Read Midnight Guardians for Free Online Page A

teach you, her hands coming up out of the water, each stroke ending with a flip of the wrist: Reach out, pull through, kick out at the end, her rhythm like a metronome. And always the
flump-flump
of that single foot.
    There was no telling when she was going to stop. Sometimes she’d be at it for an hour, sometimes two. I told myself it didn’t bother me, and then moved down to the pool corner to sit on the steps. I sat on the edge, with my feet and calves submerged, and sipped the beer. I waited as I watched her head, her usual sunlight blonde hair darkened by the water.
    I knew what she was doing; I’d done the same thing myself when I came to Florida to get away from the streets of Philadelphia. Descended from a long line of policemen, I thought of the job as a duty, a lifelong commitment. Then one night, while responding to a store’s silent alarm, I came face-to-face with an armed robber. He got off the first round, his bullet piercing my neck.
    In reaction, I returned fire. But in my hesitation and piss-poor aim, I hit the second person coming out of the store, a thirteen-year-old accomplice who took my 9-mm slug in the back as he twisted away. The round severed his spinal cord, and he was dead before his body touched concrete. I left my career in the street, blood pooling under the body of a teenager.
    After Billy set me up in the research shack on the river, nearly every night there I’d paddle my canoe upstream into the Glades, keeping that rhythm, punishing myself, looking for some kind of solace. I knew Sherry was doing the same thing now, and I knew the answer wasn’t there.
    For several years, I’d kept up a habit of touching the spot on my neck where the robber had shot me. Unconsciously, my fingertips would go to the smooth, circular scar tissue and caress it. A while after I met Sherry, I quit the habit. Her love had helped me move on. I wanted to do the same for her.
    Staring down at my feet in the water, I was about to stand when the
flump-flump
stopped. By the time I looked up, she’d dipped her head under the water and executed a powerful breaststroke to move out of the current and over to my side. When her face surfaced, she was smiling and breathing hard—happy to see me.
    “Well, hello there,” she said in between deep gulps of breath. “How long have you been watching?”
    She was still floating, her chin just above the surface, those malleable blue-green eyes of hers taking on the color of the water, with the azure tint that always seemed to assert itself when she was in a good mood.
    I took a quick glance at my half-empty bottle and wagged it a bit.
    “Long enough for a couple,” I said.
    She took another stroke closer and half stood, putting her wet hands on my knees, and then pushed herself up with her arms, as if she were doing one of her impressive workout dips. Then she raised herself until her face was level with mine.
    “So, were you assessing my stroke, or what?” she said, her breathing starting to subside.
    “Pretty proficient,” I said, setting the bottle on the tile behind me without taking my eyes off hers.
    She pushed herself higher and closer. I could feel the water dampening my pants legs and dripping onto my shirt. She moved her lips onto mine and slightly opened her mouth; her breath was warm.
    When she broke off the kiss, we held eye contact. And I knew the question on her face was a reflection of the question on mine: Do you really want to do this?
    She answered it first. “Come on in,” she said, backing away with a teasing smile. “The water’s fine.”
    I undid the first button on my shirt and then gave up and pulled it over my head. My khakis came off with some effort, and I stepped down into the pool, the warm water sliding up my rib cage until I was nose-to-nose with Sherry. She kissed me again.
    With a nervous flutter in my chest—Was I fifteen again?—I asked myself: What do I do? Where do I go? How careful? How much?
    I touched her shoulders with my