“I’ve never seen it,” she said. “I was on the Greyhound, stopping along this part of the world in the middle of the night. If they took the scenic route, I never saw any of it.”
“Grand Canyon it is.”
Chapter 10
RIGO
Rigo fought his damndest against letting the mate bond connect to her thoughts. It was a little like holding yourself at attention without ever relaxing into an ‘at ease’ but he was afraid that Godiva might sense him there, and get spooked.
She was still skittish, he could feel that much despite his best efforts. His basilisk waited silently, constantly on the alert inside him. Yes, he knew that the basilisk and he were one and the same. It’s just that he’d fought against it for so long as he was growing up that he knew he was never going to lose that sense that he and his animal were two separate beings.
Anyway, the basilisk, separate or part of him, was no help now. Finding a way back to Godiva’s trust was a 100% human project. It wasn’t going to happen with claws that could tear metal, a beak that could snap a pine in two, or eyes that burned anything living to ash.
So far, the day had gone better than he’d let himself hope. She was still wary, but he’d expected that. Now, as his flying goddess hood ornament—which looked to him like a shifter—sliced through the crystal clear night, flashes of headlights lancing past in the other direction, the quiet slowly became a silence.
He glanced over from time to time. At first Godiva sat upright, her slight form erect. In the dimness of the car the years softened her contours, though her white hair gleamed softly. When he first met her, she was eighteen going on ageless. It was he who’d been completely clueless. The drink and the basilisk had kept him from coming within speaking range of a woman, but then one day on the Texas border, there she was, with that same profile as she hitched herself up on the makeshift corral fence to watch the horses.
In this light, she was again ageless, sublimely, wonderfully herself:
But when he glanced again, it was to see her head nod, then jerk upright. Once, then twice. Then she glanced his way.
He said, “Go ahead and snooze if you like. Kingman isn’t that far now.”
She sat up straight again, saying, “And snore like a hog in a bog? Or even better, drool all over your fine leather seats? I wouldn’t blame you if you booted me right out of the car.”
“I can promise you there will be no booting,” he said, trying not to laugh. “If you want, I can try to find a rap station to play. Alejo saw to it this car has a first class sound system. Some rap, heavy on the bass, should keep us alert.”
“It’s okay,” she said, her dark eyes gleaming briefly in the light of a car passing on the other side. “Though I like a lot of rap. It makes me think of those old Viking bards and poets, who used to be able to turn out rhymes by the hour. Rappers do the same.”
“Where did you learn about Viking bards?”
“While I was living in the Bay Area I used to take all kinds of classes,” she said. “One class was on early epics. Wow, those old eddas and epics were bloody-minded.”
He waited for her to say why she’d been taking those classes, but she stopped there. As usual.
If she needed to steer clear of the personal, then that’s what they’d do.
He admitted that the best musical ballads he’d ever heard were all in Spanish, and yep, most of those were either revenge tragedies, or romantic tragedies, but for great melodies strummed by a bunch of guitars, they couldn’t be beat.
They talked about those until they saw Kingman’s lights appear between dark mountain slopes.
He chose the first likely-looking motel. When he pulled their cases out of the trunk, he saw she had her purse at her side and her wallet in hand, and she didn’t relax until they got inside and he asked the bored night clerk for two rooms.
Outside the rooms, which were next to each other, he wished her a good night and let himself into his. The motel room was like motel rooms everywhere, smelling of various cleaning solvents. He opened the windows wide to the soft summer air, took a shower to get rid of the dust of the drive, and climbed between cool sheets. His phone blinked, and he found the expected text from Alejo: How’s it going?
We reached Kingman. Tomorrow Route 66 and Grand Canyon. It wasn’t really an answer, but Rigo figured, either say everything, or just wait.
He dropped the phone onto the nightstand and lay there alone in the bed, as he had for uncounted years. He wondered if she was doing the same—no, he wouldn’t go there, even in mind. He hadn’t earned back the right.
He closed his mind to the homing instinct, punched the pillow, turned over, and was soon asleep.
Morning brought heat pouring in through the windows, driven by the sun. For a few seconds he forgot where he was, then he remembered Godiva in the next room. He got up and hustled through the shower, his intent to have everything ready to go as soon as she appeared. Make it as easy as possible for her, in hopes she wouldn’t have second thoughts and feel abandoned in the middle of nowhere.
He’d abandoned her once. He wasn’t going to do it again if he could possibly avoid it.
He shoved into some fresh clothes, and ventured out. Then hesitated. Should he knock on her door, or not?
A hot breeze sent a tumbleweed skittering across the rutted gravel parking lot. The motel was a one-story adobe building with tile roofs and a diner at the far end, and jutting mountains beyond. As he lifted his eyes to their hazy purple shape, the sunlight abruptly dimmed. In the distance, thunder muttered, a low sound like a cosmic bowling ball rumbling across the heavens.