Pale Moon Stalker (The Nymph Trilogy) (43 page)

Nearly six feet in height, Jack felt that was her problem, certainly not his. He stared straight ahead, struggling mightily to keep his Irish temper in check. Lord, he needed this job to keep his newly established detective agency afloat.

As she walked around him, he could hear the click of high-heeled slippers. "Perhaps if I were wearing stilts..." he commented tightly, glancing pointedly at her shoes.

"You'd only appear more the escapee from Barnum & Bailey." She sniffed.

Dillon watched the expression in her exotic black eyes. She looked like a stock buyer who had expected to examine a blooded Arabian stallion but was confronted instead by a three-legged, one-eyed goat! He said nothing. Damned if he would furnish her with any more ammunition with which to insult him. She did not require help. She was doing just fine on her own.

"Look at that nose! It's crooked. Broken in some brawl over a scarlet poppy, perhaps?" she inquired, her husky voice laden with ridicule. Oblivious to everything but her own temper, she missed the sudden flicker in his eyes. "How can you act as bodyguard to anyone? You apparently can't even guard yourself."

Jack resisted the urge to touch his offending anatomy.
Damned snotty brat! That beak of yours won't appear on any cameo brooch either.

"Look at that hair," she went on. "It's...it's..."

Dillon's eyes turned translucent amber as his anger escalated. He stared at the girl, thrown off guard by her sudden silence. Now she seemed to be seeing him—really seeing him—for the first time. He cocked his head quizzically, then stood perfectly still.
What the hell will she do next?

"Your hair is...red," she said, barely above a whisper.

"It was when I walked in here. Now it's probably gray!"

Dillon watched as the young woman, whom he prayed was not Fawn Stanhope, blanched, her golden complexion waxing a deathly pale. He thought she might be on the verge of fainting but fought the impulse to reach his hand out for her. If he did, he'd probably draw back a bloody stump. Besides, she deserved a fall from her high-heeled perch.

Perversely surprising him, she turned and fled down the long, polished marble hallway of the Stanhope mansion. Lord, she had acted as if a rabid wolf were about to devour her. "Ah, and sure the lad is never at a loss for charm. Great way to begin a job interview, Dillon," he muttered to himself.

"I do hope that you will forgive the lady."

The cultured, very British voice behind Jack made him turn. A frail, elegant little man wrung his hands in embarrassment. "I assume, sir, you are Mr. Dillon?" he inquired.

Jack nodded, still fighting the urge to look down the hall where the Amazon had vanished.

"I am the Ruxtons' butler, Baldwin."

Of course you are
, Jack thought dryly as the bald-headed servant made a smart bow.

Ushering him across the wide foyer past a curving stair-case, the elderly man explained, "That was Miss Fawn Stanhope"

Jack sighed. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

"She is really a kind and lovely young woman. Only sometimes a bit...ah...excitable."

"That's quite all right, Baldwin. I've encountered people suffering from the same condition. They were usually shooting at me."

The faintest touch of a smile passed fleetingly over the butler's face, but he suppressed it and gestured to a small, well-appointed room off the foyer.

"If you would wait for a moment in the receiving parlor, I shall inform m'lord and m'lady of your arrival."

Jack Dillon walked into the sitting room while the old man went to summon his employers. However, he was in no mood to sit. He paced, angry with himself and with the imperious Miss Stanhope—the brat! How could he have misinterpreted his information to conclude that the adopted Stanhope female was a pubescent girl instead of a full-grown woman? Then again, he'd had only a few days to conduct a hasty investigation of Stanhope after receiving the man's invitation. Still...damn it! Jack disliked sloppiness. He should have...

"Hullo, sir."

Dillon looked down at a young girl who could be no more than eight or nine, if that. A mane of thick, black, wildly curling hair framed an elfin face dominated by large eyes that were as green as fresh moss. She was the most beautiful child Jack had ever seen, with the possible exception of...
Not now!
His face hardened unconsciously as he thrust the memory back into the cellar of his mind.

Unperturbed by his expression, the child introduced herself. "My name is Delilah. I'm named after my Aunt Delilah, but everyone calls me Delia. And this is Numbers," she said, gesturing to the small, untidy mutt that sat by her side, watching Jack with bright-eyed curiosity. "Please, sir, don't be mad with my sister!"

"My name is Jack, Miss Delia, and I'm not mad...er, angry with your sister. She—"

"Well, you sure looked mad, Mr. Jack. But you see, Fawn gets fustated a lot when she has her sightings, 'cause she can't always understand what they mean. I think that scares her. I've heard that Great Grandpapa has sightings, too, but he is the oldest grandpa in the whole world, I think. He's so old that even Numbers can't count his age."

The scraggy old dog gave a wheezing woof in seeming agreement.
This ancient mutt can count?
Jack was absolutely confused but had no idea how to respond before young Delilah broke into his thoughts.

"Great Grandpapa is very wise, Momma says. I bet he understands his sightings, and—"

"Pardon me, Miss Delia, but what are ‘sightings'?"

The girl pondered for a moment. "Well, Mr. Jack, I don't really know, but Fawn usually has them in dreams. She told me so." Little Delilah nodded for emphasis. "And when she can't understand them, she has fits."

"Fits! Your sister has 'fits'!"

"Mr. Jack, you shouldn't be rude. I was still 'splaining, and you keep interrupting me. Papa says civil...civilized people should never be rude. My brother Edmund is rude. But he's only six."

Numbers startled Jack by suddenly scratching the marble floor six times. Dillon decided not to ask. Instead, he agreed with her earlier remark. "Yes, Miss Delia, civilized people should not be rude. I apologize, considering I'm no longer six." The mutt wheezed and pawed the floor six times again.

"Oh, Numbers was adopted by Fawn from a medicine show where he was teached to count. Even better than I can—yet, but I'm learning my multi...multi-pli-cation tables now," she said proudly.

A dog that counts? No! Forget about the dog. Concentrate on the 'fits'!
"Would you forgive me and please tell me about Miss Fawn's fits?"

Delia nodded with as much regal condescension as a child her age could muster.

"Well, Fawn has dreams and the sightings come to her in the dreams…mostly, anyways. But when she can't understand what the sightings are telling her, she sometimes gets real mad. You know what, Mr. Jack?"

The little girl charmed him. "What?" he asked.

The child looked around her to make certain nobody could overhear before proceeding. "I think Fawn gets mad 'cause she gets ascared, 'cause the sightings jumble up the inside of her head." Delia titled her head from side to side rapidly. "Not knowing what you are supposed to do's frightening. You want to know what else I think, Mr. Jack?"

Digesting Delia's opinion of Fawn, he prompted, "What else?"

"I think my sister is ascared of you, or she wouldn't have had a fit and been so rude." She beamed at her own cleverness.

Jack cleared his throat. "You might be mistaken. I doubt your sister is scared of anything."

The girl considered that for a moment. "That's true, sir. I'm ascared of lightnings, but when it lightnings, Fawn comes to my room and cuddles with me in bed and sings to me. She's not ascared of lightnings."

"That is brave," he agreed solemnly.

"Once a delivery man found me in the kitchen and touched my hair. He told me I was a pretty 'mite,' whatever that is. Then, Fawn came in and called him a pre-vert, which must be real bad, 'cause she doubled up her fist and hit him. He was big, but she grabbed the cook's chopper and told him she'd cut his liver out if he ever showed up around here again. He ran! I've got the bravest sister in the whole world!" Delia said proudly.

Jack thought of some brute touching this child and his old anger surged like fire in his blood.

"Mr. Jack, you've put on your mad face again. Please don't be mad with my big sister. I know she was only having a fit 'cause she's ascared of you. Else she would never have said all that dumb stuff. You have beautiful hair like our other dog Reddi...only Reddi got smashed flat by a beer wagon last year, and your nose is bent kinda like that—but not so much crooked that you aren't handsome. Just not as handsome as Papa. He's the most beautifullest human person in the world! He's even prettier than Momma, and she's even more pretty than Aunt Delilah."

Numbers woofed his agreement.

Jack stared at the dog, then at the floor, trying to appear as though he were pondering the child's wisdom. He absolutely would not laugh. He would not hurt this child's feelings.
I look almost as good as a dog smashed flat by a beer wagon! Daddy's even prettier than Momma!
Jack would bet that Max Stanhope, "the Limey," a former bounty hunter whom half the bad boys on the frontier had wanted to kill a decade earlier, probably often wished he were back living that quiet life again—just being shot at instead of being badgered by one daughter with 'fits' and another able to out-talk an auctioneer!

He was spared having to reply to Delia by Baldwin's return.
Saved by the butler.

"Would you please come this way, Mr. Dillon? Er, if you will excuse us, Miss Delia?"

Jack looked down at the girl and bowed smartly. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Miss Delia. And Numbers." He turned to follow Baldwin but did not escape the child's helpful parting advice. "Oh, Mr. Jack, I just thought—remember to sleep on your right side and the pillow will goosh your nose straight!"

* * * *

At that moment in her upstairs bedroom, a most distressed Fawn Stanhope was rooting through her closet like a squirrel digging for a misplaced nut. She cursed softly in a fluent mixture of Cheyenne and English. Ever since her first woman's flow, she had seen visions of the red prairie wolf. It had been her dream-world companion. She had come to look upon it as her protector, her animal totem.

As she had grown older, in her dreams the wolf, once a distant presence, had come ever closer. Two nights ago, she had dreamed that she slept by a campfire on the prairie and, in the dream, had awakened to discover the wolf stretched out beside her, his paw resting protectively on her hip…or, was it possessively? In the dream world, she had not been the least bit alarmed. But in the morning, when the spring sun shown through her bedroom window, awakening her, she had felt strangely uneasy.

Now she was even more distressed.

At the bottom of the old trunk filled with her art supplies, she found what she was searching for—the portfolio containing the pencil drawings and watercolors that depicted many of her dreams and visions. Her hands were trembling as she riffled through the selections, seeking the most recent. She snatched it out of the portfolio and dropped the rest back into the trunk.

No! This was all wrong. It was not supposed to happen this way. She was the Chosen Woman. The one the Powers had selected. They would not, could not play this jest on her! She stared at the watercolor. In it she had rendered herself as she was now—a woman, no longer a girl. She was dressed in a ceremonial tunic decorated with fringe and porcupine quills.

Her face stared back at her from the painting. A breeze whipped strands of her thick black hair across it, but that did not obscure her solemn expression or the fierce dark light emanating from her eyes. In the foreground, in front of her, stood a wolf with its head cocked quizzically, staring out at the viewer. The animal’s fur was a deep russet red. Its eyes were luminous amber.

Could
he
be her protector? Her mate? Fawn’s hand began to shake so violently that she dropped the paper. It floated gently to the floor...

Watch for CHOSEN WOMAN, coming in August on Kindle, Nook, Apple and Kobo.

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