Page 6

“I daena ken, but I am just here fleetingly. I winna bother ye again, Mistress. Ye hae m’assurances.”

His eyes closed tight again.

There was a quick knock on the door and two police officers entered.

Jen grabbed my arm, pulling me to the side.

An officer sized us up. “Friends or family?”

I shook my head. “Nope, just a bystander — just here for a moment to make sure he was okay.”

The officer said, “Can you step outside, please?”

The other officer said to the guy in the hospital bed, “Sir, can you produce an ID, sir?” For some reason he was speaking loudly, probably because the guy kept his eyes shut tight, though that didn’t make any sense.

Jen and I stepped out to the hall.

She said, “We ought to go now, right? This is pointless.”

I stood quietly, listening.

She laughed, “ Or we can stay here and eavesdrop.”

And that’s what we did.

The officers remained for a few moments and asked questions: “What is your name? Where do you live? Where do you hold citizenship?”

He answered, his voice so low and rumbling, that it was hard to make out the words. I stepped closer to the door and concentrated, but all I could make out was the name, “Torin.”

A few moments later the officers left the room.

Jen followed them down the hall, peppering them with questions. “So, guy in there, a police record? Outstanding warrants? Where’s he from?”

One of the officers said, “Nope, we’ve run his information, he seems clean. We’re going to let the hospital decide what to do with him.”

Jen returned to my side. “A clean record. Surprising for someone who carries a sword.”

I nodded, “True,” and stared into the room at the curtain. “I thought by bringing the thingamajig, I’d solve a mystery but now it’s even more mysterious.”

Before she could say anything I turned on my heel and reentered the room. As I came around the curtain I cleared my throat. “Sorry to bother you... I just wanted to make sure, you’re okay?”

“Aye, Mistress, I am battered and bruised and hae injured m’arm, but tis nae m’sword-drawin’ arm.” He dolefully chuckled. Though he looked like he was in pain, he seemed overall to have a fairly good humor. “I am assured I will be able tae commence m’verra important work soon enough.”

I laughed, “Your work is sword-drawing?”

“M’work is drawin’ my sword.”

Jen entered the room behind me and overheard. “Ah, military, that makes more sense.”

I screwed up my face. “Does it?” Then I said to the man, “There’s not a lot of need for drawing a sword in Brevard, North Carolina.”

“Aye, that is why I must return home.”

“Scotland is a long way away from here —you’re not from these parts…” I laughed awkwardly because he didn’t laugh. Then I asked, “Have they told you when they’ll let you leave?”

He was squinting at the plastic hospital band around his wrist. “Nae…” Then he raised his eyes to mine. “There is a chance they winna allow me tae leave?”

“I think you have to wait until the nurses tell you that you’re well enough to go, either that or your insurance runs out.” I laughed, awkwardly for the second time.

He looked at me with his brow drawn down.

I said, “Well, speaking of… we gotta go.”

He asked, “What is yer name, Mistress?”

“Oh um, this is Jen, I’m Lexi.”

He nodded. “Twas verra fine tae meet ye, Mistress Jen, Mistress Lexi. I am Torin of Castle Glume in Dolair.”

I bobbed my head, as if I were bowing. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Jen stifled a laugh, whispering, “Why so weird?”

I ignored her. “I have to go, gotta… you know, do some stuff. Hope your shoulder feels better and that you get out of this joint soon.” For some inexplicable reason I was doing jazz-hands. I shoved my hands in my pockets.

“Aye, I will rest and all will be well, thank ye for yer consideration, Mistress Lexi.”

I did a weird salute because I never knew how to leave a room and especially not when someone was calling me ‘Mistress’. “You and that odd thingy there... whatever it is, you know… Safe travels.”

He said, “Aye, beannachd leaibh, Mistress Lexi.”

Mid-turn I turned back, “What does that mean?”

“It means ‘blessings tae ye.’”

“Oh, yeah, blessings to you too, goodbye, Sir, um... Torin.” And left the room, glancing behind me to see he was swinging his feet from the bed, wearing his linen shirt and plaid kilt, looking like he was from some long-ago past, as if he were getting up.

Jen and I went down the hall, she looked at the side of my face as I groaned. “Was I weird?”

“You were so weird, I’ve never seen anyone as weird as you.”

She mimicked the salute I had done, clicking her heels together joking, “Blessings to ya, Hottie!”

I groaned. “I’m so embarrassed, it just kept getting worse and worse, he’s so freaking hot, it got me all flustered. I couldn’t remember how to stand right, or move my face.”

She laughed. “You’re in a relationship, I think you should be able to talk to hot guys without turning into a bumbling mess of stupidity.”

I bared my teeth, “Do I have food in my teeth? I forgot how to be normal.”

“You got some egg right there,” she pointed, “but he probably didn’t notice or care, he looked like he’s used to Viking wenches with questionable mouth hygiene.”

I sucked on my tooth and picked at it with my finger. “Well, it wasn’t just me, that whole experience was weird. What was that metal thingy?”

“Who knows.” We left the hospital and outside she blinked in the sun. “What a wild morning, I got to meet a crazy person in the hospital and see my bestie become a jabbering idiot.”

“Yeah, I thought it was going to get less weird, but it only got weirder. Why was that guy in my yard this morning? I got no answers.”

As we crossed the parking lot for my BMW, she said, “Maybe it was simply an unexplainable mistake, he seems nice enough, he was passing through, he just got lost, and now he’s getting ready to leave the hospital.

It’s all perfectly normal, except he has that thingy that we don’t know what it is, but we don’t know everything in the world.

There is a reasonable explanation, the only thing silly about the whole morning was you. ”

“I am so glad Cooper didn’t see me act like that. I got flushed.”

We climbed in my car and I started it.

She said, “He was very, very hot. Something about that voice, hot-hot. I, for one, am glad I don’t have to watch you be all awkward anymore, you weirdo.”

“Are you going to let me live it down?”

“Let’s see,” She pretended to bow while flourishing her arm, “‘You’re not from these parts, I’m just a simple girl, don’t got no sense.’” She laughed. “Nah, I’m probably not going to let this go, not for a few hours.”

I groaned. “Well, it was worth it, did you see his chest?”

“Hell yeah, and his hand, when he had it on that object, wow. The veins running on the back of it, I am a sucker for those.”

We both sighed dramatically. “Well, it’s over now, we have established that I am a doofus and... I can’t seem to make myself be…”

I had driven up to the parking lot exit and was about to pull out to the street when I glanced in the rearview mirror.

Torin was running out of the front doors of the hospital. The cloak around his shoulders, a sword in his hand. Kilt flapping behind him as he ran.

“Uh oh.”

He was running across the grass sloping into the woods.

A nurse was at the door waving her arms, trying to get him to return.

Jen turned, following my eyes. “Girlfriend, I don’t know what’s going on with that, but you do not want to get involved.”

The car behind me honked.

He disappeared into the trees. “Yes, right, absolutely, no way, I am done with that.”

I pulled out on the road and drove in the opposite direction. But every now and then I found my eyes drifting to the rearview mirror looking back there — what was going on with that guy?