Truthseeker

“Gifts,” David said quietly, “are rarely comfortable, and I believe truthseekers never are.”

The word hit her skin like ice water, shivering and playing there. Lara caught a breath behind her teeth and held herself still, staring down at the weatherman. “What did you—Why did you call me that? Truthseeker. I’ve never heard that before.”

“No.” Sympathy colored his voice, warm and sad. “But it’s what you are, isn’t it? You’re drawn to the truth. Drawn to its flawless lines, to the points it makes between one being and another. You live in a world made of truth’s song, cradled by music, all the time. And it sounds so appealing,” Kirwen murmured. “It sounds so appealing, when it’s phrased that way.

“But what people forget is that music has a power all its own, doesn’t it? A life beyond any granted to it by notes written on a page. Music, unleashed, can uplift and create and destroy, stripping away pretenses and leaving raw, exposed vulnerability behind. It’s a gift, but not one to be envied.” Kirwen’s hands were knotted, urgency in them belied by the softness of his voice. His brown eyes were filled with helpless compassion, as if he understood what it was to know, always know, whether someone spoke the truth or not.

And he did. He understood in a way most people never did, not even Kelly. Lara’s chest hurt, breath forgotten as Kirwen grasped truth in both hands and laid it before her unrelentingly. The music of his words soared, carrying hope that caught in her throat. This was a man who wouldn’t lie to her, not for her sake, not for his own.

This was a man she could make a life with.

The thought was so unguarded Lara backed up a step and wrapped her arms around herself in unrealized defense. “Who are you? I don’t even know you.” The protest was more for herself than for the man who stood before her, a warning that she shouldn’t trust a flighty thought of lifetimes, for all that her every impulse was to step forward and hide her face against David Kirwen’s chest.

“I can tell you,” he said, “and you’ll believe me because you’ll know I’m not lying, but it would be better if I could show you. I have so much to explain to you. So much to ask of you. And no right to do either, but I’m desperate, Lara. I’ve been searching for you for nearly one hundred years.”

Six

“Time’s treating you well.” Lara could barely force a whisper, voice tightened by the feeling of her heart filling her throat and the sensation of air having fled her lungs. A rare phrase intruded on her thoughts: I don’t believe my ears. Nearly everyone said that, but Lara, stripped bare of the pretenses shared by polite society, had always found it awkward. Now, despite the talent David Kirwen had just named truthseeking, she was hard-pressed to trust the conviction in his voice. No one lived a hundred years and remained young, except in fairy tales.

She looked away, suddenly and intensely uncomfortable. Preposterous truth was one thing; she’d encountered it often enough. Truth that was simply impossible, though, was beyond her scope, and she had no idea what to say to a man who presented it to her.

Her peripheral vision caught David’s unhappy smile. “Do you believe in fairy tales, Lara?”

Lara jerked her gaze back to him, heart pounding. He hadn’t—couldn’t have—read her mind, but his question followed her thoughts so closely it seemed he had. She tightened her arms around herself and shook her head. “I don’t like fiction very much. I know about learning lessons through allegory, but … no.”

“It might be easier if you did. I—”

“Are you two down there necking?”

The question shattered David’s solemn expression, and they both looked toward Rachel’s apartment door to find Kelly peering down at them hopefully. “You’re not. How disappointing. Well, get up here and help us argue over what kind of pizza we’re ordering, then. Dickon wants anchovies. Rachel told him he’d have to have a pizza of his own in that case, but he seemed okay with that. So now we’re trying to figure out if everybody gets one of their own.” She disappeared inside, and Lara turned to David, who dropped his head in mild vexation.

“Maybe this discussion is better left for later.” He made as if to catch Lara’s hand, as if he’d pull her out of the hug she held herself in, but stopped before touching her. “Please. At least say you’ll let me explain myself.”

A tiny surge of disappointment caught her off guard and she frowned at her tightly held arms, feeling as though she’d somehow betrayed herself. All good sense told her to back away, to forget what he’d said and the unlikely truth in his words. No one lived for centuries, and no one would have any reason to search for someone like her.

Except, inconceivably, improbably, David Kirwen. “Dafydd ap Caerwyn,” she said aloud, though softly.

Hope flashed through his expression. “The name I was born to, somewhere a very long way from here. Lara, please. An hour’s time to explain, without anyone to interrupt. I beg you.”

“Oh, well.” Flighty laughter caught her chest and she threw a consulting glance upward. The stairwell lights offered no opinion, but she turned a nervous smile on Kirwen. Caerwyn, she reminded herself, and said, “If you’re begging, it would be unkind to refuse you.”

“Thank you.” He did catch her hand this time, and kissed her knuckles to send a bolt of shy excitement and curiosity through her. “After supper, perhaps. Thank you, Lara. Already I’m in your debt.”

Lara managed an uncertain smile. “In that case, you can buy my pizza.”

He didn’t, of course: it was Rachel and Sharon’s treat, in thanks for help with the move. Despite Kelly’s machinations, Lara sat across from David on the living room floor, more interested in watching than conversing. Kelly took it as a good sign and elbowed Lara more than once, making silly faces of encouragement. Lara smiled, but her attention was drawn time and again by the slender man regaling them all with tall tales of storm-chasing.

Mostly tall: there was enough basis in truth that she could tell when he veered into melodrama, though his description of their weather van being lifted up and spun around by a tornado had all the hallmarks of sincerity. It was more plausible than the idea that he’d been searching for her for a century.

More plausible, but no less genuine. Lara took refuge in eating a slice of pizza and trying to clear her whirling thoughts. Sherlock Holmes had said that when the impossible was eliminated, whatever remained, however implausible, must be the truth. It was one of very few axioms Lara liked, for no other reason than her own truthseeking sense proved it right so often, regardless of what others believed. And so Dafydd ap Caerwyn was over a century old, because not once in her entire life had her talent told her wrong in the face of a direct statement.

She just didn’t understand how. Curious impatience danced inside her, setting her heartbeat ajar. She took another piece of pizza, nibbling it to the crust and abandoning it as she came up with theories from fairy tales to Frankenstein, and rejected them. Divine touch, maybe: he was fair enough to be an angel, though an angel would hardly need a job. Lara laughed at herself, then snagged more pizza and shook her head as everyone glanced her way.

Kelly leaned over to whisper, “That’s your fourth piece. I’ve never seen you eat this much at once. He’s that discombobulating, huh?”

Lara blinked at the pizza slice, and at the remains of three others left on her paper plate. “Oh no. I won’t be able to fit in my pants tomorrow.”

“That’s all right.” Kelly nudged her again and dropped a wink. “He’ll fit just fine.”

“Kelly!”

Kelly cackled and sat up again to snag one of the last pieces of pizza herself. “You know what we forgot to order? Dessert. Where’s the nearest Baskin-Robbins?”