Just Believe (13 page)

"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 certain how she knew, but
she did know that her answer pleased him.

* * * *

Gaelen understood 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 might 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 nothing but that bit of finery to warm
you." With no thought, Gaelen whisked off his jacket and wrapped it
around her shoulders. The chill seeped through his shirt sleeves
into his bones.

"I can't take your--"

"Say thank you, Annabelle."

She smiled and he suddenly he wasn't
chilly anymore. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"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 concentrated 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, is
that the strangest story you ever wrote?"

"So far. But I'm sure I'll come up with
stranger." 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.

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.

"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."

He closed the door. Annabelle listened
to the fading sound of his footsteps, feeling more alone than she
could ever remember.

"So, Gaelen came with you."

"Yes, we went to dinner. Gaelen offered
to stop here before he took me home."

"Dinner. A date?"

"I suppose so," Annabelle replied, her
attention still on Erin's pale and still face.

Dr. Duncan scribbled a note on the
chart and closed the cover very gently. Annabelle could feel a
tension in the air.

"Ms. Tinker, I feel I ought to say
something, yet, I'm not sure how you will react. It's about
Gaelen."

"What about him?" Annabelle answered,
hoping her jittery reaction didn't give her away.

"He's a very handsome, charming man,
and I have known many young women who have set their hearts on
him."

"Dr. Duncan, I don't
think--"

"Hear me out, please," the doctor
interrupted, holding up one tiny hand. "In my profession, I see a
lot of young women like Erin who have put all their hopes on a man
only to have them dashed, then weren't able to deal with their
heartbreak. Some of them have been driven to the very precipice of
despair."

Precipice of despair? Dr. Duncan was
certainly poetic for a shrink.

"Erin will come around."

"I'm not talking about Erin now. Gaelen
and Lucas Riley are cut from the same bolt of cloth. They are users
and cannot be trusted to do what's right." A light flashed across
her eyes accompanied by a whisper of a smile. "Actually, it's worse
than that. You see, women find Gaelen attractive, and he is, but
you see...well, he's not fond of women."

"What?"

"My dear, Gaelen is a
fairy."

Annabelle bit her lip. "A
fairy?"

"Yes."

"You mean he's...gay?"

"Oh, my dear, Gaelen is very
gay."

Annabelle thought of the undercurrent
between Dr. Duncan and Gaelen she'd sensed earlier today. She'd
thought it was sexual.

So much for my powers of
observation.

The doctor sighed. "I know how he
affects women. Gaelen is, well, an old friend of mine. I've known
him for a...long time. He doesn't realize women find him
attractive, since his attentions are directed
elsewhere."

Well, wasn't that just the way?
Annabelle's luck continues unchecked, she mused. The most gorgeous
man she'd seen in years and he's a fairy.

Still, something in the doctor's
assertion didn't ring true.