Covers - Chapter 3


20 September 1957
A Greek Isle


Evann's Story


Sand as far as I could see to the left. Sand as far as I could see to the right, and in front of me clear blue ocean stretching all the way out to the horizon. A light breeze blew off the water, just enough to cool the skin without taking away from the glorious feeling of the sun beating down, warming the sand, the lounge chair, and me.

I resigned myself to stay on this blanket, in this very spot forever.

No, that was unreasonable.

I'd get bored eventually, and hungry, even if Grayson's cook and butler were just waiting to hand me anything I wanted. No, sooner or later it would rain or get cloudy. Sooner or later I'd have to go inside.

But not yet. For now, I was content to be a bathing-suit-clad lump on a huge beach blanket and soak up the sun. Life wasn't all bad, all the time.

It had been bad recently. World War II shook the world, and I answered the call as always. It was a bloody war, a hard-fought war, and one I wouldn't be able to reconcile for a good long time. It was too soon for me to go back to the fighting. I still hadn't washed the blood from my hands. I bowed out of the Korean Conflict, though the pull had been difficult to ignore. I went back to work for Grayson, for a little while, to keep boredom from setting in.

And now, boredom was exactly what I was looking for. Nice, quiet, uninteresting boredom. Grayson was off in Vienna where he made his home, and I was house-sitting.

More like beach sitting.

I had tossed my watch into the ocean three days ago, so when I felt the dizzying presence of another immortal I had absolutely no idea what time it was. If I really wanted to, I could have figured it out in the old way, by the sun, but that was too much like work, and I didn't really care. My gun was folded in a towel next to the chair, within easy reach should I need it. I didn't need it.

Warm hands blocked my exquisite view of the gently rolling sea, and a warm, deep voice replaced the sound of the waves. "Three guesses."

"Oh, please let it be Cary Grant." Hey, a girl can dream.

"Guess again."

"Attila the Hun," I ventured, teasing. I knew exactly who it was.

"Last chance."

"Well, if it's not Cary Grant, and it's not Attila the Hun, it must be Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Charmer of women the world over, seafarer extraordinaire, and excellent judge of horseflesh."

"Got it in three," he said, coming around to share the blanket with me. "But you left out dancer on a par with Fred Astaire."

"Better. Fred Astaire doesn't do the Charleston like you do," I said, lying back on my elbows. I hadn't looked over at him; I was too engrossed with the sea. I knew what Connor looked like.

Which was an excellent reason to look over at him. I knew what the sea looked like too, but how often did I get to look at Connor, now stripping down to his shorts? He was a strong man, and it showed in the lean cut of his muscles and the smooth way he moved. His hair was short again, which I liked because it showed off his narrow, intense eyes. He was definitely a better view than all that sand.

I was suddenly very aware of my own two-piece suit, and the long scar that ran down my chest. Instantly self-conscious, I reached for the gray T-shirt that was sitting folded on the blanket to cover up. Like lightning, Connor's hand was on my wrist, stopping my reach before my fingers found the fabric. He squeezed gently, reassuringly, his thumb rubbing lightly against the back of my hand. Slowly, he turned his head to me and smiled.

It took me a moment to relax; old habits die hard. I returned the pressure of his hand and lay back against the pillow I had brought out with me, watching the waves. No need to hide here. I was with a friend.

I stretched slowly, partly because my back was stiff, but mostly because it tended to get Connor ... interested, and Connor was interesting when he was interested. A truly worthy opponent in a worthy game. For a long while, we sat in silence, just soaking up the sun and listening to the sound of the surf.

"How's Rachel?" I asked. Connor had written to me about the young girl he had taken in at the end of World War II and raised as his own. He'd been quite the family man this last decade or so, hosting birthday parties, assisting with school field trips, and chaperoning teen dances. I hadn't seen him at all.

"Excited to be off at college, complaining about the food, agonizing over her next term paper," he replied with amusement. Then he added, "The house is quiet now."

"I'm glad you called," I said sincerely. I was concerned about him, being all alone in an empty house. "It's good to see you again."

"Good to see you, too," he said, stretching, definitely making things interesting.

Damn, I had forgotten just how good he was at that game. I concentrated on the outline of a ship against the horizon, a low transport with three smoke stacks.

"How long has it been?" he asked.

"I don't know. Toronto beat the Rangers that year for the Stanley Cup that year. Nineteen thirty-one? Thirty-two?"

"Trust you to get arrested, Evann," he said. "Not at all ladylike."

"Well," I said, affronted, "I was ... upset. And you were not at all nice about it." I looked down my nose at him disapprovingly. "You really need to take your sports more seriously."

"One game is all I need to take seriously," he said, taking just a little of the wind out of my sails.

The Game. The damn Game. Although he had his sword wrapped in a towel, the fact that Connor had brought his weapon onto the beach had not gone unnoticed by me. He was young yet. He'd get over being that cautious.

I poured him a glass of water from the pitcher beside me, then leaned across his body to stick the glass in the sand where he could reach, upping the ante a little. "There are other things in life besides the Game, Connor."

"And what do you take seriously, Evann?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.

I looked at him over my sunglasses. "Besides the Rangers, the Yankees, the Knicks, Rocky Marciano, the Army-Navy game, Belgian chocolate, and my stamp collection?"

"Yeah, besides those," he said, reaching for his water.

"War," I said seriously. "And clean socks."

"Clean socks are good," he agreed.

"So, there has to be more to Connor MacLeod than just the Game," I prompted, then took a long drink of my own. "What do you take seriously?"

"Besides a good whisky, a good horse, and a good parking spot?"

"Parking spots are important, but yeah, besides that."

He raised his water glass to me in a toast. "A good friend."

I raised my own glass. "A good friend ... who bails you out of jail."

He smiled. "Eventually."

I growled at him. "Eventually." Connor had let me rot in jail overnight, which sucked, but I wouldn't have gotten over the first World War without his consistent support and without Tedra's constant companionship. I smiled at him and pulled off my sunglasses, tossing them to the blanket. "A good friend."

Connor reached across my body for the pitcher of water, but he overbalanced and ended up leaning over me, one hand resting on either side of my chest. I was flat on my back, and his face was right above me, a small smile playing across his lips. His gray eyes danced, challenging me to come play. Tricky bastard.

As I watched, the playfulness in his eyes disappeared, but the challenge was still there. There was something else as well, shifting. Apparently, Connor took other things seriously, too.

I knew seven hundred forty-three ways to kill somebody, if you included running them over with a car and knocking them upside the head with a hockey stick. At that moment, I couldn't think of one. Not that I wanted to. Quite the contrary.

Connor moved smoothly lower. Slowly.

A delicate cough sounded behind us. "Excuse me, Miss Powell," the butler said. "Mr. Grayson is on the telephone for you." Connor immediately settled back down to his side of the blanket, staring serenely out at the water.

Damn. That was twice Grayson had ruined my fun. Did that man have radar or something? Grayson, the king of bad timing. "Tell him I've gone running, Mr. Joyce," I instructed, in no mood to talk to Grayson. I jumped smoothly to my feet and pulled on my T-shirt and shorts. Running sounded like a very good idea. I suddenly had a lot of extra energy, and a nagging feeling something was ... wrong.

"Coming, Connor?" I asked, reaching for my shoes. He was already tying his laces. He stood up, brushing some sand from his legs, and raised a single eyebrow. Damn, that was sexy.

"Which way?" he asked.

I strapped the gun in my towel to the small of my back. I may not take the Game terribly seriously most of the time, but I do like my head exactly where it is. Without waiting to warm up, I took off down the beach.

It took Connor only a moment or two to find and then match my pace, not so fast as to wipe either of us out, but fast enough that holding a conversation was impossible. I didn't want to hold a conversation until I could figure out what had changed in our little game to make it so damn disconcerting.

It wasn't that Grayson had called. Or maybe it was. Maybe it was because if Grayson hadn't called, there was no doubt in my mind that Connor would have kissed me. I *wanted* Connor to kiss me. How long can two people play "will they, won't they" before something breaks?

But, if I wanted Connor to kiss me, why did the whole game suddenly feel wrong?

We ran along the beach for a while, then I turned us sharply inland. The way the land dipped here was familiar, sparking memories of times long past and friends long gone.

That was it, wasn't it? Connor and I were friends. Immortal friends were rare; I had a few - Rebecca, Alex, Grayson, but they were friendships hard won. I had won Connor's friendship, and it wasn't something I was willing to lose, much less lose because there was something physical between us. I had drawn the line long ago. I had had enough lovers in my long life. I didn't have enough friends.

Too bad. I would have to be content only to wonder about all the other things Connor MacLeod was good at besides dancing.

I spared a glance and a smile in his direction. He was matching my pace beautifully and didn't seem to mind the exertion of the terrain at all. He smiled back, and it got me thinking. We were friends. He had trusted me enough to tell me his real name back in 1891. Maybe it was time for me to show him how much I trusted him.

Maybe I had already made the decision. I knew what lay where this road met the sea again, and I picked up the pace just a little, leading him toward the end.


Connor's Story


Evann pulled ahead, and I was content to run behind her. I liked the view. About half a mile later, she turned off the road and leapt onto the chain link fence that surrounded an archeological dig.

"Going somewhere?" I asked, as Evann climbed higher.

She swung one tanned and muscular leg over the top. "Yes. In here." She wrinkled her nose at me and stuck out her tongue. "You coming?" she asked then swung her other leg over and jumped to the ground.

How could I not? I climbed the fence, but stopped at the top to watch as she pulled off her hair-tie and shook out her hair, a black and glossy mane that reached to the middle of her back. She left it loose and started walking, so I jumped down and joined her.

We strolled between the mounds of dirt, the areas covered with canvas, the strings stretched tight along the ground. Archeological digs were common enough in the Greek Isles. The Turks, the Moslems, the Romans, the Greeks, the Mycenaeans, the Minoans ... civilization after civilization had flourished here. I had dealt in enough antiques to see a bit of it all. Evann was already climbing again, on top of tumbled stones, piles of dirt, looking around, searching for something.

How old was she, anyway?

She bent down to look at something, and I joined her. "One of yours?" I inquired as she picked up a piece of a broken pot.

"Mine were blue." She reached for another shard and inspected it, long graceful fingers turning it this way and that. "With yellow flowers."

We had been friends and drinking partners for over half a century, but she rarely spoke of her past. I wanted more, and I knew a frontal assault was the best approach to take with her. "Did you live here?"

She stood suddenly, her hair swirling, then pointed to the east. "No, this way."

We went that way. A few more piles of dirt marked the path, though much of the site was untouched. A regular line of stones about ankle-high marked a street of some kind; about five meters of it had been uncovered. Evann had given up walking; she was staring about her, looking out to sea then at the hills, trying to get her bearings, trying to remember. I knew what that look meant. "Nice place to live?" I asked

Her head jerked at the question, as if she had forgotten I was even there. "Yeah," she said with a quick smile that didn't reach her eyes, "running water and everything."

The Minoans had had running water; the Mycenaeans hadn't. So that dated her to more than three thousand years - older than my teacher, Ramirez. Or maybe even older than that. I'd always wondered, but had never asked, and I was glad she had chosen today to tell me. This show of trust was more intimate than any kiss.

"And it was quiet, too, which is what I needed then." Evann bent and picked up a clod of earth, crumbled it between her fingers, watched the dust float to the ground on the breeze. "And what I need now." She turned away and headed for the steep, rocky hillside that led to the sea.

I went to the cliff's edge and watched her graceful leaps from rock to rock, and I wondered what else she needed, or wanted. A lover, or a friend? She had Grayson. Or maybe Grayson had her; I'd never been quite sure, just as I'd never been quite sure if they were lovers or not. But that didn't matter, because Evann had never asked me for anything more than friendship, and if Evann really wanted something, she tried to get it. So did I, but not when the lady wasn't interested. Or if the lady changed her mind.

I'd had many lovers over the years, and I could count my Immortal friends on the fingers of one hand, without including the thumb. Evann was a good friend. I didn't want to lose that.

I followed the path to the beach and caught up with her at the edge of the waves. She was still silent, still solemn, with no trace of the flirtatious imp on the beach blanket. I'd seen this sadness in her before, after the "war to end all wars." I'd visited her frequently then, and during the Roaring Twenties we'd gotten roaring drunk weekend after weekend, but Evann needed someone with her every day, and every night. Her nightmares from that war usually included rats.

I'd brought her a puppy, a female Black Lab. Evann had named the pup Tedra and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom in the evening and down the stairs in the morning, until Tedra grew big enough to climb the stairs on her own. For the next twelve years, Tedra and Evann had gone everywhere together, until Tedra could once again no longer climb the stairs. Evann had carried the aging dog up and down the stairs for another nine months, until the evening when Tedra had died in Evann's arms.

The Marines weren't the only ones with the motto "Semper Fi." Evann was faithful - to her dog, to her friends, to her soldiers, to her country. But she hadn't fought in Korea, even though she was usually the first to volunteer. "Tough war," I observed, referring to WWII.

"They always are," she said simply. "They always have been. Times change, technologies change, but in the end it's still the same damned tactics on the same damned battlefields."

"The weapons don't change it for you?" I asked. They had for me. No more was battle a contest between warriors, a clash of arms between men of honor and courage and skill. Now war was death coming from all sides and in all ways. Now it was flame throwers from fifty feet away, and bombs from thousands of feet above. Honor meant nothing to the mustard gas that crept on the ground and gouged lungs into bloody foam. Courage meant nothing to the bombs that blasted men into pieces so small there was nothing left to bury. They said birds found the shreds. I had fought, but I hadn't enlisted in an army since the Civil War, when the machine gun first appeared. The Game was enough of a war for me.

Evann's green eyes became pensive as she considered my question carefully. I had seen that look before, too. "No," she said finally. "The essence of war is the same now as when Sargon conquered Mesopotamia. One side tries to destroy the other as wholly and completely as possible. Whether I'm swinging a sword, pulling a bow, or firing a rifle doesn't matter."

Evann wasn't the kind of person who took pleasure in destruction. "Why do you keep going back to it?" I asked.

She shook her head. "It won't make sense to you."

"Try me." I knew her, but I wanted to understand her.

She started to walk along the beach, the small waves licking at her feet, and I strolled with her. Evann tossed her hair over one shoulder and crouched down to pick up a shell, rolling it over in her hand. She balanced back on her heels, holding her knees. "A man walked down a beach, just like this one, after a storm. The entire length was strewn with starfish baking in the sun. He picked one up and threw it back, then another. A second man came by and said to him, 'Why are you throwing them back? There are thousands of starfish; you can't save them all. What difference does it make?'"

Evann looked up at me, then stood and threw the shell overhand into the water. Its ripples were soon erased by the waves. "He looked at the man and said, 'It makes a difference to this one.'"

I understood now. She fought not for honor or for glory or for satisfaction, but to save the lives of the mortals on her side. Every single soldier mattered to her, every single time. Every single soldier mattered to me, too, but the wars just kept coming, war after war after war, and I had seen the backroom dealings between weapons merchants and businessmen. I knew how and why some of those "little" wars got started, how soldiers were sometimes sent in to "secure" a small country for the benefit of a corporation that sold bananas or rubber or opium. Sometimes, it wasn't easy to decide which side of a war to fight on.

Evann didn't have that uncertainty. She had chosen to become a citizen of the United States of America, and she would fight for her country, right or wrong. In some ways, I envied the simplicity of that view. I could certainly respect it.

We watched the waves roll in, standing side by side. "Ready to run?" I asked, when the sun was just touching the water, adding gold to the blue of the sea.

"Not yet," Evann answered. "I run too much."

I understood that, too. I took her hand and pulled her down to the still-warm sand. We sat with her head resting on my shoulder, my arm about her waist, and together we watched the sun set and the stars come out above the sea.


Concluded in Chapter 4