Note: Ack. Late AGAIN. I literally went to bed last night to wake up and realize that, wait, it was Friday. As in update day. So from now on, to save me from future embarrassments, I'd like to update Saturdays. If that's okay with you all. Plus, it'll give me time to write a few more chapters…the gap is closing in between what you've seen and what I've currently written. Eep.
Chapter Nine: Luck
Faster, faster, faster. Hoofbeats echoed through Gwen's ears; the forest flew by like blurred paintings, greens upon browns in a flurry of paint strokes. The air tasted clear, clean, crisp. There was nothing but nature and her, she and nature. That and the horse beneath her. Nothing more. Nothing less.
"You don't need to hide it, Gwen."
Hide it—hide what? Here came the river up ahead: Gwen steeled herself, gripping the horse's reins ever tighter. Timing was everything. Just a few more moments, and then—! For a moment, they broke through the breeze, floating outside gravity's reach. Then, as the euphoria faded, Gwen and her horse landed neatly on the other side of the riverbank and sped off towards nowhere.
"We're not going to steal him from you, if that's what you're worried about."
It wasn't as if Steiner's love life mattered to her, did it? No, he could date as he pleased, though it surely wouldn't last long. Wistfully, her ruby eyes traced the landscape before her; no, Steiner might engage in platonic love, but he would always be disappointed. Something about him seemed so detached, so unable to connect to anyone besides Claire in a truly whole way.
He was broken, and Gwen didn't entirely know what that meant.
Horse riding cleared the mind. Racing through the trees, the blonde didn't have to think about Bob, about Steiner, about anything if she didn't want to. Yet, often enough, she did. No interruptions can spur contemplation just as readily as discussion; sometimes even moreso. She'd hardly felt like talking to Katie and Eve the other day.
"Is it the kid? Are you holding it in because he's got a kid?"
Oh, Goddess, who had said she'd held in anything? Though there had been—well. Gwen's cheeks colored at the thought; the man had placed his hand upon her cheek so reverently that night, as if she were the most precious treasure in the world. Had she ever been handled so?
"I swear, Gwen, you think too much," she muttered to himself. Yet was it so wrong for her heart to jump when a certain father and daughter greeted her at the gate? Was it so terrible that, for some reason, part of her didn't doubt that something about Steiner the waiter attracted her?
Why was that so hard to admit?
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Those three sharp noises woke Claire up at noon, her eyes red and the covers tangled about her in a nightmares' clutches. What could possibly cause her to hallucinate so—to make that rapid, intensive sound appear on her door? Only when it sounded twice did Claire bolt out of bed, eyes wide with excitement and disbelief.
Trent. Oh, God, Trent's back, he's back, he's—
No, it had been nothing but a trick of the ear. The door opened to naught but a bleak and empty world, and Claire gazed at it with a sigh, closing it slowly. Then there it was again, that infernal mockery: knock knock knock.
"What do you want with me?!" Claire screamed as she threw it open, and only then did she let her gaze lower enough to see a three foot tall visitor.
"Uh." The little girl cleared her throat. "I'm just wondering if you saw a kitty around here."
Little ginger braids graced each shoulder, and a far too prim, far too serious dress fit on this tiny body as she stared up at Claire from a multitude of freckles. Kate, wasn't that her name? Grant and Samantha's little girl. "I—I'm sorry, a kitten?" the blonde found herself stammering; what was wrong with her voice, why so hoarse and weak?
"Mhm. She's black and fuzzy and loves tummy-rubs." Kate paused and tapped her chin in thought. "Well, maybe not from everybody. She doesn't like Hugh much. But I can't find her, and I thought she might be here. Have ya seen her?"
"N-no," the farmer replied. "I haven't been out too much…not recently." Blankly she looked at this girl and waited, prayed, for her to leave.
"Why not?" Kate asked instead.
Misery, agony, self-induced sorrows: a multitude of reasons, all of which this silly little girl could never understand. "I guess my heart needs healing," Claire answered finally.
"That's actually pretty funny, if you think about it," Kate giggled. "Your husband is the doctor, isn't he?"
"Some wounds don't heal with medicine."
Kate craned her head to look past the doorway. "Your house is a mess, too. Hard to heal anything in a place like that."
The blonde bristled, hundreds of protests at the ready: You don't know what I've been through. You don't know what I've done. You haven't lost a child and a husband. You're just…just…
A child.
Her blue eyes softened and looked at this freckle-faced girl in a new, and almost ashamed, light. "I'm sorry about the mess, I am. But would you like some breakfast, maybe, before you keep looking for your cat?"
"Isn't it lunchtime?" Kate piped up bluntly.
"Right. Lunchtime." Claire gritted her teeth; how quickly had the time passed her by, sleeping alone in this bed? Had nights ever been so short with Trent by her side? "So, what do you want to eat? Anything in particular?"
"Peanut butter and jelly is good," the girl announced. "No crust, though, please."
Claire raised her eyebrows as she led her companion to the kitchen. What an odd, odd request. "Why no crust?"
Kate shrugged. "Cause that's just how I like it. It tastes better that way."
"Oh. Well, then." Dutifully, Claire brought a jar of peanut butter and of jelly with two slices of bread. Thankfully, they had been bought just before Trent's departure; she'd had no intention of going to market lately, and no real motive outside basic need. Apathy tended to leak into those bastions of the soul while emotion was taxing so much elsewhere. It hadn't the heart to handle both sides.
"And cut it triangular, please."
Knife suspended over the little meal, Claire blinked, turning to Kate once more. "You can't possibly expect that to make a difference in how it tastes," she accused.
"Well," Kate shrugged, "that's just how I like things. It can't make that big of a difference to you, can it?"
Claire's tongue fumbled a bit over her words. "W-well, no, but—"
"Then why not eat it cut it into triangles?" Kate persisted. "Why can't you?"
Claire bit her lip. "Fine. Triangular it is."
Watching Kate eat felt almost intrusive, and though she'd brought out food to eat herself, Claire wondered at how she couldn't have an appetite after eating next-to-nothing for at least twenty-four hours. At some point, the hunger would surely strike her at once, but for now the apple sat in her hand idly. At any rate, Kate didn't seem to mind being watched; she felt free to get jelly stains on her cheeks and chew with her mouth open and wipe peanut butter off her hands onto her dress.
"So, when did you get your kitty?" Claire asked, grasping at straws for conversation.
"Yesterday," Kate replied through mouthfuls. "Ms. Romana gave her to me." She wiped her mouth on her arms and grinned. "She already had too many cats, and I offered to take the kitty in."
"Oh." A pause. "Well, that was nice of your mother to let you get a cat."
"No, Sam doesn't want me to have any pets," Kate corrected her.
"Sam?"
"You know, my mom. Sam."
Claire wasn't sure what shocked her most: that a child would call her parents by their first names, or that she'd keep a pet when her parents clearly told her not to. "Wh—when did you start calling her Sam?"
"When she started calling me Kate. Don't you call people by their names, too?"
"Yes, but—"
"But?" Kate repeated with a frown. "But what?"
Claire opened her mouth to speak and thought of all the things one did and did not do and all the etiquette adults silently expected you to follow before saying, "You know, I'm not even sure I know that, myself."
"What do you mean you've found no leads?" Nami rubbed her temples with a sigh and tried—desperately—to remain calm as she spoke into the cell phone's speaker. "Listen, the primary suspect is so obvious he could stand out anywhere—white hair, fur coat, and toting a girl barely old enough to walk. How the hell could he just disappear in the wilderness like that? Don't you tell me that I—!" The redhead fumed and finally shut the phone closed, livid. "Idiots."
She'd done her part. She'd established the story, and how more basic could it have been? Part of Nami felt disappointed at its simplistic plot—it had seemed so much more sinister, much darker when Claire had kept her silence. Now, all Nami could do was point a very convincing finger at Skye the Phantom Thief…and that was it. The man had no family. No friends. No home. No career. No links, no shackles, no bounds.
What if he's left the region? What if he's already past the border?
"I'm such a pessimist," Nami muttered to herself; but hadn't thinking the worst helped her career, not hindered it? When deaths were reported to her or rapes or what-have-you, she could keep her iron expression because she expected no less. Why have high hopes? Why expect good tidings when they were so often bad?
Things still delighted her, though. The sea, for one, always calmed her. That was why now, after dealing with useless agents, she found herself there, drinking its majesty in. Light played tricks upon an ocean's surface, reflecting in an almost blinding way in the hours of the day.
"Sometimes I think you're a ghost, you haunt this place so much."
Her arms wrapped tight about herself, the autumn breeze playing with the edges of her jacket. Maybe she could call herself a ghost, if she really wanted to—she was pale, cold, and certainly lonely enough to be one. Lonely. Funny how she didn't mind labeling herself that, when the whole world seemed to throw fits at its two syllables.
People were drugs: you abused them, relied on them, expected them to fix your life when all they really did was complicate it further. Rarely did you use them wisely, and even more rarely used them only when necessary. Sometimes Detective Stone felt not using them at all was the only wise and necessary choice to make.
"Why don't you come with me, Nami? We can just hang out, if you want. I'll play you music, or we can grab a drink, or just sit here if you want."
Nami knelt down on the ground and picked up a single, smooth stone. Tossing it lightly in her hand, she scanned the water before throwing it forward in a single, swooping motion—sending it skipping over its ripples and wakes. Five jumps. Almost six. Hadn't she once been able to hit eight without breaking a sweat?
"You can't say no forever. You don't have a reason to, Nami."
"Maybe you just don't like what that reason is."
"Ah! Knew I'd find you here."
She cringed at his voice and shut her eyes, immediately mapping out an escape route. "Gustafa. I thought I told you—"
"You always tell me to get lost," the musician finished with a laugh. "I just don't listen. Guess that's my problem, not yours, huh?"
The wind tugged at his green jacket and the frays of his striped shirt, and he held down his hat to save it from the breeze's grasp. Nami sighed; she was too old to run blindly away from disasters, and yet she'd love nothing more than to take a breakneck stride all the way to her safe, lockable room. But she was an adult, and adults didn't get that luxury.
"Listen, Gustafa. I'm tired of this. I don't see why you aren't, but I am. The last thing I'm looking for is a complication in my life right now, and I need all my wits for this case."
"The case. Ah." The guitarist scratched the back of his neck in thought. "So what was your excuse a few years ago, then? You know, before you got a fancy job in the legal world?"
"If you want to be bitter, can we do this another time?"
"Well, excuse me for interrupting your little moment with the ocean." His normally laughing voice had taken a darker turn, and Nami shivered at its sound. "Is the great Detective Nami Stone too grand to spend a moment with an eccentric guy like me?"
"Gustafa…"
"What is it?" he insisted. "No, I just want the answer to this one question and I'll back off. I promise. I swear. Just tell me why I'm such anathema to you, and I'll stop feeding you that poison. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die."
Nami ran her fingers through her fiery curls, her voice losing its stability and calm. "I…I can't answer that."
"Why not? Don't you know why?"
"Of course I know why!" she retorted. "That doesn't make it any easier for me to say. Or any more valid, in your eyes." She should have run. Hell with dignity; she should have dashed off into the hills as soon as his words reached her ears. People needed too much; people demanded too many sacrifices. People required too much love. "Gustafa…I know what that look in your eyes means. I know what you expect when you wrap your arm around me, and when you speak sweet words, and—damn it, I…" Her breathing hitched, and she turned away. "These things come easy for you, Gustafa. For some of us, it's like learning a new language. I don't think I can make sense of it. Honestly, I not even sure if I want to."
Deep breaths, nice calming breaths—there it was, composure once again. Nami let her blue eyes bore into his as she admitted, finally, "I don't think I'm able to love. Not like you can, and not like most people can. I can't sacrifice. I can't give. In short, I can't love. It's nothing personal against you; it's just who I am. And I accept that. The question is, Gustafa, can you?"
His lips moved to form words, but Gustafa paused, his expression unreadable. The ocean crashed in the silence before he spoke, "So you can't love? No one, not even the most attractive and seductive man on the planet, can bring you to your knees?"
"No one."
"I don't believe that." Gustafa shook his head. "Frankly, I don't think that's possible."
"For God's sake, if you don't want the truth, then don't ask for it. I've told you everything I can, and if that's not enough, then I don't know what is!"
Gustafa studied her, and Nami held her chin up high, unwilling to back down. He could rationalize it as he liked. He could blame it on her parents, her personality, whatever he preferred. As long as he gives up, Nami thought, he can do whatever he likes.
"I've heard your words," he began slowly. "But I think, Nami, I'd rather see your actions."
Maybe she'd never known what it was supposed to feel like, but even if she had, Nami could have sworn that the same rush of energy would have burst within her as Gustafa placed his mouth upon hers. Reflexes were dulled; she squirmed, but the scratch of his beard on her cheek and the warm intoxicating taste of his tongue were such beautiful, foreign delights—instinct took over, and Nami felt her body crush itself against his chest, mouth hungrily reaching for his.
Stop. I need to stop.
Her eyes squeezed themselves shut, not daring to see how close they two had become, denying that any of this was or could be happening. This wasn't Nami returning his affections; this was someone else possessing her body, and she was merely watching it take place from the safe confines her mind. She wouldn't do such a thing. She wouldn't fall for something as simple as this.
Stop. You're encouraging him—STOP.
His arm had snaked its way about her waist, and somehow that simple ordinary reaction triggered a reflex; her eyes startled open wide, and her hand slapped him hard on the cheek. "That was uncalled for," she hissed. "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I'm telling you right now that what we just did never happened. We're going to forget about it and move on with our lives, and you are never going to hold me that way again. Never."
"It took you that long to slap me though, didn't it?" Gustafa replied, rubbing his cheek gingerly. "You didn't enjoy it all?"
"Enjoyment has nothing to do with anything. Especially love." Her skin felt hot, burning, sinful. Yet a thrill had begun to surge through her body, and it ached at the passing of this first—and final, it had to be final—moment of passion. "It's instinct."
"It's also instinct to run away," Gustafa reminded her gently. "But, in my experience, isn't running normally what you do in that situation?"
"If I choose to live my life never, ever lov—doing that again, then it's my business. It's not yours." Nami put her hand on her hip and smirked. "And speaking as a detective, I'd just like to say you are lucky as hell that I'm not pressing charges of sexual assault on you."
"Lucky, maybe. Or maybe, deep down inside, you just can't bring yourself to hurt me."
"No, Gustafa," Nami sighed out as she turned to go. "Maybe I've just done it enough already."
He was going to propose.
She'd learned by accident long ago, visiting just early enough to see him sleeping in bed with his hat over his eyes. Part of her melted at his tiny little snores—so like a child's—and yet the other, more dominant, side of Nami told her to leave the sleeping man alone and come back later.
Yet that color had caught her eye.
The sunlight pouring in from the window caught the blues perfectly, causing the azure to outshine even the most dazzling sapphire. Hesitantly she crept forward, and her fingers touched plumes—yes, yes, this was real; this wasn't fake. A blue feather. A proposal.
For her.
Nami didn't let herself cry often. As a child, she'd learned early on that only certain girls were allowed to sob their eyes out; not everyone had a Prince Charming willing to overlook whiny habits and weakness. Yet that day, when she ran to the Inn and packed every object in her suitcase that could possibly fit before sprinting to the next boat, she found the tears couldn't stop running.
She'd told herself she'd never come back. She'd thrown herself into her career, but her career had thrown her here, and now Detective Stone was forced not only to answer this kidnapper's riddle, but one she ignored a long time ago.
Leaving had been her last resort. But that, Nami knew, was only because she would have found herself telling this foolish musician 'yes,' despite everything she knew to be true, logical, and honest in this world.
What else could her heart have let her do?
You're getting too close to her.
Skye stared out his window and watched, despite himself, the figure of Gwen bounding on horseback through the village streets. He knew this irregular heartbeat far too well, and the smile that presented itself whenever even her name was mentioned. All women were beautiful to Skye, yes, but few attracted him so wholly as now. After all, the last one had been…well. The last one had been, and that was that. Things were fair now. Things were balanced.
"What do you think, princess?" the thief asked aloud to the toddler sitting beside him. "Are you tired of this place? Would you like to travel and see the world? Daddy wouldn't mind showing it to you. We could leave at any time without a trace."
Except I've already left a trace. One about as obvious as can be as soon as you set foot in this village.
Leaving. It was the only choice. The only logical choice, anyway. Staying here with that Gwen girl, well, that would be his selfish wants, not his and Claire's needs. The little girl made low, worried sounds from his side and Skye patted her fondly, his brain on overdrive. Leaving. Yes. But when?
Slip out of a crowd. That'll do it.
If the whole village were massed in one place, then how could anyone notice if he flew the town when no one was looking? Who would stop him? Who would care?
But when?
"Evenin', Steiner!"
Gwen breathed in heavily, cheeks flushed, and dropped her riding gear on the table. "I reckon Bob is going to have to practice loads to beat me this year. Fall Horse Race, here I come!"
"The Horse Race," Skye breathed, grinning. "Yes, the Race will be perfect, won't it?"
Quite perfect indeed.
The house seemed quiet with Kate gone. Quiet, maybe, was an understatement, but Claire found herself wondering as she organized her bookshelf why adults and children see in such different lights. When was the last time she'd believed anything "just because"? Or thought she could grow up to be a princess, or a movie star, or a supermodel? Decided triangles tasted better than squares?
Willow would be reaching that age soon. Well, soon enough, anyway, and Claire had been determined to think positively about the return of her baby girl. The amount of tears she'd shed in this season alone alarmed her, and with nothing to cling to but that resolute candle of hope, Claire found herself rekindling it daily. Maybe she'd hear of her today. After lunch. Waking up in the middle of the night. Sometimes she wondered what her baby could be seeing, doing, hearing now—? Was she smiling, was she scared? Was she still wearing her pink footie pajamas?
Other questions Claire ignored pointedly: what would happen if Willow was found and Trent divorced her? Would he want full custody? And if he did, would any jury in their right mind give a baby to a lying, cheating, emotionally unstable mother over a calm and collected doctor?
"You think too much," Kate had said earlier. Maybe there was some truth in that.
It had been unexpectedly nice, Claire admitted, to see that girl at her door. She needed something positive, something innocent. Fresh, new. She felt too jaded to appreciate life in the way this little girl seemed to, and maybe, by watching her, she could catch those beautiful moments like stars in the palm of her hand.
Wiping the dust of books on her overalls, Claire stood up and surveyed her handiwork: alphabetical by author. Flawlessly done. Now she supposed it made sense to go out and do her farm work—something she'd been severely ignoring. Just remove the weeds. Water the dying plants. Let them grow.
The door opened, and Claire almost stepped forward when a tiny sound pierced the air. She looked below her.
There, in a smiling bundle of black fur, was Kate's cat.
