“I will not allow them to harm Elesyria,” he said, his voice as unwavering as his determination.
“Orabilis chose her champion well, it would seem. With your bravery, you might have a chance to save her. But know that it will take more than bravery. It will take what you carry in here.” She touched her fingertips to his chest, just over his heart. “I can say little more about them, warrior,” she said. “Only that you must be constantly alert to the dangers around you, and to remind you that your time is running out.”
When it appeared she would leave him, he placed his hand over hers, holding her still.
“I was warned of dangers and challenges aplenty,” he said quietly, his eyes locked on hers. “But I’d no reason to believe that time was one of them.”
She stilled her dancing and tilted her head to one side as if it had suddenly become important to study him more intently. “In that case, let me share with you what no others have. The longer your Faerie is trapped here away from her memories, the more of herself she will lose. In time, there will be nothing left of herself to reclaim. When that happens, when enough time has passed, she will become the woman she has had to invent for herself and she will be the Fae you sought to rescue no more.”
With a delicate twist of her wrist, she was free of his hold and dancing away, once again twirling and gyrating into the crowd gathered along the sidewalk.
Patrick watched her progress until she had disappeared into the flow of people. Danger he had expected. Orabilis had warned him of as much, just as she’d warned him that he’d be stranded in this time if he failed in his quest. That he would be fighting against time as well was not something he’d expected.
He had little enough time to consider the Tinkler’s warning before the women came out of the shop, each carrying a bag tied up with colorful ribbons. Ellen and Rosella chatted with one another about the treasures they’d discovered inside, but Syrie had eyes only for him.
The expression she wore was one he’d seen often enough to recognize, putting him instantly on his guard. Something or someone had angered her and, from the intensity of her glare, he suspected it could well be him.
“Who was that woman?” she asked as she drew near. “The one speaking to you out here.”
If she’d seen that, she must have been watching him. A good sign, perhaps?
“What woman?” He answered her question with a question, doing his best to portray an innocent memory lapse.
“You know very well what woman. The one with her hands all over you.”
If he didn’t know better, he’d be tempted to believe Syrie was jealous. A definite good sign.
“The Tinkler, you mean?” He shrugged casually. “You’ve no call to worry yerself over that one. You ken as well as I do how Tinklers are.”
“Worry myself?” she squeaked, her eyes flashing. “It’s hardly as if I care in the least what—”
“Hippies,” Ellen interrupted, placing a firm hand on Syrie’s shoulder as if she hoped to calm her friend. “They’ve been flooding into Boulder for a while now, camping in doorways, clogging the sidewalks.”
“But there are so many more than the last time I was down here,” Rosella said, as if to herself. “I wonder why?”
“Because this is the best place to survive Icarus,” a young man said from his spot on the ground near where they stood. “When it hits, the Rocky Mountains just outside of town are one of the few places where anyone will be safe.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Clint said as he and Robert joined them. “Icarus is a comet. We discussed it in an astronomy class I took last semester. But it’s not on anything like an intercept approach. It won’t pass close enough to have any kind of effect on us at all.”
“You’re wrong,” the young man said, his eyes closed. “It’s coming. It’s coming for all of us.”
“Not an argument logic is going to carry, Clint,” Robert said, putting an arm around Ellen to steer her away from the people in their path. “With all the chemicals these freaks have in their systems, there’s no telling what they believe.”
“Do you guys want to find a restaurant down here?” Rosella asked. “I’m starving.”
“Away from this place,” Patrick said.
“I agree,” Clint said. “This is the kind of situation that could easily get out of hand. Cops showing up would be all it would take to set off a riot.”
Patrick didn’t know whether or not Clint was right, but he trusted the man’s instincts. Besides, he had his own reasons for getting away from here. It seemed that more and more people were gathering in the area, making it harder to judge who might be watching them. In this place, anyone could emerge from the crowd, strike, and blend in again much too easily. After the warning he’d just received, this was the last place he wanted to be. The last place he wanted Syrie to be.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten what we were talking about,” Syrie said quietly, her words meant only for him. “We’ll finish the conversation about your little friend when we get someplace quieter.”
More people had arrived, pressing in on them as they started back to the car. The path ahead of them narrowed, forcing them to a single file. Patrick fastened a hand on Syrie’s elbow, pulling her close in front of him, her back touching his chest. Though her expression when she’d glanced up at him still reflected her aggravation, she didn’t pull away.
Yet another good sign?
Patrick smiled, deciding he’d consider that to be the case until something came along to prove otherwise.
Their progress was slow along the packed walkway, the noise growing as more of the hippies, as Ellen called them, began chanting and playing instruments of their own.
They had passed no more than two storefronts before a woman nearby screamed. Instinctively, Patrick wrapped his arms around Syrie and lifted her from her feet, forging his way into the center of the crowd, away from the path they were traveling.
Mere heartbeats passed before a large concrete planter crashed onto the sidewalk where he and Syrie had stood only seconds earlier.
The planter shattered into pieces, some larger than his own head, spewing dirt, flowers and concrete in every direction.
“Did you see that?” Ellen asked breathlessly as she reached the spot where they stood. “It must have fallen from the rooftop. Lucky thing you guys had moved from the sidewalk or an accident like that could have crushed you both.”
“Aye,” Patrick agreed, his arm tightening around Syrie. “Lucky indeed to escape such an accident.”
“Luck wasn’t what saved us back there, and you know it. You did. And you don’t sound to me like you think it was an accident, do you?” Syrie asked quietly, the fabric of his shirt locked in her grasp the only outward signal of her fear.
Patrick didn’t answer, instead tightening his hold on her as he hurried her back to where they’d left the car.
“You don’t, do you?” she asked as he helped her into the door and seated himself next to her. “You don’t think it was an accident.”
“No,” he answered once the car was in motion. “No more an accident than it was luck we escaped.”
An ordinary man under ordinary circumstances could well chalk it up to luck that the Tinkler had found him to deliver her warning. Or that some woman in the crowd had screamed as she spotted the enormous planter tipping over the edge of the roof.
But he was no ordinary man and these were anything but ordinary circumstances.
“No luck but vigilance.”
“There’s a place just outside Boulder that Ellen and I like,” Robert said as he drove. “We can stop there without even going out of our way.”
While others murmured their agreement, Patrick sat quietly. Where, or if, they ate was of no consequence to him. His only concern was the safety of the woman pressed against his side. Her safety and the awareness that, unlike on the ride down to Boulder, she now made no squirming attempts to distance herself from him.
If anything, she had molde
d herself into his side as if she belonged there.
Which she absolutely did, even if she didn’t know it yet.
Chapter 16
Knife, fork, spoon, flip the corners and roll.
Syrie repeated the litany of her actions over and over in her head as she prepared the flatware rolls to be placed on the tables. Anything to keep her mind off the events of the last couple of weeks. Anything to keep her mind off Patrick.
Too bad none of it was working.
Since he’d saved her life on their trip to Boulder, no matter what she did, there he was, lurking at the edge of her thoughts, watching over her, waiting. Much as he did in real life.
Not that he was actually doing anything of the sort. It was more likely a matter of her being hypersensitive to his presence in the house. She’d come out of her room and he’d be there, in the hallway, as if he were somehow on the same cycle as she. Moving from the kitchen to the living room, he’d be there, sitting on the sofa, his nose buried in a book or his gaze fixed on the television set. But always, the moment she encountered him, it was as if those other things were only to pass time. It was as if he was simply waiting for her.
And at night? She shuddered at the thought, pushing away another basket filled to the brim with silverware rolls all ready to go.
Nights were the worst. Just knowing when she crawled into bed at night that he was next door, with only one thin wall separating them, made it almost impossible to sleep. Instead, she spent her nights listening for any noise that might come from his room and conjuring visions of him as he’d looked when she’d blundered into him in the bathroom. Water glistening on his chest, drops coming together to form little rivulets flowing across his muscles and down toward—
“Damn, girl! What’s up with you? We aren’t going to run out of silverware rolls for the rest of the week.”
Syrie jumped at the sound of Gino’s voice next to her.
“Just…just passing time until the end of my shift,” she stammered. “You know how it is.”
Gino nodded and leaned back against the counter. “I do. And thanks to your overactive efficiency, I got nothing to do until we get some customers. I can’t even count on a good visit with you, since your shift ends soon.”
A glance up at the clock on the wall in the service station showed that Gino was correct. Another ten minutes and she would be due to leave. Until then, she’d try to simply enjoy her friend’s company.
In spite of her fears after the party, she’d come into work and apologized to Gino and he had forgiven her. Things were almost back to the way they had been before. He’d even asked her out on a date tonight, so she felt confident that his forgiveness was real.
Real unless she managed to completely mess everything up again.
“Don’t look now,” Gino said in a loud, faked whisper, leaning back on his elbows. “But here comes George of the Jungle, right on schedule for quitting time.”
“George of the…what are you talking about?”
As was frequently the case, Gino had lost her completely.
“You know.” He grinned and broke out in a sing-song litany. “George, George, George of the Jungle.”
When she continued to frown, he tried again. “Saturday morning cartoon? Musclebound, handsome, not too smart? Damn, girl, you need to watch more Saturday morning television.” Gino laughed and held up a hand in greeting. “Back here, George.”
“I rarely watch anything on the television, Gino. You know I work on Saturday mornings.” She turned to look in the direction Gino indicated and saw Patrick standing at the front door of the restaurant, a large basket in his hand. “His name is Patrick, not George.”
“Right you are, Miss Literal. As for me, there has to be something I need to do in the kitchen. I’m outta here, but I’ll see you at eight.”
The smile she gave him as he ducked through the door was more out of relief than anything else. Relief that he was leaving before Patrick could engage him in conversation.
Heaven forbid her evening’s plans should come up. Though she couldn’t explain why, she was more than a little reluctant to have Patrick learn of her upcoming evening out with Gino.
Syrie waited as Patrick set down the basket he carried and walked in her direction. She also made a mental note to look for the program Gino had mentioned the next time she had a Saturday morning free.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked as Patrick reached her side, flinching when he looked hurt.
In the almost two weeks since their strange outing to Boulder, Patrick had made himself an omnipresent part of her life. Every morning that she walked to work rather than having a ride, he was there, following her every step. When her shift was over, once again, there he was, waiting outside the door to walk her home.
At first she had tried to avoid him, even going so far as to slip into a nearby shop to pretend to look for a new dress. She’d spent over an hour trying on everything the shop carried in her size just to waste time. But when she’d come out, there he was, sitting on the hot sidewalk, waiting for her like a devoted puppy.
She had given up at that point, deciding having his company wasn’t really so bad after all. But usually, when he came after work, he waited outside. His coming in to meet her was something new.
“You agreed to an outing with me,” he answered. “Last night.”
“Yes, but—”
She stopped herself when it would have been all too easy to waste time debating the issue. He had just last night asked her if she would let him take her someplace special one day. She’d simply had no idea that by one day he had actually meant this day.
“Okay. Let me sign out and I’ll be right with you.”
She slipped into the back room and signed her name and the time to the list her supervisor had begun to use a few weeks ago. When she returned, Patrick was standing by the front door, the big basket once again in his grasp.
“What’s in there?” she asked, nodding toward the basket as he held the door open for her.
“It’s a meal for us to enjoy together,” he said with a grin. “And enjoy we should, since it was no’ my efforts, but Rosella and Ellen who spent the morning putting this together for us.”
Rosella and Ellen encouraging this? That was something she’d need to look into when they got back home this afternoon.
“And where are we to have this great feast of yours?”
Another grin lit his face, making him twice as handsome as when he scowled. “I’ve found a place I think you’ll like, though it will require a bit of a walk, if that’s agreeable to you.”
Good thing she was wearing her work shoes.
“Lead the way.”
Patrick led her north from the restaurant, past the stores she recognized and beyond. They kept going, even beyond the place where the sidewalks ended, and on through a long stand of trees. Once through those trees, they stood on the bank of a wide, slow-moving river.
“How’s this?” Patrick asked, indicating a wide spot of green off to their right.
“It’s…it’s good,” she stammered, overcome for an instant with a wave of familiarity, as if she’d seen this place before.
This place or one very much like it.
Patrick pulled a blanket from the basket and spread it out on the ground. He then reached out a hand to assist her in sitting down before he sat beside her.
“I’m glad you like it here,” he said. “I picked this spot because it reminds me of home.”
If it reminded him of home, what did it remind her of?
He pulled out sandwiches and set them on the blanket, along with two glasses and a bottle of red wine. She would definitely be having a chat about this conspiracy with her two friends when she got home.
“Isn’t it a little early in the day for alcohol?” she asked.
“Nonsense,” he responded, pulling the cork from the bottle and pouring a splash of liquid into each glass. “Where I come from, we have wine with every meal.”
&n
bsp; Maybe that was why he’d traveled across an ocean, to escape from a family of alcoholics? Probably not, but there must be some reason he’d come to stay with his cousin.
With a sip of wine to strengthen her courage, she decided to ask.
“Why are you here, Patrick?” She felt herself blushing as he turned those unfathomable blue eyes fully on her. “I mean, at first I assumed you’d come here to go to school, but you’re not attending classes. And you’re not hunting for work. So, why have you come here?”
He stared at her through several long moments, his gaze unwavering while it seemed as if he tried to find the words to answer her.
“I lost something that I’ve come to find.” He sipped from his glass and ran a tongue over his lips, as if he wanted to say more, but instead of speaking, he sipped again from his glass.
“Something of some value, I’d guess?” she probed, curious now and hoping for more specific information. “This thing you’re seeking.”
“Too valuable to ever put a price upon,” he responded. “Precious. Priceless.”
A nice answer, but really no answer at all. Certainly not enough of an answer to satisfy her growing curiosity. Only a direct answer could do that. To get a direct answer, though, she’d need a direct question.
She drained her glass and held it out to him for a refill. “Maybe I can help. If, that is, you’ll tell me what it is, exactly, that you’re searching for. And what it is that makes you think you’ll find it here.”
“My destiny,” he said with another of those smiles. “My future. And, as to finding it here, I’ve no’ a single doubt on that count. I’ve seen it already, so I know it to be here. I’ve but to capture it now and draw it close.”
His answer came as her glass was halfway to her mouth, and it was as if her hand froze there, midair. He looked so serious, so vulnerable, so sincere as he spoke, her heart went out to him.
Or maybe it was simply that deep, rumbling brogue of his coupled with the two glasses of wine she’d already downed.
Anywhere in Time (Magic of Time Book 2) Page 11
