Authors: Irene Radford

Thistle Down (30 page)

BOOK: Thistle Down

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Dick whistled a jaunty little tune he almost remembered the words to. Something about chiming bells and little Pixies.
Dum dee dee do dum dum.

Pixies. Like Thistle.

He stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk between his car and a group of medical offices.

Thistle and that amazing kiss. For a few minutes this morning he felt like he’d been transported to heaven floating on a sparkling cloud of many wondrous colors.

A cloud of Pixie dust. If Thistle could shoot Pixie dust into a lock, then she was still a Pixie. She’d never be fully human.

He wavered over to a bench beside a tree that overhung the office building, shading it from the glare of a too bright, too hot sun.

“You look the same today as you did sixteen years ago when you kissed me the first time, Thistle. You haven’t aged a day. Do Pixies ever grow old and die?”

His bright daydreams of marrying Thistle, having children with her, growing old together, crumbled to dull, gray ashes.

Twenty-four

T
HISTLE WANDERED AIMLESSLY toward Dick and Dusty’s house. Somehow she didn’t have the heart or the will to return to the old house that held so many good memories.

Her tummy growled with hunger and her throat ached from thirst. And from crying.

Somehow, without knowing quite how, she found herself on the block behind Mabel’s house. A narrow footpath ran between two old houses, small ones. The space between the immaculate dwellings looked wider than normal and the path appeared well used. She followed it idly into a long strip of wild land that ran between the houses on Mabel’s street and the one at the beginning of the path.

She stepped onto the pounded dirt where thistles encroached. The jagged leaves left her alone, but a creeping blackberry vine snagged her leg. As she bent to gently untangle it, soft male voices reached her.

She froze in place.

“You did good, bringing down that cell phone tower,” Haywood Wheatland chuckled.

“That was awesome!” a younger voice replied. It cracked on the last syllable, climbing upward into a child’s range.

Young, just beginning to reach for manhood.

She crept forward, one small step in front of the other until the path opened up into a meadow dotted with goldenrod and Lamb’s Tail shrubs. Across the open space, beside the iron gate that led from Mabel’s backyard into the wild strip sat Haywood Wheatland on an overgrown park bench. Five youths leaned against the bench or stumps or sprawled on the ground in a semicircle around him.

“And here’s your reward for bringing down the eyesore of poisonous steel,” Haywood said. He held out his hand, revealing five brown lumps. The scent of chocolate rose from the warmth of his skin.

“Eeww! Looks like cat poop. I’m not going to eat that crap,” one of the boys said. He looked to be the largest of the group, taller by half a head and broader in the shoulder with just a hint of beard shadow on his chin and upper lip. His voice remained deep and secure.

“These are different chocolates. Special chocolates. Once you’ve tasted these, you won’t settle for what your mother puts into cookies,” Hay replied in a soothing voice. A bit of gold began to glow around his head. “These will take you on a wilder ride than when we went inside the computer and played your war games for real.” He smiled secretly.

“Cool, man!” a boy from the middle of the pack and the age group said, reaching eagerly for his treat.

“And when the chocolate and mushroom are fully into your mind, you and I will try something new. Maybe we’ll stop all the carnival rides at the same time, and make the Ferris wheel topple.”

“More awesome than the cell tower coming down right on top of all those bulldozers?” the leader asked.

Thistle gasped. She needed to stop this. She needed to warn Dusty.

Quickly, she turned to run away.

The pesky blackberry snaked out across the path and tripped her.

Her face met the ground. With an aching groan, she tried to get up, only to find herself trapped by more prickly vines and a rock bigger than her fist flying through the air directly toward her head.

Two hours later she staggered back to her bed, too dazed and sore to remember what she needed to do, or why.

“Do you see the curving pile of rotting lumber?” Dusty pointed to one of the biggest disappointments in her life. The dissolving artifact rested on an island in the middle of the river, just below the main waterfall. The sun was close to sinking behind the ridge, and only a few shafts of light made the wood look like anything more than a shadowy lump.

As thick and undissolving as the lump of hot dog and white bread bun she’d eaten half of while they walked the promenade. She couldn’t tell him that, though. He’d been so proud of ordering from the colorful food wagons that sprang up along Main Street during Festival week.

“I think I see it. My distance vision isn’t wonderful,” Hay said, squinting in the direction she pointed. He put his arm around Dusty and snugged her up against his side as if that would help him see.

Her awareness of the few people out walking the promenade faded. As the sun sank, fewer and fewer people ventured this far away from the lights on Main Street. The explosion on the hill that had delayed not only completion of the cell tower, but the beginning of construction on the discount store, had them spooked. They weren’t willing to risk the dark just to catch a bit of cool, moist air after the long, hot day.

“There’s not a lot left, but that’s the original water wheel that powered the woolen mill,” Dusty said, concentrating on what she knew, the history that she was passionate about.

“The mill that employs half the town?”

“Yes. The wheel was built in 1846, before Oregon became a territory of the U.S. As part of my Master’s degree, I wrote a grant to dismantle the wheel and rebuild and restore it up at the museum. I actually got the grant, but the current owners of the mill, who have corporate offices in Louisiana, wouldn’t give permission for structural engineers to go in and assess the wheel and the plans to dismantle it. They prefer to allow an important artifact of our heritage to rot.”

“Too bad. It would have made a nice addition to the exhibits,” he said. But he wasn’t gazing at the wheel any more. He was looking at her.

She returned his gaze, amazed that she could talk so freely with him. She’d never met anyone who made her feel as comfortable as he did.

They were alone, with only the muted rush of water over the thirty-foot drop in the river, an occasional sleepy chirp of a bird and the hum of evening insects.

“Dusty, I . . . I should tell you that our mothers were roommates in college. They asked me to call you, ask you to the Masque Ball.”

“Oh.” Her world fell flat.

“I didn’t want to call you. I’ve had some pretty disastrous blind dates and didn’t want a repeat. But then I met you, and I knew we could have something special. I’m glad we got to know each other without the false expectations of our mothers hanging over us.”

“I’m glad, too. If I’d known about our mothers’ connection, I probably would have turned you down.

“And now?”

“Now? If the offer is still open, I’d like to go to the Ball with you.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, capturing a tentative kiss.

Startled, she drew back, still within the circle of his arm around her waist.

“I’m sorry. Did I frighten you?” he breathed.

“No, I . . .” She bit her lip. What did she say? She had only the one experience with Joe. Hay’s kiss was different, exciting, and scary.

Wonderfully scary, indeed.

“Dusty, I had no intention of falling in love with you.”

“Silly, we’ve only known each other a couple of days.”

“I feel like I’ve known you all my life. Or maybe you are the one I’ve been searching for since the beginning of time.”

“I . . . I’ve never met anyone like you before.” She bit her lip in indecision.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“I believe in lust at first sight that can grow into love.” At least that’s what she’d always told herself when she outgrew the teen romance books she devoured when she was sixteen. She’d repeated the mantra with each failed date arranged by her family when the total lack of passion, or even interest guaranteed there would be no second date.

“Then believe in this.” He captured her mouth again with his, enticing her into a response with gentle flicks of his tongue.

Dusty became malleable clay under his brilliant ministrations. She experienced new flares from belly to head that left her dizzy. Simmers of longing from his mobile mouth on hers glowed deep within her. Her arms crept around his neck, and she rose on tiptoe to bring them closer together.

Her knees turned to pudding. She clung to him even as she pulled her mouth free long enough to breathe.

“Relax, my darling. Trust me,” he whispered. “I’ll never hurt you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” He kissed her again.

Her world exploded into myriad bright colors rivaling the last rays of the sun shooting above the ridge and sparkling across the river.

Chase scrubbed his eyes free of grit and looked up from his concentrated, fine-print reading. The little digital display on the bottom right of his computer screen read ten fifty two PM. God, he’d been searching and tracing link to link for the whole day and half the night.

But he’d found what he needed. There it was, in black and white, the incorporation papers for Pixel, Industries, Ltd. Signed by none other than Phelma Jo Nelson herself as CEO and sole stockholder. The date beside her signature was less than a week old.

The job order for the independent logger was dated three days later.

“Someone’s in a hurry,” he muttered. “Looks to me like she’s timed it deliberately to interfere with the Masque Ball.”

He stretched his back and arms, grateful for the release and cracking after so many hours hunched over his desk.

He saved the screen and printed out a copy. Then he stood and popped the kinks out of his knees.

BOOK: Thistle Down

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