The Second Summoning

THREE

IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DRIVE from Kingston, Ontario, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in seventeen hours. Dean knew someone who’d done it—admittedly in the opposite direction, but the principle was the same. It did, however, require a number of factors working in the driver’s favor.

First of all, the varying police forces in charge of the highways stretching through Ontario, Quebec, Vermont, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia needed to be off the road. Second, nothing could go wrong with the vehicle. The glove compartment inexplicably deciding not to close was one thing. Dropping the entire exhaust system onto the asphalt just outside of Fredericton was something else again. But then, it usually was. Thirdly, the driver had to be so pissed off at an ex that his anger would keep him awake and alert to the dangers of the Canadian highway system—which was pretty much like the American system only with more moose—for the entire seventeen hours.

Fortunately, government cutbacks on both sides of the border had accomplished what a Tim Hortons on every corner hadn’t, making the odds of being stopped by a moose were significantly higher than being stopped by the police. And Dean’s truck might be pushing the ten-year mark, but both muffler and glove compartment were in top condition although the latter now held a hairbrush, two lipsticks, seventeen packets of artificial sweetener, a fast food child’s toy, a pink plastic pouch he thought held a pressure bandage until he realized to his intense embarrassment that pressure bandages didn’t have wings, half a bottle of water, and an open can of geriatric cat food.

He just wasn’t angry enough at Claire to drive for seventeen hours straight, although it had been a narrow miss when he’d found the cat food. Until they’d parted ways, he’d assumed the smell had been coming from Austin who was, after all, a very old cat.

Kingston to Halifax could be done in seventeen hours, but the trip took Dean three weeks. Just across the border into Vermont, he stopped to help a stranded motorist and ended up with a job in his diner while the regular cook worked out a small problem involving a cow, two liters of ice cream, and a tourist from New Hampshire. Dean didn’t ask for details; he figured it was an American thing. He thought about Claire every time he saw a young, dark-haired woman, or a cat, or anything weird on the news. He thought about her when he picked up after the waitress, when he told customers to wipe their feet, and when he went to bed alone at night.

He thought about her when the waitress suggested he didn’t have to go to bed alone at night. He thought about her as he thanked the waitress politely for the suggestion but declined. He wasn’t actually thinking about Claire when the waitress asked if he was gay.

“No, ma’am. I’m Canadian.”

That seemed to explain things to everyone’s satisfaction.

He thought about her pretty much all the rest of the time, though, and when the regular cook returned, he actually paused for a moment before getting back on the highway, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t head back into Ontario and try to find her. Didn’t leaving make him as incapable of compromising as he accused her of being?

The shriek of brakes from the semi coming up behind him not only ended the moment but very nearly solved the problem. Heart pounding, he put the truck in gear and continued east.

He’d seen Claire deal with Hell. And Austin. If she wanted to, she could find him.

It was mid-December by the time he arrived at his cousin’s apartment in Halifax. He’d intended to stay only until he could book passage on the ferry home, but for one reason or another, many of them having to do with beer, it didn’t happen.

Austin stretched out his paw and neatly hooked a French fry from Claire’s fingers. “You’re thinking about Dean, aren’t you?”

“No.” Except that the truck that had very nearly run her over as she closed a site at Highway Two and King Street in Napanee had been just like Dean’s. Except it hadn’t been a Ford. And it was red, not white. And Dean’s truck just had a standard cab. And was clean. But other than that…

The bed sagged under Claire’s weight, then kept sagging as the mattress came to an understanding with gravity. It wasn’t the most uncomfortable motel bed she’d ever slept in, but it was close. It reminded her of the bed in the motel just outside of Rochester. The bed that she and Dean had so briefly and so platonically shared. If she put out her hand, she could almost feel the heat of…

…a seventeen-and-a-half-year-old cat.

“You’re thinking about Dean, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Having reassured the dark-haired, blue-eyed, glasses-wearing young waiter, Claire put her fingers back in her mouth.

“Bar’s been almost shut down twice, you know, but I never seen a rat in here before.”

He still hadn’t seen a rat, but Claire had no intention of telling him that.

“Good thing you had your cat with you, eh?” Dark brows drew in. He scratched at stubble. “Actually, I don’t think you’re supposed to bring your cat in here.”

The possibilities were adjusted slightly. “It’s okay.”

“Cool. You want another drink?”

“Why not.” Since she’d already been distracted enough to nearly lose a finger, Claire figured she was entitled to watch as he walked away from her booth in the darkest corner of the nearly empty bar.

Austin horked a dark bit of something up onto the cracked Naugahyde seat. “You’re thinking about Dean, aren’t you?”

Fingers in her mouth, Claire ignored him.

He snorted. “Good thing you had your cat with you, eh?”

Just outside of Renfrew, Claire stood on a deserted stretched of highway and stared at the graffiti spray painted twenty feet up a limestone cliff. The hole, situated between the “u” and the “c” had turned the most popular of Anglo-Saxon profanities into a metaphysical instruction.

Before Austin could ask, she shoved frozen fingers deeper into her coat pockets and sighed. “Yes. I am. Now, drop it.”

“I was only going to mention that Dean would know exactly what cleaning supplies you’re going to need to get that paint off the rock.”

“Sure you were.”

On the opposite shoulder of the road, someone slapped a handprint into the condensation covering the windows of their parked Buick.

Against all expectations, Diana enjoyed the decorating committee meetings.

“So it’s settled; for this year’s Christmas dance we use a snowflake motif.” Stephanie’s smile could cut paper. “And, Lena, I don’t want to hear another word about angels.”

“But angels…”

“Have been done to death by all and/or sundry. Get over it.”

Watching Stephanie cut through the democratic process with all the precision of a chainsaw sculptor was significantly more amusing than watching the cafeteria’s hot lunch gel into something approaching a life-form.

“Diana…”

Jerked out of her reverie, Diana fought the urge to come to attention. Tall and blonde, Stephanie wouldn’t have looked out of place in jackboots, provided she could find a purse to match, and someday she’d run a Fortune 500 company with the same ruthless élan she used to run Medway High. Unfortunately for the world at large, Keepers weren’t permitted to make preemptive strikes.

“…since we’re trying to make this place look less like a gymnasium, I want you to make a snowflake pattern out of white-and-gold streamers about five feet down from those incredibly ugly ceiling tiles.”

Diana glanced up at the ceiling, then over at Stephanie. The gym was probably thirty feet high, and it would take scaffolding to reach anything higher than the tops of the basketball backboards. The odds of the custodians building that scaffolding were slightly lower than the odds of any member of the senior basketball team being picked up by the pros. At zero and thirteen, the senior basketball team couldn’t even get picked up by the cheerleaders. “You want me to what?”

“Try to pay attention. I want you to hide the ceiling behind a crepe-paper snowflake.” Stephanie met Diana’s incredulous gaze with a level blue stare, assuming compliance.

Although not the uninvolved stick in the mud Claire had been during high school, Diana had tried to give the whole Keeper thing the requisite low profile. Given how generally pointless she found the whole public school system, it hadn’t always been easy, but she’d made it to her final year without anyone pointing and screaming “Witch!” Well, no one anyone who mattered listened to, anyway.

So what had Stephanie seen?

And bottom line, did it matter?

“A crepe-paper snowflake?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

It was an ugly ceiling.

Meeting over, Lena fell into step beside her as they left the gym. “You’re the senior student on the committee, not Stephanie, so if you wanted angels…” Her voice trailed off suggestively, having applied the maximum emphasis allowed.

“It was the committee or a month of detention,” Diana reminded her. “But I don’t think angels are a good idea.”

Lena looked crushed. “Why not?”

“Flaming swords, smiting the ungodly…”

“Angels aren’t like that!”

“Maybe not the ones you run into, but the problem is, you can never be sure.”

“Of what?”

“Of what kind of angel you’re running into.”

Lena thought about that for a moment, then, as Diana headed into the first of her afternoon classes, muttered, “My mother’s right. You’re weird.”

With over three million people, Toronto had two working Keepers, one very elderly Keeper plugging an unclosable site out in Scarborough, and half a dozen Cousins monitoring the constant metaphysical flux—one of whom had made a small fortune following the stock market in his spare time. He said he found the relative calm relaxing.

The Summons took Claire to the College Park subway station on the University line where ninety-six hours previously a government worker from one of the nearby offices had been pushed from the platform. At the time, the old Red Rocket had been three hundred meters away grinding its slow way north. The intended victim had plenty of time to dust himself off, climb back onto the platform, and threaten the man who’d pushed him with an audit—but that was moot. Inept evil was still evil and a hole had opened at the edge of the platform.

For the next three days, it spewed bits of darkness out onto commuters in the morning and gathered them up again in the evening larger and darker. It was probably a coincidence that members of the Ontario government, arriving daily at the legislature building only a block away, proposed a bill to close half the province’s hospitals and cut education spending by 44% during those three days since it was highly unlikely that any member of the ruling Conservative party took the subway to work.

By the time Claire got to the site, the hole was huge and thousands of government employees had arrived at their jobs in a bad mood and left in a worse one—which was pretty much business as usual only more so.

Just after midnight, the platform was essentially deserted. A group of teenagers, isolated in headphones and sunglasses, loitered at one end and an elderly woman wrapped in at least four layers of clothing and surrounded by a circle of grimy shopping bags glared at her from the other.

With a sigh, Claire shifted the cat carrier to her other hand and walked reluctantly forward, wondering why she couldn’t see through the glamour. When she got close enough, and the scent of unwashed clothing and treasured garbage overwhelmed the winter-chilled metal, machine scent of the subway, she realized that she couldn’t see through the glamour because there wasn’t one.

“Hey, tuna!” A black nose pressed up against the screen at the front of the carrier, then suddenly recoiled with a sneeze. “Six days old, wrapped in a gym sock previously worn by someone with a bad case of toe rot, and I’d rather not be any closer.” He sneezed again. “Can we go now?”

“No. And keep your voice down. We’re in a public place.”

“I’m not the one talking to luggage.”

At the outer edge of the shopping bags, her eyes were watering. Nothing could smell so bad on its own, it had to have been carefully crafted. Claire was thankful she’d never had to study under this particular Keeper. This afternoon we’ll be combining the scents of old cheese and the stale vomit/urine combination found in the backs of certain taxis… Like life wasn’t already dangerous enough?

“You Claire?”

“Yes.” At least the other Keeper wasn’t insisting on using the traditional and ridiculous “Aunt Claire.”

“Are you Nalo?”

“I am. So, where is he?”

Claire blinked at the other Keeper. “Pardon?”

“Your young man. I heard at Apothecary’s that one of us made an actual connection with a Bystander.” She craned her neck, showing a remarkable amount of dirty collar. “Did he have trouble finding parking?”

There was absolutely no point in suggesting it was none of her business.

“We’re not traveling together anymore.”

“You’re not? Why not? I heard he was a looker and pure of heart, too.” One eye closed in an unmistakable wink. “If you know what I mean.”

Claire made a mental note to smack Diana hard the next time she saw her. “We’re no longer together because I decided that he wasn’t safe traveling with me.”

“First of all; you decided? And second, he’d already been to Hell, girl. What did you think could happen that was worse?”

“How about asphyxiation?”

Nalo pointed a long, dark finger in a filthy fingerless glove at the cat carrier. “If you can think of a better way to keep Bystanders far away from this hole, then I’d like to hear it. Until then, I don’t take attitude from no cat.”

It was probably fortunate that the approaching subway drowned out Austin’s response.

The teenagers got on, and out of the door closest to the hole stepped a large young man in a leather jacket, a tattoo of a swastika impaled by a dagger nearly covering his shaved head. Pierced lip curled, he swaggered toward the two women. He sucked in a deep breath, readying himself to intimidate, then looked appalled, and choked.

“You know what I think when I see a tattoo like that?” Nalo murmured as the sound of violent coughing echoed off the tiles. “I think, he’s gonna look like a fool when he’s eighty and in a nursing home.”

“Maybe he’ll regrow his hair.”

“Won’t help, he’s got male pattern baldness written all over him.”

Claire couldn’t see it, but she could see the words “hate” and “kill” written into the backs of his hands. Reaching into the possibilities, she made a slight cosmetic change. Then she reached a little farther.

His eyes widened and, still coughing, the hand that said “male pattern” gripping the crotch of his jeans and the one that said “baldness” outstretched to clear the way, he ran for the stairs.

“Will he be back?”

“Depends on how long it takes him to find a toilet.”

“He could just pee in a corner.”

“That’ll take care of half the problem.”

Nalo grinned. “Very clever. You’re subtler than your sister.”

“Public television pledge breaks are subtler than my sister.”

“True enough. Well, that was the last regular train past this station, so let’s get to work before the maintenance trains hit the rails.” Nalo shrugged out of her coat, peeled off the gloves, and was suddenly a middle-aged black woman in a TTC maintenance uniform. A lot of her previous bulk had come from the tool belt around her waist.

“You do a lot of work in the subways?” Claire asked, setting Austin’s carrier down and opening the top for him.

“Hundreds of thousands of people ride them every day, what do you think? Most of the holes close on their own, but enough of them needed help that it finally got easier just to buy the wardrobe—we’ve got a Cousin in the actual maintenance crew who picked it up for me.”

“Was he monitoring the site?”

“This one and a couple of others.” The older Keeper glanced at her watch. “Security’ll be here shortly. I’ve dealt before, so I’ll deal again; why don’t you and your younger legs jump down on the track and map the lower parameters.”

Yes, why don’t I? Although she tried, Claire couldn’t actually think of a good reason, so she stalled. “What about the camera? I should adjust it to show a different possibility.”

“Already done.”

So much for stalling. Pulling her kit from her backpack, she walked over to the edge of the platform and sat, legs dangling. “You coming, Austin?”

“Not likely.”

“There’s mice down there.”

“I should care?” But he trotted over for a closer look. “Not just mice.”

A group of tiny warriors no more than two inches high, their dark skins making them almost impossible to see, were silently surrounding an unsuspecting rodent. The kill was quick, the prey lifted in half a dozen miniature arms and, to Claire’s surprise, thrown against the third rail. There was a sudden flash, a wisp of smoke, and tiny voices chanting, “Bar. Be. Que! Bar. Be. Que!”

“What’s the delay?” Nalo asked, walking over. “Oh, Abatwa. I don’t know when they came over from South Africa, but they’ve adapted amazingly well to the subway system. You know what to do if you’re challenged?”

As far as Claire could tell, they all seemed to be males. “Flattery?”

“That’s right. Watch where you’re stepping, it makes them cranky.”

Given the nature of some of the debris, Claire figured stepping on one of the Abatwa would be the least of her problems. She didn’t even want to consider how some of it had gotten down there. About to push off, she caught a memory and froze. “You said something about maintenance trains?”

“You’ve got lots of time.”

“But we don’t know how long this will take.”

“Girl, you worry too much.” Nalo’s pat was almost a push.

Claire took the hint and dropped down onto the greasy ties. As she turned toward the job, heavy footfalls heralded the approach of Transit Security. They seemed perfectly willing to believe that both Keepers were maintenance workers and that Austin’s carrier was a toolbox, making only a cursory check and leaving quickly. Claire suspected that the collection of filthy shopping bags discouraged suspicion. And conversation. And breathing.

Her suspicions were confirmed when one of the guards promised to tell the cleaning crew about the mess. “They can get them ready for the garbage train.”

“Garbage train?” Claire asked when they were gone. “Is that the maintenance train you mentioned?”

“One of them,” Nalo allowed, pulling a piece of chalk from her tool belt and squatting by the upper edge of the hole.

“One of them? How many of them are there?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On how many of them there are.”

“Wonderful.”

The cleaning crew arrived before they finished mapping. None of them spoke English, two of the three couldn’t speak to each other. They all made their feelings quite clear about the bags.

“I don’t know about you,” Austin muttered when they left, “but I’ve just learned a few new words.” He wandered over to the edge of the platform and peered down at Claire. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.” The hole came over the edge of the platform, wrapped around the lip, and extended two feet down a blackened concrete block wall. It took a liberal application of nail polish remover to get even small sections of the concrete blocks clean enough to take a definition. And her fingers were getting cold.

“Dean could get that clean in no time.”

“And if Dean were here, that would be relevant.”

“Hey, I didn’t chase him away.”

“Shut up.”

“Almost done?”

“Almost.”

“Good.”

She glanced up at his tone. “Why good?”

“Well, I don’t want to rush you, but there’s something going on just down the line.”

“Going on?”

He cocked his head, ears pointing south. “Sounds like a train.”

“Great.”

“But it’s stopped now.”

“Fine. Let us know when it starts moving. Nalo?”

“I’m ready. If you’re not sure you can finish before the train gets here, hop out and we’ll redo after.”

Claire glanced down the tunnel. She couldn’t see a light, she couldn’t feel the wind of an approaching train, and she just wanted this whole thing to be over. “There’s one last definition; I can finish.” The concrete wasn’t exactly clean, but it would have to do. A little extra pressure on the chalk got the symbol more-or-less inscribed. “That’s it.” A movement in the air lifted her hair off the back of her neck as she straightened. “Let’s go.”

Because of the bend in the site, it was impossible for a single Keeper to see the entire perimeter. While Nalo pushed her edge in, Claire reached into the possibilities and lifted.

The movement in the air became wind.

Claire could feel the vibrations of the approaching train in the soles of her feet.

The hole fought to stay open.

As the bottom edge reached the tricky turn at the lip, she could see a small light growing rapidly larger in the corner of her eye.

Rapidly larger.

It became a train.

I might just as well throw myself under it. I can’t believe I screwed things up so badly with Dean. How can I miss him so much and keep on living? What’s the point of a life without someone to share it wi…

A sudden multiple puncture through the skin of her hand jerked her back to herself. Grabbing possibilities, she tightened her grip on the definitions, flung herself up onto the platform, and slammed the hole shut just as a three-car train roared through the station, lights blazing and Christmas music blaring.

Lying flat on her back, she lifted her injured hand up into her field of vision. “I’m bleeding.”

“You’re lucky that’s all you’re doing; that cat just saved your life. What happened?”

“I was…”

“Thinking about Dean.”

She turned her head until she could see Austin, opened her mouth to deny it, and sighed.

“Were you thinking about this boy?”

Another turn of her head and she could see Nalo frowning down at her, hands on hips. “It was more like a bad soap opera than actual thought,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Get up,” the older Keeper instructed. “We need to talk.”

Her tone left no room for argument. It barely left room for vowels.

As Nalo made sure the hole was truly sealed, Claire got slowly to her feet then bent down and picked up the cat. “Thank you.”

He rubbed the top of his head against her chin. “Same old, same old.”

“…and being without him is affecting the way you’re doing your job. Not to mention putting your life in danger. And what do you think would have happened if that train had killed a Keeper while you were under the influence of darker possibilities? I’ll tell you what, we’d have had a repeat of that whole Euro Disney thing!”

Claire shuddered.

“The powers that be clearly want the two of you together, or you wouldn’t be in such lousy shape without him.” Nalo handed her a glass of eggnog and set a saucer of it on the coffee table for Austin. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”

“There’s rum in it.”

Austin lifted his head, a fleck of foam on his muzzle. “There’s no rum in mine.”

Both Keepers ignored him.

“Do you love the boy?”

A mouthful of eggnog came back out Claire’s nose. “He’s not a boy!”

“Pardon me, Miss Defensive, and use the napkin, not your sleeve. Do you love the man, then?”

“I just want what’s best for him.”

“How about you let him decide what’s best for him and you answer my question.” Nalo settled into a wing-back recliner and stared at Claire over the edge of her glass. “Do you love him?”

“Love.” She tried for nonchalance and failed dismally. “What is love anyway?”

“Claire…”

There was power in a name. In this particular instance, there was also a warning.

The depths of the eggnog held no answers although the rum made a couple of suggestions Claire ignored. Sighing, she set the empty glass down on the coffee table next to a crocheted Christmas tree. “Since he left, I’ve felt like there’s a part of me missing.”

“Close but not good enough. Do you love him?”

“I…”

“Yes or no.”

Yes or no? There had to be other options. When none presented themselves, she sighed. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I love him.” The world stopped for a moment, and when it started up again, Claire felt a little light-headed. “Shouldn’t there be music or something?”

“The world stopped. That wasn’t enough? You want a sound track, too?”

“I guess not.”

“Good. Does he love you?”

“I don’t know.”

Austin looked up from the bottom of his saucer. “He does.”

“How do you know?” Claire demanded, leaning forward to stare into his face.

“He told me.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I’m calling you a cat.”

Austin thought about that for a moment. “Fair enough,” he conceded.

“It’s obvious you and Dean should be together,” Nalo declared, drawing the attention of both Claire and the cat. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Claire shook her head. “Keepers don’t…”

“Don’t tell me what Keepers don’t; I’ve been one a lot longer than you have. Keepers don’t deny the truth when it jumps up and bites them on the ass, that’s what Keepers don’t. If it helps, think of the space between you as an accident site you have to close.”

“But the danger.”

“Girl, don’t you think for a moment that Keepers have the only power. If you love him, you find that boy then you trust in the power of love to keep him safe. And if that cat doesn’t quit making gagging noises,” she added with a dark look at Austin, “I’m going to use him to line a pair of slippers.”

“She didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know.”

“I know.” Bedded down on Nalo’s couch for the night, Claire stared out the window, past the lights of the city at points farther east. Dean was out there, somewhere, and as much as it was going to cost her, she could think of only one way to find him.

Austin kneaded her hip, his claws not quite going all the way through the duvet. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Go home for Christmas.”

“Diana?”

“Diana.”

“And if you’re Summoned somewhere else?”

“Then I’ll know that Dean and I aren’t supposed to be together and I’ll be miserable and unhappy for the rest of my life.”

“That’s your entire plan?”

Claire sighed and stroked her fingers along his spine. “That’s it.”

“You know, you guys really need a union.”

The Christmas dance was Diana’s first. She hadn’t planned on attending but when her parents had discovered what she’d done too late to have her undo it, they’d insisted she be there just in case. They’d said rather a great deal more as well, but she’d stopped listening to the lecture early on.

Standing against the wall of the gym, arms crossed, a cardboard cup of punch in one hand, she watched twinkling bits of light falling gently through the central hole in the crepe-paper pattern. It was working exactly as designed; the weave captured good feelings rising up from the crowd, filtered and purified them, then sprinkled them back down like metaphysical snowflakes through the center hole. And in spite of minor panic from the ’rents about the dangers inherent in too much of a good thing, the inevitable counterbalance of teenage angst insured that the system didn’t spiral up and out of control.

It was probably going to be the first high school dance in history where everyone had a good time and no one had too good a time.

As ordered, the pattern even looked like a snowflake from below.

She was remarkably pleased with herself.

Draining the cup, she set it down and walked across to where the senior basketball team were standing morosely by the wall. They were now zero and nineteen. The chess club was more popular.

“Joe, dance with me!”

He looked startled but took her hand and allowed her to lead him out onto the floor.

As the music started to slow, Diana reached into the possibilities and changed the CD before he could pull her close.

Everyone was going to have a good time, but there were limits to even the most selfless charity work and Joe had missed his last five free throws.

Just after one a.m., Diana slipped off boots and coat and padded upstairs in her socks, reaching just far enough into the possibilities to muffle the sound of her arrival. She didn’t actually have a curfew—there was a certain inane sound to you can only save the world until ten on a school night—but she liked to keep the parental units guessing. Fully aware of this, they set certain metaphysical traps, which she easily deflected, and all parties remained secure in the knowledge that they were holding up their respective ends of the teenager/parent relationship, Keeper/Cousin variety.

Diana suspected her parents didn’t think of it that way, but as long as they were happy, she didn’t really mind.

She waited until she had her bedroom door closed behind her before she turned on the light.

“I need a favor.”

The possibilities muffled her startled shriek and Claire easily fielded the candle she threw. “Don’t you have somewhere to be Summoned to!”

“No.” Claire set the candle on the stack of paperbacks piled by the bed.

“No?”

“How loud was the music at that dance? No. I am, at the current time, not being Summoned anywhere.”

Her heartbeat beginning to return to a more normal rhythm, Diana crossed over to the beanbag chair, scooped Austin up into her arms, and settled them both, the cat on her lap. “Whoa. You do know what that means?”

“How many more years have I been doing this?” Arms crossed, Claire paced the eight steps to the wall and back. “It means I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to do what I’m doing.”

“You don’t look very happy about it. What are you supposed to be doing that’s got you so nervous?”

Dropping onto the end of the bed, Claire picked a tuft of fuzz off the folded Navaho blanket. “Like I said, I need a favor.”

“You’re supposed to ask me for a favor?”

“No. I need to ask you for a favor.”

“Me?”

“Do you see anyone else in here?” Claire demanded, nostrils pinched. “If I could do this any other way, I would, but I need a favor only you, my only sister, can provide.”

“Only me?” The grin became a smirk as she stroked a thoughtful hand down Austin’s back. “In all my life you have never come to me for counsel or help. You have never invited me to be a part of what you do. Now you come to me and say you need a favor.” She stroked the cat again. “Now you call me sister.”

Austin stretched out a paw, and pushed against her lap. “Hey, Godfather, behind the ears.”

“You’re sure you know the number?”

“Always.” Diana poked at the phone.

“That’s too many numbers!”

“Relax and tell me again how I was right and you were wrong.”

“Just dial.”

“I’ve dialed; it’s ringing.” The look on Claire’s face evoked an involuntary smile—which slipped as Claire stood motionless and stared at the receiver. “Hey? Are you going to take this thing from me or…too late. Hi, Dean.”

Dean pushed himself into a sitting position on his cousin’s sofa bed. “Diana?” He slid on his glasses and glanced over at the VCR for the time. The piece of black electrical tape was no help at all. “How did you get this number?”

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you. There’s someone here who wants to talk to you. Someone who’s very, very sorry she sent you away and…ow! What’s your damage? It sure seemed like you didn’t want to…okay, okay, stop pinching!”

During the pause that followed, he dug for his watch. Two forty-one. a.m.

“Dean?”

Remember to breathe, he told himself as the room started to spin. “Claire?”

Fingers gripping the plastic so tightly it creaked, Claire had a sudden flashback to the hotel room in Rochester.

“Howard?”

“Cheryl?”

And we all know how well that turned out. She swallowed, unable to actually say the words. If Dean had said something, anything, but he didn’t—although she could feel him waiting.

Diana rolled her eyes. Leaning forward, she caught her sister’s gaze and held it. “Tell him, Claire.” The she reached into the possibilities and added the magic word. “Please.”

Resistance was futile. The words spilled out before Claire could stop them. “Dean, I’m sorry. I was wrong to just arbitrarily decide we shouldn’t be together anymore. I should have told you about the danger and let you…” When Diana scowled, she wet her lips and made a quick correction. “…trusted you to make your own decisions. I want us to be together.”

“Why?”

“Why? I…um…Diana, if you please me again, I’m going to smack you!” Having glared down her sister, she took a deep breath.

“If it helps, think of the space between you as an accident site you have to close.”

Moving the phone away from her mouth, she growled, “Would a little privacy be asking too much?”

Diana, secure in the certain knowledge that Claire owed her big time, snorted. “Well, duh.”

Austin ignored the question as it clearly did not apply to cats.

Neither response surprised her. She tucked the phone back up to her mouth and lowered her voice. “Dean, since you left, I’ve felt like there’s a part of me missing.”

She could still feel him waiting.

“Close but not good enough.”

“Look, I love you. Okay?”

She loved him. Over the thundering of his heart, Dean could hear music. It filled the apartment, thrummed in his blood, and just about made his ears bleed.

In the next room, his cousin banged on the ceiling. “It’s almost three o’clock in the freaking morning, butthead!”

“Dean?” Claire frowned at the phone.

“What’s happening?” Diana demanded, reaching for the receiver.

Claire smacked her hand away. “I don’t know. It sounds like Bon Jovi.”

The music stopped.

“Dean?”

She loved him. The words echoed in the sudden silence.

She loved him.

Now what? Was he supposed to say he loved her, too, or would she think he was just saying it because she’d said it even though he did, and had known it since he drove away and left her standing all alone in that parking lot even though he hadn’t realized he’d known it until this very moment?

And then what?

“Dean?”

“What’s the matter?” Diana made another unsuccessful grab for the receiver.

“He’s not saying anything.”

“Give me the phone.”

Claire stared down at the cat. “What?”

“The phone, give it to me.” When she hesitated, he sighed. “Trust me, it’s a guy thing. You need to break this up into bite-sized pieces.”

As the silence from the other end of the line continued, she laid the phone down on the bed beside Austin who cocked his head so that his mouth was at the microphone and one ear pointed at the speaker.

“Dean, you still there?”

That wasn’t Claire. Where had Claire gone?

“Claire?”

Austin’s tail tip flicked back and forth. “She’s here, but right now, we need some answers. Do you love her?”

Dean sighed in relief. That, he didn’t have to think about. “Yes.”

“Do you want to be with her?”

“Yes.”

“Write down these directions.”

He shook his head to clear some of the adrenaline buzz and grabbed a pen off the end table beside the sofa bed. Paper. He had no paper. Pulling the fabric tight over his leg, he wrote the directions on the sheet, repeated them, and hung up.

“Well?” Claire demanded as Austin lifted his head. “What did he say?”

“He said yes. Hang this up, would you. If you’re thinking of what to get me for Christmas, I’m fairly certain I could manage one of those large-buttoned phones they have for seniors.”

“Austin.”

“Just think of the time you’d save if I could order my own food.”

“Austin!”

“What?”

Claire managed to avoid throttling him but only just. “He said yes, and?”

“And I expect he’s folding his underwear into his hockey bag even as we speak.”

“He folds his underwear?” Diana snickered.

“He folds everything,” Austin told her, fastidiously smoothing a bit of rumpled fur.

“Austin…” Claire ground the cat’s name out through clenched teeth. “…what does Dean’s underwear have to do with anything? And you…” She turned a warning glare on her sister. “…can just shut up and let him answer the question.”

“It has to do with packing.” When she continued to glower, Austin sighed. “Packing to come here. And you’re welcome,” he gasped as jubilant Claire scooped him up into her arms. “But I’m old, and you just drove a rib through my spleen.”

“Do cats have a spleen?”

“I think you’re missing the point.”

“Sorry.” She set him back on the bed and, suddenly conscious of her sister’s smug expression, stiffened. “What?”

“Don’t you have appreciation to show to someone else? Someone who, oh, made the initial contact?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And I would have told him without your help.”

“Oh, sure. And Babe would’ve been nominated for that best picture Oscar without my help.”

“Diana!”

“I was a lot younger then! And it’s not like it won…”

It was not possible to drive from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Kingston, Ontario, in seventeen hours. For reasons unknown to mortal man—although most mortal women were aware of them as they involved asking for directions when trying to get out of Montreal—the trip from east to west took eighteen hours. Dean actually had to drive past Kingston through Toronto, to London, then north to Lucan. The whole trip took him twenty-three hours. He saw one police car parked at a doughnut shop. He saw no moose.