Authors: Irene Radford

Thistle Down (5 page)

BOOK: Thistle Down

9.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

Thistle studied Dick and Dusty with an eye for the possibilities of a round of mischief. They’d both given her new insight into her purpose in life—spreading confusion and chaos with wild pranks—as they all grew up together. Now her friends looked like they needed a heavy dose of Pixie fun.

How had they gotten so old? And so solemn? She should have checked back on them more often during their teen years, but there was always a new generation of little ones to introduce to the joys of Pixie.

Something had to be done about Dick and Dusty. Soon. Chase had probably been a lost cause since he was ten.

Thistle was just the Pixie to help them out of their funk. Maybe even the angry and pragmatic Chase.

Those happy thoughts sank to her middle at the sight of Dusty’s frightened form cowering half behind her brother.

Before Thistle could frame a question or murmur a phrase of comfort, the policeman grabbed her arm and thrust her forward. “Take her. Just get her out of my sight for a long, long time,” he said. “If I never see her again, it will be too soon.”

So much for tricking him into a better humor.

“What’s the matter, Chase? Didn’t you enjoy having your siren go on and off fifteen times on the half-mile ride here?” Thistle batted her eyelashes, feigning innocence.

“I don’t know who you are, or what kind of drugs you’re on, but stay away from me.” He backed up, hands held in front of him. “Bad enough the blasted siren’s on the fritz, the seat belts wouldn’t stay fastened, and the radio only broadcasts static. The minute she got out of the car, everything cleared up fine. I nearly had to cut the seat belt to get out of it, though.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“Strange magnetic fields,” Dusty whispered. “Some people are like that.”

They all heard her.

Thistle looked back and forth between the men. She expected Dick to have half his senses tuned to his sister. He’d always been overprotective, even before she got sick. But Police Sergeant Chase acted as if every word Dusty uttered fell like pearls of wisdom from a queen to her grateful subjects.

Stars above, when had that happened? Not good. Not good at all.

Dusty, of course, spoiled the regal image with a smudge of dust that clashed with the spray of freckles across her nose. That childlike smudge was good.

“I’ve got to do something about Chase,” Thistle said to herself. “Can’t have
my
best friend trapped with a humorless bully of a man.” She rubbed the bruise on her wrist from where he’d grabbed her to drag her out of the fountain.

With that thought, she flounced over to Dusty and put her arm around her shoulders. Yee gads! Thistle now stood half a head taller than Dusty. Last time they’d been together, Thistle fit into Dusty’s hand or atop her computer mouse. But she only rode the mouse when Dusty got tired and Thistle got bored. The computer made interesting noises, and the screen flashed in odd colors when Thistle got too close.

And as for Dick . . . well, well, well, didn’t he clean up pretty with his sun-streaked brown hair, light tan, and brilliant blue eyes, so much like Dusty’s but more . . . more intense and defined.

Dusty just looked crumpled and, well, dusty. Sort of like this whole house.

Oh, I’ve got a
lot
of work to do
, Thistle thought. Since it looked like Alder intended her to stay here for a while, best she get started. And she couldn’t do that with Policeman Chase Norton hanging around.

“I’ll launder your shirt in Faery tears, Sergeant, and have Dick return it,” Thistle said. “Unless, of course, you want it back now.” She reached for the hem and began tugging the garment over her head, exposing her butt to them all.

“That’s okay.” Chase blushed all the way from his neck to the tips of his ears. “Call me later, Dick. There’s a preseason Seahawks game on the big screen at Old Mill. Friday night, free Buffalo wings with a pitcher. And Festival in full swing.” He practically ran out the door and down the steps.

Thistle threw back her head and laughed; the only way she could keep from crying. But the tightness in her chest continued to squeeze her heart and she couldn’t swallow past the lump in her hot throat that burned like Faery fire. She’d lost Pixie. Maybe forever. Now she had to make do with
humans
!

The irony of Alder’s punishment wasn’t lost on her.

Nor the cruelty.

Three

C
HASE MOPPED THE SWEAT from his brow on his shirtsleeve. He wished he could start work on the cold pitcher of beer right now. He had a lot of explaining to do to the captain.

He should have kept the naked woman in lockup and processed all the paperwork on about fifteen counts, from drunk and disorderly to public nudity to . . . laughing at him. But lockup, with air-conditioning, had become a shelter from the heat for the elderly, poor, and homeless. Since he had a place to dump Thistle Down, or whatever her real name was, he’d grabbed it.

The captain could chew his hide. But part of Chase’s promotion to sergeant included the authority to step slightly outside the box when necessary. Today was necessary.

Besides, dumping Thistle Down on Dusty had given him a chance to talk to her, to elicit more than just a few mumbled words from her. She hadn’t graced him with a complete conversation since . . . since he broke her music box, the pink one with the twirling ballerina inside, fifteen years ago.

He shook his head. He thought he’d given up trying to attract her attention. Dating his best friend’s sister would complicate his life too much.

But that Thistle woman. Wow! Gorgeous. If she weren’t so much trouble, he’d love to escort her to the fund-raiser Masque Ball next week.

One more short-term flirtation in a long list of them.

Dusty probably wouldn’t even notice that he’d come, alone or with someone.

One of these days he’d forget Dusty’s pert little turnedup nose and the endearing smudge of dirt on her cheek.

His gaze drifted toward The Ten Acre Wood, imagining it lit with Faery lights on the night of the Ball. He sighed. Not this year. He planned on skipping the Ball, unless he had to run security. No sense in spending the evening longing to hold Dusty in his arms while they danced when he knew that would never happen.

“Hey!” he yelled at a couple of kids running around the picnic tables in the museum grounds. “Stop throwing rocks!” The clatter of broken glass from the vicinity of the restrooms followed by a yelp of surprise punctuated his command.

He took off after the kids as they dispersed into the bushes and down the steps to Main Street. He had ’em cornered. The only way off the stairs was over the cliff and a roll through poison oak.

Thankfully, they hadn’t disappeared into The Ten Acre Wood. He’d never find them in that tangled overgrowth.

“What happened, Thistle?” Dusty asked over her shoulder as she fished for a cola in the employee fridge. She wiped the can top with a sanitized wipe and handed the cold drink to her charge. Then she washed her private glass and poured another iced tea for herself.

Dick had hastened away to his sales calls. He’d left today in a bigger hurry than usual, as if something, or someone, in the museum bothered him.

Dusty laid blame for that squarely on Thistle’s shoulders—one of which was showing too much skin as the neckline of her oversized T-shirt slipped, and then slipped some more.

Thistle stared at the pull ring on her cola as if it was a bit of alien technology. All the years Thistle had kept Dusty company during her recovery from leukemia with the chemo and bone marrow transplant, and then homeschooling, Dusty had never had a soft drink to show her how to use the pull ring. Mom hadn’t allowed any junk food in the house, not even organic soft drinks. None of the other kids, including Dick, appreciated snacks of whole wheat crackers and organic goat cheese with home-pressed fruit juice or soy milk to wash it down. Thistle had been her only company.

Dusty pulled the ring on the can, showing Thistle how to do it.

Mom would love to dress Thistle up in sixteenth century clothing and teach her the part of Arial in
The Tempest
. With her light bones and long limbs, she looked the part.

“Why are you here?” Dusty prodded.

“Because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go but to you.” She opened those fabulous purple eyes wide in innocence. Feigned?

“Back up. Why do you need a place to go? You could just go home.” Dusty took a long drink, never taking her eyes off of Thistle. She watched carefully for any tic, or telltale flicker of expression that might give her clues.

“I can’t go home.” Thistle looked longingly over her shoulder. Where her wings should be. “At least not for a while. Alder will come to his senses in a few days. Then I’ll be away from here as fast as I can fly.”

“Who’s Alder?”

“The new king of my tribe.”

“And what did you do to him to deserve trimming your wings and exiling you?” Dusty turned toward the whiteboard with its lists of reservations and Chamber of Commerce notes of things to promote during tours. And the schedule for setting up and tearing down the parade tomorrow. She had too much to do to babysit a Pixie in exile.

But Thistle had been her only friend for too many years for Dusty to desert her now.

“I didn’t do much. Just a prank. Alder has a short temper and more magic now that he’s king. What are we going to do this afternoon?” She took a sip of her cola and spat it out. Sticky drops sprayed far and wide, clinging to the fridge, the walls, the chairs, the papers on the table. “What kind of poison have you given me?”

“It’s not poison. It’s a diet cola. People practically live on them.”

“There is nothing natural or clean or even interesting in it.” She held the can up, reading the ingredients. Dusty had taught her to read during those long hours of lonely homeschooling.

A clatter of bright voices interrupted Dusty’s thoughts. “Suzie!” she cried in delight. “Sharon!”

Dusty dashed to the entry hall and knelt to give big hugs to her two favorite children in the world.

“Auntie Dusty, we got lollipops.” Three-year-old Suzie held up a sticky red blob on top of a paper stick. It listed sideways at an alarming angle.

BOOK: Thistle Down

9.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads