Page 17 of Fence

“Soft touch, hell. I wanted to be sure the girl didn’t run screaming to everybody who’d listen about the three big, bad men in the cave which—by the way—shouldn’t be nearly as tricked out as it is. My actions were an example of self-preservation.”

“Bullshit.” But Miles let it lie there, rather than pressing the subject. He could be a real pain in the ass, but he could also show remarkable judgment. “At any rate, there’s still the question of how to handle her. And you’re the one who developed rapport. You never stopped chatting the entire way back to the car.”

He was right on that point, and I would’ve gladly spent hours more finding out about her. The amount of interest she sparked in me was downright disturbing. We hadn’t touched on anything important, however. I was careful not to. She’d taken an apartment in town, though she hadn’t said where, and planned to be another month in completing her thesis. It was the last piece of her requirements. After that, she’d explained with a wry smile, it was a matter of finding a job where her unique knowledge would be appreciated.

“Maybe I should’ve thought out my major a little better,” she’d admitted before stumbling over a half-hidden tree root and falling into me.

I’d borne her weight easily, throwing an arm around her waist to keep her upright this time. Blood had rushed to her cheeks. “I told you. I’m clumsy.”

“It’s all right, so long as you have someone here to catch you.” I was more concerned with how she’d hiked all that way while wearing a backpack which surely weighed a ton. She was stronger than her frame let on.

“I’m always doing things like that. I can’t tell you how many pairs of glasses I destroyed when I was growing up.”

“You don’t wear them now.”

“Lasik surgery was cheaper in the long run,” she’d laughed.

I’d always enjoyed a person who could laugh at themselves, and she’d put me at ease in spite of all the questions surrounding her presence.

“Glasses would make you look like the academic you are,” I’d teased, and immediately had regretted it. I had no business teasing and flirting with her.

“I could wear glasses without prescription lenses if it would make me seem more legitimate,” she’d teased back, but had then grown serious. “If it makes me seem more legitimate, I’ll do just about anything.”

I’d caught the sour note in her voice. “You’re not taken seriously?”

“Not by a bunch of dried-up old jerks who look at what I do as a glorified fairytale hunt,” she’d informed me, and the sting of the anger in her voice had impressed me quite a lot.

There was more to her than surprising physical strength. She had a depth of strength in her core as well.

“Why do it, then? Why spent all the time and resources on things which might not even be true?”

She’d frowned. “It’s all true, of course. There’s proof. It’s just a matter of finding it. I mean, did people once laugh at those who claimed the world is round? Of course. But now, we laugh at those people.”

“And you’ll have the last laugh.”

“I will.” She’d jerked her chin up just a little then. Just far enough to work her way into my admiration, even if her curiosity and stubbornness would likely wind up getting us all in trouble.

“What makes you so interested in researching the old clans?” I had asked, hoping I wasn’t overplaying my hand. There was nothing wrong with interest—or so I’d told myself.

She’d shrugged, waving her hands. “They’ve always been part of my life. The old stories my Seanmhair told me, I mean.”

The way the old word for “grandmother” tripped off her tongue, pronounced “shenivar,” I could tell she’d been saying it all her life. Just another layer to the girl. She was American, or so she’d told us, which meant the old woman must’ve been Scottish if she’d taught the girl the words, the stories.

“She told you of the clans?”

“What she’d learned of them, which was what her parents had learned and their parents, and on and on. I mean, don’t you feel the power of that connection?” She’d cast her gaze on me, eyes wide with wonder. “It’s our history—I mean, the history of so much of the Scottish people. She always claimed she was of one of the ancient bloodlines, but I doubt there’s any way to prove that now.”

“She sounds like an interesting woman.”

“In so many ways,” she’d sighed.

The longing in her voice told me the woman was dead. The final piece of the puzzle. She felt a strong pull to the clans and their legends thanks to the stories the old woman had told. They had become part of her life—part of her, even. And the work she did would bring a beloved grandparent back, at least in some small way.

I couldn’t help but sympathize, even though she’d already proven to be a hassle.

I tuned back into the conversation between Gate and Miles, both of them well ahead of me in terms of eating. I’d let my thoughts wander to the point that what was left of my second burger had gone cold. I finished it anyway before moving on to the next.

“She wants to meet at the library, someplace public, but safe for all parties,” I reported. “I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t go to see what she has. There’s a chance none of this has panned out to anything.”

Miles fixed his irritatingly all-seeing, all-knowing eye on me. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

I stayed silent.

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