“It?” he asked.
“I sent a test letter. It hasn’t arrived.” She frowned as she glanced around.
Except for a young woman who looked like a college student, the lobby was empty. For a long moment Godiva stared at the young woman, who stood by the trash can already half full of junk mail as she glanced at, then tossed, most of her letters and all the ad flyers.
Godiva blinked as if recalling herself to the present. “Okay,” she said on a long exhale. “Let’s find someplace to stay. We’ll look tomorrow.”
He waited until they were outside before saying, “You didn’t believe any of us?”
“I do,” she said, looking up at him with her serious, unwinking, honest gaze. “Remember, I used to find it empty, too.” As they got into the car, he studied her profile, which was troubled as she said, “I do admit I was mentally trying not to blame Lance Jackson. Not that I thought for a second that he was stealing mail. That’s a ridiculous idea. Why would he? But maybe he didn’t check and said he did, or . . . or . . . something. Except that’s so unlike the kid I knew back then. However much they pranked each other and their friends, Lance and Alejo were good kids. Not just to each other. I heard from teachers and a couple other parents at Open House how they team-tagged bullies, protecting the kids who got picked on.”
Rigo started up the car, but left the engine running. “They continued to do that. Lance did it here, then when he moved closer to the city. That’s how he got drawn into Guardian missions.”
He stopped there, as Godiva only seemed to be half-listening.
“Godiva?”
She rubbed her thumbs over her eye ridges. “My brain is splintering along too many paths.”
He accepted that, and was about to call up a map of local hotels when his phone pinged: text.
It was Alejo. You have to be there by now.
Rigo texted back, In the post office parking lot. Box was empty.
I figured it would be. I’ll be there by morning. Don’t tell Mom. I want to surprise her.
Rigo looked over at Godiva, his heart hurting at the tension that had tightened her shoulders again. She was gazing out the window with that thousand mile stare again, so Rigo texted quickly, She could use a good surprise. She’s upset.
He didn’t add that he couldn’t understand why, as they had had a great trip. The three of them were communicating again. And she’d made it clear she didn’t believe that he was scamming her for some obscure but cruel reason.
He added, Suggestion where to stay?
Alejo texted a map, and a short time later they were checked into a bed and breakfast decked out in art deco. Rigo’s heart lifted at the sight of Godiva’s smile when they entered the place. Alejo might not have seen his mother for all these years, but he’d called it right. And best of all, it was very close to the post office.
As soon as they had their keys, Godiva turned to him. “Right now I’m too tired, and too confused, for anything but a hot bath and sleep. See you in the morning.”
He had to suppress the desire—stronger every day—to take her in his arms and kiss away the tension lining her forehead. Trust, he reminded himself. You don’t earn sixty years of mistrust back in a couple days of driving.
So he had another long night to endure. He used up some of it by taking a night flight, spiraling higher and higher on the warm currents of air, until he felt the condensed moisture of the clouds that stretched like a canopy over the region. Chicago was an emperor’s ransom in brilliant lights, a necklace of glowing gems curving about the blackness of the lake.
He exerted himself, flying higher, up through the clouds until the stars scattered overhead, twin to the twinkling lights far below. He arrowed northward until he caught the winds flowing over the water, and drifted, aware of the inward bond, like liquid gold, between him and Godiva.
It was not yet at its full strength, but it was strong enough for him to find her. Place him anywhere in the world, now, and he could find her. Before, that bond had been so thin and ghostly a thread that he had only known she was alive, and never where, for her mate had turned heart, mind, and spirit away from him.
That was no longer true.
He held onto that fact as he flew back, and settled down as a human to get a few hours of rest. Then, as always, he rose before the sun lipped the horizon, and left his room to find Godiva just coming out of hers. Did she notice the rhythm they had fallen into? He said only, “Good morning. Sleep well?”
“Like Thor’s hammer whacked me on the skull.” Her expressive brows knit. “Wait a minute. Thor—the hammer—is he really—”
“If he is, I’ve never met him. Though I have met—”
“Wait!” Godiva held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. I read about those Norse monsters. I don’t want to know if any of them are lurking around.”
He smothered a laugh as they walked down the handsome bannister in art deco black and white.
She began to say, “So what’s today’s plan. Shall we—”