We wait
1168 Words
*Blaise*
I walk the streets of the city, wondering just what in the hell I think I'm doing. My tracking experience is limited to finding cow dung over the plains of West Texas. Chase taught me to use a rifle, gun, and knife, but even those skills are useless here. I have left my gun in my saddlebag in my room at the hotel.
I arrived near midnight, anxious to register for a room and bed down for the night. I was bone weary and expected to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
But the pillow didn't smell like the one that graces Lillian's bed. As comfortable as the bed was, it doesn't have the one thing I want: a tiny she-wolf who has somehow managed to slip beneath the gates that surround my heart.
It's ludicrous to care for her as much as I do after knowing her for such a short time, but I can't get her out of my mind. Every time I hear soft laughter, I turn to see if it's hers. When I pass she-wolves on the street, I compare them to the she-wolf who tended my wound, and I find them all lacking. None carry her guileless smile. None walk without pretense. I can't see bare toes, smudged cheeks, or golden eyes filled with tears.
And I want what I can't have: to see those eyes filled with happiness. But even the thought of going to her has no place in my heart when I have nothing to offer her. I would only bring her more pain until I clear my name. If I took her to Moonshadowville, she would have to endure the suspicious stares that follow my every step. The shadow of my past would touch her, and I can't stand the thought. With that realization, my determination to find Rowan Windscar's killer increases.
I walk through the doors of a saloon and begin to feel more in my element. Saloons don't differ that much from town to town.
Wiping a glass, the bartender raises a dark brow. "What can I do for you?"
I tilt my head toward the sign above the bar that boasts BARTON SPRINGS HIGH GRADE WHISKIES.
"I'll take a whiskey."
The bartender smiles. "Good choice."
He pours the amber brew into a glass and sets it in front of me. I lean forward, place my elbows on the counter, and wrap my hands around the glass. "You get a lot of business in here?"
The bartender nods. "At night mostly. Not that much during the day."
"Could you get word out that I'm paying fifty dollars to anyone who knows anything about a man named Rowan Windscar?"
The bartender sucks one end of his mustache into the corner of his mouth and begins to chew, his eyes narrowing in thought. "Other fella's paying five hundred."
My stomach tightens into a hard ball. "What fella?"
The bartender nods toward the back. "The fella at that table in the corner."
I turn and study the man sitting at a distant table. Dressed in a black jacket and red brocade vest, he reminds me of a gambler. His fingers nimbly set one card after another on the table.
"Just sits there and plays cards by himself all day," the bartender offers.
"I'll take the bottle of whiskey," I say as I lay down my money and grab the neck of the bottle along with my glass. I amble across the hardwood floor, my spurs jangling. I find comfort in the sound I have been without for five years. "Hear you're looking for information on Rowan Windscar."
The man raises his eyes from the cards, pinning me with his dark gaze. "Yep."
"Found out anything so far?" I ask.
"Nope."
Not appreciating the man's brief answers, I tether my temper. "Five hundred dollars is a lot of money."
"Ain't coming out of my pocket." He says with a shrug.
Suspicion lurks in the back of my mind. "Whose pocket is it coming out of?"
"Your brother's." With the toe of his boot, the man shoves a chair away from the table. "Have a seat."
"You're the detective Chase hired?" I ask.
He nods, "Yep."
Cautiously, I settle into the chair. "How did you know who I was?"
"You've got your brother's eyes." He says.
I release a breath of disgust. "No wonder you haven't located the person who murdered Rowan. Chase has hazel eyes." I lean forward, opening my eyes wide. "Mine are blue."
"They're shaped the same, and they both show a man of little patience. You've got his thick brows, his chin, and a jaw that tightens when you're angry." With one hand, he sweeps up the cards spread over the table and rearranges them with a quiet shuffle. "And you walk like a man who just spent five years in prison and doesn't know if he can trust anyone."
I down my whiskey, refill my glass, and pour the amber liquid into the empty glass resting beside the man's arm. I don't particularly like that the man has summed me up so easily and precisely. Between the town folk actually thinking me capable of murder and Olivia’s betrayal, I have lost a great deal of my faith in my fellow man. Although Lillian's touch had certainly made me want to believe in the worth of people. "Chase didn't tell me your name."
"Alexander Wylan." He says.
"What brought you to this town?" I ask.
"Your brother sent me a telegram."
I lean forward. "What do you think of my theory that Rowan meant this town and not me when he wrote ‘Blaise’ in the dirt?"
Alexander slaps the cards down on the table and swallows all the whiskey in his glass before meeting my gaze. "I'm here, ain't I?"
"But you think it's hogwash." I mumble.
Alexander shakes his head and patiently begins laying the cards one face up, six face down. "I will admit when I got your brother's telegram telling me what you thought, I laughed out loud, but I'm as desperate as you are and just as angry. It's never taken me more than six weeks to solve a case. This one's been hanging around too long and it's ruining my reputation, not to mention being hard on my pride. If Windscar hadn't written your name in the dirt, I would say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and some drifter got lucky."
I rub my hands up and down my face. "But he did write my name. Damn, I wish my parents had been living in Galveston when I was born."
Alexander chuckles. "Yep, might have saved us all some grief."
I take a sip of the whiskey. "You haven't learned anything at all?"
"Unfortunately, no." He shakes his head lightly.
"So what do we do?" I ask.
Alexander begins to turn up cards and rearrange the ones on the table. "We wait."
- Writer
