Jewel Adams turned off her computer and sighed, reaching for the clean cotton cloth and vial of essential oils she kept in a desk drawer. She daubed some of the liquid onto the fabric and closed her eyes, smoothing it over her aching temples, feeling the oil warm and tingle against her skin. The mingled scents of rosemary and lavender touched her nose and she breathed deeply, hoping the stress relief would kick in quickly. The door chimed and she slit one eye open far enough to see a tall man with shaggy silver streaked hair and dark glasses walk in. The investigator smiled, closing her eye again, and finally relaxed a little as strong hands began to rub the tight muscles of her neck and shoulders.

"Jewel, will you just take an Advil already?" Kermit asked her, knowing she wouldn't.

"I'm not sick" she emphasized, "I'm stressed out. Medicating when you are not sick is just hiding from what your body wants to tell you."

"Really? Then tell me, what is the Great Delphic Oracle of Julia Adams trying to say by knotting you like a pretzel?"

"That I need to get away from this horrible court case" she admitted and he rested his cheek next to hers for a moment, hands warm and firm on her shoulders in a modified hug.

"Bad, huh?" She shook her head and he moved back, probing her shoulders until she hissed at a particularly painful muscle bunch, feeling the tension leaving her as she talked.

"That poor kid, if his grandmother gets custody, he maybe has a shot at a normal home."

"Anything I can do, sweetie?"

She turned to look at him, and then she grinned. "You want to go to Maine with me this
weekend?"

"The cabin your parents left to you and your brothers, in Kittery."

It wasn't a question and she huffed back around in her chair. "You know, Kermit, you could just ask me these things." She wasn't really angry. Jewel had come to terms with Kermit's need to know, and his uncanny ways of finding out. She continued to give him grief about it on principle, however. A building friendship, even one as unusual as theirs, needed some
boundaries.

Kermit, knowing Jewel wasn't angry about his snooping, was trying to discern the motive behind her offer. They had spent quite a bit of time together in the two months since they met, mostly at her loft. The quiet warmth suited them both as they took turns cooking elaborate meals, trading off musical tastes, and introducing the other to favorite movies. It was a private friendship, touched with moments of rare and pure intimacy, but Jewel had indicated without a word ever being spoken that she was not prepared for a more physical relationship. Kermit had never pushed the subtle boundaries she had erected, but now..?

"Well?" she rudely interrupted his musings, "Hello? Kermit? Stay with me, big guy. I figured, I'll be done with my testimony by four tomorrow, and Kittery is only an hour and a half away by plane." she paused, blushing slightly, though she kept her tone deliberately light and teasing, "and there are four bedrooms, just in case you were worried about your virtue. So, are you into it?" He still hesitated and she glared up at him. "Well, gods,. Kermit, you don t have to! Will you feed Shade for me while I'm gone, then?"

"No, no, I want to go." she was unconvinced. "Really. I was just planning my workload. You do have a computer and modem set up there, right?"

Jewel sighed, grinning. " AS if you would go anywhere without one. I'll make the arrangements then."

"Good, I'll pick you up at the loft around 5:30, so be ready, kiddo.:"

She'd been waiting for that particular, hated endearment and snuggled close to him. "I'm always ready for you, Daddy" she lisped in a sugary, baby voice.

"What?" he pulled back to peer at her over his glasses.

She pouted, "Doesn't Daddy like his good girl?" He couldn't figure out if she was putting him on or not. "You keep calling me kiddo, it took me a while to figure out why, but now that I know, I can play along."

His voice was enchantingly uncertain, music to her ears, "That is really sick, Jewel."

"I know, Kermster, but what can I do? It's YOUR fantasy. You might want to talk to someone about it before it gets out of hand.." she trailed off and he saw the grin she was trying to hide.

He slid his two hands up her throat, cupping her face and tilting it gently up to his. "Alright, no more kiddo." a pause., "You know, you're not funny."

She winked at him, "Yes I am."

*****

Kermit pulled his freshly washed Corvair into the tiny parking lot behind Jewel's building, sliding easily into the tight spot next to her battered VW Rabbit. She was crazy about her
"bunny", a dun yellow diesel five-speed with a patched gray cloth interior. Admiring the sleek lines of the Corvair next to the boxy VW, Kermit couldn't understand why. He headed up the stairs and knocked on the familiar oak door at the stroke of 5:30, to be greeted by a vision in a cream linen sheath, smoky pearls around her neck and in her ears, hair pulled back in a chignon. Barefoot.

"Gods, Kermit, you are always on time, aren't you? Court ran late, I just got home, I only have to change though, so help yourself to iced tea or something and I'll be right down, okay?" Without giving him a chance to respond, she picked up a square cut glass tumbler, downing half of it in one swallow, and disappeared upstairs.

Kermit poured himself some ice water and settled down on the couch to wait. The late afternoon sunshine streamed in, thick and golden, dazzling through a huge cobalt glass pitcher filled with a vivid assortment of roses. Shade woke from her nap on the window seat and announced herself with a "mrrow" before leaping to his lap. The little black cat adored Kermit, and claimed him as her rightful sleeping perch anytime he sat down. He laid a hand on the soft ebony fur, feeling tiny muscles kneading him into cushion material. He loosened his tie a little and laid back against the couch, enjoying the quiet after the craziness of the station, noticing a pair of cream leather pumps laying on their sides in the middle of the floor. About one good kick from the front door, he estimated and smiled to himself. A noise made him look up toward the stairs. Jewel was coming down, dressed in her familiar jeans and t-shirt, one of her brother's old Yale sweatshirt tied around the waist. She carried a loaded gym bag in one hand, her battered leather knapsack over her shoulder.

"I'm ready, are you? " she asked, smiling at the picture the two of them made. "You look pretty comfortable."

Kermit gently lifted Shade to the cushion beside him, eliciting a gentle hiss of protest, and stood up, brushing almost invisible hairs from his dark suit. "I'm good to go. Someone coming to feed the beast this weekend?"

She nodded, "You know Rick from downstairs is her devoted slave. He and Scott will come up and play with her so she doesn't get lonely. You going to stand here talking about the beast, or you going to follow a mysterious beauty on the adventure of a lifetime, Kermit?"

"Every time I meet a mysterious beauty, she tries to kill me before the weekend is over.." he was complaining as he pulled the locked door shut behind him.

*****

One short plane trip and a cab ride later, they stood before a modest two story house covered in faded gray shingleboard. Kermit could hear the low roar of the sea, taste the salt as he breathed, and behind the house, beyond the seawall, he caught a glimpsed of shadowed waves in the glowing twilight.

Jewel stood looking up at the house, faint smile on her lips. "This is home" she told him quietly, not looking away from the house, "More so than David's apt in New York, or even the loft." She mentally shook herself, and grabbed his hand, tugging at it playfully. "So come on already, city boy. You have to see it!"

There was a delicious smell of something simmering as she pushed open the front door, and lights were on here and there throughout the house. "Umm, I think Mrs. Cabot went ahead and made us some supper when she opened the place this afternoon. She makes the best chowder, Kermit, and her cornbread is amazing."

"Isn't chowder a bit of a cliche in Maine?" he asked sarcastically, picturing soup as thick as
library paste in rustic tin plates. "and having a native come and open the house for the city slickers? This is another side of you, kid-Jewel." He caught himself just in time. This going off to the summer place was grating slightly on his plebian nerves.

She stared at him, trying to figure out the problem. "Mrs. Cabot is our neighbor. She and her oldest son, Tom, look after the place for us. I mean, they do live here, and we do pay for their trouble in doing it, but it's not like I think they're peons or something. And she knows I love her chowder, and it can be left on the warming part of the stove for a long time without scorching. If she had cooked a chicken or something, it might have dried out. She was just trying to be nice, figured we'd be hungry. You don t have to eat it, there's other stuff in there."

The slight hurt in her voice made Kermit feel like a jerk instantly. For some reason, even though she usually gave him all kinds of grief for it, Jewel didn't brush off the cynicism he threw out as a matter of course. If it was pointed enough, it stung her and even if she snapped at him and went on about her business, he ended up feeling like he'd slapped her. She'd gotten a little too close for comfort, he genuinely cared about her, which had the perverse effect of making his sarcasm that much sharper. "Maybe I just didn't understand that part, sweetcakes. Do I get to see the rest of the house?"

She nodded, recognizing a half apology from experience, and hefted her gym bag. "Bedrooms are upstairs, so grab your stuff and I'll show you where to put it."

She led him up a wide staircase to a set of spacious rooms that all faced the ocean. The wide windows has been cracked open and the evening breeze was coming in cool off the water in the room she brought him to. "We usually let guests sleep here, mostly because it has a great view, and also because the boys and I have our stuff all over the other rooms. I'm two doors down, so just come and find me when you're ready, ok?"

"Yeah, sure" he said, for once genuinely distracted by a beautiful view, and she left. The ocean filled the vista, rolling and crashing on a shore hidden by the sea wall. The sky was the deep blue-violet of dusk, with a streak of fading red-violet at the horizon. He was almost certain of seeing a tiny island , way out in the water. like something enchanted from a long forgotten fairy tale. Then Kermit shook his head. *Nice, Griffin, but it's water. You've seen the ocean before* he pulled himself back in line set his suitcase on the bed, noticing the detailing on the carved cherry headboard. An old fashioned sleighbed. The room itself was quietly "done " in warm shades of flax and cream, with a fanciful stenciled border in scarlet and dark green. The same colours were echoed in the printed duvet cover on the bed, and the towels he could see through the half open bathroom door. The Adamses apparently treated their guests well.

When he had put his things away in the matching cherry armoire, he went in search of his
hostess. Her door was open and light was spilling into the dark hallway. He knocked lightly
anyway before peering in. Jewel sat on a wide deep windowseat, looking out over the now dark water, a leather book he recognized as her journal loose in her lap. Her room was a young girl's fantasy in deep blue and pale peach, the four poster bed had sheer hangings, the filled bookcases were set into the walls, and long matching drapes were pulled back with wide indigo ribbons. Tiny coral roses climbed eternal trellises on pale wallpaper, and he could see a set of shelves housing a collection of beautiful, surely antique, dolls on one wall. "Jewel, hon?" he called her name quietly.

She turned and looked at him with dark, far away eyes, gradually coming back to the present. "Kermit?" then, "Of course, Kermit. Who else, right?" she smiled at him and tossed her journal to the bed, jumping off the windowseat. "I probably would have outgrown this decorating scheme years ago, but Mother had just done it as a surprise for my birthday the year I was fourteen. I've never wanted to change it, it's a little like being able to visit with the past whenever I walk in here after being away."

As Kermit diligently avoided visiting his past whenever possible, he merely nodded and made a grand gesture toward the stairs. "If I remember right, food was mentioned a few hundred years ago."

She grinned at him, raising an eyebrow wickedly, as she commented "Oh, hungry now , are you? I thought chowder in Maine was overdone, trite even." She brushed past Kermit , nudging him with a friendly elbow as she went.

"I'm nothing if not open-minded." he proclaimed, hard on her heels down the stairs. "After all, what's a visit to Maine without chowder? I think I have a craving for lobster coming on."

"Hah!" his companion scoffed, long red braid swinging as she headed into the kitchen. Not
surprisingly, it was a cheerful room with a old black iron gas stove, a long trestle table made from old pine boards with matching benches, and a few kitchen herbs in rustic blue and white pottery cachepots on the windowsill. A stainless steel covered pot sat at the back of the stove, a round pan covered with a clean white towel rested on the wide shelf directly above.

As he followed her in, she stopped and turned abruptly, catching him by surprise and being
caught as he put his arms out to avoid running her down. She hugged him hard, spontaneously, and felt his arms tighten around her. "What is bringing this on?" he asked curiously, feeling her silky hair against his cheek.

"Forgot to tell you earlier, Kermit, but I am SO glad you came with me this weekend. It's been such a horrible week, and getting to come up here, and having you here to share it with me...I just wanted you to know." She pulled back, to smile up at him, and he bent his head to kiss her, tenderly and thoroughly.

That was it, of course. The way she would tell him, so frankly and fearlessly, how she felt. He had never met a woman who offered such childlike candor, who had no hidden agenda. He thought about the world he knew, what it could do to her, and held her closer, protectively. He wanted to guard that honesty like a treasure, and to shake it out of her for her own good, to teach her to guard herself from men like him.

Jewel was content to be close to him, feeling his heart beat against hers. She reached up to
gently push the white streaked lock off his face, running her hand back through his shaggy black hair. Then she kissed him again, lightly, and he released her, taking the thick white pottery bowls she handed him from a white painted cupboard, and holding them out for a big ladle of chowder. Jewel brought the covered dish of cornbread to the table and poured two glasses of iced tea.

After supper, including washing up the few dishes, they went out the back door and down to the sea wall. The beach was below them, and she pointed out the winding path that led down to it. but the tide was high right now and the rocky beach was covered with crashing waves that hissed and foamed up at them like iced seltzer. Kermit stood behind her, arms around Jewel's waist, and she leaned back against him, warm and soft in the brisk night breeze. It was late June, but still very early spring weather wise. "I thought I saw an island out there earlier." he said in her ear.

"You've got good eyes." she told him. "There is a tiny little bit of land way out in the harbour, just barely above the high tide line. We kids used to take the boats out there to picnic in the summer. It's a nice place for a bonfire, very little vegetation to worry about and none of it real dry."

"Poor little rich girl, huh?" It was another side of the hard-working private investigator he had worked with, and that brought another thought to mind. "You didn't have an altar in your room. Don t your brothers approve of your religion?"

She laughed. "Of course they do, in fact, David and Jess were married in a handfast ceremony because the state doesn't recognize same sex marriage. It's in the garden here, closer to nature." She pointed toward a little alcove, where white marble glimmered faintly in the moonlight. "And don't call me that."

"I don t know, Jewel. This house, the family corporation that Christopher runs, David's law
practice.. you seem pretty comfortable to me. Why work at all, especially in something as
dangerous as investigation?" He was serious and she responded to that.

"Because I can, Kermit. I don't have to do something I can be sure will pay the bills,. I could afford to spend the time learning about ritual killings, and assisting the FiBIes, because I wasn't worried about making the rent. My parents were good people, and they taught us to give to this world we live in. So, this is my contribution." She stood at the wall, looking seaward a moment. "Sounds pretty naive, huh?"

He wrapped her up in his embrace again, resting his chin on her shoulder, cheek to cheek. "It sounds like something you'd do, sweetheart. Sounds exactly like something you would do."

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