Now that the weather was nicer and the sun set later, Thursday evening activity at the Spearfish County Sportsman’s Club had been moved from the cramped and ramshackle indoor range to the nice outdoor facility, at least if it wasn’t raining. Since sound waves could spread out, things weren’t as noisy out there. It was a pleasant way to spend the evening so long as shooting wrapped up before the mosquitoes came out, as they would be sure to do on a pleasant spring evening at the end of May, like this was.

As usual, both Cody and Janice ran a couple clips through the Sig Sauers just to keep their hands in, and then switched over to the Ruger for serious practice. That got a little inconvenient at times since it meant that they couldn’t both shoot at the same time, but it was something they could live with, at least until Cody or someone else managed to come up with a similar Ruger at a decent price. Getting a new target pistol wasn’t a priority item; while the shooting was fun, they could get along with only one.

Just now it was Janice’s turn to shoot a series, which would take her a while. Since everyone on the firing line was shooting .22s, it was possible to stand back from the firing line a bit and be able to get along without ear protectors. After thinking about it for a moment, Cody decided to take the opportunity to head over to the pickup and get a bottle of water out of the cooler before getting a seat on the wooden benches behind the firing line to watch Janice shoot.

In the few months that she’d been shooting, she’d turned into a competent shot, under Gil’s coaching and his own. She probably wasn’t any threat to win an Olympic medal anytime in the foreseeable future, or even the state championship later in the summer, but there was every chance that she’d do well in the club meets that would be held occasionally over the course of the summer.

The club meets would give him something to look forward to, Cody mused, plus a few other meets here and there, including the regionals. At least he’d turned eighteen, so he wouldn’t have to have a rather bored father or mother hanging around for them; they had been good about supporting his shooting even though they took no real interest in it. He would be shooting as a senior, and Janice would be able to as well on the strength of her emancipation papers, but she’d turn eighteen in less than two months and then it wouldn’t matter. Other than that, after school got out in a couple more weeks the summer looked like it was going to be pretty boring, except for having Janice around. It had been a little hard to see Shay and Bethany start out for Cedar Point in the Escort a couple days ago; it would be the first summer ever he hadn’t spent much of his time hanging around with his brother.

Cody’s reverie was interrupted when Charlie Wexler sat down next to him. Charlie was in civvies since he no longer worked the second shift, and he still enjoyed coming out and shooting on Thursday evenings. “Boy,” Charlie said, “Janice sure is shooting pretty well, isn’t she?”

“She’s coming along,” Cody agreed, keeping his eye on her shooting form, even though at this distance he couldn’t see where she was placing her shots. “I’m glad we came up with the idea of her coming to the Thursday night shoots. She’s really enjoying it and I think she’s getting something out of it. So how’s it going with the new toy?”

“Beats the hell out of the Glock, that’s for sure,” Charlie replied, speaking of the new Springfield Arsenal XD-9 he’d gotten a month or so before. He still had to carry the department issue .40-caliber Glock on the job, but had decided he wanted a pistol with a little more accuracy for target shooting in the summer. He’d been shooting well with it, and there were several things he said he liked about it over the Glock.

“Yeah, not bad,” Cody replied. He had fired it for one series the previous week and thought it shot well, but questioned whether it shot enough better than his familiar Sig Sauer to be worth the expense of getting one, at least at this level of competition. If he was competing at national level, then he might have to rethink his position. “But I don’t think I’m all that anxious to change,” he added.

“Well, maybe I can get a little closer to you with it,” Charlie said a little ruefully. “Hey, I’ve got a question. Are you doing anything this summer?”

“Not really. I was just thinking that it looks like it’s going to be a little boring.”

“Well, I’ve got something, if you’re interested. You know Bea Hollingsworth?”

“The woman you have working in the station in the morning?”

“Yeah. She’s going in for hip replacement surgery in a couple weeks, and she’s going to be gone all summer. What she does is answer the business phone, some filing, and some other odds and ends, usually in the mornings. Having her there to handle some of the routine stuff buys me the time to do some other things that need to be done, so it’s proved to be handy to have her around. I was thinking you might like to fill in for her. It’d give you a little taste of the job without actually being a cop. You could pick up a little on some of the paperwork and procedures and stuff without actually being on the hot seat; it might help you make up your mind if that’s what you want to do.”

“Sounds possible,” Cody nodded, more than a little interested but wanting to be impassive. “In fact, you’re right, it probably could be useful.”

“It doesn’t pay a lot, only minimum and twenty hours a week, so no benefits,” Charlie explained. “The hours shift around a bit when I have court and things like that, but mostly it’s in the mornings.”

“Sounds pretty good to me,” Cody agreed, noticing that the shooting on the firing line was dying down; it would be his turn to go next. “I probably ought to talk it over with the folks, just on general principles, but I could get back with you after school gets out tomorrow.”

“That’ll be fine, just don’t let it go too long.”

Not surprisingly, Cody’s parents were still up when he and Janice got back from the range. “Boy, Charlie is really leaning on you to become a cop, isn’t he?” John asked when he heard about the offer.

“He is pushing it a little,” Cody admitted. “But then, I’m thinking about it pretty hard, too, so I think this could be a good opportunity to get a taste of it. And frankly, the money doesn’t sound too bad for a part-time summer job.”

“Well, it’s fine with me,” his father replied. “It won’t hurt you to be doing something useful, and I’m sure you can find the place to spend the money even if it’s on ammunition.”

“Well, yeah. It gets a little tiring having to hit on you about that all the time, even if Gil buys it at wholesale. That could help a lot.”

“It could,” Candice agreed. “But there are other things you probably would like to spend the money on, too. It’d be nice for you to be earning some.”

It was no great trick for Cody to understand that Janice was less than happy with the idea; he’d picked up on it on the way home from the range. He understood why; if he was gone twenty hours a week, that was twenty hours a week that she couldn’t be around him. Still, he felt that she needed to be weaned away from him a little, so that was no great loss. “It’s not that bad, Jan,” he said now. “After all, it is twenty hours a week, that’s not a lot more than we’re spending alone now, what with having different classes and all.”

“Yeah, but still,” Janice said unhappily. “That was part of the reason I was looking forward to school being out.”

Candice picked up on the unhappiness and understood the reason why, but quietly shared Cody’s opinion that the two needed a little distance from each other, especially Cody. “You know, Janice,” she said, “you really need a job or something to keep your mind occupied while he’s gone.”

“It could be,” she replied. “But what could I do? There’s not many summer jobs around here and from what I hear around school most of them are already taken.”

“Not all of them,” Candice said. “Tiffany and I were talking today that it would be nice to have someone to spell me at the store and do some odd jobs around the place. There are times the place gets a little busy and I could use an extra set of hands. John has helped pitch in with it at times, but that’s not quite fair to him.”

“That might work,” Janice replied thoughtfully. “But I don’t know much about outdoor stuff, nothing like you do.”

“We could make it work,” Candice told her. “You don’t need to know much about outdoor stuff for a lot of it, and if I’m not around and you get stumped John would be right next door to help you out.”

“Cody,” Janice asked, “what do you think?”

Candice, John and Cody were all about equally aware that what Janice was really asking for was his permission. They’d all become used to it, even though there were times it was a little irritating. All of them had hoped that she’d grow out of it a little, but it didn’t seem to be happening.

“Sounds like it could work for you,” Cody replied as neutrally as possible after a moment’s thought about some way to make it sound like he was leaving the ball in her court. Still, however weasel-worded, it was clear that Janice would interpret his reply as giving her permission. “You might learn something useful,” he added.

“Then I guess it sounds all right,” she replied tentatively.

“I’ll have to kick it around with Tiffany,” Candice warned. “We’ll have to work out what the job is, the hours and so forth, but she was interested in the general idea when we talked about it, so I’m pretty sure she’ll go for it.”

One thing that had not changed in the months that Cody and Jan had been sleeping together was that about all they did there was sleep. In the beginning that had been just fine with Cody; after all, he was trying to show her that she was protected, even in her dreams. That had faded a little bit over the months but was something that still was a concern for him.

However, one thing had changed and at times it was causing Cody no little distress. In the beginning, Janice had worn a heavy, warm flannel nightshirt to bed, and later pajamas that were no less warm, but as spring had come she’d lightened up a little. These days, she usually just wore panties and one of his T-shirts to bed. Not only was he getting to be increasingly aware of that fact – having her now well-filled-out body in bed with him was giving him thoughts and temptations he really thought he shouldn’t be having. What was more, knowing her position on having sex with him though she hadn’t been the one who told him, keeping his hands off of her and keeping things innocent was getting increasingly more difficult.

Even though the temptation was there, he’d managed to keep things under control, at least so far. Still, for the both of them bedtime was a time to talk privately and intimately; sometimes there were things that they could say to each other then that they didn’t feel comfortable talking about at other times, especially when Cody’s parents were around.

After their goodnight kiss, they lay in bed hand in hand as they often did; with Cody reflecting that Janice had seemed quieter than usual this evening. He was pretty sure he knew why, but decided to edge into the question. “I think getting these jobs is going to work out pretty well for both of us,” he ventured.

“I hope so,” she almost whispered. “I’m not so sure.”

“Why not?”

There was silence from the far side of the bed for a moment before she answered softly, “I hoped that we would be able to spend more time together this summer, and it looks like we’re going to get less.”

“Well, maybe a little,” he replied realizing that he’d come pretty close to hitting his guess right between the eyeballs. “But not a lot less.”

“Yes, but I wanted to spend more time with you, not less,” she replied in a disappointed tone. “We’re probably not going to be working at the same time all that much, so there’s that much more time we’re going to have to stay apart.”

“Janice, we can’t be together all the time.”

“I’d like to be. I feel so much better when I’m with you.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But it’s something we’re going to both have to get used to. I like being with you, too, but there are other things we have to do.”

There was no response, at least not one that he could hear; what she was thinking was a different story, and as far as Cody was concerned it could be anyone’s guess. The silence went on for a long time before he heard her say out of nowhere, “Cody, do I make you happy enough?”

“I’m always happy to be with you,” he replied, realizing that there was probably a trap coming, even if he had no idea what it was.

“But do I make you happy enough?”

“What do you mean?”

“Cody,” she said, speaking just a little bit louder for emphasis. “We’ve been sleeping in this same bed together for almost six months, but you’ve never once tried to touch me, never tried to do more than a goodnight kiss. I know that when we first started I was in pretty bad shape, so I can realize why you didn’t want to do anything then. But I’m all healed up now, and it’s still like you don’t want to have anything to do with me. Cody, why don’t you want to have sex with me?”

Cody had known this question was going to come sooner or later. There was a big part of him that wanted to have sex with her, and sometimes the need had been agonizing. But always somewhere in the background was the vision of her lying naked and raped on her living room floor, sprayed with her brother’s blood and brains that Cody’s nine millimeter had splattered all over her. For plenty of good reasons, he didn’t want to reopen that wound with her.

As he wrestled with the question of how to speak his mind, his silence seemed to give her the clearance to go on. “Is it because I’m not pretty enough? Is it because you’re trying to think of me as your sister or something? Cody, I’m not your sister. I want to make you happy! I want you to have sex with me so I can make you happy!”

It seemed to Cody that there seemed to be a slight opening in her statement. “Janice, you make me very happy,” he replied. “I hope I can make you happy, too.”

“You make me so happy every day,” she said. “I still feel so lucky that you came and saved me, so I want to make you happy. I can feel you hard when we happen to roll up against each other or stuff, but when I feel you hard and you still don’t want me, it makes me think that you don’t want to have sex with me.”

“I never said that, and you shouldn’t think that,” he replied, and saw a really good opening. “Jan, you want me to have sex with you, right?”

“Of course I do. I want to make you happy.”

“Do you want to have sex with me so you can be happy?”

“Of course,” she replied warmly. “It’ll make me happy to make you happy.”

“Janice, this is kind of a hard question to ask, but would having sex make you happy? I mean, do you want it so you can enjoy it? Do you really have a huge urge to have it for its own sake?”

“I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?”

“Oh, hell. Let me be blunt. Are you offering to just be something for me to fuck so you can think you’re making me happy? Or can you be happy with us doing it because we both enjoy it? Oh, piss, what I’m trying to ask is are you so horny that just about anything turns you on? Or are you just trying to be nice to me because you think you owe me, so you’re offering to be my cum bucket?”

“Cody, I just want to make myself happy by making you happy.”

He let out a sigh. Either she wasn’t getting the message, or she was ignoring it. “Jan, are you really and truly horny? You’d better believe that I am, and I’d be ready to do you right now and for most of the night, despite the fact that we’ve got finals tomorrow. But you’re really going to have to convince me that you are, because I can’t help but think that you’re offering to let me fuck you out of gratitude, or duty, or something, and it’ll just be something you’ll do and endure because I happen to be horny.”

“But Cody . . . ”

“Let me finish,” he broke in. “Janice, I know you’ve had it a lot. But hasn’t it all been what I said, something you just had to lie there and endure whether you wanted it or not?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, subdued. “That pretty well covers it.”

“I’m not going to do it with you that way. Period. If that means not ever, it means not ever. Jan, I think you know I’m a virgin, I’m horny as hell and having that sexy body of yours up close to me every night doesn’t make things a damn bit easier for me. I’d love to roll you over and make love to you, something that’s more than just having sex. Hell, I dream about it, and sometimes it’s all I can think about. But I’m not going to do it with you until I can be sure that you really want it for its own sake, for making love to me, not just because you’re a convenient body and you think you happen to owe me a favor.”

“But Cody, I really want you to have sex with me.”

“No,” he said. “You haven’t convinced me, not yet, anyway. Did you hear what you just said?”

“I said I wanted you to have sex with me.”

“That’s my point,” he said, squeezing her hand gently and holding on. “You didn’t say you wanted to have sex with me. You said you wanted me to have sex with you. Janice, that’s not quite the same thing, is it?”

“But Cody, I do want to have sex with you.”

“But you didn’t put it that way until I pointed out the difference, did you?” he snickered. “Jan, in the last few minutes, you said several times you wanted me to have sex with you, but until just now you never said you wanted to have sex with me. Now, I realize we’re messing around with tricky ways to use words but it all comes out at the same place. I’m not convinced you really want to have sex with me, at least not yet. Much though I’d like to have sex with you, I don’t think you’re ready, and if you’re not ready I’m not ready. Like I said, you’re going to have to convince me and you haven’t done it yet.”

“But Cody . . . oh, hell, right?”

“Right,” he smiled, realizing that he’d dodged the bullet for tonight. Maybe not tomorrow night, but tonight. Well, there was something he could do about that. “Ask me again in a few weeks, and try to do a better job of convincing me when you do.”

“All right,” she said with audible disappointment. “If that’s the way you want it, I guess that’s the way it has to be. But Cody, is it all right if I go on sleeping in the same bed with you?”

“I didn’t have a problem with it before and I still don’t,” he told her. It was just going to make things more difficult, because now she would be pushing him harder. It was going to happen sooner or later, he realized – after this discussion he could be sure of it. But if anything, the discussion had pretty well proved that it was just too soon, at least for him.

“Good,” she sighed. “Because I’m still scared of having nightmares and since we just talked about this I think I’m even more scared of them. I’m . . . maybe you’re right, Cody. Maybe I’m not ready yet.”

“It won’t hurt us to wait a while to be sure,” he replied, thinking that maybe she’d finally seen his point without him having to come straight out and mention her father and her brother directly. “I’d rather wait a while and do it right than do it too soon and screw up something that’ll be even harder to fix than it was.”

“You might be right,” she whispered. “Cody, how did I ever get so lucky to have you be the one to rescue me?”

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