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Neal shivered. He was lying flat on his back on a metal slab, naked, alone and very cold. But dead – surely he shouldn’t feel cold?
He opened his eyes, confused. He took a deep gulp of air, relief flooding every cell. He tried to move, but his muscles weren’t responding properly. They were still asleep. Not dead, just asleep.
He managed to turn over, saw the dawn light outside the window and, between him and it, the bulky outline of another body – but not a cold one! He reached out and snagged the top blanket and pulled ruthlessly.
“Mmmph!” Alex grunted, fighting for it, annoyed. The one dark eye he could see opened and glared at him. Then she realised and her delightful grin appeared and she pulled the blankets free and held them open for him to join her. He snuggled up and she squealed in horror. “You’re freezing, Caffrey! Every inch of you!”
“Yes, and whose fault is that! I’m the thief, you’re the fence! Try and remember, girl! There should be no rôle reversal in our relationship!”
“You’re actually shivering! Come here, baby,” she crooned, idiotically, “let me warm you up.
“And I’m a perfectly good thief – I’m just a better fence than you are. And I’m sure you enjoyed some of our rôle reversals…” She stopped talking and her eyes darkened.
There was an awkward silence, engendered by the arguments they’d had over the last two weeks, culminating in a reluctant truce of sorts, neither wanting to lose the other’s friendship. Alex had asked for one more night, and it had been wonderful, he had to admit it.
Until she stole the blankets. Occupational hazard, sleeping with a criminal. He smiled, then remembered and shivered again and not from cold.
“What?” she asked.
He’d always loved that about her. She was aware of his emotions, even when he tried to cover or deflect, always accepted him without the gilding.
“I had a truly strange and not very nice dream. Bits were nice but on the whole – horrid. It was so real.”
She cuddled him, stroked her warm hands down his back. How lovely that a woman can be a lover, a mother, a friend…
“I think – would you mind if I changed my mind?”
“About?”
He lay still and smelt the burning fuel, felt the weight of a shackle on his ankle, smelt the strange stale, iron-rich and bleach-overlaid smell of the cell, felt…betrayal. Lots of betrayal. Some love, but never sure …except… and fear and then the terrible tearing, burning bite of the bullet. A slide-show of images coming at him too fast…
“I wanted to go back to the States. To try and see if there was a chance for me and Kate…?”
“Yeah, I recall.” Her voice was sarcasm personified. “We’ve been disagreeing on that, all three of us.”
“I think the dream is telling me not to. That Kate and I aren’t good for each other.”
Alex leaned up, exposing her shoulder. Neal wasn’t going to be distracted, and she wasn’t intending to do so. She snapped, “The dream? You had a dream? That you listen to? Not a thousand logical arguments?”
Neal looked a little confused. “It was a very clear, vivid and detailed dream. My mother used to have them. Never wrong.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s what comes of fraternizing with the Irish. I’m surprised your eyes aren’t green!
“Oh, hello, Mozzie.”
“Heard you two talking, we should be getting packed – want any coffee? And they are.” His voice left them in no doubt that he disliked the agenda.
“They are what?” Alex often found herself at sea when it came to listening to Mozzie. He spoke another language entirely, sometimes!
“His eyes. They are green.”
Alex turned and gazed at those bright blue eyes. Neal shrugged the shoulder he wasn’t lying on and gave a lop-sided grin. “Soft contacts. Disguise. I annoyed the leprechauns. That’s the thing they look for.”
Mozzie snorted.
“Shouldn’t you have lots of gold, then?” More sarcasm.
“He made the trade,” Mozzie told her, and put on a good Irish accent. “Only t’ose wit’ Irish blood can do it, and most of t’em are too drunk or too stupid or too graydy or too impaytient – or all of t’e above – to make t’e trade, t’be sure.”
“Trade?”
“Me services rat’er t’an t’e gold.” Mozzie gave Neal a disgusted look. “He t’inks he’s a t’rowback to Niall of the Nine Hostages, T’eir graytest King. Ay’m his first hostage, don’t you know?” Then his face softened, his accent reverted. “Didn’t think I’d take to one of Them as much as I’ve come to – well, let’s call it tolerate – this one. They’ve caused so much disaster in the world. I’ll go and get that coffee. But his family probably consorted with the wee folk before – we dig for treasure and hoard it and play all sorts of mischief. He reminds me of my second cousin, tell the truth.”
“I had a dream, Moz. One of those dreams. I’m staying here.”
“T’ank t’e Good Lord for t’e luck of t’e Irish. I be tryin’ to tell you, Neal,” he called back. “Cancel t’e packing!”
Alex blinked. He really did have that lilt down perfectly. She looked back at Neal. “He’s a leprechaun in your service. Sure.”
“For life. My life, that is. Has to do anything I tell him, help in any way he can, no matter how he feels about it. They’re brilliant, you know. Far ahead of us mere mortals. Though, if I’m staying with you, and you do want that…?” She nodded, perplexed and not quite sure what she was agreeing to. “…I’d better tell you my lifespan is longer than normal, too. And Mozzie isn’t tied to me, as much as we’re tied to each other. And we’re friends, perhaps something more there is no name for. It isn’t an abusive relationship. Well, any more. It was a little, at first, he was very reluctant to leave Erin. But I left his family their gold! And now he seems to enjoy our adventures.”
Alex snuggled closer, grinning. “That’s why he can just disappear? How he can find out anything about anybody – you ask and he just knows? How he seems to be able to move any objects - lots of them and large or small - quickly, without help, silently and without anyone noticing? His prodigious memory? That’s his leprechaunishness.”
“Yeah. And my shoes are always in perfect shape!” he grinned. “You don’t mind?”
“That you’re staying because of a dream? Or your little friend?”
“Both.”
“I can stand it!” she chuckled. “You two are just weird, you know that?”
“One fine day, I’ll tayke you home t’ Ireland, you’ll see I’m quite normal amongst me kin.”
“I thought you were born in the States.”
“Oh, I was. It’s not held against me – I wanted to be near me mam, you see, me darlin’.”
“Stop it! Mozzie doing the Irish voice is enough! Actually – who does have a name like Mozzie!”
“’Tis not uncommon amongst the little folk, so he tells me.”
She ran her hands down his back, all the ridges and eyes of muscle, the incurve of the small of it, the swelling of his perfect ass. “Shut up about Mozzie and the little people, Caffrey. Give me a good reason to let you stay here with me.”
He settled down over her, smiling, kissed her neck in the way that made her arch backwards and called, thoughtfully, “Don’t bother about the coffee, Moz!”
Then he looked back over his shoulder and added, “Find out what you can about someone called June, beautiful woman, lives in a marble mansion, Manhattan. Name like a jazz musician…”
“I should be worried?” Alex laughed against his lips as he bent again to kiss her.
“No. I think I’m in love with her – or was in a previous life. May be old enough to be my grandmother, darling, and I don’t think she can be Irish even though she doesn’t look old enough…”
“Part of your lucky dream?”
“Mmm. It may be nothing.
........."But Kate’s known how to find me all this time.”
“And Mozzie’s been worrying about this Burke character. Says he’s dangerous, especially on his home turf.”
“Let’s make everyone happy. I’ll leave Kate well alone, in the past. We’ll go and see my authentic ancestral Irish castle, and perhaps if we’re very lucky, Mozzie will introduce some of his kith. We'll celebrate Christmas in front of a roaring fire in a huge fireplace! We’ll lay low till this Burke the Jerk loses interest. How’s that sound?
........“Oh, and how’d you think I’d look in a Fedora?”
“As a medium range plan, sounds …nice, actually. So long as the castle is in a state of some disrepair and has several ghosts. And preferably if you wear nothing else but the hat.” She was never sure which part of the conversations between Neal, Moz and herself were teasing and which were serious. She found more were serious than she suspected at the time.
He went Irish again, grinning with mischief. “Indayd, and would I have a castle so lacking in t’e essentials you have every right to be expectin’, me gurrl?”
“So the medium range is taken care of.” He gasped as she dug eight nailed fingers into his backside and pulled him hard against her. “Now, about the – er- short term…?”
The End.
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