The Cloak's Shadow

by Elle Beauregard

  If Bridge had been running late, she would have sent a text.

  Wouldn't she have?

  If something was wrong, she'd have called. She'd have wanted Wren there if the news was bad. If her imaging had come back abnormal, or the downloads from her ICD had shown distress, she would have called.

  Right?

  Wren drew a breath and let it out when her head started to swim. She needed to calm down so she could think this through. There were plenty of reasonable explanations why Bridgette wasn't yet home, with no word. She was a grown-ass adult. She was allowed to do whatever the hell she wanted. Even if what she wanted was off schedule and out of character.

  The sound of the doorknob and the latch had Wren spinning on her heels just in time to see Bridgette come through the door.

  Immediately, her too-big eyes turned questioning when they landed on Wren. "Hey. You okay?"

  Wren almost asked her where she'd been. She almost told her how scared she'd been. She almost told her never to be so off schedule again without sending her a text. But she didn't.

  She wasn't Bridgette's mother. And, even if she was, Bridgette was twenty-five years old. She didn't need to tell anybody where she was going. Or what time she'd be home. Not if she didn't want to.

  Having a chronic condition shouldn't steal her adulthood from her. No matter how life threatening the condition might be.

  So Wren smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine. I, uh, was just going to take a nap." She laughed under her breath. "I actually thought you were in bed when I first got home."

  "Oh, jeez, that must have been a shock," Bridgette replied, glancing around Wren toward the bed. "The pillows do look suspiciously human-shaped in the dark." She toed off her shoes just as Wren had done when she'd first come through the door.

  Bridgette sat her bag down alongside Wren's. When she looked up, her lips were parted like she was getting ready to say something, but then her brows furrowed when her eyes met Wren's. "Honey, are you sure you're okay?"

  Are you? That's what Wren wanted to say. But she didn't. Instead, she forced a smile and a soft puff of a laugh, and a nod. "Yeah. Just tired."

  "Let's crawl into bed then," Bridgette replied. "I never mind a nap. Want me to call for take-out?"

  "Later," Wren said. She'd wake up to text Zander like she'd promised she would, then she'd call for food. Right then, all she wanted was Bridgette beside her. "Unless you're hungry now."

  Bridge shook her head with a shrug. "I can wait."

  "How was work?" Bridgette asked a few minutes later as she slid between the covers and Wren slipped herself in behind her.

  "Fine," Wren breathed. Then held her breath: "How were your appointments?"

  Bridgette adjusted her pillow before she responded. "They were fine. Exhausting, but they always are."

  "Right," Wren replied, tucking her pillow under her head and her arm around Bridgette's thin waist.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Zander heaved a sigh as she tucked her phone into the back pocket of her ripped jeans. It was a sigh of equal parts relief and annoyance.

  We're all at the pub, the first text from her boss had read a couple of minutes ago. Where are you?

  I have plans with a friend, Zander had texted back. Then she'd added, Maybe next week, for good measure.

  Okay. Happy hours are a pretty important part of our team culture. Just want you to get off on the right foot, came his response a moment ago.

  Cue the sigh.

  Yeah, okay, so maybe having drinks after work would be good for her career. But you know what it wouldn't be good for? Her sanity. And, call her short-sighted, Zander valued her sanity.

  The last week—only her second week at this job—had been just short of a nightmare. Nonstop meetings, even over the lunch hour; a boss who swung by her desk so often she wondered how he got any actual work done, let alone how she was supposed to; and Blane who continued to be the pushiest, dude-bro Zander had ever had the opportunity to associate with.

  Maybe this company wasn't for her.

  Maybe New Orleans wasn't for her, she thought as she gathered her laptop, lip gloss, notepad and favorite pen and slipped them all into her shoulder bag.

  Okay, that was extreme, she said to herself. She hadn't been in New Orleans long enough to know if she hated it or not.

  Right now, though? Yeah, it wasn't her favorite.

  She missed all the green from back home. And the cool breeze. Even the rain.

  It was October. She should be gearing up for sweater weather. Instead, she was in t-shirts. She refused to wear shorts in October, so she'd resorted to her holiest jeans for maximum ventilation when she'd gotten home from work. Besides, they were cute in a rough-around-the-edges sort of way, which felt perfect for tonight.

  She was feeling a little rough around the edges.

  Her phone buzzed in her back pocket and she couldn't help but roll her eyes as she brought it around to see the screen. What the hell did her boss want to passive-aggressive her about now?

  But her annoyance evaporated as soon as she read the text. It was from Callum.

  I'm illegally parked or I'd come up. Meet me downstairs?

  Zander's lips pulled into a smirk as she typed out be right down and hit send. Then she slung her bag over her shoulder, plucked her keys from the hook by the door, and let herself out into the hall. Door locked tight, she jogged down the three flights in the musty-smelling stairwell and let herself out onto the street where she drew a deep breath to clean some of the stairwell mold from her lungs.

  She needed to be careful, she told herself as she scanned the front curb for Callum while her heart skipped behind her ribs in a way not related to the flights of stairs. He was wow-good-looking, with a smile that made her head go all fuzzy—and other parts of her go all warm—plus a personality that made her want to turn all soft and comfortable every time she spent time with him. He was great—and exactly not what she needed right now.

  New city, new job—she needed to focus, not get all doe-eyed over some guy.

  Not that she'd ever been the kind to get particularly doe-eyed, but that was beside the point.

  She might sort of hate her new job, but it had taken her months to land it and it was exactly what she wanted, the perfect first step in her career. It might not be exactly what she'd thought it would be, but she needed to give it her all. Which meant she didn't need to get distracted.

  So tonight's working date was as far as the whole thing was going, she told herself.

  Yeah. She could do that. Keeping it platonic was so not a problem.

  Never mind that the entire time she'd been having coffee with him a few days ago, her thoughts had kept straying into very not-platonic territory. To the point where she'd had to leave before she said aloud one of the seriously suggestive things running through her head.

  Still. She could change direction. She was totally in control of her desire.

  Which was considerable, a little voice in her head chimed when she spotted Callum. He ticked a nod at her from across the roof of his car then finger-combed his hair back from his face.

  Yeah. She was in trouble.

  She crossed the sidewalk toward him. "You rebel. This is a loading zone."

  Callum laughed. "Can't a passenger apply to the loading zone moniker?"

  "I'm going to choose not to take the comparison to cargo poorly," Zander replied as she reached for the handle on the passenger-side door.

  The old, red hatchback was exactly the car she'd have expected him to drive if she'd given it any thought before seeing it. It was probably as old as he was, but in good shape, the paint still shiny. And as she lowered herself into the front passenger seat, she couldn't help but note that the interior was complete with worn leather seats and that faded, cigarette-and-mint scent that all old cars seemed to share.

  Jesus—his car was as roughhewn sexy as he was.

  "No Rhia tonight?" Zander remarked as Callum cranked the ignition.

  "Nah, she'll be happ
ier at home tonight," he replied as he put the car into gear and checked his blind spot.

  "I guess the library isn't exactly dog friendly, huh?" Zander surmised.

  Callum laughed. "Plus, she'll just be bored."

  Some minutes of easy, how-was-your-week kind of conversation later, and Zander realized she didn't recognize the part of the city they were in. "I don't think I've ever been this way," she said.

  "This neighborhood is called Uptown," he replied. "It's a little out of the way but the library is totally worth it. You'll see why."

  Okay, she thought to herself. She was willing to go on an adventure.

  But a few minutes later, they pulled up to a beautiful, historic mansion.

  "I thought you were taking me to a library," Zander remarked, mostly joking while praying this wasn't about to get ten kinds of weird.

  "It is," Callum replied. He put the car in park, cut the engine, and gave her an irresistible grin. Then he turned, popped his door, and crawled out, leaving Zander reeling from the effects of that smile with a grin of her own on her lips.

  "Okay, explain how this is a library," she said as he led the way.

  “See?” He nodded at a sign by the front steps that, sure enough, read Milton H. Latter Memorial Library.

  Huh. Well okay, then.

  Callum jogged up the stairs ahead of her then opened the door before she got to it, and Zander had to smother her smirk in appreciation of his charm as she crossed into the building. But there was no downplaying the awe that transformed her small smile into a disbelieving grin when she stepped inside.

  Was this for real?

  A massive staircase rose in front of them, the banister made of a dark, polished wood and set in strong lines.

  Callum sidled up next to her as Zander gaped. "Told you." Then he motioned to the right. Zander followed his line of sight to find a room with a beautiful fireplace and angel-frescoed ceiling, adorned with settees and sofas in reds and pinks.

  "My favorite reading room is through there," he whispered. "But for our purposes, there is a stellar room for working toward the back."

  She let him lead the way on this stroll back through time, following him to a room with heavy-looking, wooden tables and upholstered chairs. They were the only two people in the room and Callum went straight for a table near the back, next to another beautiful, old fireplace surrounded by the same dark, polished wood as the banister, and topped with a massive mantle of the same. Zander couldn't make herself move for a second, struck by all the beauty around them. She had to force her feet forward to join Callum at the table where he was pulling his laptop from his bag.

  "This is incredible," she said, her voice low but loud in the library-silence all around them.

  Callum smiled. "I'm glad it didn't disappoint."

  Zander chuckled low in her chest and sat her bag on the table across from him. How many men had she known who would appreciate something like this more than to remark that it was pretty? She didn't have to think hard to know the answer: none.

  Callum was the first.

  "No disappointment," she said quietly. "Just the opposite."

  "This isn't a thing in Seattle, I assume?"

  Zander felt her eyebrow quirk while she watched him arrange his computer and a notebook on the table. He did it like he liked them a certain way, his long fingers sure, his movements confident.

  "I'm pretty sure a library in an historic mansion isn't a thing in most places," she said.

  "Touché," Callum agreed. He looked up and caught her staring before she could look away. "So what's on your to do list tonight?"

  "Uh, reporting," Zander replied, shaking herself back into productivity mode. "That and getting my emails back under control."

  "Those sound like reasonable ambitions," Callum said as he opened his laptop. "As for me, I'll be working out the frames for a client's new website. He's a personal tax accountant so the website is all about tax services. Shake me if you hear me snoring."

  Zander swallowed a laugh while she set her computer in front of her and cracked it open. "Will do. Did you ever think your job would be so glamorous?"

  Callum chuckled. "I'm astounded by the glamor regularly. What do you do? I don't think I've ever asked."

  "I work at one of the architecture firms in the business district," Zander replied. "I'm their ecology and economic impact analyst."

  Callum looked up and just stared at her for a second.

  "What?" she finally pried when the moment stretched past comfortable.

  "I'm so not smart enough to be hanging out with you," he said.

  Laughter shot up her throat so fast, Zander almost choked. As it was, she managed to hush the chortle behind a cough. "Smarts are only part of the equation, I promise," she assured him. "Besides, I couldn't build a website to save my life. So we're even."

  Callum's low laugh was the equivalent of a good natured “whatever you say.”

  Impressive job titles aside, Zander just hoped she'd be able to focus enough to get some actual work done as they settled into a comfortable kind of silence. Between the beauty of the building she was sitting in, and the looks of the guy who was sitting across the table, she worried she'd never manage to concentrate.

  As the minutes turned to an hour, however, she found her worry had been unfounded. It took less effort to focus with Callum across the table than she expected. She was aware that he was there, definitely, but his presence was comfortable. The kind of comfortable that didn't feel the need to fill the silence, didn't feel compelled to entertain. Which was unexpected given how little time she'd known him.

  They glanced at one another from time to time, exchanging a smile. Once, she thought she might have seen him wink at her. But other than that, he was as all-business as she was.

  Which, she hated to admit, was kind of a turn-on.

  Okay, a lot of a turn-on.

  By two hours into their work session, she'd managed to clean out her inbox, make a task list for Monday morning, and correct the query that had been giving her such hell earlier in the day. She sat back in her chair, surprised by her own efficiency. Turns out when you're not being interrupted every twenty minutes by random drive-by conversations, you can check off a serious number of to-dos.

  Callum looked up at her for the first time in quite a while. "I'm almost done. You?"

  "Yeah, me too. I thought I'd be here all night."

  "Yay for study dates," he replied absently, his attention drawn back to the computer in front of him.

  Zander went to pack up her things but remembered a book she'd wanted to find just before she closed her laptop. Settling back in, she drew her foot up into her chair and brought the New Orleans Public Library website and catalog up onto her screen. Her budget was tight, so she'd put off buying a recent book released on the economic impacts of eco-architecture, but now everybody was talking about it at work so she knew she had to read it. And one of the beautiful things about libraries was that borrowing a book was always in-budget, so she did a quick search of the library catalog. This seemed to be a small library, so her hopes weren't high that they'd have the book she wanted in stock, but she assumed she could order it to a library closer to her apartment if it was available at all.

  To her surprise, it popped up on the screen: available at Latter Memorial Library.

  Everything was going her way tonight, wasn't it?

  Callum stood from his seat and stretched his arms up over his head. Zander looked up in time to see the hem of his shirt rise just above the waist of his low-slung board shorts. His stomach was smooth; the muscles beneath his sun-kissed skin toned and taut.

  Zander shook herself before she started to stare. "You mind if I grab a book to check-out before we leave?"

  Callum smiled, dropping his arms by his sides with a comfortable sigh. "Go for it. What's the number on it?"

  He came around to peer over her shoulder. He smelled amazing: like verbena, vanilla, and fine leather. Zander drew an unnecessary breath a
nd hoped he didn't notice as she pointed to the number on the screen.

  "Oh, yeah. I can show you where that is," he said easily, his hushed voice so much more personal now that he was so close.

  Zander followed as Callum led the way up two flights of stairs.

  "I wonder how this mansion became a library," she said. It was easy to know it hadn't started its life that way. Libraries didn't usually include frescoed ceilings and antique sitting rooms.

  "It was donated to the city by the Latter family in memory of their son who died in World War II," Callum replied, his voice hushed.

  Wow. She hadn't actually expected him to have an answer to that question. "Are you a history buff or something?" Zander mused.

  Callum threw a glance over his shoulder with a smile. "I guess. I've always had an easy time remembering history stuff."

  "I wish I could say the same," Zander replied with a laugh. School had never been terribly difficult for her—except when it came to history. It didn't matter what she did, remembering dates and wars and who-fought-who was impossible. She couldn't keep it all straight without serious levels of effort, and it had always been that way.

  "Eh," Callum shrugged as they reached the landing. "It hasn't done much for me except given me the ability to rattle off arcane facts about old buildings."

  "A useful skill living in New Orleans," Zander remarked as she crossed in front of him into the somehow-even-more-quiet-than-the-rest-of-the-library room full of books.

  They were alone here. Even more alone than they'd been so far. At least, downstairs, a librarian walked through the room every thirty minutes or so. And there'd been another person who'd sat at a table on the far side of the room for about ten minutes at one point. Up here, though, it was like even the HVAC system was holding its breath.

  "Three-hundred-thirty-something," he whispered as he came up beside her. "What was the rest of the number?"

  Holy hell, his deep whisper was enticing.

  Zander shook off the aftereffects as she gave him the decimal number. Then she followed as he led the way down the center aisle of the wide box of a room, between two columns of shelves.