Faeries Gone Wild Page 27

  Tia nodded, as if especially partial to this last nugget of wisdom.

  “But what if the weakness is permanent? What if I’m now a true agoraphobic?”

  “Give yourself a break, Alec. You were under extreme personal pressure. If it ever happens again, I’m sure you’ll bank your emotions properly.”

  “I’d like to believe I can. But it isn’t enough. I have to be back a hundred percent. As it is, I’m having trouble even imagining it. Can’t even get comfortable on my own fire escape.”

  “You did find the nerve to give up your cane.”

  “I was so busy trying to impress you at Forliti’s, I simply forgot it. Damned if I could think of a way to take the stick up again without looking totally idiotic!”

  “You don’t want it anymore. You know that.”

  “I do know,” he relented. “But it was my last claim to physical injury. My co-workers are bound to start asking tougher questions now about my return. This is all your fault, Tia, tweaking my machismo, forcing me to chase you with two good legs.”

  “Let me back you with a little boost.” She squeezed his arm. “Take me to the chili party.”

  The offer was unexpected and, he realized, comforting. “You are always hungry!” he complained with feigned gruffness.

  “Always.” To prove it she sank her teeth into his earlobe.

  It was nearing 6:00 P.M. when Alec stood with a fussing Tia outside the Midtown Precinct on 51st Street and 3rd Avenue.

  “You look great.”

  “Not too casual, Alec?”

  “Blue jeans and T-shirts are the norm. Trust me, you’re perfect.” Alec ushered her inside.

  “Alec! Welcome back!” Joyce Fortney, stationed at the front desk, wasted no time rushing up to give him a hug.

  Alec introduced Tia as his date and neighbor. He was grateful for the chance to first use the label on the sweet older woman in order to gauge the ever insecure Tia’s reaction. Luckily, Tia appeared quite satisfied with the noncommittal tag, shaking Joyce’s hand.

  Without question, his rowdy co-workers would tease him mercilessly if and when they discovered how fast and crazy he’d fallen for this rather unique blonde. With the weight of his job in the balance, he wasn’t up to it to night.

  Alec led on to a homey room in the rear, bright and cozy with tables, comfy furniture, and appliances. The space rumbled with activity as men and women, some in uniform, mingled, with bursts of shouts and laughter. Much of this activity stalled as Alec stepped in. The pause was very brief, however, followed by a chorus blasting his name.

  He could feel Tia meld against him as the crowd stampeded them.

  “The hero returns!”

  “Slacker!”

  “What took you so long?”

  The well-wishers circled and budged, all the while eyeing Tia with the unabashed interest common in families, even blended ones of choice.

  Alec finally held up both hands. “Good to be home.” Applause filled the room. When it died down, Alec spoke up again. “Just to bring you up to date, this woman is Tia Mayberry. Yes, we’re on a date. Yes, she lives in my brownstone. No, not in my apartment,” he added, causing a few chuckles. “Go easy on her. She’s new in town. Oh, I assured her you’ve had all your shots.”

  He instantly regretted the last crack. Sure enough, Tia’s high lyrical voice caressed his ear. “Are they vaccinated against anything dangerous?”

  “Later,” he murmured, kissing her cheek. He turned sharply then as a hand touched his shoulder. “Oh, hey. Tia, this is Chief Kevin Mitchell.”

  She surveyed the tall, big-boned man with thinning brown hair. “Lord of the station. How nice.”

  Mitchell looked momentarily startled, but his smile never wavered. “Heard through the grapevine, Alec, that you’d given up your cane. Figuring you’d be showing up any day, we rinsed out your coffee mug.”

  Right on cue, Amelia Ross, the redheaded beauty of the station, sidled up with said mug in hand. “Cheers, Alec!”

  Alec accepted the steamy ceramic cup and sipped. “I’ve missed this tar.” He explained to Tia that this was a way of welcoming a crew member back.

  “Won’t be long now,” Tia chirped confidently.

  “He’s in the minute he passes the official evaluation,” Chief Mitchell put in easily, apparently considering it a mere formality. “Well, enjoy the chili. I can’t stay myself.” With a nod he turned on his heel.

  “Say, ah, Chief.”

  Mitchell spun back. “What is it, Alec?”

  “Is there any progress on the investigation?”

  The chief scowled. “You asking for yourself or the building’s owner?”

  “We both have an interest,” Alec admitted.

  “We’re down to tying up loose ends. That’s all I can say.”

  “Can you blame Trey for wanting his property released, for worrying about the investigation?” Alec normally made it a point to never call John Trey except to his face, as it seemed like a celebrity name–dropping ploy out in public. But here it just popped out in the heat of the moment.

  No doubt Alec’s divided loyalties added to the chief’s consternation. “Winter shouldn’t have any worries unless he was involved in setting the blaze.”

  “John Winter would never do that!” Tia’s disruptive cry drew stark attention from both males. “I mean, Alec, you’re such a good judge of character.”

  Alec cringed. “The chief is a very good judge of people, too.”

  The chief’s face darkened. “If you tell him anything, tell him his fancy banquet honoring you guys isn’t going to sway our findings.”

  “That banquet honors a lot of people every year. You go every year. He isn’t trying to pull anything.”

  “You do deserve the award,” Mitchell conceded. “But I just announced that I won’t be attending. The press will be snapping photos. I need to appear impartial to the public until this arson mess is officially cleared up.”

  “When is this banquet?” Tia asked.

  “Saturday night,” Mitchell replied. “Make sure Alec gets there, Tia. Dancing and a nice dinner will do him good.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  The chief glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting at my son’s new school soon, in Queens. So you’ll have to excuse me.”

  “What has he against Queens, Alec?” Tia asked as Mitchell lumbered off.

  “Oh, the chief got stung when John flipped his apartment building to condos. When he couldn’t afford to buy his place, he moved out there.”

  “Can he investigate the fire in an impartial way?”

  Alec’s defenses rose slightly. “Of course. He treats all the rich power brokers around town with nearly the same disdain. We share a tight bond around here, Tia,” he went on under her skeptical look. “Work together, play together. Everyone tries to get along.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the banquet?”

  “Because I’m not going,” he said quietly. “Don’t feel I deserve it.”

  “You saved everyone!”

  Everyone but me. “Don’t press it here.”

  Moments later, Abe Spence, resident cook, gave a holler from a doorway. “Soup’s on! Get your lazy asses back here, pronto.”

  Alec wound his arm around a startled Tia. “He’s rude but a great cook.”

  “Then he’s forgiven already.”

  The next few hours passed leisurely. Alec and Tia were allowed to move about without more fanfare, but the crowd was surreptitiously tracking Tia as she packed food away like a hungry trucker and tossed around her glorious waist-length mane of platinum hair. As he watched her mingle with a number of other females for the first time, new things registered in Alec’s mind. How her small feet barely touched the floor as she moved. How her lush hips swayed hypnotically. How her voice rose over others’ no matter how she worked to modulate it.

  Captivating mysteries he wanted to explore layer by layer.

  Eventually, the party began to break up.


  “Hey!” Dick Kroft, the night shift supervisor, called over the din. “Don’t forget to empty your lockers for the refurbishing to night. There are still some empty cardboard boxes available in the locker room for the slackers.”

  This was news to Alec, so he grabbed a box. He led Tia through the cavernous storage area housing the fire and rescue vehicles. Like all visitors to the station, she seemed intent on lingering to inspect the large shiny trucks, but there wasn’t time to night. With a tug he urged her along to the locker room.

  A crowd tagged along, but most of them only shuffled around the gray steel lockers with their arms folded. For no definable reason, the tiny hairs on the back of Alec’s neck prickled as he fiddled with the combination dial on his own door.

  Lifting the catch, he opened the door with a creak, then stepped back in with a grunt of surprise.

  The interior was loaded with faery paraphernalia! Photos, cartoons, and crude sketches on station paper pasted to every surface. Dolls of paper and plastic hanging by strings from coat hooks.

  All this was accompanied by a chorus of “When You Wish upon a Star.”

  Kroft stepped up behind him. “That waitress from Libation Station sure was steamed when you dumped her—over a hallucination!” He guffawed, causing a chain reaction of belly laughs.

  “You didn’t really see anything that night?” Joyce asked in worry.

  Alec forced a chuckle. “I’d hardly get my job back if I did, now would I?”

  “So you haven’t seen her since?” Abe demanded.

  “That was a treat for the totally sloshed,” Alec said uneasily.

  Another round of laughter followed. Alec had all but forgotten Tia until she pushed him aside for a closer look at the locker.

  “Shame, shame on all of you!” she cried, bringing the room to a quick silence. “This is nothing to be laughed at. Alec is always sincere—”

  “Hush.” Alec took hold of her arm.

  “But this isn’t funny! Faeries—”

  “Tia. Please.” He squeezed her arm a little tighter. In a louder, jovial voice he said they were taking off.

  Alec hustled Tia to the street and kept on walking. Stopping at a bus bench two blocks down, he parked her on it. “What is your problem tonight?”

  “Where to begin!” she wailed. “First you are criticized for backing John Winter. Then you are mocked for believing in faeries.”

  “You are overreacting to everything. John’s innocence will come out in due course. As for the locker, the guys just like to clown around. It’s what we do to one another. Though I do wish they hadn’t found out about my little hallucination, when I’m struggling so hard not to appear nuts. When I’ve already put it behind me,” he added half to himself.

  “So you really think denying faeries will help you win back your job.”

  “Win back my sanity!”

  She promptly burst into tears. “Oh, Alec, I feel so foolish.”

  “Everyone will understand you were just nervous, anxious to fit in.”

  “More than you know, Alec,” she babbled almost eerily.

  “Not my fault. I’ve been waiting patiently for you to explain yourself, Tia. I’ve told you so much, even admitted to loving you.”

  “And I’ve loved you, Alec. Why, with every passing hour I’ve worried more about . . . this.” Popping up from the bench, she stepped into the shadows. Standing very still with arms at her sides, she bowed her head. With a soft, high hum she began to vibrate.

  The process was so fast, Alec barely had time to register the transmutation. Where his new girlfriend once stood on the sidewalk in blue jeans, shirt, and Keds, now hovered a creature in an iridescent pink dress and golden slippers, sprouting a pair of shimmery white wings. Strange and foreign, but to Alec Simon in particular, instantly recognizable, right down to the slippers.

  “You. You.” All he could manage was to point and gape.

  “I am the apparition you’ve apparently been working so hard to forget.”

  It was Alec’s turn to sit on the bus bench. “How could you not tell me!”

  “After your conversation with Mindy, I was afraid to.”

  That’s right. She would’ve gotten an earful and eyeful there. No wonder she always seemed one step ahead of him. Bending over, he buried his face in his hands. “I thought I was getting back on track. I thought I had a fresh start, with a cool new girlfriend.”

  “We are fresh. I am cool.”

  His head snapped up again. “You aren’t even human!”

  “There you are wrong. I wallow in your disgusting condition by a full half.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My father is human,” she snapped impatiently. “I came here from the Enchanted Realm to explore what I hoped would be my better half. You were quickly convincing me the Mortal Realm is an upgrade. But after tonight I can see both realms suffer from equal stupidity and prejudice.” Her shoulders sagged slightly even as she fluttered in place.

  He was dumbfounded. “I can’t be responsible for a whole nation’s bias.”

  She hovered closer, her lush lower lip extended. “At the moment, your opinion is all that matters.”

  “This is crazy. Beyond words—”

  Then suddenly words no longer mattered when, on a whiplash flap, Tia up and vanished into the night.

  Alec headed home, stopping outside the brownstone to gaze up at Tia’s apartment, looking empty and dark. If she was there at all, she was hiding.

  Alec kept his place pretty dark as well once he was inside. Kicking off his shoes, he settled into his living-room recliner in front of the glow of a muted television. The History Channel was rehashing the Battle of the Bulge. While he usually enjoyed old war stories, he found himself more focused on the window facing 60th Street. Primed for a flash of gossamer on his fire escape.

  Did he really want her to show up?

  Had he hurt her deeply?

  So many anxieties Ping-Ponged round his head, along with the intermittent ring of dual telephones.

  John was trying hard to reach him on both his cell and his landline, surely anxious for news on his chat with the chief. Normally, John had him on the first ring. But right now, his convoluted feelings for Tia outranked everything else. That realization rose out of nowhere as his hand froze in mid-air over the cordless resting nearby on his end table.

  While John was as close to family as Alec came these days, his gut was telling him that Tia could potentially move in even closer. That she deserved this stretch of reflective stewing.

  So what did the two of them really have?

  Chemistry. To look at her was to desire her. A reaction she openly shared.

  Loyalty. She swiftly took an active interest in his challenges, coaxing him to face his professional demons, supporting John in his plight at the fire department.

  All she’d really done wrong was not return his confidences as quickly as she should. Which on one hand caused her to spout off embarrassingly in front of his colleagues. Which made him less receptive when she did finally spill.

  But again, understandable after eavesdropping on his scene with Lindsay. To arrive here for a fresh start, only to discover more prejudice in her path, must have been tough.

  On the surface of things, it appeared to night’s breakdown was mostly his fault. But surely fixable, if he wanted it badly enough.

  All through the years, what he wanted most was to recreate the stable home life he had shared with his folks. Settle into a haven of ordinariness where he could escape the stress of his job.

  With Tia, there were bound to be kinks in this mortal domestic setup.

  In her defense, however, she was already trying to figure out what he needed and trying damn hard to deliver.

  All this, of course, was merely speculation limited to his own scope. He couldn’t sort any further without her input. A part of him felt she should apologize first for draining his secrets while hoarding her own. Due to her insecurities, however, she’d never initiat
e amends. No matter how long he stared out the window. It would be up to Alec to step up. He hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Alec awoke the following morning to a pounding on his door. It was at that moment he realized he’d fallen asleep in his recliner. He scrambled to pop the lock and remove the security chain without bothering to check the peephole.

  “Alec. Finally.”

  “Trey. Come in.” Alec stepped aside to allow John Winter passage.

  “Why haven’t you been picking up?”

  Alec self-consciously raked back his hair. “Fell asleep in my chair.”

  “You make it to the station?”

  “Yeah.”

  John dropped into the room’s best chair, a hand-crafted leather one he’d gifted Alec with last Christmas. Alec suspected John had bought it mostly for himself.

  “Spoke to the chief,” Alec admitted, moving into the kitchen for a drink of water. “He isn’t handing out favors. Any findings are still on the down low.”

  “No wonder you avoided my calls, trying to spare me the news.”

  Alec shrugged from the kitchen. Worked for him.

  “Thanks, anyway, for trying.”

  Alec reappeared in the living room, rubbing his fresh, itchy whiskers. “The process is fair. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “Kevin Mitchell is making an ass of both of us. Keeping the probe alive in the newspapers, now publicly refusing to attend my awards banquet.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “I need you there more than ever!”

  Still unsure if he’d attend, Alec shrugged.

  John lifted a stoic chin. “I don’t know why I bother with these ceremonies.”

  “Because you care.”

  John brightened a little. His cell phone beeped then with an incoming text message. He glanced at it and rose. “I have to go.” Alec followed him back to the door, where he paused, shifting his long body elegantly against the door frame in a way Alec had never before considered. “If you hear of any breakthroughs, even rumors, let me know.”

  “Of course.”

  “And don’t rule out Saturday.”

  “I won’t.” Alec studied his mentor closely then, the intriguing blue eyes shifting from flint to gleam in a heartbeat. He’d seen it all a thousand times before as John got his way. Yet it gave Alec a distinct tug of déjà vu.