Too good.
“Sorry that took so long, but the little buggers need a lot of coaxing.” Exhaustion yawned between the words. I needed a shower, food, and a hot cup of coffee. But energy hummed under my skin—a restlessness left over from the earth.
“It’s okay for me to speak, then?”
“Yes, Jack. It’s okay. I’m sorry I snapped earlier, but the interruptions make it hard to hold my concentration, and fairies are even easier to distract. If I lost the thread and they scattered, I’d probably have to spend hours trying to get their attention again.”
He said nothing, just gazed at me with a bemused expression. I suppose it asked a lot to talk about fairies, but he insisted on being here. I resisted the urge to be self-conscious, meeting his gaze with confidence. Truth told, I wanted him to want to understand.
“What did you mean about the metal earlier?” he asked after a long moment.
“Metal and the fairies aren’t exactly bosom buddies. They exist in harmony with the natural world. Metal disrupts some of those harmonies and the result can cause the fairies pain.”
“Metal is formed in nature, right?” Jack countered, reaching a hand up to scratch at the stubble decorating his cheek. He’d abandoned his suit jacket and tie in favor of a button down and jeans. A simple pair of work boots replaced his loafers. He looked quite at home sitting there on the stump. I couldn’t see his eyes because of the darkness, but I could make out his features cast in gentle relief by the moonlight and no derision marred his expression.
I sat down fully. My tired, quivering legs stung with pins and needles. My aching knees appreciated the rest from the squatting position. I rubbed my hands together, trying to shake off some of the moist Earth. I considered his question because once upon a time I’d asked the very same question of my Gran. Granted, I’d been a teenager at the time, far younger than Jack and I now. But when I came into my womanhood, for lack of a better term, my bonds with the Earth strengthened to the point Gran insisted I learn to direct all of that energy before it began to direct me.
She was right. Isn't she always? Control your power or let it control you. The Earth does not exist to have compassion or forgiveness—she is the merciless tide, the grinding of rock to dust and the curator of the cycle of life.
“Chance?” Jack leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“I’m sorry, woolgathering.” I smiled ruefully. I thought for a moment, drawing a complete blank about what we discussed. This happened frequently after a lot of work. It made me feel quiet and introspective.
“Oh, duh. Metal. Um…to answer your question, yes metal forms in the Earth, usually very deep within the Earth. The fairies do not exist far below the surface and their harmonization does not mesh with something that exists that far below. Um…think of it like an organ transplant. We’re all human, but we’re not all compatible. The host may still reject the organs of some donors, even donors who show a great deal of compatibility with a potential recipient. Make sense?”
He pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “When you phrase it that way, I can definitely see where it could cause issues. So you are like a surgeon preparing for a transplant of the mound from the garden to this spot and hoping to prevent any form of rejection?”
My mouth tugged wide into a smile. An excellent analogy for what I did, though to call me a surgeon was almost too much. “Close. Close enough that it works as a description. The fairies adore the home they constructed in Mrs. Humphrey’s garden. To encourage them to relocate, I have to show them how to transplant their home without losing the beautiful harmony they built into it.”
Jack nodded again as one side of his mouth turned upward. “You really are an amazing woman, even if you do have mud and some god-awful smelling fertilizer all over you.” We both laughed and I took his hand as he stood and offered it. “Shall we head back? I’ll find something to put on the seats so you don’t get that stuff all over my car.”
My heart thumped happily. The fairies accepted their new residence, Mrs. Humphrey celebrated the return of her garden and Jack believed me. All was right in this pocket of my life. I laughed and followed him back toward the Beamer.
Ten
“Jack, the McNaughton rules are as out of date as using leeches to draw humors from the blood.” I handed him the cup of coffee before sliding onto the porch swing beside him. He balanced the mug on one knee and rested his other arm along the back of the swing. After the warmth of the day and the exhausting events, it was nice to just kick back and relax.
“But they’re the basis for the insanity plea.” Jack shrugged. “It makes sense though. If a defendant can tell right from wrong, then they aren’t legally insane.”
“Legally insane and mentally unstable are two different definitions. And since when does the legal system have the right to make medical decisions?” I leaned back, legs stretched out in front of me, ankles crossed. I enjoyed these kinds of debates.
“Why should the medical profession dictate legal decisions?” Jack countered. “It’s a ‘Catch-22,’ Chance. You know that.”
I sighed. He was right about that.
We’d just come back from moving the Humphreys’ fairy mound to find a note from Betty indicating she’d gone to play Bingo. Two FBI agents parked across the street with an ample view of the house and one tucked away somewhere out back. Jack didn’t acknowledge them until we walked inside and they called his cell phone. I left him to sort out the details with the agents and went upstairs to shower.
We ate some of Betty’s leftover pot roast, just as good the second night as the first. We settled on the porch after dinner to share the summer night over coffee and conversation. It was surreal. The two of us sitting there on a summer night, listening to the cricket’s chirp and the occasional mockingbird sound off in the dark. It should be the most normal thing in the world but Oakes cast a long shadow.
I laughed briefly at the thought, and Jack cocked his head toward me. “What’s so funny?”
“This feels awkward.” And I felt instantly foolish. “Two days ago, I finished up one case and helped out Mrs. Humphrey, thinking about how much idle time I had on my hands, which isn’t really that unusual in the middle of summertime. Then what happens? I find you on my porch in the rainstorm. While I love seeing you again, because we don’t really spend much time together anymore...” Words failed me. The last twenty-four hours wore me down, numbing the quipping portion of my brain.
“But I didn’t exactly show up with roses, a box of chocolates and two tickets to a movie.” Jack’s wry, mildly amused voice tinged with sadness. He gazed at me, an unreadable expression in his eyes. He shifted and rummaged in his pocket to fish out his watch, which he must have stripped off when he went to wash his hands. “It’s a little late, but I might be able to get us a pizza and some sodas. We could go upstairs, flop on the bed and watch a silly chick flick that will make you cry, and I can be a good date and comfort you.” He waggled his brows in such a non-Jack fashion I cracked up at the sight.
“Hey now.” He pressed a hand to his heart. “Try not to wound a guy’s ego here.”
“Chick flick?” I snickered. “You? Chick flick?”
“I’ve seen some chick flicks.”
“Yeah?” I challenged, scooting to sit sideways and feeling the swing sway gently to accommodate us. I grinned at him and took a sip of my coffee before continuing. “Name one.”
“Die Hard.”
“Die Hard is not a chick flick!” I snorted, laughing again.
“It had chicks in it.” He grinned.
“Riiiiiight,” I scoffed, enjoying the diversion.
“Okay, hang on a sec. Lemme see… I know I must have seen one.” His fingers drummed along the wood frame. “Does Charlie’s Angels count?”
“Survey says eeeeeh. Try again.”
“Hmmm, chick flick. Chick flick.” The image of Jack sitting willingly through a chick flick did not match my mental image of him. Imagining him at a bar, hangin
g out and knocking back a couple of beers over pool, sure. Attending an opera with a bejeweled piece of arm candy and mingling—I could even reconcile that. But Jack, eating sloppy pizza and sniffling his way through a chick flick? No way.
“Pretty Woman.”
“No way.” I couldn’t envision it. I couldn’t imagine Jack watching the pop culture classic Cinderella tale. Some images gel and some just don’t. This one didn’t.
“I saw it.” He smirked, tone teasing, and tugged an idle strand of my hair lightly. “So, there. I knew I’d seen one. So you wanna do that?”
“When did you see Pretty Woman?” Still finding it impossible to reconcile the image, now, I rather wished I’d skipped the entire conversation.
“Nancy and I saw it together.”
My amusement instantly died. I was an inch-high slug. I sighed and tried to figure out how to word an apology when his hand brushed my cheek and nudged my gaze up to look at him. “Stop that,” he ordered gently.
“Stop what?”
“Stop being silly about Nancy. I can say her name. It’s okay.” He brushed his thumb up my cheek to tap my nose. “You don’t have to be afraid to bring her up.”
“I’m not afraid of mentioning her, Jack.” No. I missed Nancy. I never hated her—couldn't have even if I'd wanted, too. But envy…yeah, I experienced that. Envy and more than one twinge of what might have been if Jack and I got it together. When she got sick, my envy dried up and I was thankful—thankful and sad that it didn't happen to me. Sadder still when we—when Jack lost her.
Hell, half the time I couldn't put the complicated misery to words, so I buried it. I sighed once, sat forward, and set the mostly empty coffee cup on the porch. Leaning back, I chewed my lower lip. “I just don’t feel comfortable bringing up a painful memory for you, and I’m always afraid that’s what is going to happen.”
“Look, Spook, I loved Nancy. I miss her like hell and, yeah, her dying, just sucked. There’s no getting around that. I was a mess for a while, but I’m okay now. Her death isn’t all I remember when I think about her.” He smiled wistfully. “I actually haven’t thought about her in a bit, at least not consciously, till we started talking about the chick flicks. Then…” He laughed, with a faint hint of self-consciousness, which also seemed an ill-fitted suit for Jack. “Then I thought about the night Nancy came home with some videos and a bottle of champagne. We’d just gone to one of the first formal functions I attended for the Bureau and she hated it, but she said all the right things and handled it like a pro.” He smiled, now, obviously enjoying the memory. His voice softened and a little piece of me melted. Time and loss didn't diminish that kind of love.
A quiet light erupted in his eyes that seemed to shine from his soul. I delighted at the rare glimpse inside his warm memory. The intimacy of the moment should have made me uncomfortable or maybe that was just my guilt talking. “Anyway…” A light cough interrupted his laughter. “She picked up these videos and a bottle of champagne and told me to get some grubbies on. We spent an evening her way for a change, which constituted some great Chinese, the champagne and Pretty Woman. It was amusing—the movie, I mean. Nancy was great. She got a real kick out of the movie, and I couldn’t really complain. Julia Roberts is not hard on the eyes.”
Wow. It sounds like a great evening to me, too. “I’ve never really heard you talk about Nancy like that. Well, except when we get drunk.”
“It used to be real hard, Spook. Thinking about that stuff just made me miss her more. But look at you—half the time all you ever say about your Gran is that she smacked you in the back of the head with a ruler when you got out of line.” The hard hand of grief relaxed on my throat as Jack winked. “You don’t talk about all the other times.”
He healed. It took a long time but, sometime in his months away, those wounds—the emptiness—inside him went away. Or maybe he just covered it over—filled it with something new.
“Yeah, I know. Sometimes it’s hard to think about her without missing her terribly, but I think about her a lot. You know, like when I’m working on something or trying to decide on a course of action. I ask myself what she would do or say. Then, well, I have an answer and that’s what I do.”
We went silent. We didn't really need to talk. The crickets filled the empty air with the soothing racket of their chirping. I missed times like these, just the two of us, hanging out. I never resented his relationship with Nancy, and my friendship with Jack never threatened her. No, we’d managed to avoid all those clichéd screw-ups. His career took Jack away from me. A career path we almost shared. He became the killer agent, cracking hacker scams and protecting the peace. My plans for forensic psychology piecing together the clues bled out in that university parking lot.
Or so went the silly dreams of college kids with an idealistic passion for making a better world. Unfortunately, my path, pre-determined as it was, veered sharply left when Oakes showed up while Jack’s continued on the straight and narrow. Jack existed in a world of delineated facts and figures, a world I understood, but I could not remain solely in such a place.
“Hey, Earth to Chance.” Jack waved a hand in front of my face, and I blinked owlishly at him.
“There I go, spacing out again. Sorry.”
“What were you thinking about? You had a great little smile going there for a minute.”
“Just thinking about college, when we got started and how we met.” I grinned inwardly and outwardly. “It seems like a lifetime ago. Then it occurred to me that, in a lot of ways, it was a lifetime ago.”
“Yeah, but we’re still friends.” He smiled before cracking forth with a huge yawn that made his jaw pop. “Sorry, long day.”
“I’m somewhat familiar with that feeling.” I meant to say more when headlights swung across the driveway, followed by a small Saturn SL that parked itself neatly between Jack’s Beamer and my Bug. “Betty’s home.”
“Better put my hands back in my pockets then.” Jack chuckled, pulled his arm from the back of the swing and stood. Taking a couple of steps forward, he looked over the rail to where Betty opened her door and climbed out. “Need a hand with those bags of cash, Betty?”
The older woman's soft laughter carried across the yard as she stepped delicately along the path stones. She wore a dark floral print dress, a matching shawl and slight pillbox hat to match. Always trust Betty to go out in the highest style. I padded over to the railing as well, my thick socks insulated against the faint peel of the wood on the porch.
“Good evening,” I greeted her as she came up into the light of the porch. “Did you enjoy your game tonight?”
“I did.” She smiled and pulled off her driving gloves one at a time. Her small black pocketbook purse tucked firmly around her forearm, balanced by the sheer charm ingrained into Betty’s pores. It wouldn’t dare displace itself. “And did you two enjoy your evening and…” She looked pointedly at me. “Eat some dinner?”
“We did,” Jack answered with an indulgent smile. “We got home about an hour or so ago, and we devoured a good section of the pot roast. I also helped myself to some of that carrot cake. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Good. And how about you, missy?” She smiled as I kissed her cheek.
“I had plenty. Delicious, as usual.”
“Good, good.” She folded her gloves and carefully stowed them in the purse. “Well, I’m off to bed, children. I’d stay up to chat, but I have to work on my snow peas in the morning.”
“Something wrong with them?” I turned and moved to open the front door for her.
“Oh, nothing for you to fret about, sweetie. It’s just that I’m not happy with how they are coming in this year, so I want to make a few changes around the edges.” Betty tossed a warm smile to Jack who nodded his head.
“If you’re sure? I can come out…”
“No,” she replied far more firmly and paused at the door to give me a long indecipherable look. “I’ll be just fine. You go ahead and enjoy your visit with Jack. You
two haven’t seen each other in a very long time. It’ll be good for both of you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, sweetie. Remember, a little sugar works on men, too.” With that, she gave me a little wink, hidden from Jack’s line of sight, and closed the door.
I stared at the door for a long moment. My jaw hung open and I blinked. Cheeks warming, I glanced over my shoulder, hoping Jack missed every bit of that innuendo. But the way he waggled his eyebrows and seemed to be silently laughing at me—well, yes, that left me shit out of luck.
“Oh, shut up.” I walked back over to the swing and flopped down.
“Aww, she means well.” Jack grinned.
“I know she does. I just don’t always appreciate her less than subtle hints.”
“She do it often?”
“Well, until about a year ago, she used to hostess a lot of socials for her friends and any of their unmarried male children that happened to be around. It took me a while to figure out what she was up to, but when I did, I just started being conspicuously absent from every affair. She got the point.”
Jack laughed again and shook his head. “She loves you.”
“That’s fine, but I’m not a cow to be measured and weighed and sold off the block.” I pulled one of my feet up so I could curl it under me and set the swing rocking with the other. Jack seemed comfortable against the railing, laughter gleaming in his eyes.
“Well, I don’t know. I think you’d fetch a good price.” He folded his arms, quite obviously enjoying himself.
“Pig.”
“Cow.”
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
“Nag.”
“Harpy.”
I glared at him for a moment longer and couldn’t have stopped the laughter if I tried. He grinned with that same ridiculous charm and easy-going manner that attracted me to him in the first place. And I’ll admit, despite the circumstances, it was very good to have Jack around again.
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