Sentinel: A Light Mage Wars Novella (The Light Mage Wars) (9 page)

"
Thank you." Caro rubbed her fingertips along the back of his hand, over lean muscles, long fingers, and a light sprinkling of pale brown hair. He still gave off tension, but he'd opened up to her.

Maybe she owed him the same.

#

Rick studied Caro.
Should he tell her more? If you wanted people to open up to you, you generally had to share first.

She didn
't seem shocked, but the daughter of a successful lawyer had to know injustice was thriving in the world. In her touch, he sensed only sympathy, and maybe a hint of sorrow, for the boy he'd been.

Too bad h
e didn't want sympathy from her. He wanted something a lot hotter.

Yeah, knowing she cared warmed his heart, but his body was warming to the brush of her
fingers on his hand. It was making him hard. So he was a dog. But what was it with her, that she could do that to him with the merest touch?

He needed a distraction, and the
light, airy fiddle melody was perfect. "Do you two-step, Sunshine?"

Caro shook her head.
"Never learned."

"
I can teach you."

"
Maybe after we eat."

"
There are only a few couples dancing," he assured her. "And I lead, you know. No matter how much smarter or prettier you are than I am, I'm still the guy. I lead. All you have to do is follow."

"
Well..."

"
We won't do anything complicated. If you don't like it, we'll sit down."

"
Here's y'all's stew," DeAnne announced, arriving at the table.

"
A reprieve." Caro smiled. "It smells great."

DeAnne set out their fo
od. "Rick, I meant to ask you. Have you heard any more about that fella who disappeared down the road, by Bond Swamp? The one whose car they found?"

Across the table, Caro tensed.
She'd probably heard the same MageWire report he had, that deputy reeves had noticed the stink of ammonia, a sign of ghoul presence, on the car. But no Mundane could know that.

"
Not a thing," he lied, wishing he didn't have to. "Sorry."

DeAnne sighed.
"It's just a rotten shame. He was such a nice fella."

After making sure the
y didn't need anything else, the waitress hurried away. But not before she gave him a wink and a jerk of her head toward Caro. A seal of approval, not that he'd doubted it.

How could he get Caro to give him the same, to trust him?
He wanted that more than he'd realized, and for himself, not the story.

Idiot
. He was losing perspective, when maintaining it was key. Like noticing she hadn't responded at all to his comment about being a team with Jenny. Had avoided responding, which implied that she was hiding something. Loss of perspective could blur things like that, keep him from noticing. He couldn't let that happen.

Even if Dare had been right the day of that catastrophic raid, he
'd been a menace ever since.

Except Jason had said
some of the reeves thought Dare was going after ghoul nests on his own.

But that couldn
't matter, even if that unlikely theory were true. Rick gave himself a mental shake. He had to put these doubts away. Right or wrong, Dare had cost too many innocents their lives.

Caro
spooned up stew and tasted it. "Mmmm." Her eyes closed. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip, catching a stray drop of stew. The deep breath she drew as she inhaled the food's scent made her breasts rise.

Rick set his jaw against the
sudden, sharp need to fill his hands with them. To have her moan for him.

So
now he had a woody.
Shit
. At least the table hid it from everyone else, but had she picked up on his lust before he shielded it?

If s
he did, she showed no sign of it. Smiling at him, she said, "This is great, just like you said."

"
DeAnne knows her way around a kitchen."

"
Is she the cook, too?" Caro broke a palm-sized square of cornbread.

"
No, that's Walt. But she's the boss, and everybody here knows it."

"
She seems to like you. You either work here a lot or eat here a lot. Or both."

Rick grinned.
"Hey, I'm a likeable guy."

"
You are," she agreed, smiling.

They ate in silence for a few minutes.
Abruptly, Caro set her spoon down. "I want to tell you something."

"
Okay." Judging by the tension in her face and body, it was something difficult. About her brother, maybe? Rick leaned forward. This could be the break he needed.

She blew out a hard breath.
"Before we step onto the dance floor, I need you to know why I hate crowds so much. The Christmas I was eleven, my class went to the mall to see the decorations. This was right before school got out, a week before Christmas, so the place was insanely crowded. The short version is that I got separated from my class. The girls I was with were distracted and didn't realize at first that they'd lost me."

"
Sunshine, I'm sorry." He covered her hand with his again. She looked grim. Maybe he should stop her. But she'd said she wanted to tell him.

Caro shrugged.
"Obviously, it all turned out okay. But I was lost in the crowd, couldn't use my cane. Didn't even know which way I was facing. People kept jostling me, not on purpose but trying to move past me. I finally made my way to a wall and just stood there."

"
That had to be terrifying." He reached across the table for her other hand. Touching her was way too appealing, but he couldn't resist in the face of her remembered pain.

Although h
er fingers tightened on his, her expression didn't lighten. Again, she blew out a hard breath. "This man asked me if I needed help. I told him to go away. I didn't know who he was."

"
At that age, your magic wouldn't have manifested yet."

"
No. Except for sensing colors with touch, which came early, I had nothing then. Anyway, I groped my way into a store and refused to move until Mom arrived. Security came, to get this semi-hysterical kid away from the holiday shoppers, I think, and I had a fit. By that time, the teachers had done a headcount at the buses and missed me."

Ca
ro sighed. "It was a huge kerfuffle, one I didn't deal with especially well. I didn't want to leave the house again for a long time."

"
Sunshine, you were eleven. Of course you were scared. Of course you pulled back. You were smart not to go with anyone you didn't know, security or not."

"
You're sweet to say that." She didn't sound convinced, though.

"
Not sweet. Honest," he said firmly. "Now, what do you say to a dance lesson? The floor isn't crowded, but if you'd rather not try–"

"
No, I want to. I can tell that there's plenty of open space in here. I can sense people or other living things, as most mages do."

"
If you're sure, I'd love to dance with you." She was offering him a lot more trust than he'd first realized.

"
I tend to pull back," she confessed. "I've done it often since then. I'm trying to change that."

"
Change takes courage. I'm honored you'd trust me with being part of it."

A smile quirked the corners of her
ripe mouth and made him want to taste it again. "You're a nice guy, Dudley. I bet you'd look fabulous in one of those red tunics the Mounties wear."

"
Thanks. But if you want a dance lesson, you need to dig in so we can get to it."

They finished quickly and
slid out of the booth.

Rick said,
"You can leave your cane and purse in the booth, but if you'd rather, we can put them behind the bar."

"
If you say they're okay here, that's fine." She squared her shoulders.

This might go better if she didn
't carry herself so rigidly, as though she were going to face another public demonstration. But maybe that was how this felt to her.

He
steered her to the corner of the dance floor with no occupied tables nearby. They had some space here.

"
I need you to be very specific," Caro said. "I feel kind of naked without my cane."

"
Got it. Okay, Sunshine, give me your right hand." He placed his right hand at her left shoulder blade. "Rest your left hand on my arm and shoulder so you can feel how I move."

Waiting while she set herself, he couldn
't help noticing how earnest she looked, and anxious. In this, at least, she trusted him. Maybe they could progress from here. It really was too damned bad that he had to betray her trust to get the truth.

"
Good," he said when she was set. "You step first with your right foot, and I start with my left. That's important when we travel the floor."

"
So we don't kick each other."

"
Right. We do two quick steps, then two slow, two quick, two slow, and repeat that pattern."

"
Hence the two-step?" she asked.

"
Exactly. Now let's try it, just small steps for now. You're going backward, okay?"

After a couple of false starts, she had the hang of it.
"It's not that hard." Caro grinned. "At least, not while you're saying 'quick, quick, slow, slow."'

DeAnne passed by and patted Caro on the back.
"Lookin' good, honeybun."

"
Thanks," Caro said. Her lips moved, counting off the rhythm for herself.

"
Now we'll try covering a little more ground."

"
Yeah, but count it off? At least at first."

"
Sure. And here we go...quick, quick, slow, slow...Doin' great, Sunshine."

"
Thanks."

The smile on her face wrapped itself around his heart.
He'd given her that joy, and it mattered more than any editor's praise, even Stan's.

But
not more than getting the truth and clearing his father's name. That wasn't only for him, and he was running out of time.

"
Rick? Anything wrong?" Caro stumbled. She must've lost count. "Sorry."

"
Muscle memory takes a while to develop. You're doing great." Had she picked up on his impatience? "Nothing's wrong. I was thinking about work."

"
Anything you want to talk about?"

Should he make a pitch for his story?

Probably not.
The deadline was looming, but he might undo the progress he'd made if he rushed her.

They
'd almost completed a circuit of the floor when the band shifted to a slow song. Rick drew Caro close, looping his right arm around her waist and cradling their joined hands against his chest.

She
rested her head on his shoulder, her thick, soft hair brushing his jaw. Her rose scent teased his nose. His heart kicked, and his blood fired.

Might as well face the truth.
He wanted her, badly. But having her would mean giving up on vindicating his dad. On lifting the shame from Mom and Jenny. He couldn't let them down.

#

Awareness of Caro in the shotgun seat hummed along Rick's nerves and kept him semi hard. Did she feel this current of desire, too, or was it all his?

Whichever, it challenged his ability to think about where to go from here.

He needed that story
. It would offer justice to a lot of mages other than his dad, and time was running out.

His gut said she wasn
't ready to open up about her brother, though. Suggesting a story might make her pull back completely, ruining his only shot. But would waiting make a difference?

A streak of muddy yellow flashed toward the car from his left.
Ghoul attack. Fuck.

Rick shielded the vehicle, but too late.
The left front tire blew. The car skidded left, into the other lane, as he fought the steering and applied brakes to keep it under control.

At least his shield deflected the follow
-up bolts. The ghouls were advancing, three he could sense. Even if he tried to drive clear on the rim, he couldn't sustain a shield for very long against that many.

Caro gasped and clutched the door handle.
"Rick was that–?"

"
Ghouls, yeah. Three that I can see."

The car screeched to
a stop angled across the centerline. He should be able to translocate about a quarter mile with her along, but they risked arriving in a clump of ghouls.