Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [23]
Not yet, I thought to myself. I’m not a coward—or if I am, it doesn’t matter. But it isn’t quite time yet. I wanted her to see Scotland first. Not this lot—as we passed a shop offering a display of tartan baby booties—but the countryside. And Culloden. Most of all, I want to be able to tell her the end of the story. And for that, I need Roger Wakefield.
As though my thought had summoned it into being, the bright orange top of a battered Morris caught my eye in the parking lot to the left, glowing like a traffic beacon in the foggy wet.
Brianna had seen it too—there couldn’t be many cars in Inverness of that specific color and disreputability—and pointed at it, saying, “Look, Mama, isn’t that Roger Wakefield’s car?”
“Yes, I think so,” I said. There was a cafe on the right, from which the scent of fresh scones, stale toast, and coffee drifted to mingle with the fresh, rainy air. I grabbed Brianna’s arm and pulled her into the cafe.
“I think I’m hungry after all,” I explained. “Let’s have some cocoa and biscuits.”
Still child enough to be tempted by chocolate, and young enough to be willing to eat at any time, Bree offered no argument, but sat down at once and picked up the tea-stained sheet of green paper that served as the daily menu.
I didn’t particularly want cocoa, but I did want a moment or two to think. There was a large sign on the concrete wall of the parking lot across the street, reading PARKING FOR SCOTRAIL ONLY, followed by various lowercase threats as to what would happen to the vehicles of people who parked there without being train riders. Unless Roger knew something about the forces of law and order in Inverness that I didn’t know, chances were that he had taken a train. Granted that he could have gone anywhere, either Edinburgh or London seemed most likely. He was taking this research project seriously, dear lad.
We had come up on the train from Edinburgh ourselves. I tried to remember what the schedule was like, with no particular success.
“I wonder if Roger will be back on the evening train?” Bree said, echoing my thoughts with an uncanniness that made me choke on my cocoa. The fact that she wondered about Roger’s reappearance made me wonder just how much notice she had taken of young Mr. Wakefield.
A fair amount, apparently.
“I was thinking,” she said casually, “maybe we should get something for Roger Wakefield while we’re out—like a thank-you for that project he’s doing for you?”
“Good idea,” I said, amused. “What do you think he’d like?”
She frowned into her cocoa as though looking for inspiration. “I don’t know. Something nice; it looks like that project could be a lot of work.” She glanced up at me suddenly, brows raised.
“Why did you ask him?” she said. “If you wanted to trace people from the eighteenth century, there’re companies that do that. Genealogies and like that, I mean. Daddy always used Scot-Search, if he had to figure out a genealogy and didn’t have time to do it himself.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, and took a deep breath. We were on shaky ground here. “This project—it was something special to…to your father. He would have wanted Roger Wakefield to do it.”
“Oh.” She was silent for a while, watching the rain spatter and pearl on the cafe window.
“Do you miss Daddy?” she asked suddenly, nose buried in her cup, lashes lowered to avoid looking at me.
“Yes,” I said. I ran a forefinger up the edge of my own untouched cup, wiping off a drip of spilled cocoa. “We didn’t always get on, you know that, but…yes. We respected each other; that counts for a lot. And we liked each other, in spite of everything. Yes, I do miss him.”
She nodded, wordless, and put her hand over mine with a little squeeze. I curled my fingers around hers, long and warm, and we sat linked for a little while, sipping cocoa in silence.
“You know,” I said at last, pushing back my chair with a squeak of metal on linoleum, “I’d forgotten something. I need to post a letter to the hospital. I’d meant to do it on the way into town, but I forgot. If I hurry, I think I can just