by Martha Carr
Slinging her backpack over one shoulder, Cheyenne closed the driver’s side door and breathed in the September air. Purple asters planted in the front garden kept their bright blossoms all the way through October. Birds chirped, a few of them having roosted in the awning above the doorway, and the breeze rustling through the trees was still warm enough to be pleasant.
Home. It feels a lot more like an escape now.
She headed up the curved steps and pressed the doorbell. Five seconds later, the door opened, and she was looking into the smiling face of Bianca Summerlin’s housekeeper.
“Cheyenne!” The woman grinned and opened the door even wider. “So good to see you.”
“Hey, Eleanor.”
Eleanor wrapped Cheyenne in a crushing embrace. The woman had been running her mother’s household for as long as the halfling could remember. She tried not to wheeze under the pressure of Eleanor’s bear hug, and she smiled when the woman released her and held her by the shoulders at arm’s length. “You look beautiful. New workout routine or something?”
“Oh, stop.”
Eleanor gave her employer’s daughter a playful slap on the arm. “You haven’t been away long enough for either of us to have changed that much.”
The door shut with a soft click, cutting out the rustling leaves and the chirping birds outside. The huge, empty house was way too quiet.
“She’s waiting for you on the back veranda. Can I take your bag?”
Cheyenne squeezed Eleanor’s arm and shook her head. “I’m gonna keep it with me. You joining us for cocktail hour, or does she have you running around doing more important things?”
The older woman pursed her lips and tried to look stern. It hadn’t worked when Cheyenne was a kid, and it didn’t work now. “Is that an invitation?”
“From me, yeah.”
“Oh, she’s already invited me too. I’ll be tidying up a few more things, but if you’re still here when I’m finished, maybe I’ll bring up an extra bottle from the cellar.”
That brought a chuckle from them both, and Cheyenne stepped across the foyer to move through the massive, decorated living room toward the back of the house. “And an extra glass, right?”
“That’s what I said.” Laughing, Eleanor went in the opposite direction.
The woman had already put dinner on in the kitchen, which Cheyenne passed without stopping to snoop around. She hadn’t quite gotten used to smelling every single ingredient in a meal, but she knew enough about how her heightened senses worked to distract herself from the instant growl of her stomach.
Eleanor’s cooking hasn’t changed a bit. Smells like heaven.
The sliding glass doors onto the ground floor’s back veranda were wide open, the sheer curtains pulled aside. Cheyenne had always thought her mom left those curtains hanging like that to create the billowy effect when the breeze rolled in from the north. It added to the perception of heading toward some huge expanse beyond the curtains, like a theatrical gateway one must pass to get to Bianca Summerlin on the other side.
Cheyenne brushed past the billowing fabric and slipped out onto the veranda. She pulled her backpack off her shoulder and set it on the stone outside the sliding doors.
Bianca stood at the edge of the veranda, her forearms resting on the banister railing as she stared over the open valley and the acres of arable land that hadn’t been farmed for decades. The woman’s dark, wavy hair fluttered away from her face in the breeze, which was just strong enough to intensify her expression of deep consideration.
Cheyenne stopped a few feet away. “George still does a great job with the lawn.”
Her mom stiffened, which was as close as Bianca got to being startled, then turned. A soft smile bloomed on her face. “Doesn’t he? You know, I heard somewhere it was impossible for children to sneak up on their mothers.”
“I think we outgrew that a long time ago.” Cheyenne joined her mom at the railing and stepped into Bianca’s arms.
Her mom smelled like vanilla and sandalwood, which was a masculine scent on its own but more powerful and feminine than any floral perfume. Just when she wears it.
When Bianca released her daughter, she ran her hands down Cheyenne’s arms, then tucked a bit of black hair behind Cheyenne’s ear. “I’m glad you stopped by. I still wish you’d come visit more often. Or at least come spend a few weeks out here during the summer.”
“Maybe when I’m done with school.” Cheyenne squeezed her mom’s hand and released it.
“For the year or when you finish your Masters?”
“I don’t know.” Looking out over the valley lined by the thick West Virginian woods, Cheyenne leaned against the banister and echoed her mom’s stance. “I’ve been thinking about all this out here a lot more. How quiet it is.”
How it gets me to not be a crazed drow who can’t pick up her normal human form without it.
“Hmm. I can’t imagine what it would be like to leave this now and head back into the city. I remember it being…hectic.”
Cheyenne’s little stint at the gas station the night before ran through her head, and she snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“I’m sure things have changed since I stopped being a city girl.” Bianca chuckled and turned around to face the sliding doors. “Eleanor should be up with our—oh. I swear, it’s like you can read my mind.”
Grinning, Eleanor stepped out onto the veranda with a tray in one hand. “I should be able to after twenty-five years, don’t you think?” She’d arrived with empty glasses, a corkscrew, an empty decanter, an artisan charcuterie plate, and a bottle of red wine. She set these down on the patio table to the left and nodded. “I’ll leave you to it. There’s salmon and braised asparagus for dinner. Should be ready soon.”
“Thank you.” Bianca wiggled her eyebrows at her daughter and headed toward the table. “Bring an extra glass and come sit with us when you’re finished.”
Eleanor paused at the sliding glass doors and turned halfway around with a coy smile.
“And another bottle of wine,” Cheyenne added.
“I’ll plan on it.” Grinning, the housekeeper hurried back inside, her shadow passing across the long wall of windows onto the veranda before she disappeared into the kitchen.
“Eleanor’s become my secret weapon.” Bianca sat in the chair facing the gorgeous view and picked up both the wine and the corkscrew.
“I’d love to hear how.” Cheyenne stared at her mom, who focused on opening the bottle with a little pop.
She’s stalling. Great.
“Any time I have a face-to-face meeting that’s leaning toward the stagnant side, I have Eleanor sit with me for a minute or two. She’s skilled at loosening up the conversation in the most unexpected ways.”
Cheyenne sat beside her mom and leaned her forearms onto the patio table, interlacing her fingers. “Like the time she asked Senator Carradine about his sex life?”
Bianca snorted. “You heard that one, huh?”
When she turned to look at her daughter, Bianca’s gaze dropped to Cheyenne’s elbows and forearms on the table. That was all it took—one look with no change of expression or verbal reminder—and Cheyenne drew her hands into her lap.
Wow. Even moving away didn’t change how much she groomed me with etiquette. “Yeah. I stopped right inside the door behind you and listened to the whole thing.”
“That was…” Bianca closed her eyes in thought before pouring the wine into the decanter. “Six? Seven years ago?”
“I think I was thirteen.”
“Right. The first of the teenage years. You heard everything back then.”
“Not on purpose. Most of the time.”
When they exchanged glances, both Summerlin women broke out into light, silent chuckles. Cheyenne glanced down at her folded hands in her lap, interlaced with the shadow of the patio table’s iron mesh.
It’s funny to laugh about now. My super-human hearing. Or non-human. She wouldn’t be smiling about that if we hadn�
�t started this conversation with small talk.
“Mom, I know we haven’t—”
“I’m sorry.” Bianca lifted a hand to stop her daughter, then pointed at the charcuterie plate and the wine. “I know we set this up to talk about one thing in particular, and we will. Let’s at least wait until the wine’s breathed, and we both have a glass of it in our hands, hmm?”
That’s not good. Cheyenne plastered a smile across her face and nodded. “Sure. We can wait for the wine. No problem.”
“Excellent.” Her mom shot her a knowing glance, then pulled the charcuterie plate closer and got to work stacking bites of brie and summer sausage on a cracker that looked more like birdseed dried into a square.
Cheyenne sighed and helped herself to the same. She’ll be a lot easier to have this conversation with if she’s wined and at least a little dined first. I’m not the first person to think this.
She ate the first stacked snack and built another, spreading stoneground mustard all over it. “How’re things going up here?”
Bianca dabbed the corner of her mouth with a finger, still chewing. “Smoothly. A lot more activity, oddly enough. Much higher demand for consultations in the last month or so with the elections coming up so soon. Honestly, I expected a few…individuals to have come to me sooner when I saw the debates. Everyone’s a procrastinator these days.”
Including you, Mom. Cheyenne tilted her head in feigned interest, just like her mother had taught her. ‘Doesn’t matter if you care about what’s being said, Cheyenne. The important thing is that you look like you care. Very much.’
Cheyenne had found that advice was unnecessary outside of politics and social engagements of the caliber Bianca Summerlin attended or hosted. It worked very well here.
I wonder if she can even tell?
After listening to her mom talk vague circles around the various political figures who’d sought her opinion on this or that sensitive subject, Bianca delivered a courteous sigh and grabbed the decanter. “Thank you for at least pretending to be interested in all that. I know it’s hard to focus on anything else.”
“Pour the wine, Mom.”
Bianca dipped her head, her eyes widening in preparation for the conversation they both knew was coming. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bianca lowered the wineglass and closed her eyes in appreciation. “Did you see what year this is?”
Cheyenne licked her lips and reached for the empty bottle, turning it until the label faced her. “Mom.”
“I have a crate of half a dozen, and this is the first one I’ve opened. Excellent aging.”
“This bottle’s as old as I am.” Cheyenne picked up her glass and tried not to gulp it down.
“The occasion called for it.” Her mother gave a dismissive wave, then lifted her wine glass and took a long sip.
“If you say so.”
“Come on, Cheyenne. I’ve been putting this off for twenty-one years, and you’ve found something that makes it impossible to do so any longer.” Bianca smirked into her glass, her voice echoing through the fine crystal when she added, “At least let me endure the experience with as much dignity and refinement as possible.”
The half-drow clicked her tongue. “You’re so dramatic.”
“I’ve earned that right.” The wine glass clinked onto the table, and Bianca twirled it by the stem as she turned to meet her daughter’s gaze. “So, what did you find?”
“Something I wasn’t supposed to, I’m guessing.”
“Hmm, you don’t say?”
Cheyenne took another drink. “How much do you know about the other…races of people out here?”
“Very little, Cheyenne.”
“But more than you’re saying, right?” Cheyenne stared at the well-aged wine streaking the inside of her glass. “Because you’d have to know something if your name’s in a document about a maximum-security prison for magicals.”
Her mom’s eyes widened. “I haven’t seen that document.”
“Obviously. There was an addendum about Operation FRoE and initiating some kind of new system.”
“What did it say about me?”
“The addendum? Nothing.” Cheyenne shook her head. “But the original report mentioned an escaped convict. D-class? And suspected interaction between B. Summerlin and Inmate 4872.”
Bianca’s gaze fell to the iron tabletop and stayed there as she took another long sip of wine. “Did this report have a date?”
“January third—”
“Two thousand. Of course.” Bianca’s mouth twitched in recognition and memory at the same time. “Then, yes. That would be about me.”
“About you and Inmate 4872.” Cheyenne leaned back in her chair and studied the lack of emotion on her mom’s face. So many years spent hiding her emotional responses from the rest of the world had made Bianca Summerlin a difficult woman to read. Even for her daughter.
Come on, Mom. Don’t make me ask the question.
“That’s what they called him, I assume. In that prison you mentioned.”
“Is it really called Chateau D’rahl?”
Bianca snorted. “I doubt it. Those people are very fond of their codenames.”
“Like Inmate 4872.”
“When I met him, Cheyenne, he told me his name was Leon.”
Cheyenne swallowed, drank more wine, and couldn’t look at her mom anymore. No wonder she didn’t want to talk about this. It’s like she lobotomized herself to anything related to the man. “Is that his name?”
For a few seconds, her mom didn’t respond. Then, the woman blinked and tipped her head back to look at the rolling hillside behind the lodge that used to be home to both of them. Maybe it still was, but Cheyenne couldn’t let herself go there right now.
“Mom?”
“I don’t know. That’s the full truth.” Bianca turned toward her daughter and lifted her shoulders in a weak shrug as if she’d lost all her energy and couldn’t move more than that. “I have no idea if what that man told me was real. I don’t know where he came from or who he was before that night. I’m not sure I want to know.”
“But you know something.” The halfling set both hands in her lap and stared at her mom. Just say it. For once, don’t make me lance the truth out of you.
“Yes. I know he’s your father, Cheyenne. Leon Verdys or Inmate 4872 or whatever other name he might have used or might still use today.”
Cheyenne folded her arms, then unfolded them and ended up pressing both hands to her mouth. Now we’re getting somewhere. For real this time.
“Okay.” She nodded and stared at the empty wine bottle. “So, you slept with a convicted drow felon doing time in a max-security prison for non-human criminals. And then you had me.”
“And then I had you.” Bianca closed her eyes. “You didn’t learn that from me.”
“What?”
“The art of simplifying the most complicated things. I haven’t mastered that skill, Cheyenne.” When the woman opened her eyes, she reached for the wineglass and raised it to her lips. “I will say there’s a certain satisfaction in just saying it like it is.”
Instead of taking a sip, Bianca laughed and raised her glass in a toast to an invisible someone across the table. She chuckled and kept drinking.
“I know it’s not that simple, Mom. And I know it made things a lot more complicated for you.”
“And we did our best with what we had, didn’t we?” Bianca smiled at her daughter and seemed to return to herself. “I’d say our best was pretty damn good.”
Cheyenne gave a wry chuckle. “Not gonna argue with you on that one.”
They sat there on the veranda, sipping the wine as old as Bianca Summerlin’s half-drow daughter and watching the sky morph into shades of orange and pink as the sun set.
“Okay, so that brings up another question.”
“Of course, it does.”
“Did you…” Cheyenne cocked her head, trying to imagine how in the
world this scenario had played out twenty-one years ago. “Did you have any idea he wasn’t…I mean—”
“That he wasn’t human?” Bianca’s laughter didn’t lack in bitterness or cynicism, yet there was some fondness in it too. “Cheyenne, I met your father at a New Year’s Eve party with some of Washington’s highest-ranking officials. He was handsome, don’t get me wrong. Mysterious. Calm and somehow gravely intense and…well, he caught my attention. I hadn’t let my guard down like that since my freshman year of college.”
“You were drunk.” Cheyenne pressed her lips together, fighting not to laugh.
It’s not funny. Except because the one time in a million Mom gets drunk enough to have fun, she gets into bed with a drow and gets knocked up just like that.
“Yes. I was drunk. Have a good laugh about it, my love. This might be the only time you’ll get away with it.”
“I’m not laughing.” Bianca’s daughter hid her smile in another sip of wine.
“For the record, I hadn’t had so much to drink I wasn’t completely aware of what I was doing. Lowered inhibitions don’t equal heightened ignorance or a complete lack of clarity and judgment.”
“See, that’s the mother-daughter speech not everyone gets.” Cheyenne smirked and watched for her mom’s reaction, which had eased out of the already low levels of amusement and now looked much more like regret. “I’m not judging you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried about that, Cheyenne. If you were to judge me for anything, a few too many glasses of champagne would be the least of it, and we both know that.”
They fell silent, and that silence inched its way under the half-drow’s skin until she couldn’t help but break it. “But did you know?”
“Some part of me did, I’m sure. I buried that for so long until the day I—well, when he approached me at that party, I knew there was something different about him. He shook my hand, and there was this…” Bianca glanced down at her hand and blinked. “It felt like destiny.”