by Rachel Ford
Even Hugh, the master smith, seemed disappointed. “You may be the first wizard I’ve met who I don’t despise, Nancy Abbot,” he told her the morning of their departure. Not much, perhaps, from anyone else, but accolades from the old man. “Here. I’ve made you this. It’s not much, but it’ll be something to remember your time here.”
Then, brushing away her thanks briskly, he handed over a wrought silver brooch, inlaid with gemstones. The design was of a dragon, and its eyes were two glistening blue jewels. “It’s gorgeous, Hugh.”
He harrumphed. “Eh, just a bauble. Still, I thought you might appreciate it.”
“I do. Thank you.”
The old man smiled and nodded. “Well, this is goodbye, then.” He went to shake Nancy’s hand, but she would have none of it, and hugged him instead.
“Goodbye, Hugh. Thank you for everything.”
“I’ve had much harder assignments,” he declared, which was, as far as Alfred could tell, his way of saying he’d enjoyed himself too.
While he had gifts and hugs for Nancy, when it came to the taxmen, Hugh was less effusive. He regarded them with a disinterested gaze, saying only, “Well, good luck, then.”
Lord Basil tried to maintain a cheerful air as he took his leave. His parting gift was a bit more practical than the smith’s. “I’ve not Hugh’s skill,” he smiled, “to create anything so beautiful. But winter’s almost here. You’ll need these, wherever you’re going.” He had four heavy cloaks, with fur lined hoods and gold embellished trim.
They didn’t remind him that they were returning to the warm day they’d left. Nancy smiled too. “Thanks, Basil.”
“Of course. So…this is goodbye.”
She nodded. “Thank you again, for everything.”
“Yeah,” Justin put in. “I hadn’t lived in a castle before, dude. Can’t say I ever thought I would. But that was pretty cool.”
“Not starving to death was nice too,” Freddo put in.
“Of course. Warwick-on-Eden was in your debt.”
Alfred wasn’t sure this was true. In Nancy’s debt, certainly. But the Faveros and Justin had done little beyond common labor – certainly not enough to earn accommodations at the lord’s keep. “Be that as it may, we are in your debt.”
Basil nodded. “Of course. Well. There’s nothing left to say, I suppose, but goodbye.”
“Right. Well, goodbye,” Alfred returned.
“Yeah, adios dude,” Justin put in.
Freddo added, “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Basil,” Nancy said.
“Goodbye.” He seemed to flinch at the words, once they were spoken. “If you ever drop into our realm again, I hope you’ll look Warwick-on-Eden up.”
“We will.”
He smiled and nodded. “Then…I will leave you to it.” And, with a final glance back at them, he left the room.
“Let’s get this over with,” Justin declared. “If it’s suicide, I don’t want to sit around thinking about it.”
Nancy pressed a few buttons on the device, and they all cringed as it beeped out its acceptance of the input. Still, there were no explosions, and no deaths.
So far, so good.
“Okay. I’ve put in the coordinates. Everyone ready?”
Alfred wrapped an arm around her. “Ready.”
The other two men confirmed they were too, and Nancy drew in a long breath. “Here goes.”
“Nance?” Alfred said as she reached for the button.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Alfred.” Then, she pushed it.
White light flooded his eyes, seeming to pierce his soul. Sound and feeling vanished for half a moment.
Then it all receded, and he blinked into a bright sunny day. The sky was clear and blue, and they were surrounded by trees. Trees, and camping apparatus.
“Oh my God,” Alfred said, drawing her to him in a bear hug. “You did it, Nance. You really did it.”
She brought them first to Justin and Freddo’s time. “If it only worked once, I didn’t want you guys to be stuck out of your own time.” She shrugged. “We were the ones who forgot the device in the first place.”
“Well,” Justin conceded, “I appreciate your reasoning.”
Freddo was more direct. “Thank you, Nancy.”
“Of course. And – hell, I’m sorry you guys got dragged into this.”
The other Favero shrugged. “Eh, it’s not every day you get to live in a medieval village.”
“Since we’re home, and as long as we didn’t get parasites, or catch the plague,” Justin added, “no harm, no foul.”
She grinned. “Well, here’s to no plague and no parasites, then.”
They stayed a little while longer, making their farewells. “Well, too bad there wasn’t an easier way to do this,” Freddo told Alfred. “Not every day you meet someone you can converse intelligently with.”
“No,” the taxman agreed. “It’s not.”
“Well then.”
“Well then,” he nodded.
Justin rolled his eyes. “Jesus. You two are the same guy, and you still can’t express your feelings.”
The two men harrumphed in unison, and Nancy laughed. “What he’s saying, Freddo, is he’ll miss you.”
The other Favero smiled. “Well, I’ll miss him too.”
Still, Alfred was eager to get home, to their own universe. So with farewells and best wishes, they moved to the far end of the campsite. Nance punched in their home coordinates and smiled at him. “Moment of truth, babe.”
It was only slightly better than, “here goes nothing.”
The taxman gulped, shutting his eyes tight. He felt the familiar rush of movement through time and space. He felt it fade away.
Then cautiously, fearfully, he opened his eyes. He had never been, and probably never would be again, so happy to see a campsite as he was in that moment.
“We’re home.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As soon as they confirmed that they were, in fact, back in their own world, in their own time, Nancy stashed the generator in the glovebox.
“Oh hummus,” Alfred cursed.
“What’s wrong, babe?”
“Our campsite’s soaked.”
Nance frowned. “Dammit. I forgot about that.”
“Well, I suppose we better get to work.” Thoughts of drying everything that had been rained on filled his mind, and he remembered just how much he hated camping.
She nodded thoughtfully, but then said, “Babe?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you be really annoyed if I said, I’ve had my fill of forests for a bit?”
He blinked. “What?”
“I know this was all my idea, and you’ve been a great sport…but after Yngil-wode, I can’t think of anything less appealing than spending more time in a tent.” She smiled apologetically. “Would you mind terribly if we packed it up and went home?”
“Mind?” He scooped her up in his arms, drawing her to him in a kiss.
“Is that a ‘no,’ then?” she grinned.
“It’s an ‘I can’t believe you’d have to ask,’” he smiled back.
“Good. Then let’s pack up and get the hell out of here.”
“What do you want to do instead?” This had been Nance’s big summer vacation. And as eager as he was to avoid it, he didn’t want to ruin her time.
She shrugged. “Not a thing. I want to stay home with you. I want to get up late, take my time drinking coffee, watch television…” She kissed him again, a mischievous look in her eyes. “And anything else we can think of.”
He grinned. “Well, I’m sure we’ll think of something to pass the time.”
“Me too.”
Mob Bosses & Tax Losses
Book 5
By Rachel Ford
Chapter One
Alfred Favero locked eyes with the tiny devil. “You may have fooled Nance,” he hissed, “but I’m on to you, Satan.”
The creature twitched its tail, it’s glimmering golden eyes never leaving his.
A voice from the other room called, “Did you say something, babe?”
It was Nancy Abbot, Alfred’s girlfriend. “Nope,” he called back, wiping the menace from his tone. “Just talking to the kitten. He was on the counters.” Despite himself, he added, “Again.”
He heard the plodding of feet now, and a moment later Nancy appeared in the entryway to the kitchen, a towel wrapped around her wet hair. “On the counters?”
“Yup.”
“Are you sure?”
He fixed Nancy with an annoyed gaze. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion, and the lines were firmly drawn. “Were you gnawing on the bread, Nance? Because the bag is full of teeth marks. It wasn’t me. I don’t think it was you. And that leaves just one culprit.”
She laughed. “Alright, alright.” Now, she turned her attention to the kitten, who sat on a stool watching them both. “Were you being a naughty baby? Were you on the counters, Mister Fluff?”
Alfred grimaced. He loved Nancy to no end, but he couldn’t begin to understand her love for this little varmint. Pets were generally noisy, smelly, and costly, and this one seemed worse than most. He would have been happy to live his entire life pet free.
But Nance had wanted a kitten, and, in some fit of madness, he’d agreed. Now, he was paying the price for it.
One loaf of bread at a time.
After a few moments of baby talk, ostensibly reprimanding the wretched animal, she turned to him. “Let’s grab another loaf on the way home.”
He sighed. “That’s not the point, Nance. The point is, this little brat won’t stop.”
“Fluff’s just a baby,” she shrugged. “He’s going to get into trouble now and then.”
Other than pooping in a box, trouble seemed to be all it did. He kept this thought to himself, though, saying instead, “And he scratched me again this morning.”
She laughed. “That’s because you move your feet.”
“Nance!” He was aghast that she’d take Fluff’s side over his on this one. “Of course I move my feet. That doesn’t give him the right to attack them.”
She wrapped an arm around him, silencing his sputtering protests with a kiss. “Of course not, darling. But he’s a kitten. He sees something move under the blanket, and he’s going to pounce.” He was about to protest further, but she hurried to add, “But, if it’s any consolation, next time I’ll shut the door after I go, so he can’t get in.”
He harrumphed, but, in the face of her twinkling blue eyes, wrapped in her warm embrace, he felt his anger melting away. “Fine.”
“Good. Now come on. You need to get dressed, or we’re going to be late.” Now, she fixed him with a mischievous grin. “You can argue with the kitten later.”
He grinned too, wrapping her in a hug. It wasn’t fair. Somehow, all she had to do was flash her pearly whites, and his annoyance, no matter how justified, vanished. Still, he threw a glare back at Fluff, warning, “I’ve got my eyes on you, Satan.”
“Oh my God,” she laughed as they walked out of the room, “you’ve got to stop calling him that.”
“Nope. He’s a little devil.”
She leaned into his arm. “Come on, you adorable crackpot. Let’s get to work.”
It was awhile before Nance finished her hair, and he dressed. But they were in the car and en route with time to spare for a detour to her favorite coffee shop.
As they marched into work, lattes in hand, Alfred had all but forgotten the little four-legged menace back home.
He had a two-legged menace to deal with now. No sooner than had Nance kissed him goodbye, with a, “See you later, babe,” and he slipped into his office, did he hear Justin Lyon’s voice.
“Freddie. That you?”
He grimaced. Like himself, Justin was a Senior Analyst with the Internal Revenue Service. That was pretty much where any similarities ended, though. He wasn’t even fully convinced they were the same species.
“It’s Alfred. I don’t do nicknames.” They’d had this precise exchange so many times, he wasn’t sure why he bothered. The other man was not going to change his ways. But, then again, the taxman could be every bit as stubborn as the best of them. Or, in Justin’s case, the worst.
“Where’s Nance at?” Lyon glanced around his otherwise empty office.
“Working. Like I’m trying to do.” Nancy was the Information Technology team lead. They worked in the same building, but her office was in the IT wing – colloquially known, among the analysts anyway, as the nerd bunker.
“Cool.” Justin nodded. “Cool, cool. So, hey, I hear the new guy starts today.”
“I heard the same thing,” Alfred said, reminding him, “We do attend the same team meetings. So, not surprising.”
“Right.” Lyon nodded. “You know anything about him?”
“Just his name.” Greg Baker was a network engineer, hired to fill a vacancy left by the previous engineer, Randall Walker. Walker had attempted to murder Alfred and Nance during the MarvelousCon case, so, knowing nothing whatever of the tech, the taxman assumed Baker would be an improvement. Beyond that, he had not given the matter much thought.
“Well, I guess we’ll meet him soon enough.”
Something in the other man’s tone made him frown. “Yes. And?”
“And?” Justin shrugged, laughing nonchalantly. “Nothing. Just…I mean, I know they’re talking budget cuts and hiring freezes. You gotta wonder how they can afford another computer guy when they can’t fill the analyst positions.”
“That’s a question for Director Caspersen. It’s a little above my pay grade.”
“Hell, the director’s got plenty on her plate. She doesn’t need to hear from me.”
Alfred bit down on the urge to point out that he didn’t either.
“But…” Justin smiled, and Alfred felt instinctively that this was the moment of truth, what all of this chitchat had been leading up to. “From what I hear, you’re about to be a dad, eh?”
Alfred felt his heart skip a beat. “What?”
“You and Nance…” Justin shrugged. “I heard her talking with one of the guys in hardware. What’s his name? Jeff? Jake?”
Oh my God. The taxman sat mute for a full thirty seconds. The other man watched, smirking the entire time, but he was too stunned to really notice.
A baby? He was at once thrilled and terrified. He and Nance had talked about kids, someday. He couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather parent with than her. But…now? They hadn’t even been officially dating for a year. Granted, with the time traveling, it had been a little longer.
It’s still too soon, his mind argued. And why would she tell Jeff before she told me? It didn’t make sense.
“You must have misheard,” he said, managing to find his voice.
“No, I know what I heard, Freddie.” He frowned now. “Wait…she did tell you about it, didn’t she?”
Alfred licked his lips. They’d gone very dry all of a sudden. So had his tongue, for that matter. His mind raced, and at last he lied, “Uh. Of course.”
Justin grinned. “So…that’s pretty exciting, then. Your first pet together? I mean, that’s the big leagues, man. Not quite buying a house together. But still…”
“Wait, what?”
“It’s the trial run.” Justin shrugged. “You know, to see if you’re up to the real thing.”
“Did you say, ‘pet’?”
“Yeah. You know, the kitten.” Then, Justin’s eyebrows rose, and he chortled in such a deliberate way that the taxman rather doubted the confusion was accidental. “Oh, you didn’t think I meant…well, that Nance was preggers?”
“Of course not,” he snapped. It was, of course, exactly what he’d thought – and, he thought, exactly what Justin had meant for him to think.
“Oh, good. Didn’t want to give you a heart attack there.”
My apples you didn’t, the taxman thoug
ht. He was angry, but not angry enough to allow himself to cuss. Standards must be preserved, even in the face of provocation.
Out loud, he said, “Well, I should probably get back to work.”
“Hmm,” the other man nodded, making no move to leave. “So how’s that going? The fatherhood thing, I mean.”
“It’s a kitten, Justin. Not a baby.”
He shrugged. “Well, yeah, but come on. We all know this is just the trial run.”
Alfred had no idea what he was talking about, and told him as much. “And as for how it’s going, just fine.”
“Great. Kittens can be kind of pains in the asses. Stacey’s cat scratched every damned piece of furniture I owned.” Stacey was Justin’s girlfriend.
Or is she his ex? He couldn’t remember. They’d broken up a few times, and he’d lost track.
Still, Alfred snorted. “Satan doesn’t just scratch. He likes to get on the counters and eat stuff. Like, our food.”
Justin ignored this, though, his eyebrows making a beeline for his hairline. “Wait…did you say, ‘Satan?’”
Alfred felt himself flush. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Even Nance seemed to think it was a weird nickname for the cat – and she was used to his particular brand of weird. “Uh…yes.”
“Oh.” Justin shook his head. “Oh, Freddie. Tell me you don’t actually call your girlfriend’s cat Satan?”
“It’s just a nickname. You know, kidding around. Because he’s…such a little demon.”
The other man’s expression seemed to indicate that he was doing himself no favors. “Oh Freddie,” he repeated, sighing. “You clearly do not understand how this works.”
“How what works?”
Justin grimaced, as if Alfred’s naïveté physically pained him. “Dude. A pet is never just a pet. Women don’t get kittens and puppies because they want kittens and puppies. It’s a test – and you, my friend, are failing.”
The taxman found himself frowning. “A test? Failing?”
“Yes. And, yes – so hard. I mean, come on. Nance could have got a kitten if she wanted one. But she moves in with you; and all of a sudden it’s adoption time?” He tapped his fingers to his forehead in an exaggerated motion. “Duh. She’s scoping you out, to see what kind of dad you’re going to be.”
