He pushed away from the wall, pausing on the threshold. A figure emerged against the frame of darkness. His telltale scent preceded him, trailed by the dense odors of the bar.
“Kieran! We meet again.”
Peter Schaeffer smiled and held out his hand. Kieran stared at it, working his way through a ferment of emotion. Irrational emotion. His muscles twitched, but he returned Peter’s smile and took Peter’s hand in his own. The other man’s fingers were narrow, his palm smooth. They tested each others’ grips briefly and let go by unspoken agreement.
“Glad I ran into you, Kieran,” Peter remarked. “We weren’t properly acquainted the first time.”
There were no undercurrents in his bland, handsome face, or in his equally pleasant voice. His bearing projected confidence and ease, self-acceptance of his natural superiority over lesser creatures. Including Kieran.
“Where is Alexandra?” Kieran asked.
“You don’t know?” His pale eyes were sharp and watchful, belying his smile.
“I will,” Kieran said. “Soon.”
Peter’s gaze swept from Kieran’s feet back to his face. “I haven’t seen her today. Yet. But I’m glad you came into town, Kieran. I’d been hoping to talk to you about Alex, and what she’s going through.”
Kieran let his teeth show. “You mean your arrival here and the news you brought,” he said.
Peter’s smile slipped a little. “It was rough on her, and I didn’t like telling her.” He cleared his throat. “I thought you might be able to fill me in about Alex’s life here. She told me you’re a fellow researcher.” He arched a brow. “You seem to be a native of this area.”
The way he spoke the final sentence suggested a vague condescension. Kieran smoothed down the hair that had risen along the back of his neck. “In a manner of speaking,” he said.
“Excellent.” Peter drew two fingers precisely over the neatly cut hair above his forehead, correcting a nonexistent flaw. “Come on inside, Kieran. I think we have a few things to discuss. Let me buy you a drink.”
A drink. Two words that sounded vastly appealing at the moment. He nodded to Peter, who gestured him into the bar. “I suppose you haven’t known Alex a very long time,” Peter said pleasantly. “I know she hasn’t been in this area more than a month. Plenty of gossip in town about what she’s been doing with her research.” He flicked a glance at Kieran. “Heard a few things about you, too, Kieran.”
Kieran kept a tight rein on his distrust and pulled up a stool at the long counter. “People like to talk,” he said.
Peter flagged down the bartender, a plump man with heavy folds of skin under his eyes. “Two Scotch on the rocks, please,” Peter said. He glanced at Kieran. “Make his a double. So, Kieran, where do you live?”
Kieran put his elbows on the bar. The smells were more intense now. They wove around him in a muffling cocoon. “I’m staying with Alex.”
“Ah,” Peter murmured. “I did hear you’d had some sort of mishap with some wild animal or other. I’m not surprised Alex took you in. She’s always been softhearted about animals and those… less fortunate.”
The bartender put Kieran’s drink down before him and he reached for it without conscious thought. His hands cradled the glass, fitting around it as if he’d done it a hundred times.
The alcohol burned into his nostrils long before he put the glass to his lips. For a moment he hesitated. The amber liquid was poison. A flash of memory revealed an image of himself bent over a toilet, heaving until his stomach was empty.
But the lure was too strong, too blessedly familiar when so little else was.
He drank. Peter leaned forward on his elbows, toying with his own glass. “I guess you know that Alex and I have known each other for a very long time. We grew up together, in fact.”
Kieran finished the drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Warmth spread through him, a feeling of detachment that fulfilled the promise of his memories. “She mentioned it,” he said.
“She told you we were going to be married.”