TURNABOUT
Austria, Wednesday 31 December 2042
On the last day of December, Sara and Alea returned from their trip to see Will. Connor met his "cousins" at the train station, and nearly got bowled over by Sara's exuberant hug. "Hey, Princess," he said softly into Sara's hair, deeply glad of her affection. "Welcome back."
"Thanks, Dad," she said, even more softly, that name a whisper between them.
Sara pulled back, and they smiled at each other, then Connor gave Alea a quick hug. He was surprised to find Alea was taller than Sara; and he realized he hadn't hugged his granddaughter lately. She'd been his student for a year, and he never hugged students. But school was between terms, it was the holidays, and Alea was family, even if in ways she didn't understand.
"Happy New Year, Cousin Mike," Alea said. Her smile was just like her mother's, and he could see traces of Alea's grandmother and great-grandmother in her, too.
"Happy New Year," Connor replied, and it was. "How was your trip?"
"Good," Alea said. "The train broke down only once. I can't wait until they get the new dark-energy motors installed. And Will's coming soon!"
"To visit?"
"To live," Sara said, with the same delighted grin that Connor remembered from her fourth birthday party, when Connor and Alex had given Sara a tricycle.
"Sara, that's great news!" Connor said, and hugged her again.
"Yeah," Sara said, her grin softening to a smile, and she looked at him as she said, "It's good to have the family together again."
Connor couldn't have agreed more.
"Will says living with Miss Juliette isn't any fun," Alea explained as they walked to the luggage cart. "Too many rules. And Dad's working a lot, so Will's stuck with her." She settled her backpack across her shoulders before picking up a brown satchel.
Connor picked up Sara's bag before she got to it, and as she opened her mouth to protest, Connor said, "Hungry, Alea?"
"Starving," Alea said.
"I'll take you both to lunch," he said, and Sara opened her mouth to protest again even as Alea said, "Smashing!" Sara gave a tiny sigh then shook her head with a rueful, fond smile.
They ate at the Italian restaurant in town, and as they stepped out into the bright sunshine of the street, Alea spotted two of her friends. After the shrieks of reunion were done, the three girls decided to go shopping, and Alea went off with a happy wave, chattering in German with her friends.
"Back to the castle?" Connor asked.
"How about riding?" Sara suggested, and they left the bags in a locker at the train station and walked to the stables, buying a small bag of apples on the way. Connor saddled the Morgan, Sara picked a bay gelding, and they set off on the well-groomed riding trail along the river's edge. As they rode side by side, Sara told him that on the train ride to Bruges she had explained to Alea why Sara had been angry with "Mike" this past year.
"How'd Alea take it?" Connor asked.
"She took your side, of course. She told me I'd been silly, blaming you for something you hadn't done and didn't even know about." Sara narrowed her eyes at him. "And she was right, and I know that, so you don't have to say it."
He hadn't been going to. But he had been thinking it.
"Then she said that her dad had been silly, too. But Alea understands better now, both about you and me this last year and about why her dad took up with Juliette." Sara blew out a gusty sigh. "Then, after we got to Bruges, Alea told Daniel she thought he'd been silly, because 'Mike' and I hadn't ever been together and we certainly weren't together now."
"And how did Daniel take that?"
"I didn't see it. I didn't even know Alea was going to tell him, but after that he was quiet. Very quiet."
Connor understood that. It was never easy to find out you'd been completely wrong about someone, and it was even harder to realize you'd totally fucked things up because of it.
Sara adjusted her reins as her horse gingerly stepped through a dip in the path. "A day or two later, Daniel took me aside and said he had 'regrets'. Not exactly an apology, but I think we'll be getting along better now. He and Alea are certainly getting along better. And, Daniel knowing that 'Mike' is just a cousin helped a lot when Will said he wanted to come back here. It will still be a shared custody, but we're going to try it for a term. Will would have come back with me and Alea today, except he'd already made plans to go hiking with some friends."
"Good," Connor said. Sara was sounding happy, Alea was on better terms with her father, and Will would be arriving soon. Connor was looking forward to seeing how much his grandson had grown.
"So how was your holiday?" Sara asked.
"Fine."
"Good Christmas?"
"There was singing," Connor replied, which was true. "And raspberry torte for dessert."
Sara glanced at him sidelong before asking, "Any presents to open?"
"Yes," Connor said, truthful again. "Wrapped in red ribbons. I untied each one."
"From Cassandra?" Sara said with a smile.
"No, Amanda," he corrected, and Sara pulled her horse up short and stared at him with a look of mingled horror and shock, and Connor quickly realized why. Sara did not like Amanda; she never had, and from the chattering of Rachel and Cassandra and Elena and the archly suggestive comments of Amanda herself, Sara had heard of Amanda's famous Christmas cards (featuring herself decked out as a Christmas present, wearing high heels, a Santa hat, and a carefully positioned bow), and of the time Amanda had given Duncan a very special present under the Christmas tree. Oh, good God.
"Cookies, Sara," Connor said firmly. "Amanda gave me a tin of shortbread cookies, wrapped in white paper and tied with red ribbons."
"Oh," Sara said, with mingled relief and embarrassment. "Good." She clicked to her horse to walk again. "I didn't know Amanda was here."
"She stopped by on her way to Vienna the day after Christmas," Connor explained. "Just for the afternoon."
They ducked a low-hanging pine branch and eased their horses over a fallen log before Sara asked, "So what did Cassandra give you for Christmas?"
Cassandra had tried to give him quite a lot, and he'd handed it back to her, untouched. "We didn't exchange presents this year."
"Really?" Sara said in blank surprise. "I thought—" Her eyes narrowed. "How is Cassandra?"
"I don't know," Connor said, and Sara stopped her horse again. Connor asked his mount to do the same then said, "She left with Amanda." Cassandra hadn't said goodbye. Not that he had any reason—or right—to expect her to, Connor knew, but it had been a bit of a surprise to get only the impersonal memo she'd sent to all the staff.
"She left the day after Christmas?" Sara asked. "She's coming back for New Year's, isn't she?"
Connor shrugged. "Her memo said she'd be back before the Twelfth Night Ball."
"That's a week from now."
Connor shrugged again.
"Tomorrow's your birthday," Sara said.
"I know." Connor urged the gelding to a trot, and hooves thudded dully on the frozen ground. Sara's mount was close behind.
When they emerged from the trees and entered the meadow, its grasses bleached silver by frost, the horses lengthened their stride. "Follow the leader!" Sara called, a game they had often played in the Highlands, the whole family riding as one. Connor followed Sara's lead, asking his horse to match the bay's pace and lead changes as Sara maneuvered through the meadow, and then Sara followed him.
They finished near an ancient oak, a few brown leaves still clinging to its spreading branches. Sara and Connor unsaddled and unbridled the horses to let them graze. And roll, of course, which both horses did before beginning their never-ending search for food. With the mountains rising around them and the sky a brilliant blue, it was a beautiful, peaceful scene.
Sara took off her glove and laid her hand against the bark of the tree, listening, so Connor had been told, to the heartbeat of the tree. After about five minutes she opened her eyes. "Haven't seen you do that in a while," Connor observed. She glanced at him and nodded but said nothing, so he asked, "What did you hear?"
"Nothing." She put her glove back on as she walked over to him. "They sleep in the winter. I'll try again in the spring."
He put his arm around Sara's shoulders and she leaned against him, putting her arm about his waist as they watched the horses graze. Connor could have stood like that for an hour, but after only about twenty minutes of silence, Sara asked, "What did you say to Cassandra? To make her leave?"
"I didn't 'make' her leave," Connor corrected. "Cassandra decided to go."
"Right," Sara said, in the way that meant "wrong." She turned to face him full on. "What happened?"
Connor sighed, but he knew from long experience that the women of his family were stubborn. He liked them that way. Except at times, especially times like now.
Might as well get it over with. "She suggested we become lovers," Connor said. "I told her I thought it best we remain friends."
"Best for who?" Sara asked.
"Both of us," he said shortly.
"Dad—"
"Sara," he cut in. He would tell her what happened, but he wasn't about to discuss it in detail. "My love-life is not your concern."
"Of course it is," she contradicted. "You're my father. How can I not be concerned about you?"
Not so long ago, Sara wouldn't even call him Dad. But things were better between them now, which meant she cared, and he wouldn't have it any other way. "Good point," he conceded and amended his earlier statement: "My love-life is not your problem."
"Of course it is," she repeated, contradicting him again. "Mom said I was supposed to watch out for you."
"Your mother said—?"
"And so did Aunt Rachel," Sara added.
Connor gritted his teeth and reminded himself that he liked stubborn women. Really. And he liked knowing that the women he'd loved were still taking care of him, even after all these years.
But he didn't like talking, and he really didn't like talking about his personal life, and he sure as hell didn't like talking about his love-life with his daughter.
His daughter, however, had no problem talking to him. "Why don't you want to be with Cassandra?" Sara asked.
"We wouldn't be good for each other," Connor said bluntly. "Trust me on that." He started walking to the horses, pulling an apple out of his coat pocket.
Sara followed. "Because of what happened before, when she was lying to you because of the prophecy and Duncan and Roland? That's all over, so she's got nothing to lie about now."
He knew that. And he knew Cassandra wouldn't lie again, not to him. She liked her head. And Cassandra wouldn't lie to Sara, either. About twenty years ago, Connor had asked Cassandra exactly what she'd told his daughter about the past. "The truth," Cassandra had said. "I told her that you and I were student and teacher and then lovers in the sixteenth century; that I had treated you badly because of the Prophecy and immortality and my own emotional problems and so you had good reason to be angry with me, and that the year before she was born, I apologized to you and then you and I talked and decided to be friends." And that was the truth, in its bowdlerized Cliff Notes form. Sara didn't need to know more. Connor kept walking.
Sara kept talking. "And you're not teacher and student now—except in the dojo—so you won't get mad at each other about immortal training."
He hadn't just "gotten mad" at Cassandra about the training; he'd wanted to kill her. Just as she had killed him. Three times. But Connor knew that brutal indoctrination in immortality had helped him to survive through the centuries, and Sara was right: Cassandra and he weren't teacher and student anymore.
"So why do you think you won't be good for each other?" Sara asked, still stubbornly hunting.
Connor whistled to the horse and held the apple up. The Morgan pricked his ears and trotted over. Sweet apples beat frozen grass every time. The bay followed, and Sara gave him an apple, too. When the moist sound of crunching subsided, Connor started walking to the saddles. The horses came with him, looking forward to another treat. Sara came, too, blessedly silent.
He and Sara saddled the horses then gave them each another apple, warming the metal bits between their hands while the horses chewed. When the apple was gone, Connor bridled his horse, sliding the warmed bit into the mouth, then carefully tucking the furry ears under the crownpiece and straightening the forelock before fastening the throat latch. He checked the girth again and tightened it one more notch, then put a foot in the stirrup, ready to swing up into the saddle.
Sara laid one hand lightly on his forearm, a gentle touch that stopped him cold. Her eyes were grey, instead of Alex's or Rachel's blue, but the love and concern in them were exactly the same. So was the stubbornness. "Why, Dad?" Sara asked again.
Connor gave up and told her. "Because Cassandra loves me, and I don't love her."
Sara blinked at him in surprise then laughed as she contradicted him yet again. "Yes, you do."
Why the hell would women never believe a man? Rachel had said nearly the same thing when he'd told her he wasn't lonely. Brenda had often contradicted him, too. So had Alex. Heather hadn't been shy about letting him know when she thought he was wrong, either. "I care for Cassandra as a friend," Connor admitted, "but—"
"Oh, come on, Dad," Sara interrupted. "The way you look at her? That's not friendship. Why do you think Tanja and Zeni gave up flirting with you last summer?"
"Because I didn't encourage them." This past year at the school, where the ratio of female to male was about eight to one, he'd been very careful about not giving anyone encouragement. Students—no matter what their age—were always strictly off limits, and decades ago Connor had learned the hard way to remain totally professional, both inside and outside the classroom. Thankfully, most of the other teachers already had partners or just weren't interested, and so except for Tanja and Zeni, he hadn't had to deal with flirtatious co-workers.
"That helped, sure," Sara said, "but they gave up because they could see your attention was elsewhere. The students see it, too."
"Not all of them," Connor said, remembering a few very persistent young women.
"Oh, they see it. Those girls just don't care. They hit on married men, too. Daniel told me."
Connor shook his head. While the sexual revolution had definitely had interesting consequences, modesty was underrated in this modern world.
"How do you manage?" Sara asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Daniel's been gone for over a year and I'm going crazy, and I'm not surrounded by handsome young men vying for my attention."
Definitely underrated. Connor cleared his throat and avoided his daughter's eyes. "Come running with me tomorrow," he invited. "Twelve miles. Hills."
Sara wrinkled her nose but said, "I'll think about it." Connor turned back to the horse, but Sara kept talking. "So, you care for Cassandra, you're attracted to her, you don't have anyone else in your life. She definitely feels the same way about you, and she's done with lying and her emotional problems and the immortality stuff is taken care of, and yet you still turned her down. Why?"
Connor closed his eyes in a quick prayer for patience then faced Sara again. "Because caring and physical attraction are not the same as love, Sara."
"Sometimes they're enough," she said.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "But not when the other person loves you. And I don't love Cassandra, not like—"
"Not like you loved Mom?" Sara finished for him.
He'd been going to say "not like Cassandra loves me," but what Sara had said was also true, and he slowly nodded.
Sara added, "Not like you loved Brenda? Not like you loved Heather?"
"Yeah."
Sara smiled a little, nodding to herself, then gave his arm a gentle pat. "I really don't think Cassandra expects you to treat her like a wife, Dad. Or love her like one, either."
"I don't—"
"It'll be all right," Sara said then kissed him on the cheek, swung up into her saddle, clicked to her horse, and rode away.
Connor stood there, holding the reins in one hand, until the horse nudged him in the shoulder with a nose. Connor mounted, took one more look at the beauty of the dark branches of the oak tree above the silvered grasses with the towering mountains behind, then set the horse on the way home.
Cassandra returned to the Phinyx Mother House on New Year's Day, arriving around noon. On her way to her suite, suitcase in hand, she heard Sara and Alea in the small kitchen near the lounge. "Happy New Year, Sister Laina!" Alea called.
"Happy New Year, Alea," Cassandra greeted her, coming into the kitchen, then turned to Sara. "Happy New Year, Sister Caorran."
"Happy New Year, Sister Laina," Sara responded.
"We've been saving our ration coupons this month, and we're making a birthday pie for Cousin Mike," Alea explained, cracking an egg.
"It's Aunt Rachel's recipe," Sara said, blowing air upward to try to get her bangs off her forehead. Her hands were covered in flour, and she had a white smudge on her nose.
"Caramel cream," Alea said as she carefully separated the egg then poured the white into a glass bowl. The yolk joined three others in a large measuring cup. "Mom said Great-Aunt Rachel used to make it for Cousin Mike every year."
Probably after Connor had taught her how. Cassandra smiled and said, "I'm sure he'll love it." Sara had stepped back to stare at the waiting circle of pie dough, a rolling pin at the ready in her hand, and Cassandra observed, "You look like you're planning an assault."
Sara looked up with a rueful grin. "I haven't made a pie in a while."
"The crust will all be hidden, Mom," Alea pointed out. "Who cares what it looks like?"
"Right," Sara agreed with a deep breath, then brandished the rolling pin. "Here we go." She sprinkled flour on the dough and set to work.
Alea whisked the yolks then began the tedious task of stirring the milk over low heat until it thickened. "Hey, Mom, isn't it funny that Cousin Mike has the same birthday as your dad did?"
"Lots of people have the same birthday," Sara said evenly. "We have seven billion people on the planet, and there are only three-hundred sixty-five days to choose from. Three-hundred-sixty-six in a leap year." She paused in rolling out the dough, then said, "More than nineteen million people share the same birthday. About three hundred fifty thousand share the same birth day and birth year."
"Oh," Alea said. "I hadn't done the math." Sara shook her head in exasperation, and Alea quickly switched topics. "How was your trip to Vienna, Sister Laina?"
"Wonderful!" Cassandra answered, setting down her suitcase. "First, we went to some museums, then my friend Amanda took me to her hairdresser—"
"You didn't cut your hair, did you?" Alea asked, looking stricken, her spoon stopping in mid-stir.
"What's under the hat?" Sara demanded. "Let us see!"
Cassandra stood and, with a theatrical sweep of her arm, removed her angora hat to reveal the results of four hours with Domenico.
"Oh, great Goddess above!" Alea breathed. "That's gorgeous!"
"Wow," Sara said. "That's… red."
"It's bright henna, to take me from brown-auburn to red-auburn," Cassandra said. "Amanda went for a color called Copper Top, like a new penny." Sara tilted her head, considering, and Cassandra executed a model's slow twirl.
"It's beautiful," Sara said. "You look great."
"Thank you," Cassandra said. "I was ready for a change."
"I'm so glad you didn't cut it," Alea said, back to stirring the milk again. "What else did you and your friend do?"
"After we had our hair done," Cassandra said as she took off her coat, "we had to go shopping for clothes."
"Of course you did," Sara agreed, now intent on maneuvering the rolled out pie crust into the pan.
"What did you buy?" asked Alea.
"A green dress with a halter top, and a black off-the-shoulder dress with a slit up to the thigh."
"Which one are you wearing to the Twelfth Night Ball?" Alea immediately wanted to know.
"Probably the green one. I wore the black dress when Amanda and I went dancing last night." Cassandra tried to stifle a yawn. "We were out until dawn, and I slept on the train ride here." Cassandra sat down on the chair in the corner. "How was your New Year's Eve?"
Sara laughed. "I played card games with other teachers in the lounge and was in bed before eleven." She unfolded the pie crust, patched a small hole, then looked at it with satisfaction before starting to crimp the edges.
"I was up until three," Alea said. "Monique and Britte and I were talking and trying on clothes and doing our hair. Mom woke me up around ten this morning, and we had breakfast then started on this pie. Mom, I think the milk is almost done."
Cassandra began washing the dishes while Sara and Alea finished the pie. "Thank you, Laina," Sara said, when the pie finally went into the oven. She shook her head at the pile of dishes on the counter. "I can't believe one pie takes so many bowls. No wonder Aunt Rachel only made it once a year."
"We're going to give Cousin Mike the pie in the refectory after dinner," Alea explained then asked in sudden concern, "Unless, Sister Laina, you and Cousin Mike have something special planned?"
"Alea," warned Sara.
"We need to know where he's eating," Alea pointed out. "Otherwise, we'll have to take the pie to his room. Unless… he won't be there, either?" She looked at Cassandra again, now more curious than concerned.
"No plans," Cassandra said, smiling but with enough firmness to silence the inquisitive teen.
Alea glanced at her mother, looked back to Cassandra, then said, "Right. Um… You can take the pie out of the oven, right, Mom? I'm supposed to meet Monique in her room at two."
"Yes," Sara said. "Off you go. See you tonight!"
Alea went down the hall, and Sara and Cassandra sat at the small kitchen table, waiting for the meringue topping on the pie to brown. "Do you love my dad, Cassandra?" Sara asked straight away.
As always, Sara was an impudent chit. Cassandra was glad that hadn't changed. "Funny, Amanda asked me the exact same question," Cassandra said.
"So, do you?" Sara persisted.
"Yes," Cassandra replied but went on to say, "By that, I mean his happiness is important to me. And so is yours, and so is Alea's. I love you all."
Sara was nodding impatiently. "I get that. But people love each other in different ways. After all, you haven't asked me or Alea to be your lover."
"You got him to tell you that?" Cassandra asked, amused.
"It took a while," Sara admitted with a conspiratorial grin.
"Did you also get him to tell you that he told me no?"
"Oh, I had figured that out already," Sara said. "As soon as he told me you'd left with Amanda, I knew. I just didn't know why. So I badgered him until he said it was because you loved him and he didn't love you."
Cassandra had heard this from Connor already, and she didn't care to hear it again. "Caorran—"
"So I told him he was wrong," Sara continued on, "and that he did, which he does. Love you, I mean. Alea would have told him the same thing if she'd been there. When we were in Bruges, she told Daniel that 'Mike' wasn't at all interested in me because he obviously wanted you."
"Except he doesn't," Cassandra said, a bit more tartly than she had intended.
"Of course he does," Sara contradicted. "He's just being stubborn about it. And he likes being in charge, so when you asked first, he wasn't ready."
Cassandra smiled ruefully, for Amanda had said almost precisely the same thing.
a few days before...
"Men like to think they're doing the hunting," Amanda said in the hotel room while she and Cassandra were painting their nails, "so even if you're the one to hand them the bow and arrow, lead them down the path, point out what they're aiming at, and tell them 'Now!' they still need to be the one to pull the string back and let fly."
Cassandra knew that. She'd just gotten impatient. "I did wait for him to ask me what I wanted."
"Yes, but then you asked him for more than he was ready to give," Amanda pointed out.
Cassandra knew that, too. She sighed then wiped all the polish off her thumb. Cassandra reached for the bottle labeled Dutch Tulips. It would go better with her new hair.
"Since it's the combination of sex and emotions that's a problem for Connor, did you think about seducing him and just going for the sex?" Amanda asked, painting her little finger with the color Golden Gala.
"Frequently," Cassandra answered, allowing the decades of waiting and frustration to show.
Amanda answered with a saucy and understanding grin, then blew gently on the back of her nails and said, "So why didn't you?"
"Because I want him to seduce me."
Amanda paused, her eyes slightly glazed. "Yes," she murmured. "That is better." Then her gaze, intent and avidly curious, focused on Cassandra. "What's Connor like? In bed?"
With a smile, Cassandra said simply, "Worth the wait."
"Really?" Amanda's eyes glazed over again as she murmured, "Hmm..." Then she said cheerfully, "It'll happen. Just stick to the plan. You left with a girlfriend to have fun instead of moping around the castle, so he knows you weren't utterly devastated just because he said no. You showed him you have a life of your own. You'll return looking gorgeous, and you'll be…?" she prompted.
"Friendly but not clingy," Cassandra finished. "Even a little cool."
"Right," Amanda said. "Let him come after you. And don't use the L word. Men are shy about love."
Especially, Cassandra reflected as she began painting her thumbnail, Connor MacLeod.
It didn't take centuries of experience to figure that out, either. Connor's daughter knew it, too. "My dad's… careful," Sara said, standing and reaching for the pot holders. "About love." She opened the oven and took out the pie, the white meringue baked to a beautiful golden-brown, and set it on top of the stove to cool. She sat back down at the table and said, "He thinks love means marriage. For him, it always has. Or at least, he wanted it to."
"I know," Cassandra said. She'd realized that soon after he'd turned her down, and Amanda had spotted it straight away. Connor wasn't thinking like an immortal. He'd loved only mortal women, and mortal women expected marriage, and marriage meant a monogamous lifetime commitment. He'd spent fifty years with Heather and more than thirty with Alex. In contrast, Connor's time with immortal women had been brief, infrequent, and far from home.
Yet Cassandra and he were working at the same school, they saw each other every day, they even lived in the same building. This wasn't a vacation; this was their daily life. Becoming lovers here and now could feel as if they were moving in together, setting up a home. And unlike the few decades of a mortal's lifespan, immortal relationships could last for hundreds of years.
No wonder he'd backed away.
"I don't want Connor as a husband, I don't want to be a wife, and what I proposed wasn't marriage," Cassandra said, a bit exasperated both with herself and with him. She'd been waiting for years for the timing to be right, and then she'd forgotten how inexperienced Connor was in this area, for all his five and a quarter centuries. Most immortals figured it out sooner. Duncan certainly had. Amanda had been his first immortal lover, and she'd taught him well.
Whereas Connor's first immortal lover, Cassandra realized with sudden bleak anguish, had been herself. Instead of teaching him well, she had destroyed his trust, shredded his heart, and left him bleeding. Beside Rebecca, and that one night with Evann, had he had any other immortal lovers at all? Or had she ruined that for him, too, with her lies? "Stupid," she muttered to herself. She'd been incredibly stupid and selfish and cruel.
"He's not stupid," Sara said, misunderstanding. "Just a little slow to come around." She smiled with great satisfaction as she leaned across the table and patted Cassandra gently on the forearm. "But now he knows it's not like a marriage. Don't worry. He'll be calling you soon."
Cassandra nodded, but she couldn't smile in return.
Connor had sent Cassandra a message early in the morning on New Year's Day, so that it would be waiting for her when she returned, whenever that was. It said simply, "I'd like to talk." Then he went running in the hills, worked out, showered and shaved. During lunch, one of the staff mentioned that Sister Laina had just returned. She didn't reply to his message until three, and it said simply: "I'll be in my office at four."
Not exactly an invitation, but at least she hadn't told him to go pound sand. Connor went through the music room and knocked at her office door at 3:59. He stopped short at the doorway. "You dyed your hair."
"Yes," she agreed, looking up from the pile of papers on her desk. Her hair was unbound, spilling over her back, along her arms, and nearly touching the floor. The sunlight from one window backlit individual strands and turned to them to red-gold, but in the shadows, the color was dark flame. It stood out well against her cream-colored angora sweater and long skirt of light brown wool. Tendrils curled around her, clinging to the bare skin of her forearms and hands.
He came into the room, looked at her from several angles, and said, "Looks nice."
"Thank you," she said, with a brief smile. "Oh, and happy birthday."
His answering words and smile were just as friendly, cheerful— and bland—as hers. "Thank you."
"So," she began, "what would you like to talk about?"
That was a stupid question. Or a defensive one. Or possibly offensive. But Connor wasn't here to play games. "I may have… been hasty," he admitted. "Earlier." She lifted an eyebrow in silent invitation, and he went on, "Do you really think this could work between us?"
Cassandra smiled to herself and murmured, "And to think we called you chivalrous."
"Who?" he demanded.
"Oh, Amanda. Alex. Sara. Rachel."
Stubborn women, all of them, and that included Cassandra. And talkative, too, of course. No power on earth could stop women from talking, and he'd resigned himself to that centuries ago. At least they weren't calling him an idiot.
Connor pulled a chair away from the wall and set it next to the side of the desk then sat down, leaning forward a bit, his elbows on his knees. "Do you?" he asked again.
She tilted her head to one side, considering him. "That rather depends on how much work we put into it."
"How much work is it likely to be?" he countered.
"I think," she said carefully, "you and I have already done a lot of the work." Her smile this time was quick, seemingly shy, but with a touch of wistfulness and even flirtation tossed in. "I was hoping we were ready for fun."
That would make a welcome change. But first, they had a few things to figure out. "Before, in the Highlands," Connor began, "we both knew it was temporary. Our visits after that were…"
"Vacations?" Cassandra supplied.
He nodded then said bluntly: "How does living together work for immortals?"
"From what I've seen, it works best by having times to live apart," she answered. "Ramirez was my only long-term partner. He and I lived together for nearly a century, all told. The longest stretch was about fifteen years. In between, he or I would travel, sometimes for a few years, sometimes for decades, then come back. While we were together, we often shared our evening meal, but not usually in the morning or midday. Except at the cottage in the Highlands, which was too small, we had separate bedrooms. He would visit me, often spend the night."
"You didn't visit him?"
"Ramirez frequently brought other women to his bed. I didn't care to be one of the crowd."
"And you didn't mind?" Connor asked in disbelief. "About the other women?"
"Ramirez liked women," she said simply. "All women. It was part of who he was. I never expected his sexual fidelity, even when we were married." She shrugged. "The bedpartners meant little to him. They came; they went, and he always came back to me. If Ramirez had begun to care for someone, I would have left for a century or so, to give them time together, the way I left when he took immortal students. But he never loved the mortal women he took to his bed."
"He loved his wife," Connor said. The words came out rough, ragged.
"Yes," Cassandra agreed immediately, her gaze softening. "He loved all his wives: Nipik, En-thalat, Shakiko. I first met him forty years after Shakiko had died. After her death—"
"He was shattered," Connor finished. Ramirez had told Connor that story, trying to warn him, to prepare him for Heather's inevitable death. It hadn't helped.
"Ramirez put the pieces back together," Cassandra said. "But he left out his heart."
"No," Connor corrected. "I think he loved you."
Tears sprang to Cassandra' eyes, even as she smiled in fond remembrance. "Perhaps. I hope so," she said. "For I loved him." She wiped away the tears. "This winter will be five hundred years, since he's been gone. I still miss him."
"So do I," Connor said. "He was a good man."
"Yes," Cassandra agreed, and they both sat in silence, remembering their old friend. Then Cassandra went to the cabinet against the wall, her hair a swirling cloud of flame about her, and came back with a bottle of Talisker and two glasses. Connor stood and poured the whisky, and they lifted their glasses in a toast.
"To Ramirez," Connor said. "A great teacher, and a better friend."
"To Tak-Ne," she replied, using Ramirez's Egyptian birth name. "A good husband, and a marvelous man."
They drank together, and Connor closed his eyes to savor the flavor, like smoke floating through liquid sunshine, followed by a surprising sweetness at the finish with a hint of cloves. Cassandra poured another drink and they sat back down. Her chair wasn't all the way behind the desk now; she'd turned it to face his, and she was waiting for him to talk.
Connor cradled the glass in his hands, thoughtfully regarding the amber liquid. Then he looked up to meet her steady gaze. "You said Ramirez had other women in his bed. Did you have other men?" Then, remembering Cassandra's girlfriend from a few decades before, he added, "Or women?"
"No. Never while we were living together. I prefer one partner at a time."
"So do I," Connor said firmly. He'd made that decision about four hundred years ago. Back in the early 1600s, he'd been living with Anne and he'd gone to Cassandra for a visit, thinking he could keep his mortal and immortal lives separate. The visit had gone well, and he'd enjoyed seeing Cassandra, but when he'd gone back to Anne he'd felt… wrong. Hiding his immortality from Anne had been awkward but necessary; hiding another lover from her had been a lie. He'd decided not to try that again.
Cassandra's lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile. "So, if you and I were to have a relationship, then we would expect sexual fidelity from each other while we were living together. Correct?"
"Correct," he agreed. "If we were to have a relationship. And while we weren't living together, there would be no expectations. Right?"
"Right. No questions, no expectations. We would each be free. We could date, flirt, fall in love, even marry."
The way Rebecca had with her husband John in 1979. Connor nodded.
"If you did meet someone while we were together," Cassandra said, "I would want you to tell me, and then I would leave." He started to shake his head, and Cassandra repeated firmly, "I would leave. Love is rare and precious, Connor. I will not stand in its way."
He sipped at his whisky, remembering past loves and how suddenly they could appear, even when you weren't looking for them. And disappear. "And I suppose I should do the same for you."
"That seems fair," she said, and she was right; it was. "Have you…," she began. "Were there…"
Connor looked at her in surprise, for he hadn't heard her be this hesitant in years. "What?"
"I am sorry," she said, meeting his gaze with earnest, pleading eyes, "that what I did to you made your life even lonelier than usual for an immortal."
They'd been over this before. "I've had families," he reminded her patiently.
"Yes, and I'm glad. I meant relationships with immortals."
Connor lifted an eyebrow. "There've been a few."
"Have there?" she said then smiled in what he could have sworn was delight. "Oh good."
He gave a bark of surprised laughter. Women weren't usually that pleased to hear of other lovers. But as long as they were sharing information, and since she didn't mind… "Four," he told her. "Not including you." She nodded, but didn't ask for names. "How about you?" he asked.
"The same," she answered. "Four, not including you."
Ramirez and Duncan, obviously. Connor wondered briefly who the other two had been, and how long ago, but decided not to pursue it. He didn't want to talk about his past in detail; he couldn't ask her more about hers. "So, what if one of us does meet another immortal during a 'relationship'?" he asked next.
Cassandra drew in a deep breath. "That could work," she said. "With… discussion and agreement."
"How?" Connor asked. "We take turns?"
"Why not?" she asked, as if were a matter of waiting to go for a ride on a Ferris wheel. "We have the time."
Connor shook his head and finished the rest of his whisky. Cassandra's was only half gone. "It's… different," he said finally.
"So," Cassandra replied, "are we."
Next: Connor and Cassandra go a-courting