"Steven Gould - Jumper 02 - Reflex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

REFLEX
Steven Gould

For Emma and Carita,
Sequels in their own right,
But also stand-alone treasures.
(And no, Emma, you can't read this yet.)



Acknowledgments
Thanks to Sage Walker for nasty things to do with one's vagus nerve, Bob Leeds for drug info,
Doc "Sully" Sullivan for Trauma talk and procedures, Rory Harper and Laura J. Mixon for first
readings and gentle corrections, and to Beth Meacham for that perfect mix of standing back and
stepping in.




ONE
"Davy was gone."



The first time was like this.

"You are the most stubborn man I've ever met."

The latest incarnation of this argument started in a little pastry shop on Sullivan Street, New
York City.

His first response was light. "You probably shouldn't have married me, then."

She glared.

"I can't help it. It's how I feel. At least I know how I feel. That's better than I used to be."

She watched him push crumbs across the tabletop, herding them into a neat little pile. The
busboy was leaning against the lime-colored wall, watching them. They were the last customers in the
place and it was almost eleven P.M. on the East Coast.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

They threaded out between the tiny tables and into the chill air of the street. It was the first week
of March. Out of sight, in a deep-sheltered doorway smelling faintly of urine, he put his arms around
her and jumped them, and the argument, a time zone to the west, to the small two-bedroom condo
they owned near her clinic, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Her ears popped and she swallowed reflexively, so used to it that she hardly noticed. She was
intensely frustrated. How can you love someone and want to kick them in the butt at the same