CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ryan~
The door closed firmly behind Claudia. Ryan took a deep breath. This was going to make basic training look like a walk in the park. “Won’t you sit down, sir?”
Tom Peterson remained standing. His blue eyes were aimed like lasers at Ryan’s face. “You needn’t think this is a social call,” he snapped.
Ryan limped to the couch and lowered himself. “With all respect, sir, I have to get off my leg. We’ve already had quite a morning with Jimmy, and I’m pretty much toast.”
It was sort of amusing to see Peterson’s wrath melt into worry. “What’s he done now?”
“Mostly it was my fault,” Ryan admitted. “I left my shaving kit in the bathroom and he helped himself. Made an unholy mess.”
“He didn’t cut himself?”
“Used his toothbrush.”
“Oh.” Tom thought. “Childish foolishness,” he pronounced.
“Yup. I should have known better. Between them my siblings have twelve cubs. Each one more curious than the next. At least when they were Jimmy’s age.” With an effort Ryan kept his voice easy.
Tom looked ready for mayhem and mischief. Ryan stretched his bad leg out on the coffee table and didn’t bother to suppress his groan.
“What the heck’s wrong with your leg?”
“Snakebite.”
“No snakes on the island.”
“That is correct, sir. I was bitten in Arizona.”
“Hmph. What is this danged business about you already being married to our girl?” But Tom’s irate demand had lost some of its force.
“Four years ago, Robin Fairchild caught us misbehaving ourselves under her roof, or at least under the roof of her inn, and insisted.” Ryan shrugged. “Claudia and I had met in Portland, but you know how straitlaced fairies are.”
“I would have thought both of you would have taken marriage more seriously,” Tom thundered. “No matter what you damned catamounts do, Claudia was not brought up to treat marriage as disposable.”
Ryan winced but did not defend himself or his clan. “We might have, sir – if it had been our idea. And of course until two weeks ago, I didn’t know about Jimmy. That makes all the difference in the world.”
“What about Claudia?”
“She is still the most beautiful girl in Oregon. And I am no longer in the Marines. I figure we have a sporting chance of making a go of things now.”
“So what went wrong between you?”
Ryan drew another deep breath. “I think that’s best left between Claudia and me, sir. Right now we’re going to let past grievances slide and concentrate on bringing Jimmy up right.”
Tom ran a hand through his hair and finally sat down. “He’s already manifesting hybrid vigor. I don’t mind telling you that Virginia and I are worried.”
“You mean that thing where he goes invisible and blinks on and off?” Ryan asked.
“I mean his antisocial tendency to bite other children,” snapped Tom.
Ryan laughed. “If I were you, I’d be more concerned about the invisibility thing. A couple of sessions with his cousins will teach him bite inhibition. Nothing is going to make him stop flickering whenever he wants to hide.”
“Bite-fricking-inhibition! What is he? Some kind of animal?”
“Yes, sir,” Ryan rejoined with scrupulous politeness. “He’s a baby mountain lion. Wrestling with other kids comes naturally. Nipping too. If he is denied his own kind, he’ll tussle with whatever or whoever is available.”
“Hmph. What’s this about his going invisible?”
“He doesn’t get that from the Rutherfords,” Ryan pointed out. “We cougars don’t have to literally disappear to make ourselves invisible. We rely on stealth. But Jimmy blinks out when he plays hide-and-seek, and probably every time he doesn’t want to be seen. Not that he has his talent under anything like conscious control.”
“You’re sure?”
Ryan nodded. “Of course. Jimmy hides like any other three-year-old. Giggles and peeks. And he would have to do better than go invisible to hide from a cougar. After all, he doesn’t turn his scent off.”
Tom gazed in horror at his new son-in-law. “His scent?”
Ryan sighed. “Our sense of smell is part of what makes us cougars great hunters, sir. I can handle a three-year-old cub. But I don’t know the first thing about dealing with a budding sorcerer. Jimmy won’t have his first shift to cougar until he’s twelve or thirteen – puberty brings it on – but he can already work magic. Is that normal for sorcerers?”
“Not really.” Tom looked gray. “My wife and I are both sorcerers. I’m a weather worker. My talent didn’t really manifest itself until I was almost fourteen. But Virginia is a healer. She was healing people from infancy – so I’ve heard. Neither of us can bend light.”
“And Claudia is a talent detector, right?”
Tom froze. “Correct,” he forced out between stiff lips.
“So where did this invisibility thing come from?” Ryan asked.
Tom shrugged. “You have to understand that talent is different in everyone. And in every generation. Paragenetics isn’t much different than regular genetics. Every pairing shuffles the pack. My eldest daughter Madeline is a healer. Our middle girl Daphne is a weather worker like me. But Claudia is the first talent detector on either side of the family.”
So Tom was going to stick with the party line. Even though Ryan was supposedly Claudia’s husband, he wasn’t going to get the truth. “So we can expect that Jimmy is going to just get stronger and stronger. Well, I can see why the Town Council is worried about him. Only use I can think of for that particular talent is cat burglary.”
“That isn’t funny,” Tom barked.
Ryan hadn’t been joking. “No, sir.”
“And what the councilors are worried about is his mauling the other kids.”
“Won’t happen. There’s not a scrap of viciousness in that boy. He’s as sharp as a tack and full of beans, but he’s also affectionate and sweet-tempered.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” This did not seem like the moment to explain that he could detect vice by smell.
Jimmy’s smell spoke of love and inquisitiveness. In fact, he smelled pretty much like Ryan’s nieces and nephews and there wasn’t a scrap of wickedness in those busy cubs.
They got up to trouble if you took your eyes off them for a second. And they certainly needed lots of opportunity for physical roughhousing. And they ate like food might disappear. But none of them was evil, or ever did anything that couldn’t be best described as mischief.
For all Jimmy’s tendency to get into trouble, there was nothing there that wasn’t manageable with two pairs of sharp eyes and a whole lot of structured activities.
“You know the Council is set to throw Claudia and Jimmy off West Haven?” Tom asked.
“Yes, sir. And the Rutherfords too. But seeing as Claudia and I are married, I don’t think it will come to a vote.”
“So that’s why you’re here. You’re trying to hang on to the Rutherford land. I thought there must be an angle.” Tom rose to his feet and began to explain to Ryan in minute detail what would happen if he didn’t make Claudia deliriously happy and confine Jimmy to childish misbehavior.