Clue and The Shrine of the Widowed Bride (Clue Taylor Book 1)

by Wendie Nordgren

  “Disrespecting me?” I asked totally confused.

  “Over my dead body. No, your name. I’m terribly sorry about your mother. She loves you more than anything. You’re her world.” Winks took my hands in his and leaned into kiss my forehead. “But now that you know about me, I don’t have to be satisfied with visits every year or a holo-image. I want us to be a family. I want to get to know you and try to make up for all of the time I lost with you. Also, you’re my child. I want you to have my last name. What do you think of that?” His eyes looked thoughtful.

  “I’d like that, Winks.”

  He shook his head. “Do you think you could call me something else? For example, you could call me daddy, dad, father, pops, pa, or even dada.” I laughed at him, and his eyes sparkled. “How about a hug?” Winks asked with a touch of nervousness.

  I realized that he feared I might reject him. I banished that fear from him without hesitation as I threw my arms around his neck. Winks hugged me tightly. “I’m going to take good care of you, Clue. Don’t you worry about anything, not even Kiyohime and that parking garage. We may be questioned, but there’s no way we can be blamed for that.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “There won’t be anything left about which to be questioned. Kiyohime and her servants will have the bodies all cleaned up and stashed for later snacking.” I shuddered. “Winks,” I started but saw the hurt look on his face and said, “Pops, I’m sorry I didn’t start looking for you sooner.”

  My father’s eyes sparkled. “Hey, none of this was your problem. I’m the grown-up, and it was all my mess. How did you figure out I was missing and not dead? When I saw you through my box, I realized I’d been declared deceased and that my legal representative had contacted you on Eris Station.”

  I realized then that he didn’t know. Winks thought that I’d been with Momma until I’d been contacted by Mr. Nixon. The pain of losing her washed over me all over again. “I wasn’t on Eris Station. I was in Hyperion. I completed my first year of classes at college.”

  Winks looked shocked. “You were on Cassini? Is your mother still in Hyperion? Does she know where you are?”

  I shook my head, but then shrugged. She was kind of here on the mantel. “Momma passed away from a wasting sickness. She told me to come here to Cassini, go to school, and make something better for myself.”

  “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” Winks’ arms surrounded me, and he held me close to his chest. I rested my head against his shoulder and had the hard cry I had been holding inside since the day when I’d lost Momma in the infirmary.

  “I thought you were dead, too. When I found the box under your bed, I realized you were my father. I was trying to locate your remains.” Somehow, I had ended up on my father’s lap.

  “Hush, Clue. It’s alright, baby.”

  A loud clatter got my attention as Cosmo fumbled with a cup in the tiny kitchen area. With wide eyes, Cosmo whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’ll never make a good thief making noise like that, Cosmo. I’ll let it slide this time since you helped me get out of there. That Yokai infested mobster wasn’t counting on running into his scorned lover. That’s for sure,” Winks chuckled. “We’ll stay here and hide out until I’m one hundred percent. If there is any kind of problem, I need to be able to jump my little girl to safety. Does anyone know we are here?”

  “No, sir,” Cosmo answered.

  Turning his attention back to me, Winks smiled. “It looks like you inherited the Taylor family ability to slip. We have to be careful. There are plenty of people, spirits, entities, and demons on Cassini who want to use us as their own personal portals or energy sources. Our ability only works predictably on this planet. There is something about Cassini’s electromagnetic forces. Don’t feel bad that old Mamoru wouldn’t help you find me. The two of us have never gotten along.”

  “Who is Mamoru?” I asked.

  “Mamoru Tanaka is a stuck up, snooty snouted, old furry….” Winks coughed and didn’t finish with what I assumed would be a bad word.

  “I just thought he would help me. I thought we were becoming friends.”

  Winks bounced his knees around making me wobble and cling to his neck. I laughed remembering how he had done the same thing when I was little.

  After a week of quiet recovery, hiding out, and bonding, Winks was recharged and healed, and my bruises had mostly faded. We cleaned the hideout, hopped in the speedboat, and returned to Scorpius. Cosmo pulled up alongside a dock, and Pops hopped out.

  “Stay put. I’ll be right back,” he said to me as he vanished into thin air.

  “What the hell?”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Cosmo said. “Clue, if I can get your dad’s permission….” A honking sound cut off Cosmo’s question. Winks waved at me from a nondescript black transport.

  “See you later, Cosmo!” I gave him a kiss on the cheek and climbed from the boat to the dock. Then, I got inside of the transport and smiled at my mischievous looking father.

  “Let’s get some real food, baby girl. Is there any place in particular you like?” While hiding out, Winks had shaved and his hair had returned to a deep auburn shade.

  “I’m so stupid. We look so much alike. How come I didn’t figure it out?”

  He gave me a guilty look. “Your mother didn’t want you to know. She had no romantic interest in me. I wasn’t very experienced when I first visited your mother. She forgave me for slipping past her defenses so to say, but insisted you were hers. I could see you once a year, but I had to keep our relationship secret. I either wore colored contacts or dyed my hair before each trip to the station. I even had to claim to be your uncle in my will. I’d rather be known to you as your uncle than nothing. If she didn’t want us to be together now, she wouldn’t have sent you to Cassini. I can’t believe you’ve been here almost a year, and I didn’t know. I have passage booked on a freighter to go see you next month.”

  “Well, you can cancel that. I don’t want to return. Without Momma, there’s no reason to go. “

  “Okay. What do you want to eat?”

  I smirked. “I like the diner on Honjo and Cherry, but they may be a bit put out with me on account of a certain serpent demon who came for me there recently.”

  Winks snorted. “Nonsense, you can’t control or be held legally responsible for Kiyohime’s actions. Let’s go.”

  Nadia’s eyebrows hit her hairline when we entered. “Well, look who came back from the dead, and Clue, I feared I’d never see you again.” Nadia grabbed menus and silverware walking us back to my favorite booth.

  Winks took my favorite seat seeming to prefer his back to the wall. I sat opposite him. After we had ordered, he told me about the safety features of the house and made me promise to stay out of his basement. I smirked at him.

  “I’ve already seen everything even the crotch shot holo-images in your bedside table. By the way, seeing Momma that way was disturbing.”

  “Clue, that’s private.”

  “I thought you were dead,” a tortured male voice said. “I thought you were dead.” Tadashi lifted me from the booth and crushed me to his chest. “Oh, Clue. I thought I’d lost you. I’ve searched for you for days.” Tadashi inhaled my hair as he placed me on my feet. He cradled my head in his hands and kissed me with desperation. Then, he vanished. Gone too was Winks. I turned around in confusion. I found them together near the counter.

  “How dare you put your dirty fucking paws all over my baby girl? I ought to rematerialize you and that fucking tongue of yours across the planet from each other!” Winks shoved Tadashi, who growled low in his throat.

  “Out of respect for my wife, I will not feast upon the entrails of her father.”

  “Wife? My little girl isn’t your wife! I haven’t even given you my permission to court her.”

  My mouth was hanging open. It was a shame my fries weren’t ready.

  “She has slept in my bed three nights, exchanged notes, and flowers with me. Clue is my wife.”
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br />   “Just because she had a few sleepovers at a hotel doesn’t make my girl your wife. Furthermore, you’d have had to consummate the union on each of those nights, but you didn’t. I have witnesses that Clue entered the Shrine of the Widowed Bride. Only a virgin could have entered that shrine and recovered the Eye of Kiyohime, and you know it.”

  The blood drained from my face and then returned making it bright red. Everyone knew that I’d never done it?

  “Where were you when she needed you? Huh? You left her so that she could go chasing after me. She could have been killed or worse. If you were any kind of husband to my little girl, you would have kept her inside and under guard.”

  My father and Tadashi began shoving each other. Confused, embarrassed, and torn between who to support, I felt the lift, fall, and whomp of sound. I opened my eyes to a world of black, white, but mostly grey. Tadashi and Winks were the only sources of color. They stopped arguing to turn to me sensing my slip between realities. I fled into the restroom. I splashed water on my face in an attempt to calm down. Staring into the mirror, I was surprised to see myself in color. It surprised me enough that I slipped back into reality. Nervously, I exited the restroom worried about what I might find. Winks and Tadashi were seated together at our booth.

  “I just got her, and I’ll be damned if I allow her to get married right away.”

  Seeing me, Tadashi stood and rushed to me. He took my hands in his and kissed each of my wrists. Then, slowly, he raised his eyes from my hands to stare into my eyes. I knew he could see the hurt in them. I’d needed help to rescue Winks, and Tadashi’s loyalty had been with Lord Tanaka and not with the daughter of a thief and a whore.

  “Clue, your food is getting cold,” Winks said.

  When it came down to it, I hadn’t really mattered to Tadashi. I pulled my hands from his as my eyes began to fill with moisture, and his filled with a powerful determination. I sat and concentrated on spreading my napkin out across my lap.

  “Mr. Taylor, thank you for granting me permission to court your daughter,” Tadashi said with a bow. “Miss Taylor, I look forward to seeing you again.” With that, Tadashi left the diner.

  “What do you see in that arrogant, aristocratic, hairball?” Winks asked.

  “He makes my heart feel all fluttery, but he didn’t help me rescue you.” I wiped at my eyes.

  Winks appeared beside me placing his arms around me and kissing the top of my head. “I’m sure that prick he’s bound to forbade him to get involved.” Winks lifted my chin with his left hand and with his right smeared gravy on my nose.

  “Hey!” I said as I wiped it off.

  Laughing, he returned to his seat. “Eat up.”

  Nadia and the cook had finally stopped shooting wary glances our way by the time we left. However, the big tip Winks had left Nadia may have had something to do with it.

  Winks drove us down an alley behind our building and opened a garage that I hadn’t even realized was there. He parked and closed the door. A palm scan was required to enter the house. I followed Winks into a small room which turned out to be a lift. I was surprised when the door opened into the laundry room.

  “How did we end up here in the front of the house when we were in the very back at the garage?”

  “I had a multidirectional lift installed. It moves on horizontal and vertical tracks hidden within the walls.” Winks explained as he looked around at the dirty clothes scattered across to floor.

  Hurriedly, I picked them up and tossed them into the cleaning unit. Unfortunately, Winks opened the cold storage and gave me another look. Then, he began tossing spoiled vegetables into the incinerator. I grabbed a Big Bubba’s bag and began filling it with my empty bottles I had left in the sink.

  “Do you need anything from the store, father?”

  “No, just get whatever you would like. I’m going to change and then have myself declared alive. Be home before dark, or I’ll have to come looking for you.” Startled, I stood up straight. “I’m not joking,” he said with a serious expression.

  “Fine. I guess.” I picked up my pink bag and opened the front door just as a hover currier was about to signal for entry.

  “Hello, Miss Taylor? These are for you.”

  I put down my bag and took from him a large vase full of yellow and white flowers. Grumbling under his breath, Winks handed the young man a small credit chip and closed the door. I placed the flowers on the table beside my bowl of shells and frowned at them.

  “What am I supposed to do with all of these? Are they edible?”

  Winks reached into the blooms and pulled out a card which he handed to me. “You’re just supposed to look at them, sniff them, and feel special.”

  “Seriously? This planet has some strange customs.”

  “Read your card. This is a custom everywhere except space stations.” Under his breath, but still audible, he said, “Take more than these to mask the smell of wet dog.” Then, he walked to the stairs pausing at the mantel and looking back at me before heading upstairs.

  I waited until he was out of sight to open the card. “I promise to cherish each moment with you more than each breath I take. Your eyes told me that you question my devotion. There is a hierarchy that I follow, but while my loyalty lies with Lord Tanaka, my soul is yours.”

  Knowing it was pointless to try to hide my card from my master thief of a father, I returned it to its envelope and placed it in my bowl of shells. I grabbed my bag and left.

  Chapter Twelve

  As I neared the Wisteria Hotel, I paused unsure if I should try to find Tadashi or not. Tadashi had been unfailingly kind and gentle to me caring for me with patience and tenderness. I decided on a brief visit to say hello. His eyes had seemed tortured. The doorman offered to take my bag. No sooner had I handed it over than Tadashi in a blur of speed had picked me up and began striding with me in his arms toward the lift. When I attempted to speak, his lips silenced mine.

  He didn’t put me down until we were in his rooms where he pulled off his shirt leaving me to stare breathlessly at the muscles of his arms and chest. He tugged at my jacket which made a soft sound as it hit the floor. With a feral hungry look, Tadashi took my hands and walked backwards into his bedroom where he sat on the end of his bed and brought me down to his lap. His kiss drove all thoughts from my mind and made me ache. Dampness made my undergarments cling to me.

  Tadashi shifted his weight sending me to my back. While his tongue moved with mine, I felt his hand move under my shirt. He brushed his fingers against my nipple and sent tingles from the spot to the place between my legs. His mouth left mine. As I struggled to catch my breath, I felt his warm mouth cover my breast. Whimpering, I clutched the sheets in my hands puzzled over what had happened to my shirt.

  The ache became unbearable. I felt Tadashi’s hands against my thighs and shivered as he pulled my underwear away and wondered what had happened to my jeans. His hot wet mouth moved to my other breast. The cool air made the nipple he had abandoned even harder.

  My senses scattered, and I gave a soft cry of sound when he pushed his finger inside of me. I could feel every part of that finger. I surrounded it pressing against it from all sides. Tadashi moved his finger adding to it a brush of another finger to the place right above it as he flicked at my nipple with his tongue. I screamed arching from the bed. A sensation unlike anything I had ever felt zinged from his fingers through my breasts leaving my heart to pound and my skin to tingle.

  “Tadashi!” I screamed as the feeling overpowered me for a second time.

  Tadashi’s intercom began to beep. He ignored it. Then, someone began to pound on his door making me jump even with Tadashi’s finger within me which made me gasp.

  “Clue! Are you in there? You’ve got five seconds to come out of there before I come in!” Winks shouted through the door.

  “Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Where are my clothes?”

  Tadashi pulled his finger from me, but I could still feel its ghostly presence. Tadashi stood, fasten
ed his pants, and left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. I scrambled into my clothes while I listened to them argue. I had no idea how my shoes had ended up across the room or where my bra was.

  “I had better see a diamond on my baby girl’s finger, and it had better be big enough that I would consider stealing it!”

  I felt red creeping up my neck. Tadashi grinned and held my jacket open for me when I opened the bedroom door. Winks was glaring at him. Winks’ eyes narrowed as I slipped my arms into the jacket’s sleeves, and he noticed my braless state.

  “You need to be neutered,” he muttered to Tadashi. “I thought you were going to the store, baby girl. Did you get lost? It’s a good thing I brought the bottles I found in the basement sink to Big Bubba’s, or I wouldn’t have realized you needed help shopping. Come with Daddy,” he said as he reached out and grabbed my elbow.

  I blinked, and we were in the lobby. Winks grabbed my pink shopping bag, and we were inside Big Bubba’s grocery store. “How did you do that? When I move from this reality into the next, I have to run. How did you make us appear somewhere else?”

  Winks turned me by my outer arms to face him. “Look here, Clue. I know you’ve been alone and unsupervised for a year, but that’s only because I didn’t know about your mother. I would have come for you had I known. I never would have proceeded with that last job. I’m here now. I won’t ever leave you. Now, I know for a fact your mother had rules for you to follow. We are going to add a few ourselves. First, you are not allowed to be in a man’s room alone with him. Second, no more of this telling me you’re going one place and ending up somewhere else.”

  “Hold on here just a minute. I’m not a little kid. I can take care of myself. I’m a college student. I’m seventeen,” I said rather insulted.

  Winks smiled at me. “On Cassini, seventeen-year-old girls are not of age. As your father, who has legally claimed you, I am responsible for you until you turn twenty.”

  “Wait. What about Tadashi? Are you saying that I can’t see him?” I was close to losing my temper with Winks.