And one morning early, Tess had wakened, startled. Aunt Rose had come into the room where Tess slept. She stood at the window. "This room was your mother's." The old woman had pushed the lace curtain aside, a slight tremor in her hand. "She loved the view from here, down to the brook flowing in the del." This, but nothing else, had passed.

Now Tess looked at her aunt again as she calmly prepared to leave the house and board a helicopter. "I didn't think they would all go before me," said Rose, carefully pulling on her knit gloves.

"Oh, Aunt," Tess came up to hug her warmly, will she, nill she.

Surprisingly, Aunt Rose returned the hug firmly. "Well, now I'm ready to leave," she said, looking around at the room one last time.

Keanu and Morgan carried Maudie out the door. Rose insisted that she could make her way by herself. Tess donned her hat and gloves and went along supporting the old woman over the snow. "This was a bad idea, Aunt," said Tess as they came upon a place where snow had already drifted across the cleared path. "You should have waited for the men to come back and help you." But the indomitable old woman kept her footing and made it through. "I will see you tomorrow or the next day in Galway, Niece. And I like your man. He has a strong will, like you. You need that." She offered her powdered cheek for a kiss and managed to climb aboard.

- - - - -

Tess and Keanu trudged away from the copter, far enough away so that the rotors didn't blast snow into their faces. They watched the chopper for the short time that they could still distinguish it from the metallic sky. Then they struggled back toward the house against the unrelenting storm. Even though Keanu walked right next to her all the way, touching her elbow, letting her lean for balance on him, Tess felt shyness envelop her. She turned aside to the old privy. He waited for her, head bent against the flying snow. In turn, she waited for him, too tired to even care about the cold anymore. She was so, so tired. But she also felt that now she hadn't a worry in the world. But she was so tired.

They made it to the house and inside the kitchen. Keanu didn't take off his outer clothes. He threw the last of the wood that was inside onto the fire. "I need to go bring in more wood," he said.

Tess nodded her head. "She believes she won't ever come back again."

Keanu came to Tess and took her hand. He led her to the pallet where she had slept the last three nights. He sat her down and took off her wet leather shoes and socks. My God, she'd been working in the snow with only those low shoes. He massaged her feet to some stirrings of warmth. He pulled dry socks of his own out of his duffle bag and put them on her feet. He cut a piece from the loaf of brown bread he'd brought and spread it lavishly with butter. He watched her eat and made her drink some grape juice. Then he laid her down and tucked her under the covers. "Rest," he said. She turned on her side facing him as he kneeled there. He stroked her tangled hair.

"What's the name of that current that's supposed to keep the British Isles warm?" she asked.

"What?" Always, she surprised him.

"Oh, you must know," she said with faint irritation.

Keanu took in a deep breath. He looked away as if he was moving all other thoughts aside, moving aside his feeling of utter relief at being here with her and seeing she was all right. He put his consciousness aside and the name welled up, "The Gulf Stream?"

"Yes," she sighed deeply as if in completion. "I knew you would be able to remember." Her eyelids closed and she slept.

A severe wind whipped Keanu down the barely discernible track to the shed. He shook his head as he'd remembered shaking it so often that summer he'd worked with Tess. That hot, torrid time with her. He didn't understand what had gone wrong between them. Almost from the first. He had flared up at her as he had never flared at anyone else--ever. And it wasn't that he didn't respect her ideas. And it wasn't that she treated him like an idiot. Far from it. She'd wrung his best performance from him and acted nonchalantly as if she had expected no less. He shook his head again. He'd been through this a thousand times in his mind. There was something more than passeth understanding between them. Where was that wood she'd been fetching in?

He found the wheelbarrow with his shins. She'd probably worked beyond her limits to get even this much wood chopped and hauled in this searing cold and wind. He pushed the load against the teeth of the gale and finally dumped it at the side of the kitchen door. It wasn't enough, he judged. He'd have to chop more.

He found the iced-over axe leaning against the side of the shed. He pulled a glaciated log across another and into place for chopping. Damn, she was right. What had happened to that current that kept this place warmer than the latitude would warrant? There was no way around it, he'd have to take off his gloves to use the axe. He just couldn't get a proper grip with his over-thick gloves. Algid, frigid, downright gelid. All those words might be useful now that a new little Ice Age was upon them. Damn, he shivered; he'd grown accustomed to the warmth of Australia, to the heat of southern California. He heaved up the axe and brought it down with undue force. Damn.

What the hell was happening with the weather? What the hell was happening with him? The time was out of joint. Ever since that summer. Ever since he'd let her go. Ever since he'd walked away. Ever since that night. That sultry night--even in her air-cooled trailer it had been warm. But basking warm, not stifling, as he remembered it. What the hell had happened? He chopped with such force that the logs fairly flew apart. His physical control was such that he hit the mark with precision. Sometimes it only took three blows and he sundered one of the slender pines. He had thought that night they were falling in love. What the hell had happened?

They had been interrupted. And that damned inborn shyness of his had taken over and he hadn't hung around. And the next day every thing had exploded into nothingness.

Keanu took out his old, but not forgotten, frustration on the log before him. He was warmer now as he chopped away. That day had been another scorcher. And time for the love scene--if you could call it that. Damn, almost every important scene in that movie had been outside in the searing summer sun. The scene was all mad passion and charisma, a volcanic sexual eruption between his character and the woman who was trying to help him. He'd felt unprepared. He had wanted to talk to Tess about the scene. Had come, in fact, the night before to her trailer to talk about it. But they would probably just have argued. Keanu chopped the wood, but let the memories flow.

He hadn't wanted to talk to anyone the next day, as he waited to act the crucial scene, but his leading lady had come up to him. The scene would be hard for her too. He owed it to her to try to be a bit more cordial. But she had not wanted to talk about the scene. "Guess what?" she had said lightly. He'd groaned inwardly, remembering her penchant for gossip. He hadn't answered. She hadn't been deterred. "Tess' old lover is here."

"What? Where?" Keanu looked out to where Tess stood talking and laughing with a tall flaxen-haired woman.

"That's her. So they say."

Keanu could still see his black-haired co-star's too red, perfect lips speaking those words before she sidled away. Shakespeare would have had his way with you, bitch, he thought, muscles straining to lift the axe high. "Such honeyed lips that do such venom drop. Or something like that," Keanu said aloud, puffing his breath into the frigid Irish air, swinging the axe for a great blow.

He remembered looking up and seeing the sinuous blonde bend down to plant a kiss upon Tess' mouth. Even at fifty paces he would have been able to recognize the tongue-deep nature of that kiss. And he had been much closer than fifty paces. Jealousy, hot fumes of it, had boiled up from the pit of his stomach. And waves of searing embarrassment had swept over him. He'd thought they'd been falling in love. Oh, he'd heard the rumors early on. He'd shrugged them off. What did he care if his director was a lesbian? And he knew something about the unreliability of rumors anyway. But now he felt foolish, so utterly foolish. He admitted it all in that one second. All this heat, all this excitability--he'd been galvanically attracted to her, to Tess. That's what all this had been about. And the night before, he'd thought it had been mutual. He raged within at his utter naiveté.

Keanu chopped the wood and remembered how it had all poured out, all the cataclysmic lust and rage and heat, into that scene of mad passion. One take--it had been all there in one take. Thank God his catty co-star knew her craft. The crew had clapped, clapped at his amazing performance. And he had stalked away.

Tess had come knocking on his door that evening. Come to congratulate him, to praise him. He'd taken it all graciously--acting, still acting. She'd wondered at his coolness, his aloofness. She'd never experienced that from him. But he knew that routine well. He'd told her he needed to rest, and she'd gone away, puzzled, hurt, he could see.

They'd saved that complex scene almost for last. And after the very last take, three days later, he'd walked away, just walked away. And at the premiere, in the temperate L.A. February winter, he'd turned cool eyes on Tess as he kissed her cheek. She'd come with her mother, who'd been ill, visibly ill, even then. He hadn't wanted to intrude on them, seemingly. They'd parted friends, seemingly. She had written him a very brief note when her mother had died the next summer, six months ago now. He should have gone to her then. Bitter tears welled up in his eyes and froze almost as soon as they fell.

He swung another blow and stopped. Suddenly he was drained. He would need all his remaining energy to haul the wood close to the house. The cold was deep within him. He pulled on his now stiff gloves and bent to gather up the cut logs, tossing them with ease into the empty wheelbarrow. The short day was waning swiftly as he came to the door, leaving the full barrow where it stood outside, piling logs in his arms and carrying them as quietly as he could over to the stove. Stoking its fire.

He stood near the unkept table and took off his gloves, his cap, his well-beloved boots that had kept his feet almost dry. He hastily gobbled some bread and butter and drank some juice. He looked over to her slim form beneath the covers, just barely visible in the flickering light from the open stove.

So what was he doing here now, a year on from the time he'd last set eyes on her that February night outside the Village Theatre? Just helping a friend? Damn it, he knew better than that. Over the months he'd scoured his mind--over and over. Had he been so wrong? There had been a mutual attraction between them, hadn't there? Hadn't it been sexual tension that had fed the flare-ups between them? Maybe she liked men too. Maybe she did desire him. Maybe her desires were all-embracing. That wasn't so hard for him to understand. He had been halfway there with River. Never all the way, because he liked women so much, and because of his innate reserve. But halfway there--perhaps a little more.

He'd followed her from afar, as he had never followed anyone else. He knew when she'd gone to Ireland. And finally, when she was already so far away, he decided he had to talk to her again. To find out about his own perceptions. To see if he had really been so wrong. And then he'd heard about the storm. His mom, still a Brit at heart, had taken note of it, the biggest blizzard to hit the British Isles in a century. Strangely, the news of the storm propelled him into action. He made inquiries and found out just where she was staying. And so he'd come, arriving at Shannon Airport early in the morning, connecting up with Morgan, a man who would fly to hell in a hurricane. Finding her aunt's house in Galway, only to find out just how bad things really were. Hearing from a worried neighbor lady about the remote farm in Mayo, cut off from everything. Hearing that stranger begging him to do something about it.

Keanu walked over and stared into the stove. He sat on the couch heavily. He was warmer now, but he still felt cold at heart. And he was tired, so very tired. When had he slept last? Only last night sometime, on the plane. But it had been a fitful sleep. He felt so very tired.

Tess had turned her back to the room as she slept, had moved closer to the wall. There was a space next to her, a place for him. He probably smelled like a stew pot--probably worse--but then Tess, he'd noticed, was pretty reeky herself. He would take some comfort, damn it. He deserved it.

He lay down carefully against her back and pulled himself close to her, one arm over her, his groin against her butt. A lovely, lovely fit, he thought, as sleep encompassed him. He closed his eyes and slept instantly, dreamlessly.

- - - - -

She woke, feeling the absence of some special warmth that had lately stolen over her. Oh she was warm enough amid the covers, but something she'd just found was missing. Tess' mind cleared as she felt the hardness of the floor beneath her. Briefly desperation overtook her as she remembered why she was sleeping on the floor. And then she remembered more. Keanu was here. Like a miracle dropped out of the snow-burdened sky.

She turned over on her other hip to face the room. There he stood in the glow of the candles he'd lit, in the glow of the fire from the belly of the stove, from its open door. He had a pan of water into which he dipped a washcloth. He had on no shirt. His fair skin glowed richly warm. Reflections glistened amber and crystal from the water that he smoothed across his chest. My God. She thought she would have to gasp for air. She began to sweat under the covers.

He was wholly intent, concentrated on the task at hand, as he could often be. He was unsmiling as he lifted one strong arm to wash under it. The hairs under his arm soaked up the water and the light. The hairs themselves seemed to run down toward his chest like weighted, sparkling, dark rivulets. Tess felt the water gather in her mouth at such a sight. Her, tongue, she felt, was meant to lap at the source of such downy, flowing streams.

My God. She had always known he was beautiful, but this was too much. He ran the white cloth over his chest and down across his stomach. Completely without self-consciousness, he undid the snap on his jeans and slid the zipper down. He pulled off whatever underwear he wore along with the jeans, down and off his legs, kicking the clothes aside. His back was to Tess as he straightened. His long, lithe back swept down from wide shoulders, and the line of his thin hips bounded the rounded globes of his butt, set above well-muscled legs. Tess' hand clenched. It wasn't his ass she longed to touch. Not first and foremost. It was that expanse of flesh at the top of his leg, stretching so fine and firm, as he bent to wash a foot he'd placed up upon the seat of a kitchen chair.

Keanu moved slightly, reaching to wring out the washrag, wetting it anew with clean water. His side was now toward Tess as he continued washing himself. He was generous with the lather, bringing the soapy rag up around all his parts, the parts that Tess had never seen before, sometimes lifting with one hand and washing with the other.

Tess sighed. He heard, startled. But he made no effort to cover himself, not really. His hands with the cloth just hung down in front of him obscuring her vision a bit as he faced her full-on.

"God, you are beautiful," she said.

"Yeah, well. I smelled like a pig," he said laughing lightly, unsurely.

He could feel her eyes on him and he couldn't help it, didn't want to help it. The blood blossomed in him, raising his penis up to full length.

He just looked at her.

"Oh," she said.

He took a chance. For once in his life he was letting go, going all out. "You don't smell too good either, I bet. Come have a wash," he said. He held a hand out to her.

Smiles suppressed for years played round her lips. Suddenly all tiredness was gone from her body. Tess sprang up with great joy and came quickly to his side. He sniffed her as she came very close. "Yep. You need a good bathing."

Tess now just looked at him with wide brown eyes, made incapable of action again, not by exhaustion, but by the close-up beauty of the man. His skin was so white, so almost translucent, that the veins stood out shockingly blue in his arms, even across his chest. Tess looked down. So rampantly grew his black pubic hair, so dark brown--so red and brown--was his erect penis, that the contrast to his light skin was utter. "Profuse strains of unpremeditated art," she quoted. Bringing them back the balm of that night.

Keanu closed his eyes and bent his heat, shaking it just slightly in wonderment, smiling a smile of great sweetness. She'd given him joy. But he opened his eyes and began his work. He unbuttoned Tess' red and black plaid flannel shirt. "I have a shirt like this," he said. He slipped the shirt off her shoulders and then off her arms and then tossed it away.

"Do you have a camisole like this?" she teased, looking down her front, noticing where her nipples clearly stood out through the sweat-soaked, once-white undershirt she wore.

"Uh. No. But if I did, I would hope it never gets into such a sorry state." He pulled the soft cotton garment out from her jeans and slipped it up over her head. Along the way It became tangled in her long hair. "I think your hair will have to wait for later."

She was mesmerized because in the course of the last maneuver, he had brushed against her belly and now his hands had settled against her. He rhythmically, seemingly involuntarily, was pressing and releasing the flesh of her upper arms in time to the large breaths he took. "Later?" she finally managed to echo.

"Uh, um. yeah. Sometime later. Because it’s another big job."

He laved the water on the cloth and stepped behind her to wash her back. He lifted her arm gently and held it up with one hand as he washed under it. He shampooed the light brown hair he found there. Tess got the distinct impression that he didn't mind those hairs at all. She marveled at him. Did aroused males usually display such control? Her limited experience had not led her to believe so. But he continued washing her thoroughly, sliding the cloth all over her chest and breasts. Because of his superior height, he could look over her shoulder and see just what he was doing.

He was going very slow, bathing her almost functionally, going about it like it was a simply a task to be done. Tess found that funny and endearing. Not to mention a bit irritating too.

He rinsed out the wash cloth and poured the dirty water from one pot down the drain. He took snowy water from a bucket in the sink and mixed it with hotter water in another pot on the stove. He was a very cool customer. Tess looked on amazed. As he turned, she could see he was still aroused.

He came to her then and unbuttoned her jeans and let down the zipper. Still, he looked all business. It was all Tess could do to keep from reaching out and touching him, but she wanted to let him proceed, to see how this drama would unfold. Keanu bent to wash the front of her legs, her thighs. He plied the white cloth slowly over all her muscles. He went and knelt behind her to wash the back of her legs. He reached up and lathered her buttocks and gently brought the rag up inside her cleft.

"Ah, Keanu?" she sighed.

"What?"

"Ah . . . Nothing."

He rose to ring out the cloth and lather it again. He knelt behind her once more. He reached around from behind to bring the cloth up among her outer folds and, then, her inner folds too. Tess had reached out and now stood braced at arms length against the nearest counter. She looked around and met Keanu's eyes as he rose. Very deliberately, very slowly, Keanu stood and filled the cloth with warm, clear water, looking at Tess the whole time. Looking as if he would bathe her in the fire of his desire.

"Almost done," he said.

She stood speechless in delight. He came and kneeled yet again in back of her and laved her inside with the clear warm water from the cloth. He reached up to put the cloth aside on the counter near her hand. She watched his hands intently as he abandoned the cloth, but still he kneeled in back of her. He placed his hands somewhere above her knees--one on each leg. Firmly he indicated she should spread her legs wider, as wide as she could. Her hands dug into the counter as she waited, poised. Oh God, how she wanted this. He reached up with both hands and spread her folds apart. She felt his tongue go up inside her, bathing all her walls and folds.

She let out a wail of delight.

"So pink and ruby red," he said, coming up for air.

"Keanu?"

"Yes?" he answered gently.

"Are you going to make love to me."

If it was a silly question, she never knew. If it was a silly question, he never knew, for he was wrapped up entirely in caring for her. "Yes," he whispered.

She had always loved his whispered answers.

He rose, yet bent his legs.

She felt the tip of his shaft at her narrow opening. Narrow, but straining open, yearning to take in all that red-brown beauty of him that she'd seen rise up to meet her.

She was wet with the warm water, with the warm lapping of his tongue, with the warm, wet, balm of her own body, so that he slipped in easily. Oh God, all his questions were answered. Of course this was why he had come. To cleave through this cold winter that surrounded them to the font of her warmth. If she'd have him--and she had. Oh God, she had him.

In the fire's glow the warm brown skin of her shoulders, her back, her butt, glowed before him as he slipped in and out of her. She took fire and enkindled, wrapping her legs around him backwards as he rubbed and chafed her folds. He supported her off the ground, bent arms cradling her legs, strong hands splayed against her belly. Still, he held on. He wanted such pleasure for her, as much as he could give her. She rolled and bucked and screamed her delight, coming swiftly against his still rigid penis, all tension released from her for a while. He slipped out of her as she shook in little aftershocks.

He carried her in his arms to the pallet. She opened her eyes wide. "You. You're still . . . You haven't come yet."

"Not yet," he said in a low deep voice that began to stoke the fire inside her again.

Never had he been so sure. So powerful. So full of gentleness. He lay her on her side, away from him, and lay himself down against her. She felt his erection and her power over him. He whispered in her ear, "I love you."

She would not run away to sleep. There was more to come. More for her to give him. She turned her head to him as far back as possible and captured his lips that hovered near. Her tongue danced a fiery dance in his mouth. "More. More . . ." She lost words. "More."

He understood. It was a declaration. "More than everything, you love me," he said. She shook her head, yes, yes. "And you want more, more."

She shook her head again, yes. She found her voice, "More inside me. All of you, to burn inside me."

She moved to turn toward him, to take him to her and within.

"No. Not yet." He pleaded. "Please. I promise. Tomorrow. Face to face. But tonight it's, it's . . . it's too much, too much."

She understood. Thank God. His love understood.

She raised up on her knees and offered herself that way for him. "More, my love. Hard."

He came up on his knees behind her and swiftly came into her. Touching her with all that heat and passion that had been between them ever. All that irritating, exacerbating, exciting, lovely friction that burned through their cool reserved exteriors. Her liquid fires flowed again and he chafed her every part with his shaft. The friction burned their souls and melted them. And then again he broke apart from her, only to enter once more, to weld himself to her again, again, till the rolling, unstoppable flood of flame overtook him, and her with him, and they exploded--a consummation devoutly to be wished.

They lay consumed by love.

Only gradually their breathing stilled, their quakes subsided, and he slipped out of her. And they lay face to face. The promised encounter face to face came sooner than he thought. It came as they looked into each other's eyes and saw love and the promises of love. She yawned and he yawned and they kissed.

"Why did you finally come anyway?"

He reared up with one last burst of energy and practically shouted. "Are you kidding?"

She laughed at his consternation. She laughed at her unplanned double meaning. "I meant, why did you come to Mayo?"

"Oh," he subsided with a chuckle. "Oh, I came to see if maybe I'd been right after all."

"About what?"

"Well, I thought maybe there had been some attraction between us. That was my theory anyway."

She laughed and laughed, and laughed till she banged her head against his chest and laughed some more. And laughed some more, till he grew irritated again and amorous.

- - - - -

They woke in the morning to a sunny sky. They undertook the big job of feeding themselves. And he undertook the bigger job of washing her hair. And she undertook the biggest job of all, lashing every wet strand of it around his eager body.

And by the afternoon when they flew away to Galway Bay, the snow was already melting in the lanes. "The Gulf Stream must be back flowing in its right and proper course," he said, kissing her wet, warm mouth. "And," she pointed from above to the new-thawed stream below, "the brook is flowing in the del."

The End

copyright©2001-Charlene Grass(wrygrass)
September 29, 2001 - Revised October 2, 2001