C.E. Murphy - Truthseeker

Dickon waved a greeting from a table beside enormous picture windows overlooking the Common. Even with the gray skies and rain, the polished wood floors reflected light, making the narrow room comfortable, and Lara smiled. “I think I am. I’ve never been here. Is being a famous weatherman enough to get you the best table on short notice on a Friday night, or does it just work midweek?”

“I’ve never tried on a Friday.” Kirwen gestured Lara toward his cameraman’s table, admitting, “I doubt it’s enough. Dickon, this is Lara Jansen. Miss Jansen, Dickon Collins, my cameraman and the only one with sense enough to come out of the rain.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Jansen,” Dickon said over Lara’s murmured “Lara is fine,” then corrected himself: “Lara.” He stood up to offer his hand. Lara nearly took a step back, astonished at the man’s height and breadth, though he wasn’t fat, only barrel-chested.

Rue crossed his face. “I have that effect, sorry. I look smaller sitting down. There’s a reason they put David in front of the camera, not me.”

“I was just thinking you’d look—” Lara put her fingers over her mouth, and he cocked an eyebrow curiously. “I’m sorry. I tend to redress people mentally as soon as I meet them. It can come across as rude, but I don’t mean to be. I just like imagining people at their best.” She flattened her fingers further over her lips. “I’m not making this better, am I?”

Kirwen, less reassuringly than Lara might have liked, said “It’s all right” to Collins as he pulled Lara’s chair out and invited her to sit. “She was dismayed at my clothes, too. You’re in good company.”

“I’m in your company, anyway.” Dickon sat back down, grinning at Lara. “Probably giving you a hard time isn’t the best way to make a good first impression, is it? But I figure we’re safe, because everybody knows who David is, anyway. It’s too late for a first impression.”

That, at least, was true, if not for the reasons Dickon outlined. Lara glanced at David, who shed his raincoat and sat down beside her. “I wasn’t dismayed. I just forgot you weren’t a client for a moment. You have the kind of build clothing designers dream of. And,” she added to Dickon, “I was only going to say, you’d be very imposing in a well-made suit.”

“I’m imposing out of one.” Collins pursed his lips. “That came out wrong. Maybe I better shut up now.”

“I think that’s probably one of your better ideas,” David agreed. “We’re not really rapscallions, Miss Jansen.”

“Rapscallion,” Lara murmured. The word sent shivers over her skin, not precisely mistruth, but a waiting on tunefulness. “A sort of rascal, a dishonest or unscrupulous person, though that’s a darker definition than people usually mean. Popularly it’s more like youthful wickedness. Mischievous. So I’d say you are that, Mr. Kirwen, but no harm meant.”

Both men gawked at her, Dickon’s smile coming to the fore more quickly than David’s. “Wow, what are you, a walking dictionary? That was kind of cool.”

Lara shrugged, embarrassed and pleased all at once. “I like to be precise with word choice. I have a pile of dictionaries and thesauruses at home so I can compare synonym definitions for precision.” Color climbed her cheeks before she’d finished speaking, and she wished for a glass of water to hide behind until the heat faded. “It’s more interesting than it sounds.”

David Kirwen watched her with interest, though amusement played on his lips. “Actually, it sounds interesting. Whatever made you start doing that?”

“People don’t use language very carefully, and it bothers me. Trying to change them is futile, but at least I can say exactly what I mean.” It was an explanation she’d given before, all true without being all the truth. Lara smiled. “Besides, once in a while I can use it to tease handsome men who take me out to dinner.”

“Handsome,” Kirwen said with satisfaction. “Not well dressed, maybe, but handsome. It’s a start. Is your friend as pedantic as you?”

“Kelly?” Lara glanced toward the stairs, as though Kelly’s name might summon her. “No, but she doesn’t get impatient with me, which is probably better. I wonder if I should call her.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to.” Dickon spoke with a new degree of admiration, and got to his feet as Lara turned to look toward the stairway again.

Kelly waved a greeting, thigh-length trench coat already unbuttoned over a figure-hugging green knit dress Lara was certain she hadn’t owned an hour ago. She swept down on them, shook both men’s hands, then seized Lara’s upper arm with bright-eyed anticipation. “You know how it is, a woman can’t go to the restroom alone. Come with me, Lar, please?”

A protest faltered on Lara’s lips as the men laughed, Dickon asking, “What is it about women and bathrooms?” in a mutter he clearly intended to be overheard.

“It allows us to talk about you while pretending we’re attending to nature’s call. Pretending we’re attending, that rhymed. C’mon, Lara. It’s a feminine duty. Please?” Kelly dropped her coat over the back of a free chair and caught Lara’s hand, tugging her toward the restrooms.

“Duty calls.” Careful word choice, made easier by Kelly’s laughing description of what duty was. Lara shook her head and, smiling, followed Kelly. “You look fantastic, Kel. The dress is great. Where’d you buy it?”

“I should’ve known I couldn’t trick you into thinking I’d run home and changed clothes. You know my wardrobe better than I do.” Kelly stopped inside the restroom door and turned to the mirrors, smoothing a hand over her hips nervously. “It’s not too tight? I thought, wow, I look hot, but now I’m kind of all, wow, maybe I’m just fat.”

“Not from the way Dickon stood to attention when you came in,” Lara said drily, then smiled at their reflections. They were each other’s opposites, Kelly tall and lush, Lara petite and conservative. “You don’t look at all fat, Kel. You’re beautiful. The dress is fantastic on you.”

“God, one of the best things about being friends with you is I know you’re not bullshitting when you say that. And Dickon did stand up, didn’t he? I mean, I know you mean that literally, because you’re you, but can I take it figuratively, too? He’s cute, isn’t he? In a big-redheaded-lug kind of way? Lara!” Kelly caught Lara in a hug, then set her back with equal enthusiasm. “Lara, you have a date! You have seized the bull’s horns! Congratulations!”

Lara laughed. “I haven’t seized anything. I just knew you would never stop harassing me if I said no, especially after he actually showed up at Lord Matthew’s.”

“You could have not told me.”

“Except you would have eventually asked if I’d ever heard from that weatherman, and I would’ve had to tell the truth.”

Impishness crossed Kelly’s face. “That’s true. You know, your weird truth-telling thing is handier for me than you.”

“I do know. Did you have to pee, or were you just hauling me off to talk about the men?”

“Oh, I just wanted to talk about them,” Kelly said blithely. “See, Lara, he liked you. He went to the trouble of finding you! Has he said anything that makes you go”—she clawed her hands and bared her teeth, physical action replacing words—“yet? So he’s from Wales? I never met a Welsh guy before. What’s he doing here? W—”

“Kelly!” Lara held her hands up. “I don’t know. We’ve only been here five minutes. And if you don’t have to go to the bathroom, I bet you’d find out a lot more answers by talking to him instead of me.”

“Oh no. You talk to him. I’ll keep Dickon distracted. And if he turns out to be a pathological liar you can knock your water glass on me so we can make an escape.”