Destiny (Absent Shadows Trilogy Book 1) (13 page)

‘Yeah, from mine too,’ said Sam, reaching out and taking my hand.

‘Wow, if you guys are trying to embarrass me, you’re doing a great job. By the way, Sam, I had no idea this was the Michael you were talking about,’ I said, turning my focus onto Sam.

‘Didn’t you? I’m sorry … I thought you knew.’

‘No, it hadn’t actually occurred to me … anyway, I met Crystal the other day,’ I said, turning back to Michael. ‘She’s … beautiful. But really, that’s such an understatement.’

Michael smiled at that, but then something behind him caught his attention. Looking over his shoulder he said goodbye as he excused himself to sort out some minor catastrophe happening in the kitchen.

We called out our goodbyes, and Sam walked me home, his arm around my shoulders most of the way. He seemed, if possible, to be even more protective. As for me, I was still on a high from having been called his girlfriend. The fact that my boss was a dhampir, and from what Sam had said about him, quite a powerful one at that, hadn’t actually sunk in yet … that would come later. Right now I was revelling in the fact that he’d called me Sam’s girlfriend, and said I was a keeper!

~~***~~

Thursday morning it rained. Not that light stuff that falls straight down. No, this was heavy rain that came in sideways with the wind. I hated to miss my run, but I stayed in, restless, trying to focus on the television.

Debs dropped me at work on her way to bridge. I was early, but I didn’t mind.

I walked in and threw my gear in the back room, then went in to the office to see if there was anything I could help Michael with.

‘Ah, Lili. Sit down. How’s it all going? You seem to be enjoying the work.’

‘I am enjoying it. I know I’m early … I just thought I’d see if there was anything I could help with.’

‘Great. There was a delivery of napkins this morning that needs to be unpacked and put in the drawers. It would be a big help. But stay for a minute,’ he said, smiling and pointing to the chair beside him. He paused, as if weighing up what to say next.

‘You’re having quite an impact on our Sam. I’ve never seen him as happy as he’s been the past couple of weeks. You’re a very welcome addition to our little … group.’

‘Thanks, Michael. It’s nice to feel included, however I’d never in a million years dream of grouping myself with Crystal, not in any sense of the word. She’s just so … special … and beautiful.’

‘Yes, she is beautiful, isn’t she? I’m lucky to have her, and I’ll never forget it. But you needn’t be in awe of her. She’s really just like any one of us, sort of.’ He grinned, and I could tell that he knew that wasn’t true. Crystal wasn’t like anyone.

‘Yeah, well, if you say so.’

‘I do. And so I hear you’re taking Sam away on Saturday night. Good for you. He needs to take breaks more often. He works himself way too hard—takes the responsibility far more seriously than he should. You’ve given him something new to think about, to focus some of his energy on. It’s refreshing.’

‘I’m glad you’re okay with it. He seems to respect you a great deal.’

‘Yes, I suppose he does.’

He sat staring at me for a few moments, as though he was weighing up something. Then he simply smiled, and nodded. ‘Well, off you go now, Lili. Those napkins won’t unpack themselves. And the kids will be here shortly. Chop chop,’ he laughed, waving me out of his office.

~~***~~

By five the rain still hadn’t let up. Sam arrived right on time, only this time he’d brought his car which he’d parked right out front. As I dashed out into the rain he was one step ahead of me, opening the car door and helping me in. Then he ran around to the drivers’ side and jumped in.

‘Now, there are two things,’ he said, turning in his seat to look at me. ‘Firstly, the traffic is a joke. If we leave now, I’ll be lucky to have you home in under an hour. However, Crystal is making fettuccine tonight, and has asked if we’d like to join her and Michael. Of course, I won’t eat much, and they know that, but Crystal is an excellent cook. I’d have you home before nine if you want to do that.’

‘Oh, that sounds nice, I mean, if you want to … if it wouldn’t be too awkward for you.’

‘No, it won’t be awkward at all. I’d love to, if that’s what you’d like to do.’

‘Okay,’ I answered, anxious to hear the second thing.

‘Great, they live right here, just a couple doors down from the restaurant. So now, the second thing … I bought you something. It’s in that little bag on the floor. I hope you won’t mind.’

I picked up the little bag and peeked inside. ‘A phone! Oh, how sweet. Of course I don’t
mind.
Thank you,’ I said, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

‘You’ve been pretty slack in getting one, so I thought I’d just jump in and get one for you.’ He smiled, and by the look on his face I knew there was more to it than that.

‘So, you want to keep tabs on me, is that it?’ I tried to make it sound sarcastic.

‘It’s a safety thing, Lili. I’ve put my number in it already, so if you need me, you can simply ring—anytime of the day or night.’

‘Thanks Sam. It’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever bought me.’ He wanted to protect me, and that felt really good.

‘I’m glad you see it that way. I was afraid you might think I was being paranoid. But I want you to be able to get in touch with me any time you need me. You may not realise it but I don’t need to sleep, although I do sometimes sort of doze I guess. But don’t ever worry about waking me—even if you simply can’t sleep and just want to talk.’

‘You may regret this, you know.’ I smiled at him, looking up through my lashes as I’d seen Claire do with Tom.

He shook his head, and laughed, and called me a ‘dag’.

‘Dag? What’s a dag?’

‘You haven’t heard that one before, I take it?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Well, it’s a term of endearment … or at least it is in this case. It’s sort of like saying you fool, or you idiot. But not so harsh.’

‘Right, so I’m an idiot. Okay.’

‘No, not you, just your actions. Looking up at me through your lashes like that.’

‘Oh.’

He laughed, and once again called me a dag, but with a big grin on his face.

‘We can sit here for a few minutes. Crystal hasn’t come home yet, and Michael is still in the restaurant. I’ll show you how the phone works, and you can ring Debs and let her know you’ll be late.’

He showed me all the basics with the phone. It was a bit newer and smaller than the phone I’d left at home, but mostly it seemed straight forward enough.

‘So, did you register this in my name? I’ll need to work out how to pay the bill.’

‘It’s all taken care of, don’t worry about it.’

‘What do you mean, all taken care of? You’re not going to pay my phone bills. I mean, thank you for getting it for me, but I’ll certainly pay the usage charges.’

‘It’s all taken care of—seriously. You won’t have to do a thing, except have fun with it, and remember to use it if you need it.’

‘But …’ I started, but he interrupted me.

‘Shush. The money isn’t important. I just want to know that you can reach me, if you ever need to.’

‘Sam, listen, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Debs and Ian the other night, but I guess I am curious about that house of yours. I mean, you work at the market, and surely, that wouldn’t pay terribly much. But you live in that beautiful home, and you own this expensive looking car. And now you want to pay my phone bill. I mean … well, you said you were virtually penniless when you arrived in Australia. Where did the money come from? How have you survived all these years?’

‘Ah, now that’s an interesting story. Remind me to tell you one day,’ he said, winking.

‘What’s wrong with right now?’

‘It’s a long story, that’s all.’

‘Well then, you better start talking,’ I said in what I thought sounded like quite an official voice.

The look on his face suggested he didn’t want to tell me, but then he began.

‘It was Elizabeth. She keeps an eye on everyone that comes and goes in those gardens. And everything they do, for that matter.’

I had visions of a drug deal gone wrong. ‘Did she find a brown paper bag full of cash, did she?’

‘No,’ he said, frowning like he didn’t know what I meant. ‘But she found Henry.’

‘Henry? Who’s Henry?’

‘Henry is the one with all the money.’

‘Ok, I’m completely lost. Explain,’ I said, shaking my head.

‘It was a long time ago actually, a very long time ago. Way before your mother was even a twinkle in her mother’s eye.’

‘Huh?’

‘Never mind,’ he chuckled. ‘Anyway, one night, a very large man showed up in the gardens. He was behaving suspiciously so Elizabeth watched him for hours. But really all he did was poke around in the bushes. The following night he arrived with a shovel and started digging a hole, and distributing the dirt into the garden beds. Just before dawn he covered up the hole with some branches and disappeared for the day. Well, it seems this went on each night for a good week or more, but she still had no clue as to what the hole was for.

‘Eventually he turned up with pieces of wood, and again, he’d dig and dig and then spread the dirt around the gardens. Eventually Elizabeth let me in on it. So the next night, we watched together from behind a tree, and sure enough, the same thing happened. He appeared, and went down into the hole. Only this time he didn’t take wood in with him. Instead, he had a couple of big bags—and the way he was carrying them, they looked to be really heavy. He finally came out but he didn’t bring anything out with him. I waited until I was sure he was gone, then I went to the opening. Elizabeth had watched him go in many times so she knew the trick to the entrance.’

‘And is it still there, this entrance? Do you think I’d find it?’ I asked, completely sucked into this story.

‘Yeah, it’s there alright. But there’s no way you’d find it,’ he laughed, ‘the gardeners haven’t even spotted it after all this time. Anyway, I went down into the hole but it was too dark even for my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing, or tell what he’d been doing down there. But it was too risky to go back in daylight so we decided we’d wait until we saw him leave the next night, then we’d go in with a lantern and have a another look around. So, the following night we watched him go back into the hole, then waited patiently for him to come out, only he never did.

‘Hours went by and eventually Elizabeth got up the courage to have a look, with me standing guard near the entrance. She’d only been in there a few seconds when she came back up and said the old codger had died down there, and his ghost was guarding a huge stash of gold.’

‘What?’ I asked in disbelief.

‘Yeah, hard to believe isn’t it? He had this huge pile of gold. Elizabeth eventually got the story from him, once he’d worked out that he really was dead and wasn’t just dreaming. He liked Elizabeth right from the start, so he told her everything. It seems he was a gold miner. “Struck it rich”, as they say. But he was so frightened his gold would be stolen he decided to hide it underground. He’d dug himself a tunnel that goes way down under the gardens. And so, there he sits, guarding his stash.’

‘That’s … amazing. So, how did he die? Did he hit his head or something?’

‘Best we can work out is he had a heart attack. He said he remembered feeling this really heavy weight on this chest and then he couldn’t breathe. So we reckon it must have been a massive heart attack.’

‘That’s awful. So, he died before he could enjoy his fortune.’

Sam shook his head slowly, ‘Yeah, a real pity for him, but not so bad for me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, Elizabeth told him about me and asked if he would mind sharing a little of the gold, seeing as how I was doing it pretty tough, and he wasn’t going to be able to spend it anyway. And funny enough, he agreed. Like I said, he really liked Elizabeth. He seemed to sort of look on her as a daughter. So when I went down into the tunnel to meet him, he had me fill up my jacket pockets with nuggets. I did that, but he insisted I take more. That’s when I bought the house, and a really big safe to keep the rest of the gold in. And there lies the secret to my fortune.’

‘Wow.’ I laughed. ‘So, is he still down there, under the gardens?’

‘Yes, he certainly is. And he still guards his diminishing stash, though heaven knows why. I call in to see him from time to time, and he often sends me off with a bit more gold. Maybe, when it’s finally all gone, he’ll be able to depart.’

‘Well … I don’t know what to say … I mean you have to admit it seems pretty absurd. So, what do the others think of this … of Henry?’ I asked.

‘They don’t know. Henry’s pretty shy so I didn’t think it was right to draw attention to him. Michael knows about the money, but not how I got it. And Tom knows that something happened … something connected to Elizabeth. But he never asked for any details. I don’t really think Tom cares all that much about the money. He’s quite happy living in my house, mind you, and of course, he loves the truck I bought him, and some of the other ‘toys’ he’s had over the years. But mostly he just loves what he is—the power, the speed, the intensified sight and hearing, not to mention strength. He gets a real rush out of his skills every time he uses them.’

I could feel my eyes getting wider as he mentioned Tom using his skills. Sam must have known what I was thinking as he shook his head. ‘Don’t worry. Like I said the other day, Tom will never hurt Claire again. You can rest assured about that.’

He smiled, and my fears faded. ‘And you? Do you love the power more than the money?’ I asked.

‘Maybe—I’m not sure. I mean, I was never a fighter like Tom. So for me, the ability to face some bully knowing that if I wanted to I could kill him before he even blinked—it’s an incredible feeling. It doesn’t mean I have to actually do it. Just knowing I could, if I wanted to, is enough. It’s like … well, sometimes I face these wannabe heroes, with their knives and their attitudes, and all I have to do is look at them—without fear—and they usually buckle at the knees and run off.’

The word ‘usually’ wasn’t lost on me, but I decided I didn’t really want or need to hear what happened if they didn’t run off.