Lake Silence

CHAPTER 58

Vicki

Thaisday, Sumor 6

It’s funny how quickly a person can adjust to a routine. I started to put on my bathing suit before I remembered that I no longer had access to the lake, could no longer take a quick, refreshing dip before doing morning chores. Of course, the fire in the woodstove had gone out sometime during the night, so the cabin’s temperature was better suited to jeans and a sweater.

Then I stepped outside. Chilly enough for jeans and sweater, but that would change by noon and we would be back to summer. Still, if I couldn’t go for a swim, a walk would do just as well. If I kept the creek to my right going away from the cabins and to my left on the way back, I couldn’t get too lost.

“Vicki? Wait up!”

And I had a better chance of not getting lost if I had company.

I smiled at Julian when he caught up to me. “I was going to take a walk before . . .” I looked at him. “I was going to say before work. Guess I’m just taking a walk.”

“I’ll go with you if you’ve no objection,” Julian said. “It’s a pretty walk, and even beyond the water mill, there is a footpath that follows the creek.”

“Is there a wading pool?”

“A what?”

“Someplace where you can sit on a rock and dip your feet in the water? Seems like it would be a pleasant thing to do on a hot afternoon—bring a book and something to drink and dangle your feet in cool water.”

He smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t walked the path with that in mind. And this is my first summer here too. By the time I got the store up and running, it was a bit too cool to think of wading in the creek.”

“Speaking of cool, thanks for sending your friend to help get the fire started in the woodstove. It would have been wicked cold last night without it.”

“My friend?” Julian sounded odd.

“Aiden. Although, considering his choice of hair colors—red hair with blue and yellow tips—maybe he’s Ineke’s friend. Anyway, he showed up a few minutes after you and Officer Grimshaw drove off and said we had a mutual friend, so he wanted to check on me and make sure I knew how to work the stove because it was going to be a cold night. Not a freezing night, so I didn’t have to worry about water pipes and farmers didn’t need to fear for their crops, but it would be more comfortable with a fire.”

“You let him in?”

Oh, definitely odd. “It would have been hard for him to show me how to work the stove if I hadn’t. Anyway, he put in the wood and somehow got the fire started while I was still searching for some long matches. When I asked him how he’d done that, he laughed and said his name was a Brittannian word that meant . . .”

“Fire.” Julian looked pale.

“Yes.” I stopped walking. Not that I didn’t trust Julian, but he was acting a bit weird.

“Vicki, when he said you had a mutual friend, he didn’t mean anyone human.”

Oooohhhhh. “He’s terra indigene?”

Julian nodded. “One of the Elementals, I’d say.”

“Fire.” Oh golly. I had invited Fire into a cabin full of combustibles.

I bent at the waist and braced my hands on my knees, feeling anxiety wash through me.

“Vicki!”

I felt Julian’s hand on my waist and wanted to pull away, wanted to shout at him not to touch me where he would feel the roll of fat—the roll that Yorick used to say made him want to vomit when he touched it while we were having sex.

Odd that it didn’t seem to stop him from wanting to have sex even when he was exercising the Vigorous Appendage with someone else. It’s not like he was worried that anyone else would come sniffing around. He’d told me often enough I didn’t look good enough to screw.

But I couldn’t say any of that. First, Julian would either agree with Yorick or would think I was nuts. Second, I heard a horse cantering toward us.

Julian’s fingers tightened on my waist. So tense.

“Is she all right?” Aiden’s voice.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Don’t give Aiden a reason to turn Julian into a large briquette.

I turned my head and squinched my face. “Hi, Aiden.”

I couldn’t see Aiden’s face, but the horse . . . Black legs and a dark brown body. Pictures I’d seen of horses with that coloring usually had a black mane and tail. This one had a mane and tail that was the gray of storm clouds—and I was pretty sure I’d seen a pony with that coloring grazing around the cabin yesterday.

“What’s your horse’s name?” I asked.

“Twister.”

Oh, I so didn’t want to know that.

“Are you hurt?” Aiden sounded a bit testy.

“She’s got a tight muscle in her back,” Julian said. “That can happen when someone lifts a lot of boxes instead of accepting a friend’s offer to help. Am I pressing the right place?”

It took me a moment to realize the question was directed at me. “Closer to the spine.” Not that I had any muscles that were . . . “Ow! Yeah. There.” Guess I did have a few owie places.

“Is this typical in humans?” Aiden asked.

“It hadn’t felt like I’d overworked the back muscles when I was moving things around yesterday,” I said once I realized Julian wasn’t going to jump in with an explanation. Probably just as well.

I stood up. Julian’s hand lingered for a moment longer. It felt nice. More than nice.

I looked at Aiden. If I could forget the news reports I’d read last summer about fire tornados destroying entire human communities, I could see a handsome man on a pretty horse. But knowing who, and what, he was scared the crap out of me.

“Do you feel all right to help me shelve some books today?” Julian asked.

Shelve books? He hadn’t mentioned me going to the store with him, and I had the impression Ilya Sanguinati wanted me out of sight. Then again, once Julian went to work, I’d be out here on my own with my new flaming friend and the goats.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll shelve and you can lift.” I smiled at Aiden. “Thanks for lighting the fire last night. I was glad to have the warmth.”

He studied me. Had he conversed with many humans, or was I a novelty?

“It should not get so cold again until Autumn is ready to sleep,” he said.

“Why did it get so cold last night?” I had wondered about that.

Twister stamped a foot. I watched the dirt swirl around that leg and settle again.

“A female tried to claim your den,” Aiden said. “We didn’t like that, so Water asked her cousin for help in encouraging the female to leave.”

“Which cousin?” I said it casually, as if I knew all of them.

“Winter, of course.”

Oh golly. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Less than a month ago, I’d discovered that my lodger was one of the Crowgard, and I had a Panther and a Bear as employees. Now I was hobnobbing with the Lady of the Lake and Fire and acting all casual about other Elementals like Water and Winter taking an interest in The Jumble. Look at adaptable me.

I so wanted to sit down before I passed out.

“We should go if we’re going to get some of the new stock shelved before the store opens,” Julian said.

We waved and walked away. In my head, I could hear the voice of one of those nature show narrators. “A member of the team had direct contact with two humans in the wild. Though skittish, the humans remained long enough to exchange a few stilted sentences with the team member before making excuses to return to the safety of a human den.”

“I’m not sure Ilya wants me spending time in Sproing,” I said.

“Do you want to stay at the cabin today?” Julian countered.

By myself? Well, by myself in the sense there would be no other humans around. I was pretty sure if I stayed at the cabin I would have plenty of company of a different sort. “Let’s go shelve some books.”

I missed Aggie, and I hoped she was all right. I doubted Yorick would let her stay in a prime location. Then again, I kept forgetting that even a small shifter could have large and scary friends. I wondered how long it would take before Yorick learned that too.