Scented Dreams ((A Dogon-Hunters Series Novel))

by Turner Banks, Jacqueline

  Less than a half hour later, he was surprised by a knock at his door. When he opened it, he was greeted with a sight to behold.

  “Wow, you look great,” he told her.

  “Damn, Hunter, you sound surprised. Was I looking that bad on the job?”

  Ian smiled. “Not at all. I’m sorry if that’s how that sounded.”

  She stepped past him and took a seat on one of the beds. Ian was glad he’d decided to wear the suit Fox had given him instead of something more casual.

  She was wearing a black pants suit with a metallic gray shell. A black and gray scarf was tied and hanging loosely around her long neck. Her long black hair was pulled in a ponytail near the top of her head that hung in big, soft curls. The most noticeable change was her coloring. She looked like she’d gotten some sun since he’d last seen her. He knew that wasn’t likely, though—as a Tracker, he figured she would be sensitive to the sun.

  “It’s a spray-on tan,” she told him before he asked.

  “It looks good on you. I’m ready if you are?” He offered his hand; she took it and rose.

  “You remind me of Wade,” she said as they walked to the elevator.

  “Who’s Wade?”

  “Oh, you don’t know the brother you’re replacing this weekend?”

  “No, I don’t. Do the two of you work together often?”

  “Probably more than Hunters and Trackers in larger cities. He’s a blast to hang with.”

  “Are the two of you close?”

  “No, we don’t sleep together if that’s what you mean. I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve never felt any attraction vibes coming from him. I think he likes his women with a little more melanin showing. Which reminds me, does Keke’s father—it’s still difficult for me to call him Kingsley—know that you’re sleeping with her?”

  They had reached her silver Mercedes S63.

  “Nice ride, Tracker. So was it buy this car or buy a house?” he teased.

  “What do you drive?”

  “I don’t, but I own a Town Car and a Jag.”

  “Then shut up, Hunter! I only have one car, but every male Dogon I know owns at least two, usually many more.”

  “Touché.”

  He felt a little awkward having her open his door for him. He waited until she was seated and strapped in before he answered. “What makes you think I’m sleeping with Nesta?”

  “I smell her on you. I know you showered so I’m not calling you funky, but I’m very sensitive to scents. Smells like the beginnings of love to me, Hunter.”

  Ian grinned. “Does it really? Your nose is that sensitive?”

  “It really is. I’ve never been wrong.”

  He laughed.

  “Okay, laugh at me, Hunter, but have the decency to call me back and tell me I was right when you figure it out.”

  “I promise. So how many times have you smelled love on you?” He could see that they were getting close to the campus, and the traffic had picked up a little. Still it was nothing like it would have been in California, and he could appreciate the difference.

  “Twice in my two hundred and fifty years in North America. I was a fool. I let a good one get away because I was still having too much fun. If I had been smart, I would look twenty years older now and there would be gray in my hair.”

  Ian nodded. He understood wholeheartedly the desire to age. And he understood she was probably talking about Kingsley.

  They drove the rest of the way silently communicating. She brought him up to date on the latest about the rumors of hybrids and Sangsue successfully mating. They all knew the Sangsue been trying to reproduce with humans for years, but it wasn’t possible. Recently a hybrid and Sangsue combination that wasn’t sterile had been discovered.

  “We learned there’s a twelve- year- old girl, and they’re trying to determine if she’s sterile.”

  “How?” he asked. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

  “No, you don’t,” Kitty agreed. “And I don’t want to think about it.”

  She pulled into a parking space. “Ready for a little Gilbert and Sullivan, Hunter?”

  Ian paused in opening his door. “Oh hell, is this a musical?”

  Kitty laughed. “Duh.”

  “That damn Fox!”

  “He said it, not me!” she said into the early evening air.

  Ian remembered the water dumped on his head and spoke out too.“Yeah, Fox, just kidding,” but under his breath his mumbled, “Not.”

  Kitty was walking next to him but playfully moved away when he said “not.” When nothing happened she moved back to his side. With their colors so well coordinated, Ian wondered how they looked together.

  “We look cute; how could we not,” she answered.

  “Stop doing that.”

  “I noticed you don’t listen. What’s up with that?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t need any extra thoughts floating around this head.”

  “I’ve known other Hunters like that. Trackers listen constantly—we need every advantage we can get.” She laughed again.

  “This really is a pretty campus. It must be nice to go to school here,” he said. “What’s this theater like? Is it comfortable, or will I wish I’d bought my doughnut to sit on?”

  “No, baby, VUCA is very nice.”

  “Vaca?”

  “It stands for VU Center of the Arts.”

  “Say my name.” He stopped again and looked her in the eye.

  “What? Isn’t that supposed to come later?” she said seductively. What are you asking?”

  “You’ve called me Hunter, baby, and every other pet name, but you won’t say my name. Have you forgotten it?”

  “I went online and checked you out the first night I met you. I know everything about you, Ian, at least all that’s out there to know.”

  “I’m online?”

  “We all are. About your name, darling, I should have told you when we met: I don’t bother with names because you’re subject to be calling yourself something else the next time I see you. It’s all those damn names that cause me to break down and count the passage of time—and I don’t like to count.”

  “Understood.”

  “For the record, I’ve been Kitty for the last two hundred years.”

  “Fox never told you it was time for a name change?”

  “All the time. I told him I would next time I go to another city. With the Internet now, I guess it’s really possible to create a name trail.”

  They’d reached the box office.

  “I don’t smell a thing; what about you?” Kitty asked once inside.

  “Just a lot of well-scrubbed Ketier.”

  “I’ll go left, you go right and we’ll meet at our seats.”

  Ian carefully perused the crowd. It was one of the most benign groups of people he’d ever encountered. It’s not right to waste a Hunter’s time, Fox.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nesta figured it was a good thing the car knew the way to her parents’ Winnetka home roughly seventy miles away. When she pulled into the long driveway, she realized she had very little memory of the actual drive. She vaguely remembered getting on the Skyway and her exit on the Edens Expressway, but not much beyond that. Traffic had been light, and the ride in the company car was always comfortable, but it scared her to think about what she might have missed by being so distracted. Ian had dominated her thoughts.

  During the first half of the drive, she relived their time together. Without him there to distract her, she evaluated every word, every gesture and especially every touch. The weekend had been good, maybe her best ever—certainly the best as an adult. But it can’t last, she told herself. Everybody knows long distance relationships don’t work. A man that lusty needs a woman nearby, she repeated to herself during the second half of her drive.

  She smiled as she often did when she looked at the two- story colonial that could easily be called sprawling. There were bigger homes in their subdivision and even on their street
, Pine Street, but she didn’t think any of them were nicer. Whenever her parents made noises about down-sizing from the five bedrooms and three and two half baths, she would pull out every spoiled child’s trick possible, up to and including holding her hands over her ears and singing “la-la-la” as loudly as possible. Her thought being if she couldn’t hear them saying it, it could never happen. She knew it was ultimately their decision and she wouldn’t be with them forever, but she had visions of bringing their grandchildren to visit them in her childhood home.

  She was surprised to see her father’s car wasn’t there. Her mother’s car was in its usual spot, but she rarely drove herself anymore. I’ve got to remember to ask her if she’ll switch cars with me, she reminded herself. Nesta had realized months earlier that her car’s transmission was slipping. It was five years old when she bought it, and she’d had it five years. There was no way she was going to replace a transmission. Her mother’s two-year-old BMW had less than ten thousand miles, and Nesta figured it wouldn’t get another ten thousand in the garage.

  She entered the house through the kitchen. The house was quiet, another hint that her father wasn’t home. Lately he would have the television on so loud she could hear it immediately upon entering the house. Half the time she would find him in his study asleep in front of it.

  Her champion was seated on a bar stool at the kitchen’s butcher block island. It was where they used to sit to play her games when she was a little girl. Her mother’s kitchen was the Avery family hub, and the island was the center of everything. It was a huge, well-lit kitchen, and her mother even had a small color television mounted under one of the cabinets that was usually on but muted.

  His back was to her, but she knew she couldn’t truly surprise him. When she was four and going through her “boo” stage, she would sneak up behind him and shout “boo.” Each time he would pretend to faint from fright and she would double over in laughter, but as she got older she came to realize that he had remarkable hearing. He’d been humoring the four- year-old Nesta.

  “I know you heard me pull up, Uncle. For all I know you heard me enter the subdivision.”

  He turned around with his Nesta smile already on his face. He opened his arms, and she rushed to him. She rubbed her cheek against his. He had the softest skin in the world, and she loved to rub it. Although she’d seen him several times since, it had been at least two years since the last time she did that. It surprised her as much as him when she started crying as soon as their cheeks touched.

  He froze for a moment and listened. He pulled her back to look at her face. “What is it, baby?

  Why are you crying?” He took a deep breath and waited for her answer. He didn’t want to speculate. He couldn’t afford to think he understood. Ian couldn’t afford it either.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

  He smiled. “Who’s fault is that?” He used his regular speaking voice. Whenever they were alone together, he spoke to her in the voice others rarely heard. He knew he could never hurt her.

  She grabbed a paper towel before pulling up a stool next to his. “I know it’s my fault. I’ve been busy.” She wiped her face and sat down.

  “I know you have.” His voice was gentle, smoothing. “That’s why I told both of your parents I wanted to see you this time.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “Wow, you’re cutting right to the chase, aren’t you? Can’t we spend some time catching up?” He sounded hurt.

  “Of course we can, but my parents have me freaked out about this visit.”

  His head tilted in an expression she called his “confused puppy look..” It was the look he used to give her when she tried to tell him a story but couldn’t stop laughing long enough to get it out.

  “Freaked out about seeing me, why?”

  “They think you want to recruit me.”

  He looked her in the eyes and waited. He loved the way her mind worked;, he rarely jumped ahead to read her thoughts. “Recruit-you-for-what?” he said while motioning with his hands for her to come out with her words.

  “They kept calling it the Service.” She saw a flash of panic sweep his face. It was the first time in years she’d seen her uncle Ogo lose his cool.

  “What?” He stood. “What have they been telling you?” He sensed that he’d frightened her. He sat down again. “It’s okay, just tell me what they told you,” he said more softly.

  She spent the next fifteen minutes telling him about her weekend, leaving out everything about Ian except the occasional mentioning of her “client.” “What does it all mean, Uncle? It was so crazy I pushed what they said to the back of my mind. I decided I would just wait and ask you about it. You’ve always told me the truth.”

  He took her nearest hand and held it flat in his right palm while he rubbed the top with his left hand. He examined the hand that had once been so small, but was now almost as large as his.

  “I have always told you the truth, but I haven’t always told you everything.”

  “I was a kid.”

  “Exactly, but I’ve wanted to tell you who I am for a while now. But I know it will change our relationship.”

  “I won’t love you any less.”

  His voice caught in his throat and cracked when again he spoke. “I hope that’s true. What do you order when you go out with your friends? I mean what is your drink?”

  The question surprised her. “I’m not much of a drinker, but I kind of like those apple martinis.”

  “Have you ever had one from The Martini Bar at Millennium Knickerbocker? It’s on East Walton Street?”

  “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there.”

  “Try it—there’s one on the counter behind you.”

  She smiled, not really expecting to see an apple martini on the counter behind her, but glancing back and finding one there. She lifted slightly off the stool and reached for it. When she turned back, he had a tulip-shaped glass with an amber liquid and a single ice cube in his hand. Over the years she’d heard her father tell her mother’s family that the only bottle in the house off limits to them was Ogo’s cognac.

  “How did you do that?” It wasn’t the first time he’d demonstrated what she called his magic, but it was the most blatant display. She was more accustomed to him pulling quarters or large pieces of fruit from her ear.

  “I’m unlike anybody you’ve ever met.” He popped the ice cube away.

  She nodded. He noticed that her eyes were big and she wasn’t blinking.

  “We never wanted to deceive you. We just wanted you to have a normal childhood.”

  She nodded. As normal as any little black girl living in a million-dollar home can have, she said sarcastically to herself.

  He smiled. She sensed that he’d heard her.

  “I did hear you, Nesta.”

  She jumped up, her heart racing. “You’re scaring me!”

  He whispered, “I know I am. It can’t be helped. Please, sit down and enjoy your drink. As you sip it you’ll become more relaxed and able to accept what I’m telling you. By the time you get to the end of it, you’ll be more relaxed, comfortable, calmer than you’ve ever been and completely unhampered by the alcohol.”

  She giggled. “That was a weird thing to say. It was almost like you were trying to hypnotize me.”

  “Almost like that, was it?”

  She giggled again and took another sip. “This is really a good martini.”

  He couldn’t help but smile when she smiled. “Do you remember when I used to blow in your face?”

  She nodded. “It always made me laugh.”

  “It was the first thing I did each time I saw you. That was when I would suggest you see me as you needed to see me. By the time you were nine it was no longer necessary. By then you saw what you thought you should. It’s much more difficult to fool a youngster.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t know what he was saying. But whatever it was, it was fine with her.

&n
bsp; “I’m going to suck in my breath right now, and you’re going to see me as most others do.”

  He sucked in a breath.

  She watched his face change like time lapse photography in reverse. “Uncle, you’re getting younger.” She took another sip and relaxed a little more. “You look my age; damn, Uncle Ogo, you’re hot,” she said casually.

  He smiled. It was the first time she’d cursed in front of him.

  “What’s going to happen to my pictures?” she asked.