There was a subtle brightness that intruded on his slumber, a lightening beyond his closed lids that he really wanted to ignore.
Why is it that the damn birds have to choose my window ledge to shout their challenge to the day, he thought? And why does it feel as though whatever sort of a little beggar the damned bird is, that it is drilling a hole behind my eye with its frigging little beak?
He rolled his head down and over into the pillow hoping that somehow a little pressure might stop the headache he felt looming. Pulling the blanket higher on his shoulder, he turned over in a vain effort to block the day. His nose brushed warm flesh at the same moment as his feet protruded uncomfortably out into the cool air of the room.
Whaaa…? He cracked an eye open and realized that he wasn't in Toronto any more. His nose rested against Liath's forehead. He drew back to look down on her sleeping face. Her eyes were closed and her long brown lashes lay on cheeks that were dappled with the faint freckling of her coloring. Even in sleep her face bore a soft and sweet smile.
Thank God, he thought, thank God and all the Saints, she is real.
She was real, a warm and relaxed weight that he held safely in his arms. He hadn't dreamed her, hadn't imagined her. As he watched, the slight change in the way he held his body wakened her and her eyes fluttered open, deep brown and somnolent and she regarded him for a moment, then her face creased with a flash of white smile.
She sighed loudly and lowered her face to burrow up against his chest, wriggling 'til she was completely enfolded in his embrace and their legs were entwined. He tightened his arms around her and closed his eyes for few moments just breathing in her scent. He could still hear the birds outside the window but now their song seemed sweetly melodic.
Mike stroked down along her back gently, and in a voice that was slightly rough said, "Good morning."
"No, no…'tis not," Liath mumbled, burrowing more resolutely into his arms and disappearing into the dark below the blankets.
"But it is," Mike smiled, as he tightened his arms briefly and then lifted the blankets, to peer down onto the top of her head where she nestled against his chest. The cooler air of the room crept down onto her back and she moaned.
"No Michael, let's lie here for a wee bit more, just another half an hour, 'tis early yet."
"I have no idea of the time Liath but I need to…" He quickly lost the train of his thought as her warm hand traveled up the long muscle of his thigh, to cup the weight of his sex. She rolled him in her palm for a moment and then stretched out her thumb to tease the very tip of him with the slightest of touches.
It was Mike's turn to moan as he felt her face shift up and around and then her mouth latched soft and warm onto his nipple. He uttered a soft gasp at the intensity of his response to her ministrations. Then he relented breathlessly, "Maybe another half an hour wouldn't…uhh…hurt…"
***
When Mike emerged from the shower, his hair towel dried and his face bristled with a day's growth of beard, he followed the sound of voices to the kitchen.
Standing at the arched doorway to the room, he saw a blonde-headed woman leaning against the ancient countertop, and Liath seated with her legs drawn up on one on the kitchen chairs.
Mike placed the familiar blonde as being the driver of the car that had picked Liath up at the ferry dock and he flushed a little as he remembered the frank admiration in her appreciative smile.
As the blonde's eyes came up to regard him in the doorway, Liath looked over her shoulder and smiled her pleasure at him, a smile that set off an echo of pleasure in his own heart.
"Michael, this is Clare, my roommate. Clare this is Michael my...my…Michael," Liath said by way of introduction.
Clare's eyes widened as she took in his tall frame in the doorway and she said, "Ah Michael, well I am pleased to make your acquaintance, to be sure. Would you like some green tea?" She indicated a pot covered with a crocheted cozy that rested on the table in front of Liath's steaming mug, "or would you be a man more after my own heart and be wanting some coffee?" displaying her own mug.
"Coffee, please," Mike said as he crossed two paces to place his hands on Liath's shoulders. Liath raised a hand to cover his fingers with her own.
"Have a seat Michael," Clare said as she set a mug of black coffee on the table.
"I really should call a cab, I need to get back to my hotel, and get some clean clothes and check in with…"
Liath said, "Clare and I were just discussing that very thing. Why don't you sit down and have some coffee and then Clare will lend me her car to drive you back to where you're parked? I need to go to a rehearsal anyways this afternoon so I'll spend a bit of time downtown."
Mike sank into the chair and laced his fingers around the heat of the mug, wondering at the sense of relief that he didn't have to part from her just yet.
***
It had only just gone 9 a.m. by the time that Mike and Liath had settled her cases in the back seat of Clare's aging sedan. They set out along Dallas Road, and though the clouds were broken and scudding across the sky in the breeze, the day definitely held the moist promise of more rain.
As they passed by the Beacon Hill Park they could see out on the water a small schooner that was running before the wind setting out across the Strait. Mike turned his head to keep the ship in his sight.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" Liath asked him. "Have you ever sailed on a tall ship Michael?"
Mike shook his head, "No, I've been on my brother's sailboat out on the lake in summer, but never onboard anything as big as that, or on anything ocean going."
"Oh it's wonderful," Liath enthused. She made a right hand turn and started up past the park towards downtown. "When you're out in the open water and the sails are full of wind and she's speeding along with her wake white behind her. It's just exhilarating." She smiled and sat up straighter behind the wheel.
"Sounds like you've been on quite a few," Mike said.
"Yes well, I've been around ships and the sea most of my life," she said easily, "but I love the tall ship best of all. I once sailed aboard a schooner in a Tall Ships Race. We didn't have a chance of winning but it was terribly exciting all the same, and to truly use the shanties as they were intended was wonderful."
They were passing by the Inner Harbor now, in front of the Empress hotel and the early flocks of tourists.
"We parked one block over from the Times last night, didn't we?" she asked him.
He nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, it's the next right I think."
"So," Mike asked, "have you ever been out to the East Coast and sailed on the Atlantic or have you confined yourself to the Pacific?"
Liath's expression sobered as she pulled up behind Mike's rental car. She put the sedan in park and then turned in her seat towards him.
"Michael, you can ask me anything you want, I want to help you if I can." Her eyes were dark and suddenly haunted in her stricken face.
In a choked whisper she said, "I sailed to the protest on the ice once, on the Lila; it has to be four years ago now. I thought, I thought that I was prepared for the thing that is the hunt," she swallowed once thickly, "but I'll never forget the hunters on the floe and the..."
"Blood?" Mike supplied.
"Yes," there were tears in her eyes, "the blood of the whitecoats on the ice. I lost it, broke down completely. They had to air lift me back to the city and I was in hospital for three weeks." Her face was pinched with pain at the memory. Mike lifted a hand to her cheek, and wiped away a single trickling tear with his thumb.
"I'm sorry for bringing it up Liath," he breathed as he leaned in to brush her quivering lips with his.
She sighed gustily and said, "Oh, it's no matter, I just wish I was made of sterner stuff. I just don't know how Orion could stand to take and develop all those pictures."
Mike leaned his forehead against hers and said in a low voice, "I wish I didn't have to leave you like this."
Liath patted his hand. "Go on with you," she said with a tremulous smile. "I'm going to drive over to the Captain Cook Bakery and console myself with a decadent cream cheese Danish and an extra large latte. I have your phone number; will it be alright if I call you?"
"Any time," Mike said as he climbed out the passenger side door, fishing for his keys in his coat pocket. "Any time...please."
***
By six that evening Mike was definitely feeling the late night and his over indulgence at the Times. He had spent most of the day in meetings and reviewing the files at the police station and had taken a long and fruitless drive out to the Sooke Aquatic Conservatory. Once there he had interviewed two rather surly young women who seemed to begrudge every word they said to him as though they were betraying a sacred trust.
Liath had called him once to ask him how his work was going and to let him know that after the rehearsal she was going to the Society offices with Becky to overhaul one of the clinic's supply cupboards. He hadn't heard from her since.
He had thought about calling Vicki but had remembered that she said she was flying into Vancouver today with Coreen, and after the way he had left things with her, he really didn't want to go there just yet.
He had called down to Toronto though and to the Metro station. He got Dave on the phone who, traitor that he was, had passed him to Crowley over Mike's shouted protests.
Crowley had demanded a full report of what he had so far and had kept him at least half an hour. She can damn well pay my wireless bill, he thought bitterly at the end of the call.
Mike felt tired and worn and strangely unsettled as he left the station. Glancing at the steady downpour that darkened the early evening sky he thought morosely to himself, perfect, just perfect.
He made his way to the hotel, pulling his coat up over his head and wrapping it around the files he held to his chest as he dashed the few steps from his car across the hotel parking lot and up the exterior stairs to his second floor room. He felt damp and cold and disheveled as let himself into the cool, dark room, flicking on a light here and there and pulling off his jacket to lay it over the chair to dry.
He checked his phone; there was one new voice mail. It was Liath; her voice was breathless as she said, "Mike, there is a rescue happening up the western coast of the island a bit, in Bamfield. I'm going to assist Becky, I'll call you when I can, love…bye."
I'll call you when I can, love, when I can, love…. The words seem to circle in his head…was it? he wondered. He had never felt this kind of bone deep longing for anyone else, not even Vicki, not even in the best part of their relationship, long before fucking Fitzroy showed up and the whole world went straight to hell.
Trying to escape his troubling thoughts he picked up the yellow pages from the hotel dresser, and thumbing through them, he found a local Chinese restaurant and ordered a hot and sour soup and some lettuce wraps and two large Chinese teas for delivery, and then escaped into the steamy warmth of the shower.
***
The empty Chinese food containers still littered the room's table and Mike flicked off the TV. It was 10:30 p.m. and he had still heard nothing from Liath.
The room was bathed in the warm, dim light of the bedside lamp and suddenly quiet. Clad only his sweatpants, and barefooted, he crossed to the door. The skin of his arms and shoulders tightened in the chill air as he stepped out onto the second floor balcony. The rain was sheeting down as he stood regarding the half empty parking lot. The street in front of the hotel was deserted, puddled and dark in the rain. He felt curiously disturbed, troubled by a nagging sense of worry.
Shaking his head, he returned to his room and pulled back the bedclothes.
He glanced at the files spread open on the dresser and his notes resting amid the take out containers. He downed a swallow of the dregs of the cold tea, careful to leave the debris in the bottom of the paper cup.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he flicked off the light and laid his head on the pillow. The crisp linen was cool against his cheek and the last thing that he remembered hearing was the sound of the rain pounding on the hotel roof.