Completely Smitten Part 13

He lied to her. He hadn't lied to a woman in need of a soul mate in more than a thousand years. It was one of his post-Camelot vows. No lies when he was trying to help people.

But he wasn't trying to help her, was he? He was running away from her. Or trying to, and doing a d.a.m.n poor job of it.

Evelyn snorted. "Where would you have gone?"

As if he couldn't have gone anywhere on short stubby little legs.

He drew himself up to his full height--all four feet of him (well, three feet six of him)--and said, "Oh, I don't know. Down a hiking trail. To a hot springs. To a rafter camping site to meet the chicks. There's a lot to do in the mountains. Or have you forgotten?"

Evelyn raised her eyebrows. "I could've sworn it was you."

"If it wasn't you, then who was it?" Ariel asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe this mysterious Darius radioed in."

"Using your radio?" she asked.

"If he could find it."

Her eyes widened slightly. Apparently in that cursory search of the house she had done, she hadn't found it. "You really don't know who this guy is?"

"Why would I?"

"He was staying in your house. He knew how to use the stove. He cooked me dinner and breakfast. He seemed real familiar with the place."

Darius turned his back to her and walked to the desk. He had some paperwork to fill out before he left. "Maybe he was."

"A man you don't know?" Ariel asked, her voice rising.

He found the paperwork without Evelyn's help. It was the bill that would be dunned against one of the many accounts in the Andrew Vari name. On it, he noted, was $125 for Ariel's return trip.

"I'm only at the place two weeks out of the year," he said, scrawling his Vari signature on the paper. "It's quite possible some guy has been using the place as his own."

"But you were there, or supposed to be." Ariel had moved closer to him. He resisted the urge to move away. "How could you have missed him?"

"Sounds like it was pretty easy." He tossed the paper on the coffee rings.

"Mr. Vari," Evelyn said, "if you didn't call us, you might want to examine that bill."

"Already did," he said, working to keep his tone light.

"But there's a charge for Ms. Summers's plane flight."

"Steep, don't you think, for rescuing someone who broke her leg?"

Ariel gasped.

"You know the rules," Evelyn said. "If it's not life or death, the state won't pick up the tab."

"And suddenly you're a doctor?" Darius said.

"It was a broken ankle," Evelyn said.

"Something you could diagnose from the radio."

"You told us--"

He raised his eyebrows.

"--or at least whoever radioed told us that she needed hospital care, but that she was all right."

"And you trust the word of just anyone," he said.

"It sounded like you. He had your call letters."

"Posted above the radio," he said.

"And he knew how you signed off."

"Well, that's tough to know, ain't it, toots?" He glared at her, letting his anger show. It no longer mattered to him that Evelyn was in the right. He just wanted to get out of there. "I mean, every radio operator in this part of the state hears the communication between stations if they want to. And I have a hunch 'I'm' known as a colorful character around here."

To his surprise, tough old Evelyn blushed. He wondered what she'd said about Andrew Vari, the most colorful mountain man of them all.

"It's okay," Ariel said, swinging herself between them. She had learned how to wield those crutches in the past week. "I'll pay for the trip. It's my expense. You obviously didn't know about it."

He glared at her. The last thing he wanted her to do was pay for anything. His treat, but he couldn't seem kind about it. How to take care of her and push her away? He had no idea.

"Look, lady, I'm richer than Croesus." Not that Croesus was all that rich. But no one still alive knew that except maybe a handful of other mages, most of whom liked to keep up the rumors of Croesus's wealth. "I can pay for this."

"But it's my expense," she said.

"Really? It's on my bill."

"Put there by a person you don't know."

He gave Ariel a sideways grin. "No matter what lies she's told you, I've known Evelyn for years."

Ariel's mouth thinned. "That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant, honey. It doesn't matter who decided to put it on my bill. I'll pay it and you save your money. Or better yet, put it toward food. You look like you need some."

She looked startled again. Was no one ever rude to this woman?

"I'll pay it," she said to Evelyn.

Evelyn shook her head. "He can do it. Since he's being so rude in other ways."

"I don't take charity," Ariel said.

"Consider it payment, then," Darius said.

"For what?" Ariel asked.

"Shutting up and leaving me alone." He turned away from her and walked through the waiting area to the main door. The brown and gold s.h.a.g carpet, matted from years of use and neglect, would slow her down.

Behind him, he heard Ariel sigh in exasperation. "Mr. Vari, doesn't it bother you that some stranger used your home?"

"No," he said. "Now that I've met you, I forgive you."

"I didn't mean me," she said.

He put his hand on the gla.s.s door, uttered a small spell so that his exit wouldn't be ruined by weight and wind, and then faced her. "Exactly what part of 'shut up and leave me' alone did you not understand?"

Her eyebrows went down in an elaborate frown. She opened her mouth to answer him, but he didn't wait for her words. Instead, he let himself out into the storm.

The wind buffeted him to the side and thunder boomed overhead. The rain was coming down in sheets. He patted his pockets for his car keys, realized he'd left them on the table in the house, and spelled them to his hand.

His steamer trunk sat in the rain behind his Mercedes. Duke had at least gotten it that far.

There was no sign of Duke anywhere, and the women were watching Darius from the inside of the building. He couldn't spell the trunk into the trunk. He would have to do it the old-fas.h.i.+oned, embarra.s.sing way.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. He couldn't be elegant or sophisticated in this body. Even competent was hard.

He popped the car's trunk and stared at the steamer. Sometimes his sense of history got him in trouble. He liked using a steamer trunk most of the time, the stickers on it, the weight. He'd been using this one for more than a hundred years, and never before had it put him in a position like this one.

Oh, well. Watching him struggle with it would give Ariel a good laugh. If she despised him before, she'd probably hold him in contempt now.

Through the gla.s.s door, Ariel watched the little man struggle to put his steamer trunk in his car. The trunk didn't seem heavy as much as awkward. It was twice as big as he was, and wider as well. Yet he managed to lift it toward the car, staggering left, then right, as he tried to shove it inside.

"We should help him," Ariel said.

"You mean I should help him," Evelyn said.

"Or find Duke, maybe."

Evelyn snorted. "After that stupid discussion, I'm not helping him with anything. Vari's always been obnoxious and rude, but I never took him for a bar before."

Ariel looked at her. This entire meeting had left her unsettled. She had that same feeling around Vari that she'd had around Darius, as if he were going to say one thing when he would actually say another.

"What do you mean?"

"I talked to him," Evelyn said. "I know it was him. After twenty years on that horn, I don't make mistakes about the regulars. And no one can imitate that voice."

Ariel remembered the throat-clearing, the curse, and the whistling. She wasn't sure if she believed Evelyn or not.

"If he hadn't radioed in, then he wouldn't've paid for the plane trip. And he's nervous as a mountain goat about letting people into his place. He should've been bothered by it."

Ariel glanced outside. He'd gotten the steamer halfway into his car's trunk. Now he was pus.h.i.+ng on it with his tiny shoulder. The rain that hadn't touched him before was drenching him now. His crisp white suit looked like clingy pajamas that were one size too big.

"Maybe if we help him, he'll tell us what's going on," she said.

"Naw." Evelyn crossed to her desk, picked up the paper that Vari had tossed, and sat down. "People keep secrets up here. Maybe he was meeting that guy for a reason."

"Like what?"

"How do I know? Maybe they're lovers, or maybe the guy's on the lam from something. Murder or evading child support or running drugs. It could be anything."

Ariel remembered the pa.s.sion in that kiss. "They're not lovers."

Evelyn gave her a sideways look. "Then the guy's probably on the run, and you got mixed up in something you shouldn't have."

Vari was still shoving the trunk into the trunk. "I'm going to go ask him," Ariel said.

"I wouldn't," Evelyn said. "You don't know what kind of people live up here."

"I met Dar," Ariel said. "He saved my life."

"Yeah, and like as not would kill you if you got in his way."

Ariel shook her head. "Well, he's not here and Andrew Vari is. He won't hurt me. He can't."

Evelyn raised her eyebrows. "It's clear you haven't talked to him much."

Ariel ignored that. She crossed the tile and swung herself onto the carpet. That was slower going. It wasn't as flat as it had initially seemed. Her crutches caught in it. Or actually, Vari's crutches, if his story was to be believed. Darius had given her Vari's crutches.

Although that made no sense. The crutches were bigger than Vari was.

She reached the door. Vari had climbed onto his b.u.mper and was using his entire body to shove the trunk forward. She grabbed the door handle, and only at that moment did she realize that she was going to have the same problem she had before.

"Evelyn," she said, "would you mind--?"

"Yes." But Evelyn got up anyway. Ariel stood aside as Evelyn pulled the door open. The wind caught it and slammed it against the wall. Rain drummed on the concrete.

"I'd rethink this," Evelyn said.

Ariel went out anyway. She wasn't afraid of the elements. She'd raced in weather like this. She swam in the Pacific, all the way to Alcatraz and back, in weather like this. She could hobble across a parking lot.

She was halfway to Vari's car when the wind rose again. The steamer trunk seemed to shrink slightly, then slide into the car. It was almost as if one of the trunks had been reformed to fit the other.

Vari slammed the car's trunk shut, then jumped off the b.u.mper like a kid jumping into a pond--arms raised, legs bent. He looked almost exuberant.

When he landed, he ran to the driver's side and slid in.

"Mr. Vari!" she shouted, but he slammed the door behind him and started the car almost at the same instant.

The car's reverse lights went on, and he backed the thing up so fast, it took her a moment to wonder how he was driving it. She knew his feet couldn't hit the pedals, not when his tiny arm was hugging the back seat as he looked out the rear window.

The Mercedes stopped just short of her--as she somehow knew it would--and then went forward, out of the parking lot, spraying water in all directions. Somehow it missed her.