Even Vampires Get the Blues (11 page)

We all looked at Paen. He glared back at us. “I will take Sam home. Finn, you do the same with Clare. In the morning, we will plan out a new strategy for locating both the statue and the man who attacked Clare.”

“Wait a minute,” I protested, dropping the intriguing idea of a Beloved. “You are not the boss here—I am. And I already have a plan for locating your statue.”

“Really?” Paen asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “What would that be?”

“To start with, we will do the same thing we have been doing for another client—I'll check with the antique network and see if anyone has an interest in black monkey statues. Since you can't tell us much about it, Clare is going to do a little research into just what the statue looks like, and its provenance. Once we have a little more information on the statue itself, I can pull out the big guns.”

Clare gasped in horror, and instinctively reached for a wildflower growing at the side of the overlook.

“And what would your big guns consist of?” Paen asked, his eyes so dark they looked like a stormy sky.

I took a deep breath. “I'm going to scry.”

“No.” The almost inaudible whimper slipped between Clare's lips as she stuffed petal after petal into her mouth.

Paen frowned. “What's wrong with Samantha scrying?” he asked Clare.

Her eyes got huge as she looked at me with wordless pleading.

“It won't be like that,” I told her. “Stop frightening the clients!”

“I'm not frightened,” Paen said. “I am, however, a bit confused. I thought scrying was a standard divination technique?”

“It is.”

“Then what's the big deal with you doing it?” Finn asked.

“I'm not actually a Diviner,” I explained to him. “I studied as one for a while, but I . . . er . . . left the Order.”

Paen's eyes narrowed. “You left them because you realized you were not meant to be a Diviner?”

“Something like that,” I said, giving Clare a look that was meant to keep her quiet. It didn't work, of course. No one can shut a faery up when she's determined to blab.

“Sam was kicked out of the Diviners' Order after she scryed,” Clare said, swallowing the last of the petals. “She was part of a scrying circle, and she lost control.”

“It's not as bad as she's making it sound,” I told Paen, more than a little mortified to have my dirty laundry aired in such a manner.

“How can you lose control scrying?” Finn asked at the same time Paen asked Clare, “What happened?”

“She opened a temporal rift that sucked in two Diviners,” she answered, meeting my potent glare with a haughty look. “They should know, Sam! You're dangerous when you scry!”

“A temporal rift?” Paen looked at me as if I was wearing my underwear on my head.

“It's not that uncommon,” I said abruptly, tossing my things onto the backseat of Paen's car. “Happens all the time.”

“Hardly that,” Clare said. She turned to the men with an eloquent gesture that stated how distressed she was by the very thought of me giving in to my Elvish birthright. “It took the head of the Diviner Order three weeks to get the Diviners back from where Sam had sent them.”

“Inadvertently sent them,” I corrected. “It was just a minor little glitch.”

“And you're planning on scrying the location of the statue?” Paen asked, clearly stuck on that point.

“Yes.” I gave them all a level look over the top of Paen's car. “I admit that I had a little control issue before, but I know what I did wrong. I was scrying by the moon. I'm part sun elf—unlike most Diviners, the moon does not give me power, it dilutes it. This time, I will scry by sunlight. Everything will be fine, just you wait and see.”

Famous last words, eh?

The next two days passed like . . . well, like two days. Busy, mostly. Frustrating, definitely, both on a personal and a professional level.

“Are you coming back tonight?” Clare's voice was rather breathless against my ear as I cradled the phone to hear her over the noise and confusion of the Glasgow train station.

“Yes. I should be home around dinnertime. What's been going on there today?”

A smothered giggle followed by a deep rumble of a masculine voice answered that question. “Um . . . we don't have much to report, actually. Finn and I have been working through the list of antique buyers, but with no new information. Oh, Mr. Race called to see if we'd had any progress. I told him you were in Glasgow working on a tip for another case, and he was a bit put out. He said he wasn't paying us good money to work for other people, and he demanded that we put all our attention on his case. He also said he was in London for a day or two, and he'd really like you to meet him there.”

“London? I thought he was in Barcelona?” Something rustled in a nearby trash bin. I hoped it wasn't rodents.

“He left. He said he could put you up for a couple of days if you wanted to contact some of the English collectors in case some of them have heard anything about the manuscript.”

“I hope you told him we already have, with no luck.”

“I tried to, but he doesn't seem to want to listen to me. He just kept saying that people are more forthcoming if you approach them in person, and what a good idea it would be for both of us to go to London and search.”

“He can just go soak his head,” I grumbled, eyeing an itinerant man to make sure he didn't decide to relieve himself near the phone cubicle I occupied. I spent a few minutes damning whoever it was who stole my cell phone a few days earlier, then pulled my mind back to the present. “Did you tell him we were devoting all possible energies to finding the book for him?”

“Yes, but he didn't like the fact that you were away working on another case. So, the private auction lead was a total failure?”

“Not just the lead, the last two days have been a bust.” The homeless man curled up on a bench and quietly picked at various parts of his body. I turned away to stare at the graffiti in the phone booth, depressed and oddly unsettled. “It took me an entire day to track down the collector who was selling off part of his collection, and another day to convince him to let me take a peek at it before the bidders got
at it. I'm just sick at the waste of time, Clare. Paen's mother doesn't have two days for us to waste like this.”

“You had to check it out,” she consoled, stifling another giggle.

I sighed to myself over that, too. In the time I had been gone, Paen had been absolutely silent, not even bothering to check in with me by phone. It was as if he had lost interest in me personally—which even I realized was ridiculous. I'd known the man only three days. There wasn't time for us to establish an emotional bond.

Yet I had spent the last few days thinking about Paen, feeling as if a part of me was missing because he wasn't around, and dreaming the most lascivious, erotic dreams about a man I barely knew.

“What's that?” Clare asked, her words dissolving into a squeal.

I poked morosely at the coin return. “Nothing. I'll be there by suppertime. Tell Finn hi for me. And if Paen calls . . .” I stopped, furious with myself at the demanding urges buried deep within me. He wasn't a potential mate. He wasn't even boyfriend material. He was a client, a man who didn't believe in the importance of emotional attachment.

And I was starting to think I was close to falling in love with him.

“Tell him what?”

“Nothing. See you in a few hours.”

I argued with myself all the way home, until I was too tired to see reason anymore. The last few nights I hadn't slept much—no doubt that was affecting my sanity.

“Oh, now this is bad,” I said to myself several hours later as I hauled my wheeled bag off the train platform. “I'm so obsessed with the man, I'm starting to see him everywhere. In a kilt, yet.”

“Sam,” the kilt-wearing, Paen-shaped vision greeted me, taking the handle of my luggage. He must have noticed my confusion, because he added, “Clare told me you were coming back tonight. I take the fact that you haven't called to announce you found the statue to mean your visit to Glasgow was unsuccessful?”

I stared at him in sleep-deprived bemusement for a few seconds. He paused and raised an eyebrow. “Is something the matter?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. It depends—why are you here? And why are you wearing a kilt?”

He ignored both questions, gently rubbing his thumb under my left eye. “You have dark circles under your eyes.”

“I know. It's because I haven't slept well the last couple of nights, thanks to you.”

“To me?” He frowned, then took my elbow and propelled me toward the main doors. “I have left you completely alone for the last forty-eight hours. How can I be to blame?”

“Because you've left me completely alone for the last forty-eight hours.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Paen argued.

I stopped outside the doors, moving to the side so we were out of the flow of traffic. “Of course it does. Paen, three days ago we met. You told me you wanted to sleep with me. I, against my better judgment, agreed to do that simply because I wanted to
prove to you that sex without emotional commitment was shallow and meaningless.”

“You agreed to sleep with me because you fancied me,” he said, his beautiful eyes lightening.

“That too. The point is, you made a big deal about us sleeping together, then you just left me!”

He frowned, his brows pulling together in a black slash over his eyes. “You'd had a trying day. You yawned three times on the way back from Dunstan Moor. Clearly you were not in an optimum mood to appreciate my sexual technique.”

“In other words”—I poked him in the chest—“you chickened out.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” he said, grabbing my elbow again and pushing me along the sidewalk toward the parking lot. “I was being considerate, just as I have been the last two days, a fact you totally seem to have misunderstood.”

“Given that you never once called to see how I was doing in Glasgow, I think it's reasonable to assume you were avoiding me because you regretted ever making those rash statements regarding personal relationships.”

“Or I could have been letting you do your job while I was tied up with SEPA,” Paen said, unlocking the trunk of his car and throwing my suitcase into it.

I stood to let him unlock and open the passenger door for me. “SEPA?”

“Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. They've been claiming a bit of my land is contaminated with runoff from a nearby smelting plant, and I had to meet with the officials to prove again that it isn't. I doubt if you've had much experience dealing with
Scottish political red tape, but it's just as unpleasant as the Canadian version.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” I nibbled on my lower lip for a moment. “How did it turn out?”

He flashed me a quick grin before starting the car and backing it out of the parking spot. “Chemical analysis of the soil and water table showed they're unpolluted, as I've said for the last six years.”

“Good.”

“It was damned annoying timing on their part. I planned on helping search the antiquities network for news of the statue, but was tied down with the minutiae of officialdom.”

“That's OK. Clare and Finn worked on that while I was gone.”

He glanced at me before pulling out into traffic. “Why haven't you been sleeping well?”

I hesitated about telling him. I'd already made a fool of myself by sounding jealous and possessive of him when there was no relationship to be jealous or possessive about, but the urge to protect my delicate ego was strong. In the end, though, I told the truth, because . . . well, just because I figured it might mean something to him. “The time not spent in incredibly erotic dreams about you was mostly spent tossing and turning, wondering what you were doing, why you hadn't called me, and whether you regretted making the proposition you did.”

“You didn't call me either,” he said, picking the one thing out of my embarrassing confession that I knew was the weakest.

“I did. You didn't answer. And I . . . er . . . didn't leave a voice mail.”

“Why?” he asked, shooting me another quick glance.

I looked out the window at the lights of the city as they passed by. It was painful having to admit how much I missed him during the two days away. “I didn't have anything to report. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, I'm here now,” he said, pausing to let an elderly couple cross the street.

“Yes, and that's something I'm rather curious about. Clare knows full well there's a bus that goes from the station to less than a block away from our apartment. I've hauled a lot more luggage than what I have now. So why has she sent you to fetch me?”

His eyebrows flattened out to a straight line. “I just thought it would be polite to pick you up since you'd been away on my behalf.”

“Doing the job you're paying me to do,” I pointed out, secretly delighted by the revelation that Paen had missed me while I was gone.

“I was in town anyway,” he said, avoiding my eye.

“Uh-huh. And the kilt?”

“I'm a Scot. I'm allowed to wear one.”

“I know that, silly. I just meant, what's the occasion?”

He maneuvered the car slowly through a busy, pedestrian-laden street. “I don't need an occasion to wear a kilt.”

“Riiiight,” I drawled.

He sent me a quick glance. “Most women fair drool at the sight of a man in a kilt.”

Oho! So that was the way things were. I fought to keep my smile from showing, and tried to look only mildy interested. “Do they?”

“Yes.” He glanced at me again. “They find it sexy.”

“I'm sure they do.” I pointed out the next turn, and Paen swung around a corner, entering the narrow street in the old part of Edinburgh where Clare and I shared an apartment. “Did you miss me?”

He pulled into the tiny parking area behind our building, giving me a startled look. “Did I what?”

“You heard me. Did you miss me while I was gone?”

“Where should I park?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“There, next to Clare's car. It's the spot assigned to me, but I don't have a car, so you can use it. And stop avoiding answering the question.”

He pulled into a spot and turned off the engine. “I regretted that you were away on business when I couldn't help you.”

I smiled to myself as I unhooked my seat belt. “Not good enough. Did you
miss
me?”

He got out of the car, going to open the trunk.

I followed, my arms crossed over my chest as I leaned a hip against the car. “Well?”

“Let me ask you this—did you miss me?” he said, slamming the trunk closed.

“Very much,” I said, waiting.

His eyes lightened another few degrees. “I see. In that case—yes, I missed you.”

“Good. Are you going to spend the night this time, or are you not yet ready for such a thing?”

“That was our original agreement, but I thought perhaps you might have changed your mind.”

“I don't change my mind that easily,” I said as we walked to the building, waiting as he opened the door for me. The faint sound of music from Mila's sex
shop was the only sound to permeate this part of the building. I started up the stairs to our apartment, but Paen stopped me, pushing me up against the wall of the stairwell, his body blocking out the dim light that hung over the stairs until all I could see was the silver gleaming brightly in his eyes.

“You're tired,” he said.

“I haven't yawned once. How can you possibly imagine I'm tired?”

“You said you weren't sleeping well,” he reminded me.

“I slept on the train coming home,” I answered, thankful that I had dropped off for a few minutes so I could tell him that.

“You look tired,” he insisted.

I smiled. I couldn't help it; he was so cute trying to deny the obvious. “I do not look tired. I checked a mirror before the train arrived. The dark circles under my eyes are hereditary, not due to lack of sleep. I am exhibiting no obvious signs of fatigue.”

He leaned into me. “I can feel that you're near exhaustion.”

“Nuh-uh, that won't work either, because according to you, we don't have a psychic thing. So you can't possibly know what I'm feeling,” I argued softly, my body turning into one gigantic tingling erogenous zone as he pinned me against the wall.

“Then you won't mind at all if I ascertain for myself your feelings on the subject of our having sex?” His voice was likewise low, but roughened with arousal.