Solomon's Sieve Read Online Free

had muscles that were knots on top of knots on top of knots. If he had ever known how to relax, it had been decades in the past and, certainly, the idea of "vacation" was foreign to his nervous system.
    So he fidgeted and paced and suggested things to go and do. She sat watching him, casually sipping chardonnay, in a yellow cable sweater the same cheerful color as the cottage.
    “Let’s go for a walk on the beach,” she said.
    He stopped abruptly, his gaze going toward the ocean. “A walk on the beach?” He looked and sounded as if he'd never heard of such a thing.
    “Um-hmmm.”
    “ What for?”
    She chuckled and shook her head. “Just because. Go put on enough layers to keep you toasty and we’ll go see what there is to see.” He looked dubious. “Come on. It’ll be fun. I promise.”
    “You promise?” His face split into a grin.
    “I do.”
    He swore he liked the sound of that, but he would have also sworn that he would hate walking on the beach. Maybe that would have been true under other circumstances, but doing things with Farnsworth just made them different. She had a way of transforming ordinary experiences into extraordinary events, simply by virtue of being there.
    She taught him to like walking on the beach by changing his perspective. She pointed out sights like little birds that ran on the sand so fast you almost couldn’t see their skinny little legs and little crabs that ran out of holes on some unseen errand and then retreated to safety just as fast. Now and then she'd point to the remains of a seashell and tell him what kind it was. Through her eyes his consciousness was raised to appreciate the way sunlight dances on water, the way the color of the ocean changes to try and match the color of the sky, the way brightly colored windsocks whip in the wind against a blue sky background and make the whole world feel festive.
    He began to see through her eyes, hear through her ears, feel her sensations, and little by little, day by day, the layers of tension fell away and she saw, for the first time, what his face looked like when the muscles were lax and not held rigid as steel.
    One day he picked up a stick and threw it for a retriever someone was walking on the beach. When he turned back to her with a laugh and a glorious heart-stopping grin she said, “Solomon. You’re so lovely when you let go.”
    His grin resolved into a smile. “Lovely? If you say so.”
    “ I do.”
    He liked the sound of that every time he heard it. “I was just aiming for nice-looking. Did I overshoot?”
    She laughed. “Indeed you did. By fathoms.”
    “ I think I’m keeping you”
    He pulled her into a kiss that was far too passionate for a beach they shared with passersby. She thought about pulling away, was sure that pulling away was the appropriate thing to do, but her body was making the case that life was too short for propriety. So she returned his kiss with enough fervor to make sure he knew she meant it.
    The days melted away into the closest thing to pure happiness that Sol had ever known. He didn’t remember feeling that happy or carefree even in childhood. And that was the state of his euphoria when the call came that he was needed at Headquarters immediately. The furrows in his brow reappeared instantly, the lines around his eyes were deeper, and the smile that had become perpetual disappeared.
    She nodded as he promised to come right back if he could. He gave her the keys to Storm’s roadster and a soft, lingering kiss goodbye. When he reached the end of the deck he turned back once to see her watching from inside the glass door. She waved and his heart responded with a reluctance to go. He’d never before had a hard time with the call of duty and he cursed under a heavy sigh when he confronted just how much he didn’t want to leave her or that place. He would have given just about anything to stay right where he was.
    But he didn’t.
    He took a cab to Ocean City and paid dearly for a jet