No Less Days

by Amanda G. Stevens

  A chuckle eased his chest. “There’s a fair amount to know.”

  “I think we should begin with the important things.”

  He swallowed a lump of gravel and misgiving, but then her eyes twinkled. “Go on then.”

  “The best movie you’ve ever seen in theater.”

  David chuckled. “For entertainment?”

  She cocked her head. “Is there another purpose to see a movie?”

  “Well, not all movies are entertaining. Some of the greatest aren’t, in fact.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

  “What’s that?”

  He shook his head, stood, and pulled her to her feet beside him. “You’ve never even heard of it?”

  “What year was it?”

  “November 1946.”

  She stared at him a long moment. “Black and white, then.”

  “Aye. And a great film.”

  In the theater’s darkness as the film reached its close, something that had been balled up inside for two years, something muddy and gritty, washed clean out of him while his tears fell between his knees, soft drops onto the hardwood floor. The power of a story—of truth in a story. He sat for long minutes after the film ended, and half the theater had sat there too. A man no older than twenty-one, seated two rows in front of David, leaned his head on folded arms and sobbed loud enough for the whole theater to hear.

  “Let’s watch it,” Tiana said.

  He took the weight and measure of that idea, letting her into something so personal. Aye, he wanted this, but …

  “Or we don’t have to.” Her fingers ghosted over his arm then withdrew. Without their noticing, some walls had risen between them again.

  He needed some of them back up, for now.

  “We can watch it,” he said. “I’m still … acclimating. To all this.”

  “And you think I’m not? My boss and my celebrity crush are both immortal.”

  Her boss. Right. Good reminder. Sure, she wanted to know him; to work with him and not know him would be disconcerting now. The warmth in her—it might not be personal, not from someone like Tiana who held kindness out to everyone.

  “What about illnesses?” she said as they left the library. “Do you get sick at all?”

  “I catch something—cold, flu, normal things—every few years, about as often as I did before. My guess is as long as it’s not a terminal disease, I can be affected by it.”

  Tiana paused before the threshold of the den, out of sight. Her voice lowered. “I told you, I don’t want to intrude on them. I’m a stranger. Worse—a fan.”

  He chuckled. “Now that he’s healed up, Moira’s glare has defrosted some.”

  “She acts like his bodyguard. He’s an adult. A very capable adult. For the love—an immortal adult.”

  He let her huff then cocked his head.

  Tiana sighed. “And he was pretty much incoherent last night, and he’s a public figure, and this is sensitive information, and I’m a fan who for all she knows …”

  “Indeed.”

  “I want to earn their trust, David.”

  “Don’t you think you’re on your way to that?”

  “I hope so.” She looked up into his eyes in a way that made him want to pull her close. “Do you see it? The bond you’ll have with them? It’s … well, in a way, it’s biological.”

  Not the way he’d have phrased it, but she wasn’t wrong. “I see it. It’s new, though. Unexpected.”

  “Fair enough. But don’t underestimate it, David. If you have questions about—well, who you are—they might have answers.”

  “I know.”

  Before he could decide if he should say more, verbalize the thing she hadn’t, Tiana sighed. “I love my parents, and they love me.”

  He knew that. He also knew they were white. And their relationship today wasn’t everything Tiana wanted it to be.

  “We’re slowly getting back what we had when I was growing up. Before.”

  Before she’d tried to trace her African heritage. David nodded.

  “But, David, it’s always going to be a fact that I don’t share blood with anyone born on this continent.”

  He nodded again when she paused. She had more to say. He waited.

  “This—the history you lived through, they did too. And no one else alive can say that. It’s worth finding out if you can trust them—I mean, really trust them. As family.”

  Most days, he didn’t come face-to-face with how well she understood him. She knew the lone wolf in his spirit that could walk away from all of them rather than give them time and space to earn trust. He grazed his palm over her shoulder, and she didn’t step back, so he let it rest there a moment.

  “I plan to do just that,” he said. “But I might need reminding at some point.”

  She smiled. “I can do that.”

  THIRTEEN

  David emerged from the shower to voices drifting from the den. Raised voices. He towel-dried his hair, dressed, wandered out to track down the bickering. Tiana’s soothing alto was silent. Perhaps she’d left by now. Noon had come and gone.

  Zac and Moira faced each other across the low table in the center of the room, both standing with feet apart and arms folded, seeming oblivious to the mirroring of each other’s pose.

  “The man shoved a butcher knife into your stomach.”

  “David’s got the knife.”

  “And knives are so hard to come by.”

  “Moira, this guy doesn’t control where I go or what I do.”

  She cast her gaze around the room as if searching for something to throw at Zac’s head. “This isn’t about holding on to normalcy. This is about luring him into the open so you can knock his teeth out.”

  “So what if it is?”

  “It’s a stupid risk.”

  “I’m not the one who could end up dead.”

  “It isn’t worth it, Zachary. We can drive up to the”—she raised her hand in a mitten shape, imitating the Michigander-speak Tiana had shown her at breakfast—“the top of the fingers or whatever they’re called, and we can sightsee up there.”

  “No,” Zac said.

  Moira pivoted away from him to face the window, leaned her forehead against the glass.

  David stepped into the room. “You want to catch him?”

  “I checked the local news,” Zac said. “If the cops got him, they didn’t tell the media, which seems odd for a town this small.”

  “Last night you called me off.” And hadn’t been wrong to do so, though a pull to action still tugged in David’s brain. “This morning you want him dead?”

  Zac pressed a hand below his ribs. “Well, it was a long night.”

  “Not funny,” Moira said.

  He raised his hands. “Okay. Look, we need to know what this is about. If he’s hunting me or just random guys. Maybe he recognized me after he stabbed me.”

  As a plan, it wasn’t unwise. Or if it was, David had participated in more foolish ones. He gave Zac a single nod. Moira gave a whimper.

  A sense of purpose rose in David, creaking with disuse, a lever that could swing the whole of him—mind, soul, body—if he gave it control. Awareness rose to a higher level than what he lived with daily—sitting with his back to every wall, seeing exits in public wherever he went, taking stock of the guy in line behind him at the grocery store. This other awareness was the heightened sense of his body, the space around him, the walls, the couch, how many strides he stood from Zac, how difficult or easy it would be to pitch Zac over the couch and land on top of him in such a way as to break bones and neutralize him.

  “David?”

  He blinked. He’d been staring out the window at the sunshine. At the oak tree’s orange leaves, vibrant in their seasonal death.

  Moira’s eyes were hazel, not far in brightness from those leaves. In them David found curiosity mingled with something like affection.

  He looked from her to Zac. “Let�
��s try to find him.”

  Zac smiled.

  “Has Tiana gone then?”

  “A little bit ago,” Moira said. “Which is for the best, I suppose, if we’re going to hunt a madman.”

  “We’re not hunting,” Zac said. “We’re exploring town the way we would have done anyway. More prepared, is all.”

  David had told them yesterday, driving back to the store, that his town was easily viewed in an afternoon and evening, that they’d seen everything of consequence. But something in Zac’s expression kept him from repeating the words. This was the face Zac had worn at the canyon’s edge, signing autographs. He was donning the mask again, becoming the daredevil, stating as fact the persona everyone who bumped into him in town would believe. Including the attacker.

  Moira swept past David into the hallway, ignoring the false smoothness of Zac’s features. She must be used to it.

  David pulled him aside as Moira went out to the Jeep. “Do you have a weapon with you?”

  “No.”

  “This guy might attack someone else.” Someone who could end up dead. “At least one of us ought to be armed.”

  Zac studied him a moment. “I appreciate that.”

  “Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.”

  David went to the bedroom for his favored sidearm. He put on a light jacket to cover the shoulder holster and joined the others.

  Yesterday’s cloud cover had offered the sun an unconditional surrender, and its warmth and light were reclaiming every inch of ground. Even the shade seemed brighter today. Zac grumbled that they shouldn’t have left the rental car at the bookstore, that David should stop and switch vehicles, until Moira snapped at him. But he wasn’t wrong, from a mission standpoint. The attacker was more likely to recognize the rental. David caught his eye in the rearview mirror and gave him a nod.

  David parked at the library on the north end of town, and they set out to walk the two miles of State Street, the main stretch of downtown. For three hours they retread the walkways, revisited the shops. Zac was recognized twice by teen girls with whom he paused for a picture.

  “You want to be mobbed?” David said after the second girl fast-walked away already texting someone.

  “Whatever it takes.” His smirk was the daredevil variation. “But seriously, you’re overestimating my fame. And the belligerence of a small town.”

  All right, well … Zac would know.

  The shops that had stalled Moira yesterday still held her enchanted. She studied paintings, repurchased the ceramic candle warmer David had broken, and tried on necklaces made of beach glass and Petoskey stone and Leland bluestone. David wandered the aisles, enjoying the handmade creativity but not understanding why some people chose to buy items like these. He rounded a corner and met Moira … and Tiana.

  “Oh, David.” Moira smiled. “Tiana’s going to join us.”

  “No,” he said.

  Tiana folded her arms. “She filled me in. If daggers start flying, I’ll get out of the way.”

  “Tiana.”

  “You’ve been roaming for hours, and you haven’t seen him. Also, I’m not a blond male, so if he’s targeting a specific image, I’ll be fine.”

  Zac had no problem with her presence either, smiling warmly when he saw her. He and Tiana left the store first, already chatting, and David pulled Moira to one side behind them.

  “You didn’t even want to come back here. What’s this about?” It couldn’t be a craving for Tiana’s company.

  They fell into step behind Zac and Tiana, allowing enough distance to speak privately.

  “We didn’t detour to northern Michigan on a lark, David. We came to know you better.”

  “Moira.” David lowered his voice. “She works for me. That’s all.”

  “So you go around telling your true age to everyone you meet?”

  She waited for him to answer. He huffed. “Obviously not.”

  “Simon’s wife died eleven years ago. She was the last mortal to know.”

  He slowed his pace, absorbing that. Eleven years that none of them had allowed a mortal into their lives as deeply as Tiana was part of his. Well, before her, he hadn’t allowed one either. Not since … He couldn’t place even Ginny in the category of intimacy Tiana now occupied, marriage notwithstanding.

  “So as far as getting to know Tiana”—Moira shrugged—“a bit of self-preservation might be involved too.”

  “I see now,” he said.

  Moira smiled.

  At first Tiana shot regular glances of concern in Zac’s direction, but soon she seemed assured that he’d made a full recovery. Then she drifted to David’s side and walked with him, and Zac and Moira followed.

  “Let’s hit the Natural Art Gallery,” Tiana said the next time they crossed the street.

  They’d been there yesterday, but it was David’s favorite place in Harbor Vale, other than his own store. Most tourists strolled past without noticing. On the outside it was a narrow rectangle of a house, vinyl sided with flat windows. Inside, the owners sold botanical and natural history illustrations from the nineteenth century. Everything in the place was original. Yesterday Zac and Moira had stood a long time, whispering, in the aisle of framed Audubon owls and hawks.

  “I should have bought something,” Moira said as they entered the store, with more hush to her voice than when she’d said the same about the ice cream shop.

  That Zac and Moira would grow quiet within the place was expected. That Tiana would do the same … David watched her pad up and down the aisle of botanical prints, as if any noise from her might disturb them. He stood in front of the plastic-protected color plates and waited for Tiana to reach him.

  She picked one up and turned it over. “This was made in 1879. Some of those ones over there are from before the Civil War.”

  “Haven’t you been in here before?” He was sure of the answer.

  “Yeah. But … These things—they used to just be—old things to me. I figured it was nice that someone decided to preserve them…. But when this was made, you were almost forty.”

  “Yes.”

  She pressed the matted art to her chest. “Back then, did you have books like the ones these came from? Naturalist drawings—plates?”

  “Only one, given the cost of them, but yes.”

  “You loved books even then, didn’t you?”

  The dark depths of her eyes held some feeling he couldn’t name. He nodded, and she squeezed his hand before walking away.

  They stayed another half hour and left without buying anything.

  “I couldn’t choose,” Moira said, and behind her, at David’s side, Tiana whispered, “Me either.”

  Tiana had had her apartment here for a year and a half. In a town so snug, that was long enough to be able to find one’s way blindfolded. The few shops David had overlooked yesterday, Tiana led them into today—jewelry and clothing stores, and a bakery that Zac declared the best yet.

  “You failed us yesterday, man, forgetting this place,” he said around a mouthful of cupcake.

  “What flavor is that?” Tiana reached for it.

  He held it over her head. “Mint-chip bumpy cake. Get your own.”

  She scurried to the glass case beside the checkout counter.

  “The first thing on your stomach in eighteen hours is mint-chip bumpy cake.” Moira shook her head and took a bite of her apple fritter.

  “Oh, right.” He stuffed the rest into his mouth and shrugged. “Guess I’m fine.”

  He meandered after Tiana, and David tried not to frown at his retreating back. Moira stood eating her fritter, watching the other customers but darting a look or two at David. Inviting comment? Very well then. He motioned toward Zac.

  “Seems he’s forgotten the potential threat.”

  “Not at all,” Moira said and took another bite.

  “He’s more concerned with desserts, at any rate.”

  She turned from her people watching to study him. “You seem to be someone who can be
taken at face value.”

  He shrugged. He did try to be, perhaps to make up for the necessary secrets.

  “Well, Zac usually isn’t.”

  David looked across the shop. Zac and Tiana were laughing as she took a giant bite of cupcake, smearing mint frosting over her thumb. If any part of him remained on alert, David couldn’t see it.

  They left with a variety twelve-pack of mini-cupcakes for Tiana and Zac to duel over later. Tiana was already gushing to Moira over a store called Appleseed Apparel.

  “I don’t know that store,” David said.

  “Of course not,” Tiana said. “It’s female apparel.”

  Zac groaned. “How many chick stores does this town have?”

  “This is the last one.” Tiana grinned. “I swear on the cupcakes.”

  Five minutes inside were four too many. The very smell of the place—no doubt the product of an essential oil diffuser containing lavender and geranium and something else David couldn’t identify—seemed created to repel him. Or he’d spent too much time in clothing shops today. In unspoken solidarity, he and Zac left to stand outside on the plank walkway and watch passersby.

  “I’ll need to get back to the store tomorrow,” David said after a few minutes.

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to show.”

  “Doesn’t look that way.”

  David paced a few steps one way, a few steps another, as Zac’s phone began playing “Landslide.”

  Zac tugged it out of his back pocket. “Aren’t you supposed to ask women for wardrobe advice …?” He reached out and gripped David’s arm.

  David halted. “What?”

  Zac was darting looks up and down the street. He pulled David around the side of the store. Under a spreading maple tree, they stood between Appleseed and the jewelry shop next door. Out of sight. Zac hit the SPEAKER button on his phone.

  “… come around the back to the empty lot, and leave your cop friend out of it.” The voice wasn’t unique. This man might be Zac’s attacker. Or he might not.

  “I don’t have a cop friend,” Zac said.

  “That guy who chased me.”

  “He’s not a cop.”

  “On second thought, bring him. I’d rather keep him in sight, and he’s standing next to you anyway.”