"No," she answered absently. "My day is free of work and Fams, but I remain on call for emergency situations."
"And I remain understanding of that fact."
Her gaze arrowed to him and she scanned his face. He wished she didn't continue to doubt him. He stopped his mouth from flattening with insult and irritation. "Have you eaten since breakfast?"
"Nooo."
"You should. With me, as usual. I can pick you up at T'Spindle's in twenty minutes."
She hesitated.
"You'll be better for a ride in a new glider, relaxing before your Fams return to play in and around your cottage." He probably shouldn't have pressed on both lunch and a ride, but dammit, he wanted more of her in his life. Focus on getting her to himself.
Her brows rose. "And I'll be better for being in your company?"
He smiled. "You'll be better for food, for sure. Summer salad greens, fruit, a nice slice of hot bread and butter … Food and some relaxation."
She raised her brows, "Relaxation?"
"A pretty ride, good food, time on an estate where you're not an employee, with no expectations of you," Johns said. He would not mention sex. Oddly enough he wanted to show her his glider, his home, himself in those two situations, more important than sex today.
She sighed. "Come on by, I'll be ready."
"Wear one of those new-fashioned summer dresses." The request spurted from his mouth.
Giniana laughed. "All right. I can do that."
"I'll thin the glider windows and roof. It will be fun." Raising a hand, he said, "And if you want, I'll keep quiet. You can relax, even doze, on the way from the Spindles' to my place."
Her aura brightened. Good.
"I'll be waiting."
"I'm on my way." He tapped the roof of the glider and the door rose.
"See you soon!'
His scry pebble went dark. Slipping into the glider, feeling the soft leather under his ass, had him grinning. And opening the nav to Giniana's coordinates, saving them as the first location, was perfect.
"Bye, Thrisca! Bye, Melis!" Giniana sent telepathically to her FamCat and the kitten, though their minds showed they dozed in GrandLady D'Spindle's parlor. They'd already eaten their snack-after-lunch.
As for her own luncheon, when Klay had told her the menu, she wondered if he might be pulling a meal from a no-time, as she did so often. Did he cook at all? Her own skills were basic, though she could make excellent FamCat food.
Goodbye, FamWoman, Thrisca purred languidly down their link.
Goodbye, FamWoman, Melis's tone zipped along their bond.
Sleep! Giniana sent the suggestion to the kitten, felt her body relax and her yawn.
I will sleep, curled by My FamCat's belly. Melis's thought vanished into animal images and the cadence of sleep.
Giniana twitched the skirt of the new-styled sundress that she'd been wearing when Klay had called. A floral pattern, the full longish tunic—and no trous—fell to her calves. She also wore sandals, a treat, since her feet were usually fully covered in case of accidents at HealingHalls.
Her whole body felt buoyant, not just because she'd donned lighter clothes. Or slept well into the day. More like because she had sex and breakfast with her lover, and the recollection diminished the wearing anxiety for Thrisca.
Giniana had received a flash of energy from Klay when he'd called, his demeanor unwontedly cheerful.
So that other actor, Raz Cherry, had come through and sold Klay a glider. And Klay had enough gilt to buy one, even at a discount. It didn't seem as if he should worry about gilt and not having a job as much as he did, as much as she did.
Perhaps he was more concerned about the interruption of his career rather than gilt. Her shoulders tensed. Her father had been interested enough in his career to leave her and her mother to debunk to the continent of Chinju across the ocean.
Don't think of that other man who'd broken her child's heart. Let optimism return and feel Klay. His pleasure emanated through their link as a strong but gentle glow.
Well, he was a Master level actor. Maybe he borrowed gilt to pay for--no, she wouldn't believe that. Gilt and the presents it could buy had played too much a part in her mother's life.
Giniana wouldn't think Klay had wheeled and dealed and managed to get the gilt in some shady way like her parents would have. In fact, the man seemed solid. She hadn't asked around about him, nor asked the T'Spindle ResidenceLibrary database about Klay St. Johnswort and his family. She might have done that, perhaps should have done. She'd just spent time with him and listened to his stories and believed them, pretty much trusted him.
Her steps picked up pace as she walked down the path to the gate in the wall. Klay had enriched her life.
She spent the few minutes it took for him to arrive talking about him with the guards. The female guard made jokes about her envy of Giniana in having such a fabulous lover. The male guard spent most of the time pacing outside the gate to see a new gilder a man his age had managed to buy.
The sight of Klay driving up in a pristine, classy vehicle made her catch her breath. The actor Raz Cherry impressed her as the more elegant of the two, but Klay appeared powerful, successful, and confident of his place in the world. Though he'd spoken of his impoverished childhood and revealed his current doubts, he must, at his core, embody assurance and determination.
Or maybe that's what having such a machine did for his sense of self. As Raz Cherry promised, the steel blue matched Klay's eyes.
"Ooooooh," she and the guards let out admiring breaths.
Klay hopped from the open vehicle, landing lightly on his feet beside it as it floated a meter above the ground. He strode around the glider, picked her up and whirled her, set her inside the glider. She managed to angle her legs into the passenger side without looking like a clumsy fool. The fact that it never occurred to him that she might fumble the action generated even more tenderness with the man.
Their connection expanded with sheer exuberance.
The guards cheered, waved, and went back into the gatehouse, the female dragging the man away, since he wanted to spend more time ogling the glider.
"Where to?" Klay asked as he pulled away, the speed of the vehicle whooshing the air around them, but his voice perfectly clear and intimate by an actor's trick.
She turned to look at him, strong and striking features, continued to feel his energizing joy, let herself relax, banished all her doubts.
"I'd like to see your home and eat lunch with you."
His white teeth gleamed in a smile. "Excellent."
Seeing the city move by while sitting in a luxurious seat instead of the PublicCarrier, and heading along an unfamiliar route, engaged Giniana. A few minutes later they turned onto a gliderway between simple but elegant greeniron gates, under overarching trees not planted too closely together to obscure the front grassyard and gardens. When she saw that yard and wide flower beds, the large but relatively simple house—not a FirstFamily castle Residence—her spirit seemed to open to it. Almost as if it were perfect for her, or just plain right.
A very dangerous feeling.
They circled to the front of the house and Klay parked the glider before the low steps of a deck that wrapped around the front and side that she could see. Nothing like the tiny stoop standing before her cottage, nor the elegant portico of T'Spindle Residence. As with the rest of the property, she liked the look of the deck.
While she still stared, Klay whisked her up and out of the glider, up the stairs, and set her on her feet before the golden brown wooden door carved with herbs and shining with polish. She turned in place to look along the porch, the front grassyard. Everything seemed a work in progress, some portions newly cared for, flower gardens with rich earth showing and not one weed, some edges shabby with long grasses not yet mown waving shaggy tops in the gentle breeze …
Klay touched the gleaming brass latch and the door swung open on a short, wide hallway of tile, dim with refreshing coolness in the summer
time, and opening into a sunlit mainspace. Her whole body sagged with the release of tension at the obvious welcome of the house.
He showed her the main floor and public rooms before they ate. She loved the airiness of the kitchen and eating rooms angling off it, one for casual dining, a small glass breakfast room, one for formal dinners. Apparently the previous St. Johnsworts had been interested in food. From the corner of her eye, she scanned Klay's tall, broad body. Extremely nice, but it appeared as if he'd lost a little weight. Perhaps he'd been skipping meals to conserve food.
She enjoyed her lunch, the textures and tastes, and Klay confirmed that a previous St. Johnswort made it for the Summer Solstice ritual. That he would offer her such bounty touched her.
After the meal, she looked out at the back grassyard, staring at a massive tree-fort, and several small and charming playhouses.
"I built those," he said.
"Lovely." She frowned. "Some of them are as large as my cottage."
"Yes." He shifted toward her, smiled. "I could build your cottage," he paused, "or other cottages as outbuildings on other FirstFamily estates."
A depressing thought speared her mind, and she murmured, "You could build me a cottage on T'Willow's estate."
His smile faded, but he nodded. "Yes, if you could negotiate that with D'Willow as part of your fee in becoming Family Healer in exchange for her carrying out the time procedure on Thrisca, I could build it." His eyes had darkened to a deeper blue as he picked up on her sadness. "You'll get through this. Thrisca will get through this. Melis will get through this, no matter what. We'll all get through this together."
Giniana swallowed.
He reached and took her hands in his own, met her gaze again, expression somber. "You must not give up hope." He squeezed her fingers. "You must believe that Thrisca will prevail and survive the time process."
She loosened her jaw. She'd clenched her teeth. "I know."
Klay lifted an eyebrow. "Thrisca wants to live. She'll fight."
"Yesss." Giniana's breath hissed out. She pressed her lips together, then said, "And I should have just enough gilt on this Midweekend to pay for the whole thing." Her spine straightened. "Without taking the job with D'Willow." She stretched her mouth in a fake smile, mocking her qualms rather than Klay.
"But you'll have no gilt reserves?" he pressed.
Glancing away at a colorful patch of meadow herbs, she replied, "I'll be fine. I have my employment with the Spindles and the Daisys. I have my cottage at the Spindles. I can pick up extra work, if necessary, as I have been doing, but not as much."
He scowled and that looked good on him. He opened his mouth, but a loud telepathic stream hit them both.
Where ARE you? plainted the kitten. We want to show you Our ribbons and Our collar charms and how wonderful We look! We want to bask in your praise and attention.
You want more petting, and from me, Giniana sent back.
Yessss! both cats hissed mentally.
Sighing, Giniana decided to cut the time with Klay short. He'd need to leave for the theater soon anyway.
"I'll take you home," he said.
"That's out of your way."
"Not so much. We can leave right now." He touched her back as he led her to the front door.
When they stepped onto the porch, Giniana saw a boy rushing away from the glider to a nearby tree, picking up a garden tool he'd left there.
"Hey, Marti," Klay said, raising his hand in greeting to the boy, then said to Giniana, "He's a neighbor kid helping me out with the yard."
Marti shuffled his feet. "Hey, Johns. I didn't do anything. I didn't touch it."
Not quite the truth, Giniana saw a handprint on the metal of the hood, a slight sweat dampness on the leather of the driver's seat.
"No big deal, Marti," Klay said as he lifted Giniana into the glider, though she sensed he'd seen the marks, too. But the scent of him had her resenting her Fams. She'd have enjoyed sex with Klay upstairs in his bed.
As he walked around the vehicle, he smiled at the boy, who straightened as if a personal hero glanced in his direction. Klay said, "I'd take you for a ride, Marti, but I must get Giniana home, then head on into the theater. Tomorrow is matinee and evening performances for me. What about a ride the next day, during your noon grovestudy break?"
"Sure!" Marti sounded thrilled.
"We'll call it an appointment, then." Klay slid into the glider beside her, but continued to talk to the boy. "I need to head into town to the Theatrical Guild anyway, you could come." A lopsided smile from Klay. "Probably not very interesting for you, but you could look around a bit. I won't be long there."
"Sure!" The boy puffed out his chest. "No one in my grovestudy group has been to the Theatrical Guild. It will be educational, so I can miss the rest of the day and start my weekend early. I'll go ask Mom!"
Giniana laughed. "A child usually likes to cut grovestudy short."
Klay waved at the boy who was already in movement toward a cut in the hedge between properties. "Later!"
CHAPTER 24
THEY DROVE BACK OUT through the gates, and Giniana thought this neighborhood had fallen out of fashion decades ago, maybe as much as a century. Too big pieces of land and too large houses to tend, too far from CityCenter for the more upwardly-mobile middle class and lower nobles, though she liked the almost rural feeling. Not that she'd ever lived anywhere except in Druida City.
A comfortable silence of slow summer spun between them until they reached the busier part of the city they must traverse before entering Noble Country where all the FirstFamily estates, including the Spindles, were located. The bustling atmosphere affected them both. Klay's fingers drummed on the steering bar, then he translocated a piece of papyrus and offered it to her. "This is my schedule for the rest of the month. If you want me to take you to and from jobs in the glider, please scry." His intense eyes met hers. "Anytime I'm free."
She heard his harsh inhalation. He let his breath out on a demand, "I will drive you and Thrisca and Melis to D'Willow's workshop and the Time Healing Procedure on Midweekend. You'll all get there fast and privately."
Her throat closed at his offer and her trapped words whispered around the tightness. "Thank you. I appreciate that, we appreciate that."
He grunted and turned his gaze back to the road, though he'd set the glider on auto nav to the Spindles'. She fumbled the papyrus into her pursenal, then said, "I've seen the procedure before, we can watch through an observation window in the wall." She nibbled her lips. "I think D'Willow put that in for nervous relatives who hated seeing their loved ones disappear into a room and the family had to wait in a lobby. Though there isn't much action to see."
Klay turned to her, eyes wide with interest. "Hard to observe time."
"Yes. I'm allowed one guest for moral support, since space at the window is limited." Again she knew the curve of her lips wasn't really a smile. She seemed to throb with huge need. "Will you come with me? With us?"
His twitch of lips didn't much count as a smile, either. "Melis doesn't count as your guest?"
"A kitten? I'm sure not. You or I could hold her."
"Good. I'd love to go with you. A most fascinating proposition."
She leaned back into her seat. "Thank you."
"Always welcome," he said, then, "I'm sorry I didn't get to show you the upstairs of my home, the MasterSuite and—"
She found a chuckle. "I'm sorry, too. I'd've liked rolling around on a large bed with you."
To her surprise, his face flushed. "Not all our time is all about sex."
She touched his hand on the steering bar, "I know that, Klay."
He took his hands off the bar, letting the auto nav work, swept his fingers through her hair. "I like our bond, and we're getting … close." She sensed his irresolution, and when he spoke it was with indirection instead of the straight-talk he usually delivered.
"Your Fams love you," he said.
"Yes."
"In their own way."
She chuckled. "You could say that."
"I did say that. And knowing you love and support her will help Thrisca fight for life."
"I believe so."
"Love can always support you." Another long pause. "You know I'm here for you, in any way."
"Yes." But their bond throbbed with such overwhelming emotion that she closed her eyes, shut herself away. As they proceeded through the city, her problems dropped back into her mind and onto her shoulders like weighty burdens.
Three days until the morning of the time experiment, and her nerves wound drum tight and she hung onto her strength and hope by the merest of threads.
The silence continued as he drove to Noble Country and dropped her off at the Spindles'.
She scrambled out of the glider and through the postern door before he could kiss her. For some reason she thought that if his lips touched hers, she'd shatter into pieces she couldn't put back together.
Playing with the kitten behind her cottage eased the huge and dangerous tsunami of feelings that had threatened to overwhelm Giniana that moment in Klay's glider. She ran around, wiggled a string, hopped here and there to avoid pounces, then finally activated prototypes of several of the toys Blakely Wattle had left and sent them in different directions.
Thrisca lay in a patch of clover, appearing too exhausted to leap to her favorite birdbath, understandable if she'd hidden her condition from the Spindles, done her duties at the Residence and/or directed Melis to fulfill those duties
So though Giniana's stress at Klay’s unspoken declaration diminished, her gut-anxiety over Thrisca's health hitched up more notches until Melis curled near to Thrisca and dropped off to sleep.
When the frenetic activity ended, Giniana slumped in one of the chairs looking out onto the elegant tangle of T'Spindle's woods. Her Fams slept, Melis napped with the quick but profound sleep of kittens, Thrisca with too-extreme weariness. For one awful instant, in Giniana's own fatigue, the terrible wish that Thrisca would pass on to the Wheel of Stars and end all this revisited her. The next moment, she'd shored up her strength with hope. All this would be resolved shortly. By this time on the day of Midweekend, the time procedure would be over.
Heart 16 - Script of the Heart Page 22
