Belonging to Taylor (2 page)

"Of course." Uneasily suspicious, Trevor was nonetheless too polite to question her motives. He glanced down as she walked beside him along the path, noting absently that the top of her head barely reached his heart.

It was difficult to see clearly now in the gathering twilight, but he'd already noticed that her blue jogging suit and shoes closely matched his own red outfit. It was casual, comfortable wear, seen often on the streets these days and not always meant as exercise suits. He'd not been jogging himself, but rather had driven out here for what he'd meant to be a half hour or so of air and scenery.

And found a crying psychic!
he chided himself mentally.

Taylor seemed content to walk in silence, saying nothing until they reached his car. Then she looked at the hulking Jeep and laughed delightedly. "I knew it! Rugged, strong, and practical—just like you!"

Not entirely sure he liked the comparison, Trevor merely opened the passenger door and gestured silently. When he went around to his own side and climbed in, he found Taylor staring intently at the stuffed unicorn hanging from the rearview mirror. She sent him a glance as he started the engine, and he wasn't quite certain he had caught her words.

He hoped he hadn't, hoped that with the intensity of a man caught in some act believed to be unmanly. Had she really said something about the soul of a dreamer?

The Jeep, in accordance with Taylor's directions, drew into
the driveway of a large three-story house possessing that indefinable air of having been lived in over many years. Trevor felt curiously drawn to the house; it was a sensation he'd never felt before and now profoundly distrusted.

Deciding that this leave-taking
would
be final, he opened his mouth to utter some polite and evasive words.

But he never got the chance.

The side door of the house, located by the drive, burst open just then, revealing a girl who looked nothing at all like Taylor. She was raven-haired, tomboyish, definitely tousled, and
all of ten years old. Literally swarming up Taylor's side of the Jeep, she peered through the open window and shrieked, "Taylor! Agamemnon stole Mother's best blouse and Dad says the preacher's coming and Solomon's had her kittens
somewhere
and Jamie lost my
favorite
sheets and Dory's locked herself in the closet
again
and won't come out and somebody let Jack and Jill loose and I think they're under the washing machine and Solomon will
eat
them unless I get them out and we've got
chicken
for supper and
please
can't you
do
something or I'm going to join a
nunnery!"

And, putting a period to her extraordinary sentence, the moppet slid back down the side of the Jeep and vanished into the house.

Murmuring, "Oh, dear," Taylor opened the door. Glancing back over her shoulder at her stunned companion, she added cheerfully, "Come on in."

And Trevor, betrayed once more by his curiosity, followed her meekly into the house.

Chapter Two

Trevor had little opportunity to note the furnishings of
the house, for the inmates instantly overpowered everything else. He found himself standing in a den and had the general impression of tasteful decorating overlaid by the clutter of a lively and populous family. There were various clashes, bangs, and thumps coming from distant parts of the house; in this room, the moppet's strident voice reigned.

Taylor was ignoring the importunities of her sister in order to ask a brief question of a strikingly lovely raven-haired woman.

"Which, Mother?"

Standing in the center of the room, Mrs. Shannon, who was dressed in jeans and a peasant blouse but wore vagueness like a cloud, blinked gray eyes at her daughter. "The blouse, I think, darling," she said in a soft lilting voice. "Because of the Reverend. Then Dory out of the closet; she wanted you and you weren't here, so she hid. Your father's looking for the kittens."

"My sheets!" the moppet wailed, tugging at Taylor's sleeve.

Taylor removed the fierce clasp on her sleeve, saying briskly, "Help me find the blouse, Jessie; then we'll find your sheets." She led the protesting child from the room.

Trevor found himself the focus of the vague gray eyes. "Hello," she said encouragingly. "Any good with hamsters?"

He blinked, not really sure what was expected of him. "Animals in general," he offered.

A slight frown disturbed her beautiful face, then vanished. "It'll have to do," she said in the tone of one who didn't expect a miracle. "Jamie—the hamsters."

From an adjoining room came a slender wraith of a girl. About sixteen or so, she was blond and bore the same mismatched, fascinating features of her sisters eclipsed by the dreamy gray eyes of her mother.

"All right, Mother," she said softly. She took Trevor's hand and led him, unresisting, down a short hallway and into a laundry room. Then she sat on a tall stool and gestured toward the washing machine. "They're under there, we think," she said helpfully.

Presented with a definite task—however bizarre—Trevor felt some relief. He pushed up his sleeves, stretched out on the floor, and worked one arm around behind the machine.

"It'd be easier," he panted, feeling around gingerly, "to pull the washer away from the wall. But there's no room."

"And it's bolted to the floor," Jamie explained serenely. "It walked around and made noise, so Daddy fixed it. Do you belong to Taylor?" she added politely.

Disconcerted, Trevor peered up at her even as he found and grasped a warm, furry body in his searching hand. Suppressing a wild impulse to answer, "I think so," he pulled the hamster from under the machine and said instead, "Want to hold this while I get the other one?"

Jamie bent forward to accept the hamster, cuddling it against her sweater. "Nobody but Daddy has an arm long enough," she said suddenly. "And he's looking for the kittens."

Again disconcerted, Trevor realized that she'd answered his mental question: why no one had retrieved the hamsters before now. Remembering something Taylor had said earlier, he thought,
Oh, Lord—-all of them?

He found the second hamster and held it in one hand as he got to his feet. "Where do they belong?" he asked, perforce adopting the verbal shorthand of the family.

"They live in Dory's room. I'll take them up." She got the
second hamster and stepped toward the door, pausing only to smile at him over her shoulder. "I hope you belong to Taylor. I like you," she said naively.

Trevor stood there for a moment, absently pulling his sleeves down, then sighed and made his way back to the den. He wondered in sudden amusement when it would occur to this absurd family that there was a total stranger in their midst; he had a feeling it might never happen.

Reaching the den, he found Taylor's mother exactly as he'd left her. She stared into the middle distance but turned her head when he came into the room. "Name?" she asked abruptly.

'Trevor," he answered a bit helplessly.

She appeared to consider. "Good. That's good. Two syllables and same first and last letters. Last name?"

"King," he supplied.

After a brief frown, she nodded, satisfied. "Not bad. At least, unless there's a German shepherd in the room."

"I beg your pardon?" he managed, faint but pursuing.

"They always name them Prince or King," she explained vaguely. "Confusing if you're in the same room."

Trevor leaned against a wall for support, staring in utter fascination at the woman. He couldn't, for the life of him, get a handle on Taylor's mother. The niggling suspicions that she was hardly as vague as she seemed wasn't confirmed by any outward sign, but his courtroom-sharpened senses told him there was much more to the lady.

Before anything else could be said, Taylor returned to the den. Under one arm she carried a clearly disgusted toy poodle, and in her free hand was the missing blouse. Jessie skipped impatiently at her side, still nattering about her mislaid sheets, and a newcomer clung fiercely to the jacket of Taylor's warm-up suit.

The newcomer, Trevor decided, must be Dory. If Jessie was a talkative moppet and Jamie a serene wraith, then Dory was a pixie. She was all of six years old, her red hair cut short around a face uncannily like her sisters'. But in her small face glowed the huge, vivid blue eyes only Taylor shared.

That there was an affinity between the two was obvious; Dory stared up at her sister adoringly, and Taylor, after handing
the blouse to her mother, reached to absently smooth shaggy red hair.

Trevor was trying to convince himself silently that he really should leave when he realized he was under scrutiny. Dory had released her grip on her sister and crossed to stand before him, looking up at him solemnly.

Instinctively going down on one knee to be closer to eye level with the child, he returned her stare as gravely as she offered it. "Hello," he said gently.

"Hello." Not a piping, childish voice, but one far too gruff and serious for the young face. And, astonishing the man, she asked the same question her sister had asked. "D'you belong to Taylor?"

He found himself uncomfortable beneath that solemn stare as he'd not been with Jamie; this one, he knew, wouldn't accept evasion. "I just met her," he explained seriously.

She frowned a little as if the answer was unsatisfying, then reached out and laid a tiny hand on his shoulder. A shy, elusive smile flitted briefly across her mismatched features and was gone. But she nodded to herself as she withdrew her hand. "You belong to Taylor," she told him firmly, her tone that of a wise teacher to a dim pupil.

Trevor blinked. She wandered away before he could say anything, and he rose to his feet slowly. He saw that Mrs. Shannon had vanished—apparently to don the found blouse— and watched as Dory stood on tiptoe to whisper into Taylor's attentive ear before wandering from the room.

"My sheets!" Jessie cried impatiently. 'Taylor!"

"All right, Jess!" Taylor glanced around briefly, then said dryly, "They're in the piano bench, where you left them! Next time, don't blame your absentmindedness on Jamie."

Taylor turned to Trevor as her sister shot from the room, exclaiming immediately, "Hasn't anyone asked you to sit down? Do, for heaven's sake!"

He removed a teddy bear from a chair and sat down, telling himself that he merely needed to recruit his strength before fleeing the madhouse. "D'you have a mirror?" he asked carefully.

She sank down in a chair across from his, still holding the poodle and gazing at him quizzically. "Not on me. Why?"

"Because I think there's a brand of possession on my forehead, and I'd like to see it."

Taylor laughed. "Have they been pestering you? I'm sorry!"

He sighed. "Not pestering. Just asking in the most natural, innocent way if I belong to you."

"And what did you answer?"

"I evaded Jamie's question. I told Dory—I assume the littler one's Dory—that I'd just met you. That didn't satisfy her; she touched my shoulder and then told me reprovingly that I belonged to you." He reflected for a moment, adding thoughtfully, "And your mother liked the sound of my name but hopes there won't be a German shepherd in the room, since they're always named Prince or King."

Taylor was giggling. "My family's a little ... original," she gasped. "I should have warned you."

"Are
all
of you psychic?" he demanded.

She nodded. 'To varying degrees. Of my sisters, Jessie has the least natural ability and Dory the most. And Jamie's sporadic; we never know whether she'll predict tomorrow's news or ask someone to help her find a lost shoe."

Before Trevor could respond, a tall, disheveled blond man appeared in the doorway leading to the main hall, announcing in a deep, satisfied tone, "I've found the kittens."

He earned Taylor's instant attention. "Oh, good! Where?"

"In that old sewing basket some idiot got your mother years ago," her father explained. "There's never been any sewing in it, so it's perfect."

Trevor, on his feet and watching silently, noted that Taylor and Dory had gotten their electric blue eyes from their father. He also noticed that both parents looked ridiculously young. At a guess, they were both in their fifties, but neither looked a day over thirty-five.
Does being psychic make you age slower?
he wondered abstractedly, then realized that a vivid but benign stare had fixed on him.

Then Taylor's father looked back at her. "Polite," he noted approvingly.

"Very," she agreed.

Her father bent a sudden frown on her. "No organ music, or I won't come! Your sister can play the piano, but I can't
stand organs." He reflected for a moment, adding in the tone of a man who wishes to be clear, "Five kittens." Then he disappeared into the hall.

Trevor sank back into his chair.

After a single glance at his face, Taylor burst out laughing. "We're not crazy, I promise you! It's just that we forget how to talk to people outside the family, and when you get into the habit of not finishing sentences or even thoughts, it's very hard to remember."