| |
BRIAN
––––––––
SHE WAS A VARDANNI.
Beyond question.
Heavily protected by combining powers of ours and wizards’ Talsyns, the new road between Copper Ridge and Red Cliffs was invisible to the average human eye. Elizabeth had no trouble seeing it.
The four-lane road had been built last year in record time, and only for local people. Since it tunneled under the hill called the Great Orme, instead of climbing over it on slopes, it shortened the distance between the towns by several miles. Unaware of its existence, our human visitors and passersby used the so-called “old road,” winding, slower and narrower.
It was early evening on a weekday, and the traffic was light in both directions.
“Why are there no trucks on the road?” Elizabeth said. “This road is a truck driver’s dream.”
I was still rattled with the definitive proof that Elizabeth was what we all wanted her to be to come up with a ready answer to her traffic question.
“Er, you’re right. I haven’t seen a single one. Maybe because of all the snow in the last few days,” I said, hoping that my explanation would satisfy her.
“Probably. The snow removers did a great job, though. It’s perfectly clean.” Her eyes followed a car passing in the opposite direction. “Lily told me Copper Ridge had several rough years and that at the same time Red Cliffs did much better. You can tell by the cars. The ones going to Copper Ridge are older and cheaper than the cars going toward Red Cliffs.”
And we thought we could hide anything from her.
I didn’t want to tangle myself up in yet another web of lies inventing an alternative Copper Ridge history. In due time, and I knew it would be soon, I’d tell her the real story.
“Yes, they’ve had a couple of tough years, but it’s getting better now,” I said and changed the topic. “Do you see that hill in the distance? In Red Cliffs—” I almost said we call it, but bit my tongue at the last moment, “they call it the Great Orme, after a hill in Wales with the same name. The first settlers to Red Cliffs came from a village in Wales called Gelltydd Coch, surrounded with reddish rock formations. In Welsh, Gelltydd Coch means ‘red cliffs.’ This place reminded them of home, hence the name for these peaks as well as the town.”
“The Great Orme must be geologically much older than the Red Cliffs Mountains.”
“It’s a solitary plateau-hill. It’s rich in copper, ergo our town’s name. Silver and gold were also mined here in the past; you can see the remains of open-pit mines all along the hill. According to recent geological surveys, there is still plenty of silver and gold just beneath the surface.”
“What’s Halti, then? I heard Harriet mention a hill between the two towns, but she called it Halti.”
“That’s what the Great Orme is called in Copper Ridge. It’s named after a hill near the village in Finland where the founders of Copper Ridge came from. Halti is also a natural and administrative border between the two counties. And the speed limit is 60 miles per hour, Elizabeth, and you’re going over 80.”
She slowed down a bit. “Oh, I’m sorry. I got carried away. I’ve always dreamed about driving a sports car. And the road, it’s perfect.”
“The police here are very strict when it comes to speeding and the fines are hefty. And they send you to a mandatory defensive driving course.”
“Oh, my god!” she shrieked, and the speedometer quickly dropped back to 60. “I like speed, but I also obey the rules. It’s just, I don’t know, it feels safe. The road is arrow straight and dry, no heavy vehicle traffic. And this car has wings instead of wheels.”
Her intuition was again right. The road was not only an engineering perfection; it was also made safe (along with all other roads in our two territories) with the powerful magic to protect whoever used it. Even the most serious car accident could hardly harm a grown werewolf. But our youngsters before they reached adulthood, and humans, were another story. Just because our roads were accident free didn’t mean we should drive recklessly. Not all roads were safe. The speed limit was enforced to remind us to be responsible, for ourselves and for others, no matter where we drove.
We soon approached a Red Cliffs police patrol car, parked on the pull-off lane. I saw Elizabeth glancing at the dashboard. She was firmly on 60 miles per hour.
The officers smiled and waved. I waved back.
“Why are Red Cliffs police checking the Copper Ridge part of the road?” Elizabeth asked.
“Instead of doing their own parts, Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge take turns in patrolling the entire road. It’s more practical.”
“No issues with jurisdiction?”
“Nope.”
“Interesting. And there are no road tolls, I see.”
“No. The two city governments maintain the road and the tunnel fifty-fifty. The citizens pay for it, as for other things, through regular taxes.”
The road signs announced the tunnel. “How long is the tunnel?” Elizabeth asked as we passed by the second sign.
“About a mile. Despite its name, the Great Orme is a small hill.”
She turned to me and smiled. “How are you doing? How’s your leg?”
This miniature car wasn’t the most comfortable place for anyone much taller than Elizabeth, but my leg, except for some stiffness, didn’t bother me. “I’m okay,” I said and smiled in reassurance. I stretched as much as the limited space allowed me to. “If you drove us all the way down to Santa Fe, you wouldn’t hear a word of complaint from me, Miss Chatwin.” I lifted my arm and rested it on the back of her seat and brushed my fingers over her neck. Her long, white and elegant neck.
She took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly but didn’t say anything. Not that she needed to. Her heart told me everything I had to know.
I moved my gaze from her profile to her small hands gripped around the steering wheel and back to her face again, entertaining myself with some pleasant thoughts about the near future. It felt good to once more have plans that reached beyond the following day.
Once Elizabeth learned who she was and who we were, I mused, she would move to Copper Ridge and live with me.
I’d pamper her. I’d buy her designer dresses, expensive shoes. According to Lily’s report, her lavish wardrobe was the result of her refined taste and her talent for finding bargains and deals, not her bank account. The Aston Martin would be hers, but I’d buy her something more suitable for the Colorado mountains. A pickup or something.
I’d take her on a long trip to Italy. I loved Italy, too. Once there, we could stay a few weeks in Tristan and Livia’s villa in Sicily, where Jack and Astrid had spent their honeymoon and where Rowena and Ahmed planned to go for their wedding.
Wedding?
An alarm went off in my head. Wedding, honeymoon! No. Not for me. It was a future I still wasn’t capable of shaping in my mind.
I wasn’t ready. It wouldn’t do me any good even if I was. I was still married to Eve. But two people could be happy regardless of the piece of paper, couldn’t they?
I only knew I longed for Elizabeth. My body screamed for her and dreamed about her. She turned me on like no one before. I walked around with my dick wedged to my stomach all day. I couldn’t wear jeans anymore so obvious was my permanent erection.
Yet I was aware there was more in my need for Elizabeth than just physical desire. Her presence had brought joy and balance back to my life. As Harriet had noticed this morning, pointing toward neatly organized piles of antiquities, Elizabeth had the rare ability to make order out of chaos and restore much more than old buildings and furniture. “Look, not only can we walk through the rooms normally now, but the whole house has somehow come alive,” Harriet had said, and then she added, laughing, “Like in Beauty and the Beast, if you don’t mind my comparison. Even Lily and Azem have stopped fighting, have you noticed?”
I had to find a way to keep her in my life. Would Elizabeth, a woman born to be a wife and mother, even consider anything else in the long run? Would I change my mind once I was truly free again? From my pain, from my daily transformations, from my resurrected marriage?
“Penny for your thoughts,” Elizabeth said, halting my unsettling speculations.
“How would you describe happiness?”
She moved her eyes from the road just enough to cast me a puzzled glance. “In many ways, but here is one: white sand beach, turquoise sea, four palm trees and two hammocks suspended between them, close enough so that two people in them can hold hands. Kitschy, I know, but I can’t help it.”
“How about a beach, the sea, two trees and one big hammock for two?”
“Better, I admit. We’re close, Khalid.”
“We are indeed.”
“To Red Cliffs.”
“Ah.”
I quickly added “beach, sea, hammock for two” to my mental how-to-spoil-Elizabeth list and moved my eyes from my lovely driver to the town lights twinkling in the distance.