by Manning
“To die for.”
His smile returned in full force, making her tummy jump. “Told you so.”
They gabbed for a bit about harmless stuff: hobbies, movies, books. Gaelen waved over the waiter for refills for their drinks, and another plate of Stroganoff for himself. Annabelle refused—she was still working on her first—but enjoyed watching him enjoy.
It was so ... restful. Annabelle hadn't been so comfortable with someone in a long time. Maybe never.
“What do you do?” he asked around a forkful of his second plate of Stroganoff.
So much for being comfortable. The noodles coated in savory sauce may as well have turned to shredded newspaper soaked in mud. Annabelle was disappointed in herself to be suddenly hesitant to reveal her line of work to a man who held an advanced degree in Classical Literature. She wasn't ashamed of her job. Exactly. It just suddenly seemed so unimportant, so stupid.
“So, what do you do?” he asked again.
Why bother hiding it? she wondered. I'll never see him again once Erin is better and I can go back to New York.
“I'm a journalist.”
Leaning slightly forward, with an expectant expression, he clearly wanted more.
“I write for The Weekly Investigator.”
His reaction wasn't exactly what she'd expected.
For the space of an instant, he stared, his mouth hanging open. Then a flicker of sublime amusement crossed his handsome face. Followed by a hoot of unrestrained laughter.
“Oh, Bridget!” he snorted, rocking in his chair and slapping his leg.
Heads turned in the fancy establishment, causing a tide of heat to rise in Annabelle's face.
Not only embarrassed at the attention he was drawing to them, but furious that he'd laugh at her, she tossed her napkin on the table and stood up with as much dignity as she could manage.
He grabbed her hand, holding her beside the table.
“No, please. Don't leave,” he wheezed between snorts.
“Don't leave? Why on earth would I stay here to be laughed at?”
“Oh, no, no. I'm not laughing at you, I promise,” he sputtered. He drew a deep breath and added, “Please, sit down. Please? I swear, Annabelle, I'm not laughing at you.”
“Then please share with me what's so darned funny?”
Shrugging his broad shoulders, he smothered another outburst.
“Let's just say, you reminded me of something else.”
His strong fingers held her arm in a tight grasp, so unless she wanted to make more of a spectacle of them than he'd already done, she had to sit as he asked.
“Besides,” he said, “you wouldn't want to miss dessert, would you?”
Just at that moment, as though conjured by his words, the waiter appeared with cheesecake and coffee.
“The cheesecake here is the best in the whole world.”
“You've tried them all?” she asked, skeptical.
“I've tried enough to know the best when I get it.” He took a bite and asked around it, “Tell me about your job.”
“What do you want to know? I make up stories for a supermarket tabloid.”
His eyes flew wide. “You mean they're not true?” he asked, with perfect sincerity.
In spite of her irritation with him, she had to laugh.
“'Fraid not. After all, it's hard to get aliens to submit to an interview.”
“How did you get the job?”
“It was a mistake. I answered an ad in The New York Times for a newspaper journalist. I was so naïve, I figured, why wouldn't The New York Times advertise in their own classifieds for a reporter? I almost didn't take it when I found out, but I was fresh out of school, and I needed a job.”
“But it isn't journalism?” It was a question.
“No. But then it turned out journalism isn't really my thing, anyway.”
“What kind of stories do you write?”
“I am a specialist in paranormal phenomena, aliens, UFOs, psychics, potatoes that look like Elvis.”
“All fake?”
“All fake.”
“Do you like it? Is it what you want to do?”
Was he really interested? Should she really tell him?
Annabelle shrugged and picked at her cheesecake. “It's close enough, I suppose, fiction of a kind. I really want to write children's books. The bane of being exposed too early to Peter Pan.”
“Peter Pan. Let me guess. You always wanted to be Wendy?”
“No, Tinkerbell. She could fly.”
Gaelen narrowed his eyes and smiled, then chuckled. “Tinkerbell,” he whispered gently.
“Didn't you ever want to be some fantastic creature?”
He laughed, a soft soothing sound. “No, I've only ever wanted to be a mortal man.”
“Even when you were a boy?”
“Even then.”
A chuckle escaped her. “Why don't I believe that?”
An expression crossed his face, one of fear. He quickly masked it, but Annabelle was sure she'd seen it.
“What don't you believe?” he asked, his voice strained.
“That you only wanted to be mortal. Where's the fun in that?” She raised her fork to her mouth, noticing only as she closed her lips around the tines that he was watching her intently. The cheesecake went down like gravel. “I mean, Peter had ever so much more fun.”
“There's fun to be had in living and working. In doing something you love and producing something that will show the world you were here. That you really existed.”
“Isn't it enough to exist?” she asked. “Why do you have to prove anything?”
Gaelen smiled, “Maybe because....” He puffed a chuckle. “I guess it must be a man thing. Live, work, die.” He scraped at the crumbs on his plate. “Maybe it's a fear that I could disappear and no one would ever know I'd been here.”
Annabelle could hear there was more to his fear than just not accomplishing anything in his life.
“But, Gaelen, you are. You don't need anybody's belief to make it so.”
“That is a comforting thought. I'll have to put it to the test sometime.”
His words carried a heavy dose of irony. Anxious to put him at ease again, she asked about the subject obviously closest to his heart.
“So what exactly does a professor of Celtic Lit do?”
He looked up from his plate. “Sure you want to open up this topic? I'm just a man, dear, and very likely to go on for hours once a beautiful woman shows interest in my work.”
“I'll take the chance,” she replied.
A smile lit his face. “Well, I work in the language department, actually. I pour Old, Middle and Modern Irish into the sponge-like minds of my eager students.” He looked into her eyes to make sure she got his joke. “And I also teach in the Medieval Studies department.”
Well, she'd gotten him started. She'd never had much interest in Ireland, but found herself caught up in his passion for the subject.
“In fact,” he said, stabbing his fork in the air, “if it weren't for Ireland and her monasteries, there would have been no Renaissance. Everything would have been forgotten in the Dark Ages.” He stopped suddenly and smiled, clearly embarrassed. “Sorry. I didn't mean to get carried away.”
“Don't apologize, it's fascinating.”
He smirked a grin. “You're kind. There's nothing more boring than a professor spoutin’ off on his area of study. And nothing less called for during an intimate dinner with a lovely lady.”
He'd done it again. He'd made her the center of discussion. Though she couldn't say she minded how he did it. Charming didn't begin to describe him.
They enjoyed their dessert in a moment or two of silence before he made her reporter's instincts twitch to life again with an entirely innocent question.
“I don't suppose you've heard anything of Lucas?” he asked.
Annabelle chuckled. “Don't you have your brother's phone number, Dr. Riley? Why don't you just call him if you want to talk to him.”
&nbs
p; He smiled, and the effect it had on her wasn't even decent.
“Well, as I said before, Miss Tinker, my brother seems to have forgotten how to return a call.”
He raised his coffee to his lips, sipping slowly.
In the extending silence, Annabelle had to fight the urge to talk. It was a clever reporter's trick, one she'd used herself, and she admired the smooth way he'd done it.
“Why do you keep asking me that question? I assure you, if I'd seen Lucas today, I'd have told you.”
Something flickered across his eyes. Irritation? Humor?
She decided on the latter when his smile returned, and he reached over to her cheesecake, digging his fork in to steal a bite. He shoved it into his mouth and ate it with a sly smile. Lasciviously licking his lips, he raised his coffee and sipped again.
“I suppose you've been too busy caring for your sister to have heard the story circulating about town?” He paused for an instant, as though waiting for an answer. A deep, warm chuckle rumbled from his chest and he went on. “It seems Erin's first story was that my brother had been taken by aliens.”
Annabelle laughed with him, as though it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.
“Aliens? Oh, well....” To hide the fact she had nothing to say, she sat back and sipped her coffee.
“So, do you believe her?”
“What? That Lucas was taken by aliens? Of course not. After all, there are no aliens.”
The arching of his eyebrow, the ghost of a smile, stopped her. “Are you so certain?”
“Are there?” she asked in a whisper.
“Don't you know?” he asked, his voice low, caressing.
“Not for sure.”
She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did know that her answer pleased him.
~*~
Gaelen knew now what drew him to her. She still had a sense of wonder. She still believed, even if she didn't know it. He had already revealed more of himself to her than he ever had before, even to his fairy women.
In spite of the unfortunate factors of her human nature and her occupation, which made her a person to be avoided, he was drawn to her like a moth to a bug-zapper. And it was too bad. He had a feeling Annabelle Tinker was a treasure. Envy scorched a hole through him. Though any human male could have her, she was forbidden to him.
No good dwelling on that. It was a fact and had to be faced and accepted. His more pressing problem was Annabelle's profession. She didn't much care for her job—that much was clear—but still the bills had to be paid. So, she didn't believe Erin's story, but would she use it as a filler in her tabloid, like all the other stories she hadn't believed? Would she even bother changing the names to protect the innocent?
He watched her, and in spite of all his sensible reasons why he should stay away from her, he heard her spirit calling his, all the while knowing she was a risky woman. He risked not only revelation and disbelief, but also violating the laws of his people. Laws put in place to protect both fairy and human.
“Ready to blow this joint?” he asked, surprising himself, as he motioned to the waiter for the check. Leaving too big a tip in his urgency to get going, he took her arm and led her from the restaurant. “Do you mind walking a bit?” he heard himself say, though he'd certainly not meant to delay getting her back home and him out of the reach of her allure.
“Oh, no. It's such a nice evening.”
They left his car in front of The Tea Room and walked down Franklin Street to the place where the campus met the town. They turned on the sidewalk fronting Battle Hall and followed it past Silent Sam, standing his post as he had for almost one hundred years. A breeze swept through the trees covering McCorkle Place. Annabelle chafed her arms.
“Cold? Silly girl to come out on an early spring night with no wrap.” With no thought, Gaelen whisked off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I can't take your—”
“Say thank you, Annabelle.”
She smiled and he wasn't chilly at all. Quite the opposite.
“Thank you, Gaelen.”
“You're very welcome.”
They walked on through the campus, past the Old Well, across Cameron Avenue and toward the library. As they walked, they talked. Gaelen couldn't remember talking so much with a woman about anything, much less something not directly involving him.
But he was enchanted.
“So, this farmer, what was his name?” Annabelle made a concentration frown. “Ah, yes, Oswald McGillicuddy, from just outside of Jamestown, he found one of his cows giving birth in a pasture. But, he claimed this particular cow hadn't been pregnant the night before. When the calf was born, he swore it looked just like E.T., all head and eyes and tentacles. Naturally, we didn't see the calf when we got to the farm. The aliens had abducted it, along with Mr. McGillicuddy's wife, Eloise.”
“I see,” he said, with a smile. “So, what was the strangest story you ever wrote?”
“I haven't yet.” She gazed around in the warm spring evening and drew in a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed. “Do you smell that?” she asked.
“What?” He picked his shirt away from him, frowning.
“Not you,” she laughed, shoving him affably. “The flowers. They're just starting to open.”
Sure enough, they were passing the flowerbeds fronting one of the buildings. Gaelen noted with a start it was Dey Hall. He entered this building every day, and he'd never noticed the flowers.
He hadn't noticed them for a long time.
“Spring is my favorite time of all,” Annabelle was saying. “Full of new life and warm breezes and bees buzzing.”
Her brown eyes sparkled, and her skin glowed. The sense of being drawn to her grew stronger by the second.
“Oh, Gaelen, look!”
He followed her gesture. A black squirrel sat under an ancient oak.
“Isn't he beautiful?”
She walked slowly toward the squirrel. The animal sat still, used to endless streams of people passing his tree.
How many times had he passed this way and not noticed?
He stood behind her as she crouched by the squirrel, whispering and offering him an acorn. And he sensed more. A connection with the world he'd ruthlessly eliminated from his life, a necessary course if he was to manage in the mortal world.
Here in the quad, he felt the soul of every tree, the spirit of every oak reaching out to him, calling him to remember.
You're still a fairy, Gaelen Riley. Remember.
“Come, it's time to take you home.” Had she heard the thread of panic in his voice? It had been loud enough to him. Even desperate as he was to be away from her, safe from the influence of her opening up a part of his life he'd tried to put aside, he also yearned to let her do just that. What a relief it would be to give in and be no more than what he was.
“I suppose it is time,” she replied. “I want to go over to the hospital one more time tonight.”
“Sure,” he said, “I'll drive you over there.”
He couldn't believe he'd made the offer. What was wrong with him? One moment he couldn't get away fast enough. The next, he was making an excuse—and that's all it was, he knew—to stay with her. Her expression was uncertain and her lips parted to protest. He raised his hand. “It's right on the way. I want to,” he said, realizing he really meant it.
She accepted his offer with a smile and they walked back in easy silence to his car, then drove over to the hospital. Gaelen let her out at the front.
“I'll be up in a few minutes,” he said as she got out.
“They might not let you,” she warned. “You're not family.”
“I'll be up.”
~*~
Annabelle watched him pull away, feeling a little abandoned and cold. She forced herself to turn and enter the hospital.
“Keep your mind on Erin,” she told herself, even as she kept wondering if Gaelen would want more than just one dinner date.
Good grief, I only just met the man.<
br />
She shook off her self-ridicule at getting infatuated with a man who was so obviously out of her league. For Pete's sake, he was a professor, a full professor, one with tenure, in a very esoteric field.
I write nonsense for a supermarket rag.
What on earth could two such different people have to talk about?
And yet, they had talked. About lots of things that didn't have anything to do with journalism or Celtic literature. The weather. Books, movies, television. The Tar Heels's chances in the upcoming ACC tournament.
She pushed open the double doors of the psychiatric ward and approached the nurse's desk, absently waving at the nurse who smiled at her.
Erin's door was propped open. Annabelle peeked inside.
Erin lay quietly, eyes closed, her hands resting beside her on the bed. The picture chilled Annabelle somewhat. It was less restful than peaceful—in a final sort of way.
“Hi, sweetie,” Annabelle mumbled as she passed through the door.
“She's sleeping, Ms. Tinker.”
“Oh,” Annabelle gasped and spun around. “Oh, Dr. Duncan. I'm so sorry. I thought Erin would be alone.”
“Just making late rounds.” The doctor picked up the stainless steel patient's chart hanging on the end of Erin's bed and raised the cover. “We had to give her a sedative earlier. She became rather agitated.”
“Agitated? About what?”
“Accusing us of trying to drug her.” A humorless chuckle punctuated the doctor's words. “And, so, we had to drug her.” Duncan shook her head. “It's so terribly sad. But, you can see she's in a very deep sleep. Perhaps you should go home and get some rest.”
The door scraped open behind them as they stared at the poor girl in the bed.
“Annabelle?” Gaelen asked, his voice heavy with concern.
“Dr. Riley,” Duncan said in a clipped tone, “visiting hours are over. You'll have to wait in the lobby.”
“Are you all right, Annabelle?” he asked, ignoring the order.
More than anything, Annabelle wanted to run to him and let him take her into his arms. Of course, there was no reason for her to think he'd want to hold her.
“I'm all right. Would you wait for me, please?”
“Sure.” He glanced over at Dr. Duncan, the first notice he'd made of her. With a slight dip of his head, he said, “Doctor.”