Knight Shift (19 page)

Penny slept in the next morning and crawled out of bed oddly refreshed. She was shocked at the wildly erotic scene she and her dream lover had played out in her mind the night before. Even though she had ordered Casper to stay out of her bedroom, she had sensed his presence next to her. At the time she was too lost in her own needs to care, but now that she was back in her own mind, she blushed as last night’s events were added to the very long list of reasons why she was grateful that her ghost didn’t have a mouth to blab her secrets.

The next night when Penny rose, she walked to the bathroom, avoiding looking into the shadow. After putting on a robe, she passed Casper’s position and, while still looking away, she paused and said, “About last night…I may have gotten a bit carried away and I promise that I’ll be more discrete about any urges in the future.”

As Penny left the bedroom, Ice stayed behind and stared at the bed. His mind hadn’t stopped replaying the previous night’s events and he had been pacing outside the cabin anxiously waiting for Penny’s internal alarm clock to go off in hopes for an encore performance.

By the time his body finally calmed, realizing there wasn’t going to be a show tonight, he following Penny’s scent trail to the living room. He found her sitting in front of her computer waiting for someone to respond to a chat session.

Seconds later, he heard a chorus of male voices on the screen yell, “Happy birthday, Peanut!”

Ice’s face shot over to Penny’s and he asked himself, “
It’s her birthday?
“

Max asked, “So what did you do today to celebrate?”

“Nothing. I didn’t tell anyone.”

Morgan replied, “Why are we not shocked by that revelation?” The twins knew their sister well enough to know that the real problem was that this was her first birthday away from home.

“Well I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. It’s just a birthday. I have one each year. Mom did call me earlier and she cried.”

Morgan replied, “She cried because you told her not to bake you a cake, so we baked one for you instead.” He held up a lopsided cake decorated in twenty-six bright orange circus peanuts.

Penny was truly grateful and it took her a minute to be able to reply. Unlike Ice, she completely lacked the ability to hide her emotions. When she was able, she said, “Thanks. Can you take a bite for me?”

Morgan replied, “Only after we sing you happy birthday, but please don’t sing along. I don’t want you scaring away your ghost again.”

“Ha, ha.” Penny replied sarcastically but, after looking over at the shadow in the corner and feeling Casper’s presence, she decided to keep her singing to herself.

After the serenade was over, Ice continued to watch Penny’s conversation with her brothers. After they disconnected and she walked by Casper’s position, she admitted, “God I miss them.”

Casper stayed at her side until she finally crawled back in bed.

Just as she tucked herself in, she said, “Good night Casper.” She closed her eyes before telling him who she was going to dream about. Ice wanted to wake her up and force her to tell him her fantasy man, but that would require him to reveal his secret, so he remained quiet, trying to determine what to do.

As she hugged her Casper pillow, she whispered, “Now time to get a little more frostbite.” With a wicked grin on her face, she snuggled into her body pillow, which was still wrapped in Ice’s t-shirt, and let her mind drift off to sleep.

A matching smirk quickly grew on Ice’s face, confirming that he was the main player in her nighttime dream world. The thought alone made his pulse race. He wanted to crawl under the covers with her to play out her fantasy in the waking world, but he forced himself to back away. Although he couldn’t take her into his arms, he wanted to do something special for her. As a plan formed in his mind, he raced out of the house.

As soon as Ice arrived back at Sam’s, he asked the family while acting as if it was an afterthought, “Did you know that today was Penny’s birthday?”

Susi replied, “No. How do you know?”

Stretching the truth a little, he said, “Her brother Max. He knew that she wouldn’t share the news.”

The twins replied, “We should do something for our little Peanut. Any ideas?”

To their surprise, Ice answered by saying, “We could give her a ticket to fly home and see her family out east. We all know that she misses them.”

Susi was surprised to hear Ice offer such a thoughtful gift and said, “That’s perfect and I know that she would love it.”

Ice replied, “I’ll take care of ordering the ticket.”

Although everyone was surprised Ice volunteered, they never fought with him over anything he said he was going to do. Instead, Sam looked to the twins and asked, “Can you make arrangements to have Penny come over tomorrow night so that we can give her our gift?”

Taylor replied, “Consider it done. We’ll kidnap her after work and make it a surprise.”

True to their word, after work the next day the twins hid outside of Penny’s cabin. Once she arrived home they began to howl, making her step outside. Once exposed they jumped out of the bushes, grabbed her, and put a blindfolded on her.

While half-heartedly trying to fight them, she asked, “What the hell are you two fur balls doing?”

Taylor announced conspiratorially, “We’re kidnapping you.”

While the twins led her to the car they had hidden nearby, she asked, “May I ask why?”

Tadd replied playfully, “You may ask, but it doesn’t mean we have to answer.”

After a long ride where Penny’s prodding got her no closer to an answer, they reached their destination. As Taylor helped Penny out of the car, he said more seriously, “Come on Human. You’ve been a very bad girl and have to face your punishment.”

“What did I do?” she asked with some concern in her voice.

“Silence Human,” Tadd replied. Hearing the teasing in his voice, Penny knew that they weren’t really angry with her and her body relaxed.

After they guided their captive into the house, Taylor whispered in her ear, “Penny, did you neglect to tell your family something?”

Penny replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Tadd leaned toward her other ear and asked, “What was yesterday?”

Penny replied, “Tuesday.”

Ben moved so that he stood in front of Penny and asked, “And what happened on that day twenty-six years ago?”

Penny knew exactly what they were referring to and said warningly, “You guys had better not have…”

Taylor interrupted her response by pulling off her blindfold and everyone yelled, “Happy Birthday!”

As she looked out at party decorations, Penny asked, “How did you find out?” Assuming her brothers were the guilty parties, she added, “I’m going to kill those brothers of mine.”

To keep his newfound friends out east out of trouble, Taylor said, “Actually, Ice is the one that told us.” At a whisper he added, “I told you that he knows everything.”

Susi said, pointing to a cake that was sitting in the middle of the table, “We couldn’t let your birthday go by without a little celebration.”

While Susi cut the cake, Penny caught Ice staring at her and, for a few seconds, she caught a look that would have fit well in her dreams. Just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared and, with his face once again neutral, he stepped forward and handed her an envelope, saying “This is from all of us.”

After Penny examined its content she asked, “You bought me a round-trip ticket to Richmond, Virginia?”

Ice replied, “You’re holding the voucher. As soon as you tell me the date, your real ticket will be waiting for you at the airport.”

Scanning the room, her eyes welling up, Penny said, “I can’t believe you did this for me.” Glancing over at Ice, she cleared her throat and added, “Or are you trying to get rid of the irritating Human for a few days?”

Ice wasn’t looking forward to a week without his nightly haunt to her cabin, but he knew how much she needed to go home. He teased, “You’ll soon be under our feet again. You’re a lot like fungus. No matter how much we scrub, you keep coming back.”

The room went instantly silent. They were shocked that Ice had attempted humor and weren’t sure if they should laugh or not. When Ice smirked, everyone released the tension and laughed.

Penny leaned toward Ice and, with a serious expression, said, “I’ll keep my promise; I won’t tell them anything.”

Ice replied with confidence, “I know; I trust you.”

Next to seeing her Human family, his words were the best birthday present she could have ever received.

*~*~*~*

Two weeks later, Penny was on the way to the airport in Ice’s Rover with the twins in the backseat. After they parked, Tadd carried her luggage through the airport while Taylor gave Penny a piggy-back ride. While they laughed and carried on like children, Ice followed quietly behind.

When they reached the point where only passengers could go on, Penny turned to the twins and said, “I’ll miss you two.” She gave each of the twins a bone-breaking hug and a big kiss on the cheek. With tears almost welling in her eyes, she said, “Try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone, no harassing my employees, or there will be hell to pay when I get back.”

They replied as a chorus, “Yes, Mother.”

Ice stepped forward and handed her the boarding pass. She took it and said, “Thank you for dropping me off.” She wanted to tell him that she was going to miss him too, but kept that fact to herself.

Tadd handed her a bag and asked, “Can you put this in your luggage and give it to M&M?” As Penny took it, he added, “You can peek if you want.”

Feeling the weight of the bag, Penny’s curiosity got the best of her and she looked inside. After she pulled out two identical bottles of Fireball Whiskey, Penny laughed and exclaimed, “They’ll love it! Thank you so much.” She took a moment to carefully tuck the items into her luggage.

Ice said with a more serious expression, “Text me the moment you land and let me know when you’ll be arriving back home so that we can be here waiting to pick you up.”

“I will.” As she walked toward the baggage check counter, she looked down at the boarding pass. When she saw her seat assignment, she spun around and said, “This is in first class. I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”

Tadd said, “Don’t argue; it’ll do you no good. Just get going and we’ll see you in a week.”

When Ice nodded her on, she turned and passed through the security gate, leaving her friends behind.

*~*~*~*

A week later, Penny stepped out of the catwalk into the airport terminal. She heaved a sigh at the welcomed sight of the place she now called home. Although it was hard to once again walk away from her former home, she had missed her make-shift Changeling family and was anxious to see them and her cabin again.

She headed down the terminal and, as she passed through the security gate, she heard someone calling her name. She looked up to see the twins heading in her direction with Ice standing like a sentinel behind them.

After several big hugs, Penny handed Taylor a large bag and said, “I was told to give this to you.”

He and Tadd opened the bag and once they peeked inside, both twins exclaimed, “Excellent!” They pulled out large bags of every kind and color of M&M candies.

The group escorted the traveler to the car. While the twins tossed candy into the air and caught them in their mouths, Penny proceeded to tell details of her trip, starting from the second she had gotten on the plane. Ice had to, once again, trail behind to hide his amusement at her ability to talk without taking a breath.

Her story telling started over when she arrived at Sam’s and was greeted by the rest of her family. Ice chuckled, knowing that he would hear it all a third time when she had to tell it to Casper later.

While sitting in the living room talking, Penny said, “In a couple of weeks my family will be flying off on a hiking trip.”

Sam asked, “Are you going?”

Penny shook her head. “Yearly inventory is due this next week and then reps from headquarters are coming out to inspect our store. I have to be here for that.” In a futile attempt to hide her disappointment she added, “There will be plenty of trips in the future, so I can miss this one.”

Seeing the distress in her eyes, Susi suggested, “When you aren’t working, why don’t you spend your evenings over here?”

Ben had to look away to hide his snicker when Penny glanced over at Ice and her mind projected a night time project that Ice could help her with. After shaking off the image, knowing it would be too difficult to spend nights in the same house as Ice, she replied, “Actually, I have a project that has been nagging at me at the cabin and could use some of my undivided attention.”

While Penny and Susi continued to talk, Ben approached Ice who was standing off by himself. He asked so that no one else could hear, “Why don’t you go help distract her?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The one you’ve been staring at all evening.”

“I haven’t been staring.”

Ben tapped his temple and said, “Most of the time your mind is closed to me, but when Penny is around, I can feel the emotions you’re projecting. And, given what I’m feeling from Penny’s mind, I guarantee that she would be open to a little distraction from you.”