Immortal Mine (9 page)

“Got any ideas?” His words pull my attention
back to him.

I lean forward, hooking my feet behind the
next log down, leaning my weight on my arms as I consider the
stallion, now walking almost docilely next to Sam.

“I don’t know. He’s an unusual horse; he
should have an unusual name.”

“Yeah, that’s why I haven’t named him yet.
Nothing’s come to me that seems right.”

“Doesn’t your uncle have any say in it?”

Sam shrugs. “The horses are more of my thing
than his. He likes to ride, occasionally, but he’s not as crazy as
I am about them.”

“Oh yeah? Why are you so crazy about
them?”

“I’ve been riding horses for so many years,
that I guess it makes me feel like I’m home.”

“So, where is that? Home, I mean.”

Sam glances at me, wariness stealing into
his face. I get the distinct feeling that he doesn’t want to answer
me.

“Is it a secret or—” I ask, when the silence
lengthens.

Just then, the Irish gives a kicking buck,
throwing his head.

“Whoa, there,” Sam’s attention is drawn back
to the horse. “I think he’s had enough for one day,” he calls to
me, struggling with the lead. “Can you get the gate for me,
Niamh?”

I jump down and swing the gate open,
stepping behind it as he leads the Irish through. I follow him into
the stable and pull the gate open for his stall. Sam removes the
lead, and gives the nervous horse a quick rubdown, before rewarding
him with an apple from the bucket of apples I keep in the barn for
just such things.

He hangs up the lead on the nail tacked
outside the stall, then follows me back outside. Bob comes bounding
over, bypassing me and waggling his tail enthusiastically for Sam.
I lift my eyebrows at him. He grins, not so innocently.

“I just used a little bribery on Bob the
couple of times I’ve been here. Wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be
attacking me again.”

“Bob, you traitor!” I accuse. He glances up
at me, his ears flattening in chagrin for all of about one-tenth of
a millisecond. Sam and I laugh and I glance up at him. Suddenly the
smile drops from Sam’s face and he steps closer to me, alarm on his
face.

“What?” I ask, my hands immediately going up
to my cheeks, wondering what’s wrong.

“Your eyes!” he declares, and I relax. I’m
used to the strange reaction when someone really looks at my eyes
for the first time, and realizes that they are clear, only ringed
with gold which gives them the appearance of actually having
color.

“Yeah,” I smile, “I know my eyes are
different, they’re—”

“Colorless,” he finishes, still sounding
alarmed. I bristle a little at his summation. I’ve had them called
unique, unusual, exceptional… any number if descriptive verbs, but
never “colorless.”

“They’re not exactly colorless, they
just—”

“There you are, kiddo.” My father’s words
boom across the yard, and I realize how close Sam and I are
standing as he stares into my eyes, and I take a step backward, a
little freaked by Sam’s intensely worried demeanor.

“Hey, dad,” I say back, turning to see him
and my mother striding across the yard toward us. I roll my eyes.
Remember me saying how everyone in town wears jeans except on
Sunday’s? I should have qualified that with: except my parents.
They always dress in one of two ways: as if they are on a safari,
or they were headed to 4 o’clock tea with the Queen. Today, they
are in Safari mode—my dad even has the hat, and the shorts with
knee-socks.

As they near, smiling expectantly toward
Sam, I turn back.

“Sam, these are my parents, Jonas and Beth
Parker. Mom and dad, this is Sam Coleman.”

Sam still looks stunned, and slightly
nauseated. Somehow I doubt my eyes can be the cause of such a
reaction, so there must be something else going on.

“How are you, Sam? Welcome to town,” my
father says, pumping his hand.

“Oh… yes, thanks,” Sam’s response is rote,
distracted.

“Sam, would you like to stay for dinner?”
This from my mother, who I love, but I groan at her invitation.
Since I usually cook, it’s extra work for me, not her.

“What?” That pulls Sam out of his reverie,
though the furrow in his forehead doesn’t ease. “Dinner? Uh, no…
no, thanks. I… I have to go. I have to be…” He glances at me again,
in an expression close to horror and I find myself caught up by it.
Now he has me worried. Something is definitely wrong.

He turns away, striding toward his truck
without a backward glance. He slams the door behind him and guns it
down the driveway.

“Okay,” I murmur, “that was odd.”

“Well, isn’t he a tall drink of water,” my
father teases, and I groan.

“Please, dad, that’s creepy.”

“Oh, but darling, your father’s right. No
wonder you’ve been in such a bind about him.”

“Mom!” I head toward the house, but they
follow, tormenting me.

“Did you see them when we came out? Gazing
into one anoth—”

I slam the door behind me, shutting out the
rest of my father’s words, but not the sound of their laughter.

Sometimes, loneliness is the better
option.

I slam the door open, and Shane’s reaction
is immediate. He stands and steps toward the closet where we keep
the weapons, his eyes never leaving me. Then, whatever he sees, he
relaxes.

“Her eyes!” I explode.

His alarm turns to amusement as he looks at
me.

“Do you have them in your hand?” he asks
lightly.

“What?” His question throws me, until I
follow his gaze down to my clenched fists. I relax them and blow
out a breath.

“You wanna sit?” he asks, indicating the
table.

“Yes,” I huff, then proceed to pace beside
the table, while Shane slides back into the chair he had vacated,
where he was working on one of his blasted Sudoku puzzles. I can’t
stand the things myself.

“You want to tell me about it, or just wear
a hole in the floor?” Shane continues writing numbers, not lifting
his eyes.

I grunt, not sure how to tell him. Finally,
I just blurt it out.

“They’re colorless.”

That stops Shane short, and he looks at me
in some alarm.

“I thought they were unusual… gold. They
appeared gold the few times I glimpsed them. Her rim is still large
enough to give the impression….” I stop pacing and drop into the
chair across from him. I think back to all the times I’d seen her.
She was either wearing those infernal sunglasses, or far away, or
not looking at me….

“How did I miss it?” Misery laces my voice
as I drop my head into my hands.

“That’s no’ hard to fathom. You weren’t
lookin’, now, were ya?” I can gauge the strength of Shane’s upset
by the fact that he’s allowed the slightest burr to creep back into
his voice. “How long ha’ it been since we’ve seen one?”

“Too long,” I answer. “But why does it have
to be her?”

We sit in silence for long minutes, both
considering. When Shane speaks again, he’s back under control, all
traces of his true heritage lost in his American accent.

“Okay, well, it is what it is,” he reasons.
“It’s not completely unheard of for an immortal to bond with
another immortal.”

“But we don’t know for certain that she
is
. We only suspect. And there’s only one way to find out
for sure.”

Shane nods. He understands instinctively
what I’m talking about. It’s bad enough to bond with a mortal, and
have to watch them die. The only way to take that nightmare to a
new level is to add in the possibility that she
might
be
immortal, but not know unless she dies—and comes back—before her
fifty-third birthday. To watch her pass that benchmark and not
“die” beforehand means an eternity of living with
if
. To
lose her before that and have her not be immortal is
unthinkable.

Leave it to me to bond with a temperamental,
stubborn, pig-headed,
possible
immortal.

Gotta love Saturdays. I can sleep in ‘til
six. I don’t have to get ready for school, before I get up and
start my chores. I don’t even bother with makeup or doing my hair.
I can get to that later.

“Hey, mom,” I say as I walk into the
kitchen. She’s already up, making me breakfast.

“Morning, baby,” she says, walking over to
kiss me on the head as I drop into a chair. I don’t get to be
babied too often, so I take advantage when I can.

“Where’s dad?”

“Oh, he’s out in the stable, admiring those
Coleman horses.” She puts a plate of food in front of me—the kinds
of food I never eat when I’m home alone, like bacon, eggs, and
toast—and sits down across from me.

We talk about her and my dad’s newest book,
which the publisher is pushing for a completion date on, and I
update her on the nothing new that’s been going on around the farm
and in town.

“Why don’t you invite the Coleman’s out to
dinner, Niahm?” Mom asks, taking a bite of her dry toast. Ugh. I
can’t eat toast unless it’s slathered with butter and jam.

I roll my eyes. “I’m sure they’re inundated
with invites, mom. I’ll bet they haven’t eaten at home once.”

“Well, now, if everyone assumed that, they
wouldn’t be getting a single invitation, would they?” I huff out a
sarcastic sigh at her words. “Just ask them, okay?”

She knows I won’t deny her. It’s so rare
they’re home, that when they are, there isn’t much I won’t do for
them.

I stand up and kiss her on the head, as she
had done to me. “Sure, mom, I’ll ask. Just for you.”

“You’re a good girl, Niahm,” she says as I
walk out the door.

As I near the stable, I can hear my father
talking. Not so unusual, for him to talk to himself, or Bob. I hear
a familiar voice respond and pick up my pace. As I round the
corner, my fears are realized as I see my father standing in
conversation with Sam.

I’m surprised to see Sam here so early,
especially after his strange behavior the day before. He seems
happy this morning, his anxiety gone. He glances up at me and
smiles, his smile open, but behind it just a tinge of the wariness
resides.

“Hey, Sam, Dad, what’re you two up to?” I
ask, rubbing Bob who bounds over, excited, as if he hadn’t just
left my room thirty minutes ago.

“Well, there’s my princess,” my dad says,
pulling me into a one-armed hug as he ruffles my hair. I groan—it’s
bad enough that he calls me that in front of Sam, but his ruffling
of my hair recalls to my mind that I haven’t even brushed it, let
alone put a spot of make-up on. I guess I should at least be
grateful that I brushed my teeth.

“Your dad was just telling me about his
experiences, photographing other countries,” Sam says, trying to
hold back a grin at my obvious discomfort.

“Dad,” I whine mockingly, “if you keep
boring my friends with your stories, they are going to quit coming
around. I’ve
told
you this.”

He laughs at me, knowing I’m only teasing,
dropping a kiss on top of my head.

“All right, I’ve got some photographs to
develop. You kids have fun.” I roll my eyes affectionately as he
walks away. My dad is a complete dork. Who else would still use
film rather than digital? He claims the photos lose something when
pixilated.

“Nice guy,” Sam says as my father leaves the
stable.

“Yeah, he is,” I agree. “I hope he wasn’t
boring you, though.”

“No, his stories are actually quite
fascinating.”

“Uhm,” I grunt noncommittally. My father’s
stories stopped being fascinating to me long ago, but I guess they
would be new to Sam.

“So, is that what I am, now?” he asks,
looking at me slantwise, “Your friend?”

I glance away, thinking of my thoughtlessly
spoken words. I shrug, and decide to change the subject.