The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (21 page)

“Please have a seat.” She gestured to the empty chairs around her table like a priestess initiating a rite. “John sent me. He’s at my house. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Chapter Seventeen

W
e studied each other. The moment stretched into an awkward silence. Awkward for me, at least, and, I guessed, for Timber. Moon Pie didn’t seem to care, one way or the other.

“So, uh, Marilyn,” I said at last. I did not like being put in the position of Seeker in this interview. Especially not with Moon Pie in the Priestess role. It went against the grain. I wanted her to say something. But she simply sat there, radiating disconcerting calm.

“How did you happen to…uh…hook up with Stonefeather?” My choice of words made me cringe inside. I hadn’t been able to help myself; they’d just come out. I wanted to bite my tongue off.

Moon Pie… No. Marilyn. I had to start thinking of her as Marilyn. Marilyn didn’t seem to notice my slip. At least, she showed no sign of offense.

“He called to me,” she said in vague tones.

“He called you?” I repeated, dumbfounded. Okay. As Sage had pointed out, the combination of Stonefeather and…Marilyn did make some kind of weird sense. Sense I didn’t want to examine close up. Still, I’d never heard him mention her. Never seen them together.

“He called
to
me,” she clarified. “Sometimes I just know things. Like when people need me. That’s how I know where to go. To help them.”

“Toward enlightenment,” I thought I heard Timber mutter. I kicked him under the table.

“So you went to the Sundown…” I prompted.

“I found him there.” She nodded. “So frightened. In so much pain. I took him home.”

“And kept him all week?”

Again, she nodded. “It seemed safer. I can do that, sometimes. Make things safer. Happier.”

Curious. I hadn’t counted on Marilyn having any real magic, but it seemed she did. And of a very useful sort. I took a second to examine her with my Sight. Her aura gave me a shock. She had a goddess with her, a goddess of hearth and home. No wonder she knew who needed her and could make things safe. My respect for her ratcheted up a couple large notches.

“You’re not saying anything.” Marilyn directed her unfocused gaze at Timber. “You’re the one he wants. The one he needs.”

Also under the table, Timber reached for my hand. He may have come to some terms with his part in all this, but he didn’t relish it. I gave his callused fingers a reassuring squeeze.

“Aye, I expect I am,” he said.

“He says you have something he needs. To be whole.”

Timber’s other hand strayed to his Soul Catcher in the unconscious gesture I had come to know so well. Marilyn’s eyes followed.

“Aye. I expect I do.”

“Will you give it back?” Her voice gentled, but also sounded sad; she knew what it meant.

“Aye.” Timber roused himself, straightened up, and met her eyes. “I will.”

I felt a powerful surge of energy all around the table as he spoke his promise. Before, he might have backed out. Now, he couldn’t. Not without severe consequences.

“Well, then.” Marilyn gave a brisk nod out of keeping with her ethereal appearance and dreamy manner. “Come up tomorrow morning. He’ll see you then.”

Draperies floating, she rose, preparing to go. Timber looked flummoxed. I cleared my throat.

“Uh, Marilyn?”

She paused.

“Where do you live?”

“Oh.” The vagueness returned. “Up in the Canyon. Zee knows.”

“Zee?” A person? A spirit guide? An imaginary friend? From her demeanor, it could have been any of the three, and I had no idea which.

Marilyn’s eyes wandered into the distance, as if they were trying to penetrate the hotel walls. After a minute or two, they snapped into sudden, sharp focus, and she smiled.

“Yes. Zee. The cabby who brought you here. He’s outside.” She bent down and picked up a white silk handbag from the floor beneath the table. “We should go now, okay?”

She drifted away and out of the bar. Timber and I stared after her, then looked at each other.

“That was…odd,” I said.

Timber said nothing at all.

We met up with Marilyn in the hotel lobby. Her dreamy manner didn’t lend itself to speed, and from time to time she floated away to exchange a few words with the desk clerk or the porters, all of whom seemed to know her. She took no notice of us at all. We might never have spoken.

Outside, we found two cabs pulled up at the curb and the nice driver—Zee—fiddling with his beads and deep in conversation with the other operator. This was a beefy, butch-looking woman, whose black hair and golden skin pointed to a connection with the Pacific Islands. Samoan, maybe. The two drivers seemed to be discussing Klingon opera, but broke it off when they noticed potential fares exiting the hotel.

“Hey, Marilyn,” Zee called. He stopped fidgeting and wound the beads back around his wrist. “What’s new and exciting?”

“Oh, you know, Zee,” she replied. “I’m just trying to live in the moment.”

“So, then, everything’s new and exciting,” Zee replied with infectious good will.

The female cabby grinned. Behind me, Timber gave a strangled snort. I peeped back over my shoulder and saw him cover his mouth, trying hard not to laugh.
Yeah, you big lug,
I thought.
You could like him too, if not for that testosterone thing.

Marilyn, however, didn’t see the humor. Her back stiffened, and she said, with the first hint of asperity I’d heard from her,

“I’ll ride with Nuala, I think.”

She got in the second cab. The female driver gave us a wink and took her own place up front. The cab pulled away, leaving Timber and me with Zee.

“So.” The cabby glanced from me to Timber, a devilish spark of challenge in his eye. “You up for a ride downtown?”

I held my tongue. Timber had to make this call. It was almost three miles back to the shop and we were both worn out. But if he wanted to hoof it, we’d hoof it.

I sensed him think it over and heard him sigh. He poked me in the back.

“Get in the cab, Caitlin.”

Only too glad to comply, I did. From opposite sides of the car, the men followed.

“Pearl Street?” Zee asked, reaching for his radio.

“Take us to Beljoxa’s, please,” I told him. Timber had fallen back into sullen silence, staring at the back of the poor man’s neck as if he’d like to take a bite out of it.

Zee informed the dispatcher of his fare and destination, and we started off.

“So, you’re Zee, right?” I said as we pulled into Twenty-Eighth Street.

“Moon Pie told you that?” He raised a blond eyebrow at me in the mirror. I nodded. “Yeah. I drive her a lot.”

“I’m Caitlin Ross. My bad-tempered consort here is Timber MacDuff.”

Timber’s energy softened at my terminology, and he put his arm around me. Zee lowered his eyes from the rear view—hiding a smile, I would have bet. Then he reached back over the seat to shake my hand.

“Pleasure to meet you.” He did not attempt to shake with Timber, I couldn’t help but notice. Yeah, that would have been pushing it.

We turned onto Arapahoe, heading downtown.

“Listen, Zee,” I said. “Marilyn said you know where she lives.”

“Yep. This month, anyway. She moves around a lot. Right now she’s renting a big place up in the Canyon.”

“We need to get there in the morning. Would you be willing to take us?”

“I don’t know.” In the mirror, his eyes slid toward Timber, considering. “I mostly work nights, and I planned on staying until at least one.”

“Please,” I entreated. “I’d very much appreciate it. It’s business, and it would be nice to…”

“Have someone along of like mind?” he supplied, understanding at once what kind of business I meant.

“Yes.”

He thought about it, not long. “Sure, okay. I’m my own man, most of the time. I’ll knock off a little early. When should I pick you up?”

I looked at Timber. Remembered he rose with the sun. Remembered I didn’t. And if Zee worked until about midnight…

“Is nine too early?”

“Nope. I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.”

Zee took us the rest of the way to the shop in silence. We paid the fare and got out of the cab, but he didn’t drive off right away. I assumed he was checking in with his dispatcher, until, when Timber and I had made it halfway up the front walk, I heard a car door slam.

“Hey! Big Guy!” Zee called. “Can I have a word with you?”

Timber paused, startled. I already knew he didn’t startle easily.
Score one for Zee,
I thought. Then, with a shrug, my partner turned around and headed back down the walk. I sat down on the porch to wait, and watch. The two of them met in front of the cab. Big men, both of them. Timber stood a little taller, but not by much: a couple inches, no more. He had a better build, too. Still, I thought if Timber had not come into my life, it might have been interesting to get to know Zee in more intimate circumstances.

They talked. Or, Zee talked. Timber listened, arms crossed on his chest. My lover, I noticed, held himself like a warrior, wary and upright, ready for anything. Zee had a more casual stance, although, wholly without reason, I believed it might hide a steel core.

After a few minutes, Zee held out his hand. Timber took it, and they shook. Timber came back up the walk; Zee got into his cab and drove away.

“What was that about?” I asked when Timber reached me.

He brushed his wayward hair off his forehead with a rueful smile.

“Yon bugger,” he jerked his head in the direction of the departing cab, “assured me he has no designs on your person. He’s well content with his own lady friend. But, he said, a man canna help looking at a nice woman, and he asked me if I didna agree.”

Bugger, huh? I noticed that Timber applied the insult with a certain grudging respect.

“Well? Did you?”

“Aye, I did.” He stretched out a hand and pulled me to my feet. “Furthermore, he said he wouldna like to fight me, but I shouldna be too sure of winning, if it came to it.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” I could well imagine that the mild-mannered cabby might have a few tricks up his sleeve.

“Aye. And then he told me he knows how it is to be a stranger in this town, and offered his friendship. Or, if I wouldna have it, he proposed at least a cessation of hostilities.”

“And what did you say to that?” I asked, unlocking the door.

“I expect I can manage not to be hostile. Perhaps more, later. Not just yet.”

He followed me in and we started up the stairs.

“Not a trusting sort, are you?”

“No.” His voice held its strange, dark quiet again. The quiet that told me we’d come close to one of the things he didn’t discuss. “Not particularly.”

We undressed without bothering to turn on the light and got into my bed. Our bed, now. Facing me, Timber idly fondled my hip. Sweet fire spread from his touch, but without its usual intensity. Muted.

“Oh,” I said, with no little regret. “I just can’t, Timber. I’m too tired. I’m sorry.”

“It makes no mind.” He continued to stroke me. Not trying to rouse me. Just soothing.

“I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Never.” He planted a gentle kiss on my forehead. “I love all of you, Caitlin. Not just your body.”

“I thought you loved my body.”

“Aye. That, too.” He opened his arms. “Come here to me.”

I laid my head on his shoulder. He tightened his arms around me, and I never knew when I passed from drowsy contentment into true sleep.