Protector(44)
Unfortunately, these things were rarely that easy.
“You may be right,” Marie said, and she let out a very small sigh, the first sign of anything less than absolute certainty Alex had seen in her. “At any rate, I can tell that I need to let it go for now. I’ll try again — later tonight, most likely.”
She nodded toward Andre, and he stood up.
Alex said, “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you could try?” Not that he really wanted to prolong their visit, but at the same time, he hated the look of helpless worry on Caitlin’s face, the realization that she really might have to do this on her own.
Well, not entirely on her own. He’d make sure he stuck with her until this thing came to its conclusion…whatever that might turn out to be.
“No,” Marie said flatly. “Not now. There is no point in beating my head against a wall. As I said, I will try again when I’ve given myself a chance to rest.”
Caitlin got up then as well, asking, “Are you staying in town?”
“For the night, yes. Although I doubt there’s any reason for us to stay.” She’d set her purse down next to the coffee table, and now she bent to retrieve it. “If I have any news, I will let you know. Alex, your mother gave me your cell number. I assume it’s all right for me to call you if anything changes?”
“Sure,” he said, although he could think of roughly a hundred other people he’d rather have his phone number than Marie Begonie.
Something around her mouth seemed to twitch, as if she’d guessed what he was thinking. But then her gaze moved past him to Caitlin, and Marie added, “If you should have any more visions, let me know immediately. My own cell number was in the email Alex’s mother sent him this morning.”
Caitlin nodded. “Of course. Even if it’s the middle of the night?”
“Yes, even then.”
Andre didn’t look entirely thrilled at that prospect, but seemed to know better than to protest. “Thank you for letting us come by,” he said.
“No problem,” Alex said, the automatic response. After that, he led them to the front door, Caitlin a pace or two behind them. She gave one last reassurance that she would call if anything changed or she saw anything else, and then they were gone. He closed the door and let out a relieved sigh. “Well, we survived.”
Caitlin gave a half-hearted nod but didn’t appear entirely convinced.
“Come on,” he said. There wasn’t much he could do to help her at the moment, but he wanted to try, wanted to do something to help remove the anxious expression from her face. “While we’re waiting for those visions to come, let me show you around a bit.”
9
Even a house as nice as Alex’s could seem confining after a while. Caitlin was forced to admit that it felt good to get out, to let the sun warm her skin and the breeze blow through her hair. He drove them away from his neighborhood up in the hills, back down toward the center of Tucson proper.
“Anything in particular you want to see?” he asked, once they were driving south on the freeway.
By then it was around two-thirty, late for lunch, far too early for dinner. She thought she could eat something, but at the same time, she was feeling on edge after that meeting with Marie, her stomach sort of jumpy and nervous. Better to hold out on any real eating for a few more hours.
“The university?” Caitlin responded. That sort of came out of nowhere, but she thought it would be interesting to see where Alex had gone to college, and whether it was so very different from Northern Pines.
“Thinking of transferring?” he asked with a grin.
Maybe, if it meant being closer to you. Then she wanted to smack herself. A day around this guy, and she was already thinking about possible ways she could spend more time with him? It was ridiculous. Focus. She really needed to focus.
“No,” she replied, taking care to keep her tone light. “It’s just — Northern Pines is the only other university I’ve ever seen, and even that’s super-recent. Up until a few years ago, it might as well have been on the moon.”
He must have caught something in her inflection, because he glanced over at her for a second before returning his attention to the freeway. There was traffic, but it moved well enough. “I guess I always took it for granted that I could go to college — whether here or up at ASU. But you McAllisters didn’t have any real universities in your territory, did you?”
“No, only a community college. That’s where I was going, actually. But then everything changed.” There was an understatement. A feud that had lasted for generations, wiped away as if it had never existed. Well, almost. Caitlin knew that among her own generation, most people, whether Wilcox or McAllister, didn’t have too hard a time adjusting to the change in the status quo. With the older set, that sort of acceptance was a little more spotty. Her mother and father hadn’t been terribly thrilled when she announced she was transferring to Northern Pines so she could get a real degree, but after some family drama, they’d eventually settled down.