Unacceptable Risk Read Online Free PDF Page A

goin'?"
     
    "Sam."
     
    "You haven't told anybody about me, have you?"
     
    "You ask me that every time. Of course I haven't."
     
    "I'm obsessed. You wanna go shooting on Christmas break?"
     
    "Yeah. I wanna try the Desert Eagle Fifty caliber."
     
    "Huh?"
     
    "It's all in the grips. You said so yourself. I can do it."
     
    "What are we gonna do? Tie you to a refrigerator?"
     
    "It has ports to reduce the kick."
     
    "My arms are an inch shorter since I shot that. You want arms an inch shorter?"
     
    "I've already got short legs, might as well have arms to match."
     
    Sam laughed.
     
    "Okay. But if I go shooting, you gotta promise to go fish ing."
     
    "Fishing? You mean it?"
     
    "Absolutely. And we'll invite the girl next door."
     
    "Oh no. That would be too embarrassing."
     
    "Hey, I can't turn her down now. I already told her that your mom and I would take her fishing when I take you. Man, was she excited."
     
    "Are you kidding me? You never talked to her. You wouldn't do that."
     
    "Well, I looked about seventy years old at the time—with a beard. I'm your new god-grandfather for this trip. That's like a godfather, only old."
     
    "Can I call you Sam so I don't forget like before?"
     
    "You bet. Sam the god-grandfather. Absolutely."
     
    "Sheees."
     
    "How's the homework?"
     
    "Good. Real good."
     
    After a little more chit chat, Sam hung up, smiling at the boy's zest for life.
     
    Off the living area was a hall to the two bedrooms and a large kitchen. Sam cooked slowly and with great deliberation. For him cooking was art and he liked to replicate things he'd seen in restaurants, but with his own twist. Cooking with a woman in this kitchen, for the first time, would be like making love on his bed.
     
    Suzanne had been only the second woman he'd loved to the point of commitment, but they'd been together in France and the relationship had been cut short by her death. Rachel, his first and only wife, had long preceded Sam's purchase of this house. He sat down in his leather chair and called Anna on her cell. No answer. She was no doubt in the shower at his showplace condo. Sometimes she liked long showers.
     
    Sam knew he was crazy and that most normal people came out of their inner shell in their late teens. He told his close friends that this terrible aloofness didn't worry him, although lately he was beginning to feel a bit like a middle-aged woman whose biological clock was ticking. From day to day his feelings seemed to change on the subject of fatherhood, and if Sam had a source of conflict that wasn't associated with the mess of his father's suicide, then this was it.
     
    Built-in cherry bookcases contained Sam's personal book collection, weighted toward true-life exploration and adventures of all sorts, including the classics like Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Sam liked reading about presidents. He didn't want the job but had plenty of books on the subject. His favorite topic was Indian history and that was evident both in the books and the storage cabinets on the other wall. Along that wall, also in cherry, were numerous drawers of the sort that one would use to store large nautical charts or maps that one wished to keep unfolded and flat In Sam's case they contained maps and parchments of historic and modern Native American villages and ceremonial sites along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Mexico and inland throughout the western states. It was one of the best private collections in existence.
     
    Everywhere hung Native American memorabilia. One of Grandfather's ceremonial headdresses hung in the corner. There was the Cherokee blessing on the wall and likewise the Tilok blessing. He had all manner of ceremonial peace pipes and pictures of famous Native American leaders, from Chief Seattle to Geronimo.
     
    Near the coffee table lay Grandfather's favorite moccasins. Sam's mother, Keyatchker, aka Spring, teared up every time she saw them. Sam's regular and favorite chair was a big leather