Author's Note: Sorry it been awhile since I've updated. Hopefully this chapter makes up for it.
Chapter 4:
"I'm not a boy!" Miranda stifled a laugh. Then heat swept up her face. Maybe it wasn't so funny to be mistaken for a boy. She scrambled to her feet. "Who the heck are you? How'd you get into my shop?"
"Shop?" The man's body tensed. He swept a trembling hand across his brow.
A wave of sympathy made her soften her voice. "Yes," Miranda said, "my shop. How'd you get in here? Who are you?"
"I crossed the ice fields?" It was a question.
Miranda sighed. He was going to act out the part to which he'd dressed. He was definitely into Naruto. "Yes, Yes," she said, playing along. "You've crossed the ice fields. You're in Ocean City, now."
"Ocean…?"
She pressed her lips together to remain as serious as he was. "Yes, that's the one. Now, who are you?"
He straightened to his full height and stared down his perfectly covered nose at her. " Hayate Kakashi."
Of course. If she looked so much like the ninja from Naruto, she call herself Kakashi, too. "Okay, Kakashi. How'd you get in here?"
A look of real consternation settled on what she could see of his face. "I do not remember." He staggered. His hand shot out for the wall.
"Uh, Miranda?" Neil spoke from the entrance to the room. "You're back door's unlocked, but Mrs. Hill and some friends are lined up out front."
"Miranda?" The man said her name very distinctly. In fact, he sounded as though he belonged on the public television station, maybe in one of those British mysteries she watched on Thursdays nights.
"Come on." She tugged at the man's arm. "Let's get you out of here. If the women outside see you, they'll strip you naked in a minute."
A look of sheer terror crossed the man's face. Miranda grinned. "Yep. Less than a minute. Maybe ten seconds." He scooped up his fur parka. She wrinkled her nose. "You'd better get your coat to the cleaners pronto."
He swayed. His hand settled heavily on her shoulder. Slowly he removed it and forced himself upright. "Forgive me."
He felt as weak as a spring lamb. He took a cautious step. Then another. At the doorway he staggered. Lights and sounds and smells assaulted him. Drums pulsed and beat in his head. Pain shot from one side of his skull to the other. Bright colors burned his eyes. He bumped into a table. A slither and clatter of glittering objects made him jump. A man grabbed him. He pulled away.
The man in black, had no visible weapons, but this was the land beyond the ice fields. Kakashi did not know what laws applied here, nor what enemies he might encounter. Legends told of strange people, strange customs, and stranger weapons to be found if one could cross the ice fields.
He went on guard. His burning eyes swept the long chamber he'd entered. Colors warred with light bouncing off glossy surfaces. Nothing looked familiar. Glass windows, impossibly large and clear, ran with rain. In sharp contrast to the room, the world outside looked strangely washed of color. He stifled a moan as the pain in his head rose with the crashing sounds that pulsed through the chamber: drums and cymbals. They came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Kakashi forced himself to concentrate on where the immediate danger lay: the dark-haired man. He gripped the hilt on his kunai. The blade was sharp enough to kill if need be. His blurry vision settled on the symbol on the dark one's shirt. A death's-head, wielding a strange weapon.
The little female jerked him from his thoughts. "Kakashi meet Neil. Neil meet Kakashi. Kakashi's a little under the weather." The woman touched the snake man on the shoulder. "Do you mind getting the shop ready while I take him upstairs?"
Unbelievably, the snake man nodded and silently went to stand behind a long table. Kakashi watched warily, but the man made no threatening moves.
He closed his eyes and groaned. A sharp blade of pain twisted through his skull. He could not let it gain control of him. He opened his eyes and sought the only familiar thing in his sight-the woman.
She stood in a rear doorway, held out her hand, and beckoned him to the strange gray world outside-a world with the comforting scent of the sea.
She had beckoned before, called him to her. His bone deep fatigue warred with the hot pulse of desire that surged through him. The ice woman had invaded his dreams-and his reality. The image of her seemed burned in his mind. The woman before him could not be her. He raked the boyish female with his gaze from golden-capped head to blue-clad legs.
The wind pressed her strange garments against her body. How could he have ever doubted she was a woman? In his mind, her garments dissolved into white gossamer robes draping lush female curves.
Kakashi concentrated on the pain behind his eyes and followed her. He had no time to study his surroundings. The woman held open another door but a step from her shop. He had no strength to do more than follow her up a narrow set of stairs.
It took most of his remaining concentration to ignore the woman's buttocks in the tight breeches as she climbed the stairs before him. His thigh muscles ached with fatigue from the endless time of trekking across the ice.
At the top of the stairs she opened another door and stood back so he could enter. The chamber was long and narrow. A thin rug covered the center of a wooden floor. The only furniture was a tall wooden cupboard, a padded bench with a high back, and several straight-backed chairs about a round table. All looked old.
"Sit down. Relax."
He ignored her invitation and paced the long room. The ceiling was low. It would be hard to fight in such a space. The two doors led from her chamber. One, amazingly made of glass, faced a small balcony and the gray world outside. He rubbed his eyes. Even the roiling waves were gray. They should be dark purple in a storm such as this one. Staring at the dazzling white ice fields must have damaged his eye. Slowly he moved close to the glass door. It looked pathetically weak, the glass fragile and thin. He could be through it in an instant and gone, should danger threaten.
"Where do those doors lead?" He pointed to far end of the chamber.
"My bedroom and the bathroom." She flitted about grabbing the scattered colorful rags from the padded bench.
The woman then came near. Her flowery scent came with her. He shook his head.
"Why don't you sit down and explain to me how you got into my shop? Are you here for the war conference?"
Kakashi stiffened. Her words confused him. "War? Conference?" A conference meant discussion. A war conference meant planning and strategy- and other warriors. "What conference?"
"The pretend one in Atlantic City."
The wan light from the glass door gleamed off her short cap of hair. "Why are you disguised as a boy?"
"Why are you disguised as a ninja?"
He sneered. " I am a ninja."
"You stink, you know?" She wagged a finger at him. He felt chastised and ashamed. Never in his life had he been accused of uncleanness. Never had his skin crawled so with the urge to scratch. "There are no bathhouses on the ice fields," he spit back.
She giggled. The sound, lighthearted and sweet, sent a shiver down his spine. Her amusement annoyed him. She bent her head- to hide a smile, he suspected. Indignation overshadowed his pain. When she looked up, the smile she gave him was kind, not mocking.
Boldly she met his eyes. "Could I fix the cut on your cheek?"
'No," he snapped.
"Have it your way." She shrugged and bit her lip.
He regretted his abruptness, but something warned him to maintain a distance from this unusual female. His stomach shamed him by growling loudly in the silence that followed his words.
She shot to her feet. "You're hungry."
End Note: Review me please!