Part 2 (1/2)

”You can do it in the daylight.”

Again the hands to the hips. ”Tell me why you're worried.”

”Can't you ever just take advice?” He matched her glare, then backed down. He was probably blowing it out of proportion. Seeing her this morning had kept her too near the surface, a bad idea on any day. A worse one today. ”Fine. Lock the door behind me.”

”Of course.” Just enough barb to make it sting.

He drove home to his cabin tucked away from both the new, sprawling mansions and the little, old Victorians like Tia's. He removed his jacket and weapon belt, locked his sidearm and backup in the gun safe, then opened the collar of his s.h.i.+rt and entered the den. From the corner shelf he took the bottle of Maker's Mark and rubbed its dustless surface.

He ran his thumb down the label, removed the stopper, and slowly pa.s.sed the throat beneath his nose. The spirits rose up and constricted his nostrils. His taste buds quickened, saliva glands moistening with antic.i.p.ation. He imagined the fluid in his throat, remembered the heat like it was yesterday.

Today of all days that heat would comfort, fogging the memories that filled his mind in stark relief. He would welcome the fog, deep, deadening. The voice of desire whispered in his ears.

”You do not control me,” he whispered back, closed it up, and set it on the shelf.

In the bedroom he undressed and collapsed onto the bed. Almost over. Just a few more hours.

With Jonah's uneasiness p.r.i.c.king her nerves, Tia made her way up the wooded path. Had he invented an excuse to see her alone, or was his concern real? He'd offered to walk her home, a troubling thought at the best of times. She jerked a glance over her shoulder when a pine cone fell from a tree, then expelled her breath.

She moved on, annoyed with herself as much as Jonah. She reached the side street and yelped, pressing a hand to her chest when Piper slipped out of the shadows beside her.

”Sorry!” Piper clasped her hands to her chest. ”I didn't mean to scare you.”

Her own fault for letting Jonah get to her. ”What are you doing out here?”

”Going ... home.”

Tia released her breath. ”I thought you were inside already.” Rising as early as she did, Piper had been early to bed as well, like the bright-breasted finches that disappeared at sundown and popped up again with the dawn.

”A bunch of us were playing Cranium at Java Cava.”

”Oh.” Tia climbed the single porch step. ”I guess I'm just jumpy.”

”Because of the chief?”

Tia stiffened. ”What do you mean?”

”I saw him leaving the shop.”

Great. She unlocked the house door. ”He doesn't think it's smart to be out alone after dark. He was cautioning people.” Except, it appeared, Piper's crowd. Had she been personally targeted by whatever he saw? No, he would have told her that. It was his hypervigilance, and it made her crazy.

Piper followed her in. ”Did he say what happened?”

”He didn't give me any details, just said we shouldn't be out. Would you like some tea?” She went to the kitchen and dropped several tight knots of jasmine pearls into two mugs, then put the kettle on to boil. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Jonah had seemed genuinely shaken. As he'd stood across from her in the candlelight, she had glimpsed the rumple-haired boy in a trouble-hardened face.

Her first memory of Jonah was at the top of a slide, knees drawn to his chest, the other kids griping from the ladder for him to go already. His eyes had looked enormous until she realized the sockets from his eyebrows to his cheekbones were bruised purple. He'd looked at her and slid to the bottom, then sprang lightly to his feet.

”What happened to your eyes?”

”Mom stomped the brakes too quick. I hit the dashboard.”

”Didn't you wear your seat belt?”

He shrugged. ”Why bother?” ”Why bother?”

Years later she'd realized what he meant.

She shook herself. He'd delivered his warning, and she had pa.s.sed it to Piper. She poured the steaming water over the pearls and handed Piper her mug. Lifting her own, she inhaled the exotic fragrance of the gray-green leaf buds unfurling in the cup.

She looked past her reflection on the window to the black night outside and remembered another blacker night. Lord, it had been grim, had tainted so much afterward. No wonder he'd looked so wretched today. Could she not have been kind?

She shook her head. If she gave him anything, showed any weakening, he would use it.

Piper came up beside her, ghostlike in the gla.s.s. ”Are you all right?”

”Just tired. I guess I shouldn't work so late.” She sipped her brew and savored the mellow flavor. She'd leave at a reasonable hour from now on.

”You could have played with us. I wish I'd thought to come get you.”

”I'm too compet.i.tive for big group games.” As a child she had won at a rate that endeared her to no one. ”I prefer Parcheesi with a mug of tea and a fire crackling in the fireplace.” Purely the luck of the dice.

”What's the scent on the waxed pine cones?” Piper's eyes glittered.

Tia drew a breath, almost smelling it as she said, ”b.u.t.terscotch.”

”Perfect.” Piper laughed.

Okay, it was nice having her, even if she pushed and pried. They sat and talked until Piper's yawns grew contagious.

As Tia went up to bed, Jonah's troubled face pursued her. What could have bothered him enough that he felt the need to warn her? She shouldn't have been rude, not this day especially, but she couldn't stop it. She blamed him for so much. And he deserved it.

Three.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.-RALPH WALDO EMERSON Stifling a yawn, Piper handed an apple turnover to a man with marble-shaped eyeb.a.l.l.s. She'd stayed up so late with Tia, sleeping had felt like blinking, but for the first time they'd been more than landlord and guest, spinning threads of friends.h.i.+p with their words.

”They're just out of the oven,” she cautioned, ”so the filling might be hot.”

Sarge usually served the customers, but a spasm had seized his back, and he'd gone to sit in the warm kitchen. When she first started working for him, he had seemed plain mean, but now she knew it was pain that made him snap, like a dog bruised in places invisible under the fur.

She checked her watch. Two minutes left on the bear claws. She'd get back there before Sarge even thought of bending to remove the sheet from the lower oven.

”Just one second,” she told the woman coming in the door, then ducked into the kitchen. The timer had begun to shrill, but Sarge didn't go for it. He lay writhing on the floor.

Piper rushed to his side. ”Sergeant Beaker? Sarge?”

He was gasping for words. She lunged for the phone on the kitchen wall and dialed. ”This is Piper at the bakery. Sarge is in trouble.”