Wickedly Dangerous (22 page)

Baba ignored all the drama out of long habit, although Liam's face held a slightly shell-shocked look. She hid a smile behind masses of dark hair.

“I hope
you
like cherry,” she said, cutting them each a precisely equal slice and sliding them onto plates. “Apparently that was what the Airstream was in the mood for.”

They went back over to the couch and sat down next to each other, knees almost touching. Liam forked up a bite and made a blissful noise deep in his throat that sent shivers down Baba's spine. She didn't even taste the bite she ate, distracted by the way his eyes closed slightly as he savored the sweet-sour tang of the fruit.

“You know,” he said, when he'd devoured most of it, “I envy you a little.”

Baba blinked, confused. “You want a magic refrigerator?” She swallowed a tiny mouthful of glistening red paradise, licking the juice off one finger where it had fallen.

Liam laughed. “Hell no. I'm happy enough with regular appliances like my simple, everyday toaster. You put bread in, you get toast out; that's magic enough for me.”

She narrowed her eyes at the toaster sitting on her counter, which sometimes popped out a piece of toast (although not always of the type you put in), but was just as likely to toss out a bagel, a buttered croissant, or on one memorable occasion, spaghetti Alfredo. Man, and hadn't that been a nightmare to clean up.

“I see your point. Then what do you envy?”

Liam gestured around the Airstream. “All this. You travel around the country; no roots, no ties, having all sorts of adventures and meeting new people. It must be nice not to constantly have folks tugging at you, expecting you to solve all their problems for them, knowing everything about you down to whether you wear boxers or briefs.”

Baba raised an eyebrow, and he flushed a little.

“Briefs. But that's not my point.”

She smiled. “But that's what you like about this place, isn't it? It's home. And solving people's problems is your job. I thought you liked that too.” She would
not
think about Liam, naked except for a skimpy pair of briefs. She stuffed some more pie into her mouth as a distraction.

“I do, mostly.” He sighed. “When I don't have Clive Matthews and the county board breathing down my neck, and children disappearing right and left.” Outside the open window, an owl hooted, and the shadow of a wing seemed to glide across his face.

“But I've lived here all my life,” he continued, stealing a forkful of Baba's pie, now that all of his was gone. “Except for a short stint in the military when I was young. Everyone knows me and my business, and thinks they know how I should live my life. There's a certain freedom in anonymity; maybe I envy you that.”

A sliver of something caught in Baba's throat; maybe a tiny fragment of a cherry pit. Or a glimmer of irrational hope. Fracture lines appeared in the wall she'd built around her heart, as if an earthquake rocked the world all unseen.

“Have you ever thought about just picking up and leaving?” she asked casually. “If they're going to fire you in a couple of weeks anyway, there's nothing to stop you, is there?”

“There was a time, a few years ago, when I seriously considered moving out of town,” he admitted.

Surprise made her blurt out, “Really? What on earth happened?” Despite their current conversation, she couldn't imagine Liam without Dunville. Or for that matter, Dunville without him.

He hesitated, looking down at his hands as if the calluses there held some kind of map to guide him through the minefield of his memories. “I had a baby,” he said slowly, voice low. “A little girl. She died. SIDS—you know, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It was . . . terrible. One day she was alive, smiling and kicking out with tiny feet and grabbing onto my finger with her strong little hands. The next she was gone. Dead in her crib. I wasn't even home when it happened; out on a late-night call trying to keep some drunken asshole from breaking up a bar.”

His face was so sad, Baba's chest contracted with sympathetic pain.

“It destroyed my marriage. Just about destroyed me, to be honest. The pity was the worst. Everyone knows, and everyone is sorry, so sorry. For a while, around then, I thought about leaving.” He shrugged. “But the job was the one thing that kept me sane, and people needed me, which gave me a reason to get up in the morning. So I stayed.”

Baba realized that at some point during his agonizing recitation, she'd taken his hands, or he'd taken hers. The plates and forks were nowhere to be seen, although she didn't remember removing them.

“That's awful,” she said. “I can't imagine losing a child. No wonder it bothers you so much that other people are losing theirs.” He grimaced, and she squeezed his hands a little tighter. They felt good under her fingers; strong and capable, large without being clumsy. She could envision them mending a fence or cradling a rescued kitten. Or doing other things, preferably to her.

“Time passes. You adjust,” he said, straightening up and pulling his hands back so that he could run them through his too-long hair, moving it off his face in what was clearly becoming a habitual movement. She tucked hers under her arms, suddenly cold, moving away from him to curl her legs up underneath her.

“Still, I could see why you would want to get away, to someplace where there were no memories. Start over again.” She stared at the wall across the room, as if a pattern on the wallpaper there had somehow become more fascinating than usual, its subtle cream silk moiré holding all the secrets of the universe if only you looked long enough in the right light. “You could come with us, you know. Travel the country with me and Chudo-Yudo for a bit.”

Liam made a slight choking sound; surprise or pleasure or alarm, she couldn't tell.

“Like you said that first day, almost every piece of furniture in the Airstream folds out to be a sleeping space.” She waved a hand around with an airiness she didn't quite feel. “If you were going to be around long enough, I could even have it create an extra room for you. I'm sure Chudo-Yudo would like to have someone else to talk to besides me.” She shrugged. “It might be fun.”

Liam brushed one large hand gently across her cheek again, smoothing back her cloud of raven hair with a gesture that was surprisingly erotic in its simplicity. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her.

“It does sound like fun,” he said, with something that sounded like regret. But maybe that was only what she wanted to hear. “Very tempting. But I can't go anywhere until those children are back home where they belong, whether or not I'm dealing with the case in an official capacity or not. And as much as the town sometimes drives me crazy, I suppose this is where I belong.”

Baba mustered up a smile. “I guess I knew that. It was just a silly notion. I've lived alone for such a long time, I doubt I could stand to have anyone else around on a day-to-day basis anyway.”

“Anyone who didn't shed white fur or breathe fire, you mean.” Liam smiled back.

“Right.”

He gazed into her eyes for a minute, and then asked hesitantly, “Do Babas ever settle down in one place? Stop traveling and set down roots?”

She snorted. “Not exactly. Back in the Old Country, when there were more of us in a smaller area, each Baba tended to have her own territory she watched over. Her hut would travel around within a certain boundary, but never strayed all that far, so people could find her if they wanted to badly enough.”

“Here, though,” she circled her arm to indicate the whole country, and not just the trailer they sat in, “there are so few of us, we tend to travel wherever we are needed.”

“Doesn't that make it difficult to teach your classes?” Liam asked. “Or are they just part of the illusion?”

“Ha. They're mostly a cover, although I do teach a class every once in a while when I get a chance. I actually like doing it. But I'm almost always officially off on sabbatical; traveling, researching, collecting samples.” She gestured at the many jars and bottles and leafy green things tucked into corners and in some cases hanging off cast iron hooks on the walls.

“There are only three of us Babas in the entire United States, so we just go where we are called. That's how I ended up here.”

“Good grief,” Liam said, taken aback. “Wouldn't it be more efficient to divide the country up into thirds, with one of you taking the eastern part of the country, one the middle, and one the west?”

“I suppose so,” Baba said, brow wrinkled. “No one has ever suggested it before. And at the moment, two of us are actually based out of California, so I'm not sure how we'd decide who got which territory.” She shifted one shoulder carelessly. “Besides, why bother? Things are working well enough the way they are.”

“Oh, I don't know,” Liam said in an echo of the casual tone she'd used earlier. “I just thought maybe you'd want to settle down someday. Don't Babas
ever
do that?”

“Some do,” she said, thinking about it. “Usually when they are training the next Baba in line. It's too hard on a young child, moving around constantly like that. Then the other Babas tend to cover the calls that come from too far away. Honestly, I've never really thought about it much. It never seemed like the right time.”

His hazel eyes gazed into hers for one long minute. “Is there anything that might make you think about it?”

Somehow her hands had found their way back into his again. Her heart beat against the inside of her chest like a caged bird trying to escape. The colors of his irises changed from blue to green to gray like the ocean, promising adventures completely different from any she'd experienced in her long, wandering life.

Then he leaned in and kissed her, placing one strong hand on either side of her face with surprising gentleness and sliding his lips slowly over hers. Heat roared up from her belly as if she'd walked into a volcano, the molten lava of lust and wanting rising up inside of her like a force of nature.

She kissed him back with enthusiasm, almost growling from the joy of finally having him in her arms, and she could feel the curve of his smile under her lips.

“God, I want you,” he said, pulling back and gazing at her with darkened eyes. “I think I've wanted you since the first day I saw you, standing next to that motorcycle in all that leather with this amazing hair floating down around your shoulders.” He ran his hands through her dark tresses as if they were some precious silk from far-off lands.

His desire just inflamed her own, and she pulled her shirt off over her head, loving the stunned and admiring look on his face when he realized she was naked underneath. Then there was only the glorious chaos of ardent kisses, fevered caresses, and low-voiced moans as they explored each other's secret places, discovering the tender and the hard, the sweet and the salty, reveling in each new find.

At one point they rolled off the couch onto the floor, and it was there that she finally took him into her, drowning in the wonder of it all, surging on the tide of furious passion that swept them both away, leaving them finally storm-tossed and spent, lying in each other's arms.

Afterward, they were both a little off-balance, awkward with the unexpected intimacy. Clothes rearranged, they sat next to each other, trying to catch their breath and figure out what to say. Liam opened his mouth to speak.

Then the door burst open, and Chudo-Yudo came bounding in, shaking water all over everything, including the two of them. Liam jumped, moving away from her on the couch.

“It's raining again,” the dog announced.

Baba rolled her eyes at him. “We can see that,” she said acerbically. “You seem to have brought half of it in with you.”

Chudo-Yudo eyed them with hopeful curiosity. “I hope I'm interrupting something.” He waggled furry brows.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Baba said, standing up. “We were just talking. About the case. And stuff.”

Liam rose too. “It's late,” he said, wiping a splash of moisture off of one arm. “I should go. Talk to the Riders about keeping an eye on those five kids, will you?” He handed her the file, which had somehow gotten knocked onto the floor. “Why don't you take Kimberly, and I'll check on Davy as often as I can without neglecting the rest of my job. Hopefully it will stay quiet for a few days.”

Baba shook her head. “I doubt that Maya will wait long to make her move. Not after everything that's happened.” She could feel the pressure of intuition behind her skull, like the shifting air from an impending storm. “If I had to guess, I'd say she'll move sometime in the next day or two.” She made a face. “And probably try to find a way to lay the blame on me in the process.”

Liam nodded in grim agreement. “We'll have to be on our guard,” he said, brushing his hair back one more time. “Especially if we want to catch her off hers.”

Their eyes met, and he gave her a broad smile, making bright blue butterflies materialize outside the window, unseen as they flew off into the rainy night sky.

“Thanks for the pie,” he said. “And everything. I'll check in tomorrow.”

And then he was gone.

Baba watched out the open front door as his taillights vanished into the darkness. For a moment, her mind followed him, imagining a fantasy world where she drove off to deal with a Baba Yaga call, coming home to a little house with welcoming lit windows and someone to talk to who didn't occasionally breathe fire by accident. In this illusionary dreamworld, a child's laughter echoed in the distance, chasing a ball with a giant white dog.

Chudo-Yudo tugged on her pant leg and said irritably, “You're letting all the rain in. And I've been talking to you for five minutes. Where is your head at?”

She closed the door regretfully on her foolish fancy and went over to plop down on the couch. “I was just thinking about how we were going to capture Maya,” she lied.