Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649) (9 page)

The truck screeched to a halt in front of my property. Maybe I'd have the chance to vent my anger after all. I went to the door and saw a battered, mud-spattered camper stopped there.

“You're lost,” I yelled, then pointed. “The farm is that way, and you are driving too fast.”

The driver of the rusty RV rolled down his window. “You Willow Tate?”

A mad stalker? Elladaire's drugged-out father? An avid entomologist? An irate tourist whose campground was shut because of the brush fire danger?

“Yes, I am Willow Tate.” I hoped my voice didn't sound as shaky as I felt. A stranger was getting out of the camper. He wasn't real big or broad, but he seemed threatening anyway. I couldn't tell his age from here, not through the rain, but he didn't move stiffly like an old man, or fluidly like a young one. He just seemed tightly coiled, controlled, determined. His light hair was buzzed short, but he had a scruffy start-up beard, maybe to cover some of the angry red marks on his left cheek. Damn, he'd been in a firefight with the lightning bugs, and lost. Now he was blaming me.

He took a couple of steps up the path to the porch where I waited. I clutched Elladaire a little closer to my chest. If he got too close, made a hostile move, I was ready. I wasn't any meek little pen pusher waiting to be shoved around. I had a weapon and I wasn't afraid to use it. “I'm sorry, baby,” I whispered to Elladaire as I got ready to pinch her into crying. If this angry man thought the fireflies were bad, he hadn't seen a flame-throwing toddler.

He came closer still. Little Red barked furiously and ran past me to attack his ankle. The man looked down. He had more scars or burns on the top of his head. I couldn't help my imagination taking over. Here was the villain of my fire wizard book. This was one evil dude, the perfect foil to my do-good hero. I could see them fighting, casting thunderbolts at each other while a hapless village smoldered beneath the mountaintop confrontation.

Then he asked, “So where's the fire?”

On the mountaintop? I did a mental blink. “If you are a volunteer firefighter, you've wasted your time. There's no fire. Not now. “

“Of course not. I'm here.”

Oh, boy. Angry and crazy, not a good combination. He ignored Little Red snapping at his pant leg and took another step closer.

He wanted a fire? I pinched Elladaire. She wailed, but nothing happened.

“Lady, it's raining. Are you going to invite me in or not?”

Definitely not. “I'm a little busy right now . . .”

“Yeah, I can see that. Listen, I spent the last week in the hospital, and was supposed to have a week's vacation. I drove all night to get here, without the pain meds that make me sleepy. So do you want my help or not?”

“Help?”

“You called for help with a fire problem, didn't you?”

“I called . . . DUE sent you?”

“Shit. Didn't you get the email? They said they'd contact you.”

I stood aside so he could come into the house. “I haven't been able to get to the computer. The baby . . .”

“I heard all about the baby. She'll be fine.” Without a by-your-leave, he scooped Elladaire out of my arms. Just in time, too, so I could grab Little Red before he sank his teeth into the guy's ankle.

The baby didn't like being plucked away, or strangers. Maybe she didn't like men, considering the father she had. She started to cry in earnest, but with tears, not sparks. The visitor jiggled her and made funny sounds. She stopped crying.

“How did you . . . ? That is, what did you do to make her stop?”

“Babies like me, that's all.”

“Not the crying. The . . . the other?”

“I told you, I put out fires.”

I turned off the TV, shoved a bunch of stuffed animals and plastic blocks off the sofa so he could sit, the baby on his lap. I nodded in her direction. “That's Elladaire Brown. The dog is Little Red. You already know I am Willow Tate. Who in the world are you?”

“Piet Doorn, at your service. Not exactly willingly, but I'm the best chance you've got.”

“Pe-et?” He'd pronounced it in two syllables.

He spelled it out. “Like Mondrian. Only the artist's name is pronounced Pete. My mother thought that was too common, so she insisted on her own version. It stuck.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“My grandfather's. His family came from the Netherlands generations ago. They like to keep some traditions. My sister is Katrinka. What kind of name is Willow?”

“A family tradition, too,” I told him while I started the coffeemaker and put on a pot of water for tea. I put out two scones and the last of the farm stand's raspberry jam. “My grandmother named her daughters Rose and Jasmine. We also have a Lily in the family.”

“What about Elladaire? That's a strange one, isn't it?”

The baby was playing with his keys. She looked up at him when she heard her name and batted her eyelashes. Flirting, at her age! And with such a peculiar man.

“Her mother was living with an abusive husband in a rundown trailer parked in a weedy lot. She wanted better for her baby girl, something prettier than the world she was looking at. Besides, her name is Mary Brown. She wanted a unique, elegant name for her daughter. I guess she made it up.”

“Edie'll do for now.”

He was making changes already? Just who did he think he was? “Her name is Elladaire. Tell me again why the people at Royce sent you?”

“That's easy. I put out fires. I don't know anything about bugs, but I do know about forest fires, oil field burns, electrical malfunctions, that kind of thing. They tried to send me to the war zone, but it didn't work. I could put out the fires, but I couldn't stop the explosions when the bombs hit the trucks. I saved a couple of soldiers, lost a couple before they pulled me out. That was hard. Brush fires are easier.”

“But how . . . ?”

He bounced Elladaire on his knee and had her giggling. “How do the Royce descendants know truth from lies? How do you befriend beings no one else can see?”

“I don't—”

“You do something or I wouldn't be here. There's no explanation for any of it. Just magic. From what I hear, you should be used to it, living in Paumanok Harbor. Some people talk to dogs, some change the weather. I put out fires.”

“You don't start them?”

“Nope. Never have, never could. My father couldn't figure out why his leaf pile wouldn't burn; my mother had to get a new electric stove. I was the only kid thrown out of Cub Scouts because he couldn't get a fire started. Neither could any of my den mates when I was nearby. I never tasted a s'more or had a charcoal fire barbeque. No beach parties around a bonfire, no romantic candlelit dinners either.” He looked toward the stone fireplace, a bit wistfully, I thought. “Never sat by one of those on a cold winter night.”

I'd seen some strange stuff recently. This was bizarre, even by Paumanok Harbor's standards. “Show me.”

He tipped Elladaire back and tickled her belly until she laughed out loud, which she'd never done for me. “See any flames?”

“She's too happy.”

“Do you want me to make her cry?”

I'd tried that. “It's possible Elladaire finally got the bug out of her system, without your, ah, abilities.”

“Sure it's possible. Light a match.”

I got the emergency stash from the kitchen, a box of matches and candles and flashlights for when the power went out. “The matches must be damp.”

His lips twitched.

I came back to the living room and tried the long fireplace matches on the mantle. One caught, sizzled, and died. The second didn't get that far. The battery-run grill starter couldn't cough up a spark. I looked around, then ran toward the kitchen. The electric coffeemaker was burbling, but my teakettle was still cold. I checked, but I couldn't start the gas range either. “Wow. Good thing there's electricity.” I put a cup of water in the microwave.

“Yeah, I don't cook much when the power is down.”

Elladaire started playing with the short stubble on his chin. He didn't seem to mind, so I asked something that was bothering me. “I don't understand how you got burned, then. Those are burn marks on your face, aren't they?”

He touched his jaw. “They'll do more skin grafts soon. And Royce has someone in Virginia who can make the scars fade. They've done it before.”

“My grandmother has an ointment that works, too. I'll get some from her. But what I meant was how can you get burned when fire won't work around you?”

He looked at Elladaire, not me. “Sometimes you just have to run faster than the magic. I happened to come across a bad crash before the cops did. There was a kid trapped in a burning car. Someone had to get him out in a hurry.”

So they'd sent me a real hero. Piet was the genuine article, not a construct of my imagination, not tall, dark, and handsome, and not a perfect cover model. I went to get his coffee and the scones. When I got back to the living room, Elladaire was asleep against Piet's chest. Little Red sat on the sofa next to him, shredding one of the baby's stuffed animals.

A real hero.

He looked over Elladaire's head and scowled at me. “Don't you go getting any ideas, lady.”

CHAPTER 9

“
I
DEAS? WHAT KIND OF IDEAS? Thinking up new stories is my business.”

“This isn't anything new. It's love and marriage and forever after. So don't look at me like your next meal.”

I gasped. “I wasn't—love and marriage? Why, you arrogant jerk. I just met—”

“Shh. You'll wake the baby. I meant I'm not the marrying kind, no matter what the bastards at Royce tell me is my duty.”

I had a hard time getting enough air in my lungs for another gasp. “They sent you to marry me?”

“They mentioned you were single and attractive. Twice. They've been pushing every unattached, talented female at me since I was seventeen.”

“How old are you now?”

“Thirty-eight. Feeling a hundred and eight some mornings. That's why they yanked me out of Iraq so fast. They're afraid of losing my genes before I get killed. I donated sperm to the cause, but they aren't satisfied. They suggested I wouldn't take so many chances if I had a family. It's all about crossbreeding with them.”

“They must have taken lessons from my mother.”

He thought about that, idly stroking Elladaire's back, ignoring the trail of drool she left on his shoulder. “I guess they push females harder. That ticking clock and all.”

“After spending a day with Elladaire, my clock is set at zero. I'm not doing it. No matter what anyone says, I am not having kids to please a committee. If I were thinking about having a family, I wouldn't let a bunch of mad scientists pick me a mate. I'd feel like a zoo animal in a captive breeding program.”

“You could change your mind for the right man.”

Now I sneered at him. “Like someone who runs into burning buildings for a living? Not likely.”

He laughed. “Sometimes I just sit on mountaintops, keeping brush fires away from power plants and observatories.”

“That's just as dangerous. With just as much travel, hopping from calamity to catastrophe.”

“So you're looking for a safe man who's around twenty-four/seven?”

“I am not looking, I told you. And no, I'd hate having someone underfoot all the time, safe or not.” Having Ellen around for a week proved steady company was too much. “I need time to myself, for my work, for my thinking about work. A weekend companion might suit me better.” And keep me from that black hole of loneliness. “What about you? Do you ever think about spending your life with one woman?” I wanted to ask if he ever got lonely, but that was too personal, no matter how we were talking about love and marriage.

He drank some of his coffee and eyed the scone, but his hands were full of Elladaire. I got up and spread jam on it for him. See how domestic I could be? He took a bite and “hmm-ed” in satisfaction at the taste before answering. “I thought I'd like to come home—I have a place in California, close to the worst fire zones—to home-cooked meals, a clean house, and someone who accepts me, scars and all. So I hired a live-in housekeeper.”

Before I wondered what other comforts the housekeeper provided, he said she was sixty-eight, and her husband lived in, too, to caretake the house and yard. Their nine grandchildren were always around, which is why he was so comfortable around babies.

“If I did go looking for a wife,” he went on between bites, “I definitely wouldn't pick one who attracted trouble like a magnet. I have enough drama in my life.”