Immortal

by Pati Nagle

  Title Page

  Pati Nagle

  Evennight Books

  Cedar Crest, New Mexico

  Copyrights

  Immortal

  Copyright © 2011 by Pati Nagle.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-057-6

  Published by Evennight Books, Cedar Crest, New Mexico.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names,characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  for Debbie

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to my helpmate, Chris Krohn. Thanks as well to Plotbusters and the good folks of the Oregon Writers Network, especially Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. You know why.

  = 1 =

  He came up to my station at the university library desk, eyes green and earnest, and a bolt of lightning shot through me and settled in my abdomen. He was absolutely freaking gorgeous.

  Understand, I am not the starry-eyed type. More the shy, geeky, can’t-get-a-date type. In fact, my parents are already despairing (loudly) that they will never have grandchildren.

  It’s not that I don’t like guys, it’s just that I’m picky—maybe unrealistically so. But this guy was so exactly my type, it was scary.

  High cheekbones, skin fair and smooth with the slightest golden tinge. His eyes, as they held my gaze, seemed to shimmer from deep green to gold-green. His voice was soft and had a slight lilt to it, as if he might be foreign, though he spoke perfectly.

  “Can you help me find this book?”

  I didn’t want to look away from his face, but he was holding the note out to me. I took it and glanced down.

  The handwriting was graceful, not your usual undergraduate’s scrawl. The book was one I’d never heard of, but the call number told the tale. I offered the note back.

  “It’s in the Kathryn Wesley Collection, in the west hall. They’ll need your student I.D. and one other form of identification, and you’ll have to use it in the library, you can’t check it out.”

  Listening to myself, I sounded like a some awful character in a TV drama—the hide-bound librarian. What I was really thinking was if I offered to buy him a drink, would he laugh? A soda, of course. I wasn’t twenty-one yet. Counting the 116 days left.

  He was frowning again, staring at the note in his long fingers. Pale pink paper with the words of some forgotten flyer on the back.

  “I don’t have a student I.D.”

  Irrational disappointment went through me. Not a student, harder to connect with. He didn’t look any older than me, but I wasn’t a good judge of age. I saw my fantasy receding. No surprise.

  I put on my cheery librarian smile. “Do you have a Community Borrower’s card?”

  He shook his head, looking troubled. My chance to be a hero, a little bit. I pulled an application form from one of the slots under the counter and laid it down facing him.

  “It’s twenty dollars a semester. Fill this out and turn it in with your payment and you should get the card within a week.”

  His frown deepened as he scanned the form. He looked up at me, and again I felt like I’d been sucker-punched.

  “I cannot wait a week. May I not see the book today?”

  “I’m sorry, you need either an I.D. or a Borrower’s card to use a rare book.”

  He stood still, frozen in disappointment. I wanted to run get the book and hand it to him, he looked so heartbroken. I watched him breathe three times before he met my gaze again.

  “Please, it is important. Can you not help me?”

  He had spoken in a whisper, but the intensity of it almost turned my legs to jelly. I gulped a breath as a tingling washed slowly through my body from head to foot.

  All attraction aside, this was not a normal reaction. I leaned the heels of my hands on the counter, wondering if he had pulled some kind of hypnotic trick on me, but if so he didn’t press the advantage. He simply waited, watching me with those amazing eyes.

  I swallowed and answered quietly. “Well, I could request the book. You could come with me and look at it, but it would have to be after I get off work.”

  “When is that?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “Then I will return at four o’clock. I should come here?”

  “I’ll meet you over by the history display.”

  I nodded toward the alcove a few yards along the building from the main desk. He followed my gaze to the glass-encased artifacts and images, currently depicting the history of the Rio Grande, then looked back at me and smiled like the sun rising. I swear I could almost hear birds singing.

  “Thank you.” He gave an odd little nod, almost a bow, and headed for the front doors.

  “Hey, what’s your … name.”

  I hadn’t been fast enough, and I couldn’t raise my voice in the library. His long, graceful strides took him through the metal detectors and the glass doors and out into the autumn sunshine. I just had time to register that his backpack was unusual—soft leather with fringe on the flap and a leather string lashed around a large blue bead instead of a buckle—and that the sun lit his long, russet ponytail almost to red, before he was out of sight.

  Amanda, working the next station over, said softly, “Wow, Len.”

  “Yeah,” I answered shakily.

  “Who was he? I had a customer so I couldn’t listen in.”

  “I don’t know. Not a student.”

  She pushed up her glasses, gazing out the front doors. “Maybe he’s an actor. There are lots of movie crews in town.”

  “Maybe.”

  Someone came up to my station with a stack of renewals, ending the conversation. Amanda might well be right, I thought as I processed the books. Our current governor liked Hollywood people and had arranged for lots of incentives for movie companies who shot on location in the state, so it was hard to get around Albuquerque without tripping over a film crew these days.

  And an actor might have the kind of charisma that had just bowled me over. My pulse sped up again as I recalled the few moments he’d been in front of me. I closed my eyes, remembering his face, his voice. My heart did a slow flip as I realized I was going to see him again in just a few hours.

  “Everything all right, Miss Lenore?”

  I flinched back, opening my eyes. Dave Wharton, my supervisor, had come up beside me and I had been so damn preoccupied I hadn’t heard him. The antithesis of my ideal, Dave was stocky, hairy just about everywhere I could see and I’m sure in places I didn’t want to imagine, and full of himself.

  “Everything’s fine.” I grabbed the unused application and put it back in the slot, though for an insane moment I wanted to keep it.

  “What did Pretty Boy want?”

  “Looking for a book, but it’s in special collections.”

  Stupid! Too much information. I was giving things away and I shouldn’t. If Dave got too nosy and felt like interfering, he could prevent me from keeping my promise to the gorgeous guy.

  Technically I shouldn’t have offered to give that guy access to the book, though it wasn’t specifically against the rules to do what I’d suggested. Stretching them, yes.

  I ran through the renewal records I’d just updated on my screen, for the sake of looking busy. Dave watched for a minute, then went away. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  For the next three hours I tried unsuccessfully to keep from checking the time. I knew it was hopeless to try not to think about the gorgeous stranger with whom I had made a date, albeit a really tame one. I replayed my few
minutes with him over and over in my mind, savoring every impression.

  Yes, I am obsessive, and probably too romantically inclined, especially for a wallflower. Guys who fit my taste for pretty men (clean-shaven, thank you, and more sleek than muscle-bound) aren’t all that common, and are usually taken by the time I notice them, if they’re not gay. They don’t often notice me back, either. I’m nothing extraordinary, and I’m shy with strangers, so that’s two strikes in the attract-your-dream game.

  I wished I’d written down the title of the book he wanted. It was in Spanish, and I thought it had something to do with colonists in northern New Mexico, but beyond that I couldn’t remember. We had lots of books that fit that description.

  To pass the slow times during the afternoon, I surfed the catalog trying to spot the entry. No luck, though I compiled a list of titles that I thought might interest my glorious researcher. Maybe if I was helpful he’d be grateful, inclined to take pity on a poor geek and spend a little time with her.

  By three-thirty I was quietly going nuts with anticipation. Amanda had left at two, and the only other person who had seen my researcher was Dave, so I had no one to talk to about him. That was probably for the best, because I was getting too worked up.

  The last five minutes of the hour I was useless. Kept staring at the doors, watching for him, terrified he might come and go before I could clock out and go to meet him.

  I should have told him five after four. I should have explained that it might take me a few minutes to get to the history display. I—yi yi

  At 3:59 there was no one in line. I logged out, grabbed my pack from under the counter and dashed back to the staff room to punch my time card. Dave was pouring end-of-the-day coffee into his mug, and glanced up at me.

  “See you tomorrow, Miss Lenore.”

  He drawled the words, lingering on my name, trying to piss me off. No way was I going to get into it with him today.

  “Right. Bye.”

  I shouldered my pack and stepped out, forcing myself to walk and not run to the history display. My heart sank when I saw there was no one there.

  Swallowing, I stood in front of a case showing photos of the Rio Grande over time, staring at the pictures without registering them. I should have known better than to get my hopes up. Probably the guy had decided it was too much trouble, or maybe he’d found his book at the city library’s special collections branch. I hadn’t even thought to suggest that. Some help I was.

  “Hello.”

  I jumped. Heart drumming, I turned and saw my dream researcher standing a few feet away, smiling tentatively.

  “Oh! Hi.”

  I laughed, self-conscious and delighted and sure I was blushing. His beauty floored me all over again.

  “I’m Len, by the way,” I said, considering offering a hand, then chickening out and shoving it in my back pocket instead.

  “Len?”

  “It’s short for Lenore. And you?”

  “Caeran.”

  I paused, wondering about the origin of the name. Sounded vaguely Celtic, but I could be wrong.

  He watched me, waiting expectantly. I gestured toward the west hall of the complex.

  “Well, we should go. The Wesley Collection closes at five.”

  He fell in beside me, his nearness making me tingle. I glanced at him as we walked, picking up a few more details to treasure. He wore a loose-weave cotton shirt and trousers—earth-tones—and knee-high moccasins. Very hippie, but not in the sixties throwback sense. The clothes might have been Guatemalan or some other ethnic style, but I couldn’t pinpoint them.

  We got in the west elevator and I punched the button for the third floor. No one joined us, so I had him to myself in a confined space for a few seconds. I was all too official about it, mainly because I was feeling shy.

  “Did you bring your citation?”

  “My what?”

  “Your note with the book title.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  He dug the scrap of paper out of a pocket. I reached for it.

  “I’ll put in the request, and it’ll take them a few minutes to pull the book. Then you’ll have until five to look at it.”

  He nodded, handing over the slip. “Thank you again.”

  “My pleasure.” I smiled, then glanced at the citation. “You speak Spanish?”

  Another nod. He sure wasn’t outgoing, but that was something I could definitely understand. Fighting my own shyness, I kept trying to be friendly.

  “That’ll come in handy if you visit any of the rural areas of the state. If I’m not mistaken, you’re new here, right?”

  “Yes.” He glanced down, his gaze going distant.

  The doors opened and I led him down a short hall to the Wesley Collection’s home, a broad, low-ceilinged space that took up the entire third floor of the library’s west wing. Metal detectors flanked the doors. At the front desk was Barbara Collier, a nice, honey-haired woman who’d helped me with a paper my freshman year.

  “Hi, Barb. Can you rush this one for me?”

  I handed her the slip and pulled a request form toward me, hastily filling it out. Barb glanced at the note, brows rising as she typed the call number into her keyboard.

  “It’s been years since anyone’s requested this. It might have gone upstairs.”

  I signed the form and pushed it toward her along with my ID. She just glanced at my card and handed it back. That was an advantage of my being on the library staff; ordinarily she’d make a copy of the I.D. and the paperwork would take a while. Too bad my guest didn’t know how lucky he was.

  “Go ahead and put your bag away and I’ll pull this. Is this gentleman with you?”

  “Yes, we’re using the book together.”

  “Well, it’s a gloves-on item. You’ll show him the protocol?”

  “Of course. Thanks, Barb.”

  I stepped to the bank of lockers along a nearby wall, pulling some quarters out of my pack before sticking it in an empty locker in the top row. My guest—Caeran, I reminded myself, savoring the name—was gazing at his surroundings.

  “You’ll have to lock up your pack,” I told him. “No pens or anything allowed.”

  He turned a bewildered look on me. I suddenly wondered if he had money issues. He didn’t look homeless—too clean—but nothing about him screamed wealth. A point against his being an actor, though not all actors were rich.

  “We can share, there’s room.”

  I shoved my pack to the back of the locker and invited him to add his. He hesitated, then set the bag inside, watching with a slightly anxious expression as I shut the door and fed in quarters.

  “You can hang onto the key if you like.”

  I held out the key, bulky with its numbered plastic tag. He hesitated, then took it. A shock went through me as his fingertips brushed mine.

  He smiled. “Thank you.”

  Oh, man oh man. I had it bad.

  I led him into the research area, where several large tables were available for using materials from the collection. Two of them were occupied, one by a grad student poring over some ancient maps, another by a faculty member looking through a four inch thick tome. I walked to the counter where a box of clean cotton gloves sat next to a stack of letter-sized paper—goldenrod, so the library staff knew it was from their supply—and a box of sharpened pencils. I poked through the gloves and pulled out a pair, offering them to my guest.

  “See if these fit you.”

  He put the locker key in his pocket and took the gloves, looking doubtful. I chose a pair for myself, and explained.

  “The book’s old. The oils on our skin could damage the paper. We have to wear these when we’re handling it.”

  Caeran nodded. “I see.”

  I picked up a few sheets of the goldenrod and a couple of pencils. “You’ll want to take notes, I assume?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll use these, and of course we try not to mark on the book. OK, then. We’re all set. Choose a table.�
�

  For a long moment he stood still, apparently giving the selection serious consideration. Finally he moved toward the table farthest from the entrance, and took a seat from which he had an oblique view of the door and the front desk. I sat down next to him, since the tables were too wide to work across. I kept a couple of sheets of the paper and placed the rest in front of Caeran.

  Lull time. Quick, think of something to say! As usual, this demand froze my brain.

  I swallowed, deciding not to ask him if he was an actor. I’d already tried “you’re new here” with poor response, and “so what’s the hurry to see this book?” seemed rude.

  “What brought you to New Mexico?” I blurted, sotto voce for the sake of the other patrons.

  “An airplane,” he answered softly.

  “Ha, ha. I mean why did you come here? Were you here for the balloon fiesta?”

  He frowned slightly, then shook his head. “W-we wanted to see the trees. Aspens.”

  “Oh, yeah. I love them, too. You’re here at the right time, they’re just turning. If you want a guide or anything … there’s also one valley of maple trees in the Manzanos, if you like those.”

  He answered with a polite smile. I had a feeling I was striking out.

  “So, you’re here with friends?”

  “Family.”

  “Ah.”

  While I was struggling to come up with another question, Barbara appeared with the book. It was smallish, bound in leather that was starting to crack with age. I couldn’t quite read the title on the spine. She laid a blotter-sized sheet of white paper on the table in front of us, pushing the goldenrod out of the way, and tenderly set the book on top of it.

  “There you go,” she said in hushed, slightly reverent tones, her gaze flicking to Caeran’s gloved hands. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks, Barb!” I whispered as she went back to the front desk.