Every Little Thing

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

Thanks Buffy!

[Sunny Girl]

Loving it Penny - very intriguing!!!

[Frankie]

Great chapter again Penny.... I am loving this already...and am so intrigued to see whats coming next You are building the suspense up really well.

[Natasha]

Great updates! And loved the mean Alf Stewart.

[Frankie]

I need more... I need to know...do they meet up?..well of course they do but what goes wrong? .. ......what is Barrys hobby tunred profession?.. What is Irene's secret?...what is Barry supposed to have done?...who really did it...what ever it is?.... I need to know.....

[buffygirl]

I need more... I need to know...do they meet up?..well of course they do but what goes wrong? .. ......what is Barrys hobby tunred profession?.. What is Irene's secret?...what is Barry supposed to have done?...who really did it...what ever it is?.... I need to know.....

That all ^^^ goes for me too Penny

Think ill disappear for a longtime.....when i come back they'll be lots to read.

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

Sorry for the delay, I'll post some on Monday as today I have a party to attend.

[chatter box]

Yeh and I am happy to see one and maybe all the bareen's fans may return (yay)

We haven't gone away Willz, it is just that without Irene and Barry on the show we haven't had a lot to say for ourselves. Buffygirl very kindly PM'd me to tell me about this as she knew that I and others would be interested.

This is excellent Penny, and so well written too. I do hope Barry turns up to meet her. I have really enjoyed it so far and look forward to reading some more. I have often wondered what they would have been like if they had met when younger, and you are showing us with your interpretation. Thankyou.

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

Chapter four.

Two-fifteen. Maybe she wasn't going to show. Barry didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. He decided to be relieved, and asked himself again what the hell he was doing in the Diner after two a.m., sipping coffee with the strangest bunch of people he'd ever seen.

On the opposite side of The Diner, in a booth situated against one of two glassed walks, sat a couple of burly truckers in plaid shirts and worn blue jeans. They wore ratty baseball caps, and it had a been a while since either of them had seen a razor or had a haircut. Seated behind the oldest of the two truckers was a young person of questionable gender who had a gold loop through one earlobe and a diamond stud in his or her nose. He, or she, ate alone, yet still managed to carry on a soft chat, complete with body language and the occasional chuckling nod of the head.

The large man in the booth Barry faced had a numbed of tattoos; most notably an eagle on a muscular bicep that was displayed beneath a ripped-out sleeve, and a coiled cobra on a tanned forearm. Judging by his relaxed attitude and the conversation he carried on with the waitress, he was a regular. She called him Tank; given the mans size it was a fitting appellation.

Barry had arrived early. Was he really this desperate for what Lady Roberta had to offer? Hell, no. He didn't expect her to look at his palm and offer answers. It was all mumbo jumbo, a con, entertainment for the mentally challenged. What he wanted, what he needed, was to look at a pretty face that wasn't tense with fear; to see a woman, even a phony carnival fortune-teller, smile at him. He'd been sitting in that red vinyl booth since 1:45, sipping decaf and waiting. He'd never been good at waiting.

The redhead who came strolling through the glass doorway caught his eye, and he looked her over appreciatively even as he wondered what she was doing out alone at this time of night. Long-legged and shapely, she wore a pair of faded blue jeans and a plain black T-shirt that hung halfway down her thighs. She had pale red hair, and even from a distance he could see that it was baby fine and soft. It hung just to her shoulders without a hint of a curl, and wispy bangs brushed her eyebrows. She walked toward him with a smile on her face.

The smile and, as she got closer, those green eyes gave her away. "Sorry I'm late.â"She dropped onto the padded seat on the opposite side of the table.

"Irene?" The makeup had been scrubbed from her face, and she looked nothing like the Gypsy lady who'd read his palm. No, not nothing like. There was the smile, and the eyes, and that husky voice. When she placed hands on the table, he saw the long red fingernails that had traced the lines on his palm. She must have seen his eyes light there, because she wriggled her fingers and tapped her nails against the white Formica tabletop with a sharp, clicking beat.

"The wig, the makeup, the costume, they come off. The nails are mine." She grinned. "I didn't know if you'd be here or not."

"Neither did I."

The waitress appeared and asked Irene if she wanted a cup of decaf. Irene made a childishly disgusted face, screwing up her nose and pursing her lips.

"Decaf? No way. I want the real thing, strong as you've got it."

After the waitress moved away, Barry spoke. "You'll never get to sleep tonight."

Irene shrugged her shoulders and glanced around the room, her bright eyes taking in everything. "I don't sleep much, anyway. Usually I sleep from sunup until about noon."

The waitress, a tall woman with her name, Leah, embroidered above one breast, placed Irene's coffee on the table. Irene grabbed three packets of sugar, ripped them open and dumped the contents into her white mug.

"Do you have any pie?" she asked huskily.

Leah seemed unconcerned with Irene's caffeine and sugar fix; but then, she didn't seem concerned about much of anything except waiting on this table without standing any closer to Barry than was absolutely necessary.

"We got Lemon, Strawberry, Blueberry and pecan."

"Strawberry," Irene said without hesitation. She turned her attention to Barry as Leah walked away, latching incredibly radiant eyes on his face. "I guess you're expecting more information about what I saw in your palm." She lifted the heavy white mug to her lips and watched him over the rim as she drank.

Deep inside his gut something unexpected came to life. It twitched and teased. "Not really," he said calmly.

Irene's green eyes danced as she cradled the coffee mug in both hands. "Good." She seemed pleased with his answer. "I'm not certain that I'll be able to tell you anything."

A lopsided wedge of pie, more whipped cream than strawberries, was plopped onto the table. Irene picked at it and asked the waitress for a refill on her coffee.

"You really won't sleep tonight," Barry said.

Irene just shrugged her shoulders, and kept her eyes on him as she ate. She didn't speak until she had her third cup of coffee in front of her and the empty pie plate had been taken away. The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable, not for him and apparently not for her, either. She wasn't outwardly apprehensive; she didn't fidget or hem and haw. She seemed to be studying him, in fact, and he well, hell, he just watched her drink her coffee, as he'd watched her pluck whole strawberries from the fork with her teeth.

Every now and then his insides tightened and his heart beat too hard, as his body instinctively responded to the woman across the table. He watched her intensely, this woman he barely knew, but for now he had to be content to watch.

Finally, she clasped her hands together and rested them on the table, straightened her spine and lifted her chin in a move more friendly than defiant.

"What do you do, Barry?"

Ah, how do you answer that one? Carefully, he supposed. "I'm in investments."

She smiled brilliantly. "Now, that's a vague answer if ever I heard one."

Most people just nodded and changed the subject when he told them about the hobby that had become quite profitable for him. They either weren't interested or didn't understand and didn't want to appear foolish by admitting it. Not Irene.

"I buy and sell stocks. You know - buy low, sell high."

"That doesn't sound like a real job to me."

He'd had a real job not long ago, that of deputy sheriff. He decided not to mention that fact; it would require more explanation than he was willing to attempt at this point. God, he didn't want to ruin this moment. "Not a very tactful response,"he said with a grin.

Her answer was serious. "I don't do tact. I tried it once or twice and it doesn't work for me." He half expected a smile to follow this remark, but it didn't.

"You're right," he admitted. "It's mot a real job. I work at home and I do it when I damn well please, trading over the internet and over the phone. Call me a gambler, if it makes you feel any better." He'd made a bundle in the past three years, not very many people knew that. His lifestyle was simple. Once upon a time he'd had the nice house and the fast car he'd had to bust his butt to pay for, and they hadn't made him happy. Besides, Kerry had gotten most of it in the divorce. He had no desire to start all over again, to invest in things that meant nothing.

"A gambler," she said. "That sounds much more exciting than, " 'I'm in investments' "

"Same thing," he assured her. "I play with money. Sometimes I win big, sometimes I lose big. Some days luck is with me, some days I feel like I have a black cloud hanging over my head." Lately that black cloud had become permanent fixture in his life, but he didn't want to discuss that with Irene. He wanted to forget with her.

"And what do gamblers do for fun?" The sparkle returned in her eyes, a laughing luster that brightened the night.

"They go to the carnival."

Her grin came back. Oh, he liked it, he liked it a lot. Dammit, he liked that grin too much.

"What else?"

"Go to the movies," he said. "Read. "

She cocked her head so a strand of her pale hair swayed, and he watched, fascinated by the sight of that silky hair brushing the perfect curve of her cheek.

"What do you like to read?"

"Most anything."

She sighed, apparently losing patience with his generic answers. "Okay, what was the last book you read? Oh, let me guess," she said before he had a chance to respond. "A mystery with a drunken PI and a quirky sidekick."

He shook his head.

"A steamy romance," she said quickly and with a widening grin. "With lots of rich people betraying one another and having a wonderful time all around.â€

He shook his head again. “Some fortune-teller you are. The book I just finished was the newest horror by err um " he wracked his brain for a moment, "- what's his name, the guy who was in the vampire movie of his own novel last year?"

"Oh I know," she said. "The book about the warewolf."

"That's it."

She placed both elbows on the table and leaned her chin into her hands. "I love the warewolf," she said.

An odd admission, but she seemed to mean it. "You do?"

She nodded slowly. "When I was growing up, every Saturday night their was a horror movie on television after the late news. Not the gross stuf that is out there now, but the old black and white classics. Frankenstien. The Invisable Man. And The Wolfman, of couse. My father, my sister and I would stay up late and make popcorn and watch the movie in our pajamas."

"What about your mother?" he asked, noting the omission. "Was she around?"

Irene shook her head. "My mother never liked to be scared. Just the creepy movie would send her scurrying from the room, and where there was too much screaming, she'd always yell at us to turn the televison down."

She smiled, the soft smile of a woman lost in a pleasent childhood memory, and she was, at that moment, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She snapped out of her trance quickly, and signalled the waitress for yet another cup of coffee. Barry shook his head. Her energy was obviously caffine induced.

"I liked the warewolf best," she said after the waitress had moved away from the table. "It was very sad, really. He didn't want to be a monster. I mean..." She shook her head slowly, and fine, pale ahir danced above her shoulders. "Dracuala enjoyed himself much too much, and Frankenstein was kinda hard to indentify with, but the Wolfman - the warewolf - he always ended up killing the people he loved the most. He had such haunted eyes." She seemed to snap to, and she looked at him strangely. "You have eyes like that, Barry. The eyes of a wolf."

What did she see? She looked at him like she could see all of his secrets, to the smallest white lie to the darkest memory. She looked at him like she knew him well, as if they'd spent a thousand nights just like this - talking and laughing. Her lips parted slightly, as if she was thinking of speaking again, but no sound came.

Ah, yes. Barry's cynical tendices rose to the surface. Irene was very good at what she did. All she had to do was look at him in this way, and he wanted to tell her everything; he wanted to hold her hand and look into those dark green eyes and spill his guts.

He didn't, of course, and the conversation turned absurdly normal.

Barry knew why he was here, but what had bought Irene to The Diner in the middle of the night?

Why had she asked him to meet him here? He had his suspeicions, but in truth he didn't care. Not really. It was enough that she sat with him and talked of such inconsequential things as the weather and the latest summer movie releases. He tried not to wonder to hard how Irene knew the he needed this friendly conversation.

He paid for their coffee and Irene's pie, and then he walked her to the parking lot. All was quiet at four o'clock in the morning, and the thin light from a single street lamp made him feel if his existance had suddenly shrunk, and there was just the two of them in this simple world. At this moment, nothing mattered. He liked it. He liked it so much that he was dreading the moment she walked away and it would all be over.

"Your car?" Irene leaned against his battered old Ford.

He nodded. "Where's yours?"

"I walked."

"You did what?" He tried to disguise the alarm in his voice, but he couldn't fool her. She smiled at his censure.

"I walked," she repeated.

"You can't do that again," he said sharply. The very idea of her alone on that road made his heart beat hard and fast, and he was almost overwhelmed with the desire to touch her, to reach out and lay his hand on her face.

"Why not?"

Much as he wanted to, he didn't reach for her. He didn't need to. She lifted her hand, grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him towards her, just a little. Her fingers touched his chest through the soft cotton, and he was instantly hard. He'd never kissed Irene, he'd never touched her; but at this moment he wanted her more than he'd ever dreamed of wanting any other woman.

"It's not safe," he said. He didn't want to tell her anything more, didn't want her to look at him the same way everyone else in the bay did. And if she'd knew what he'd been accussed of, she surely would. "There have been three murders in the last eight monts. All women."

She drew him to her, as much with her smile than with her gentle hand. And he knew he wouldn't tell her anything more. He wouldn't spoil this moment for anything so crass as the truth.

"Then maybe you should give me a ride home," she whispered.

He laid his hand on her arm, skimmed his fingers over her shoulder to touch the bare skin of her neck. Damn, it felt good. With a very gently persuation, he tilted her head back so that her face was washed in a diffused ray of light from the street lamp.

He knew that when he kissed her, it would be powerful, so he hesitated when his lips were inches from hers. He was hanging on to his sanity by such a thin thread; he couldn't afford to get invloved with a woman, especially not Irene. But he couldn't stop if his life depended on it. He settled his lips over hers and kissed her, thinking that if he pressed his mouth to hers hard enoughhe would be able to convince himself that she was no different from any other strange and beautiful woman.

It didn't work that way. Ah, he loved the taste of her - coffee and sugar - hot and sweet. He loved the feel of her - soft and warm. A deep tremble rocked through her lips and her hands. She yielded herself to him completely with that kiss, wrapping her arms around his waist and parting her lips, pressing herself against him from knee to mid chest. He wondered if she could feel his arousal pressing against her; he wondered if she cared.

He wanted to take her home with him and lay her in the centre of his bed; he wanted to taste her, and touch her and lose himself inside her. He might never let her go.

They broke away at the same time, moving slowly and pulling their bodies apart. Judging by the wary look in her eyes, Irene was as dazed as he was.

"I think I should walk afterall," she breathed.

"No, I'll..."

Irene slipped past him and stalked toward the two road lane that lead to the fairgrounds. It was just over half a mile from here to there, the place was lit with sporadically placed street lamps, and there was no sign of life, and still...

She disappeared around the bend, blending into the shaddows and disappearing from sight. Unease rose up in his gut - unease, hell, it was undeniable fear - as he jumped in his car and started his rumbling, noisy engine.

He followed her, breathing a sigh of relief when his headlights illuminated her. She didn't turn around, didn't even step from the backdrop. But of course, she must of none he was the creeping along behind her.

He pulled up beside her and leaned across the front seat to roll down the passengier window. "Hop in," he insisted. "I'll give you a ride to the carnival."

Irene shook her head and pointedly refused to look at him.

"No, thanks. I'm fine."

She wasn't fine. Her voice trembled and she wouldn't even glance in his direction. What had scared her off? It was just a kiss. An earth shattering experiance, a sensation to get lost in - but still just a kiss. She took long strides down the sides of the road, and with one hand on the steering wheel Barry let the the car just creep along, keeping pace with her.

"All right," he finally conceded. "I'll just follow you until I'm sure you're home safely."

Irene shook her head. "Get lost or I will call the cops."

Barry laughed, and the sound wasn't pretty. The noise that came from his throat was harsh, with no humor in it. If only she knew how much the Sheriff would enjoy recieving that call. "And tell them what? That your date insistend on seeing you home safely, rather than letting you walk down a desserted road at four o'clock in the morning? That's a hanging offence, I'm sure."

He stopped the car as Irene fineally turned to face him. "You just don't get it, do you?" she whispered.

"I guess I don't."

He couldn't see Irene nearly well enough, but it seemed that her jaw tightened, that her entire face hardened. This wasn't the same woman that laughed and talked to him over coffee, who'd held his hand in some obsure tent and looked at him and made him feel, for the first time in months, that he wasn't alone in the world.

"It's a con. You were right all along." She took a single step closer to the car. "If everything had gone well, I would've seen you at the carnival every night, and by the end of the week I would've seen you parted with some of your money. Cross the fortune tellers palm with silver if you want a true reading. Twenty dollars a pop. It's what I do."

"I know." He knew he managed to surprise her with his quick answer. She winced, her entire body jerking softly. "Now get in and let me drive you home."

She opened the back door and slid in, placing her arms across her chest defiantly. "All right," she snapped. "Go."

He didn't have far to drive, and he did it in silence. He might as well have been alone. Irene didn't say a word. All he could hear was her breathing, a little fast and a little unsteady, in the back seat. As soon as the car came to a stop near the community of trailers, she threw the door open. Instead of running away, as he'd expected she would, she crossed in frount of the car, walking through the headlight beams, and then she leaned in his open window.

"It wasn't a date," she said belatedly.

"If you say so."

"It was business, that's all." She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself, as well as him.

"Just business," he repeated.

"Yeah."

He kept expecting her to break into a run, but she stood at the window, looking in, looking at him.

"Why did you tell me the truth?" He asked, not quite ready for her to leave. "About your fortune telling scam."

She gave the car a quick and scornful onceover. "One look at this Ford, and I knew you didn't have nothing to take darling." Her voice seemed perfectly hard, but a faint quaiver gave her away. "The gold watch had me fooled, but it looks to me like you need cash more than I do."

Her face hovered close to his, a few inches away, and he wanted to kiss her again. He wanted it with intensity that surprised and frightened him.

"Are you sure thats the only reason?"

She sighed heavily, but to his surprise she didn't move away. All he had to do was tilt his head and list forward slightly, and his lips would be against hers.

"Yes," she whispered, her lowered voice homered to the night and darkness.

He leaned forward to brush his lips against hers, moving slowly and giving her plenty of time to back away, if thats what she wanted. She did take her mouth from his, eventually.

"Don't come to the carnival tomorrow," she ordered softly as she took a step back. "The Diner, two a.m."

She walked away from the car and into the shadows without a backward glance.

[Frankie]

wow...thats amazing Penny.Well worth the wait. I love it.