Immortal (2 page)

“Hello.”

I jumped. Heart drumming, I turned and saw my dream researcher standing a few feet away, smiling tentatively.

“Oh! Hi.”

I laughed, self-conscious and delighted and sure I was blushing. His beauty floored me all over again.

“I'm Len, by the way,” I said, considering offering a hand, then chickening out and shoving it in my back pocket instead.

“Len?”

“It's short for Lenore. And you?”

“Caeran.”

I paused, wondering about the origin of the name. Sounded vaguely Celtic, but I could be wrong.

He watched me, waiting expectantly. I gestured toward the west hall of the complex.

“Well, we should go. The Wesley Collection closes at five.”

He fell in beside me, his nearness making me tingle. I glanced at him as we walked, picking up a few more details to treasure. He wore a loose-weave cotton shirt and trousers—earth-tones—and knee-high moccasins. Very hippie, but not in the sixties throwback sense. The clothes might have been Guatemalan or some other ethnic style, but I couldn't pinpoint them.

We got in the west elevator and I punched the button for the third floor. No one joined us, so I had him to myself in a confined space for a few seconds. I was all too official about it, mainly because I was feeling shy.

“Did you bring your citation?”

“My what?”

“Your note with the book title.”

“Oh. Yes.”

He dug the scrap of paper out of a pocket. I reached for it.

“I'll put in the request, and it'll take them a few minutes to pull the book. Then you'll have until five to look at it.”

He nodded, handing over the slip. “Thank you again.”

“My pleasure.” I smiled, then glanced at the citation. “You speak Spanish?”

Another nod. He sure wasn't outgoing, but that was something I could definitely understand. Fighting my own shyness, I kept trying to be friendly.

“That'll come in handy if you visit any of the rural areas of the state. If I'm not mistaken, you're new here, right?”

“Yes.” He glanced down, his gaze going distant.

The doors opened and I led him down a short hall to the Wesley Collection's home, a broad, low-ceilinged space that took up the entire third floor of the library's west wing. Metal detectors flanked the doors. At the front desk was Barbara Collier, a nice, honey-haired woman who'd helped me with a paper my freshman year.

“Hi, Barb. Can you rush this one for me?”

I handed her the slip and pulled a request form toward me, hastily filling it out. Barb glanced at the note, brows rising as she typed the call number into her keyboard.

“It's been years since anyone's requested this. It might have gone upstairs.”

I signed the form and pushed it toward her along with my ID. She just glanced at my card and handed it back. That was an advantage of my being on the library staff; ordinarily she'd make a copy of the I.D. and the paperwork would take a while. Too bad my guest didn't know how lucky he was.

“Go ahead and put your bag away and I'll pull this. Is this gentleman with you?”

“Yes, we're using the book together.”

“Well, it's a gloves-on item. You'll show him the protocol?”

“Of course. Thanks, Barb.”

I stepped to the bank of lockers along a nearby wall, pulling some quarters out of my pack before sticking it in an empty locker in the top row. My guest—Caeran, I reminded myself, savoring the name—was gazing at his surroundings.

“You'll have to lock up your pack,” I told him. “No pens or anything allowed.”

He turned a bewildered look on me. I suddenly wondered if he had money issues. He didn't look homeless—too clean—but nothing about him screamed wealth. A point against his being an actor, though not all actors were rich.

“We can share, there's room.”

I shoved my pack to the back of the locker and invited him to add his. He hesitated, then set the bag inside, watching with a slightly anxious expression as I shut the door and fed in quarters.

“You can hang onto the key if you like.”

I held out the key, bulky with its numbered plastic tag. He hesitated, then took it. A shock went through me as his fingertips brushed mine.

He smiled. “Thank you.”

Oh, man oh man. I had it bad.

I led him into the research area, where several large tables were available for using materials from the collection. Two of them were occupied, one by a grad student poring over some ancient maps, another by a faculty member looking through a four inch thick tome. I walked to the counter where a box of clean cotton gloves sat next to a stack of letter-sized paper—goldenrod, so the library staff knew it was from their supply—and a box of sharpened pencils. I poked through the gloves and pulled out a pair, offering them to my guest.

“See if these fit you.”

He put the locker key in his pocket and took the gloves, looking doubtful. I chose a pair for myself, and explained.

“The book's old. The oils on our skin could damage the paper. We have to wear these when we're handling it.”

Caeran nodded. “I see.”

I picked up a few sheets of the goldenrod and a couple of pencils. “You'll want to take notes, I assume?”

“Yes.”

“We'll use these, and of course we try not to mark on the book. OK, then. We're all set. Choose a table.”

For a long moment he stood still, apparently giving the selection serious consideration. Finally he moved toward the table farthest from the entrance, and took a seat from which he had an oblique view of the door and the front desk. I sat down next to him, since the tables were too wide to work across. I kept a couple of sheets of the paper and placed the rest in front of Caeran.

Lull time. Quick, think of something to say! As usual, this demand froze my brain.

I swallowed, deciding not to ask him if he was an actor. I'd already tried “you're new here” with poor response, and “so what's the hurry to see this book?” seemed rude.

“What brought you to New Mexico?” I blurted, sotto voce for the sake of the other patrons.

“An airplane,” he answered softly.

“Ha, ha. I mean why did you come here? Were you here for the balloon fiesta?”

He frowned slightly, then shook his head. “W-we wanted to see the trees. Aspens.”

“Oh, yeah. I love them, too. You're here at the right time, they're just turning. If you want a guide or anything … there's also one valley of maple trees in the Manzanos, if you like those.”

He answered with a polite smile. I had a feeling I was striking out.

“So, you're here with friends?”

“Family.”

“Ah.”

While I was struggling to come up with another question, Barbara appeared with the book. It was smallish, bound in leather that was starting to crack with age. I couldn't quite read the title on the spine. She laid a blotter-sized sheet of white paper on the table in front of us, pushing the goldenrod out of the way, and tenderly set the book on top of it.

“There you go,” she said in hushed, slightly reverent tones, her gaze flicking to Caeran's gloved hands. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, Barb!” I whispered as she went back to the front desk.

Caeran hesitated, and I thought it might be because I was right there, so I picked up my pencil and started making a grocery list on one of my sheets of paper. After a moment he opened the book. I kept my eyes on my list and counted to sixty before daring a glance.

The print was old and fairly dense, and in Spanish. I'd taken a couple of semesters in high school, not enough to really be able to comprehend text without the company of a Spanish dictionary. I figured if I was curious I could always request the book another time and puzzle through it. What I didn't want was to make Caeran uncomfortable, so I didn't try to read over his shoulder. I worked on my list, and drank in my impressions of him as he sat beside me.

I wasn't quite close enough to register his smell, at least not consciously, but pheromones or something were making me high. I was falling for him, which was probably not a good idea but sometimes your body doesn't give you a choice about these things. I was hypersensitive to his every movement, all of which were graceful. He never coughed or fidgeted, just sat there silently turning pages.

He scanned them quickly. I guessed he was skimming, looking for something to catch his eye. He was halfway through the book before he paused to make a note. I glanced up as he picked up his pencil. Nothing special on the page as far as I could tell, but his gaze, his whole attitude, had intensified.

He wrote down one word—a name—then kept reading.

I had finished my grocery list, so I made a list of things to do. When that was done I gave up and started doodling.

Every now and then Caeran would make another note. His page looked like a list, too; a list of surnames, a couple with annotations of place names, I thought. I tried not to snoop too blatantly, but I was curious. What could be so urgent about this centuries-old history? Why couldn't it wait a week?

Maybe it hadn't been the wait, but the twenty dollars that had bothered him. Except that if he could afford airfare, then twenty bucks shouldn't be a problem.

Where had he come from? I wondered. The UK? Europe?

And why come to New Mexico for aspens, when the Colorado Rockies were right next door? Aspen-viewing, and then suddenly an urgent need to research New Mexico's colonial history? I must not have the whole picture.

Barb came out from the front desk and started going to each of the patrons, quietly informing them that the facility was about to close. I glanced at my watch, which read 4:55. Caeran seemed not to have noticed, but when Barb came over to us he sat back. He'd gotten about halfway through the book.

“We'll be closing in a few minutes,” Barb said.

Caeran nodded, made a note of the page number, then closed the book and handed it to her. “Thank you.”

She smiled and headed for the guy with the maps. I pulled off my gloves.

“Did you get what you needed?” I asked softly.

A slight frown creased his brow. “Perhaps.”

“We could come again tomorrow if you want to finish.”

He turned his head to meet my gaze. “That is kind of you. Thank you.”

I smiled. “Glad to help.”

He removed his gloves and picked up his notes, carefully folding it in half. We stood up and I gathered the unused paper, pencils, and the gloves and carried them back to the counter.

Caeran took the key from his pocket, then stood frowning at the row of lockers.

I joined him. “I think it's number four.”

I pointed to our locker and watched him try to fit the key into the lock. He turned it over a couple of times before he got it to go in. I bit my tongue on an offer to help. He wasn't stupid, just unfamiliar with the format. My curiosity about him grew.

He slid his notes into his pack and followed me to the elevator. The map-guy grad student joined us, to my silent regret. Ignoring him, I smiled at Caeran and took my heart in my hands.

“So, can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

Caeran looked surprised, then gave me his polite smile. “Thank you, but I must return to my kindred. My family.”

“Ah. OK.”

Hiding my disappointment, I folded my page of lists into quarters and stuffed it into my pocket. The elevator opened and we walked out. I waited for the map guy to get out of earshot, then turned to Caeran with a friendly smile.

“Well, see you tomorrow maybe, if you want to go through the rest of that book. I'll be working ‘til four again.”

He turned to me, his glorious face showing mixed emotions that I wasn't sure I was reading correctly. Doubt? Speculation? He seemed to be looking at me, really looking at me, for the first time. My heart suddenly tried to fly up out of my chest.

The small crease on his brow faded, as if he'd reached a decision. “If I return, shall we meet in the same place?”

I nodded. “History display. Yeah.”

He kept gazing at me, and I stared back, mesmerized. He made me feel like I was floating in an exquisite limbo. I didn't know if he was doing it on purpose, and I didn't care. I did get the feeling that he was examining me as if I was some interesting specimen. Didn't care about that either. I could have stood there for hours.

Suddenly he smiled. “Thank you for your help.”

I sucked in a giddy breath. “Any time.”

He turned and strode away. End of interaction.

I walked after him, knowing it was hopeless to play the moth drawn to the flame, but unable to resist. He went out the doors and turned west, heading for University Boulevard.