Sugar and Spite (14 page)

It wasn’t going to happen! Not if she had anything to do with it!

They weren’t going to string Dirk out to dry just because they hated her and because Hillquist and Jeffries wanted to ascend the success ladder a couple of rungs.

No way!

She wanted to do something more tonight. At least curl up in her comfy chair with a legal pad and make notes, weigh what little evidence they had, brainstorm a bit.

But the dark dots that danced in front of her eyes and made the world spin inside her head warned her that she had to grab a few hours’ sleep before she collapsed entirely. Ryan and John said they would drop by at dawn-thirty and, not being a morning person, she knew that hour would roll around quickly. She had a case to solve and a Medieval Faire to go to, whatever the hell that was. And she needed to be at least semiconscious for both.

As she turned out the lights, double-checked the door locks, and headed for the stairs, she passed the desk… and its wastepaper can… and Macon’s printed e-mail, which Tammy had tossed there. Well, she hadn’t exactly thrown it in the trash. Delicately placed it there, prominently on top, where Savannah could clearly see it when she walked by was closer to the truth.

Tomorrow was garbage-collection day. She could, should, just leave it there, where it belonged, and in twenty-four hours it would be a part of her past.

Just as Macon Reid was part of her past and not her present.

Just the way she liked it.

If she picked up the piece of paper, he would become her present… and, heaven knew, the present had troubles enough of its own and didn’t need to borrow sorrows from days gone by.

But her hand picked it up anyway, in spite of her better judgment’s warnings to let sleeping, even dead, dogs lie. She held it down to her side as she climbed the steps and walked down the hall to her bedroom. Carefully, without looking at any of the words printed on it, she laid the paper on her night table and walked to the bathroom to perform her nightly grooming rituals.

As she brushed her teeth, she thought about Dirk’s predicament and hoped he would pass the night of incarceration in relative safety. While she applied nightly moisturizer, she thought of the poniard with its ugly, snarling, cobra head and wondered how difficult it would be to locate the armorer who had crafted it. When combing her hair, she mentally rehearsed the questions she would ask lawyer Larry Bostwick the next time she had the opportunity to speak to him.

By the time she crawled into bed, she had managed not to think about the paper with Macon’s words on it at all. Well, almost not at all.

But there was no point in putting it off any longer. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep in the same room as that damned paper, unless she had read it. Of course, once she read it, depending upon what he said, she might have problems sleeping anyway. So, she was damned to insomnia either way.

She pulled the comforter and lace-edged sheet up around her throat, as though, somehow, the fabric could shield her from whatever pain the auld acquaintance being renewed might cost her.

For as long as she could remember, she hadn’t been able to shield her heart from him. Why was she so foolish as to think she could now?

Allowing herself one quick glance at the words, she saw, “
years have come and gone
…”

“Yeah, no kidding,” she muttered. Then she took a deep breath and began to read from the beginning. Might as well get it over with, she thought.
Just do it quick, like ripping off a bandage. It’ll only hurt for a second.

The letter was short and sweet, at least for Macon, who had never had a way with words.

Dear Savannah,

I don’t know if you will ever read this or not, but I’m trying to get in touch with you. I want to see you. It’s important. Can I buy you a cup of coffee sometime? Years have come and gone and it’s time to make amends.

Love, Macon

Make amends? What amends could be made?
she wondered. There was nothing she wanted from Macon Reid, except to be left alone in peace.

Why was he trying to get in touch after all this time? Did he have cancer or some other terminal illness? Had he experienced some sort of religious conversion and needed forgiveness? Or maybe he had started going to AA meetings after all, the way they had begged him to for years and was trying to fulfill that step about making things right with those you’d wronged.

Whatever his motive, Savannah had learned to live her life without a man’s support and protection. She had learned to do without it very early, and she didn’t need Macon Reid now. If, at this late date, he had decided he needed something from her… well… that was his misfortune.

She crumpled up the paper and dropped it in the nearby wicker waste can. Having read it, she decided not to reply, to ignore the fact that she had ever received it. Avoidance, denial… yes, those were the best routes to take when dealing with a man like Macon Reid. That had been her mind-set for years; why change it now?

But sleep didn’t come as easily or as quickly as Savannah had hoped. She lay there, watching the moonlight filter through the lace curtains and paint delicate designs on the bed’s covering. She thought of all the things she had learned from Macon Reid. Lesson Number One: Don’t count on men to be there for you. They pretend to be strong, reliable, but when you really need them, they leave… laying down skid marks on the pavement.

Then Savannah thought of Ryan and John, their gentle support, their determination to help her with this case. She thought of Dirk, who had put his life on the line for her, literally, a number of times. She recalled how many times he had knocked on her door, just when she needed him most. How he had listened until dawn if she needed a friend to hear her side of an emotional issue.

And she felt ashamed for having applied that lesson to all males.

“No, Macon, it isn’t true,” she whispered to the father who had missed so many birthdays, graduations, Christmas plays, and tooth fairy appointments. “It isn’t true that men aren’t there when you need them. Some are.” She sighed and snuggled deeper into her pillow. “Some… are.”

Get off my face, or I swear, I’ll make cat soup out of you!” For the third time, Savannah shoved Diamante off her pillow… or it might have been Cleopatra, or both cats. Before the break of dawn she didn’t have enough brain-cell activity to tell the difference.

The cat returned, purring loudly, rubbing herself in a sweep from nose to tail tip along Savannah’s cheek.

“You foul, odious beast, I hope you—” She inhaled a fur ball and choked on the rest of her curse.

Then she heard the doorbell ringing downstairs. “Oh, I see. You’re being a good watchcat. Gee… thanks,” she added without enthusiasm. “If you weren’t so conscientious, I could have slept right through it and arisen at the crack of noon.”

She had minimal brain function by the time she opened the door and saw Ryan standing there, dressed like Conan the Barbarian, carrying some other sort of weird outfit slung over his arm.

Running her fingers through her mussed curls, she yawned, and said, “Don’t tell me you expect me to put that on.”

He grinned his Rock Hudson smile and looked her up and down. “Unless you intend to go to a medieval gathering in your pajamas.”

She brightened. “May I? Oh, don’t toy with me. Say I can.”

He pushed his way inside. “If you think John is going to miss the opportunity to see you in a corset, you’ve got another think coming.”

Taking the odd, burgundy-satin garment with its crisscrossed lacings and the emerald-velvet skirt from him, she gave him a suspicious look. “Are we sure it’s John who’s eager to see me in this?”

He laughed. “Okay, I’m not exactly dreading the sight myself.”

She tucked the garments, along with a white gauzy shirt with long, puffy sleeves under her arm, and marched up the stairs.

“I thought you two were gay and didn’t care about such things as damsels in corsets.”

“We may be gay, but we aren’t blind.” He walked to the foot of the stairs and added, “If you need any help with that stuff, just ‘give a holler’ as you say.”

She growled and slammed the bedroom door.

Ten minutes later, she climbed into the backseat of the Bentley, behind an otherworldly wizard in a flowing purple robe, sitting in the front seat. The wiz turned around, and said in a stately British tone, “My dear, how lovely you look this morning in that—”

“John, eat worms and die,” she snapped.

She stretched out across the backseat and within seconds was snoring.

“Our lovely princess is a tad snippy today,” John whispered as Ryan got into the passenger’s seat in front.

Ryan glanced into the back of the car and grinned. “What can I say, Merlin? Our fair Lady Savannah just isn’t a morning kind of gal.”

* * *

“Would you like some sticky buns, m’lady?”

“Would you like a fat lip?”

Ryan grabbed Savannah’s elbow before she could clobber the jester in the cinnamon roll booth they were passing on the main street of the faire.

“Sticky buns are considered a delicacy here at the faire,” he quickly explained to her. “It’s traditional to have one in the morning when you first arrive.”

“You mean sticky buns are food?” she asked, still a bit groggy from her long nap on the way there.

“Delicious. That’s the cinnamon smell that’s floating through the air.”

“Oh.” She turned to the recently insulted vendor, dressed in tights, a tunic, and a hat with a long sweeping plume, “Sorry,” she told him, “I thought you were talkin’ dirty. Give me one of those, and some for these guys, too.”

“No offense taken, m’lady,” he replied, quickly handing each of them a sticky, perfectly decadent-looking confection. “Though with a lady as well endowed as yourself,” he added, with a glance at her abundant cleavage spilling over the top of the tight lacings of her corset, “one might be tempted to suggest a payment not in coin.”

“What?”

“I’ll take silver from the lords in exchange for my wares,” he said, “but would prefer a kiss from the lady.”

“Do you have any coffee back there?” she said, nodding toward the back of his canvas-covered tent that served as a booth.

“I can find some,” he said, momentarily dropping the thick old English accent.

“And some half-and-half, too,” she added.

A few seconds later, he produced a Thermos and poured some of the hot, steaming brew into a mug. When he handed it to her, he puckered up. She waited until the last half-second and turned so that his kiss merely brushed her cheek.

He scowled. “Me hoped for so much more,” he said.

“Yeah, well… hope springs eternal. Thanks for the Java.” She turned to Ryan and John, who were already eyeing some daggers displayed in a case in the booth next door. “I’ve got three of my four basic food groups here: sugar, fat, and caffeine. I’m ready to face the world.”

With some calories burning in her system, Savannah felt much better and began to actually enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the Medieval Faire. Colorful tents and even larger pavilions lined the thoroughfare, where vendors hawked their period-style goods, everything from wreaths for ladies’ hair, to leather codpieces of impossible proportions for overly confident gentlemen.

Games of chance and skill abounded. For a few coins, you could toss balls at a target and dunk the village beauty into a tub of water. The reward was watching her emerge, her thin blouse clinging to her generous bosom.

You could strike a large metal plate with an enormously heavy sledge and ring the bell on a wooden giant’s nose.

Colorful banners, sporting family crests, fluttered from tent tops and poles mounted in the ground. And everywhere, festive folks were dressed in costume, enjoying their journey backward in time to a fantasy era, when lords and ladies shared the world with dragons and wizards.

“Do you like it?” John the wizard asked, slipping his arm companionably through hers.

“Love it,” she said, drawing in the rich aroma of turkey drumsticks roasting on an open fire with a cute serving wench basting them and eyeing the lads who walked by. “I’d like to come back when we aren’t working… and bring Dirk.”