Bob.
I padded into the bathroom to perform my morning ablutions, finishing up by tying my hair back in a ponytail with a fuzzy green scrunchie. The cats followed me into the kitchen, weaving in and out between my legs. To get them out from underfoot, I dished up their breakfast before I brewed my morning dose of caffeine. With the coffee maker gurgling, I scooped out a cup of kibble for Bob and carried it to the porch.
“And how’s my patient this morning… Hey!”
My voice climbed to a shout, and I dropped the cat food. Tiny balls of kibble bounced and scattered across the floor. Instead of the cat I’d expected to find on the loveseat, I saw a man, legs pulled to his chest as he tried to fit into the small space. My exclamation startled him awake, his arms wind-milling as he attempted to unfold himself. Overbalanced, he tipped off the loveseat and fell to the floor on his hands and knees.
I recognized the lavender polo shirt. It was the hiker I’d met yesterday.
“Who are you? What are you doing on my front porch? Did you follow me?” I peppered him with questions as he sheepishly climbed to his feet.
He might have tried to answer them one by one, but I kept them coming so quickly, one piled upon another, that he wisely closed his mouth and waited for my anger to wind down.
“And what did you do with my cat?”
“Your cat, milady? Would that be the cat you were searching for yesterday?”
“Yes, that cat. And cut the
milady
crap.” What had sounded quaint and endearing yesterday seemed condescending this morning. “I’m not
your
lady.”
“No, mi…ma’am.” He quickly corrected himself.
“My cat?”
“Oh aye, that cat.” He heaved a great sigh. “He has gone.”
I noticed the screen door was still locked from the inside, but the stranger could have let the cat escape and then secured the door behind him.
“Gone? He was injured, and you just let him walk out of here to get in another fight with who knows what? After I spent half the night patching him up?”
“I know that you did, and a great kindness it was…”
I interrupted him. “What do you mean,
you
know?
Where you spying on me?” Goose flesh prickled my arms. Had he been hiding on the porch all night, watching me like some perverted peeping tom? “I really ought to call the cops and have them haul you off to the slammer. I think you’d better leave.”
“Yes, milady. Ma’am.” As he turned to lift his backpack, I noticed two long slits on the side of his polo shirt, crusted with a dark stain.
“Wait. That looks like blood on your shirt. Are you hurt?”
“Nay, ma’am. I but tripped and fell. ’Tis only mud.” He hung his pack over that shoulder so I couldn’t study his side more closely. He gathered up his staff and moved to the door. “I know your hospitality was not freely given, but it was appreciated nonetheless. I shall be about my business, and I promise that I shall not bother you again.” He gave me another bow and started out the door.
My anger evaporated. The expression on his face made me feel as if I’d just thrown a puppy out into a Category-5 hurricane.
“Wait. Would you like a cup of coffee?” I could put it in a paper take-out cup and get him out the door. Then I’d get dressed and search the neighborhood for Bob.
“Aye, that would be right kind of you.” His pale green eyes shifted, as if he was waiting for the next shoe to drop.
I returned to the kitchen and searched through the cabinets as I tried to remember where I’d stashed the cups the last time I used them. When I turned to check the pantry, I realized the stranger had followed me. For a big man with chunky hiking boots and burdened by a large backpack, he moved quietly. I hadn’t heard a single creak or footstep on the old pine floors of the living room and hallway.
He swung his burden down and stacked it, along with his staff, by the door, as naturally as if he did it every day. A small smile curved his lips as he gazed around the room.
“It has changed nary a bit.”
I cocked my head. “I beg your pardon?”
He seemed to come back from whatever reverie his mind was caught in and said, “Your cottage. You have not changed it from the way it was built all those years ago. ’Tis comfortable, and it suits you. Not like those soulless manors the gentry are so fond of building these days.” He waved his hands to indicate the two larger structures on either side of me.
My neighbors might not agree with his description of their million dollar edifices. I gave up looking for the paper cups and got down two large mugs.
“We’ve changed some things. Dad had air conditioning put in when I was a kid. You don’t do summers in the South without AC. And after Mom nagged him for years, he finally got around to changing out all those icky, avocado green, seventies-era appliances a couple of years ago.” I sucked in a breath. I’d blundered into an area where the pain was still too sharp and fresh. “Less than a year later they were killed.”
“I am so sorry to hear of your loss. You have my deepest sympathies, Laura.” His voice returned to the velvet purr I’d noticed yesterday.
“Yeah, it was a drunk driver, out on the Interstate.” I stared into the empty coffee cups, but then turned to him, an eyebrow cocked. “How do you know my name?”
A flash of confusion crossed his features before he picked up a piece of mail from the stack on the counter. He pointed to the address. “Doctor Laura Chambers. ’Tis you, is it not?”
I lifted the carafe to fill the cups. “That would be me. What’s your name?”
“Bob.”
My hand twitched, spilling coffee on the counter. I grabbed a towel to mop it up. “Bob?” I asked, the odd coincidence making my voice shaky.
“Aye, but ’tis actually Robert. Robert of Starhollow.” His brogue ran the preposition into the second name, pronouncing it as one word. It sounded vaguely Scottish. “But you may call me Robby, if you wish.”
“Well, Robby, do you take anything in your coffee? Milk, sugar?”
“Aye, both.”
As I turned to put the cup on the table, I noticed he no longer stood in the doorway, but squatted on the floor, my cats gathered around him. Castor and Pollux bracketed him, each getting a thorough ear scratching. Jasmine—shy Jasmine—stood on her hind legs, front paws on his knees, face to face with him. They appeared to be smelling noses.
“You should feel honored. She doesn’t take to strangers,” I said.
Even close friends who visited often complained they’d never seen her. The boys, on the other hand, would welcome anyone, even a burglar, as long as he brought catnip.
“She recognizes a kindred spirit.” He gave each head a final fur ruffling and rose to sit at the table.
He scooped three heaping spoonsful of sugar into his cup, tasted it, and added another.
“All that refined sugar isn’t good for you,” I said. “It’s probably the leading cause of the obesity epidemic in this country.”
Not that there was an ounce on extra weight on that chiseled chest or flat stomach, nor any other place that I could see right now. That thought sent a glow surging up my face, and I hastily took a gulp of my coffee to hide my blush behind the mug.
“Going to fat will never be a problem for me. ’Tis more that I have trouble eating enough to keep my body fueled to provide the energy I need.”
Noticing the tracery of white scars across his bronzed hands and forearms, I asked, “Are you in construction?”
“Nay. Not that I have not laid a few courses of stone in my life or raised a barn or two, but by training, I am a guardian.”
“Guardian? Is that like a security guard?”
“Aye, somewhat.”
I tried to picture him as a mall rent-a-cop hassling teenagers, or an armored car guard with a pistol strapped on his hip, but it just didn’t fit. No, with that sun kissed physique, lifeguard was more likely. Suddenly a trip to the beach sounded intriguing.
“I was just going to start some breakfast. Why don’t you join me?” The logical, left side of my brain pointed out the inadvisability of inviting a total stranger—a stranger who’d broken into my house last night—to sit down to breakfast like an old friend. My emotional half invited my logical side to butt out.
“Nay, milady. You have been most kind, but I have caused you more than enough headaches this night. I shall just finish my coffee and be on my way.”
The
milady
was back, but this time I didn’t resent it.
“It’s no problem. I was going to fix an omelet. It’s easy to throw in another egg or two.” Or three or four, I thought, remembering his remark about his appetite.
“If you are sure I would not be putting you out, I would like that. I would like that very much.” The smile that bloomed on his face made my heart turn little somersaults. My medical training said they were only heart palpitations, no doubt a side effect of all the night’s stress.
I rummaged through the refrigerator, located onions, peppers, eggs, and cheese, and dumped them on the counter.
“Where are you from, Robby?” I began washing and slicing the vegetables.
“Mycon.”
“I’m not familiar with Mycon. Is that somewhere in the British Isles?” I’d been good with geography in grade school, but the world had changed since then—a lot.
“Mycon is a quiet little place that no one could point to on a map.” The affection for his homeland came through in the wistful tone of his voice. “’Tis a land of rolling green hills and old forests.”
His words painted a picture of quaint villages with thatch-roofed cottages framed by picket fences and gardens, like something out of Middle Earth. “Sounds nice. No rush hour traffic or cell phones. But I’d probably be bored to tears by the second day.” I stirred the sautéing vegetables. “So then, you’re hitch-hiking across America, taking in all the sights?”
“Nay, I am looking for someone.” His voice tightened.
“A friend?”
There was no mistaking the hard tone of his voice now. “I would not say that Shakagwa Dun was a friend.”
“What are you going to do when you find this, er…
whatever
Dun person?”
“I have to convince Shakagwa Dun to return to Mycon.”
Was this some kind of runaway bride situation? An errant girlfriend? “And if she doesn’t want to come home with you?”
“It will.” His voice was hard, flat, and it didn’t take much imagination to realize an unspoken
or else
hung at the end of the sentence. Not an old girlfriend then, but perhaps this Dun person was a criminal, and Robby was some kind of skip tracer, the British equivalence of a bounty hunter. Though it seemed odd that he depersonalized his quarry by using that genderless pronoun. The uneasy silence stretched for a dozen heartbeats, and then he broke it, and his voice was once again a soft purr.
“Could I have a wee bit more of that wonderful coffee? I do not get a chance to enjoy it as often as I would like, and I do fancy the taste.”
I refilled his cup and returned to the omelet, the smell of the cooking vegetables and spices filling the kitchen with a comfortable sense of home. The only sound was the
clink
-
clink
of his spoon against the mug as he stirred in more sugar.
I finally broke the silence. “Why don’t you turn on the TV and see what’s happening in the world today?”
After several minutes, I realized I hadn’t heard anything, so I turned to find Robby standing in front of the set, studying it warily as if he thought it would turn into a bear at any minute. “Isn’t it working?”
“I canna find the knob to turn it on.” He smiled in chagrin. “I fear I am not very good with mechanical things.”
I picked up the remote and thumbed on the set. Robby started back a step as the sound came on. I held up the black plastic rectangle and waved it. “Don’t they have remotes in Mycon?”
“Nay, we do not have many of the technological advances you have here. And I think we are the better for it.”
He might disagree with that if he had to live through August in Florida without air conditioning.
Apparently the omelet gods smiled today, as the eggs folded over nicely for me. Dividing it, I portioned out a larger share for my guest.
“Thank you, mi—Laura.” His eyes lit with gratitude, and he attacked his breakfast with an eagerness that left me wondering if he’d missed a few meals recently.
A snatch of conversation from the television caught my attention, and I turned to watch a local news reporter interview a bearded man in a cowboy hat and Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt.
I waved my fork at the screen. “I know this guy. His wife’s a vet-tech at the emergency clinic where I work. She calls him a professional
good ole boy.
If you have raccoons or opossums in your attic, he’ll come evict them. Last week, she told me he pulled a twelve-foot gator out of a pond at some ritzy golf course. The sheriff must have called him in about all those animal disappearances. At first, they thought it could be a Florida panther or a coyote, but they started getting sightings of a python.”
Robby froze, a forkful of egg halfway to his mouth, and arched an eyebrow. “This python? ’Tis a serpent?”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “A really big serpent. Some reports put it at more than a dozen feet. Sightings of these things are happening all too often anymore.”
He put his fork down and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, eyes flicking back and forth in concentration. Half to himself, he muttered, “Dragons love to eat serpents.”
“What?” I sputtered, almost choking on a mouthful of coffee.
He shook himself. “I do not recall hearing that you had giant serpents in Florida.”
“We didn’t, until recently. Burmese Pythons were brought in by the pet trade and sold when they were small, but eventually they got big—real big. The owners didn’t know what to do with them, so they just took the snakes out to the edge of the glades and turned them loose. Thank goodness that’s illegal now. Others escaped from a breeding facility during Hurricane Andrew. However they got into the glades, they’re breeding, and some estimates on the population run into the tens of thousands. They prey on native species—bobcats, deer, and water birds; there’s even some disturbing evidence they’re eating alligators. Alligators, for goodness sake! You can’t go around introducing non-native species with no natural checks and balances into an environment without causing untold damage.”