Dances Naked (31 page)

Billy began his narration sounding just like Dan Akroyd in
Dragnet
then quickly segued into his own voice:

“
Greensboro, North Carolina, Police Department
.
Billy was finally finished with his paperwork. It had been a long night. James and Leah had left only an hour and a half ago and
,
unl
ess something drastic occurred,
and he didn’t even want to speculate on that possibil
ity, he would never see his newfound
brother or siste
r-in-law/best friend again. But,
now he, Billy Burke
,
the lifelong orphan, had a mother
, and that was a
blessing he had stopped hoping for a
bout fifteen years ago. H
e also knew who his father was and, although he may never be able to meet the elusive
Marty Melbourne
, he could find out more about him from his mother
, the sweetest woman in the world, Bibb Stephens
.

“
There was no reason for him to delay his final task. It was time to head out of town and pick up his going away
present from James—
the ‘Beast’, the classic 1964 red Dodge pickup truck. He would get one of the officers to drop him off near the site. He wouldn’t have to give him an explanation. That would make the task easier
,
but he still wasn’t ready to admit the finality of their departure. He missed them both already and actually hurt physically from their absence. The ache of emptiness went from his shoulders to his kneecaps and made it feel like his spine was an iced up rope, just dangling down through his midsection, h
olding his pelvis to his collar
bones. He snorted; Leah would have told him that
that
was anatomically impossible
,
but that
was
how he felt.

“
He gathered up the piles of reports, straightened the edges by banging them just a little too hard on the top of the desk
,
and tugged at the drawer with more force than necessary.
It
felt like
his left hand
had four thumbs
as h
e fumbled through the dividers
. He
finally found the fi
le for the case and
tossed it in like
a shovelful of
coal int
o a furnace, messing up th
e neat pile he had just put it in. “That’s enough of you!” he said. Hopefully
,
he would never hear the name Atholl MacLeod again.

“Sir, there’s someone here to see you. He says it’s very important,” Dyane called on the intercom.

“Have Sergeant Carter take care of it, will you? I’m off shift now,” he replied with exasperation. He realized it was the wrong tone but it was better than the one he was holding back. He didn’t know if he wanted to scream
,
or cry
,
or laugh. But
,
he did know that this was not the place to let loose. He stood up to leave then scanned the remaining papers still on his desk, making sure they were devoid of anything that would remind him of his time traveling family when he came back to work that evening.

“Sir,” Dyane came back, “He says it’s about someone named Evie and her daughter
,
Leah, the nurse. He says you’
ll know who he’s talking about.”

“Billy
went weak in the knees then everywhere else. Fortunately
,
his chair was strategically placed and caught him as he plopped down solidly in a controlled fall. He swallowed hard, started to speak
,
but only an embarrassing squeak came out. He tried again. “Send him in,” he said, this time
,
the words coming together and finding a way out of his mouth.

“
Dyane opened the door for the large visitor. Billy stood up and his eyes widened as they watched the man duck his head in order to enter his office. He wasn’t the tallest man he had ever seen; he had met a couple of the gangly basketball players with the Hornets, but he was the biggest in terms of being a proportionately built man. Billy quickly tipped his head down when he realized he was staring. He walked around to the front of his desk to shake the hand of the huge man with auburn red hair. He glanced up again and the gentle giant grinned and whispered, “Six seven,” like he was sharing a secret.

“
Billy pointed to the chair, offering his congenial new acquaintance a place to sit, then walked back around his desk, touching its surface as much for reassurance that he was awake as for physical support
,
lest he fall down from shock. He sat down slowly in his seat, his head bowed down, concentrating on the desktop. He didn’t think he could make the transition from standing to sitting while looking
into the face of this big man.

“I didn’t mean to stare,” Billy apologized as he looked up again. “It’s just that you remind me of someone. All you’re missing is the Scots accent.” Billy couldn’t help but think of the man’s resemblan
ce to Jody Pomeroy of the
Lost
novels. If James and Leah had just gone back to his time,
the 18
th
century,
could it be that Jody Pomeroy had come back here, to this time? He fought back the urge to shake his head ‘no’ in answer to his own unspoken question and smiled nervously.

“Weel, I guess I lost a bit of the accent since I’ve been back here in North Carolina. Now, that bein’ said, are ye the one
to talk to about Leah and Evie?”

“Who
are
you?” Billy asked incredulously before he answered the Jody look-alike’s question.

“I’m sorry. I dinna introduce myself. I’m Benjamin Ma
cKay, but ye can call me Benji.”

“
Billy nodded his head slowly in answer to Benji’s question about being familiar with Leah and Evie. He didn’t even try to talk lest the sounds come out as the ‘baa, baa, babble’ that were coursing through his brain. He’d read all the Lisa Sinclaire novels at least once. Benji was Jody Pomeroy’s grandson
,
and
he
was now sitting in front of him, all grown up. He was supposed to be a fictional character!

“Weel then, I hope it’s not too late to catch a ride back with Leah. I got distracted with a couple of unsavory characters. But
,
it seems that ye’ve helped me quite a bit and have the MacLeod brothers out of my hair now. I, um,
heard
that Leah was goin’
back
to see her mother soon. I understand she knows how to, um,
travel
safely and without a lot of pain involved?” he asked rather than stated, focusing on Billy’s eyes for his reaction.

“
Benji could see by the detective’s wide-eyed and slack
-
jawed appearance that Billy understood what he was talking about. He waited for Billy’s reply
,
but the stunned police officer just sat at his desk, palms flat like he was holding
down
the wooden furniture down
,
and shook his head back and forth slowly. “You’re too late,” he whispered, his head still moving back and forth at the same
,
slow pace. “About two hours
too late. They’ve already gone.”

“
Benji winched, shut his eyes
,
and shook his head with a look of sadness and frustration. “Jest two hours…” he exhaled. “Um, do ye happen to know how they traveled?” he asked tentatively.

“
Billy pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his thumb and index finger out over his eyebrows, rubbing them back and forth in a nervous manner. He wanted to delay the answer. He didn’t know if this Benji, this 21
st
century Benji, was a good person or not. Could it be that he was in with the MacLeods? But
,
before he answered
,
he heard the cautious question.

“Are ye related to Marty Melbourne, per chance?”

“
Billy’s head snapped to attention, the fog of indecision blown away with the hurricane force of the shocking inquiry.
“Why?” was all that he could think to
answer.

“
Benji chortled. “Weel, ye must be then or y
e woulda answered ‘who’ or ‘no.’
Ye look jest like him, have his same nervous habit of pinchin’ yer eyebrows
,
and I’ll wager if ye had the English accent, ye’d sound jest like him, too. But
,
yer not James, are ye? I mean, yer an American and an officer of the law. He’s a member of parliament and a businessman.”

“
Billy drew a deep breath, making the snap, gut decision that this was a good man and could be trusted. “James is my brother and Marty is my father,” he said with a big exhale. He started to say more of their relationship but stopped. He’d let Benji talk and see how much he knew.

“Ye said ‘they’ went back, not jest Leah. Who went with her?” Benji asked.

“James did. He’s her husband now. I don’t think he would have let her go by herself. He was quite smitten with her. They only knew each other two weeks
,
but as soon as I saw those two together, I knew that it wouldn’t be too long and… Hey, how did you know Leah went back?” Billy asked, losing his original train of thought. This man was sharp and didn’t miss a word.

“I read about it in a letter,” Benji said plainly. He opened his mouth to say more then decided he’d wait to see if this American was going to let something slip. He wanted to know how much he knew before talking about time travel to a total stranger.

“
But Billy was smart, too. He was also playing the ‘show me your cards and I’ll show you mine’ game. “So how do you know Marty Melbourne?” he asked with a glint in his eye, letting the big Scot know they were playing mental poker.

“
Benji grinned and replied, “Ye make a livin’ out of this, aye? I mean, jest any little thing a man says
,
ye can use to find out more about a situation.”

“
Billy pointe
d to the first part of the name
tag o
n his desk. “It says detective,
aye? So how do ye ken him?” he asked
,
mimicking Benji’s accent.

“He came to our place when I was much younger. He and my father talked fer quite a while. Ye see, my father had read a letter about a James Melbourne and was tryin’ to find him. He
dinna
ken much about him or his family
,
but what he kent was enough. It turns out that both men were lookin’ fer each other. My father was writin’ a book about, um, writin’ a book that interested Lord Melbourne
,
and the two actually took a trip here to North Carolina in the early 90’s. Yo
ung James and I came with them.”

“
Billy decided to lay out a card and see if he could gain Benji’s confidence. “So was the book about,” he paused then made eye contact with the large red haired man, “about time travel?”

“What?” his new acquaintance laughed, “Do ye believe in that nonsense?”

“
But
,
Billy could tell that Benji was just having fun with him. The walls were down and they were now both comfortable. “So, does this mean that you’ve traveled and it was painful? I mean, you mentioned Leah finding a way to travel without pain.”

“
Benji rolled his eyes. “Ye have no idea how painful. I was jest a lad
,
but I get the cold goose flesh jest thinkin’ about it. I guess this means ye never went, um, back?”

“No, I’m sort of new to all of this. Have you had breakfast yet? I’m just getting off work and I think we have a lot to talk about.”

“And that’s how we met,” Billy told Marty. “But there’s so much more to the story. Stick around and I’ll tell you about it.”

End of Preview of THE GREAT BIG FAIRY ~ Fourth in the series THE FAIRIES SAGA

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