Disclaimer: The Sentinel is a Pet Fly Production and all related characters and situations belong to those who hold legal copyright. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.Spoilers: Sentinel Too, Warriors, Switchman, Three Point Shot, Remembrance, and Dead Drop.
Rating: R (for a non-explicit love scene)
Author's Notes: With thanks to the NewsGroup Gang for Muse wrangling and general encouragement, and Steph and Spotted Ponies for playing Cupid. (Jim. Beau. Bed. Now.)
Mimsy's Wedding
#2 in The Sparrowhawk Sandburg Series
by
Besterette
Besterette@aol.com
"Oh sweetie, you look beautiful!"
Beau Sandburg looked into the full length mirror, moderately horrified. "I look like Barbie's friend Midge." The bridesmaids' dress was new-apple green satin, strapless, with a band of ivory silk ribbon embroidery drawing attention to the decolletage, an amber-colored crystal bead at the heart of every tiny rose. Bad enough without the white opera length gloves and white velvet headband as accessories.
Blair slumped deeper into his chair next to their mother, and watched the seamstress pinning the hem. As long as they were making alterations... "Isn't it a little low-cut?" He asked uncomfortably. "You're going to be dancing with Jim and the height difference..."
Beau looked down into her cleavage. "I'm wearing heels."
Naomi Sandburg leaned over to pat her son's knee. "Now, Blair, if your sister and your friend have chosen to walk the LifePath together for a time, that's something to celebrate as much as Miriam and Joshua's Pairbonding. Accept with joy."
Blair closed his eyes and groaned softly. Beau echoed him.
"Mom, Jim and I are not together. I met him while I was visiting Blair, he saved my life. That's it." And, okay, there was a goodbye kiss I can still taste. But it doesn't have to mean anything.
"Yes, Jim seems like he would be very good at that sort of thing." Beau's eyes widened a little, suspecting not for the first time that her mother could read her mind. Naomi continued, "Such a shame about Oliver. He was a lovely man."
Oliver Harrington, who had been one of Naomi's lovers, had died recently. His efforts to locate Beau to determine whether or not he was her father had resulted in his jealous son hiring a hit man to protect his inheritance. However, Harrington was not her father.
"Pretty cool of him to liquidate all his assets and donate the money to good causes. Bet that drove his son nuts." Beau nodded, remembering that instant of terror when James Ellison tackled her, the bullet passing over their heads...
"The wheel turns," Blair agreed.
Blair had been planning to attend their cousin's wedding. It was a strange coincidence that there was a national police conference being held in the same hotel as the Katz-Sandburg wedding reception. Beau wondered if her brother had gotten Captain Banks to send them as a starving-student trick to get the Cascade Police Department to pay for his plane ticket and hotel room.
Beau had convinced Jim Ellison to come to the reception as her escort on the grounds that she might need to be physically restrained in the presence of certain relatives, and by pointing out that Blair was cute, single and working on his doctorate, and therefore an incitement to riot so he would need back-up. She was looking forward to getting to know the tall, dark and handsome detective a little better.
With the final fitting of the dress done, she changed back into her street clothes in the back of the bridal shop, while her mother and brother waited, Blair double-checking that the dress would be delivered to the hotel on time. She joined the two of them and they walked out together.
"So what's next?"
"I have some friends I haven't seen in ages." Naomi explained. "A few of us are getting together."
"There's a seminar I have to go to with Jim."
"Maybe I can get some work done before the next crisis." Beau sighed. "I'm supposed to meet with my agent while I'm in town, be nice if I actually had something to show him."
Blair hailed a cab for Naomi, and then brother and sister walked to the parking garage where Beau had left her little white Buick that she'd driven in from Boston.
"Aunt Adele is really in overdrive," Blair commented.
"Big time. Everything has to be perfect, everything just so." Beau shook her head. "And of course, if I was going stag all I'd be hearing is 'you poor spinster, thirty-one and never married.' Since I'm bringing Jim to the reception, I get snide comments about the big WASP and the size of his stinger..."
"Ouch! Beau! Too much information, okay? I do not need a mental image of you and Jim..." He made a face. "You're going to put me back in therapy."
She rolled her eyes with an apologetic smile and he grinned back. They walked on a little ways together, and then Blair asked quietly, "You are attracted to him, though, huh?"
Beau sighed and bit her bottom lip. "On the physical level... the man is Adonis in blue jeans. I can kind of see Aunt Adele's point... to quote Holly Hunter in Always, 'he's all polished steel and sex appeal and it looks like I won him in a raffle.' Around strange men I'm either doing a mating dance, or watching them, trying to see how their minds work, who they really are. With Jim I was... comfortable, like I've known him for years." She snorted. "Maybe in a past life."
"Maybe." Blair ran a hand through his loose shoulder length wavy brown hair. "So... you like Jim."
"Are we flashing back to high school? Yeah, I like Jim. I don't like like Jim. Yet. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. I don't know, Blair." She hesitated. "You, ah, you trying to warn me off for any particular reason?" She eyed her brother curiously as they reached her car. After all, he lived with the man. Knew him pretty well.
"Nah. It's just... you've never been interested in one of my friends before."
"You've seen most of your friends, right?"
"Ha. Ha. Ha."
James Ellison checked his watch as he stepped out of the elevator, using his sensitive hearing to scan for the strident tones of the infamous Adele Sandburg. For once, she didn't seem to be in the area, berating the hotel staff or her relatives. To be fair to the woman, she had to be pretty frazzled. His ex-wife Carolyn's mother, before their wedding day, had him seriously considering returning to Peru. With or without Carolyn. Which was probably why the marriage failed.
He smiled slightly, spotting his partner coming into the lobby, sister in tow. Blair Sandburg was laughing at something she'd said, to judge by Beau's devilish grin. His own smile widened. If someone had told him that he'd be going to a family wedding reception with a woman he'd met once and known for a week, and that he'd be looking forward to it, he'd have suggested a drug test.
Sparrowhawk Rainbow Sandburg, to give her the full name she avoided using, was an interesting woman. She cooked recognizable food, kept her head under fire and had a sense of humor that strayed into the Twilight Zone. She was a short curvy brunette instead of the tall leggy redheads he usually went for. And she's Sandburg's sister, so wherever the hell this is going, you take it slow and easy. Kid's seen what happens to most of the women in your life, no wonder he's overprotective. Not that he was interested in starting a relationship with a woman who lived on the other side of the country. She was just... interesting.
"Hey there, handsome." Beau greeted him with a quick touch of his shoulders, a minimalist hug.
"Beau. You joining us for lunch later?"
She shook her head. "Love to, but I've got this bridesmaids thing. Let me guess. You're doing deli again?"
Jim rolled his eyes as Blair nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yeah. You cannot get decent pastrami in Cascade. And they insist on putting fruit sauce on the cheesecake."
Perfectly serious, Beau said, "They must be punished."
"Hey, after listening to me explain what the word lean means, they are punished. I have an entire lecture memorized. I can do half an hour on the subject of mustard alone."
Jim nodded. "He can. I've heard it."
Beau chuckled. "See you guys later. Have 'Fun With Forensics!'" she called over her shoulder as she headed for the elevators.
"Fun With Forensics?" Jim repeated.
"Forensic Techniques For The Twenty-First Century... that is where we're going, right?" Blair swung his backpack down from his shoulder. "I've got all the stuff for that one..."
"That's where we're going and we're going to be late if we don't get to the conference room. Tie your hair back, Chief, you're gonna scare the locals." Jim took the backpack and led the way while Blair fished a rubber band out of his jeans pocket and started gathering his hair into a ponytail.
Captain Jonathan Ravenwood narrowed his crystal blue eyes.Beau reread the sentence, sighed and backspaced.
...emerald green eyes.There was a knock at the door. "Just a minute!"
Another knock. She managed to get Carmelita O'Riley's spirited response down before she forgot it and answered the door.
Miriam Sandburg soon-to-be Katz was standing there. "Beau, you aren't like, in the middle of anything, are you? She asked a bit hesitantly, trying to peek into the room.
"Just the Civil War. I was writing. Come on in. Enjoying your last few days of freedom?"
Her face lit up. "I can't believe its only three more days! Doctor and Mrs. Joshua Katz..." She sighed. "It's all so wonderful, even if Mama's being a little..."
Ah. "Aunt Adele's being a lot. You need someplace to hide, Mims?"
She flopped gratefully over the foot of the bed. "Just until the bridal brunch. Thanks, Beau. Go back to work, pretend I'm not even here."
Beau sat down at the little desk and lifted the lid of her laptop again. "You can watch TV if you want, it won't bother me." She reread the last paragraph she'd written, trying to get into the proper mindset, to see what would happen next, vaguely aware of the television coming on, Mimsy channel-surfing.
"So. You and that cop friend of Blair's, huh? Is he nice? He's, like, really hot but he looks kinda mean."
Honey, that's because your mother was being her usual charming self. "Aw, Jim's just a big ol' pussycat at heart," Beau said absently, sinking back into the world of the Union soldier and the cattle rancher's daughter.
Blair hesitated and ducked back behind a pillar as Aunt Adele, Mimsy, Beau and a handful of girls he recognized as friends of Mimsy's came out of the hotel restaurant. He wasn't hiding, exactly, he just didn't want to have the haircut discussion with Aunt Adele again. Summer Kaplan, who he'd dated a couple times that year he and Beau lived with Uncle Nathan and Aunt Adele, spotted him and blew him a kiss. He grinned. The women scattered and he circled around to fall into step beside his sister.
"So how was it?"
"I need a drink."
"You don't drink."
"I may start." Her lips pursed. "Have you seen Uncle Nathan?"
"Not today."
She nodded. "I've got to learn how he does that."
"Years of practice. That bad?"
She made a vague yet descriptive gesture with a hand still holding a small grey velvet box. "Unbelievable."
Blair's eyes followed the box. She snapped it open to reveal a large pearl suspended on a thin golden chain. He let out a low whistle. "Nice."
"Bridesmaids' gift. To match the dresses." She shut the box and dropped it into her purse. "Remind me to tell our mother how much I love her."
"Tell her now." Blair pointed with his chin. Naomi stood chatting with another woman.
She saw him, and waved them over. Her companion was unusual for one of Naomi's friends. A woman her own age, dark, exotic beauty, salt and pepper hair in a neat chignon. She wore a suit obviously by some designer Rafe would recognize instantly, but Rafe wasn't here and all Blair knew was that it had to have cost more than the latest repairs to his Volvo.
"Darlings, this is my dear friend Delores. Del, these are my children, Blair and Sparrowhawk."
Delores proved once again that appearances can be deceiving by nodding. "Powerful names. Are you twins?"
He shook his head. "She's a year older."
Delores looked surprised. "Strange. You have the same aura. Glowing blue white. I've never seen anything quite... would you mind if I did a reading?"
Naomi gave a little murmur of encouragement, and Blair raised his right hand, palm outward, willingly enough. Beau echoed him after the slightest of hesitations. Delores touched her hands to theirs, inhaled deeply, closing her eyes.
"Male and Female. Brother and Sister. Shaman and Priestess." She intoned solemnly.
Blair's breath caught at that. Shaman... how the hell does she know... this is gonna be interesting.
"His power awakened. He embraces it. He seeks. Her power sleeps. She denies it. Not blind to the other world she chooses not to see. Both may stand at the Warrior's side." Delores opened her eyes again, hands falling away from theirs. She blinked rapidly. "Wow."
Blair was too busy trying not to faint to pay much attention to what was going on. Shaman and Priestess? Because we're brother and sister? The Warrior, that's just gotta be Jim. He was vaguely aware of making polite noises, of Delores and Naomi leaving, Beau saying something about going back to her room. He followed her into the elevator, lost in thought, until she gave him a sidelong glance and started whistling the theme from "The Twilight Zone."
"So... that was intense," Blair said.
Beau rolled her eyes. "We've been through that with Mom's psychic friends before. They always tell you you have a strong aura or untapped powers or you were royalty in a past life. They think it's polite, like telling you you have nice eyes or something."
He grinned. "Seen your spirit animal and namesake lately?"
Beau made an exasperated sound. "Kestrels are as common as the sparrows they prey on. You tell me you've seen wolves in downtown Cascade and I'll have Jim throw out all your herbal supplements. I keep telling you not to put anything that hasn't been cleared by the FDA in your mouth. Who knows what's in that crud?" Then she looked at him curiously, suddenly remembering—while they were on the subject of the paranormal—that he'd been dead. "You, uh, you see something while you were... the tunnel and the light?"
"No tunnel." I was the wolf and I was running deeper into the jungle and the jaguar roared behind me and the jaguar was Jim and he was calling to me so I turned and leapt toward him and everything went glowing blue-white and I was back, coughing up water. "But I keep an open mind. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"The truth is out there. And so are lies."
He shook his head mournfully, mockingly. "She chooses not to see."
"When I was in Scotland, I went to Loch Ness. To look. Didn't really expect to see anything, probably would have wet myself if I'd seen anything. But I went to look. What amazes me is that so many people do. After so many years, so many expeditions that found nothing, so many photos proven fakes, we still go to look. That's all the magic I need."
They reached her floor, she got off muttering about deadlines and characters who refused to do what they were told. Blair headed for the room he was sharing with Jim. He'd left most of his original research material under lock and key at his office, but he'd brought copies. The carefully hoarded scraps of information about the sentinel's companion... most references concentrated on the sentinel. He wanted to reread them.
Jim walked into the room he was sharing with Blair, and stopped, raising his eyebrows a little. Blair was sitting at the foot of his bed, hunched over his laptop. His reading glasses had slipped down to the tip of his nose, but the kid was typing too fast and furious to pause to push them back up. Around him on the bed, the three spiral notebooks of sentinel notes he'd brought with him were lying open, along with a couple of pens and scattered scraps of paper, hotel stationary and old envelopes that had been scribbled on.
"It finally happened. The backpack exploded."
Blair let out an amused snort. "Hmnhm. No, I just got a new line of thought going here. Ran into Mom and Beau downstairs—well, I ran into Beau first and we ran into Mom, and she had this friend with her who read our auras..."
"If the next five words in that sentence were invented by Shirley MacLaine, I'm going back down to the bar. The guys are still swapping stupid-crook stories." They had separated after the forensics seminar, so Jim could do a little cop-bonding and Blair could commune with cold cuts. Jim had ventured into Gilkresht's Delicatessen once and the combination of spices had nearly driven him to his knees. He hadn't seen that much garlic in an enclosed space since his last vampire movie.
"Beau and I both have blue and white auras. Glowing blue and white auras. I should have run to get you, bet yours is the same. During the reading, she called me a shaman and Beau a priestess, said I was aware of my power while Beau denied hers, that both of us could stand beside the warrior. Is that deeply weird or what?" He squinted at the computer screen over the rims of his glasses. Jim went over and gently shoved them back up the bridge of his nose, then dropped onto his own bed and stretched out.
"Could be coincidence, sounds as specifically vague as the stuff they put in astrology columns."
"I know, I know, but it got me thinking... what if there's something special about being a sentinel's companion? I figured it was something anyone could do if they knew what they were doing, but what if it's an inherited ability as unique as being a sentinel? Something genetic? Incacha took one look at me and asked if I was the shaman who guided you in the Great City as he had among the Chopec. How'd he know? Unless he recognized me as one of his own, somehow. Maybe I'm sending out some kind of vibes for anyone equipped to read them..."
"You're losing me here, Chief."
Blair looked up with a brilliant smile. "Yeah, it would have to work both ways. Looking back on it, I cannot believe I did something as boneheaded as impersonate Doctor McCoy. Your chart had me going, wow, a fiver, I found one! But as soon as I got to the hospital, I had to talk to you, I had to. And you came to my office and listened to me. Think about it, Jim, we were drawn together from the beginning, trusted each other instinctively."
"I slammed you into a wall and called you a neo-hippie witch doctor punk." Jim reminded him, a little embarrassed by the memory.
Blair shrugged it off. "I called you a throwback to a pre-civilized breed of Man. You were stressed, trying to catch a serial bomber, freaking out because your senses were freaking out. And I was sooooo hyper I'd have found myself irritating if I'd been paying attention. You zoned, I did my job and it was like a sidekick initiation and we took off after the Switchman. Man, this could even explain why Alex didn't just shoot me. Clonking me on the head and leaving me to drown was pretty passive for someone with her record. She was using me, but if some kind of Sentinel/Guide bond exists..."
Jim felt his jaw clench at the mention of the female sentinel. Part of him pitied her. Part of him hoped she'd found her own hell inside her head and would stay there for the rest of her life. She'd shown him his hell. Hell was Blair Sandburg not breathing. Hell was failing him.
"And if being a sentinel's companion, shaman, guide, keeper, whatchamacallit, is inherent, maybe Beau's one too. And that would explain what's going on with you two." There was a hint of satisfied frustration in Blair's voice, as if he'd finally figured out something that had been puzzling him. Jim rolled over onto his side, facing him, as Blair continued. "I've seen your women, Jim. And Beau is so not your type."
So that was it. "This all a roundabout way to ask my intentions, Chief?"
Blair straightened, one hand pressing the small of his back as he rolled his shoulders and then twisted his neck. "No. It's a legitimate line of scientific inquiry. But okay, as current patriarch of the Sandburg family, since Uncle Nathan's being invisible, yeah. What are your intentions toward my sister?" His own slightly sardonic smile took the bite from the words.
But the subject was deadly serious. Jim sat up. "I like her." He said simply. "I don't know if it's chemistry... or chemistry..." He indicated whatever Blair had just been trying to describe. "She's smart, she's funny, she's interesting... and she's pretty cute." He paused, not wanting to say this, but since they'd met, Blair had been acting like he expected Jim to toss Beau over his shoulder and carry her off, and Beau herself wasn't what he would have expected in Naomi's daughter, Blair's sister. Not as open, more reserved. He had some suspicions. "I get the feeling that there's a guy in the past that hurt her bad. Give me his name, they'll never find his body."
He put enough quiet menace into the words that Blair actually blinked. "Nothing that dramatic, man. Oh, she's been kicked in the teeth by Cupid a few times, who hasn't? But not... whatever you're thinking."
Jim relaxed. Blair shut down his computer, began scooping up his scattered notes and piling them up neatly. "I just want to get to know her a little better." Jim told him.
"I know, man, I know. It's just... she's a grown woman, you look at her and see an attractive, available woman. I look at her and she's five and I'm reading to her 'cause it's raining and we can't go out to play... she's my sister. I'm trying to detach here but it ain't easy."
(There are times when I'm really glad I don't know who my father is. I could have more in-laws like this. Beau kept a fixed smile on her face as Aunt Adele patted her hand.
"I mean, really, sweetheart. A man that age, a divorced man, and so good-looking that he has to know it, well, you know what he's interested in." She sniffed.
"I know. It's not possible he could be interested in me, is it?" She said under her breath, knowing that her aunt would ignore it. She'd heard this speech before. Condescending affection, but affection none the less. Aunt Adele meant well. Inside her head it was still the 1950s and dealing with her rather bohemian sister-in-law's family had never been easy for her. Her reaction to Blair's new shoulder length mane, the earrings and his introducing Jim as his roommate had been priceless—there had been carefully searching questions afterward about Blair's sexuality, not that she would directly ask anything so crude. Beau had swallowed her laughter and just as obliquely assured their aunt that her brother was completely heterosexual. Aunt Adele had happily latched onto the fact that Jim was Beau's date and the ten year age difference as a more conventional scandal, alternating between making Jim sound like he hung around schoolyards and making Beau sound like Hormone Girl, blinded by a great body and a handsome face. Never actually saying 'it's not your fault you're a bimbo, dear, look at how you were raised' out loud.
This explained why Mimsy was an airhead. Self-defense. Beau mused on the fact that you could love members of your family without actually liking them, and ignored the juvenile temptation to rationalize reverse psychology and start fantasizing about Jim to escape the conversation. Your own fault, you let her in. She and Mimsy actually got along fairly well, considering, and she was glad for Mimsy, that she'd found her Prince Charming in Joshua Katz, who seemed pleasant enough, was marrying him and would settle down to raise unnervingly precious children in the suburbs and live happily ever after.
The phone rang. Saved by the bell. Beau excused herself to answer it. Her mother. "Beau, if you haven't had dinner yet, I was thinking you'd like to eat together? I've invited Blair and Jim, of course."
"Of course... sounds great."
"Meet us at my room then, in half an hour?"
"Okay, Mom." She hung up and turned to face her aunt with the smile of the unexpectedly reprieved.
Blair opened the door to Naomi's room with a particularly suffused expression on his face. "Mom brought her photo albums," he informed her, eyes twinkling.
"Oh no..."
Naomi was curled up on the bed, pointing out her favorite pictures to Jim, who perched on the edge. "I only wish I had a movie camera then. She was so adorable belting out 'The Lady Is A Tramp' with all her heart."
Jim chuckled deeply. Beau peeked over a broad shoulder and sighed. "Mo-ther! Now how am I supposed to be impressively cool for Jim if you've been showing him pictures of me lying on a piano pretending to be Cher when I was eight?"
It was worth it for the way his grin transformed his entire face. "But you were adorable."
Dinner was nice. The family photos had led to a stream of reminiscence, one story weaving into another. Blair would have thought Jim might be bored, but he sat back, drinking it all in. Blackmail material. Beau seemed to be dredging her memory for embarrass-Blair stories, but he fought back good-naturedly, giving as good as he got. Jim asked the occasional leading question, made an amused comment, sat back, relaxed.
The anthropologist in him catalogued flirt display centered on Beau, and his sister's response. It was good to see Jim so relaxed. Back home, there's always a level of tension, even when we're on vacation, out camping... He remembered some of the things that had happened to them while they were camping. Okay, so maybe that's not a great example. Territorial imperative, maybe? Cascade is his territory, we're not in Cascade, and the worst thing that's happened to us in awhile is getting cornered by Aunt Adele. So he's relaxed.
Trying to sort out sentinel-behavior from Jim-behavior would require an entirely new doctorate. In psychology. Blair gave up and sat back to enjoy dinner with his family.
Beau eyed the innocent dress on its hanger with loathing. She was a little nervous. It's the bride who gets cold feet, not the bridesmaid. It was having to participate in the ceremony when she didn't understand all the religious symbolism. Stage fright. Naomi hadn't been big on organized religion, but then Naomi wasn't big on organization in general. Blair had gone through a heritage phase, but she hadn't.
She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, pulling the bridesmaids' gift necklace from the box, and started to fasten it around her neck. The fine golden chain pulled taut. And snapped. "Oh No!" She managed to catch the pendant pearl as it dropped, and tucked pearl and broken chain back into the box. I can do this, I have just enough time. She darted back into the bedroom, grabbing her jeans.
She smiled as the elevator doors opened to reveal Jim already in the car. "Aren't you supposed to be getting dressed?" He greeted her, with a slight frown.
"I broke the necklace I have to wear with the dress. I'm hoping the jewelry store downstairs can fix it or I'll have to go mismatched and hear about how I ruined Mimsy's wedding pictures for the rest of my life."
"We can't have that, now can we?"
"We are hoping to avoid it, yes," she nodded. "How's Blair doing?"
"He's almost ready. Fussing with his hair. I can't stand the smell of the stuff he uses to slick it back so I thought I'd get out of the room." His nose wrinkled.
She tossed her head, showing off her own dark chestnut bob. "I know, I hardly ever use hairspray anymore and it smells worse than I remembered." The elevator reached the lobby. Beau was surprised but pleased that Jim amiably followed her. "I'm looking forward to tonight. I mean, I want to thank you for coming with me, I'm sure there's a lot more interesting things you could be doing."
"I can't think of any."
Her breath caught as she looked up into those pale blue eyes. Of course, that was when the salesclerk chose to come to the counter. Beau tore her gaze away and took out the broken chain. "Yes, I seem to have snapped a link here and I was wondering if you could sell me another chain? I'm supposed to be wearing it to a wedding in forty-five minutes..." She put just enough desperation into her voice.
The woman smiled. "Certainly." She took the pearl and a length of broken chain from the box Beau had set on the counter. "Just a moment while I match this."
Beau let out a sigh of relief, wondering vaguely how much this was going to set her back. This was a very nice jewelry store, not Tiffany's or Harry Winston but they definitely had ambitions. Another customer came in, a thin-faced man in a brown suit. And to her utter horror he pulled out a gun and demanded, "Okay, everybody on the floor, now!" shakily.
The saleswoman screamed and obeyed. Beau started to sink to her knees, then noticed Jim wasn't moving. He stood at the counter, staring into one of the display cases. "Jim, get down!" She breathed. He wasn't even blinking...
Realization hit her like a two by four across the forehead. Blair didn't change his thesis subject! He found one. Jim. Blair taking a bottle of spice away from her in the loft kitchen in Cascade, telling her that Jim had a bad stomach. Jim tackling her an instant before the hit man Oliver Harrington's son had hired took a shot at her. Jim just saying in the elevator, "I can't stand the smell..." Jim's a sentinel. And this is, what did Blair call it...
Despite the situation, she found her lips curving in honest delight. Jim's a sentinel! "Will wonders never cease," she whispered, and it was a prayer.
Unfortunately, it attracted the attention of the armed man. "I said GET DOWN!" He turned toward them, bringing the gun around.
Beau reacted instinctively, throwing herself at Jim, the impact sending both of them to the floor. Somehow her hand cradled the back of his head, she buried her face in his chest as bullets flew overhead and crystal shattered, and dizzily thought, Oh look, they're playing our song.
"We're down! We're down!" She called into the sudden silence. Risked a peek at the man stuffing jewelry into a briefcase. Moved carefully, stretching up to whisper into Jim's ear. "Snap out of it, Ellison. Come on, Jim, come back, I need you here..."
... sparkle light trapped shifting from facet to facet ice on fire dancing prism into splintered rainbow colors and back again sparkle glowing—movement. disorienting, jarring. touch, warm soft weight on top of him, breath rushing against his skin. smell, lavender and lemon, something familiar underneath, cordite. hearing, heartbeat too fast, a voice, The Voice, alto deepening to tenor, not tenor to baritone, but still The Voice. guide. notmyguide. consort? His arms started to wrap around the body trembling atop him, pulling her closer as full awareness returned.
Beau's whisper was slightly hoarse, throat tight with tension. ". . . whatever astral plane you're wandering you get your butt back here now, soldier!"
With nothing better to do, he'd been waiting with her while she bought a new chain for her necklace, chatting about the reception he was escorting her to later that evening. A diamond pendant in one of the display cases caught his eye, a flashing twinkle of light... and now he was lying on the floor with Beau lying on top of him, panicking in that controlled fashion that seemed to be a Sandburg family trait while a strange man smashed open display cases, looting the contents. Great. Zoned in the middle of a jewel robbery.
"Beau. You okay?"
"Just peachy now that you've come back to your senses."
Shocked, he stared up into her eyes. Was that phrasing a coincidence or did she know? How could she know? She had to know, she looked too much like her brother did when Blair had just made the kind of private joke that required footnotes to be explained to anyone else.
No time to ask—the smash and grab artist was snapping the latches on a briefcase full of diamonds, emeralds and sapphires, and exiting into the lobby. He gently pushed her aside, avoiding the scattered shards of crystal that had once been some expensive vases, knickknacks and paperweights, got up and pulled his gun. She was a half step behind him as he went out the door after the man in the brown suit and yelled, "Freeze, Police!"
It was a beautiful thing. Nine other people in the lobby pulled off-duty pieces and provided back-up. Never try to rob anyone during a national law enforcement conference. Brown suit was handcuffed, arrested and there was a brief squabble over jurisdiction and paperwork. Jim caught up with Beau coming out of the jewelry store after giving her statement.
"That's what I love about this town. Crime scene, place looks like a tornado hit it, she finished the sale." Beau opened her fist to show the restrung pearl. Jim walked her into the elevator. She was a little too pale, eyes a little too bright.
"Beau..."
"It's okay. I'm okay, you're okay... oh hell... you're not okay, you're bleeding!"
He glanced down at a small slice in the fabric of his shirt lined with red. "Just a scratch."
"With all that leaded crystal flying? Come on, let's get you cleaned up."
Bemused, he allowed her to propel him into her room, followed orders to sit on the edge of the bed and take his shirt off. She took a first aid kit out of her purse. It seemed to help calm her. He watched her wet a cotton swab with peroxide, trying to work out what to say, since 'so you know I'm a sentinel' would give the game away if she didn't.
Quietly, she asked, "I need to know if there's a sliver of glass in there. Can you feel it, or see if I hold the mirror?"
"It's a clean cut. I'd feel it." She just nodded and started to clean the small scrape. "How did you guess?"
"You were staring into that display case, all diamonds and backlit, like you were mesmerized, and I put it together. There were a couple of subtle hints I wouldn't have picked up on if I hadn't read The Sentinels of Paraguay." The corner of her mouth turned up. "I was always a sucker for that Indiana Jones, H. Rider Haggard stuff, only Burton was better because he was real. When I found out Blair had an unreprinted monograph on loan for his thesis work, I pestered him into letting me read it. I thought it was weird, Blair scrapping the sentinel thesis for the thin blue line theory, since there's no new material there because it's been done a thousand times."
He told her the truth about her brother's work and how they had met while she worked, applying pressure to slow the bleeding, another wipe of antiseptic, smoothing down an adhesive bandage.
"All better," she said as she packed away the first aid kit.
"You're good at that," he told her.
Something moved in her dark eyes like muddy water under ice. "Blair got beat up a lot." She tried to make a joke out of it. "Before I convinced him and Mom that there's a difference between starting a fight and finishing one, and that sometimes turning the other cheek just gets both eyes blackened."
Jim felt a cold knot in his belly. He could see it, clear as one of his own memories, Blair small for his age, skinny, glasses maybe, and an armload of books, backed up against a locker by bigger kids, shaking him down for lunch money, or for the hell of it. Beau coming out of the crowd passing in the hall like a guided missile, none of that girlish slapping, a right cross and a knee to the groin, that's how she would fight. He wasn't the first Blessed Protector on duty. Then Blair, a little older, a little bigger, getting in a few licks of his own, still small, but wiry and fast. Word would get around school, don't mess with Sandburg, either of 'em. Fighting the same battles over and over again, every time they moved.
"I bet his big sister putting the fear of god into the school bully helped."
She snorted. "The fear of me at least. Sometimes that made it worse. Blair never hid behind my skirts. More like we stood back to back, us against the world." Despite her words, she'd fought his battles for him and her heart bore his scars as well as her own, he could see it in her eyes. Beau shook her head slightly, clearing it of bad memories, and smiled. "I have got to get dressed. Can you stick around a minute, Jim? The dress has one of those anatomically impossible zippers..."
"Sure."
She went into the bathroom, and he took a deep breath, getting to his feet. There were a couple of muffled rustles, a sudden sharp scent of lavender as she freshened her perfume. She came out looking like Cinderella, looking like a little girl playing dress-up for Halloween, looking beautiful. She turned her back to him and he picked up the pearl necklace she'd forgotten—after all that—on the nightstand, and fastened it around her throat, started to pull up the zipper.
The door opened. "Hey Beau, you ready ye—" Blair was doing an imitation of a tuxedo-clad deer caught in the headlights. "Oh. Sorry. Should have knocked. I'll... I'll... I'll wait in the hall, that's what I'll do." He backed out.
Jim realized that he was standing bare-chested next to an unmade bed, zipping up Beau's gown. She turned to face him, the same realization in her eyes... and then she leaned her forehead against his shoulder and began to laugh, helplessly. He joined her, then surprised himself by brushing a kiss against her temple as she straightened. "You'll be late."
"I'll explain. He won't believe a word of it, but I'll explain."
Blair was halfway back to the elevator before she caught up to him. "Blair, that really wasn't what it may have looked like..."
"It's none of my business. You're both consenting adults and it's none of my business." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
Naomi was holding the elevator for them, looking stunning in beige satin. "You just made it. What kept you?"
Blair marched into the elevator, stuffing his fists into his jacket pockets. "Beau was having sex with Jim."
"Oh sweetie, excellent taste, but poor timing."
Mimsy Katz closed her eyes and spun in a slow circle, then opened them and pitched the bouquet directly at her cousin. Beau made no move toward the ribbon bedecked bundle of yellow roses and white orchids, so the blonde girl standing next to her made the snatch.
Jim winced at the applause and dialed down his hearing as Joshua Katz claimed his bride and those who had attended the wedding joined those just there for the reception. He watched Blair and Beau approach the table with some apprehension, fingering the knot of his silver-blue silk tie. One good thing about the dark grey suit, if Sandburg killed him defending his sister's honor, he could be buried in it.
Brother and sister took their seats on either side of him. "I'm an idiot" was the first thing out of Blair's mouth. "I heard about the jewelry store robbery on the way in. You both all right?"
"I caught a piece of Waterford shrapnel. Beau took care of it," Jim said, wanting to make things perfectly clear. That's why I was in her room with my shirt off.
They still had the table to themselves, people were socializing, taking their time about being seated. Beau leaned across Jim and spoke quietly to Blair.
"Jim had an episode of pseudo-autistic catatonia, but he came right back out of it."
Concerned blue eyes focused on him. "Oh, man, you haven't zoned in a couple months, what triggered—" Blair blinked and looked at his sister. "You know?"
She dropped into a parody of a British accent. "That Jim 'ere goes to eleven?" and continued in her own voice, "I've read Burton and your dissertation notes, and come on, just look at him! I might not go looking for unicorns every time I hear hoofbeats but I can tell the difference between a horse and a zebra."
Jim couldn't argue with that logic, mainly because he couldn't follow it. Whatever else might have been said was put aside as the rest of their table arrived. There was another woman in a bridesmaid's dress, introduced as Summer Kaplan, who took the chair next to Blair and almost all of his attention, and an older couple the siblings greeted as Uncle Harold and Aunt Sophie. They exchanged a few pleasantries, until Beau innocently inquired about Cousin Robert and Uncle Harold uncomfortably replied, "He's away." So these were the parents of Cousin-Robert-the-bookie.
They made polite small talk during dinner. Uncle Harold sold discount luggage and Summer was a dental hygienist who'd gone to junior high with Blair, Beau and Mimsy the year Blair and Beau lived with Mimsy's parents while Naomi was in Europe. Dinner was a fairly standard catered menu. Jim watched with some amusement as Beau tore a rock Cornish game hen apart as neatly and efficiently as her namesake, but he didn't think she'd appreciate the comparison.
Beau excused herself just before Mimsy and Joshua opened the floor for dancing with the traditional first waltz. Blair led Summer off and the aunt and uncle followed. Jim reminded himself to ask exactly how they were related. He knew Nathan and Naomi were twins, but either Naomi had gotten all of the personality, or years of living with Adele had taken there toll.
He watched Blair dancing with Summer. The kid was definitely in full flirt mode, with that 'damn I'm suave' grin. Jim glanced around to see if Beau was coming back yet, but a tiny elderly woman at a nearby table met his gaze and waved once, imperiously. He rose and went to her. She had white hair and cornflower blue eyes, was dressed elegantly in periwinkle silk, and sat ramrod straight with a silver headed ebony cane clutched in her gnarled hands. Jim felt himself standing at attention under the unwavering scrutiny.
Her voice, when she spoke, quavered slightly and held a faint trace of an unidentifiable accent. "I am Estelle Sandburg. Sophia, Nathan and Naomi are my children. You are Sparrowhawk's young man, yes?"
Felt odd to be called a young man. "Yes ma'am, I am escorting her this evening. James Ellison."
She studied his face for a long moment, and her mouth tightened. "And you're not Jewish, are you."
"No, ma'am, I'm not," he said carefully.
"But you are a very polite young man." Her eyes softened. "And very tall. My Jacob was tall." she nodded once, then looked to his left. "I like this one, Birdie. do try to keep him."
Beau Birdie? bent to press a kiss to a leathery cheek. "I'll try Nana. I beg your pardon, but I did promise James this dance." As they joined the dancers, she murmured, "I don't see any obvious claw marks so I guess you survived the interview with the old dragon."
Feeling a bit smug about it, he told her, "I think your grandmother approves of me."
The corner of her mouth turned up in the familiar sardonic smile. "You're apparently normal and yet you're here with me. What's not to like?"
His father's voice. "People will think you're a freak, Jimmy." "I'm good at appearing normal." He said bitterly, without thinking.
As if he'd said something entirely different, she tilted her head to one side and regarded him intently. "It can't be easy for you. Always having to seem less than you are, to fit in."
Not tonight. The hell with the rest of the world tonight. "There's a time to fit in," he told her, then spun and dipped her to the music, expertly reeling her back into his arms. "And a time to stand out."
"Man," she said a bit breathlessly, "You can really move for a big fella."
"Man, you can really move for a big fella?" He repeated. "Come on, Birdie, you can do better than that."
She batted her eyelashes at him like the wings of a deranged butterfly. "Lithe yet muscular, he moved with the exquisite grace of a jungle cat... I can go on like that for about three hundred pages if you'd like..."
Hours passed. The party dwindled as the night wore on, guests going home or to their hotel rooms. Jim and Beau returned to their table. Blair had his feet up on Jim's chair, his head hung back and his mouth was open.
"My baby brother," Beau said fondly. "Isn't he cute when he's pickled?"
"S'good champagne. Y'should have some. S'gonna got flat," Blair said without opening his eyes.
Jim realized that Beau only took a few sips of wine with dinner and had barely wet her lips with champagne during the toasts. "You don't drink?"
"Shiz got control issues," Blair explained helpfully.
"I do not have control issues," Beau argued. "I just don't need alcohol as an excuse for aberrant behavior." Her grin became elfin. "I'm perfectly capable of and willing to make a complete ass of myself in public stone-cold sober."
Jim slung an arm under Blair's ankles and swung his feet to the floor. "Come on, let's get you upstairs to bed."
Blair began to giggle. "Sorry man, wrong San'burg."
"You are blasted, bro," Beau told him. "Come on. It's late and you have to get up early tomorrow to be sick."
They managed to get him to his feet and to the elevator. "Doan like elvators. They go up, an down. Down too fas' sometimes. But there's no bad guys here, huh Jim?"
"Nope, no bad guys."
"S'right. Just one bad guy an you an Beau got 'im already." Blair nodded and sagged against the wall.
They reached Beau's floor and Jim assured her he could handle Blair. She kissed him goodnight, a brief brush of their lips, and thanked him for making the reception bearable. The elevator doors closed. Blair stared at him, brow furrowed, and Jim plotted how to immobilize Blair without hurting him if the younger man decided to take a swing at him.
"Y'know what, Jim? Y'know what y'are? You're my besht friend," Blair confided.
"You're my best friend too, Buddy."
"Thass nice. Y'know what else y'are? Yer a hero. All the time. The stuff in Prue..." Blair blinked owlishly, noticing that didn't sound quite right. "I mean, Prue... anna cop stuff, people shootin' an blowin' stuff up an you never stop. You always win. Yer a hero is what you are. So I bin thinkin', you want my sis'ser you can have her."
Jim paused, staring down into bleary but earnest blue eyes.
"Yer a good guy, an y'll be good ta her, so's ya got my permishen an blessin..."
"You know, Chief, that's the nicest, least coherent thing anybody's ever said to me."
Blair said, "Thass good," slumped against the wall again, and fell asleep standing up.
Jim managed to get Blair back to their room, helped him out of his tuxedo jacket while he swayed on his feet. Undid the bow tie. Blair collapsed on his bed. Jim took his shoes off, to make Blair a little more comfortable. Not that it mattered, the kid was out for the night. Jim smiled as Blair let out a deep, nasal, sinus rattling snore, and glanced at his own bed. It looked strangely uninviting. Cold. Empty. He felt tired, but not ready for sleep. He wanted...
He wanted Beau. It wasn't just the intense physical desire he'd felt for Laura, or the compulsion that had drawn him to Alex despite it all. A mixture of the two, and Beau just felt right in ways he couldn't explain to himself and didn't really want to. You should take a shower and get some sleep, old man. A cold shower. He listened to Blair snore for a long moment, glanced again at his own empty bed, and turned and walked out the door.
There were probably a thousand good reasons why he shouldn't be doing this. He just couldn't think of any good enough to stop him.
Beau found her room key easily in the tiny white satin evening bag, as there was only the key, and handkerchief, and the lipstick in there. She let herself in, turned on the lights, tiredly pulled off the velvet-covered headband and peeled off the elbow length gloves, tossing them on the dresser with the little bag. She caught herself humming "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady as she crossed the room to the balcony, and stopped. Show tunes. The man has reduced me to show tunes.
Faintly muggy city air. She looked out at the lights of the city and the vast, shadowed expanse of the park below. Sirens in the distance, the urban cricket. She took a deep breath of fresh pollution, then went back inside, closing and locking the door, pulling the heavy drape across. She sat down in the chair at the little desk, kicked off her pumps and bent to massage her left foot, digging her thumb into the heel. She could see herself in the mirror over the dresser.
She wasn't pretty, her features were a shade too severe to ever be called pretty. The delicate oval face with its full lips and stubborn chin, the wide-set brown eyes that always made her seem a little younger than her years, almost Naomi's eyes, the medium-short silky hair that she called penny-brown, the dark color of a tarnished coin with a few burnished copper highlights.
The clock strikes midnight, the horses are mice again, the coach becomes a pumpkin and the faery-finery transforms into rags... well, one of my comfortable, indestructible faded flannel nightgowns as soon as I change.
There was a knock at the door. She sighed, stood up, and went to answer it. Probably room service with a wrong door number. She checked the peephole and froze. Eliza Doolittle started to sing again. She unlocked the door, opened it, and smiled at Jim.
"Blair snores when he's drunk," she informed him solemnly, wondering if he could hear her pounding heart.
"Blair snores like a buzzsaw when he's drunk," Jim agreed. He smiled a surprisingly shy smile. "I thought you might need some more help with that zipper."
Her hands closed on his shoulders as they kissed. She leapt up in a neat vertical entrechat, Jim caught her and her legs scissored around his waist. He carried her into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. She broke the kiss to gasp, "I never do this, I'm not that kind of girl, really I'm not, I just can't—"
"—can't help myself, I can't keep my hands off you," Jim finished the sentence for her and lunged forward to capture her mouth again as he lowered her to the bed.
Blair woke up reluctantly. There was something horrible in his mouth and discovering it was his tongue didn't help much. The heavy thing lying on top of him turned out to be a sheet and he was convinced he could hear his beard growing. If this is what life's like for Jim, no wonder he's so grouchy.
Except for this morning. Jim chose to be cheerful this morning. Blair sat up carefully, noticing he was still wearing his tuxedo shirt and trousers. "Ohhhhhh. What did I do last night?" he groaned softly.
"You ate, you drank, you danced, you drank, you flirted, you drank and you generally had a hellava good time," Jim informed him.
"Never again." His feet were on the floor. Standing up was his next project. Maybe in a week or two when he felt better. "What time is it?"
"Seven. You up to meeting Beau for breakfast? She has a few questions."
"Yeah." He got up and stumbled toward the bathroom.
Jim cut the last piece of sausage on his plate in half with the edge of his fork. "Would you stop looking at me like I just escaped from a zoo?"
Beau shook her head, apologetically. "Sorry. I've never met a mytheopoeic archetype before."
Jim pushed a scrap of meat through the egg still on his plate. Beau had a lot of questions about his senses: What was their range? How accurate were they? The discussion became an Anthro 101 lecture on The Sentinel In Modern Times as Blair answered, while Jim sat quietly to the side as exhibit A. Then Blair mentioned his latest theory.
"You instinctively brought Jim out of a zone during the jewelry store robbery, so maybe I'm right that being a Guide is an hereditary ability, like the Sentinel's senses."
Beau disagreed. "I don't know about instinct. It just seemed like common sense." She winced at her accidental pun. "I mean, he was stuck in a visual feedback loop, overwhelmed by one sensory stimulus. I just kept talking to give him something else to focus on."
"Exactly," Blair nodded enthusiastically, then hesitated. "It could even explain why you two are attracted to each other. In a primitive society, a male sentinel's female guide would be the prime candidate for his mate."
Beau bit her lip and nodded slowly. "Yeah. If you say biology is destiny I'll pop you one, but yeah. I've felt too close to Jim, too fast, for this to be anything else. I am much too comfortable around you," she told Jim, then turned back to her brother. "So. I'm a girl guide. What does this mean, exactly? Other than you now have someone to babysit in an emergency?"
"Babysit?" Jim repeated, frowning.
She patted his forearm. "You know what I mean."
"Nothing, really. But, man, if I could get you to take my place for a while and keep a diary... Being able to study the sentinel/guide relationship from the outside could really help the research."
Jim leaned forward, vaguely unsettled by the notion. "Hold on a minute..."
Blair held up a hand. "I'm just saying, is all."
Beau shook her head. "It's an interesting question, and one we'll have to discuss later. I'm supposed to be giving Mom a ride to the airport..." She glanced at her watch. "Now." She got to her feet and kissed Blair on the cheek, then did the same to Jim, whispering "We need to talk," pitched for sentinel ears alone. He nodded.
"Oh right!" Blair exclaimed. "She's going to, uh, Santa Fe, right? Give her a hug from me before she gets on the plane."
"You're sleeping with Jim Ellison?"
Beau stared blankly into Naomi's bright, encouraging, 'I'm your mother but we're friends and you can tell me anything' eyes, then remembered Blair's mistaken but subsequently true statement to Naomi the day before.
"I did, yes," she admitted, dropping into the seat beside her mother. Girl talk.
Naomi tilted her head and looked at her thoughtfully. "He does possess a great physical beauty, one of the ideals of the male form in the flesh, and a very strong spirit. Quiet charisma. Very attractive, I can see why you chose him."
"I didn't exactly choose him, Mom. It was just sort of happening..." She raised her hands, fingers outspread as if to catch an invisible ball. "And now, there it is." Blair thinks we're in heat.
"He's evolved since I first met him. He's now a little more open for such an authoritarian person." Naomi lifted her carry-on bag into her lap and started sorting through it. "Blair's been a good influence."
And he's been a good influence on Blair, he's calmer now, more centered. Beau didn't say it out loud.
"Did you have fun?"
Fun. Beau tried to make the adjective fit what had happened in her hotel room last night. It had been intense. Incredible. Volcanic. And damn near crippling. She shifted in the hard plastic seat, trying to find a comfortable position, remembering the five fingerprint bruises she'd found on her left hip and buttock in the shower.
"Yeah. We had fun."
"That's all that really matters, sweetie, isn't it?"
Beau shook her head. "So tell me about this place in Santa Fe."
Jim was waiting for her in the hotel lobby. She went to him, nervously looking for her brother, trying to figure out how to ditch him. Watching her searching eyes, Jim told her, "Blair's got a date with Summer."
Beau nodded. The lobby was a little too public for this conversation. The rooms were private, but she had a feeling that if she and Jim were alone again in an enclosed space with a bed in it, the only talking they'd be doing was of the 'oh yes that's so good please' variety. "Let's... let's go for a walk in the park?"
Jim didn't say anything as they crossed the street and went through the gates into the park, starting down one of the paths, side by side. It was a nice warm day, the air was thick with green, growing smells, and other people were out to appreciate it, teenagers running in packs and mothers with young children. Someone's boombox was playing the insufferably bittersweet love theme from the latest blockbuster tearjerker. She shot a sidelong glance at her companion. In a dark green polo shirt, tan chinos and sneakers, James Ellison looked like a Greek god out slumming among the lowly mortals, like a teenage girl's favorite daydream.
Beau shook off the sudden bizarre mental image of Jim in a loincloth with a dead llama calf slung across his bare shoulders. She'd dug that old copy of News Update magazine out of her files after meeting him, reread the article about his recovery from that disastrous Ranger mission in Peru... They reached a bench facing one of the larger flowerbeds and a statue of a historical figure on a horse, and sat.
"Pichinku wa'aman," she said, the sounds odd in her mouth. "What's that mean?"
Jim shifted beside her. "It's your name. Sparrow, hawk. In the language of the Chopec, the tribe that adopted me in Peru."
"You, uh, you said it last night. Called me that... last night," she said awkwardly, then grinned at the memory. "It was so good I forgot how to speak English, myself."
He chuckled a little at that, then sobered quickly. "You think he's right? About us?"
She slumped forward and dragged her hands through her short hair, rumpling it. "I never believed in love at first sight. Lust, okay, but you have to know somebody before you can love them. I've met you twice, known you for a total of two weeks, tops. But it feels like you've always been there, like you're someone I knew a long time ago and just ran into again. And last night..." She sighed. "Yeah. The only explanation for last night is... physical proximity activating some command code buried in my DNA that reads 'make little sentinels.' I'm really not that kind of girl. This is pretty weird, Jim, even for me."
"Weird but good, right?" That same oddly shy expression.
"Weird but good but really weird. And Blair's freaking out on several levels if you haven't noticed. Under all the his best friend and his sister stuff he was almost jealous... and he's not... if he's right about this Guide theory, then he's your guide and I'm a threat to that."
"So what are we going to do about this?" Jim asked, gesturing with his hands, an all-encompassing gesture. "Us?"
Beau was riveted by those strong square hands and the memory of them mapping the contours of her body. "It... like Blair said, it doesn't really matter. You live in Cascade. I live in Boston. I'm driving back there tonight."
"Oh."
"So... you wanna head back to the hotel for a nooner?"
He looked at her with a particularly pole-axed expression. "Beau..."
She looked up at him through her eyelashes, then downshifted from sultry to goofy. "I didn't jump you in Cascade. Maybe we're over-thinking this and it's only making us more susceptible. Maybe we can get it out of our systems. And just because I'm trying to understand my motivations doesn't give me any more control over them. No willpower whatsoever. C'mon Jim." Her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips, she saw his eyes widen, the pupils dilate.
"You know something, Sandburg?" He asked, getting to his feet and offering his arm. "You're crazy."
She took it. "You may be right. I may be crazy," she said seriously, then sang softly, "But I just might be the lunatic you're looking for..."
He shook his head. "Making an ass out of yourself in public while stone-cold sober?"
She nodded, and continued. "If I'm crazy then it's true, that it's all because of you..." She looked up at him expectantly.
He refused to sing, but completed the line. "And I wouldn't have you any other way."
The phone was ringing. Beau dropped her mail unsorted on the pewter tray on the gateleg table in the entry hall, then went to the desk in the corner of the front room to pick up the phone.
"Hello?"
"I have a great idea," her editor at Global Village Magazine said.
"I'm not going to Munich, Anita, I've only been home a month."
"'See America First.' The Pacific Northwest is hot right now, I'm thinking Cascade, give it the full 'native tourist' treatment."
Beau turned and looked at the framed photographs on the table. At the silver framed photo of her cousin Mimsy's wedding reception. Of herself dancing with James Ellison. He was smiling down and her head was thrown back in laughter. "You want me to go to Cascade?"
"Yes."
Beau smiled. "I can do that."
~ End ~
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Page last updated 8/15/03.