Page 30 of The Gathering Storm

Chapter Eight

Monday morning, Will parked his truck outside the building housing Robert Upton’s office and jogged inside through the light snow fluttering to the ground. It wouldn’t stick. The weather had been too warm since the new year, more’s the pity. He wouldn’t mind getting snowed in later at Sigrid’s house, even if he wasn’t quite ready for sex.

He grinned, entered the building, and pulled his toboggan off. Well, his body was ready for sex. Hell, he was twenty-eight. A man his age was always ready, willing, and raring to go whenever the slightest possibility of sex cropped up.

His heart, on the other hand, wasn’t quite there, not after her flip-flop, and especially without some assurance on her part that she wouldn’t do it again. Asking a Daughter for constancy was like trying to lasso the wind. Still, he had to try, for his peace of mind if nothing else.

Robert’s door was open when Will walked up. The older man was seated behind his desk, head bowed toward a file. Will knocked on the doorframe and said, “Busy?”

Robert looked up and the concentration on his face eased into a welcoming smile. He flipped the file in his hands closed and wiggled it at Will. “A summary of James Terhune’s DNA results. He’s descended from a Daughter.”

Interest stirred in Will. He closed the door behind himself and dropped into a chair in front of Robert’s desk. “You don’t say.”

“I’ve been doing some preliminary work on his lineage, just for fun, but now it looks like I’ll have to get serious about it.” Robert dropped the folder onto his desk and leaned back in his chair, still smiling. “Which means I’ll either need an extra set of hands on this, or I’ll have to hire somebody.”

“Normally I’d volunteer, but right now I’m swamped. Your wife has given me a very long to-do list.”

A twinkle entered Robert’s eyes as he shook his head. “You’d think she’d be content pressing her honey do list on me and leave you young bucks out of it.”

“I’ve never met a woman who could resist the temptation to order men around, no matter who they are,” Will said wryly, and Robert chuckled.

They segued into a long chat about the confluence of Sigrid and George’s work with Robert’s, and Will ended up lending a hand for a good hour, brainstorming records and researchers with Robert, fetching files to save the other man’s deteriorating muscles some wear and tear, and learning, always learning. The forgotten paths between parent and child down through the generations had always fascinated him. Who were those people? How had they lived? What were their dreams and thoughts and goals?

Extant records could only go so far. They couldn’t answer the questions he most wanted answers to, but they could serve as guideposts for speculation and possibly aid researchers in their quest to reconstruct an individual’s life.

So much had been lost.

He shook his head as he filed folders away in their respective drawers. The People weren’t the only ones with a shattered history. Thank the Great Lady they now had the resources to piece together their past in some small way.

Later, he grabbed a quick lunch at his apartment, threw on some old workout clothes, and headed to the Rec Department in Tiger, just south of Clayton. He and Ethan snagged a court and indulged in a rough and ready game of basketball, ending just as school kids wandered in for some afterschool time on the court.

They left the kids to it, snagged their gear, and headed out side by side to their cars, parked together under the cloudy February sky. Ethan opened his car’s door and crossed his forearms on its roof. “Ready for your date?”

Will stifled a groan as he opened his truck’s door and threw his duffle full of gear inside. He should never have encouraged his cousin to come out to The Omega on Saturday night. Ethan had taken a great deal of pleasure from heckling Will about his sudden popularity, especially after Will let it slip that Sigrid had invited him to her house for dinner.

“Don’t you have somebody else to bother?” he asked.

“But you’re so easy to tease.” Ethan slapped a hand against the roof. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That leaves a lot of wiggle room,” Will muttered.

He got in the truck, slammed the door shut. Cranked his truck’s engine and let it warm, and waved at Ethan as the other man pulled away. The game had held Will’s attention long enough for him to forget about the night ahead. Now that it was over, anticipation roared into him full force, and with it every doubt he’d ever had.

He shook them off as soon as they popped into his head. Wallowing in what ifs was unproductive, especially when his mind drifted into the negative. Much better to consider the positives, like what Sigrid would be wearing and whether she’d let him kiss her again.

No, he would kiss her. He had to put his foot down at some point with her, and that was as good a place to start as any. He would kiss her, if the time was right, and when it was, he’d coax her into touching him, leading her where he wanted her to go instead of waiting for her to set the pace.

Daughters usually didn’t let a man lead. Too bad. He wasn’t going to sit back and let her toy with him any more than she already had. If that meant breaking tradition and going against everybody’s expectations, tough. Damned if she’d break his heart the way she had every other one of her lovers.

Will put the truck in gear and eased out of the parking lot toward home, busily planning exactly how he could bring Sigrid around to his way of thinking.

Sigrid adjusted the rose and Asiatic lily centerpiece placed in the center of her dining room table. The mixture of red and pink flowers, touched here and there by purple waxflowers and multi-colored lily of the Incas, warmed the space as much as the two flickering candles set on either side. Soft piano music played on the TV, a random sampling of composers courtesy of Pandora, and a fire crackled in the living room’s fireplace. Everything was perfect.

She smoothed a hand over the black dress she wore, soothing her nerves. It was new, this dress. She’d found it yesterday during her planned shopping trip with two of her daughters and their families, one immortal, the other not. When she’d seen it displayed in the boutique’s window, her mind had fallen to Will. Would he appreciate the dress’s tailored cut, the soft drape of fabric across the tops of her breasts, the easy swish of the flared skirt above her knees? Would he wonder what she wore underneath, and attempt to discover that for himself?

A laugh stuttered out of her, unbidden. When had she ever worried over a man’s attention? When had a man ever mattered enough to consume her thoughts, as Will did?

The doorbell rang, knocking Sigrid out of her reverie. She checked the time on the slender watch fastened around her left wrist among silver bangles. Punctual, exactly what she would expect from a Son of his breeding.

---