Lori wondered if maybe she had outstayed her welcome. Brick was busy with all sorts of Christmas preparations. The last few days, he had seemed distant. There was a strange light in his eyes, as if maybe he couldn't figure out why he spent time with her. Or maybe he expected her to put an evil spell on him. Which made no sense, because he certainly didn't believe in Fae magic--only the magic that Humans could create at this time of year by believing and giving and doing for one another.
She hadn't seen Will or Phill in several days--except for running into Will in town, talking with Hargrove. And she had no idea if Brick was even going to show up today.
There was only so much sightseeing a Fae on her own in a strange, unfamiliar land could do, even if she did have unlimited credit, and taxis showed up whenever she needed them. How many museums and galleries and shopping malls could she explore all by herself? How many movies could she watch?
There was just so much shopping she could do before her hotel room got a little too full for comfort--without booking another hotel room just for storage. Yes, she could put all her purchases into ether-space, but she might just forget them once they were out of sight.
She had done that with a flock of sheep back when she was still a child. It wouldn't have been so bad with just the sheep, because they didn't care about time--but she had been playing with the shepherd boy tending those sheep, and accidentally put him in ether-space without thinking of the consequences. When she remembered more than two Fae years later, only a few minutes had passed for the boy and the sheep, but thirty years had passed in the Human realms. That poor boy hadn't been very happy. He had been sweet on the shepherdess in the next pasture, and now she was all grown up and married--and fat and graying.
Besides, using ether-space to store all her purchases and souvenirs would send up a homing signal to anyone who might have realized she was missing from the Fae realms. That was the last thing Lori wanted to do.
"Okay." She shuddered as new insight washed over her. She was by herself, taking an early morning walk in the Metroparks, so it was safe to talk to herself. No one could hear her and think something was strange. "I guess that means you don't want anyone to realize you're gone--which means you don't intend to go home any time soon." She sighed, the sound turning into laughter. "Well, duh. Going home means the Aunties will drag you out to parties and teas and dances, to meet all the totally boring, Enclave-bound prospective husbands they've chosen. Why can't they leave me alone and wait for Need to find the perfect match for me?"
"Probably because Need isn't fashionable anymore." The familiar female voice chimed off the ice coating the bushes and rocks all around Lori.
The air split apart and Epsibellah skipped out into the park. She gasped as icy air wrapped around her, snapped her fingers, and a navy blue mink coat enfolded her, with a matching poofy hat and gloves.
"That's better." She snuggled down into her new wraps, and looked around. "Interesting place you've come to hide out, Lori. Where are we?"
"The Human realms."
"The Human realms?" Epsi hunched down and dashed into the shadows of the nearest pine tree. Since the tree was covered with snow, the moment she touched it, the entire sparkling load cascaded down on her. Her repulsion field kicked into effect, sending the snow sliding down around her without touching her, in a visible bubble effect.
Lori fought a giggle, remembering that Epsi was an Enclave baby--with an inborn or ingrained fear of anything remotely related to the Human realms. Something like agoraphobia among the Humans.
"What in the name of the Dungeon Dimensions are you doing here?" Epsi demanded, when Lori gave up her walk as a lost cause and crossed the snow to stand with her in the shadows.
"Hiding from the Aunties and their matchmaking, same as always."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. That's actually why I'm here. You have no idea how much magic and how many favors I used up, tracking you down. If Titomio hadn't seen you hanging with Will and Phill before you went missing, I never would have thought to check on their flight plans. That's how I found you."
"Then how could you not know where you ended up?"
"I didn't actually read the flight plans, just plugged in the coordinates and followed the trail of their exit." Epsi tipped her head back to look at the sun, which was about an hour away from emerging from the tops of the trees. "You certainly picked a gorgeous place to hide."
"And you're here because?"
"The Aunties. They've found somebody for you."
"Not again." She wanted to drop down and sit on something--and maybe kick her legs in a miniature tantrum--but there was no place to sit without using some magic. Using magic might send up a signal flare for anyone actively seeking her.
"What's he like?" she asked, opting for a heavy sigh.
"Boooooring, what else?" Epsi echoed her sigh. "One of those well-bred boys. You know the type. Emphasis on breeding. As in breeding out Need altogether."
"They know how I feel about letting Need do the choosing." She tried not to growl, but it was hard. She wanted to turn into something fanged and with big talons, every time her matchmaking aunties tried to lecture her on how antiquarian and uncivilized it was to depend on Need to find the perfect mate.
Her aunties, and quite a few of their generation, were of the opinion that the Fae race had outgrown the usefulness of Need. They believed that matches should be made for more intellectual reasons--family connections, politics, magical talent lines. A growing number of matchmakers and political movers and shakers tried to make matches and get "those young folks," meaning anyone under the age of two hundred, married and bound together before Need had any chance of awakening. Their intent was to someday "raise" the Fae race to the point where no one was caught in Need anymore.
The unfortunate fact was that their theory had too much fact and reality and plausibility to it. Need matches usually resulted in children who themselves experienced Need. Conversely, those who married and procreated without Need produced children who were less likely to experience Need at all as the generations went on.
"Thanks for the warning." Lori needed somewhere to sit and think, no matter how long it took. She thought there was a bench around the next bend in the walking trail. "What do you think I should do? Go back and fight, or stay in hiding for the rest of my life?"
"Sweetie, you know how I feel about being out among the Humans. Not that I'm a germophobe, but... Well, there has to be a reason why so many of us decide to settle in and stay among Humans after long exposure to them, right?"
"Right. They like it better out here than back home."
"No! It's like an infection. Madness." Epsi looked around and wrapped her fur tighter around her. "The thing is, if you go back, you know they'll be waiting for you. They probably have all the access portals set with tripwires to sense you the moment you appear. If you're not careful, they'll have the groom waiting and the wedding planned and have your house constructed, right down to the baby rooms and the babies' names picked out. All they're waiting for is for you to show up, so they can wrap your wedding dress around you."
"Sounds like an execution." Would it be so bad, staying out here in the Human realms for the rest of her life? Will and Phill certainly seemed to like it better out here.
Of course, now that she thought about it, she couldn't honestly say she thought they were happy. She had seen so little of either of them the last few days.
The longer she stayed away from home, the more time her aunties would have to set up the ambush wedding. Then again, the longer she stayed out here among Humans, the less appealing she would be to whichever inbred Enclave wimp had agreed to pair up with her.
Would it be so bad, staying out here until she became so contaminated by Humans that no one would take her if she begged? She was very aware of how certain socially upright members of Will's and Phill's families disapproved of them and socialized with them as little as possible when they were home. The eccentrics, however--the weird cousins and explorers and experimenters--were delighted with Will and Phill. The eccentrics were the ones who were so much fun at parties and festivals and during the twice-centennial assemblies and conclaves.
That settled it. Lori would much prefer being considered eccentric and interesting than socially acceptable and predictable and boring. She would stay out here.
All right, so what was there to do besides shop, visit museums, learn about Human history, and get involved in giving out trees to people at Christmas? She would have to go to Divine's and check with Maurice.
"You've made up your mind, haven't you?" Epsi asked. She wore that smug little we're-in-so-much-trouble grin she had worn when they were children and cutting out on various socially restricting lessons. Such as the proper spells to make sure their dresses stayed crisp and sparkly, and their hair held up to the strongest breezes. Or to ensure butterflies' wings changed colors on a set rhythm or in accord with the emotions of the people who wore them in their hair.
"I don't suppose I could talk you into staying with me? It'd be fun, at the very least."
"There's fun, and then there's fun." Epsi shuddered hard enough to knock more snow off the branches overhead, which sent another umbrella-shaped shower of white cascading around them. "Thanks. Maybe in another fifty years or so, I'll build up the guts to venture out. Not right now. Maybe if there's a global-thermonuclear war to clear the land a little bit..."
"You're horrid. Humans are not bacteria."
"I know. But they're so savage."
"And so full of life!"
"Mmm hmm. And some kinds of life can just stay on their own greasy, grimy carcasses, thanks very much." Epsi snapped her fingers and made her blue fur shimmer and fade away. "I'm heading home before someone realizes I've gone. If they don't know I've been looking for you, they won't track me and find you. Be happy, sweetie." She smirked as they hugged. "Invite me to the wedding."
"There isn't going to be any wedding." Lori almost clutched her friend tight in a panicked reaction. Or maybe she just wanted to squeeze Epsi until she squeaked, to pay her back for that momentary scare.
"Hmm, you say that now, but something tells me there's a man involved. A Human male. It makes decisions so much easier when there's a reason to do something that's stronger than the reason not to do something. Know what I mean?" She winked, stepped back, and the slit in the dimensional wall split open and wrapped around her. In another moment, before Lori could think of a suitable retort--strong enough to change her hair to green--she was gone.
"A man?" There was something delightfully scary in the idea.
She had needed a quiet day alone to think and get her bearings, but maybe she would have been happier if she had been somewhere crowded and noisy. At the very least, she wouldn't be able to think quite so hard right now. Where was a distraction when she really needed it?
* * * *
Sometimes Brick suspected that various members of the Chamber of Commerce resorted to extra-curricular help to survive some of the more mind-dullingly boring meetings. Until about five minutes ago, he had never suspected that someone had shared those survival tactics. Especially without permission or even asking if he wanted help.
It had to be drugs. Someone had slipped him something at the breakfast meeting in the Chamber offices. Put it in his coffee or sprinkled it on his Cream of Wheat while his back was turned, or maybe that bowl of blueberries.
He was positive Lori had been talking to a woman just a few minutes ago. Later he would worry about why they stood about eight feet off the path, hiding among the trees and snow. Or why the woman wore a blue fur coat.
While he stood there, trying to read their lips, wondering what they were doing there, the air seemed to split open and the stranger vanished. Just vanished, without a pop or a flash or a bang. How?
The only answer he could come up with was that the woman hadn't been there in the first place. He had just imagined her, maybe mistaking a movement in the shadows for a person.
There was only one problem with that theory: he had heard voices. He couldn't make out the words, because both the woman and Lori kept their voices down, but he had distinctly heard two different voices. Unless Lori was a ventriloquist, that meant either that woman talking to her knew how to vanish into thin air, or someone had drugged him at the Chamber meeting.
Brick chose the drugs. If he chose a woman in blue fur who had the ability to vanish into thin air, then eventually he would have to choose to go quietly insane. Or maybe loudly. His immediate family didn't care that much about social standing or appearances, so if he wanted to go screaming, drooling, spinning nutso, he was free to do so without feeling his ancestors' disapproval.
He didn't want to go nuts. He wanted to spend Christmas with Lori. Hallucinating was the more benign explanation.
The next question was whether he had been hallucinating Lori, too.
"Lori?" he called, and flinched as his voice bounced off the ice-covered branches and the crust of the snow.
"Hi." She waved and plowed through the drifts to get back to the path, and then more drifts to where he had stood for the last twenty minutes or so, dithering and tying his brains into knots. "What are you doing out here?" Those sparks he had seen before seemed to swirl around her. "Please feed my ego and tell me you were looking for me."
"Oh, definitely." He crooked his arm and bent it out, offering it to her. She blushed delightfully, a pink haze filling the air around her cheeks, and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. "I can't go a day without seeing you."
"Now that you've made my day, what can I do for you?"
"Want to help me with some extremely important shopping?" Brick hadn't come looking for her, per se. He had been driving down the park road when he thought he saw her, so he had gotten out of the car and come closer. His errand came to his mind again, just as it occurred to him that he had waded through snow higher than the tops of his shoes, and his socks were getting wet and icy, crusty cold.
"Well, considering how few my talents are, it's a good thing that's what you need. I've become a whiz at shopping over the last few days. Shopping where, for who, and for what?"
* * * *
Two hours later, Brick scooped half the contents of the shelf of cinnamon-scented candles into the shopping cart Lori pushed. He nodded to the list she consulted. "What else?"
"Containers." She waved the paper. "They're not on the list, but it makes sense that if you have candles, you should have something for them to sit in, to contain the wax when it melts."
"That's why I keep you around. Common sense." He turned, surveying the shelves in either direction along the aisle.
"Hardly." She laughed, fighting down the funny little quiver of pleasure from his half-teasing praise. No one had ever accused her of having common sense before. Usually she was lectured for having ridiculous values, caring about simplicity and natural things over the high social standards her blue-blood family felt duty-bound to uphold. "I just like candles. I even had a hobby of making candles for a while, so I know all the disasters that happen when you don't control melting wax."
"Now see? That's something new I just learned about you. Must have been a lot of leisure time to have a hobby like that." Brick watched her from the side of his eyes as he wandered down the aisle, leading the shopping cart with one hand.
"Too much leisure time, if you ask me. This is an adventure, doing something worthwhile for other people. So, when we get all the items on this humongous list of yours, what do we do with it all?" she continued, stopping him when he opened his mouth to ask yet another question. Or more likely, make another cryptic comment about how little they knew about each other. Lori didn't want to be reminded of how little they knew each other. Only seven more days until Christmas Eve, and then what would happen, where would she go? Were Will and Phill going to take her somewhere else to hide from the matchmaking aunties, or was she on her own?
If she hooked up with Brick, she wouldn't be on her own, would she?
Spend the rest of her life in Neighborlee, helping Brick with his charitable deeds all year long? He would grow very tired of her Human-skills ineptitude very quickly.
"Tired of what?" Brick asked, laughing. He turned around to face her, his hands full of fancy glass containers to hold all the candles he had just put in the cart.
Lori felt her face burn. The scents of a dozen different candles grew stronger as the warmth she radiated softened the contents of the shelves next to her.
Had she spoken aloud?
"Okay, I'm used to weird things happening in this town, and usually it's fun, but this ..." Brick's eyes narrowed. "How do you do that?" He stepped closer and held his open palm maybe two inches away from her face. "That's a fever, for sure. But you look just fine. Other than a head-to-toe blush."
"I do not blush down to my toes. It only goes..." Lori sighed, closed her eyes, willed the pinkish-purplish haze away, and lowered her radiant temperature. She slapped a cooling wave at the candles and decided not to look too closely, to see if she had done any damage to them. They were wrapped in plastic, after all, so it wasn't like they would have been disfigured and melted across the shelf, right?
All the same, she wasn't going to look.
"The thing is, if this happened to someone who grew up here, I'd understand. But you're not from around here," Brick said.
"No...but maybe I could belong here?" She tried to smile, even though her face felt sunburned down to the bone, stiff and swollen and sensitive to the slightest touch of his gaze.
"Yeah...maybe you could." He looked around and his quizzical look hardened into a frown. Lori looked past him and saw two women at the far end of the aisle, whispering to each other. She didn't like their sly smiles. "How about we finish this and then go sit somewhere and talk?"
All she could do was nod.
By the time they had the list taken care of, it was mid-afternoon. Brick made a call while they were on their way to Eden II, and a pizza waited for them at their next-to-last stop. Lori appreciated his foresight and planning skills almost as much as she appreciated pizza. Of all the amazing, unusual and ultra-gourmet treats available in the Fae realms, why hadn't anyone ever come up with pizza before?
They delivered all their shopping bags to the room where the assembling of the Christmas baskets was to take place. No one was there, but long rows of tables were set up with large, sturdy baskets sitting on big sheets of red and green and gold cellophane, with coordinated ribbons and bows waiting to tie everything together. She was impressed. Especially by the fleet of wheeled carts sitting by the door.
"Let me guess--you put the goodies on the carts and go up and down the rows, putting things in the baskets, saving people's backs from having to haul things all over the place."
"Gotta love a girl who figures things out. Unless mind-reading is among your hidden talents?" His grin said he was joking, but that spark of something wary in his eyes made her think he was worried about her answer.
"It doesn't run in my family," she replied honestly, "but you never know what might pop up to meet a need."
"Uh huh. You sound a lot like Lanie."
"Oh--is that Angela's friend?"
"She always says weird things. Part of it could be brain damage from being a high school teacher. Part of it could be from landing on her head when she broke her back." Amusement lit his eyes, so she knew he really was joking this time.
"Blows to the head have been known to awaken telepathic powers. Or at least prophetic gifts. Something about removing barriers to the ether beyond the space-time continuum."
"Are you a Trekker?" He stopped, turning to block her way down the hall.
"A what?"
"Star Trek fan. See, sometimes I go to the club meetings, and the really hard core ones talk that way."
"No. Sorry. But if they're having a meeting, maybe we could go." If there were people in this town who understood trans-dimensional travel and the rules of ether-related physics and could explain magic to Brick better than she could, Lori was all for making friends with them.
She nearly stumbled as they continued down the hall, at the realization that she wanted Brick to understand. She wanted to be open with him about her big secrets: she was a Fae and the family story about his great-grandmother being gifted by a Fae was hard fact. She wanted Brick to stop giving her those wary looks. The problem was that even if he didn't label her as insane and run away, he could still run away in fear and loathing because he believed her.
She pushed her worries away as Brick settled them in a small meeting room, currently unoccupied, and set out their lunch. She had eaten spaghetti and had spent a few years investigating the various world-famous restaurants in Italy, sampling the cuisine that each region was noted for. Why hadn't she discovered pizza while she was there?
"So, you're a world traveler, then?" Brick said, when she posed her question to him.
"Not as much as I would like. There's always something keeping me tied up at home. Until I need to run away." She contemplated taking a third piece. Brick had ordered a large deluxe with double toppings and triple cheese, and garlic dipping sauce on the side. There was plenty, even if she ate herself into a semi-coma, so she indulged.
"So who was that I saw you with before, out in the park?"
Lori barely stopped herself from choking. She finished her bite of pizza, and considered taking another, just to buy herself more time for answering. Then she decided it was time to stop being a wimp. She wanted to be honest with him? Maybe she should start with some smaller, easily digested bits of truth. If Brick accepted those, she could work her way up to the big, prickly, reality-bending ones.
"So you saw Epsi. That's interesting. She's usually so good about being...stealthy. Unseen. She's kind of paranoid. Agoraphobic--no, not agoraphobic." Stupid, she scolded herself. How do you explain her meeting you outside in the woods, the great outdoors, if she's scared of the outdoors? "Xenophobic. That's it. She's really shy, scared of strangers and strange places. Except when she has a really good reason for venturing away from home. And warning me, that's a very good reason."
So Brick had seen Epsi. That meant either her illusion shield, her don't-see-me spell was slipping, or he had enough magic in his blood to penetrate the basic shielding spell all Fae were required to activate the moment they emerged the Human realms. The question now was determining how much magic Brick had in his blood.
"So a really good friend, then." He nodded and reached for his fourth slice of pizza.
"The best." She concentrated on her slice, consciously fighting not to inhale it. New experiences were meant to be savored, after all.
For a few minutes they ate in silence, while she ran through her options and what she wanted, what she could and couldn't risk. If there was some Fae blood in Brick, not just Fae influence because of the spell cast on his ancestress, he could become a Changeling. If he could believe in the Fae as a reality. If he wanted to be bound to her for the rest of his life. Which would be centuries. And it wasn't like he would have to move away. Not with the general, half-blind acceptance of magical events and general weirdness, here in Neighborlee.
If he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. If he accepted that she was Fae.
She didn't know him well enough to risk it.
What had happened to her? A few weeks ago, she had been frustrated with her aunties' matchmaking to the point of being allergic to the whole concept of marriage. Besides, wasn't she the throwback, the uncivilized one, holding out for Need to strike?
But couldn't Need strike when two people were drawn together? It happened often enough. Why couldn't it happen to her?
How could she guarantee it would happen to Brick? And how could she make him acceptable to the matchmakers back home, so they wouldn't torment him and her for decades after the deed was done?
"Deep thoughts?" Brick asked.
Lori physically and mentally shrugged off the gloom and thoughts that had wrapped around her. She had been sitting and staring at the crust in her hand for who knew how long.
"Epsi came to warn me," she said, following through on her earlier resolution. "I'm basically hiding out from matchmakers, back home. Dynastic marriages. Power and social standing, that sort of thing. Will and Phill helped me get away. Well, Epsi came to warn me that the Aunties are on the verge of leg-shackling me to someone I've never even met. He's acceptable to them, and that's more important than me being happy."
"Ouch." Brick sat back in the cushioned chair and shook his head.
Lori wondered if she was just imagining it when some of that creeping tension that had grown over the last few days faded a few notches.
"So power and money and the movers and shakers trying to keep it all in a few select families." He picked up his can of ginger ale and gestured with it as he talked. "I know the story too well. Fortunately, my close relatives in town won't push me, but it's the other social grand dames and the out-of-town relatives who want to finagle me into their plans for their own family lines. You'd think with a nice, small town like Neighborlee, you wouldn't have the whole royal family mentality, but... So, you're pretty rich, I'm guessing."
"Where I'm from, we don't really care about money. It's all power and social standing. Politics." She had said something that relieved Brick's wariness. She could almost feel and hear the loosening of those taut cords inside his mind and heart. "There are different kinds of power beyond military and economic. Money hasn't been a consideration among us for...forever. If I could find and stay in a place where things are simple and open and honest, where people care about others...maybe even where people have needs, so others can help fill them, I'd like that more than anything."
She choked for a moment as a new thought instantly corrected her. "Well, almost anything." Her face warmed, but she fought down the blush before it radiated and threw off different colors of light. "I like all this giving and doing for others and charity things. Will and Phill told me how they like to come here and help out, and that's what convinced me to let them bring me to Neighborlee."
"You like doing charity work, huh?" Brick rubbed his chin, only partially concealing the big grin that lit up his eyes. "Well, you're in luck. I've got a deal for you. I can keep you so busy for the next week, you'll get your charity quota in for the rest of the year."
"I'd like to see that."
* * * *
Brick watched Lori when they took the first load of completed baskets and dropped them off at the various homes on this year's list of struggling families. The lists were carefully researched to make sure that families that truly needed help got the goodies and the gift certificates to stores and restaurants in town. Those certificates were geared toward their needs, such as toy stores and children's apparel for families with children; auto shops and hardware stores for older families that needed help keeping a car going to hold onto a job, or house repairs that they could do themselves. Families known for wasting their resources, or who refused to correct problems, received smaller baskets, tokens to bolster their spirits. They also received visits from counselors or city officials, to give them firmer nudges back onto the road of rehabilitation.
"Great-granny wouldn't have stood for calling drinking and gambling diseases," Brick explained to Lori. They had already visited a dozen homes where he knew no one would be at home to actually see the delivery of the gifts baskets. "In her book, someone who knew he had a problem and didn't do anything about fixing it was just a lazy bum. Someone who tried to use his drinking habit as an excuse for not trying was worse than a lazy bum, and she usually ran such people out of her town. She didn't see any justice in making hard-working folks who took care of their own dig into their pockets to foot the bill for those who wouldn't even try to take care of themselves. Women who kept popping out babies and then held out their hands, expecting help, didn't deserve any sympathy, in her book. If you couldn't afford to feed and clothe your kids, you had no right to keep making more." He snorted laughter. "She was all for gelding the husbands of such women and putting the responsibility squarely on them."
"Brick." Lori's soft, warm hand on his wrist startled him into realizing he had been preaching. "You don't have to defend yourself or your granny. She sounds like a sensible woman. I'm sure it was a little easier back then to identify those who needed help and those who just wanted to live off other people's hard work. Nowadays... Well, it's easier to fake, to fool people and pretend to be something you aren't."
"Everybody wears a mask, of one kind or another."
"But not you." Her lips twitched like she tried to smile.
"Everybody." He looked down at her hand, still lightly grasping his wrist, then reluctantly tugged free so he could put his truck into reverse and get out of the Wilberforces' driveway before the children came home from school. That would ruin the surprise.
Not that it was that much of a surprise--nearly everybody living in Neighborlee knew about the basket program, carried out at all major holidays. As long as the delivery people did the job unseen, and the recipients didn't meet up with them, didn't see anybody leaving the scene of the crime, there was still an element of mystery. The sense of freedom from admitting they had sunk low enough to need that kind of help was just as valuable as the gifts they received.
Besides, it was more fun imagining the Wilberforce kids digging through the basket before their widowed father got home from work than actually seeing them do it. Brick thought about the model car and airplane kits for the twins, and the deluxe makeup kit for their sister, who was a sophomore this year. He thought about the dinner she would probably make for her family tonight, all the goodies that would be waiting for Gary when he dragged himself through the door. Brick was especially proud of the discrete little business card tucked into the box with the new tie, directing Gary to talk to Harcourt Bammerschol, who had confided to him just last week that four men were retiring after the New Year, and he didn't know where to find someone with their years of experience to replace them.
"You're much better at this than Santa Claus," Lori offered, when they had driven in silence for a few minutes.
"Oh yeah? And you know this from experience?" He glanced sideways as they reached a stop sign, to find her watching him, her expression somber.
"Just common sense. You do it over the course of a week or two, in daylight, when nobody is home. Far more sensible than trying to take care of half the planet in the space of a single night, employing magic to stretch and fold time and fit down chimneys and...well, all those logistical problems." She turned to face forward again. Her lips twitched, fighting a smile.
"I'm really tempted to keep you here year 'round. I don't want to miss a minute of your incredible brain at work."
"Is that a good thing?" She blushed, and Brick swore there were overtones of violet to the blush, shading out from the rosy haze encircling her entire head.
"A very good thing."
"I could live here all the time. It's not like I expected at all. There's so much darkness, but that makes all the brightness and color so much more wonderful. When you're surrounded by beauty and color and light all the time, you get used to it. You take it for granted. You think the entire world is that way."
"And it's not?" He wanted to pull over to the side of the road and just watch the emotions playing over her face, the changing lights in her eyes. It was as if she were having an epiphany right there, seeing the world in a whole new way she had never considered before.
"Where I'm from, we don't have this. Poverty and struggling, hopelessness and illness. Yes, there are classes and power struggles, but maybe they're more prevalent because the basic needs are met. We don't think about people needing anything because nobody really needs the important things. And maybe we don't appreciate the non-tangible things that matter so much. That's why nobody wants to let you wait until you've found the one, the perfect match, the one you need, who needs you. It's all politics and plotting and warfare and..." She flung her hands up in the air, as far as the confines of the cab of the truck would allow, and let out a half-groaned snarl of frustration.
"So you're like the faerie tale princess who ran away from the castle and an arranged marriage with the idiot prince in the next kingdom. Is that basically where you're at?" He grinned as they headed down the street again.
"Close enough." Her smile looked tired.
"We need to find you a poor but honorable swineherd."
"No, thank you!"
"What have you got against poor but honorable swineherds?"
"I could tell you a thing or two about them. There's a reason why they land in jobs like that. The faerie tales you're referring to left out a lot of details." She wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering so violently, Brick knew she was joking.
"What about the prince who pretends to be a swineherd to win the princess after she's been humbled?"
"I've always wondered about the sanity of such princes. Why would you want to marry a girl who has to be humbled before she's worth anything? After she gets back into the castle, she'll just revert to her old ways. Swineherds are filthy and smelly, and they've been with the pigs so long their sense of smell is totally trashed, so you can never fully housebreak them." She shook her head, nose wrinkled in disgust. "Thanks, but no thanks. Give me a decent, middle class man with good hygiene and good manners. One who doesn't need to battle anyone or prove anything or fulfill some idiotic quest. He doesn't mess with things best left alone, and dangerous. But he stands up for others and he knows when to help and when to let people do it on their own." She frowned, staring at a far distant point that Brick suspected wasn't anywhere on the road ahead of him. "And he likes children. And even more important, children like him."
"That's a pretty tall order." He clamped his teeth together, to fight the urge to blurt that he loved kids, and he liked visiting his friend Jon-Tom, who planned to open a daycare center next summer.
Jon-Tom and Jeri's wedding was coming up. He would take Lori with him and position her where she could see him playing favorite uncle with all the children who had been invited. If she couldn't take a hint, then he'd just have to resort to the caveman routine and throw her over his shoulder, maybe take her off to his family cabin in the mountains of southern Ohio, until she came to her senses.
He thought he had finally come to his.