The Magic Circle, Katherine Neville [parable of the sower read online .TXT] 📗

runes in my backpack were, and what I was to do with them when I couldn’t even read them. He explained they were a copy of a document he’d been asked by my family in Europe to bring me, and that it was his understanding that the runes were connected somehow with the manuscripts I’d just inherited from my cousin Sam. He said as soon as I got medical attention and we could sit down and talk in confidence, he’d explain everything else he knew.

We spent an hour at the base camp clinic surrounded by astringent-smelling bottles and the pandemonium of the ski patrol dashing about with stretchers and beepers, hauling injured parties from the wounded mountain. In their midst I let the medicos slap me on a metal table, shoot me up, bandage my head, and put fourteen stitches in my arm.

All chitchat between Wolfgang and me naturally had to be curtailed here in the chaos of the surgical theater. But I could still think private thoughts. I knew that our nuclear project couldn’t be a front for Wolfgang Hauser’s junket to Idaho. For starters, it was a given that he was a high-level official of the IAEA, or he couldn’t obtain clearance to set foot inside our site, much less to eyeball the U.S. government security files of somebody who had high-level clearance herself. So there was no question: he was legit.

One key unanswered question still remained: How was it that Professor Dr. Wolfgang K. Hauser arrived in Idaho while I was off in San Francisco at Sam’s funeral? How had anyone known—as someone must have, in advance—that Sam’s death would place those other, still missing, documents in my hands?

With me shot up with drugs by the surgeon and my stitched-up arm in a sling, Wolfgang and I agreed it would be best if he drove me home in my car and had someone from the office come over to Jackson Hole and collect the government vehicle.

The journey back home was rather a daze. The pain kicked in as soon as my anesthetic wore off. Then I remembered—too late, after taking the pill the doctor had given me—that I usually overreacted to codeine. In short order I felt as if I’d been hit over the head by a hammer. I was out cold for most of the trip, so my question was left unanswered.

When we got back it was well past dark. Though later I couldn’t recall giving directions to my house or how we arrived there, I did remember sitting in the car in the driveway and Wolfgang asking whether he should keep my car to get himself to his hotel or come inside and phone for a taxi. My reply, and everything else, remained a blur.

So imagine my surprise, upon awaking at dawn the next morning, to find myself tucked into my own bed, and my backpack and yesterday’s clothing—along with a stark black ski suit I suddenly realized, with a jolt, was not my own—all piled on a chair across the room! Under the covers, I seemed to be wearing nothing but my stretchy silk long johns, which left little to the imagination.

I sat up with the covers spilling about me and saw the shaggy head, tanned arm, and bare muscular shoulders of Professor Dr. Wolfgang K. Hauser protruding from my sleeping bag on the floor. He stirred and rolled over on his back, and I could just make out his features in the early morning light sifting through the high transom windows: those thick dark lashes shadowing strong cheekbones, the long narrow nose, cleft chin, and sensual mouth, combining to suggest the profile of a Roman sculpture. Even in repose, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. But what was he doing half-naked in a sleeping bag on my floor?

Wolfgang Hauser’s eyes opened. He turned on his side, propped himself on one elbow, and smiled at me with those incredible turquoise eyes, like dangerous tidal pools with hidden currents. Like the river.

“As you see, I stayed here overnight,” he said. “I hope you don’t think it was too forward. But when I helped you out of the car last night, you passed out in the driveway. I caught you just before you hit the ground. I got you down the steps somehow, and out of those torn and bloody clothes, and I put you straight to bed. I was afraid to leave here until the drugs wore off and I could be sure you were all right. And are you?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, feeling my head still full of cotton wool and my arm still throbbing with heat. “But I’m grateful you stayed. You saved my life yesterday. If it weren’t for you, I might be at the bottom of that canyon right now under a mountain of snow and rubble. I’m still pretty shaken.”

“You haven’t eaten a bite since last noon.” Wolfgang sat up and unzipped the sleeping bag. “But I have to leave town; thanks to yesterday I’m behind schedule. Why don’t I make you breakfast? I know where things are kept in your kitchen: your cat showed me last night. He seemed to expect me to make him dinner, so I did.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said, laughing. “You saved my life, and you even fed my cat! By the way, where is Jason?”

“Perhaps he’s being discreet,” said Wolfgang with a complicitous smile.

Then, his back turned, he crawled out of the sleeping bag wearing nothing but his undershorts, grabbed his black jumpsuit from the chair, and pulled it on quickly. I couldn’t help but notice, even in just this brief glimpse from the back, that Professor Dr. Wolfgang K. Hauser had a truly magnificent physique. All sorts of dark, erotic visions suddenly flooded my brain. With these, to my horror, came the telltale hot flush of blood. Before he could turn and see hidden thoughts spelled out on my burning cheeks, I picked up a pillow and